It’s been a productive year at the Collins/Howard household (we built a kitchen island, bought a sofa, hung bookshelves, installed a chandelier, and constructed a birch-log table, to name a few projects). Though, as anyone who owns a home knows, your work is never done–but that’s the good news. Mike and I always have a blast doing these projects, and we have no shortage of them lined up in 2010.
To-do List
(Above) Living Room Art: We bought these 19th-century fern prints almost a year ago, and they desperately need to be matted, framed, hung, and enjoyed! Once that happens, I have reserved a home for them to the left of our living room fireplace.
Living Room Storage: I’ve been eyeing this shaped storage unit from Brocade Home since it came out in 2007. (Think I should pull the trigger already?) This unit–or a yet-to-be-discovered vintage hutch–would flank the other side of my living room fireplace and be the hub for Mike’s incredible antique camera collection, our books, and a few other favorite accessories.
Bedroom Fireplace: Much to our handyman’s chagrin, we ripped this once-cherry-colored mantel off the wall, cut out its ornately carved archway, and painted it an oil-based white. We love it, but it has been pathetically leaning against the wall since the fireplace excavation. The next step is to lay bricks along the foundation, seamlessly secure it to the wall, and somehow get this bowing piece of wood to lie flush. Genius will strike, I’m sure.
The Kitchen Bar: Our 1950s tin-top table works nicely as a bar, but the surface is getting a bit cramped. Now I’m on the hunt for a wall rack/shelf that we can use to hang wineglasses from below and store cookbooks and kitchen tchotchkes on top. If any one sees something fabulous like this, please let me know!
Guest Room Window: I love this oversize red magnolia wallpaper so much that I considered having it printed as a fabric for a Roman shade. However, since I need only a few yards, this started to sound like a rough proposition, plus the existing shade is in fine condition. The new plan? Build a wooden valance and wallpaper it. If all goes well, the small dose of pattern should balance the room and finish the window.
Office Shelves: In the new year we have to get Mike’s office in order, and once we do, the antique ski shelves are going up!
The list goes on and on–art for the mantel, a rug for the guest room, refinishing the kitchen cabinets–but it’s all a process, and we hope to be tweaking, improving, and enjoying this home for a long time to come.
In honor of Mothers Day, I need to give my mom some credit. If I have good taste, it started with her. An East Coaster by birth, a former resident of Tokyo, and a Los Angeleno of thirty-five years, my mom Robin has taken the traditional look, peppered it with Asiana and given it a West Coast cool. She is a great collector, ruthless bargain hunter, brilliant DIY-er, and a woman who knows her style. As I was growing up, she dragged me to antique shows, flea markets, flower markets, fabric houses–and I may not have loved it at the time but now these are the places I get my inspiration.
Though we had a formal dining area and a kitchen table, we still spent most meals and nearly all our chats around the butcher block island. When Mike and I moved into our new condo and were presented with an empty kitchen–I knew an island would be the answer to a warm and inviting space.
This sitting room is an extension of the kitchen. Ill never get sick of this color red.
This is her sitting room, one of the many places blue and white dishes can be found. Flow blue, Canton, Willow, transferware–you name it, she’s got it somewhere in the house.
The obsession of hanging blue and white plates led to a less discriminating love of china in all colors and backgrounds. The pattern hanging here in the dining room was actually my great grandmother’s dinnerware.
Chintz may be where our tastes diverge. It’s just too traditional for me to ever use in my house but I can completely appreciate that wing chair when paired with the red linen velvet sofa.
In recent years my mom has been cutting back on her antiquing but recently she spotted this adorable tufted green chair and couldn’t resist.
In a few years, I’m sure well have built up an ornament collection with a few Waterfords, but in the name of good friends and the first Christmas in our new home, I’ll always keep a few computer paper snowflakes.
Of all our weekends doing house projects, nothing has fueled more productivity than our house warming last weekend. We sent out the Evite a month in advance and that party date acted as our deadline to wrap-up our half-finished DIY endeavors. A flurry of building, hanging, and cleaning ensued but the item we are most excited to have ticked off the list is undoubtedly the window frames.
In digging through years of photos, we skipped over the posed shots and compiled our best collection of art, adventure, and laughs. We printed the pictures at home, cut them to size with a paper cutter, and taped them into each pane. We hung each on either side of our living room archway and they have made me smile every day since.