saturday morning zoo

I know [sooner than I think] there will come a time when my Saturday mornings are filled with soccer games, girl scouts, ballet lessons, lacrosse, birthday parties, track meets, and general teenage laziness, so  this morning I didn't freak out when I saw Catcher and Scout making a Tillie sandwich. I snapped a picture of it because a single day may last forever but the years fly by. One day this triumvirate will be grown, and the quiet Saturday mornings that I now miss will turn into quiet Saturday mornings themselves where I miss the chaos.

After Tillie's morning nap we set out for the library. It's a great place to be on a Saturday morning because your children can roll around on the floor and no one cares. Coming home with new books is always a thrill, too. It's like Christmas (but better because we can go back next week and get new books!).

It's still 80-something degrees in Austin, but it's a cool 80 degrees. Breezy and slightly overcast, it was a great afternoon to hit up the Zilker Botanical Garden. We even saw an engagement take place in the Japanese garden (although I'm not sure how zen the experience was for the couple with Scout and Catcher running down the path yelling about whether we should take this path or that path).

We ended the day with Tillie's first burger, courtesy of P. Terry's. She was thrilled.

pull up

It looks like someone else is enjoying the bar cart: look who I found using it to pull herself up this morning. We had Tillie's 9-month check-up earlier this week, and I guess she was listening when the doctor said, "Pretty soon she'll start pulling up on things," because it all started that afternoon. Now I have to remember everything I've forgotten about having a little one that just discovered he/she can move. No wine bottles within reach of the baby should be a good place to start...

brassy

Even though we haven't hosted a party--playdates don't count--in our new house, I'm loving the bar cart. I feel more sophisticated pouring myself a glass of wine from a bottle I took off the wine cart versus the kitchen counter. I even used a cocktail napkin from it the other night.

That being said, I was not totally thrilled with the grungy, oxidized finished of the metal. So on my trip to Michael's last week for Halloween costume-making supplies, I picked up a can of brass-colored spray paint. I got home and wheeled the cart outside. Ten minutes later it had a whole new look.

Before: the legs were a little discolored and grungy.

Before (exhibit B).

After: classy and brassy. I will admit that I wasn't sold on the color at first. I was picturing a shinier finish, but it grew on me after a day. Besides, I can always paint it again if I get tired of it.

another great from nate

Nate Berkus for Target strikes again: this is a detail from the herringbone window panels that I purchased for our living room. I've never believed in one-stop shopping for all your decorating needs, so this will be the end of my Nate affair (although I'm loving the collection).

The windows in our living room were in desperate need of an update/facelift. If I had to crank the rotational rod on the plastic venetian blinds one more day I was going to lose it. Here's a look at the living room before my friend, the decorator, Nate Berkus saved us.

After a couple glasses of wine one evening--or rather night--last week Alex brought out his drill and level, and the curtain installation began. Although I lean toward the "winging it" spectrum when hanging things on the wall, I actually measured and thought it out this time. I even shifted the entire living room in anticipation of curtain project to center the sofa on the windows. When we finished after midnight, we stood back and patted ourselves on the back. It looked pretty good, but we would have to wait until daylight to see the real effect.

Morning broke, and I still loved the look. It completed the room. Kind of like Renee Zellweger completed Tom Cruise back in the day...

After success with the living room, I have my sites set on window panels for the dining room. Stay tuned...

sleeping corner

Image from Roseland Greene

It all started with my obsession with this Josef Frank headboard in Metropolitan Home a few years ago. I already had the Min Bed from Design Within Reach, and after I saw this image I couldn't imagine my bed any other way. Of course, the fabric retails for $250/yard and when I priced out the actual cost for someone to create this headboard it was over $1000. No thank you. Instead I spent the next several months (or it could have been a year) searching on ebay for a deal on this exact fabric. I finally found a remnant that someone in England was selling--actually it was two pieces of fabric--and won it for $64. Flashback: this was me gluing the pieces together last year:

Although I vowed here not to post a picture of my finished headboard alongside my inspiration, promises were meant to be broken. This is a look at my copycat version in our tiny little attic sleeping corner:

*Please note: the bedroom is currently--and will probably forever be--a work in progress. Because I'm basically only up there to fall asleep watching Leno and to get dressed in the morning, it's last on my list for decorating. The lovely brown curtains that you see hanging from the windows are the same ones that were hanging in Catcher's room when we moved in. We brought them upstairs to block out the light that comes streaming in the window at sunrise. Pure function.

extreme makeover, bathroom edition

Without undergoing any major renovations, below is a picture diary of our bathroom makeover. I only have one before shot because I was honestly too creeped out--it actually looks much better in the picture than in person--to take it in from multiple angles. I don't think I even walked in the bathroom when I first looked at the house. Here we go...

Although it's the biggest (minus the apartment last year) bathroom I've had in my adult life, it was also the scariest upon first sight. And that's counting six different New York apartments, too (at least they had tile floors).

Enough was enough: the ugly wood paneling had to be painted. Supposedly this look was en vogue in some distant era, but it made the bathroom feel so dated and...creepy (did I already say that?).

Finally finished with the paint job, I'm ready to attack phase two of our project, which includes a new shower curtain, towels and finding drawer pulls to lose the 80s feel.

Thank you, Nate Berkus, for collaborating with Target. It's like you knew what I was looking for in a shower curtain when I was unsure. The dip-dyed shower curtain worked perfectly with the gray we painted the old wood, and it turned out to be the color inspiration for the rest of the bathroom.

Here's a closer look at the shower curtain with a view of the turkish bath towels.

Phase three: what are we going to do with that big blank wall? The answer came from a friend with a fine arts degree who's starting a business painting murals in children's spaces. Because we share this space with the kids, I wanted it to be a room where everyone feels comfortable and inspired. (Is that weird? To feel "inspired" in the bathroom? I know I do some of my best creative thinking while taking a hot shower).

A look at the work in progress. The whale is so cute!

Ta-da! The pink fish swimming backwards echos the pink picture frames on the opposite wall.

I love that you can see the reflection of the fish in the mirror. I find it somehow relaxing when I'm brushing my teeth at night.

Phase four: finding drawer pulls to update the cabinets. After searching and going back and forth between this look and that, I remembered that we don't own this house. In the end I went with el cheapo black hammered knobs from the Home Depot at $.98 each and spray painted them chrome. I had to spray paint the fixture over the mirror anyway, so I just used the same paint.

The final final. It doesn't feel like the same bathroom. The floor was replaced before we moved in, but that was the only major change. I never thought that dark, creepy space could look this good with a little paint and some new accessories.  Here is one last look at the before and after:

that was halloween

Halloween 2012 in ten pictures:

Just before we left the house for trick-or treating, our neighbor offered to take a family picture for us. The kids look less than thrilled, but Alex and I are smiling because we just found out that our neighbor--a sweet and responsible-looking college girl--loves to babysit (and so do her two roommates)! 

But let's back up for a second to how the day began...

I had the white turtleneck and white leggings for Tillie's Dalmatian costume, but an early morning trip to Michael's for felt and glue (why are there so many types of glue, by the way?) was a necessity. Don't go to Michael's on Halloween, by the way. Everything is gone and the staff is too busy decorating for Christmas to help you find black felt. Tillie was almost a Dalmatian with purple spots.

Seeing spots: I cut the spots; Catcher helped me glue them.

Here we are back to the front porch Halloween photo. The kids will love this in 15 years (haha!). In case you couldn't guess the theme, we have firefighter, fire dog and fire. I figured I would keep the costumes thematic as long as I can.

And here's another picture...just in case the first one didn't turn out.

We went back to the neighborhood where we had so much success trick-or-treating last year, and this was the first house we visited (both times).

Catcher got back into the swing of things very quickly.

Everyone thought Tillie was a boy for the night.

Catcher took off the helmet (I think it was slowing him down) and discovered gummy bears. He's had gummy bears before, but never in a tiny gold package before.

Alex leading Catcher and Scout from house to house and schmoozing with the "neighbors" as they go. That's a margarita in his hand. An upgrade from last year's beer.

Not pictured is my treat of the night, which was practically running into Ryan Gossling as we walked back to our car. (The real Ryan Gossling--he's in town shooting a film--not some creepy dad dressed as Ryan Gossling from The Notebook.)