Welcome 2010

My husband and I spent our first official New Year's together, just a few days before our wedding, painting the living room of our first little home. We ate popcorn and drank Martinelli's while we rolled on the paint and dreamed together about our new life that was about to start. And now it's a tradition - popcorn, fake bubbly and paint. I know, so glamorous and romantic! We do make sure to have a dance together at midnight though, and there may or may not be kissing involved.

We also take a few minutes to write out our resolutions and goals for the year. Here's a watered down version of my 2010 list:

- Get my portfolio together (finally) and consider forking over the cash for a web designer
- Blog 5x per week

Kelly Wearstler via Style Court

- Focus more on eDecorating

Pearl Street Interiors

- Organize and simplify - buy less and get rid of stuff I don't use

- Take my girls to do something special and enriching every month - the ballet, museums, concerts, etc

photography by Rachel Papo

- Go to children's story time at the library on Tuesdays and check out books for me too

via The Selby

- Train for the NYC marathon in November (fingers crossed that I get chosen for the lottery in March)

- Make everyday life more beautiful

via this is glamorous

- Be better about separating work and family life. Stick to the schedule.

- Plan my outfits and wear more jewelry! (I feel so much better about life when I'm dressed/groomed -- all day in jimjams = cranky Jenny)

via Desire to Inspire

- Take an oil painting class. I really want to learn how to do flowers better and I think small paintings make awesome gifts.

via domino

What are your grand plans for 2010? Can you BELIEVE it is already a new decade?? It feels like the Y2K thing was just yesterday...

Have a very HAPPY and safe New Year!

love,
jenny

Fancy Laundry Room

In my wildest dreams, I would be wealthy enough to be able to afford Gracie wallpaper in my laundry room. Though, I think I might stress about some rogue Tide flinging on to the paper!

Wouldn't you be happy to sort and fold in this room? Under that gorgeous Neirmann Weeks lantern...

Room designed by Draza Stamenich for the 2009 DC Design House, spotted on the fabulous blog Chinoiserie Chic.

A takeaway from this room that's more in my budget? Put dryer sheets and powdered laundry soap with a little scoop in some chic glass containers.

A couple of these gorgeous T-handle jars from CS Post (found via The Estate of Things) would fit the bill nicely.

The Homies

I have been living under a rock apparently, because I just noticed that I was nominated for an Apartment Therapy Homie Award! Thank you!!


If you haven't voted yet, you should check out all the great nominees here. I'm so excited to go through the list and find some new-to-me blogs!

And, of course, I would love your vote, if you feel so inclined... :)

Does it up the incentive if I include a gratuitous picture of my adorable and perfect newborn??



Voting ends today (!) at 5 pm EST.

Silver Leaf Dressers

I love the glam factor that mirrored furniture can bring to a room! My Rhode Island client and I were really hoping to get a little of that glam into her bedroom. Unfortunately, mirrored furniture is really expensive - even the cheapy stuff from Target or Pier 1 was cost prohibitive in this project.

When I found this image from House Beautiful, I was inspired to look into getting mirror custom cut to fit a boxy and inexpensive dresser. That also turned out to be completely out of our price range (several hundred dollars for just the mirror for each dresser).


So, we were on to Plan C! I did a little googling and found some images of silver leafed furniture...





We both thought the silver leaf was a good alternative and decided to take the plunge. I found two bombay chests at HomeGoods that were on clearance for $75 because the paint was chipping. The size and shape were perfect for the room.


Once home, each dresser was lightly sanded over the chipped parts and then given a coat of chocolate brown paint (Ralph Lauren's 'Galvenized'). Once the paint had cured, I coated both dressers with 3-hour Quick Set Gilding Size, available here and at most art supply stores. I used about a pint between both dressers.


The gilding size acts as the glue that holds on the leaf. It's applied just like a varnish, and after waiting for a specified time, the size becomes tacky and is ready to be gilded.


There are many types of metal leaf. For this project, I used aluminum leaf because it was the brightest silver tone and looked the most to me like mirror (and the bonus is that aluminum is less expensive than silver leaf). A box of 500 5.5" x 5.5" sheets is $40-$50 and was more than enough for these two dressers.


As far as application of the leaf goes, the basic idea is to carefully lay the sheets down with as little folding of the leaf as possible. Then using a soft bristled paint brush, just tap, burnish and rub the leaf down. It gets really easy with practice - you'll feel like a pro after only 4 or 5 sheets.

Here are my best tips for gilding:

1. Do this project in the garage or outside if you are working on a large scale (like on furniture). The metal leaf bits get EVERYWHERE (which is a bonus if you are a four-year old obsessed with fairy dust)


2. Start with a flat, horizontal surface (like the dresser tops) to get the technique down before you attempt the vertical front or sides.

3. Once you've burnish one leaf sheet and are ready for the next, place that next sheet slightly on top of the already burnished leaf. By overlapping the sheets a little, there will be less of a gap/crack and the resulting look will be more seamless.

4. I ended up sort of liking the cracks and gaps in the gilding (it looks like antique mirror to me, with the chocolate brown base peeping through), but if you don't want to see the "imperfections" just use a bit of extra leaf and rub it into the gap or crack with your finger and the size will quickly pick up the leaf bits.


5. I was shocked at how resilient the gilded surface was after the size had fully dried. My client opted not to seal the finish because she wanted it to gently wear over time, but it would be easy to apply some Wipe On Poly to protect and seal the gilding.

The process looks more intimidating than it really is. While it's sort of time consuming, I was able to catch up on my tivo-ed shows while I gilded (do you spy my remote?).


We used vintage lucite knobs from eBay as a final touch and I think that really moved these formally "Olde World" Homegoods dressers in the "Glam and Gorgeous" category.

A Christmas Evie Miracle

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Our little family is feeling so incredibly blessed this Christmas! Daughter #3, Evelyn Jane, was born yesterday morning and I will never, ever forget the experience. Here's the play-by-play, for those of you who are interested (and not squeamish about terms like "dilation" and "afterbirth"):

{Keep in mind that, as of Christmas Eve, I was a whole week overdue and extremely frustrated with my OB doctors. I had been in and out of early labor contraction patterns for almost two weeks and was dilated to a 3.5 as of Sunday the 20th. I was so DONE with being pregnant and I was feeling guilty about my mom, dad, and sister, who had come to Delaware to meet the baby a week earlier. We all wanted this baby to come out!!}

7:15 a.m. – I wake up. My husband, Michael, is getting dressed for work. We had been up talking and praying (and me crying) until the wee hours of the morning. He looks at me, surprised, when I whisper that I think today’s going to be the day.

7:20 a.m. - Still laying in bed, I have my first contraction, but I've grown skeptical over the past two weeks. I have a doctor’s appointment at 8:30 and I’m worried they’ll make me wait longer if I'm not yet in active labor. The hospital does not schedule inductions on holidays or weekends, and my family was leaving on Sunday. I’m feeling anxious, but decide to get up and get ready for my appointment, hoping that I have another good contraction soon.

7:27 a.m. - The second contraction comes seven minutes after the first. My hopes for real labor without an induction are increasing.

7:50 a.m. – I get out of the shower and the contractions are coming pretty strong. They are increasingly painful but I figure that I’ve got some time because my water hasn’t broken yet. (This was my first experience with back labor - not fun.) Michael and I decide that this is the real deal and we should probably just go straight to the hospital. He calls my doctor to advise them that I won’t be making my appointment. The plan is to get ready for the day, drop off some stuff at Michael’s work, and head down to the hospital.

8:00 a.m. - I put on some make up and start to blow dry my hair, chatting with my family in between contractions. My mom wants my 20 year-old sister to see my labor pains and we all joke about how this is the ultimate birth control! Everyone gets excited that the baby is finally coming! We all hope together that she will arrive sometime before that evening so that I have a chance of spending at least some of Christmas Day with my other girls at home.

8:15 a.m. – Contractions are really starting to hurt and they are coming faster. It takes all my focus to manage the pain. I try as hard as I can to relax and breathe low. There is less chatting and joking with my family - it was game time. New plan: Michael calls a co-worker and asks him to swing by our house to pick up some paperwork because we need to head to the hospital right away. I'm still convinced there is time though because my water had not yet broken. I brush my teeth and pack my toiletries bag for the hospital.

8:35 a.m. – It feels like there is no break between my contractions. They come one after another. Somehow, using all my willpower, and with Michael and my dad on each arm, we make it down the stairs and out the front door. My water breaks during a particularly hard contraction on the front porch and all I can manage to yell is “Water!!” Michael runs inside to grab my water bottle and suddenly realizes that I am talking about a different water.

8:36 a.m. – I’m absolutely frozen in pain on the porch. Even though our hospital is about two blocks away, it felt like it might as well have been in another state. My legs start to shake and give and I blurt out "I need to push - NOW!" My dad (a family doctor in Arizona who also does OB) says, “Looks like we’re having this baby right here.” Thank goodness he was with us!

8:40 a.m. – We get back in the house and head for the living room. Michael and my dad lay me down on my ottoman (you remember my ottoman…). The baby is crowning. I start pushing, with my sister holding my back up and Michael and my mom holding my legs.

8:54 a.m. – Baby Evie is born in my living room, two feet from our Christmas tree. There is not a dry eye in the place. We tie the cord with dental floss (no clean shoelaces available) and Michael cuts it with my trusty pair of sewing scissors (sanitized with Purell, of course). All of the clean towels have been used already, so we wrap her in a beach towel. Evelyn is absolute perfection and I am so in love.

8:56 a.m. – The doorbell rings! Its Michael’s co-worker, coming to pick up the paperwork. My mom and sister quickly hold up a sheet to block the view before the front door is opened. The conversation is very brief and sort of awkward, I'm sure, for Michael's co-worker. He becomes the first person to find out the baby has just been born.

8:58 a.m. – A rustle at the top of the stairs. Thankfully, both of my girls had stayed up late the night before and had slept through all the commotion of the morning. Claire (my two-year old) is awake now and shouts from the landing "Hey guys! What's goin' on?!" We direct Claire's attention to the baby as she rounds the corner, so that she doesn’t notice the afterbirth just then being caught in my (formerly) favorite casserole dish. Grace (my four-year old) comes downstairs shortly thereafter. The girls begin presenting Evie with pacifiers, blankets, toys, and presents from under the tree. We decide that we should probably still go to hospital to have everyone checked out.

9:45 a.m. – We arrive at the hospital and there are no wheelchairs so we walk up to the labor and delivery wing and announce, “I just had a baby. Where should I go?”

10:00 a.m – We are checked out by the doctors and nurses and the results all come back great. Evie weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs even!! We recount our story about 20 times. A guy comes in and takes my picture with Evie in a giant Christmas stocking ((awesome)) for the Dover newspaper. After a few short hours at the hospital, we are cleared to head back home happily to spend Christmas as a family. Hooray!

The rest of Christmas Eve is full of BBC chick flicks, my mom's famous Swedish meatballs and collective head-shaking. I am SO not a home birth kind of gal, but the experience was nothing short of life-changing and completely spiritual for me and my family.

The birth of any baby is amazing and miraculous, but we're all feeling a special connection to sweet Evelyn Jane, our little Christmas Evie.

Thank you for all your love and support. I have the best readers and I truly appreciate each and every one of you!!

Lots of love and Merry Christmas,

jenny

A Quick Baby Update

Dear Friends,

Thank you for all the kind emails and comments about baby #3. I am so, so grateful for all the love and support I feel from you all!

She is still not here.

I'm almost a week past due at this point and am trying to keep a positive attitude. We went to the hospital last night to be induced, but ended up getting rescheduled and sent back home. Frustrating!

I know that she'll be here soon. Right now, I'm just trying to keep up the energy level and focus on family and Christmas festivities.

Thanks for being patient with me - I promise to post as soon as she comes. In the meantime, I could really use some happy thoughts and prayers!

Lots of love and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

jenny

image from Canadian House and Home, a magazine that is so definitely on my Christmas list.

via House of Turquoise

Master Bedroom in Rhode Island

The arrival of this baby is imminent (Michael is timing my contractions as I type this). There were plenty of false starts this weekend though, so we'll see when she actually decides to grace us with her presence!

My own bedroom is coming along, but it's not finished like I hoped it would be after this weekend. It's probably going to take another week or two to finish it now. As a consolation prize, I'll share photos of a bedroom I decorated earlier this year in Rhode Island. There hadn't been an opportunity to take the 'after' photos until recently. My INCREDIBLY talented photographer friend, Terese, took these photos for me. Seriously, Boston friends, if you need a last minute family Christmas card photo shoot, Terese is your gal. She is especially amazing with children.

Now for the room play-by-play.

The inspiration for this room began with this fabric from Calico Corners.

I love the colors - magenta, peacock blue and chartreuse!

My (unfortunately now retired) Boston seamstress sewed the lined and interlined pinch-pleated panels for $50 each - a total steal. I found her through craigslist, asked her for pricing and for pictures of her work. She was so great to work with.

The polished nickel curtain hardware was a sale find at West Elm. I love the bit of sparkle they bring. The woven shades were a clearance item at Home Depot.

The vintage love seats were a total eBay score. They are made by Henredon and are super high-quality. We got them both for $560 total. The existing green trellis fabric works well for now and my client has grand plans for reupholstering these gems at some point down the road.

The cream rug is from IKEA. The hanging pendant lamp is Mitchell Gold+Bob Williams. The large mirror on the wall to the right of the love seats is a vintage mid-century find from Craigslist. I love that mirror so much - it was hard to part with!

The artwork above the sofas is by Molly M. They are very affordable laser cuts. We framed the pieces in my favorite Target frames, which were painted out in magenta craft paint.

My client had a carpenter add a window seat and a seamstress made the seat cushion and skirt out of some fabric from JoAnns. The small black side table was a clearance find at Target.

The monogrammed linen pillow is from the Shabby Chic store and the green and peacock blue pillows are from Crate & Barrel.

I bought plain white fabric shades at the Christmas Tree Shoppe (which is very similar to a BigLots, for those of you not familiar) for just a few dollars each. The shades have a fun scallop detail at the bottom, which I loved. I simply used about a yard and a half (for two shades) of this fabric from Calico and glued on (Fabritac) the yardage directly to the existing fabric shade.

The headboard was something my client purchased on clearance from Pier 1 - it was a dark and heavy wooden piece. We wanted to add more fabric and texture to the room, so we simply added a 2x4 to square off the headboard,


and then wrapped it all up with an egg crate mattress pad (cheapest foam out there!) and batting and some peacock blue velvet and stapled everything into place.


Here's a 'during' shot from installation day:

And the 'after':

The bedding is Barbara Barry's 'Pearl', available here on great sale. My client found her entire set, brand new in the package, on eBay for about 1/5 the retail price. It pays to stalk eBay!!

The side table lamps are from Restoration Hardware (no longer available, though these are close), and the shades are custom silk from a local lighting shop.

The side tables are my favorite part of the room. We really wanted a pair of mirrored nightstands, but found that those are either cheapy looking or crazy expensive. So we went the DIY route and silver-leafed over some seriously ugly clearance side tables from Home Goods. I need to dig up the photos on this project and will do a separate post on that later.

The knobs are vintage lucite from eBay. The peony art is from the extremely talented photographer and etsy seller, Kari Herer. The black and white photo of pots (below) is from West Elm, currently on sale in stores for $30. The clock is from Pottery Barn.

This was such a fun project! A huge thanks to my wonderful Rhode Island client, Ms. K. And many, many thanks to Terese for the photos!

Okay, wish me luck! I'm just PRAYING that I go into real labor soon. I'm so DONE!!

lots of love,
jenny