Brightening up the porch...

Summer has been slowly showing it's pretty face around here... and maybe by slowly, I mean unpredictable and muggy, but I'm alright with that! Thought it was about time to brighten up our tiny porch, so I added a few dahlias and tomatoes. (I know tomatoes aren't the most beautiful porch flowers, but the way Walter likes to eat all things edible I figured I wouldn't risk it...

I started a batch of kale in the long planter under the window... here's hoping my green thumb kicks in soon!

Fireplace? Check.

Painting tile? Sure, why not! My 20 minute weekend project turned out to be pretty satisfying. Mix that with the hubby helping organize the garage/attic and we had ourselves a pretty good weekend (or at least an updated one! I'm not sure if cleaning and painting top everyone's lists; but they sure make me happy). Behold! Our current fireplace:

Sure, we still want to tile, build a mantle, add a glass door and fix the damper (so we can actually, you know, use the fireplace) but until then, this will do.

(Walter, my star. He helped, of course.) I've heard nothing but good things about painting terra cotta so far-- and I figure, we planned on pulling it out in the first place, so it was worth a shot! I'll keep you posted on how things hold up. Lord knows puppy claws aren't too kind to things.

"Yes, I can paint that" and other random catch-ups.

Just a few tiny updates around the Wisely house these days-- but worth a note regardless! (I apologize for some of these silly posts; I get nostalgic and like to look back on all the small projects we do around here!) First off-- In an attempt to pretty up our corner-o-cords(before and after):

It's a bit of a cover up; (obviously) but more ideas on the way. Anybody have any tips on cord-corralling? And also, after finally getting creeped out by how ugly the inside of our fireplace is (having the TV above the fireplace makes you stare at it a bit more than your average fixture), I attempted to clean out our fireplace. After trying nearly every product/internet trip I could, I ended up with this lovely situation:

Beautiful, right? Not so much. The fireplace guy that came out to fix our damper told us we could print our nasty bricks with barbecue paint, which we did. Definitely an improvement!

Better for now! However I still have some touch ups to do until we officially start building our new mantle... I'm also considering painting the old terra cotta tiles as a temporary fix; the lovely and talented folks at Young House Love found it to be a nice update, so I figured why not! I'm not particularly attached to terra cotta. I also kind of like the way it lightens up the floor a bit:

(Oh look! Christmas! Yay!) Fancy. This pic also makes me consider axing the tile-around-the-fireplace-before-mantle idea; I kind of like the texture. We'll see how it goes!

Why yes! This is a post about a pillow.

Whenever Anna and Louis-Daniel come down to visit (our ultra crafty and amazing friends from Vancouver), I always have the urge to make things. After a trip to Joann's with Anna, this week's project turned out to be a pillow cover. Exciting, eh?



And alas! Colors... kinda! Well, it's a start. Always good to figure out how to use my sewing machine. This week's adventure also included trying to install a hidden zipper, which went decently well for a first try. Oh well, at least Walter likes it.



Or rather, he's so spoiled he needs to be a part of whatever I'm working on at the moment. Taking these pics also reminded me of how poorly I've succeeded in hiding all of our massive pile-o-cords by the couch...



...yeah. We have some pretty epic tangle action happening over there. Lucky for us, our new end table is in the mail-- huzzah! Organization! I'm happy to report that between Pinterest and a subscription to Martha Stewart magazine, I'm feeling motivated. Take that, messy house.

Let it snow-- at least a little!

On Sunday we were treated with a lovely dusting of snow-- the first real accumulation of the season I would say! As usual, the best part of the snow is watching Walter flip out and enjoy himself.





So I got to snap a few photos at least! The rest of the week has been full of slush (what Washington seems to dish out best) but all we've been hearing about since then is this massive attack of snow tonight. Supposed to be the worst storm since 1985-- and I dare say, bring it on Washington! If you're going to snow; do it right. No slushies. I want a full-on spread of snowy-white puffiness. WOO!

Also, perhaps I'm realizing now that just like washing your car and having it rain shortly after-- pulling out your fireplace means you finally get snow and the chilliest temperatures around. Eep! Here's to cuddles, tea, and warm blankets...

Too much time stalking blogs = destruction in the tiny house.

There is something to be said about spending too much time on the net. When you spend as much time as I do stalking other home improvement blogs, you start getting crazy ideas in your head. Kind of like when I decided I needed to tear our fireplace insert out after reading about what they did over on Young House Love. Which to say, theirs was creepy, kind of dangerous looking and old-- ours was actually in quite great shape. Some would dare even call it pretty. Behold!



Although it seemed like a great idea when we first got the house, it quickly posed a few problems. For one, the actual burning space was only the size of a large shoebox, and didn't hold hardly any wood, and secondly-- it was just big. And outdated. And filled our house up with smoke whenever we lit it. And let's be honest, I'm a sucker for redesigning things-- especially since we have plans on selling this house for (hopefully!) more than we paid for it. So alas! It had to go. Bigger, brighter things were in our future!



It did take a bit more tinkering than YoungHouseLove had with their fireplace, but it came out after Josh, Bryan and I put our heads together. (Who knew it would come apart into so many pieces?!) As soon as we removed it, our tiny living room felt just a little bit roomier, here-- look!



Not much of a 'makeover' at the moment I admit, but I have a plan. Big things in this little fireplace's future, I must say. I have been searching for the perfect copy-able mantle, and I finally found my inspiration photo-- a page from my recent catalog from West Elm:



I am so lucky to have a handy-man for a father, and a husband that doesn't mind me tearing holes in our house (and wasn't upset that we found out later that our fireplace was nearly unusable without the insert... the previous owners ripped out the masonry to install the tube instead... we would like to replace it later, but for now we will just make it pretty-- again, resale value, we would love to once again have a workable fireplace!). After some planning, we decided that we could pretty easily tile around the inside frame and on the floor, and build a mantle similar to the picture. Which of course lead to a trip to Lowes, and some tile samples...



We are leaning towards the small dark tile in the front-- but in a larger size. A bit textured, a bit modern, but still dark like our picture. Perfect! Next step is to put some thinset over the bricks to make it level, then tiles on the frame and on the floor after that... super exciting!

In other news also, we (and by 'we', I mean Bryan-- he surprised me and installed them before I got home yesterday-- my husband is awesome!) were finally able to install our Christmas present from my grandparents-- new doorknobs! We did a last minute swap with color, but I think we made the right choice. I love them!




So overall, it's been a surprisingly fun and productive week! +2 more homeowner points.

Who gets excited about dishes?! Well I do, of course...

First of all-- happy late Christmas/New Years! This year turned out to be incredibly relaxing, as well as full of nearly all of our family tree-- which is always a treat.

My Christmas present from Bryan came in the mail today-- a new crisp set of dishes from Crate and Barrel (after discovering that the dish set I had been pining for at World Market was out of stock and discontinued-- thanks anyways for searching everywhere Mom and Bryan, you're the best!) They are fantastic! Although I have made it one of my New Year's resolutions to stop neutralizing our house (everything is turning black and white over here); I needed one--complete-- set of dishes, because right now I have three.

Another great part? My professionally-trained chef husband makes me fancy dinners on these dishes. Here's a quick snapshot:



Crabcakes with Parmesan couscous on greens with a lemon garlic vinaigrette.. fancy. +2 husband points. Nice work sweetie!