Urban sculpture

This sculpture in Belgium is totally bananas.

(Thanks for the tip Dev)



The wonderful city of Charlottesville, VA sponsors an ongoing program that places artwork at prime spots around town.  Absolute genius!  My favorites :

Fantastico.

Curb appeal

Niko and I decided to combine forces and do some work on the exterior of the house.  It's not horrible or anything - it just needs some sprucing.  (If only Curb Appeal: The Block would come to our block and do it for us...)

Here's what the house looked like shortly after we bought it:

Here's the plan:

- Symmetrical azaleas along the front

- Paint all the trim almond

- Re-glaze and paint the windows

- Re-paint the storm door and shutters a matte black

- Paint the front door.  I'm waffling on colors - any ideas?  I've already tested a teal-ish blue and a deep purple, neither of which made much of an impact with a storm door over them.  Niko suggested yellow, and I am also thinking maybe a taupe would look classic?

- Paint the front stoop and brick steps a warm charcoal

- New mailbox

- New sconces flanking the front door.  The options I'm pondering:

Anyways, as always, I'll keep you posted...

Wowsers

O. M. G!  I am obsessed with this ceiling treatment, and am furiously wracking my brain for where I can do this in my own house!

Free printables

Holy crap!  If you somehow missed this post on Little Green Notebook, you must check out the archive of free digital images at the NYPL.  Make sure you clear your calendar first though, because I guarantee you will be lost to the world for hours.
My favorites:

And on and on it goes...  Happy browsing!

Mom and Pop

I went home this past weekend (for a friend's wedding here - it was loooovely!), and snapped a few picturess around my parent's house of general awesomeness.

Now you can see where I get my impeccable taste :)

Dining room. Complete.

I'll just get right to it.  Here are some before pics:

View from the "entry" into the dining room

Don't you just love the peach walls?!  Blecchh.

After:

Here's what we did:
- took down chair rail
- painted ceiling flat white and walls a deep, deep piney green - also flat
- took down heinous fake wood blinds, painted windows matte black and replaced broken window locks
- took down coat closet door, re-painted door and inside of closet, new closet rod, and re-mounted door with new hinges
- added shades to existing chandelier - truth be told, I think it needs to be lowered a bit, but I don't feel quite ready to tackle that yet
- "upholstered" the archway to the entry/living room
- re-located light switches, thermostat, and alarm system on wall in a grouping that made sense, and hung artwork all over that wall to camouflage them

P.S. The wood sculpture is by my insanely talented brother, and the roman shades are by my wonderful mom.
I'm embarrassed to admit this is a room we don't use that often, but it's the first room you see when you open the front door, and it just makes me giddy.