Wednesday, February 29, 2012
We’ve been framed!
Real Life vs. “Styled” Life
I tried my best to cover all of the details in Monday’s post on my home office, but wouldn’t you know the number one question I got was how do I plug in the lamp on my desk? :) It’s a great question, actually, and here’s the answer:
In the days where any picture you post on your blog or online could live forever on Pinterest, I think the art of styling your photographs is more important than ever. For that reason (and because I don’t know how to Photoshop them out), I carefully used electrical tape to bundle and hide the cords.
I only recently added the desk lamp and am still testing it out. A floor outlet may eventually be a possibility but for now, I just run the cord down the front leg of the table and to the side wall where the window is. The chair in the corner helps to disguise it, and it actually doesn’t bother me that much.
I have the same problem with my laptop cord, which I also run to the side wall when I need to charge it. But, that’s life. Real life. In fact, here’s some more real, “un-styled” life for you since we’re on the subject:
The foam for my girls’ headboard project has now landed in our foyer and is a favorite toy. . .
I always get comments from people saying they don’t know how I get it all done. I don’t! And, I would never want to make anyone feel like they’re not doing enough. Projects are unfinished. The house is a mess. It’s impossible to live life at a break-neck speed and it look like anything else.
I went to a friend’s house yesterday (we had coffee and at the last minute, she asked me to come look at a few things in her house afterwards). She has four kids, and apologized over and over for the mess, but I honestly wasn’t phased. It made me feel better. (In fact, I wanted to take her over to my house right then to assure her mine was at least ten times worse.) The thing about messes are, they don’t bother me at all—unless they’re my own.
More real-life for you. . .
My desk on a typical day. A defective lampshade, work projects, my kids’ artwork, randomness. . .
You know how I loved a beautifully styled coffee table. Here’s ours this morning. Catalogs, our Bible story book, toys, shoes, and clothes that they’ve outgrown that I started sorting two nights ago. This is a small coffee table; just imagine what we could do with a big one!
Something strange is going on under the pillows on our sofa.
To save time and effort (apparently), we keep all drawers open at all times.
Perfect! Plastic grapes in my closet. In case I get pretend hungry while I’m getting dressed. There’s a surprise around every corner, really.
Does this make you feel better, or think worse of me? Sorry if it was all TMI. I just want to assure you that everything you see on this blog (and others) isn’t necessarily what you would get if you just happened to show up at my front door on a random afternoon.
Back to our office makeover (and a pretty picture to end this dreadful post). . . .Another good question from one commenter was how does the open space work with small kids running around?
When we first looked at the house, my thought was to someday build walls and close it off more. But, I’ve actually learned to like being in the middle of everything that’s going on. It does mean that I have frequent visitors sitting in my lap while I answer email. Of course, I do most of my blogging and computer work after the kids go to bed or the days they’re all in school.
View from my lap. . .
Wow, this post was just suppose to be about my lamp cords and I kind of went off on a tangent. Sorry about that. I should go clean my house now.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
More Silai Kadai...
It is Wednesday, time for another post and this week, the focus is on my mother's handiwork...or rather some of the pieces she has made...some going back to 50 yrs...and some very recent. As I shared in my Silai Kadai post, Amma loves to crochet and she has learnt many a stich from her friends. Amma grew up in an orthodox traditional Brahmin family,...which meant back then, that if she would visit any of the non-Brahmin homes to learn, she would have to have to come home and, take a shower! Anyway, she loved art so much, that everything was ok..as long as she kept learning.
Though the junoon is less now,...she keeps pushing herself to do one project or the other. It can be a set of stoles for her nieces or a crochet doily or a lace trim for a pillow. Do you have some beautiful things that your mom has created? Do share them...
Sharing some of amma's pieces...you can click on the picture to view a larger image...
...Crocheted stoles to warm up those cold winters...
...some Embroidery and the Star Cross-stitch work...
...Crocheted doilies and lace trims....
...Lace trim on Pillows lends an old world quintessential charm...
Now for some fun stuff,... remmeber that tapestry work that I had created and shared with you last year...I used the remaining pieces of cloth from my grandmothers and amma's sarees to create a round cushion for a stool and added some chikki-picki pieces to decorate the cushion... acc to my aunt the tiny triangles with glass and beads are gorgeous women who are dancing with the guys - triangles with the purple and fushia embroidery...(smile)
...Hope you liked the post...Until next time...Ciao
~ Anpu
Monday, February 27, 2012
and red is truly for love
You know I've been dreaming of 'RED'... and here is an amazing wall, from an inspiring blog, and an even more inspirational store...
'Red is for love' comes to an end... so I'm just quickly focussing on a few posts that caught my attention... Hope you liked them too... and am sure hoping your either following these bloggers... or are atleast leaving a comment... Thank you loves!!
Bookmark from Mindful Meandering....
A cute surprise from Home Shanthi Home
What an amazing garland from Viji's Craft
One of my favourites... this girl can change just about anything into a room... from Painting, to Saree to Room... @ Designwali
I thought this was super cute!! Thinking out loud!
Trimming out the drapes
Monday Meandering…
Hope you had a wonderful weekend. My painter came by on Saturday to banish the beige from my living/dining room. What a difference! The room has a sort of Scandi feel now – light, airy and calm. I will share photos of the room when it’s all put back together. It’s the same colour used in this room and blogged about here. This is how it looked before.
This also prompted me to change my art wall over my sofa (yet again – we decorators have this affliction to change things up too frequently.) I wasn’t 100% happy with it so I am adding more photographs and some new paintings, less blue so that it is a bit more quiet and loose. This is all in prep for my tv debut! So, hopefully it will look more unstructured like these art walls:
(quote from the last page of The Perfectly Imperfect Home)
A Fresh Mantle
The painting and my newly crafted moss monogram were the inspiration I used to freshen up my mantle.
Making a moss monogram was so easy!
I simply traced around the letter onto the back of a moss mat (ready-made moss glued onto netting, purchased at the craft store).
Then I cut and hot glued the moss pieces onto the monogram. 
I added faux nature onto my mantle---a flower resembling those in the painting, and a pot of grass to balance the moss letter. 
On the other side I placed two yellow ceramic artichokes and a tall pink orchid that mimic the colors in the art. 
All that was needed to complete the mantle was a few brightly colored books and a couple of shiny candlesticks (my favorite go-to items in decor!).
a fresh, ready-for-spring mantle!
This post linked to:
My Home Office: Finally Finished
As promised, I cleaned up my work space enough to take pictures of our newly completed home office:
You may remember, we converted what was suppose to be the dining room, into the office.
Our biggest addition to the space were the bookcases that we had built by a local carpenter (email me if you need a referral; he did a great job!). The wall behind the desk was huge, and I wanted something that would make a big impact since it’s one of the first things you see coming through the front door.
I replaced the original chandelier with this oversized lantern that I picked up at my Habitat Restore. I blogged about the makeover process here.
To make the shelving pop, we painted the back of the bookcases a dark gray by Sherwin Williams called “Urbane Bronze.”
Since I know we all love a good “before and after,” here’s a look back at how the room started:
This is how I worked for months, shopping for furniture and thinking about how to make my vision of floor to ceiling bookcases come to life. I found the farmhouse table on Craigslist, the metal chairs at a Pottery Barn outlet, and my linen desk chair came from TJMaxx.
The real challenge came when it was time to fill the bookshelves. I didn’t have nearly as many books as I thought, but wanted it to be colorful and have a real “library” feel. Several friends and family members gave me extra books, and I lucked out at a recent Habitat Restore book sale where I bought them by the box-full for next to nothing.
For more color, I moved the Ikat rug from our foyer that I blogged about here (from RugsUSA):
What I like most about the space is that it should easily transition back to a dining room with the addition of some chairs, if we ever need the space. For now, though, I plan on doing a lot more blogging than hosting dinner parties. . . Hope you enjoyed :)