Office Nook Clean-Up, Part 1

the contents of our office nook, yikes...

For the past few months we've had a sad, sad Ikea bookcase (junky and made from paper, gotta love the cheap Ikea stuff...) sitting in the "office" nook of our kitchen. Honestly, it was so bad that I couldn't even bring myself to take a photo. I was too embarrassed.

It was first in our living room and took up the entire room. Then we moved it to the office nook and shortly after the move, the shelves collapsed under the weight of the books. When we brought home our sweet pup and her crate blocked access to the rest of the shelves. It sat that way for a few months.

Until C bought us a beautiful and simple bookcase off of ebay. My brother brought it up from LA to our little cabin and it looks like it was made for our home.

(this is the ebay photo) photos of the bookcase in our home to follow shortly

In honor of the move, we decided to clean out the office nook. And then we decided to recaulk, repaint, build a shelf and install said shelf all in one day.

The best part of the project? It was absolutely free. We had all of the supplies on hand and C made our new office shelf out of a leftover piece of redwood from our porch rebuild. We treated it with the rosewood oil and it's good to go.

We still have more work to do in the nook...pictures to hang, shoe racks to build, etc but it's such a relief to walk through the kitchen and not see the disaster shelf anymore.

Wish List: Kitchen

pepper grinder: because ours is ugly and this is not

dishtowel: lovely design and affordable

picardie glasses: pretty, stackable, classic, affordable, not too big and not too small

water pitcher: somewhat indulgent but so much prettier than the Brita pitcher

apothecary Jars: for my spices

 cereal bowls: love Heath for quality, beauty, history and for being local

Wedgewood Love

This is our Wedgewood stove. It was here when we bought the house and quite possibly the first reason I fell in love with our home. I've always cooked and baked but this baby has thrown me full force over the edge. There is nothing like cooking on this stove, and don't even get me started on the magic of the oven. We also discovered that the world's best quesadillas are made on our Wedgewood griddle. Unfortunately a few weeks ago the griddle knob broke off. Wedgewood parts are hard to come by and we thought our perfect melted cheese days were over. Luckily we have a local Wedgewood specialist who had the necessary and rare knob for our little stove.A picture of our happy stove with its missing knob back in place. By the way, notice that door on the left? The oven is on the right and the left side is a storage space....so very cool. And yes, the clock sitting on top of the stove works.
ps- We installed the hood ourselves as the normal ventilation system for a Wedgewood scared us and that's a railroad spike hanging on the wall above the light switch.

Thinking about creative and attractive ways to corral the open-shelving cabinet clutter: bottles of vanilla extract, tea, baking soda, vitamins, etc.

bread tins

metal trays

wooden boxes

Oh boy. I feel some changes coming on. Not huge ones, just some nice solid changes that have a been a long-time coming and are fed by the last few days that I spent in design heaven. I just got back from the Altitude Design Summit in Salt Lake City where I sat in on some inspiring talks and met gobs and gobs of amazing people. I haven't felt this inspired or driven in a good long time and I'm excited to see where this new-found fire leads.

The most immediate reaction I'm having to the last 3 days of design immersion is that with only 800 sq. feet of actual home and minimal storage, we have way too much stuff. I'm in purge mode. If it's not deeply loved or used then it goes and everything should have a place. No more paintbrushes in the utensils pot and no more vitamins stashed behind mixing bowls....yikes.I'm more than a little embarrassed to show off our too-crowded kitchen and top of the fridge but I'm hoping that in doing so, I will be shamed into proving that "I'm not messy" (ha). First purge and reorganization is well under-way. Updates to come as they occur; wish me luck.While we've really maintained this blog as a space for sharing the work on our little cabinhouse, I've been missing parts of my first and now long-neglected blog. This space will continue to focus on our home, but I'd like to start sharing some random bits of inspiration and finds over here now.

For starters, some links to my newest friends and co-conspirators: Design For Mankind, Mackin Ink, Simple Lovely, Design Crush, Greedy Girl, SF Girl by Bay, You Grow Girl, Design Milk, Oh Joy!, Mint Design and Okay Great. There are many more people and sites to list...I'm overwhelmed by the creativity out there in the world...thanks guys!

for some reason when we went through the hell of slapping gallons of paint all over our wood-paneled kitchen, we missed the back door. not sure how it happened, maybe we were so focused on getting the paint snuggled in each and every damn crack...
in any case, we're fast approaching our 2 year anniversary of becoming homeowners and the door is in dire need of a face-lift (see above). we're just having a little problem picking out the paint color.

i was leaning towards a slatey grey but C has requested that it be bright and cheerful.

yellow seems like the natural choice, but I'm kind of on the fence.....though I do love this photo:

image: australian vogue living, june 2007

i also really like this blue color:

image: domino mag, march 2009

thoughts? suggestions?

if you remember, last year we (C and Mr. L) built these amazing stairs that lead from our concrete patio to the nature trail.
we've planted a few things around the edges (a picture of one ridiculous plant as soon as the photos are back in order) including a meyer lemon tree and a pear tree.

it's nice to find out what will grow in our backyard (with minimal water), but that area has been a bit of a "testing zone". i'm ready for it to fill-in nicely...

here's my current favorite inspiration photo for how i'd like the stairs to look (minus the mini ivy, not a fan):

image: Martha Stewart Living, March 2009

we already know that lavender grows beautifully in our backyard, as do the grassy plants in the photo. i love the kangaroo paws and the euphorbia (both of which we have).

in the sidebar from the original magazine article, it talks about the plants showing off different textures and fragrant herbs. i love that idea. i might try to replace the ivy with trailing rosemary...

iphoto isn't playing nice these days.
having some computer issues and won't be able to upload my own photos for a while...

on a different note, i like these kitchens.
i found the top two images here and can't remember where i snagged the other two...

we have open shelving in our kitchen but somehow it looks a bit messier. i think one of the biggest problems is that we don't have a lot of other storage, so much of our food-stuffs ends up sitting in open view. must figure out good (cheap!) glass canisters.

trying to purge our small house of excess. whittled the plates down from 16 to 6...16 people wouldn't even fit in our home! no need to keep a matching set of white plates for our guests that can't come in...

one measly photo is all i have to offer for today:
but come on...isn't that a good one? look at that hood...it doesn't even smell like gas when we cook or bake anymore! the little fan whirs away and i can even see what i'm burning!

blurry photos but just wanted to show off the things that are making me smile these days:

- half-way installed oven hood (it will actually be all chrome...that's the white protective plastic) - new spice rack courtesy of my favorite german (fashioned from scraps from the house) - amazing gorgeous sunsets (due to unfortunate fires...)- our slowly but surely ripening tomatoes