Back from PEI!

Isn't the first day back from vacation the saddest day ever?  I mean, I was somewhat glad to see my friends at work and catch up on the Downeast Maine news, but...

...I'd rather be at Green Gables. 

Prince Edward Island!

We're all packed and ready to go!  I'm looking forward to time with family, exploring the hitherto unknown world of dog beaches, shopping my way through Anne's Land and relaxing with a book and a glass of wine.  Can't wait!!

source

Procrastination

I should be cleaning/packing/gardening/banking/buying dog food.  I'm leaving for a week of camping on Prince Edward Island in...3 days.  And I'm not ready.

Instead?  I am catching up on my blog reader.  And following Centsational Girl's insanely easy instructions for creating digital collages.  I've been looking for new photo editing software since Picnik closed (boooo!), and while I'm not completely sold on Pixlr, it is pretty easy to use.  I suppose my main gripe with it is that it isn't as cute as Picnik was.  I do tend to make decisions based on aesthetics. 

Anyhow, here are my first three attempts with some travel photos I've taken over the years.  I don't quite have the knack for choosing color palettes yet, but I'll keep procrastinating...er...practicing.

Vineyard

Grass in a Maine lake

Glacier in New Zealand

What do you think?  Have you tried this?  Might be great for coordinating a room around a favorite photo or painting!

The Bath - Demo

After my realtor first showed me what would eventually become my house, I went to the car and called my mother while dousing myself in hand sanitizer.
"Yeah, so you know that house down by the island? Horror show! No, really, Mom, there was tacky linoleum, the entire place smelled like a litter box, which makes sense, because there were like 50 cats living there, the deck is rotting off, the backyard is a swamp, and the main bathroom is baby fucking blue. There is no way I am crafty enough to pull this shit off." 
So, after a few cocktails, I realized that there was nothing else habitable in my price range I was up for the challenge and bought the thing, blue tile and all.  Ironically, I found a nice Nautica shower curtain in stripes of tan and the exact blue of the bathroom, so I decided to live with it for a year or so.  And it was...okay.  Livable.  But still...blue.
It needed to go.

 Taken the day I closed on the house - sorry for the dismal lighting.  The floor was kind of a cool vintage pressed tin-ish tile, but I could never get the grout clean. Note the tiled countertop, and the weird shelf/seat behind the tub.  I mean, it's as if they just looked at some random piece of furniture and were like...yeah, let's throw some blue tile on that sucker and stick it in the bathroom.

 That towel rack?  Tiled into the back wall of the shower.  Yes.  The only towel rack in the room was actually inside the shower. 

 Blue, blue everywhere.  The showerhead is a nice Delta that I found on clearance at Home Depot.  I installed it myself (so proud!) but failed to spray the rest of the fixture oil-rubbed bronze to match. 

 The floor wasn't usually that dirty - this was after we started construction, but this is a better look at the cool-but-crumbling tile and the heinous grout. 

 The shower surround, post demo, all prepped for tile.  The purple are patches Michael put up.  The white is actual cement-board.  The rest of it?  Yeah, they tiled right over drywall. 

 For some reason, I giggled every time I walked by and saw the toilet in the tub. 

It looks better already.

all photos, ours

New Zealand, Part VII

After the long drive to the west coast of the South Island, we geared ourselves up for what we thought might be a highlight of the trip - our excursion up to Franz Josef Glacier.  My aunt and uncle had bought us the tour package as a wedding gift through Traveler's Joy, and we were both insanely excited about it. 
Franz Josef (the town) was just what I'd expected - cool and laid back in an alpine resort-ish down under-cool kind of way.  We also found that we had finally made it far enough south to find Speight's!

 Happy Hour after a long drive.

 

We hiked through sweltering rainforest to reach the glacier.  True story.

 Finally out of the canopy and into the Waiho River floodplain.

 Richard, our guide

 Crevasse and blue ice

all photos, ours

Covering the walls

We are FINALLY done with the bathroom reno I promised an update on like months ago...YAY!  Just in time to throw my future sister-in-law's Banksy-themed bridal shower (it kicked ass).  Projects are done, and we can enjoy the early summer we have here in Maine!

It occurred to me, as I was repainting the bathroom in a slightly brighter beige-yellow (it seems as though the entire house is beigey-yellow), I have largely ignored wallpaper in all of our renovations.  Maybe it comes from growing up in a house built in the '70s, where rooms donned crazy-making covering that people apparently make kid-friendly art out of these days.

At my aunt's house, the bathroom had vintage newsprint wallpaper that I loved as a kid.  Maybe it was the novelty of reading the wall (or just having something to read while using the bathroom...), but I distinctly remember the ads from that paper.  Lady Godiva soap...moustache wax...a fancy tin of face powder.

And so it got me thinking.  What would I do if I had a small space I felt like going a little crazy with?
I do love me some Sarah Richardson, and she did it (a little more subtly) in the farmhouse powder room:

  What if I went with the old newsprint look?  American Blinds has a cute yellowed version that might look nice with some oil-rubbed bronze fixtures and a travertine or onyx floor...

 

Or something with a busy-vintage-cool look from Anthropologie?

BTW...did you know you can get free samples of Anthro's wallpaper just by filling out a form on their website?  So great for picking colors and feeling the weight of the paper.  Especially if you're actually thinking about shelling out over a hundred bucks a roll.  

But my favorite wallpapers ever have to be Marthe Armitage, sold by Hamilton Weston in England.  Cobweb and Italian Garden are especially swoon-worthy.  Check it out.  All self-designed and hand printed. This lady kills it. 

Brimfield Time!

I'm so ridiculously excited.  I've been looking forward to this weekend for months, and now it is here!  MY best friend and I are going to hop in a car (I think we should have rented a van, but oh well!) and make our way to the show.  I'm looking for Fiestaware to match what we got for our wedding, any old trays or fun tins for storage, pink depression glass, and a jadeite cake stand.  But you never know what I'll come home with!