Our Mid-Century Modern House

I’ve been hemming and hawing over whether or not to post photos of the new house. I had a few negative nelly’s that were kinda bringing me down about it. And these were people I thought were friends, not just your average web weirdos. (go Kate, 3 solid bits of alliteration in the first paragraph).

I’ve posted a few photo over on Instagram (first, unpacking kitchen, deer). I love Instagram and Pinterest and I barely read blogs anymore. I’m not even sure if anyone will read this. But I’ve decided that I want to post here. It’s my site and my space and it has been for so many years. I want to document this house that my husband and I just bought. Because it’s incredible and we’re so happy and lucky and thrilled to be here. We really walk around all the time with hearts in our eyes! We can’t believe our luck and I hope you can share in the joy as well. 

We will spend the next good long while remodeling. The house was built in 1961 and hasn’t been fiddled with since, with the exception of the kitchen, which was tastefully remodeled in 1974 (Thank you 1974 people for sticking with classic WHITE!!!) We hope to enlist the help of a designer who can merge our styles, and help pick out new flooring, walls, etc.; you know, “finishes.” We definitely want to keep the same feel of the house. It’s totally perfect and amazing, but the walls need to be insulated and we generally want to give it a bit of a face lift. (We need a new roof and new deck, but that’s not super exciting, so I’m putting it in parentheses).

Let me know if you have any resources to share- flooring? inspiration? mid-century interiors? awesome places to get vintage furniture that doesn’t cost my first-born son? THANKS!!! 

First Birthday: a Spring lunch

A big hooray for the best birthday boy who turned 1 last week. I can't even believe he is 1. We can't imagine life without him. He's so snuggly and easy-going. He's happiest outside. He loves his brother and family to bits and pieces and we all feel the same way about him. Good growin' young man. Happy first.

To celebrate, we had a little birthday lunch and invited my parents and my brother. It was very sweet & simple. I made pasta with pesto and grilled goat cheese sandwiches over fresh spinach (my two favorites). My step dad brought homemade hummus and guacamole and I made a pumpkin pie for dessert.

My older son did all of the stationery... The invitations are on bookboard leftover from a wedding I worked on years ago. My son wrote the baby's name on all the invites. He also made one for "Blast Off," the baby's unofficial nickname (it's what our older son wanted to name the baby). He also made place cards using washi tape on the wood animal puzzle by petit collage, and a pie banner (made from washi tape and toothpicks). It was so fun to have his help and he felt like such a big kid being included. 

I didn't have time to do much beforehand, but my family was happy to help with moving furniture outside and hanging my string of balloons. They even waited patiently while I snapped a few photos. 

Cute party hats by Oh Joy! for Target

I was able to take one photo before we ate. And the baby is showing off how he skillfully climbs right out of his high chair.

Crown on the climber is by tin cup.

a few new gifts... this is a great wooden race track from my dad. 

Heath Ceramics San Francisco

We had a wonderful day in San Francisco, despite the dreary weather. First things first, we went to a birthday party at House of Air. Our son had the best time ever jumping on their trampolines and we enjoyed delicious coffee and British tea sandwiches :) and cake! 

After the party, we went to CB2, H.D. Buttercup, and Heath Ceramics- and it was pretty clear: we love everything they have. CB2 (downtown SF) is having a great floor sample sale right now and H.D. Buttercup is having their half-yearly sale so get on it if you need anything! We picked up our new kitchen light. We spotted it months ago, but didn't buy it. Since then, we haven't found anything else we like better, so we bought it yesterday at 20% off- yay!! 

Everyone loves Heath Ceramics. My favorite place is their overstock room in Sausalito, where they sell boxes of their amazing tile for much less because they're second-quality. I wrote about our visit here. We did our kitchen backsplash with the overstock tile and we love it! You can see a little bit of the backsplash in this messy-house post. We didn't make it to Sausalito yesterday because Heath opened up a new factory and showroom in SF! And since they're smart & awesome, they asked Blue Bottle Coffee to share their space. Naturally we got warm drinks first before heading into the Heath shop. 

We're right in the middle of master bedroom and bathroom renovations and want to use some Heath tile in the shower. I love the triangle tile so much and am hoping we can get that for the shower. I also got to check out the new linens by Willow Ship and Alabama Chanin, two independent, female-run businesses that I admire greatly. Willow Ship is even based right here in San Francisco! Here are some photos from our visit to Heath. Have you been to their new shop? 

2012 Revisited

Did you make plans for 2012? I did, and I want to take a moment to go over them; to see what went well and what didn't. The 7 items were my goals (in italics and bold) and I'm pretty happy with how the year panned out. 

1. I'm currently reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and it has ideas to improve happiness! Each month you focus on a different aspect of your life (Energy/Exercise, Love/Marriage, Friendships, etc.). My goal for the next couple of weeks is to finish the book and start putting the ideas into action! I notice that if I act happy (even if I'm not), everyone else seems to be happy! I highly recommend the book. Kindly check your local bookstore. Have you read the book? What did you think?

2. Continue to expand my photography business. The biz is trucking right along and keeping me busy. Aside from some super amazing weddings, the highlights of the year were attending the Feather Love Artist Workshop (my post & photos here, photographing Camp Mighty (my post here, here, and here, and teaching my first workshop! 

3. Plant some edibles. I did this, and we ate some, and the raccoons ate some, and I realized that my plants needed a whole lot more water. Everything was going well until we went out of town and they didn't get water. It was downhill from there. I'll try again next year :)

4. Get back to my Daily Kid Pic. Well, it wasn't everyday, but 172 out of 366 isn't bad -that's nearly every other day :) And it's better than 2011 when I did 82 out of 365. In the 4 years I've been doing this project, we have 816 photos, something I am very proud of. And it's been a great way to challenge, stretch, and improve my photography. 

5. Learn how to write a book proposal and then write it!! Yeah, this hasn't happened, at all. It's getting carried-over to 2013. 

6. Finish the interior of our house! We're almost done!!! We have one room left that needs renovations (we've done the other 3 bedrooms, the kitchen, and the living room). And then the fun designing and decorating start! We're going to try and get that all done before March (see #7!!)

7. Have another baby! I'm currently 7 months pregnant :) After 4 failed pregnancies in the last 2 ½ years, it's nice to feel the baby kick around. We're due in March. 

The full write up of my goals and ideas for 2012 can be found here. Apparently I skipped writing down goals and ideas for 2011, but my list for 2010 can be found here. Next up: goals for 2013!