Monday, September 9, 2013

Meet Mr. Beans

Hi there, Nesters!

I have some awesome news for you all! Remember a bit ago, I told you about Buttons and Rosemary and how we had to give them back and were heart broken?  Well... about a month ago, we went back to the shelter to see if there were any promising puppies to take home and love.  When we didn't find any that we thought would be the right fit, we asked the front desk one more time, if they would let us adopt just Buttons.  {Update! They did eventually let someone else keep just Buttons.  We were not happy campers that day but we decided we love Beans more than we could imagine, and we were happy with how it turned out.}



Saturday, July 27, 2013

Office makeover ... the 1,716th edition and counting...

Heya Nesters!

This office has been my little cube of inspiration.  I don't have to compromise on anything in here. It's all Gina. All the time.  And I've been doing project after project working on this little space. And sometimes they work out. And sometimes they don't.



Not all that long ago this is how the desk side of my office looked.  Then I upped the ante with a new rug and the new desk. 


Yummy, right? The pair really brightened up the space. But it was still really cluttered.  I hated the way there were so many mismatched things on that wall. I needed something that tied it all in together and was kind of organic.  Then I came across Destiny's blog: A Place For Us.  And she had the most inspirational DIY confetti wall


And I am a big hater of "copying," I prefer seeing an inspirational idea and pulling something else out from it, putting your own spin on it.  That's what creativity is.... But this time, I straight up copied.  So I will take no credit for this.- Destiny- I don't know you but your gorgeous office space was jaw dropping and I am a total copycat. I'm sorry and thank you. 

Using Destiny's instructions I went to WallsNeedLove.com and found the vinyl dots.  You can then choose what size you'd like.  It would be interesting to use 2 different sizes for confetti, particularly if you were doing a childs' room or  different colors. I went with the smallest 2"dots. Also in the gold. They were $22 for one sheet {which completed my entire wall} and I got a coupon code for 20% off which took care of most of the $5 shipping.


And you'll notice the frame hanging in the center. Well that once was being put to a different use as an inspiration board I had made.



And it just got so busy.  It wasn't inspirational anymore.  It just looked ...messy. So I popped the center back out of it and decided to hang just the blank frame in all its antique glory. 


And that gigantic pair of scissors are temporarily placed there, will hopefully be painted some color and hung in the center.   Now the question is what color?  White or Gold? I feel like the white will look really modern and the gold will just look really cool.  Because everything painted gold looks really cool.  Let me know what you think!!


I will also have to take some pics in the daylight tomorrow. 

So there you have it Nesters! A quick $23 project that took me all of 30 minutes and makes a BIG difference.  It's getting there.  I have a million more projects on my plate coming up.  And we're having the outside of our chipping/flaking house sided starting Monday and we couldn't be more excited!  Soon all the hard work we've put in on the inside will also be evident from the outside!

On a side note, we also went to our friends wedding last night, where Matt was a groomsman. So if you don't follow me on Instagram @temporarynest here's a little snippet:


Beginning of the night: 



End of the night:



Hope you all had a great weekend like we did, Nesters!

xoxo
G

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Organizing with Antonius!

Heya Nesters!

I'm sure the post title made you think of some fabulous local TV show that provides tutorials on organizing in a Roman fashion.  {No? Just me? Anyone?.... Anyone? ...Bueller?}  But really I'm talking "IKEA language."
via

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Puppy Problems

Heya Nesters!

Over the last couple of years, the Mr. and I have talked non-stop about getting a dog. Finally, for this past Christmas I got an IOU for a dog.  Since Matt is a teacher, he is off for the summer and it would be a perfect opportunity for us to take advantage of the time at home, to bond with a new furry friend!

A few weeks ago, Matt and I went to a shelter, and picked out a perfect pair.  They were Jack Russell Terrier mixes, Rosemary and Buttons.

Rosemary
Buttons

 If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen a few pics.



They were rescued from an elderly woman who passed away and her dying wish {in the form of a hand written letter} was to have them kept together.  We took them home, thinking it would be perfect for Matt's brother and his girlfriend {who live downstairs} to keep Rosemary who was more high energy like they are.  And for us to keep Buttons who was a couch potato- more like us.  But then crating them together at night.  Well after just a few hours of gleeful doggy playing at home, it was discovered that Rosemary had some serious separation anxiety issues.  She was unable to be with men alone.  The Shelter never knew about this issue because she had only been fostered with a single woman and most of the shelter staff are women. Rosemary flipped when a women left the room.  She went so nuts, she gnawed her own tooth off on her crate.


Sadly, the next day, we had to bring them back.  We knew that was not something that could be truly resolved since they were already 4 yrs old. The shelter apologized for the mishap.  As I mentioned they had never realized the situation. They are still up for adoption together and they wont let us just take buttons because of the note.  They even had them on TV to advertise their adaptability!

Needless to say, we are heartbroken.  Matt's brother and his girlfriend have already adopted another dog and I hate to say it... But while I'm happy for them, I totally bums me out.  They always invite us down to play with the dog, but I don't have the heart. I would probably just start crying.




So, here's where you come in Nesters.  We would love to hear from you guys. We're having trouble finding shelters that actually have dogs that you can go and meet before committing to anything.  We want to be able to meet and play with a dog before we commit.  We want to make sure there is the right chemistry.

We want to find a smaller dog- 20 lbs or under- but most importantly a good temperament. Maybe erring on the side of couch potato just like Buttons but also being able to play and get excited.  We've been looking at Dachshund's, Chihuahua's, Pugs and Frenchies and any mixes therein.  We're also looking for a little bit of an order dog- not a puppy- around 1.5 - 4 yrs old would be perfect.

If anyone has any advice or knows anyone who is looking to surrender a dog, or if you work at a shelter and you're in the New England area, please send along an email.  We just want to provide a loving home for a wonderful dog.  We'd love a little more info on other shelters and any other insight you guys may have on adoption.

xoxo
Gina

Thursday, July 11, 2013

A Little Thursday Treat...

Thanks to my Freshman year college roommate, Alexis...  Oh yeah, and Buzzfeed.


A few of my faves....

A Swing-Set Dining Table
 
Swingset dining table and chairs.
 
 
A Huge Round Bedroom Window
 
Giant round bedroom window.
 
 
A Library Staircase/Slide
 
Library Staircase.
 
 
 
Two story dressing room.
 
 
Stairs You Can Walk Under
 
Walk-under staircase.
 
Happy Thursday Nesters!! Enjoy!!
 
xoxo Gina
 

Monday, July 8, 2013

Love, Like, Loath: The New House

Heya Nesters!!

I just realized that it's been over two years that we've lived in this house and you guys have barely seen anything at all.  {All those other "responsibilities" have taken over.} But there is SO MUCH I want to share with you all! The rest of the house is really coming along nicely, a natural progression of bettering... except the master bedroom.  I don't know what it is.  I feel like I hit a roadblock when I chose a color I ended up loathing. Remember Wasabi Powder?  So, I am bringin' back the oldie but goodie "Love, Like, Loath" post. Which ironically, was also about my last bedroom.


It's lovely-- in this picture. But frankly. In other lights its kind of a bummer color.  May I say, slightly poop-ish.  And its a difficult color to work with others.  I have bought plum glass lamps to try to work those kind of muted shades but it just looked muddy.  I was thinking of adding some gold/brass accents in here to look a little vintage. But I just keep hating everything.



See how as you turn on the yellow light bulbs, it looks much more yellow?? Poop-ish!  Who has two thumbs and is a Debbie Downer about this room?  THIS GIRL!

The thing is, I'm a color gal. And while this is a color.... I like mixing complimentary colors together. I don't feel like I'm doing my job if I'm just doing black, white and the one color on the walls.  Which is exactly the rut we've fallen into in the master.  In fact, I'd rather have white walls and be able to put some awesome colors in the bedding and accessories!

So, first loath: paint color. But lets not be pessimistic here, lets follow the title and really get into it with the Love's first. {But seriously, I have a LOT to say about this room so bear with me.}

LOVE:
I LOVE our bed and bedding.  Our bed is the Hemnes King size bed and the mattress is also from IKEA and is the most. comfortable. mattress. ever.  I currently have our Home Goods white and beige Moroccan Medallion print/variegated stripe reversible quilt on the bed for the Summer.


The throw pillows are kind of a mishmosh of finds.  The 4 pillows we use while sleeping are Ralph Lauren from Home Goods.... and I only use white sheets.  I love white sheets. The "Performance Sheets" from Target are affordable, wrinkly resistant and super comfy. The euro shams are from IKEA. Then the velvet lumbar pillow I've had for ages. And I saw the raw cut pillow at BB&B on sale and it was still insanely expensive {even if I had used a coupon!} but without even searching, I found the exact same one on clearance at Home Goods for a quarter of the sale price!


So, I love our bed in general.  The other thing I love is the little set up on my dresser. 


If you cant quite see, I've got 3 containers on a mirrored tray with my favorite perfume, Stella McCartney Nude. And then my little frog box.  I got her as a present from an old friend for Christmas many years ago and I just love how whimsical she makes this otherwise very adult space. 


It's nothing wild, but it makes me smile.  And that's all that matters, right?

LIKE:
There are quite a few things in this room that I like.  And I am okay with keeping and improving upon them, or replacing.

First is all the lamps. They're all okay. They're a crackled glass globes.


I want to paint a bit of it with my beloved gold paint. Just an uneven, drippy bit on the inside.



And I thought I could compliment the other set of lamps by painting the inside of the shade kind of like this.  But do I want to do the gold and silver together? Not particularly.  Maybe the answer is to spray the base a fun color also!  Who knows!  But for now, they're "okay".

I also like the mis-matched night stands.  I've had them forever and I like that they don't match the rest of the Hemnes furniture.  I normally loath matching bedroom sets. But this one was simple, inexpensive and worked for us.  Another like!


Lastly, the simple white curtains. I like them. They were non-committal, white cotton, cheap curtains from Target. They're fine. *shrug* I like the way white curtains look in crisp rooms.  What I would like to ultimately do, is get a longer curtain rod that will allow the curtains to go all the way to the ends of the bed, almost as if its a secondary headboard. Would I like to upgrade to something with more pattern and color? You bet! But that comes after I get a clear vision of what this room should look like. 



LOATH: 
Ohhhhh there are so many things...  But this is a new addition.  


We originally had a GIANT AC built in circa 1969.  It worked great but sounded like a steamroller in our room at night.  It had to go.  Since we just had our windows replaced and we are siding our house in a couple weeks, the team that did the windows, also removed and patched the hole the AC left.  Doesn't it look lovely??  


It's going to be mudded and fixed up like new soon!  That wall over Matt's smaller dresser will have an interesting mirror.  We don't want just a standard every day mirror.  We want something funky and a tad ornate.  I'm thinking something like this....


Then the big blank space {that looks totally engulfed in flames from the poor images I took} over my dresser is going to have a nice big TV mounted so that we can snuggle and watch movies in bed.  I'm a big fan of watching movies in bed. 



Another loathsome moment in our bedroom is the space between our dressers that holds our laundry basket. 


The basket is too small for the space.  And it is constantly overflowing. I had a brilliant idea that may never come to fruition, but I want to add moulding to the base of these dressers and connect them in the corner.  Something like this..... 


Ignore my horrible photoshopping job. But you get the idea.  That way, we can have the laundry basket  in the corner still but hide the "dirty little secret".  Brilliant, right?! It's just a matter of figuring out how to do it all.  That would be one serious IKEA Hack! 

One of the last things I loath are the sliding wood doors to our closets. 


Yikes! Talk about dated.  But it's nothing a good couple of coats of white paint won't fix!  And I can spray the little knob-thingys with ORB and it will work perfectly with the wood of the furniture. We may even affix a full length mirror with some moulding on the second door from the right.  It's got the 
best space in front of it and it will never slide behind the other. 

And the very last thing I will gripe about tonight is the art.  We've got the front half of the room figured out for what will happen down the road. But its all the other "art" that's at the other end, near our bed that drives. me. nuts. 


This is sentimental.  I drew Matt a version of "George Lasso's the Moon" from It's a Wonderful Life for our first Valentines day, it had only been a month and was too soon for a real present.  And it's sweet and I love it, but it doesn't hold its own over the night stands.


I feel the same about this canvas art I made long long ago.  It just doesn't fill in the space well enough. I would love to do something like this.

Then there is the biggest point of contention.  The degrees. I love my boyfriend and I love that he's smart. {Maybe even smarter than me ;)} But he has both his undergrad and masters degrees hanging on the wall. He has his own office... the perfect place for a degree! After broaching the subject with him about possibly moving those to his office and maybe adding a piece of art to that wall instead, he got offended, saying that it's his only truly proud thing he has hanging in a shared space {aka not his office}... and he wants to keep them there...


*sigh*... I love him and his happiness is more important than the "balance" in our bedroom.  But They just look so empty there. So, I think what we may compromise on, is utilizing those sentimental pieces that currently hang over the nightstands and over Matt's dresser, and making a little gallery wall of sentimentality. Maybe I'll coin the name Sentimenwall? Eh? Eh? Like it??  

So there you have the longest winded blog post in the history of man-kind. Thank you for keeping up with my blabbering.  But now, I'm dying to hear your thoughts on what to do... whether you like what I like or hate what I hate. Let me know your thoughts, Nesters!

xoxo
G

Monday, June 17, 2013

DIY Vintage Desk Reveal! {It's about damn time...}

Hellahooooooo Nesters!

And a Happy Fathers Day to you, too! I hope you all celebrated your dad or your baby-daddies and enjoyed time with family this weekend.  Working 6 days a week doesn't make spending time with family, or DIYing as easy as it used to be.  I don't have the time for a thousand thin coats of paint or to sand a piece to perfection.  But after 5 months, I am finally {pretty much} done with my desk.  If you remember this post from back in February,  I was not feelin' the desk that I had used since childhood.



It was just bringing down the light and airier feeling I was looking for in the room. Not to mention it had Z.E.R.O. storage.  Everything was in plain sight on top of the desk, which not only ended up being unsightly and cluttered-looking, but it also just got in the way.  So, a-hunting I went.  You may remember this Craigslist find.


After weeks of back and forth emails and dueling schedules with the woman who was selling it,  I battled horrendous traffic and torrential downpours to get this puppy after work one night.  The former owners were so sweet they refused to let me get it out of the house myself {not that i would have been able to get it out all by myself}  and into my car.  I handed over the cashola and drove slowly and carefully home while the trunk of my new car was roped open and water was pouring in.

Safe, sound and a little damp, we both got home in one piece.  Fast forward a few weeks and New England was blessed with a spectacular weekend weather and on my day off I spent hours taking all the hardware off, and sanding down the whole desk, inside and out. You would think I would have taken a picture of that.  Alas, I was not that smart.  Or I was, and I lost them in the vast black hole of the interwebs.  Either way, I don't have any action shots like this of me... but you get the idea...

{no this isn't my man-hand. nor my project. this is just a reenactment. please kids, don't try this at home}

Next step, I started painting it with a paint and primer in one.  It worked great on the filing cabinet I painted. It did not work as well on this one.  I was planning on painting the desk top to match the filing cabinet, but since the bleed through was not cooperating, I rerouted my course.  But we'll get to that later....


I decided that while I could have added a fun color and gone wild with prints and patterns.  I wanted to think of what my overall look was going to be in this room.  My office already had so much stimulation between a gallery wall, a new inspiration board, and some seriously yellow chevron curtains... I figured I better keep this desk somewhat sane.  And everyone knows that gold is the best neutral there is!  So, I hunted down liquid gold leaf.



You may have seen this little tidbit I posted a few weeks ago on Instagram.  I have to tell you- I. LOVE. THIS. STUFF.  All the other paints I looked at would have required many many coats {which I already mentioned, I do NOT have time for} and still may not have been totally opaque.  Then I was looking for real liquid gold leaf, and it was not available in stores. Finally, I found Martha Stewart Liquid Gold and $6.99 from Michael's {don't forget your 40% off coupon!} and good God, I wanted to paint EVERYTHING with it.  It went on so smoothly.  Needed just 1 coat with a small touch-up here and there. New favorite thing on the planet.  I also may or may not have painted 2 frames that sit on my desk because I couldn't stop myself.

After I regained control of my hand and stopped painting everything gold, I took care of the inside of my desk.  I will admit to totally half-assing the actual painting of the inside, knowing I was going to take care of it with these puppies...


I picked up a couple of self adhesive shelf liners from Marshall's a while back, knowing I'd use them for something... low and behold, I found the perfect project!  They were $4.99 for a 2 pack for each pattern. I still have 2 full rolls leftover and some scraps!  Money well spent!


Luckily, I also had some pull tab knobs from Anthro left from the filing cabinet that I never used.  So I bought a few extras and simply screwed them on!  I love that the brass works with the darker color of the gold paint.



My last step was the desk top.  I had wanted to add a glass top to the desk to protect whatever finish I may use which I assumed would be a matching painted pattern like the filing cabinet.  Though after all the rigmarole of the bleeding paint, all but threw out the top.  After a mini fit some thought, I decided I would utilize the glass in an additional function-  as a giant frame.  That way, I would be able to house either fabric or paper under the glass and at the same time be able to change it out as my little heart desired. {Hissy-fit over!}  I used my favorite guys in Arlington, B&R Glass.  They are always the most affordable and after this being a fairly expensive project, I did not want to spend a couple hundred more on glass. Luckily my mom knows the guys and uses them all the time and gave her a pretty good deal on the custom cut glass!  $80 for tempered glass and a beveled edge!  The only bummer was the wait. It took about 2 weeks to get in.

While I waited for the glass to come in, it was a matter of what was going underneath it.  I considered a few options.


This is the Premier Print Cottage Twill Harmony.  I have a throw pillow using this fabric on the guest bed, I thought this might tie it in nicely. But it just was too big of a pattern.

Then I journeyed to Mecca Paper Source and hum'ed and hawed over the following patterns.










Ultimately, I went with this last one, Lokta Herringbone.  I was very close to grabbing the scalloped dots which I still love.  However, my final decision was that the herringbone is a much smaller pattern and therefore wouldn't compete with everything else going on in my office.  I love the final outcome because it almost looks entirely gold, until you look a little bit closer. 

After allllllll that.  All those tedious steps and challenges, this is what I ended up with.....












There are still a few finishing touches that I need to fix.  {The door that houses the printer, doesn't close because the long screw part of the knobs, actually stab into the printer.  The Man-friend promises to help me with that one of these days....} But good things comes to those who wait, right?! For now, it's 100% usable and I'm a happy camper.

In case you were curious, here is a breakdown of the final total project cost:

Vintage Desk: $100
Sander/paper: $0 {already owned}
White Paint: $13
Knobs: $48 {already owned 4}
Liquid Gold: $4.99 {$6.99 with 40% off coupon}
Paper: $24 {used 3.5 sheets at $6 each}
Glass: $80                                                     
Grand Total: $269.99

This is my "OMG! THATS THE TOTAL!?" face.


Not too bad considering a huge, high style desk like that could easily run me $300 before shipping.  All in all, I've got a great space to work on now that keeps me inspired. I hope you guys like it!!

Have you guys tackled a REALLY LONG, NEVER ENDING project recently like me?  Or did you redo a desk?  Or have a hissy fit over wood bleeding through your paint, like me?

xoxo
G