Our New Place

 Breakfast nook, but I'm getting a kitchen island to put in this spot. Light fixture above is antique

 Love this built in bookshelf!

 Built in vanity

 Main bath

 Down to the lower level to laundry room, garage, and basement room

We move tomorrow, and I'm totally wiped out both mentally and physically! It's been tough looking for a place this time in our town. Extremely low inventory of rentals and prices sky rocketing like no bodies business. We had to move a bit farther afield to get this gem of a little place. I have some mixed feelings about leaving my town that I have lived in for over 20 plus years, but I'm afraid nothing quite this charming exists in my town that would be in my price range. I'm being a bit of a whiner right now, as I'm only about a 10 or 15 min. car trip down the freeway from said town. I was spoiled up to this point with everything being close at hand. I moved to a town that is closer to David's work though, and now his commute is only 10 min.  Now he can even come home for lunch.
The town is quite historic, and has a charming old town feel. It's has a mixed population and does have a reputation of more of a blue collar town, and with that you can imagine there are some less desirable areas.  The neighborhood where this house is though, is really quaint and has some beautiful vistas. The house sits high up and I'm sorry but I forgot to take a photo of the front before we left this evening. The landlords are very nice, and I think this is going to be such a better tenant landlord situation!  For that alone we are excited to get the heck out of this house and on to a much better situation.
The kitchen is one thing I'll have to get use to since it is on the small side, but to remedy the situation, I plan on getting a movable kitchen island to put in that little nook( this one). Other wise it has a great fridge, much bigger oven than I have now. The table and chairs in the picture are not mine, and I think ours will look really nice in this space! I'm excited for all the built ins too, and the bathrooms are fun!
I'm in love with the yard! I was really going to miss the yard we have now with all the citrus and all, but guess what?   This yard has an orange tree, lemon tree, several fruit trees like peaches, nectarines, persimmons, and plums. Oh and an avocado tree!!!! Yes you read that right, an avocado tree :)   I see many pies and tarts this summer.  I'll take better pictures of the yard soon and the front of the house.

The storage below the house, since it sits up high, is enormous and we can store some of our family room furniture that doesn't fit.  Lots and lots of storage thank goodness!

Well, I'm off to back up the last of the stuff in this house and I'm done!!!!

Getting Things Done

My blog is turning into a house decor blog! Not really, but I'm trying to give updates on things that have finally been done around the house, and one of them is the hanging of the tapestry. I sure missed it being up because it's one of my favorite things that we hauled back from France. I also missed having it hung above the buffet, because I think it really looks pretty with the wood. Before I started this blog back in 2008, we use to live in another house that had beautiful light and hardwood floors, and I would love how this buffet looked when the light would flood into that room. Now it is once again showcased with hardwood floors and beautiful light coming into the dinning room.  I can't wait to get an area rug for the living room though, as I feel that it is a bit too dark with all the wood. Don't get me wrong, I do like darker wood, but it needs to be balanced a bit.
The lemons are courtesy of one of the many citrus trees in our yard. I decided today to go out and clip all of them off the tree, because they are overripe and making the tree work harder with them dangling on there. I decided to make a nice lemon table decoration out of some of them. They are Meyer lemons I believe, and there are tons of them!!

I also managed to whip up two darling pinafores for the shop yesterday. I just need to put the buttonholes and buttons on them and they will up for sale. The little one fits 12/18 month size, and the bigger one is a 2/3. I will be making some linen ones soon I think, and those might have some pockets and embroidery on them. The ones above were made out of beautiful vintage German fabric from the 1930's. The fabric was in excellent condition, and the color is so vibrant. I wish I had a big enough piece of it to make myself an apron or or something, but they were all pretty small pieces. I found it at the Alemeda Flea market, from this wonderful vendor that I have bought linens from before.

Summer is now here in full force with hot temps! Yikes is what I always say, because of our severe drought situation and possible fires this season, it's going to be a scary one! Coming soon (not saying when for safety reasons) I'm tagging along with David on his business trip to England and Germany. It will be fun to see Nicole again, and going to Germany is going to be a nice visit, because some friends are getting married, and it happen to coincide with David's business trip there! I'm excited to see Nicole and our friends. It will definitely will be the highlight of the summer for us.

Hope everyone has a delightful weekend!

Corners of My Home

Remember when "corners of my home," was so common in blogland? I don't see it as much, but I really never did a lot of those posts, so I'm making up for lost time.  At the other house, our antique secretary was in our hallway and you never really got to see it fully, unless you walked out of the bathroom.  This always made me kinda sad that it wasn't highlighted, and my collection of tea cups could not be seen easily. This house has a nice spot for this piece of furniture, that was a hand me down from my in-laws. I'm not sure of the date of it, but if I were to guess, it would be maybe from the 1800's?? I do know that it is from England. I Usually don't like to buy prints of famous paintings, but when we were in the Netherlands and I laid eyes on this Vermeer painting, I just had to have this as a reminder of how beautiful this painting is! Also, when we toured this one particular museum in Haarlem, they paired a lot of furniture similar to this secretary with all the beautiful Dutch paintings and Delft ceramics. I fell in love with this combination, and so we bought a piece of Delft also. This is my little homage to my love of Dutch art.  Tulips should actually be in that vase! Hahaha.

David hung the mirror and our Paris etching, but we still have quite a bit more to hang, but I thought I'd show you how nice the mirror, that use to be in our dining room in the other house, looks in the entryway.

I promised a few posts back, that I would show you the back yard. I haven't been in the mood to go back there since the promised fence, to separate the cottage, has not been put up yet and the "tenant" seems to still have free reign over it with her dogs and cats. I'm trying to be patient with the whole thing and hoping that it will get resolved soon. Here are a few shots leading to the back from our patio. The little gazebo was going to be torn down originally, but the owners contractor came up with a solution to save the grape vines as well as the gazebo. It was falling down in the center, and now it has a brand new top. I wish we could enjoy this, but usually on the weekend the neighbor has her friends over, and I just don't feel comfortable being watched, so we wait I guess..... The yard has, a pomegranate tree, as well as a fig and quince tree. The figs aren't ready yet, but as soon as they are, I'm going out there to round them up. The photo of the fruit above are quince. I love all the roses too, and I swiped some today as seen above.

Today I took a trip into Berkeley, because I just needed to get out of the house, and poor Quincy bird needed some food.  I buy his special seed combination where I bought him in Berkeley. I love Berkeley! Whenever I'm feeling stuck creatively, I take a trip there for inspiration. I go window shopping and check out what is new in all the little shops that I love, and before I know it, I have a million new ideas. Today I left with some great ideas for some pieces for my Etsy shop, and also a lot of fun summer food ideas. No other place does this for me. I'm now renewed and ready to start creating again.  I have no more excuses to get to work, since the studio is fully unpacked and ready to go!!!
Hopefully next post will be what I have been working on. Hope you aren't bored with my house shots!

This and That and a Graduation

Things are slowly coming together, and I'm getting use to this part of town and this house. Still working out a few kinks, but this is what makes life so exciting right? Hahah.  Last weekend David put up the curtains in the family room, which made a huge difference in the room and nice to not be in a fish bowl! The picture is not so great, but you can get the idea. I was all set to get these other curtains at Cost Plus with birds, but they won't be in stock until mid June, and I could not wait that long! Off to Ikea we went to see if there was something that would work for now. I ended up finding these. I put up a double rod and some really cute sheers with a flower pattern. I actually like them better than the ones at Cost Plus. I like that I can keep them drawn, and still have lovely filtered light shining through.  We got the guest room bed put back together, and hope to get some pictures up on the wall soon, as well as a side table in there. I had to put little Quincy bird on the white table that use to be the guest room side table.  The studio is pretty much unpacked and I'm ready to start cutting out and sewing up some new items starting next week. I already have two special orders that I hopefully will be starting soon as well.

Wednesday evening we traveled north to see my darling niece graduate with honors, from high school. Graduations are always so bittersweet aren't they?!  This little lady is a smart cookie and has a very bright future!!!  Seems like just yesterday that I was in the delivery room with my sister ushering this beauty into the world!  Can't wait to see how she paves her way into the next chapter of her life.
Saturday we are heading back to my sisters to have her party.  It has also been nice to visit with my dad and step mom, who came for the graduation.  Not doing much else for this holiday, but most likely hanging pictures in the living room and unpacking the rest of the book boxes! We just have to reorganize the garage/storage room and then we are done!
Hope everyone has a nice holiday weekend filled with fun and lots of relaxing!

Work in Progress

 Living room is almost finished. Pictures need to be hung, and we are buying a new rug that I picked out at Pottery Barn. I think the color of this rug will really lighten up all the wood in here. Paris etching will go on that blank wall.

 Our tapestry will be hanging over the side board, with the candle sconces.

 This is looking down one direction of the kitchen from the dinning room.

 The size and layout of this living room was a head scratcher at first when the movers started to bring in all the furniture! I usually know exactly where everything should go once I see it empty, but this space was giving me some problems!

 This is the family room, with messed up blinds that the owner didn't replace, but after I complained, you can see the three little boxes of new blinds ready to go up.

 I will be getting some more selves for above the TV and I'll be putting the round clock that is next to Quincy up there as well. It will look very much like the old place. The other side of the fireplace is left natural, as you can see and since there was a nail in it, I put up a picture right away to make it feel less empty.

Other side of the kitchen. I still need to put up all the art work and shelves on those walls.

 These windows will be getting some curtains very soon! While I love them, I feel like I'm in a fish bowl!

 Still needing to play with the pantry situation in this house, because there really isn't any. Over in the corner where the oven is, there is some room, but it is deep and I'll need a stool to get everything.

Entryway, with one of the two rugs we own. The flooring is the original 1962  linoleum. They didn't clean it properly, so now I have to figure out how to make it a bit more sparkly.

 We bought this little table in France from a shop that I loved in our town. It is a great entryway table and at the other house, it wasn't used that way. I'm happy to be able to have a better spot for it this time. Above this will go our black framed mirror that use to be above our buffet in the other house.

 The main bathroom, is actually quite pleasant in how bright it is in there. I laugh now, because this was the one I thought was not bright and had pink tile, but neither are true! I think it will be nice when guests come over because it is quite spacious and has a lot of cabinets and storage facing the mirror.

 Guest room, that needs the bed put back together again.

 My workspace, still not unloaded but next on the list! I like how nice and cool it seems to be. We are having a heat wave right now, and when I go back there, it is nice and shady and not a hot box like the last room I had.

 Scary room with all our book boxes!!! This will be David's room for his music things and office stuff.

Last but not least our room. This is a really big room with two large closets and a pretty decent bathroom, especially after they repainted and put in a new toilet. It was the worst of the two, but now I prefer it to get ready in.  The last eyesore is that super ugly AC unit on the wall. It is non functioning, because the place has central air, but now I have to figure out a way to disguise it. In my work room, I put up the tall glass fronted cabinet in front of it, and you can barely see it, so that is an option eventually, or some linen over it? I don't know.....if you have any fun ideas please feel free to comment!

Last week was really tough adjusting to being here I must say! There were a few issues with the owner, and the cottage dweller, that happens to be the daughter of the owner. She is not bad, but she has two dogs, which I knew of and I was ok with. Then she tells me she got two rescue cats so they can roam and keep the rodent population down. I thought that was a good idea, as the yard is enormous and has many fruit trees that can attract them. She also has two chickens. OK, cool with that and I won't really see them because, like I said, the yard is huge and they will be tucked back there. Where I almost lost my cool was when she said she was going to get a pig!!!!! I said to myself, Oh hell no!!! I nodded and smiled, then called the property management, and I also looked up city ordinances. You can't have them in the city limits because they are livestock, and if you follow the code, she has exceeded how many animals you can have already. I don't want to start any wars with this animal lover, but seriously!!!! Oh, and btw, we can't have pets! They are also suppose to put up a fence dividing the property, which I sure hope is sooner than later, because as much as I really like her dogs, they have been leaving little presents on my side, and she hasn't bothered to clean up after them, even though I commented to her that they had done it!
I'm really trying to keep my cool and I sure hope things settle down with a bit more rules in place!

Mother's day was low key this year, and the day was pretty much spent at home relaxing. Caitlin came over later in the afternoon and we had a lovely dinner together in a new restaurant in Oakland called Camino  If you follow me on Instagram, there are some photos of the food. I really enjoyed it and plan to go again!
Well, I'm off to unpack some more boxes.