Target Hack

There is a glass front cabinet (one of many in the house) at the end of my kitchen island. I had been thinking of hanging some fabric inside for a while. I don't keep anything too special in it (water spotted vases, a pitcher, my eletric kettle) and I feel like it's one of the first things people see when they walk in the door. I love my new placemats from Target and noticed a matching shower curtain made out of heavy canvas. I cut it, hemmed it and hung it up (ok, i used scotch tape) inside the glass doors. Instant transformation.

Pinky Purple Paint

Painted T's room pinky purple. Almost a week later and it still stinks like fresh paint. The room looks totally different; better, I guess. I also made her some curtains. Heart fabric lined with a total blackout lining. It has a cute trim at the top that has hearts and beads, but that is obviously overwhelmed by the size of the curtains. I made felt hearts and stuffed them, leaving an opening on the side and put them on the end of the curtain rod. Don't know how I came up with the idea but it totally works. Not exactly sure why I insisted on making curtains though. They are not that cute and certainly didn't save me any money. My plan was to sew the curtain to the lining all the way around so I never cut of the selvedge. I ended up just sewing the top so I could pull back the blackout lining, leaving the heart fabric as shears to let the light through. But of course all I can see every time I look at them is the obvious selvedge with the words "Printed exclusively for Joann's Fabrics" staring at me.

Details:: 7 :: My View

Enough said.

Details:: 6 :: Organized Pantry

A completely organized pantry. I bought clear bins (big = $3, small = $1) and labelled each one with literally EVERYTHING in my pantry. Talia loves beans so I have one bin for cans of lentils and chickpeas and one for black/ white/ red beans. Now I just look in the bin to see what beans we need (this week, for example, we need red, black, white and lentils!). I have a bin of oils and vinegars, one of spaghetti sauce and salsa, etc. I can so easily see what I have that I can also see what I need. Before I would ask myself, are we out of rice?-- Oh, I'll just buy more... Now my cannisters are labelled and easy to see into. This has been amazing and it makes putting away groceries really easy too. Lastly, I bought non-clear bins for all the desirables-- chips, cookies, etc. so Talia can't see into them. She still asks for snacks but doesn't just open the pantry, see chips and want them. I also separated bags of opened chips (easy to reach) and unopened (way up high) since I generally find about 10 open bags of tortilla chips every time I look. Love love love!

Details:: 5 :: Wildflowers

I pass this protected area of wildlife every time I drive into my neighborhood. It has changed through the season from early to late summer and now to fall. According to my Wildflowers of Wisconsin book that's Canadian Goldenrod. In early summer it looked more like this...

Details:: 4 :: Staircase

I've basically got the coolest staircase ever. The metal design is amazing and makes me smile every time I go up the stairs. The wood is hard and has a refreshing quality to it. And it's very wide. The ends (posts?) have two different colors of wood in them. I will add a picture sometime when I get a chance.

Details:: 2 :: Greenery

I have always wanted a home filled with plants. This is my start. I don't have the best record with keeping plants alive. I doubt any of those flowers will last long but I'm trying! I might even get another bench and put it along the adjacent wall. I had a hard time finding a piece of furniture that would serve this purpose and fit in the space. I'm thrilled with that bench. It even matches. I guess maybe I *should* run out and get another one before they are gone! Picking the flower pots was fun too-- I still need one or two. I'll take a close up of some later. Tonight I saw these fabric pots online. I really want one!

Details:: 1 :: Sunshine in the cabinet

I think I'll try to post once a week on something I love or some striking feature of my new house.

Week 1: I caught some sunshine filtering through the built in cabinet that separates the dining room from the entryway. The bowl that is glowing was bought by me in New Zealand in 2002 (?) at the Hoglund Art Glass Studio and Gallery. I love the cabinet, I love the sunshine, I love handblown glass.

Things I love/ Things I don't (about the new house)

Things I love about the house:

Detail on the stairs!
All the built in cabinets!
The kitchen (I think I love it anyway)!
Playroom on first floor is hidden!
A master bath!
Guest room is in the basement with full bath!
Living room with gas fireplace!
Style built in to the design of the house!
A garage!
Linen closets!
A coat closet!
Things I don't love about the house:
Lack of land
Closeness to the street
No mail delivery! Help!
Distance from downtown?
Dangerous/ high/ narrow cement steps leading to front door
The front porch seems and doesn't seem to get light...
What the hell will we do with that huge room on the second floor?
Dining room is too small and you can see the kitchen from it (I'm a messy cook)

New House in Madison WI

Front of house

Back of House

Entry

Living Room

Kitchen

Stairs

Hallway 2nd floor

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So this is the house we are hoping to buy. It is one year old and absolutely BEAUTIFUL, 4000 sq. ft. Most of the features on the first floor are built in, which is great considering we have no (nice) furniture! This is the home in the "new urbanism" development. The houses are literally ON the street with small front porches and practically no land at all. This house is a little different than the others around it because it is on the edge of the housing development and therefore has a little bit of land (and a back deck) and overlooks some empty space that I don't think will be developed. I am going to do some (more) research on new urbanism but the basic premise seems to be a designed community that values high grade building materials, attention to detail, environmental features and usable spaces in the homes versus spaciousness, opulence and formal living spaces. The whole development is supposed to foster a sense of community rather than isolation and they do this by taking away indiviual land and having many many commnunity spaces from parks/ playgrounds (1 block from the house) to a nature conservancy (2 blocks from the house) and some commerical space (cafes and grocery within... 4-5 blocks from the house). There is also a pond and a community garden and probably more that I don't know about yet. Everywhere we looked there were kids, people walking and biking (it's still winter!) and lots of dogs. I honestly never saw myself in a place like this but fell in love with the house first and am kind of falling in love with the concept as well.

Since I don't know anyone in Madison it might be nice to have a built in community for a few years. Buying in the middle of our price range (and a home with a high resale value) also allows us to learn more about Madison and decide where we might want to buy our "forever" house when we are making more money. Supposedly the schools are fantastic with high parental involvement etc. The elementary school is also within walking distance (does that mean I'm going to have to drive talia in the (long) winter?). There are not too many drawbacks to the actual house. Obviously, no (a little) land is weird and not what I was looking for, the dining room is smaller than I would like-- not really enough space for a big holiday dinner, but the weirdest thing is that the mail doesn't get delivered to your house-- you have to pick it up down the street! that FREAKS me out! There are a lot of days I don't want to leave the house--especially in the winter. UPS etc does deliver to the house. I guess it would be nice to be able to recycle my junk mail without even bringing it into my home though. I guess they really want you to be neighborly. I know that's not me, but with small kids you have to be anyway so you might as well be. The house is a 12 minute drive to the capitol, state street (where the cute shops are) and the university. It's about 6 minutes to Talia's preschool (which she LOVED and I LOVED by the way) and 5 minutes to the more conventional (chain) shopping like Barnes and Noble and Joanns etc. At some points when we were driving our realtor said, "there's a lot of traffic right now" and all we had to do was wait through two lights. It was way less than Flemington traffic!

I have to say the houses in madison seem to be VERY expensive to begin with. We saw million dollar homes that needed a LOT of work and upgrades. These were in highly desirable locations but still! All in all, the people in Madison are so nice and everyone just wants you to be happy. It's a little strange! I'm sooooooo tired from seeing about 25 houses. from now on I'm taking it easy until this baby comes out. I'm going to just sit on the couch and chill. Our next step is to make a final decision and move forward. There was one other house that was about $100,000 less, in a much more secluded and woodsy setting (and backed up to a park) but definitely would need updating (nothing immediate) to make it special. Everything was nice and it was very well spaced (seemed bigger than the one we will likely get even though it was slightly smaller) but it did not have a great style or great kitchen or great master bathroom or anything like that. It was very sunny and bright and open and had lots of space though. and woods.

Ok, lots to think about-- goodnight!