Jet Lag Aids Blogging.

Peeps what do you do when you're away from home for work, jet lagged out of your mind and missing your beloved Hubs and babies? I don't know about you, but I obsess over design. Hmm. Doesn't sound any different than a regular day at home.



I got back to my hotel room this afternoon completely pooped from a long day of seminars and sessions and completely crashed -- Ralph Lauren dress and all -- on my fabulous hotel bed. I normally don't show these types of things for fear of being too personal but you HAVE to see this bed. It's fabulous.

Oh well. Back to the Olioboard. I've been wanting to put a more realistic Olioboard up of what the room is really turning out to look like and I finally had the chance to get to it tonight - after waking up from my 4 hour coma, taking a fabilis hot shower, and ordering room service because my preggers behind was too lazy to walk downstairs to get food.

I'm pretty happy with the way the room is turning out. I ordered some white shelves for my gallery wall above the couch, along with a stretched canvas photo I took of my Little Guy last year on the North Shore. I love this photo of him and I love that it hasn't been photoshopped and still looks great. :0) We were poolside and he had ordered a virgin "fancy drink."

On the wall above the turquoise buffet, I'm thinking of finding salvaged white, window frames I saw recently for a whopping $2 each at Reuse Hawaii, a very cool, green salvage yard in Honolulu.

Wouldn't they be a fun weekend project? I don't think I'd keep the glass or screen. But I like the distressed finish to the frames and the peeling white paint (which would be gently sanded down, bien sur). Part of me wants to take a piece of plywood and paint it with chalkboard paint and frame it with the window. I love the vintage beach feel.

Oh well. Enough for one night. I seriously need to get some sleep. It's 7:30pm in Hawaii, it's 12:30am where I am, and I have a full day's schedule starting tomorrow at 7:00am. You gotta love travel! It will kick you in the butt, but sometimes lets your creative juices flow.

Transforming a Lane Mid Century Buffet...into Turquoise Loveliness Part I

This awful quality photo is of a Lane Mid-Century Buffet I was lucky enough to find on Craigslist for $50 this week. I can't even tell you, peeps, this is Craigslist gold. For $50 and from a nice man named Bob, I got his very cute piece for the Library/Bar.

(BTW, If you're looking at those doors on the left and crinkling your nose, I'm not offended. I did the same. More on the doors below.)

Here's an example of the same type of buffet I found online.

Adorbs.

Now here is the actual piece again, this time, with the rattan doors gone and wearing its matching wood doors. Ha! The doors are something like the dress on my Peaches-n-Cream Barbie I had in 1984... Reversible! If you had that Barbie, I'm your soul sister. But back to the doors and their reversible abilities... How mod, I swear.

But the buffet is so solid, peeps, and was in such great condition. No veneer, it is all wood. There were some watermarks on the top, but the drawers glide like buttah.

& my favorite part? Those legs.

*Sigh*

I'm a sucker for Mid Century Modern legs!

Now here comes the tricky part. The piece is GREAT, but if you remember my blog post about the library / bar, it's part of a grand plan! & I want to paint it turquoise. My inspiration comes from pieces like these:

A great turquoise dresser from Primitive and Proper. Check out Cassie's blog. I've only recently discovered and I love it.

Another gorgeous piece featured on Cococozy. Coco offers daily eye candy for me and I love seeing what she finds!

Well, with all that in mind, here are three shades of turquoise I've narrowed down that I'm thinking of for the fab mid-century buffet to put in the modern-esque pacific coastal room I'm putting together.

No.1 Tropical Tide from Behr.

No. 2 Surfer from Behr

No. 3 Lagoon by Martha Stewart

Very subtly different. I'm leaning towards Martha's color. Up close - and I'm not sure if it shows up in the photos - it has a grey-ish cast that tones the color down a bit. If you don't know, I'm afraid of color. I'm one of those people. But I'm breaking out of my shell, peeps. I'm embracing the turquoise.

So... which do you like?

Feeling Organized and Fancy Free!

Organization is a good feeling, peeps, especially when it involves making sure that 10,000 tiny lego pieces are all picked up and put out of the way. Little Guy's closet system is in, and with a few touches via storage bins from my favorite French store, Tar-jhey, a little boy's crazy mess is now contained.

I have to admit there was some level of drama, most likely due to pregnancy induced hormones, where I panicked when the wall of shelves I thought would be on the right ended up on the left. Luckily Hubs swooped in, with his cool, level-headedness, to snap me out of my perfectionist paranoia. After some obsessing, I've decided the closet worked out well and happy with its ability to hold ALL -- literally -- of Little Guy's things. You have no idea how much space is in the bedroom now.

Close Up: Hot Wheels and Bakugan can live harmoniously with storage bins from Target.

On the opposite end of the closet, Little Guy's existing bookshelf was organized for books, sketch pads, and art supplies. Little Guy keeps his most prized possessions in that beat up shoe box. No amount of Mommy pleading to toss it would be heard by the boy. New closets were in no way a reason to dump his beloved old shoe box. Oh well. Pick your battles, Mama.

Above the bookshelf, legos find a home on shelves in primary colored bins next to some hanging clothes. Below, the rest of Little Guy's surf-themed room.

We went with Potterybarn Kids a while ago for the bedding. Little Guy's pint-sized surfboard can be seen in the background, below. & yes, I guess there's no real reason anymore to call him Little Guy, is there? & so, Kelly makes his debut in the blogosphere!

Last photo from today... The remnants of a loverly springtime brunch with the extended family. Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa omelets, cheese danishes, and fruit salads with vanilla yogurt were served up this morning alongside some bellinis for the non-preggers women in the audience. What a perfect Sunday!

My Very First DIY: 1930's Norman Bel Geddes Vintage Metal Dresser

Scrolling through my new favorite, Cracklist -- oh my bad... Craigslist, I found an awesome, two-toned, rather beat up metal dresser. The guy wanted $20. I had to have it. It had these rounded edges and good genes. I knew it had potential.

I primed and repainted the bad boy in a hammered metallic black finish, and threw on some spanking glass knobs to give it a little something. & I love how it turned out. :0) Those girly glass knobs really look cool against that industrial, utilitarian dresser. & the best part is if I get tired of the look, I'll just change them out!

Next time, I'll take lots of photos of the process. I wish I had kept photos of what the bad boy looked like originally. It wasn't pretty.

What I did find, is a manufacturer's sticker with company name and found similar dressers online... those rounded corner edges really gave it away. The dresser was designed by a man named Normal Bel Geddes in the 1930's - 1940's. Geddes was an industrial designer who brought the streamlined metal look to fruition. He believed in form following function and perfect aerodynamics. I also found dressers that are in original condition selling for more than MacBook Air.

Well, I spent $20, invested in a few cans of paint and glass knobs, and I love what I have. It makes the entry way look amazing and I feel like I have a piece of history! But now... this DIY thing is catchy. Looking for something else to restore and repurpose!