When shrubs attack

BG and I have few television loyalties. BG is not really a TV person, and I would be a potato rooted from the couch if I didn't check myself. These factors add up to =  the television generally stays off in our house.* We both make an exception for the History Channel's "Life After People" series. The premise is that humans are gone in one swoop; nature takes over; vegetation destroys everything humankind has created; eventually, it's as if there were never people (except for the legacy of plastic, which sadly lasts FOREVER, btw).

No matter the theme of the episode, there's always a scene at the end that makes me feel a little sick. It hammers home the message People are small and temporary and unimportant. Sometimes truth is terrifying. 

A tiger on the overgrown post-peopled White House lawn! It's like a nightmare!

When we viewed this house back in Feb/March and I told BG the patio was "a little Life after Peopley," he knew exactly what I meant.

BEWARE OF TIGERS.



Here is where I wish I could say ^that^ pic is at the end of an episode. Alas... this was the state of our patio as recently as this past weekend. The previous owners took great pride in the care of this house and their yard and patio. But two years of no occupancy followed by six months of neglect during the hottest summer on record, and it's shrubs gone wild.

BG and I spent many hours outside Saturday. He handled the chainsaw, and I was the branch mule, lugging limbs and shrubs out to the curb. The artifacts we unearthed delighted and motivated us. A trio of flower pots, a garden hose, a little bird spigot, feature lights that shine upon the tree trunk (they work!), and two lattices for trained vines.



Sunday we both felt like we had been stomped on by angry giants, but I think the end result was worth it:



Though we still have some work to do--knotty stumps have buckled parts of the patio foundation and roots have taken up residence in the resting place of ghosts of flowerbeds past--the kids have been in absolute heaven with the reclaimed play space. They took their breakfast on the patio Sunday morning. They have been riding scooters and throwing balls and singing "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" as they skip across the pavers. It's in these moments that I can quiet the too-big thoughts about temporality. It doesn't matter what happens in life after people. In this life, I can delight in helping our little people collect the gumballs purged by the sweetgum tree. 

*I totally turn it on when the kids go to bed.

Fall'n

I love a gourd. Every fall, I re-read this blog post, shared by a friend, dedicated to the season's most ubiquitous symbol. WARNING: LINK NOT FAMILY FRIENDLY! CONTAINS ADULT LANGUAGE! LOTS OF IT! 

Isn't that inspirational? It makes me want to get my fall on and reminds me that Halloween is just around the corner. And it's lucky I've got something to light a fire under me because our neighbors really up the ante for seasonal decorating. We moved in this past April, when everyone had gorgeous yards and smart spring landscaping. Now it's October, and there are scarecrows, pumpkins, and hay stacks as far as the eye can see. We prettied up our porch a little, with black urns, mums by the gallon, and a pair of asparagus ferns in an old basket, as well as a gourd topiary (that's my fave, a fairytale pumpkin, on the bottom):





But I yearned for something a little macabre. What's Halloween without a touch of dark and scary? And as it goes--ask and ye shall receive--mother nature presented me with a little gift.

Outside with the kids one evening, we were collecting leaves. They are not the beautiful reds and golds you find in most of the country. Here we get brown leaves prized more for their kinesthetic crunch than their ochre and umber. Our boy, W, who is just shy of three and finds joy in the simple things, was particularly excited about his collection and sorted through it proudly when, at once, his older sisters shrieked in his direction.

Among the leaves rested a dessicated frog body--shaped and colored so much like a leaf, it was easy to see how W mistook it for one. Its eyeballs were long gone, transported from their sockets in speck-sized loads by the ants in the neighborhood. With a sudden awareness that he possessed an object worthy of ridicule, W kicked at the dead amphibian. Our baby pointed with her chubby index finger and begged in curiosity and confusion, "Dis? Dis?" The older girls ran screaming in circles, wishing it away.

As for me, I shoved it in my pocket. Sorry, folks, this is NOT going to be a giveaway! In a jar, labeled "SPECIMEN," I think it will be just the ghastly touch we need in our Halloween decor.

Liteopia

I've been dreaming about a certain lampshade all my life. Or, OK, since April.  I've tried other lampshades on for size and failed. That was probably an act of self-sabotage, as I was seeking validation that the black drum shade was the only contender. The problem with the obvious solution of buying such a lampshade has been my unwillingness to spend more than [the completely random limit of] $20 on it.

Enter Lowe's.

I was there to procure cheap mums and pumpkins for our fall porch. Blog post to come, if I can get it into some sort of condition worth sharing. I meandered through the rows of the nursery, found myself in the Halloween section, and suddenly was pulled toward lighting. "This is silly," I thought. "Why would Lowe's have the lampshade? Do they even have lampshades?" Is it all plywood and mums and bbq pits and tile and carpet and paint and window treatments and magazines and markers and washing detergent and lawnmowers and the kitchen sink and everything except the perfect lampshade? That's just my luck. 

The pessimist in me was heckling... me. And she continued feeding off of the experience. Yes, there are lampshades. Probably a hundred different styles. Look at all these lovely lampshades. Heh, and not even one of them will work. Silly to even bother. The pessimist has mastered baiting me with split infinitives; she's passive-aggressive.

Then the realist piped up with a series of observations. Wow, that's weird. There's a row of about 10 navy blue lampshades. They're drum shades and the perfect size. But why would anyone want a blue drum shade--unless they work for Nautica or have a beach house decorated in blues and white, which could actually be really pretty if predictable. 

Then the optimist took a turn. Maybe it's not navy! Maybe it's black! And maybe there are so many of them because they look navy when everyone knows a black shade is the ultimate choice for epic win! *Peels back protective wrapping in a sneaky and discrete manner* 

LITEOPIA! For $15. Finally. A large. Black. Drum. Shade. 

The realist and the optimist did a little victory dance in the aisle while the pessimist refrained. She just knew we'd get busted and embarrass us all.

The foyer is almost complete! For real this time!


^I'm still hunting for just the right--much larger--vessel to sit under the console table. For now I cannot STAND the sight of the lamp cord, so the smallish basket will have to do :) It is holding a couple of spare umbrellas plus a rain stick. Yin and yang, baby.

On the table top, from left to right:

A clock with timezones around the world, a sterling silver shot glass (big question for the day: what do you call a shot glass that isn't glass? hmmm?) a college friend brought back for me from Germany, and a resin "G" that I thought was so bad-azz I couldn't resist it for 50% off at a craft store.

THE LAMP.

A Moroccan-inspired vase. Moroccan probably doesn't make you think "modern Southern transitional," but the little cut-away pattern reminds me of damask, so it works.

Let me stand next to your fiyah

Hello from the G house! It's been a while because I took a luxurious vacation to NYC and then recuperated for a week. I know--my life is hard.

Tonight I'm talking about an often blogged about decorating subject. The jhuhjing of the fireplace.

We have a huge fireplace in need of some decorating love. The fireplace is the focal point of the sitting room, has a cherry surround, library paneling, and dark slate. Boring, boring, boring. I'm surprised it doesn't give our guests narcolepsy.

Our old mantel at our old house sported an old mirror. For this house, I decided I wanted to do something a little less expected [No offense to the mirror lovers out there! I was among you for decades!]. Enter: BG's weird hobbies. BG is a man of many interests, and one of them is maps. BFF-J suggested on her first visit at our house last April that an old map would look really cool above the fireplace. Yes! Yes, it would! That little suggestion festered, and I became map obsessed. It doesn't take much.

I looked at probably a hundred online. Cripes! Do you know what huge old maps cost? Much too much for the Gs. I decided I'd have to improvise. Because this task didn't seem tricky enough, I decided the map needed to mean something. Furthermore, my heart yearned for a map in particular colors, like the muted citrus I went with for the breakfast-to-mud room. I didn't want just *any* awesome old map. I wanted one that probably only existed in my imagination.

I have several friends who are black belts in Google-Fu, so I put them on the task. One of them came across a map on Amazon. It was in the exact colors and specific region I wanted.

Muted citrus? Yes!
Gulf Coast focus? Yes!
The biggest damn map there ever was? No :(

I lamented the tiny perfection of the map for 24 hours before I got brave and contacted the dealer. As it turned out, printing custom sizes is what he does best. He also confirmed for me that the colors I thought I was seeing in my browser were pretty right on. The water really was more green than blue, and the orange was accurate. In the name of all that is fabulous, we don't want any more peach in our lives. He added that the original map (a 1747 French carte) was unusual in that it was painted, not drawn, so the reproduction had a watercolor quality to it. Who would have thought real maps could be better than imagined ones?! Blue Monocle provided an excellent customer service experience all around. Yes, please.

After express shipping, it was off to a local shop (coupon! score!), where I had it double-matted and framed. Lucky for me, the owner is also an art collector with a keen eye. When I told her I wanted to bring out the green in the map and frame it in something not gold but not silver but DEFINITELY not more cherry and stay within a meager budget (for custom framing, anyway), she knew just what to suggest. Here it is, fresh from the frame shop, in a distressed "champagne" frame:




Once in place, the map commanded the vast, empty, previously snooze-worthy space above the mantel. The map itself is 32 inches across, for context.

On to the next issue: I was not sure how to style the mantel itself. I looked at pics online and in magazines for inspiration. I tried a combination of: clocks, vases, pottery, books, frames, lanterns, candles, and random props including a diatonic accordion. Desperate for the right thing, I almost got into a late-night ebay bid war over a taxidermied baby alligator. Thankfully I was not the highest bidder on the forever-infantilized Cuban contraband reptile with marble eyes, and a little more online searching led me to the three plus one rule.

Decorators are evil for keeping this a secret. FYI.

As the link above will tell you, when you use three plus one, you cluster three objects on one side of the mantel and then use one object that is about twice the size or visual weight of the three combined on the opposite side. It's asymmetrical overall and pleasing to the eye, as in the examples at the jump. Here's how it all worked out for me:



Since I was dealing with a large scale, I interpreted the "three" loosely to fit my size needs. A stack of books crowned with a piece of pottery counts as one. A photo of BG's parents on their wedding day is two. An old candelabra I picked up about 10 years ago in an antiques shop is three. <--He is so sad without candles. They will be installed. One day.

Here's a closer look at the three:



The books are all related to the French heritage that BG and I share, which I think/hope ties in with the map nicely without being too cheesy.

The big item is a very large glass vase with eucalyptus stems. The vase was a wedding gift. Awww.

I'm still adjusting to the finished product. For a shameful number of months, the mantel has been the resting place for remote controls, batteries, flash lights, light bulbs--clutter that belongs out of sight, truly.  This minimal approach follows my natural design aesthetic, which is just a little under-done. I need a space to breathe... even if it does produce carbon monoxide.

"Dear God, what is that thing?" The reveal!

I'm assuming you know where that quote comes from. The Princess Bride, of course--the most quotable movie on earth.

I had no idea what a kerfluffle my silly giveaway would cause. I had bribes, begs, and on-the-sly emailed guesses. I fear this will be a very anti-climactic reveal, but since all of my blog posts are, at least I'm consistent.

The weird item (refresher pic below):




Was...



[The white space is supposed to be building on the anticipation.]


A gimpy little green bean!



My eldest, to my foodie chagrin, will only eat canned green beans. It is like a stab to the heart every time she requests them and finds them delicious (as long as I don't *gasp* add salt or attempt to treat them with anything delicious!). When I opened the can and dumped them into the bowl for nuking, this little guy fell out.

No winners. I know you're all crying into your bowls of green beans, but it'll be OK. 

The Sum of Its Parts... and a GIVEAWAY!!!

Everyone is doing bloggy giveaways these days. EB offered up an awesome book back in June. AspieMom is giving away a very different but also awesome book right now. It's inspiring! I am nothing if not a sheep, so I am going to do my own version of a giveaway. It's not a book, but it was inspired by my book club. Sort of. It's always more complicated than that in my warped brain. Here's how it unfolded.

I spent Labor Day unpacking (still; shameful) and organizing because I am hosting my book club dinner in a couple of weekends and started to have mini panic attacks at the thought of my friends throwing open random closet doors to see how the G Family really lives.

Would anyone actually do this? No, probably not. But the fear felt very real this past Monday, and since it was productive fear, I embraced it.

As any super quirky house should, the G house has some secret closets. They're hidden behind these panels. Can you see them?



Wouldn't it be cool if these opened to a panic room? Or if I were important enough to have a panic room? But I digress.

They are simply doors to storage in the form of shelves, drawers, and a bar. A bar!!! This is what those sneaky little alcoves looked like before Labor Day:





Wow, that's embarrassing.

I'm excited to share the after pics. You see, when I opened the boxes, sorted out the junk, let the kids rabble rouse with the scraps of bubble wrap until they were suffering *pop* *pop* auditory hallucinations (all in the name of getting them out of my hair), and gave each piece a home, the sum of the parts was actually lovely.





I find the spaces calming and aesthetically pleasing. I've stood in the open doorways more than once just to allow the control freak within breathe in the quiet organization. I have been so happy with it all, I was inspired to do a giveaway based on the experience.

And then my brain hit a wall, which is what happens when I try really hard to have my best thoughts. I couldn't imagine anything cool enough. I could give away my favorite organizational product, but that's only if I had one. Or I could give away my favorite cleaning product, but who gets excited about the Tarjay version of Clorox wipes. Other than me, I mean.

It was an MBG-brain-funk-idea-clogathon until tonight, when some really special randomness presented itself to me.



The little Gs said things like, "Ewwww! Mom! Kill it!" BG was confused when I offered it to him on a piece of notebook paper [<--there's a hint about scale!]. But I knew exactly what needed to happen. Out came the camera. It was just what I was hoping for to complete the Labor Day blog post / giveaway of my dreams!

The reason this... item... is so perfect is that it makes little sense without the rest of... them. In context, it's normal, but when it's isolated, as it is above, it's got the WEIRD! factor I just crave. And as a bonus for those of you who have shown excessive patience by reading this rambling mess from the top down, it fits the sum/parts theme I'm forcing here.

Here are the rules:

(1) Leave a comment saying what you think the item is.
(2) You may guess more than once! But please only one guess per comment (multiple comments are welcome).
(3) The contest closes Monday, September 12, at 6PM Central time.
(4) I'd love to open this up internationally, but it won't work :(  US only, please. 
(5) You need to have an email address or blog link, etc., tied to your profile so that I can circle back for your shipping deets.

The first commenter to guess right wins __________. You know what's coming, right? The sum of its parts!

Good luck!

Hint: It is not an anatomically correct Grinch heart.

The Ballroom Whisperer

I can barely type the next sentence because I am so freaking excited.

We have the drawings back from the architect.

And this dude is not just an architect. He's an architect rolled in OMGWTFBBQ, deep-fried in amazeballs, and topped with awesomesauce.

He dropped by Friday with the large-scale print-out and was so relaxed about his talent. If I had 20% of it, I'd be yelling through a bullhorn approx 23 hours a day: "Bow down to me. I am awesome. Do you see how awesome I am?" at which point, I'd yank a ballroom renovation out of my back pocket as proof and stun all the haters into silence. <--Do you see how negative I am? Even in my imagination, there are haters.

I can't scan in the drawing for you because of copyright rules, but what I can do is upload my crappy interpretation of his geniusry.

Before: Ballroom (a big (1,024 square feet!) sucky rectangle)


After: Two bedrooms, a laundry room, and a study


Are there some issues with my drawing? Yes. For example, there are two hallways, but you don't see what they come off of or why they're there. It's just too complicated for my Paint skills, which I believe I have proven unworthy in a previous blog post. In full context, the hallways make so much sense it's scary. Additionally, I've got the bedrooms shown as different sizes. The reason for the size discrepancy is probably obvious. We'll give the kid we love the least the smallest room.

The thing about this architect is that he took our vision for our house and turned it into a stunner. It had me speechless for a moment--and even if you don't know me, you can probably guess how rare that is. BG was as lit up as a Christmas tree as the architect explained his logic for placement of walls and plumbing. Then the architect said something that shook me to my core: "Usually when I see a house and plan a renovation, I have a vision for it, and that's all I can see. That's the way it must be done. It's the only way. And that's how I feel about your house. Does that even make sense?"

Does it make sense?! Tunnel vision is my religion!

Would it be reality if everything had continued on such a high note? Of course not. The really depressing number stuff followed. If he were to oversee this project, it would be in the "100 k range." He actually said "kay," like the letter. I guess he knew if he hit us with the linguistic punch of "one-hundred-thousand-dollars," BG and I might drop dead on top of his beautiful drawing.

And so, for now, the drawing will be a lovely prop we show guests when they visit.

"Do you see what we have planned for the house?"

"Ooooh, aaaaah."

Even if it takes 30 years to finance it, we'll be telling the truth, right?