Sister Paint

Lockbox and I together are a little combustive. I don't mean that we conflict but more that like a combustive engine we are a positively explosive combo. The two of us here in the house means that suddenly we're caught up on the washing, planning art projects, starting new books with the boys and randomly busting open cans of wall paint! Huzzah!

The other night when we were sitting around together, plotting the final hours before A came home and what still needed to be finished...we got the urge to paint. With no real warning we found ourselves in the dining room with paint and brushes, screeching all the furniture to the center of the room and skipping the whole taping off the edges part. Bam. The dining room is that beautiful Swedish grey I've been contemplating. I went with the darker color that I wasn't sure I was brave enough to try and we repainted all the gloss white trim to contrast.

I love it.

Lockbox is galvanizing for me. She tells me to go ahead and do the things I am bashfully considering and then volunteers to hold the ladder.

Love sisters.

Carpe Minutum!

Am feeling a little more in control of my life again at the moment which I realize is probably a passing fancy here, on the brink of The Holidays...but hey! Today I took the kids to their first theatrical production and left the baby for the first time...(He did great, my friend Nutmeg rocks!) and feeling thus emboldened...I decided to paint a little. There are such ugly risers on our stairs...potentially pretty but so scuffed and chipped and splotched with various colors that they are pretty uninspiring. Have been itching to paint them a nice gloss white for ages and ages. Why not now?!? Since dinner is in the crockpot, the kids are asleep and I don't have to dash out again for the afternoon doctor's appointment for another half an hour...I'm all over it. Ha! Feels so good!

Am trying to become an expert at carpe diem and even more realistically in my life carpe minutum...seize the minute. My life is a woven thatch of moments right now and so there are not often whole days but there are always moments. Must read more books and less reflexive facebook checking, must clean one little spot, sort one little box, lay out an outfit for one child and spend less time standing there wondering what I was doing, wishing I had more energy or lying in bed hitting snooze. There is a place in life for letting go and relaxing your mind and your frenetic To Do List but there's also a lot to be said for doing little things here and there to make your life more peaceful and happy and productive. Am ever inspired to do better with what I have....better than most people say I have any right to expect I can be. Thus we achieve...by trying.

Trimming My Sails

English: Paintbrush Português: Trincha (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The radiator, segueing from old dingy white to glossy new white.

The sun is shining, the tomatoes are pouring in, the weather is finally cool enough to stand and the mosquitoes are thicker than thieves in our yard. My speckled legs bear testament. Urgh. So...I'm painting indoors for respite.

Before Trim

After Trim!

 The trim in the boy's bath is finally getting a glossy coat of white and I'm humming away. Coming along, isn't it? I'm so excited about the whole project. I think this room may really end up looking miles better. I adore the cool aqua blue on the walls and shiny white trim always makes me feel better. Have a peek!

The baby has learned to stay asleep for a reasonable amount of time and little jobs like this don't require any taping or hauling out of drop cloths. I could do picky detail work like this all day long. I love being down on my hands and knees with a bitty brush, trying to be sure to go right up to the very edge. What does that mean about me? Something important I'm sure.

The Bathroom Saga, Part Three

Oh man....time gets away. Here I am, finally...sharing what I hoped would be the third and final chapter of the story about the bathroom walls but which looks like it will actually be Bathroom Saga Chapter Three of....four? I hope just four. It will all eventually end. I believe in it.

One time I ripped down all that strange, vinyl wallpaper with the blue faux wood pattern and was left in the world of caked on old glue. Then I got inspired in this post and kismet happened and I found the-most-fabulous-wallpaper-glue-removing-spray-in-the-world. (Everyone who has old wallpaper to remove, run, don't walk to that link and order some from Amazon immediately! Chomp rocks and I'm not even sort of being paid to say that.)

So then, A pitched in and we sprayed and scraped and scraped and sprayed and swept up glue bits off the floor and washed it off our feet and daubed it off of various children and then one day we finished!Woohoo!!!There actually was a finite amount of glue on the wall and it didn't and couldn't go on forever. Hooray! After all the scraping and stripping and what-not there was a little spackle work to do and then some light sanding to wrap the whole thing up.

Tah Dah!!!!Naked walls!!!!

So very, very clean...except for a little random white paint at the top...odd, eh?

And so now the walls stand naked before us! Naked, boring walls never looked so good. Such a relief. So, now we have a manic, crazy week ahead of us and we won't get a chance to slap the two or three coats of soft tealy blue on the walls that I have all ready and waiting in a can. But I feel it...we're close.

The Here And Now

Our fig tree is making fruit!

Life is slow and gentle at our house today. I painted this morning with my art fellowship group, we did a little errand running and now there's a chicken, slow roasting in the oven while we dash off for a post-nap park run and then pick up A from work.

Cold winter light through my blue bottle collection on the kitchen sill

I picked up paint to turn the foyer/entry area into a dark teal color with glossy white trim, a new print of a Jose Royo portrait is in the mail to me to hang on the main wall and I am hoping to attack the cupboard that I've stationed there to catch keys, and hold a scented candle and house baskets of mittens.

Little sculpture, little plant life: bright spots in our sunroom.

What else is new? The weather is insane. Last week we had chilly temps and our first real accumulation of snow. I was out shoveling snow up around the bee hive to insulate it extra and try to provide some protection. And then abruptly over the weekend we had a blast of warm air and a long rainy drizzle that made all the snow disappear into a swirl of foggy mist. The upside is, I've been out counting daffodil tips in the flower beds and have taken to morning walks before anyone else is up. (Yay motivation to be physical!) The downside is that although April weather feels good, it is after all only January and something feels unsettled in the pit of my stomach at all this balmy cheer. I hope the trees and the bees can weather it alright.

I can't get enough kumquats. And they're cute as all get out.

My reading list at the moment. Food issues, birth, gardening, poems. Good fodder.

I'm eating well....doing all in my power to avoid ridiculous cravings and gain control of my urge to sooth myself with food. (see the top book on my current reading stack above, for reference) I have dusted off my juicer and been revving myself up once daily with the juice of the hour and am still tracking what I eat on fitday, aiming for optimal nutritional content. I am also doing a pretty good job at weighing myself and tracking my progress there. I have gained 10 lbs so far this pregnancy and am at week 21 so I'm feeling good.

How I'm looking these days.

Speaking of pregnancy, the other big news is that we've found a midwife! It's about time! Halfway through is wayyyyy to late for my comfort level...but better late than never. We'll be delivering at the only birth center in the state this time which will bring my personal birth experience to a new level of well-rounded since I've been at home, and in the hospital already. Good for a future midwife, right? Someone tell me yes. Am still feeling a little bit unsettled and nervous about it but they have told me they're willing to handle my ITP and allow me to birth in their cozy home-like birthing room. I have found no other midwife besides Martha, my late provider who was willing to take on a blood issue like mine so that was a deal maker for sure. We're an hour away which is kind of annoying and there are still a few more medically procedures that I'll have to deal with than I'd prefer but it seems like a good solution so over-all I'm feeling grateful. My first real appointment is on February 2nd. Am looking forward to getting the ball rolling.

Sometimes You Need A Little Taupe

I swear I decorate in rash episodes. I mean to have strategic plans and check things off cleverly one by one working my way methodically through the house creating a nest of beauty as I go. But what really happens? I wake up one random Wednesday morning and decide I have had enough....today I must paint the upstairs hall. Life and death hangs on it. And it has to be done before I take the boys to their co-op meeting, and before the babysitter gets here, and before my extremely stress laden meet-and-greet appointment with the birth center that is my last out of hospital hope. I am not sure if this is insanity, stress relief, brilliant inspiration or nesting.

Pre-renovation stairwell and view into hallway

Ripping out that old carpet

Who really cares? The hall looks good! Not finished, there is still a floor to finish, a ceiling to paint, and trim to re-paint with gloss white. But its starting to really look sophisticated and pretty and to hint at how I want the house to feel. Its a lot better than the plasticky faux wood panelling look + really dingy carpet look that was there before.

I always leave a set of squares for each of the boys to paint at the very end with their own brushes

Nib's first experience getting in on painting himself.

I've never painted a wall taupe before. I feel like a grown-up. It's very elegant on the wall, not boring and it feels adult. I had the runner on the floor and my friend and very sophisticated pal, who also happens to be Ru's godmother suggested taupe after taking an advisory stroll through the place during a co-decorating brainstorm. She's edgy and eclectic and hip and not at all the boring, bland over-elegant style of decorator that I makes me shrink into a very small version of myself. I aspire to be as expressive and creative as this girl. She's that hip.

The finished product. Hall doors and trip all white,walls taupe to match the cool runner.

And when I finished I re-hung the mirror I took down out of the kid-bath which is darn cool but going to be replaced by a medicine cabinet.

Good thing I kept it, eh? It's classy.

Anyhow...all that to say, she told me instantly that I needed taupe. "Taupe walls are the thing in here." And I would never, never have decided that on my own (I go for colors like teal and peacock and bright grape) but when she said it I could see it immedietly and it felt right and I also remembered that I somehow had a bucket full of taupe paint in the basement that I'd pick up somewhere on clearance. So, that was this summer and here we are, a few months later...tucking into bed, in a room off our newly classy hallway. Ah! Accomplishment. One "room" down...five million to go.

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When in Doubt, Copy Your Sister!

Look what I did today! Woohoo!!!!

I've been wanting an area rug for the dining room for a long time. Rugs have such a great way of completing a room and designating spaces and making everything look all legitimate. They are perhaps my greatest interior decorating discovery yet. (Yes, I am in the early stages.) But, yes, let's do be honest, shall we? My dining room floor is horrific...not even sort of the place for a rug. I am wretched about cleaning up the floors after meals. They really get gross. I don't know how I'd ever manage in a house with carpet under the dining room table. My mother-in-law is awe-inspiring in this category...all busily down there on her hands and knees picking up each crumb my kids tossed overboard during the meal.

Right. So, after I established that there was no way a rug was happening...I mourned it and lived with the room feeling bareish for about a year. But did I give up? No! I hatched a somewhat crazy plan. See, my kid sister, Foxy had done this wonderful floor stencil in her dining room and it made my jaw drop. A "rug" that was stenciled onto fairly unfinished wood floors that we have for which there are no terribly concrete plans regarding their shining refinished future. Heh. It's pretty cheap and brilliantly simple. I had a can of white paint around for painting all the trim the house and I just dipped into that. It took hardly any volume to paint this pattern. I bought one plastic stencil on Etsy, I picked a somewhat complicated damask design which meant that I could cherry pick it apart and selectively stencil little bits here and there to make the rug design look more diverse.

And I love it! I know it will get grubby and eventually fade and be scuffed and scratched but as you can see by I'm not really going for a perfect look, I am thinking more old farmhouse, romantic/rustic than upscale. And eventually I expect we'll sand it off in favor of those shining floors and then I'll be back to the same old problem.

But for now...I love my new lacy rug.

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Peek In My Portfolio

It's been quite a while since I talked about my painting, but don't worry, that's not because I've quit! It's just because summer is insane and I forget to share. I am also having a little bit a lull right now because our painting group is on a kind of holiday for a few weeks but I fully expect to continue painting as soon as I get the chance. I thought I'd do a little bit of painting outside of our meetings while we were all adjourned but I am amazed to discover that I have done none. Zip. Ah well...I'm growing big juicy tomatoes and thinking fondly of my brushes.
Here's the latest stuff I've painted, right before our recent break.

Part of the Grand Teton Range, I forget which peak.

This painting and the next three I painted while were on our family vacation this summer out at Yellowstone. I took my brush roll, my paintbox and a small portable watercolor block and painted using a little water in a soda bottle with a cap, whenever the group (we were with a family reunion) had a moment of downtime. It worked beautifully and was really exhilerating, some of the first in-situ work I've done. Another great thing about it was that it forced me to work quickly. I tend to get really caught up in all the slow, picky details of paintings and sometimes overwork things as a result. I'd like to become more quick and suggestive. These paintings were step in that direction.

We stopped for a picnic lunch at this lake and I painted while everyone else finished eating after I was done.

This tree was outside my cabin window and I sat at a desk and painted it one morning while the sun got warm and bright.

This IS the cabin window. Really hard to paint the fog on the windows, the light in the drapes and the shape of the log walls.

This is right around the corner from our house, I stopped the car to look at these amazing tree full of red berries a couple of times before I realized that I needed to paint them.

The above painting was another realy fun experiment in "looseness" as an artist. I worked on all those houses and the stone wall and the angles and geometry and then I took my brush with that bulls-eye red paint and I splattered the berries on those trees! EEP! It was kind of scary and super fun and it just happened to work.

This is one of my really classic-style landscapes. This wonderful tree arches over the little harbor on the lake where my in-laws live.

This painting was really fun too, kind of classic and I really struggled to make it feel like it had depth instead of just feeling flat. I love the colors...that bang of orange on the kayak and all that grey-blue next to it with the sun hitting all those gold/greens at the top. This painting feels like a moment I want to be in.

I love how this painting turned out. The glass jars, 3D effect of all those rows and the peach slices floating inside the containers as well as the metallic lids were a huge challenge but also a major triumph.

 Just as I was starting the canned peaches painting above, and just finishing the apricots in a bucket, below, a fellow painter friend wandered past and casually noted that they were companion works. How funny is it that here I was, painting this golden fruit sequentially and I hadn't even noticed that they "went together." Interesting the themes that develop.

This frame is a sort of goldy-orange metal frame, sleek and simple to counter-balance the sort of country feel of the painting and help it stay more versitile while playing on the same color themes. Love that gold ring of matting he put around the painting.

And now a little framing report. I have a wonderful, creative, kind and very expensive framer. I love, love, love his work but I seriously need to start selling some stuff to afford suiting up many more of my pieces. I thought I'd show you how a few of my most recent paintings ended up looking when he'd had his turn with them.

This painting was framed in a deep shadow-box style frame, and would look great with a small light shining on it to make the sunset scene glow. The colors washed out funny here but you get a view of the thick, chunky frame.

Here's how the painting actually looks. Pretty cool, eh?

And then this last one, which is now actually hanging on the wall in my kitchen! Hooray! I was surprised but pleased when he framed it in a big thick white frame. It's a bit hard to see on the white wall but it is a lovely maybe inch and half to two inch thick edge, and the matting is a big thick white cut on an angle around the painting. He made a pretty small little floral watercolor that could have felt like an afterthough into a much more dramatic, weighty piece.

So, that's what I've got at the moment. I can't wait to update again soon. I hope I'll have all kinds of lovely things to share in two shakes. This whole "taking breaks" thing is getting to me.

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