my new closet... crazy idea... good outcome... but too much work!

Paint zombie!!!!

I have been working on my closet for 3 days straight. All the fine, detail painting I am doing in there is making me go cross-eyed. I can't wait to share finished pictures with you!

We are having a family get together this weekend, so while I am working on the closet, Steven & kids are working on tidying the house and doing a to-do list I put together. Because the front porch ceiling simply HAS to be haint blue. And the birdhouses I so lovingly antiqued need to be mounted on the clematis-covered copper posts since the old ones deteriorated so.

Hope all is going great for you all... Hopefully I will have closet pictures soon!!

new member of the family

A couple weeks ago, I told you all about a stray cat we had befriended and named Kyle. Kyle died and my kids were quite upset about it. Even the little ceremony we had and the statue we placed in the yard didn't seem to make up for his loss. Click here to read about Kyle

For Fourth of July, we went to Steven's brother's house to celebrate. One of his cats had recently had kittens. There were three left. I believe he said one had died already. There was a little runty kitten there, skin and bones, that we immediately scooped up. One look from the kids, and we had to take him home. The boys decided he looked just like Kyle, so we named the kitten Kyle II.

Kyle II, although he was an outdoor cat, took to the litter box immediately. A trip to the vet confirmed he is on the road to recovery and he has already plumped up to .9 pounds. It is hard to get a picture of a rambunctious kitty, but here he is prowling around the kitchen window:

To show just how tiny he is, I scooped him up for a quick picture:

Welcome home, Kyle!

dreaming of blue kitchens...

I am a tortured soul... I know I said I was doing the kitchen with B&W, and pink and green accents ... then I saw the Martha Stewart robin's egg blue collection at Macy's. (Right after I bought her cast iron in the green apple color.) And then I start flipping through magazines and see these aqua kitchens. And it makes me think, paint is cheap... I could repaint the walls I just painted 6 months ago...

My cabinets are already white... but the pale blue cooker and hood are to die for.

The pale blue rounded island. The wicker on the bottom cabinets. Yummy! I love butcher block and black counters, too. Only thing I'd change is the white floor. I'd do a reclaimed hardwood.

I love the color of the cabinets. Looking at this picture, it talks me out of painting my cabinets blue since I have white walls... Maybe if just the lowers were blue...


The little splashes of pink in this one is similar to what I was going for... but I feel like it reads too white. I don't want to have a Holly Hobby kitchen, but I do need some color. I hope my floral fantasmo curtains don't read too froo-froo. I want retro, not flowery.

Robin's egg walls and white cabinets, hardwood floor. So pretty, and yet I am thinking I like the white walls better. Isn't that weird? I love color and yet I like the pictures of white walls best. I think I can live with white walls only if there is a lot of color going on everywhere else.

Isn't it pretty? Very 50s. But again... I am still drawn back to the white walls. It's torture!!!

The sloped ceiling makes me love this room!

I have a bunch of magazine clippings to go through. I have so many pink appliances, it would be too difficult for me to go entirely aqua. But maybe I can bring in aqua and keep the pink...

brainstorming colors for my closet

As if I didn't have enough projects going already, I want to circle back around and work on my closet a bit. This is the closet that connects the master bedroom to the kitchen. In the kitchen, this is the door that I painted with the one -two - three... we put the table in front of it, so you can't pass through it anymore. This was likely the pantry, but later converted to a closet when the house was remodeled in the late 40s.

I have another closet in the master bedroom that I use for my work clothes. This one is for my casual clothes since everything is folded up in laundry baskets. Awhile back, I painted the trim pastel pink and the walls a pale pink. I don't know... the pale pink isn't doing it for me. I like the pastel pink trim, but I am just not convinced on the pale pink.


Artwork in the closet? Yeah, kinda weird. My very good friend, Dave, a.k.a. Damage in the recording biz, painted this huge portrait of me. I am going to get it framed once the closet is all painted up.

The wood floor in the closet is great. I love the old distressed look of the wood... authentic from years of use... I will clean up the little paint blobs. Really, I will.

I found this globe at Habitat Restore for $3. I thought it was an interesting shape and will try to use it in the closet. I just have a bare bulb in there now. I was going to try a jewel-drippy chandy... but this was too cool to pass up.

So there you have it... I am looking for suggestions on what color to paint the closet. I need a wall color, and suggestions for a trim color if you hate the pink. I know pink isn't everyone's thing... but pink, for me, is right up there with aqua / robin's egg blue. :)

Help!!!

a bit about me

I have been posting all about our home for awhile now. Every now and then I mention something about the boys (Emery, Satchel, Dane and Bowie) or the pets ot Steven, but never really about me. (Other than what I am working on!) So I thought I would share a little about myself as a get-to-know-you post. And hopefully you all will share something fun about yourselves, a link to your blog, etc.

So... My name is Sarah Beth. My friends call me Puck. Long story short, it is a silly nickname from back when I had the time to play hockey. One of many habits I don't seem to have time for anymore!

I like music, dancing, and cars... and before I had house projects and kids coming out of my ears, I liked to perform.


Steven and I met while playing in a band. He plays guitar, and I play bass and sing. Years later, we try to find the time to jam. We do have a band called customgrind and have been working on a CD. However, we haven't done a show since early in my pregnancy with our baby boy, Bowie. I did a lot of shows while pregnant with Dane (now 4), but decided my back couldn't take a heavy guitar and a baby at once anymore. Here I am performing (just a couple month pregnant) at our last show. This was at Whisky Tango, I believe:







I mentioned I like cars. I like to wrench, drive, race, drool over, etc. My first car as a '86 Mustang LX in regetta blue. I have own a string of Mustangs since then. I saved my current car, a 94 Mustang GT, simply because 94/95 was the last year of the 5.0 engine. It has been a project car for me over the years. I have taken it to the drag strip, autocross course and open track. This is my "fun" car in action:




But, you know, the 2-door Mustang is not so kid-friendly. I can't fit all 4 boys, plus Steven, in there. I needed a "mom-mobile." I can't handle the thought of a mini-van, so I decided if I was going to get a station wagon, it had to be a really cool one... I needed a Rambler. Steven did some digging and found a 1963 Rambler Classic 770 wagon for me. It is a work in progress, and early progress at that, but someday I will share pics!

And dancing. It has always been a passion of mine. I have taken ballet, jazz, modern, etc. Most recently, I was involved with a hip hop team. We were working to compete, but our coach moved and it all sort of fell apart. It was great fun (and exercise) while it lasted. Hopefully soon, I can begin dancing again, be it hip hop, ballet or jazz. It is all fun.

You already know I live in Baldwin City, KS. Before that, I lived in Bailey & Castle Rock, Colorado for a few years. I grew up in Fremont, Nebraska and Neola, Iowa. Pretty much a Midwest Girl. I was always amazed by people's perceptions about the Midwest when I would travel around to client sites. Especially in California. Clients would remark that I must really enjoy getting to be in California for a few months, as if it HAD to be better there than my home. I would tell them how much I enjoyed gardening, and how green everything was at home. Glamorous Hollywood is actually pretty brown and a bit dreary, to me. And I didn't met anyone famous. Well, I might have met some reality or MTV hipster, but I never know who the young girls are on the cover of magazines anymore. Do any of them where underpants anymore?

But I digress... Hopefully, you feel like you know me a little more. It is funny how we follow each other's blogs and feel like friends, even though it is all just cyberspace, huh?

a place just for mommy...

I fell in love with this Cath Kidston tent:

Camera-phone image of my Country Living magazine

Which prompted me to start Googling Cath Kidston tents and found this:

Cath Kidston tent

My 4 boys have an inexpensive tent we picked up at Target... we set it up in the "dog yard" and let them camp out during the summer. Because our dogs are there, and often in the tent with the boys, we think it is good, safe family fun. While my boys probably would camp in a pink tent (they are very much into pink... guess it is the new "boy" thing.), I was thinking more in terms of a mommy get-away.

I never had much pretty, frilly stuff growing up. Maybe that is why I have began embracing my feminine side with decorating lately... I finally LET myself use pink paint and fabric. So, I started thinking, "Why can't I have a pretty pink tent?" Can't a mommy have anything fun?

I have a couple ideas for a nice "mommy hang-out" in my garden. Why not sew up a cute little tent for it? It would be a nice shady place... could be fun! I will keep you posted on what I cook up. :)

a walk along the new garden path

A few more garden shots, and a little FAQ...

As I said last week, we worked (HARD!) on putting in the garden path that runs beside the house, from the front porch to the fenced off "dog yard." The "dog yard" is the area we let the pups run about, beside our garage, but before you get to the backyard.

I also took the time to do a LOT of editing in the side gardens. I put in a lot of catmint the last couple years, and it got out of control. While we enjoyed the bushy, full look it gave us, it began choking out the other plants. I transplanted the catmint to the other side of the house since the Japanese maple and the Tinkerbell lilac would be big enough to stand their ground against the catmint.

It looks nice from a distance, but up-close, all that bushy catmint had taken over.

Honestly, the little plants beneath all that catmint seemed to say THANK YOU! Once the catmint was out, I was able to access the back layer of plants for a good pruning. I moved the trellis over for the sweet pea since it had grown too tall for the structure it was on, Russian sage got a nice shaping, etc.


Next came the new plants to fill in where the catmint was... Geranium, allium, sedum, cheddars, etc. filled the void.

The are scrawny now, but soon, the new baby plants will bush out and spill onto the path to give me that lush cottage garden look I love.

Ignore the hose and you'll see the neat little peak at the rose garden just around the blue spruce.

The sitting area in the back. I have the baby blue cushions for the bench in the wash. I will share with you the rose garden (to the right) when we get the salvaged gates moved in. Steven replaced this section of the fence and built the cute little double-opening gate. I asked for a scalloped pattern and black, and he did a great job!

The daisy garden around the copper wash basin. I fell in love with the puffy pink echinacea. Soon, the Big Daddy hydrangea will have puffy pink blooms as well. Nothing in the basin yet... maybe this weekend?

Any gardening successes at your home?

deep.. dark... black...

Mmmm.... I feel in love... I had found this picture awhile back, from Design Sponge, I think:

And then Desire to Inspire posted these today:

These are photos of designer Jessica Helgerson's latest client, an American Foursquare. For those not into architecture, American Four Square are the two-story boxy houses. Usually have a front porch, shutters on the 4 windows on the front... Anyway... being from the same era as my house (late 1800s / early 1900s), this home has woodwork JUST LIKE MINE!

I have been talking about how I am making this shift from liking white, to going black... And I keep looking at the woodwork in the house, which is stained a medium-to-darkish brown... and thinking, these need to be dark to POP (yes, I said POP, sue me) against my pale walls.

This woodwork is the kick-in-the-butt I needed to make myself want to strip down the woodwork and go dark. Not painted black. But stained ebony. Mmmm...

Now, the white walls? Not something I can go to. I have 4 boys, and I can tell you with light sage green, powder blue, etc... my walls show little bitty handprints like crazy. I know I couldn't deal with white everywhere. My bathroom has white since it is my private sanctuary, and it looks amazing against the aqua blue floor. But, notsomuch in my living room. I am just not quite there yet.

I also love the mix of furniture. I tend to pick up antique / vintage pieces and fix them up. I like things not looking like they all came from the same page of a Pottery Barn catalog. I love it. What would YOU call this style?

first glimpse: the garden path

The path is really looking great! Steven and the boys finished up the weeding, and Steven rolled out the mesh until we ran out (oops!). I loaded up the wheelbarrow with stones and dumped them onto the path until I thought my hands and back were going to give out. Steven, manly man that he is, finished the last loads himself.

With a trip to Home Depot to get some more mesh, we have enough to wrap up the path today. So I can move on to a new problem... more about that in a bit. I shall call that "Operation Catmint."

Here are some pictures of the path, and stay tuned later for more pictures and information on "Operation Catmint."

A close-up of the path. The stones look very pretty when wet, but when dry, well... they look like stones. But I can't believe how great it is to walk on a real path and not a muddy mess! That is catmint overhanging the path... can you guess what Operation Catmint might be?

Here is a quick shot of the path... this is going from the slate sidewalk around the side of the house. The path goes all the way to our back yard. See those giant bushy catmint plants? See where I am going with this? Oh, and our neighbors house in the background. Our neighbor is elderly and wheelchair bound, so his yard usually is pretty straggly. Steven hits a lot of it with the lawnmower since his SIL isn't always over to mow. The fence we are building will give a nice buffer and block out the view of his AC unit there.

So, what do you think? Looks like it's getting better, right?

a ton of rock for the path... literally!

These guys are called "mini jacks." They are large rocks, about 2-3" in size and are varying black and whites, mainly white with black speckles. I originally fell in love with the all-black, smooth mexican beach pebbles, but my budget couldn't afford them. So we went with these mini jacks at Sturgis landscaping for $150 a ton.

It may not look like a lot, but this is a bit over a ton (1.16 tons to be exact). At Sturgis, they had me weigh the truck before and after. I like that - some places estimate by approximately how much is in a Bobcat scoop.

Steven thinks the path will need another load - which will make a LOT of rocks! He needs to do a bit of leveling work on the little paver pad he built along our path for our little scrolly bench... the rain has been washing away the sand and causing havoc with his pavers. He will get everything back to square, lock it in with some paver retaining edger stuff, and then start laying the landscaping mesh on the path. (After the boys finish weeding the path, of course). We put in the garden path last year but haven't gottenaround to the rocks until now... So, here we go!

I really can't wait to share pictures of the path with you all. We see it in our head and it looks so pretty! I have some editting to do in the garden since last year... my catmints all got 3 times bigger than the tags said. My entire garden is being taken over by giant, bushy catmint. So I need to transplant the catmint where they are less invasive and replace them with something less bushy. Maybe some pink forget-me-knots.

Any suggestions on a pretty, cottage-y plant that gets, oh, 6-8" high and is pink or purple? :)