Christmas 2011

We had a pretty freaking fantastic holiday season this year.  Partly because we got to sleep right next to the Christmas tree.  And we can't move it back yet because I haven't painted the bedroom yet.  Ooooh, darn.  We'll just have to leave it like this for a couple more weeks. 

Here's our winter wonderland. . .

Above: you can see we finally parted with the big brown couch, so now we just have two couches like most normal people.  Except our bed is in the living-room, so we're clearly not normal.

 Above: our crazy nativity scene, complete with Batman and a Guatemalan Mary and Joseph with a giant Caucasian baby Jesus.

Above: That's Stewy the Christmas Angel on the left [I made him quite a while ago], and a new ornament for this year.  It's an orange door cottage!  I found it at a local antique mall.

Above: the wreath was similar to last year, but with the addition of the metal flower I purchased at Crafty Wonderland in Portland this year.

Above: these two cuties are new this year, also found at our local antique mall.  On the right is a Santa I found last year, and this year I found his snowman friend!

I hope you all had fantastic New Year parties and are excited for the months to come. 

Spicy

Let's just say I've been busy this week.  I moved the bedroom into the living-room and part of the living-room into the bedroom.  I got some new stuff, got rid of some old stuff, and our car got broken into and they stole some stuff.

It's all worked out.  And I have to say, even though it's temporary, getting to sleep right next to our Christmas tree is awesome.  Part of me wants to delay painting the bedroom so we can stay out here longer.

So I haven't started painting yet.  But I did tackle this disgusting mess of spices we had lurking in our pantry and on our fridge. . .

We already had the containers, but I had put labels on the sides before and stuck some tape over them.  Not only did that make them hard to see, but they got very gross looking very quickly.

I took off all the old labels and cleaned up the containers.  Then I grabbed a fine-tip white paint pen and wrote the names of all the spices where we could actually see them: on the front.  Ahhhhh... much better!

Score! Vintage Linens

I know this is not everybody's thing.  In fact, I'm sure plenty of people are adamantly against it.  But I love vintage linens.  Especially crazy flower-power ones with plenty of orange and yellow.  And then I like to mix them all together on the same bed.  See?

Yes, they're super wrinkly.  I refuse to iron my pillowcases.  Sorry.

I went thrifting in Seattle and Tukwila last weekend and had pretty awesome luck.  Then I went thrifting in McMinnville [Oregon] and also had awesome luck.  It's been a good week!  I have more scores to show you, but one thing at a time.

As I'm sure you know, we painted our bedroom grey before we moved in.  And THIS is about what it has looked like for the year+ that we've lived here.  But guess what?  I'm going to repaint it.  I know, I know, I'll probably get reamed for this.  But it's my bedroom and I have to sleep in it, and I'm tired of the grey! 

You're going to laugh when you hear what color I'm painting it.  Yup, that's right.  WHITE.  Sue me.  I love white rooms.  Remember those awesome vintage linens?  They're going to pop in the fresh white bedroom, and I have a couple other projects in my brain that's going to make the bedroom even awesome-er.  For those of you attached to the grey and yellow, enjoy it for a couple more weeks.  I won't be repainting until next month ;).

Happy Halloween

I love Halloween. 
We got a late start on decorating for it this year.  As in, we just did it yesterday.  Honestly though, it was really fun doing all this on Halloween Eve!  Mike and I went to TWO pumpkin patches, drank almost an entire half gallon of cider, carved pumpkins, watched MST3K zombie movies and had a grand old time. 

We did everything [including decorations and candy] for about $30.00.  The wreath and black leaves I already had from last year.  We added the cheap plastic spiders on some thread.  Totally makes the wreath.

I moved the chalkboard out from my office, and put it on the upturned umbrella bucket [IKEA].  We scattered the pumpkins around and done.  Easy but colorful and fun.

Please avert your eyes from the filth on our welcome mat.  I need to shake that out today. . .

Happy Halloween everyone!

Well hello!

I bet you thought I'd never post again ;).

But I told you I'd be back! 

So here is the status update on all things Orange Door Cottage.

MYSELF: I had a whirlwind of a wedding season, traveling all over the place and photographing weddings.  It was awesome.  And super stressful.  Also awesome.  Now I am back home, running around doing fall family sessions, working as a part-time nanny for the coolest 7 yr. old ever, and saving up pennies.

THE YARD:  It still looks exactly the same as it did when I showed it to you last time.  These things take time, you know.  And money.  Our amazing landscape architect is fleshing out the planting plan as we speak, and we are hoping to begin construction [slowly] in Spring 2012.  We are starting with a fence and the back deck for sure.  We need us some freaking privacy, and a place to lounge.

THE INSIDE: I've done several little things since you saw the inside last, even if the bathroom looks exactly the same.  I've organized cupboards, put up new curtains in the living-room and hung up more art and photographs, etc.  There are several projects on the roster for the drizzly months when I'm done with photographing families and have several months before my next wedding season starts.  One of them includes some old classroom chalkboards and a very unique collection of black&white photographs.  I'm excited to show you :).

More soon!

Featured on Go{4}Pro + Announcement

Hey all!

So, for those of you who haven't seen it yet, Leah over at Go{4}Pro did up a super nice feature of my office.  You can see it by clicking HERE. 

In other news...
I wanted to let you know that, as much as I'd like to be one of those studly blogs-daily-while-juggling-the-rest-of-life chicks, I really am not.  I am 100% committed to my business, and actually trying to be more faithful at blogging over HERE on a [mostly] daily basis.

I am looking at a busy couple of months with two wedding in NY, one in Jamaica, one in Costa Rica and who knows where else by the end of this wedding season.  It's going to be a whirlwind!  When I come home in-between my trips, you can bet I'm going to be cuddling with the hobbit and not even wanting to touch a paintbrush.

You can be for SURE that when I do a new project, like landscaping, I will be photographing the crap out of it and blogging it asap.  But you can also be sure that it's not going to happening on an even close to daily basis.  I would definitely recommend subscribing or doing whatever RSS magic works best for you so that you don't come knocking here every day and leaving disappointed.  That would make me sad.

To those of you who stick around long enough to see my next posts, you're awesome!  I so appreciate reading everyone's comments and feeling the love.  And if you never come back again, I'll forgive you.  It's cool.   Whatever.  ;)

I'll be back.  Pinky swear.

The Dollhouse Wall | Before

At last I'm actually showing it to you!  These are the "before" pictures.  I don't have any "afters" yet -- those are going to involve buying paint.

Anyway, here we go. . .

That, dear readers, is my childhood dollhouse that my mom built.
Cue "awe."
I got a bazillion imagination miles out of this thing when I was younger, and now it's going to get even more!  It was all set up to play Little House on the Prairie.  Mom even made a stable [which used to be on the left side], a well, and old-fashioned dresses for all the dolls.  Pretty spiffy, eh?

With well-wishings from the creator of the dollhouse, it's going to be getting a face-lift soon.  A good sanding, some fresh white paint, the "foundation" finished off with some nice trim, and so on.

THEN, it very possibly might be moving into the bedroom. . . I'm not sure yet.
Another thing you might notice is that the orange chair has moved from here:

to the dollhouse wall.
Why, you ask?  Well, remember all the work I did on this side of the room?

It's going bye-bye.  Sorry!  It's not because I don't like it.  I do.  I just realized it would be much better for my business if I have that wall set up as small studio to provide headshots, etc.  So now I'm selling that desk [does anyone want it?] and moving everything off the walls, etc. 

I'm slowly making my way through the Interior To-Do list.
And now I've shown you the unfinished dollhouse wall!  Gulp.  I better get busy. . . someday in the not too distant future the dollhouse wall and the crafty-turned-studio-wall should be more on par with the rest of the room.