Five things; smells like...

These oriental lilies that Huynh got me "just because" (or as he put it for our "14 month and a day anniversary" if you are counting) are rocking my world. They are making my entry way table beautiful and my living room smell like a field of fresh flowers. Delicious. 

What other smells do I have lurking around our house that I just can't get enough of?

{tyler candle company - birthday cake; teskey's sadle shop}

{yankee candle}



{bath and body works}

{jb candles}

I am drawn to warm, clean scents for the house - probably due to the fact that in my house growing up, we didn't have a single candle. My mom is a rock star when it comes to not only cleaning her house but keeping it clean and smelling fresh.

Me, on the other hand, who tends to overcook bacon and has a dog that regularly emits smells that would knock you down, needs a candle or two to keep the house under control. Too fragrant gives me a headache so I like to keep it fresh when it comes to what wick I burn.

How do you keep your house smelling squeaky clean? Au naturale? Or do you regularly bake cookies? If so, I'm coming over.

Sat on a tuffet

It was so quick, you probably missed it... but yes, you caught a picture of our new (completely homemade) stool yesterday when we revealed the entry way.

It's here! It's finally completed!

It took months of sitting (no pun intended) before we finally finished our new stool! Completely made from scratch, it's surprisingly comfy and cute. I love it.

I started with some left over wood that I cut down to size (18" long to be exact). I knew that I wanted two tufts so I measured in 6" on either side and marked with an "X". I did the same on the other side - so that I would know whether the hole was straight or not - and went to drilling.

Close enough to the "X" to call it a day!

Oh and also I knew that it would be pretty forgiving so yes, close enough would be good enough.

I attached the Waddell Leg Plates, picked up at Home Depot, and the 4" foam picked up at JoAnn's. At the same time, I was also cutting the finishing trim - the legs were pre-bought.

Huynh was nice enough to trim down the foam to size - with a bread knife nonetheless. But then... I am not kidding when I say that this sat in the garage for months.

So fastforward to a week ago...

When Huynh was working on the longhorn, he also stained the legs and trim which finally gave me the jump start I needed to finish this stool. Well that and a completely free weekend - how often do one of those come around?

I covered the stool with a very, very thick batting - so thick that I am beginning to think that it actually wasn't batting - but it worked out well since we were able to make the top square and clean before putting the fabric on.

Since I work best sitting in front of the TV watching old How I Met Your Mother reruns, this was obviously done in the living room. The corners took some time - the perfectionist in me wanted them exactly the same but I finally caved when they were close enough to the same that they looked okay.

Quick rewind - I had planned on doing this before Huynh's birthday... in September. So this material has been sitting in my closet since then. Nice, huh.

I digress. The fabric is from Hobby Lobby which I picked to coordinate with our breakfast nook chairs. We actually don't have much yellow in the house so any bit is welcome.

The buttons were picked up from JoAnn's and were super easy to make. If you are planning on doing the same, I would heed the instructions to use a pencil eraser to make the fabric stick in the prongs. Makes all the difference. 

For the tufts, Huynh fashioned a "needle" out of a wooden chop stick and threaded the twine up through the hole in the bottom and out the top. Since the "needle" was so long, it was much easier to find the hole going back out the bottom. I then pushed in the button as hard and far into the foam as I could while he tied off the bottom to a washer to keep it all in place. Confused? Maybe the next pictures will help.

So, it's not perfectly square. I'm hoping that works itself out over time.

The bottom however? Not so pretty.

Now's a good time to really explain more of what all went down.

After the batting and fabric were all stapled into place and the tufts created - see the washers? Huynh tied those together so that they would lay flat but they aren't going anywhere. The trim I picked was too thin for us and our limited tools to properly screw through so Huynh stapled the corners together - since, no weight will actually be on this part as it is strictly for appearances - we aren't too worried about it going anywhere. He then screwed in a spare piece of wood to the bottom of the stool, which you see unstained, and then screwed straight into the trim pieces into the ends of that brace.

It's definitely not going anywhere.

The legs are square now, but we were afraid that over time, they might not be square anymore so we added the bottom cross brace for added support. Finally we added felt pads to the bottoms of the feet to protect our wood floors from getting scratched.

Of course it was supposed to fit under the entry way table to help cover the outlet but in a stroke of bad luck, it is about 2" too tall. Onto the next one...

Plan B: we shifted the umbrella holder to next to the door so the stool took it's place next to the entry way table. What a nice place to sit and take your shoes off. Or even to slide over to the dining room table for an extra seat.

The entry way is looking more and more completed! With Bevo, the table, umbrella holder, and of course our seasonal UT tree, the stool looks right at home. I love it.

We are on our way to Ft. Worth today to celebrate Christmas with the family. Have a good food and family filled weekend, y'all! Merry Christmas!

Longhorn goodness

Inspired by this picture of the longhorn we purchased a while back, Huynh decided to create his own wooden backdrop for our very own Bevo to hang on our decidedly un-wooden walls.

We had some left over 4x4s from the making of Gatsby's crate just lying around the garage that he cut to various lengths and then screwed them onto one singular plank, equally spaced apart.

I picked this stain with the hopes that it would be close in color to our dining room table (it is!). I fully intend on using it on the stool (for the entry way/dining room) and the coffee table (for the living room) - help to bring the warmth of wood tones into the furniture in our house.

Huynh also jumped on the Red Mahogany bandwagon and used it on the back drop. I think he's a fan of the color too.

He stained all of the pieces - including the undersides and the back brace, found some studs, and went to work mounting our steer head.

That sentence sounds manly.



Our Bevo now resides over the entrance to the hallway and watches over people as they walk into the house. It will also look good with the horseshoe I'm on the lookout for to hang above our front door (for luck!). Who said that a mid-century modern contemporary house couldn't have a touch of western?

And yeaaa, I can honestly say that Huynh did it all - I have such a crafty boyfriend. I love it!

"Petite Buffet"

I search Craig's List nightly. Mainly key words like "Buffet" or "Sideboard" but either way, I sit for hours flipping through all the new pieces of furniture that owners are selling that would look perfect on our very bare wall in the living room.

The other day, the words "Petite Buffet" caught my eye and not one to pass up a buffet I clicked on the link and found what I had been looking for. The price was right but the dimensions? Not listed. I feared that "petite" was going to be too small for the buffet that I am actually looking for to go in the living room which needs to be at least 55" long... but I emailed Jannet anyways.

She was so prompt in her response that this buffet was 48" long (oh, and the price was negotiable! woo-hoo!) so even though it was a tad too short for the long lost buffet of my dreams, it was perfect length for an entry way table to replace IKEA!

Howdy pillow was moved to the new chair, the bench shifted to the office, and the new entry way table found a new home!

Regardless that there might be too many "P"'s, I can't help but be excited that our keys finally have a place to land on this new Martha Stewart Pewter painted piece of goodness. 

Still some loose ends to be tied up - covering the socket since now it's basically framed and fixing the right door that doesn't stay closed - but easy enough for a weekend project. Surprisingly, Huynh is supportive of its curved lines - perhaps the grey won him over? And though I have no idea what I will store in here, I am sure that it is only a matter of time before it is full. 

Meanwhile, the office is looking a tad bit better.

The TV stand (originally in the living room)/TV stand (in my bedroom when I first moved in)/bench/now turned bookshelf will hopefully find some organization when I get around to it but at least it's getting the books up off the ground (and our bowling shoes out of the dining room since I don't want you to think that I think those pink and white tennis shoes are actually cute) for the time being. 

But enough about the thrown together office. Back to the fun part!

Well, hey, good lookin'.

So left in this entry/dining room:

• Find a table and chairs
• Possibly a rug (and here it is in the room!)
• Art
• Umbrella holder
• Find a catch all tray
• Find an entry way table (via write-in on the ballot)

There you have it. My ode to Craig's List.

Boo.

It's beginning to look a lot like Halloween!

I wouldn't necessarily call me a Halloween enthusiast but I am a fan so I decided to put together a little pumpkin vignette this weekend while the boys were busy watching football.

Taking left over orange yarn from the UT wreath, twine, and fabric that I picked up when I was trying to decide on ottoman colors for the living room, I took those foam pumpkins that are always on sale at Michael's and spruced them up just a bit.

So out of our weekend plans, that's one down. We did watch Star Wars; we even cleaned out camera memory. The trim was fixed but the reveal will come later. Plans were made for Gatsby's new crate and we even shopped for furniture. A clean office is still yet to be had but given the amount of napping I did this weekend, I am surprised I was able to get anything done (yes - me). Huynh on the other hand is the sole reason our house got vacuumed much less new trim in the laundry room. He's such a keeper.

Umbrella Box

After Huynh made the guest bedroom headboard, we had a pretty decent amount of MDF left over.

I noticed after taking pictures around the house for the home tour that we had a lot of umbrellas. Everywhere. Living room, bedroom, random suitcases. Thinking that we needed to wrangle those up, Huynh went to work making us an umbrella box.

Using what we had, he built a pretty basic box using his trusty jigsaw. He made it to fit right by the front door between the window and the door frame. Keeping in mind this was back in August... it sat like this for a long time...

Draft parties, actual parties, and life took over a couple of weekends in a row but taking advantage of the rain this past weekend, I finally decided it was time to do something about this.

To give the box some dimension, Huynh added trim while I primed the front where the monogram "P" would go.

I printed the "P" onto card stock creating my own stencil. I took an exacto-knife to cut it out then used a pencil to trace it onto the box. I then cut in with the black, a good paint brush, and a steady hand.

It might sound weird but I actually really like the texture that the MDF creates. It looks homemade just enough but still looks great in the space. But my favorite part would have to be the trim detail.

Now I have the perfect place for my yellow umbrella and I spy the perfect spot for my Missoni rain boots... since apparently I think it rains in Houston all the time (it does not). A girl can dream.