Paint Your Wagon

I am full of ideas lately, but sadly not too many useful house ideas. First it was castle dreams, now I can't stop thinking about getting a little travel trailer and fixing it up. I don't even really want it for travel, I just like the idea of using our RV parking pad to create a little getaway cozy nook. I remember when I was a kid I had a friend whose parents had a tent trailer that we could play in. It was always so fun to go out there and have this whole separate world. We spent hours in there despite it being so hot and musty inside. So I have been looking for old funky retro mini travel trailers for a while now. Airstream trailers are beautiful but surprisingly expensive! Then today I saw this while browsing for home design stuff:









If that is not the cutest most fun thing I have ever seen today then I don't know what is! You can find the rest of the pictures at desiretoinspire

I still think the travel trailer route would be better for me since it seems like these wagons need to be built from scratch and I think I am more of a re-haber than a builder.

Okay, okay so you may be thinking to yourself "What is your problem? You have this whole house to decorate and fix up and you want to start a whole NEW project??" But I think my problem is that I am still completely overwhelmed with this whole house project. There is just so so so much to do! But I will keep trying to stay focused on the task at hand and not be distracted by colorful and cute things. Maybe some day...

Fireplace ideas

So I do really love our brick fireplace wall that separates the living room from the dining area. The only trouble is, I really have no idea what to do with it. It puzzles me. I know a few things are wrong. For example, the mantel is too high on the wall. It looks very awkward way up there all alone. Also, the color of the wood is all wrong because it has no contrast with the brick.

Secondly, we have the insert. At first I wasn't sold on the idea of having an insert because it takes away from the whole romantic notion of having open flame in the middle of your home. Also, lets face it, they are not very attractive. But when the home inspector did the inspection that insert was the one and only thing that he said was done perfectly and had no problems. There was no way I was going to go to all that effort to fix something that wasn't broken when we have a list a mile long of things that ARE broken. So the insert stays. Plus they are energy efficient and all that jazz.

Also, there is just so much brick! So much RED brick. Which is a good thing, don't get me wrong. But it presents another design problem of what to put on it and where.

I was browsing one of my favorite places to get home design inspiration - saucy dwellings - I saw this photo and fell in love.

So that started me on a mission to find an antique or faux-antique fireplace mantel. Which I have already found some leads on craigslist! I just have to determine the budget, measure the fireplace to get the size and figure out how to move and install what could basically be a huge block of cement.

I also am getting some ideas as to what I want to go above the fireplace, but I am keeping that under wraps for now.

Curb appeal

We are trying to figure out a way to get rid of the massive amount of grass we have in our front lawn for two reasons.  First, it is a pain to try to mow it all.  Second, to save on water.  I love the idea of ground cover, but we were trying to decide just how to transition between the ground cover area and the grass area.  I saw this yard in Portland and snapped a picture.  I love how they did the transition.  Also I had not thought of putting in low lying shrubs to break up the ground cover.  The only thing that I would change is maybe to use river rock instead of the rocks they used.  We are in the river city after all!