May 2012

Bixby’s Monthly Photo :: Twenty-Three Months Old

May 30, 2012

What’s new? Making up his first stories, rhymes, and songs. Saying “NO!” at the top of his lungs.
Loves: Planting seeds, helping water the garden, feeding worms to the chickens, “helping” Grandpa, doing art projects.

(I will be taking a photo of Bixby in the white armchair with his lambie each month until his second birthday)

So far… One Month Old :: Two Months Old :: Three Months Old :: Four Months Old :: Five Months Old :: Six Months Old :: Seven Months Old :: Eight Months Old :: Nine Months Old :: Ten Months Old :: Eleven Months Old :: Twelve Months Old :: Thirteen Months Old :: Fourteen Months Old :: Fifteen Months Old :: Sixteen Months Old :: Seventeen Months Old :: Eighteen Months Old :: Nineteen Months Old :: Twenty Months Old :: Twenty-One Months Old :: Twenty-Two Months Old

(images: Laura Gaskill)

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Weekend Projects: The Coop Is Done!

May 29, 2012

in My Home, Urban Farming

Can I just say how amazing it feels to have the coop finally done? Amazing! For those of you who don’t know, we got three chicks a few months ago, and they have been living in a brooder inside the house until now. With limited time and resources, we weren’t sure which coop option was going to work out for us – we were just getting ready to buy supplies to make a coop from scratch (using these plans) when Ben found the same coop on Craigslist! He has the Craigslist magic touch, I tell you. We ran right out and brought the thing home on the roof of our car. And yes, we were laughing our heads off as we drove (very slowly, so said coop wouldn’t fall off) through downtown Providence with a chicken coop on the roof, leaving a trail of straw behind us. Here it is today:

Of course, it didn’t look exactly like that when we bought it. It had been used by a bunch of hens for a year, not finished, not cleaned, and the run portion at the bottom was covered with sagging green plastic netting. We had some work to do. First, we removed the netting (not shown) and a few crooked boards, and I gave the whole thing a really thorough scrubbing.

Next, we gave the wood inside a protective finish:

I was thinking of painting it a fresh spring green, but we ended up going bold, with “Canadian Flag Red”. We also cut new hardware cloth to fit the run portion around the bottom of the coop and installed hook-and-eye latches to make it predator-proof.

Then, we built a frame the same size as the footprint of the coop, lined it with more hardware cloth…

…and dug it into a hole underneath the coop in case any wily animals try to dig their way in. Nobody is getting our chickens, man!

The ladies seem very happy in their new digs. We carried them outside on Friday, and it’s been highly entertaining watching them in the coop all weekend. Eventually, we will be letting them free range in the backyard during the day, but I want to wait until they are big enough to make the neighborhood cats think twice.

Aside from the chicken coop, my pea patch is growing like crazy, and we planted beans, zucchini, herbs, and tomatoes this weekend, too. Phew! Let’s look at the finished coop one more time, shall we?

Ah. I love that this is my view out the kitchen window now! We still need to put a few more handles on, and figure out how to straighten one last crooked board, but otherwise it is done, and I am so, so pleased. Happy new week, friends! xo Laura.

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Studio To Room: Inspired By Geninne

May 25, 2012

in Art, Decorating, Design & Decor, Mood Boards

Happy Friday, dear friends! I went to visit Geninne’s art blog the other day to see what she has been up to lately, and oh my, she has lots of good stuff up her sleeve. For those of you who don’t know, Geninne D. Zlatkis is an amazing artist, you can find her work here and here. Geninne has a wonderful way with her home and studio as well, and I was completely gobsmacked by the mini-studio makeover she recently shared. Oh, just look:

Yowza, right? That painted cabinet, the airy space, the natural wood, the art, the collections from nature, it’s all so perfectly curated it made my heart go pitter pat! I immediately knew I wanted to translate this into a room. I wanted to use that moody blue, plus natural wood, a bit of silver, and of course art, too. So here it it, studio to room…

I had no idea that Geninne offered pillows now (see no.6 above), and of course now I really want one! Before I go, let’s just drool over one more picture of Geninne’s lovely studio space, shall we?

I adore all of the small details and treasures Geninne has collected, from handmade softies to perfect wooden tape dispensers, old books, twine – somehow she makes everything look intentional and lovely, even if it is just the supplies she needs to work. Such an inspiration, don’t you agree?

Be sure to visit Geninne on her blog and say hi, and enjoy your weekends! xo Laura

p.s., thanks so much to those of you who have been chiming in on this post, it really means the world to me!

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Things I’m Afraid To Tell You

May 23, 2012

in Blogs

A conversation that was sparked by a post from Jess Constable a few weeks back has become an avalanche – first there was Jess’s post, “Things I’m Afraid to Tell You.”, followed by Ez, Erin, and a host of others. What is this all about? Basically, it’s meant to put a few chips in the shiny facade that is so often presented on design blogs. Sadly, even though most of us know it’s not really true, it is all too easy to believe that the polished-up, perfect pictures served daily on our favorite blogs is 100% real. It’s so not. So just in case any of you dear readers have ever felt the least bit frustrated/wary/thrown by anything I’ve featured or said here, I decided it would be a ~~scary~~ good idea to add my voice to the mix. I for one have felt great reading others posts on this topic – honesty and openness is so refreshing, don’t you agree?

Things I’m Afraid To Tell You:

1. My house is usually a mess. Right now I am staring at a giant pile of paper toppling out of the cute little white tray that is supposed to contain it – and I’m sure there are some crushed crackers and a sippy cup buried in there somewhere, too. Most of the time, when I want to take a picture in my house, I first clear all of the crap to one side in order to get a decent shot. The only reason it doesn’t look like a total disaster is because I am a nut about decluttering, so we don’t have tons and tons of stuff.

2. I don’t really like twitter. I know, crazy, right? I mean, I use it, but mostly because I feel like I should be using it. Sometimes I happen to catch a current of fun news or conversation, but in general, I feel more like an out-of-the-loop grandma. I’m serious! I still don’t even really get the whole hashtag thing.

3. The past few years have been the hardest of my life. They have also been some of the most rich, emotionally, and some amazing things have happened that I am so grateful for – and I don’t want to downplay that at all – but guys, times have been rough. Between moving thousands of miles away from all of my family and friends, adjusting to life with baby, shifting from working full-time to being a stay at home Mama and also trying to get a new creative career off the ground, I’ve been dealing with a lot of changes. Plus, things have been extremely tight financially – sure, I’m doing what I love, but it doesn’t pay very well (at least, not yet), and we had to deal with a long stretch of unemployment that left us with a significant financial burden, so that continues to be a major headache.

4. I don’t buy most of the stuff I feature on this blog, and I don’t really expect you to, either. It’s not that I don’t want to – I love everything I show here, otherwise I wouldn’t bother to write about it – but I simply can’t afford to decorate my home the way I wish I could, and I expect you feel the same way. I hope that the pretty things I choose to feature inspire you and don’t leave you feeling like you are missing out on something. For me personally, it’s almost like by blogging something I release myself from having to pine over it anymore. Instead, I can just share it and then let it go…well, most of the time (don’t get me started on white floors!).

5. I have no talent in the fashion department. I can see what looks good on others, but I feel strangely incapable of pulling together a cute look for myself. Most of the time I’m in jeans and some form of tee shirt plus ballet flats or sandals. Also, I still haven’t lost all of my baby weight, so I am not feeling as comfortable in my skin as I would like. I try not to beat myself up about it, but I would really like to pull myself together fashion-wise, so that my outfits are at least somewhat as stylish as the interior looks I put together. As it is now, I don’t feel that my outsides match the insides, so to speak.

If you’ve made it through all of that, thank you for listening! And feel free to chime in with your own post or simply add your two cents in the comments section. Also be sure to check out some of the others who added their voices to this topic in the lists below. xoxo Laura

Participating bloggers:

Design for Mankind | Little Brown Pen | Beautiful Hello | Curating Style | Sweet Fine Day | The Jealous Curator | Happy Days | Sage & Berries | Really Handmade | Peck Life | Satsuma Press | Rena Tom | For the Easily Distracted | The Hemborg Wife | Vitamini Handmade | Courtney Khail Stationery and Design | Meg in Progress | Dando Photography Blog | Widdershins22 | Alison Citron | Pink Moon Daily | Just Pretty Things | From China Village | Tea with Me | The Darling Ewe | Not Your Average Ordinary | The Electric Typewriter | Elleby Design | Parsimonia {Secondhand With Style} | Life as an Artistpreneur | Hello Cupcake | Dellie | The A & B Stories | Pretty Little Things | Feistyelle | Nib & Zed | Well and Cheaply | I Ripple. I Dance. | Whitfield Awesome Blog | Foxtrot Press | Dry As Toast | The List of Now | Apple Blue | For the Love of | Four Flights of Fancy | Miss Modish | Snapshots & Secrets | Dirty Laundry | Bubby & Bean | Penelope’s Press | Little Nostalgia | Vale Design | Pikaland | Fleurishing | Print Pretty | Vespa Tales | Hazel & Agnes | Amanda’s Musings | Mo’ Funk Designs | Ordinary Mommy | Camp 1899 | In Honor of Design | Liberty’s Yarn | Love, Life & Pictures | Stacey Winters | Owl in the Rain | Living Life Creatively | Emma Elizabeth Clease | I Live in Vacouver Now | British Cream Tea | Maquette | Little Paper Trees | Change is Necessary for Growth | Practically Perfect | Lovely Indeed | Radiant Republic | Teacher Goes Back to School | Acute Designs | This Little Street | The Proper Pinwheel | Kellee Rich | Gluten Free Travelette | Benbrie House | Sierra BB | Lost in Cheeseland | Going Home to Roost | Creative Soul in Motion | Quietly Fabulous | L’elephant Rose | The Anna Delores Blog | Some the Wiser | JRebecca Style | I Saw You Dancing | Wolfie and the Sneak | Threadbare Supply Co. | Lemonwood and Honey |

TIATTY – Wave II (list found at Mimi + Meg):

Coco + Kelley / Court & Hudson / Sacramento Street / My Cup of Te / Crystal Gentilello / MIMI+MEG / The Decorista / Modern Eve / Apartment 34 / Design Blahg / Vmac & Cheese / Miles to Style / Life in a Venti Cup / The Zhush / Radiant Republic / Savvy Home / The Doctor’s Closet / Design Manifest / Because It’s Awesome / {extra}ordinary wonders / Sparkling Footsteps / Hitha On The Go / Note To Self / So Much To Smile About / Blogstar / The Goods Design / Style & Pepper / Small Shop Studio / Long Distance Loving / Maggie Rose Blog / The City Girl In Me / The Best Laid Plans / Concrete Jungle DC / Food Fashion Fitness / East Coast Chic

Post image courtesy Ez Pudewa for Creature Comforts

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Catching My Eye…Stripes and Nautical Accents

May 21, 2012

in Decorating, Design & Decor, Product Picks

Good morning, dear friends! How were your weekends? There was a lot of hard labor going on around here as we finished our chicken coop (I’ll share pics later on this week) – we are just waiting for the paint to air out a bit more before the chicks move out there. Today I am feeling inspired by all things seaside, and it started with this amazing staircase found on Pinterest (pin here):

This project comes from the lovely blog Faded Plains – she pulled off the old carpeting that was covering these basement steps, then painted on a runner in the classic cream and blue shades of a French grain sack on a fresh, white base. I love it! I mean, I really, insanely love this – don’t you? It’s going in my project file and I hope to replicate it someday in my own home. I was so inspired by those stripes, I decided to round up a few fun items to go along with it…

I am a huge fan of Rhode Island furniture makers O&G Studio – run by a pair of RISD grads, this small company is turning out beautifully updated versions of classic American chairs, made by hand and finished in the most gorgeous, glossy hues; they even qualify for LEED points. I’m also pining for a set of those weathered-looking zinc planters, fun bars of soap for the bath, and an industrial-chic laundry cart. What has been catching your eye lately?