Natalie's new room

Natalie's been in her new room for nearly three weeks, but I wasn't able to put the finishing touches on it until this morning, thanks to a Christmas Eve package delivery. She's loving it, I'm loving it, so I thought it was time to share it.

I had perhaps more fun creating this room than I did creating the nursery two years ago, simply because this time I knew I was creating a room exclusively for a little girl, rather than creating a room that could easily work for a girl or a boy. Perhaps what made this experience even more fun was knowing the little person I was designing the room for. I tried to incorporate as many of her interests into this room as possible, and I got her involved and excited in the decorating process along the way.

Bedding -- the inspiration
My vision for the room began over the summer, as many visions do, with a trip to Target, where I happened upon the Xhilaration twin quilt ($50) that ultimately became the room's inspiration piece. Even though Natalie's continuing in her crib (for as long as she'd like, which could be a while) I thought it would be wise to base this room that she'll grow into around fun bedding, so I threw in a pillow sham ($20) and slowly pieced together other items. She scored a new Mini Dot Crib Fitted Sheet in bright pink ($16 after coupon) from Pottery Barn Kids, too. Fortunately, she loves to say "polka-dot," and there are yellow polka-dots in her quilt, so there's some coordination going on, too.

Curtains
My next task after tackling the bedding was to get some seriously heavy-duty curtains. Natalie's new room has two windows whereas the nursery has only one. I considered DIYing the no-sew curtains I had made for the nursery, but knowing I'd have to make twice as many curtains and knowing that the room lets in a lot more light than the nursery, I decided this time I'd be better off hiring a professional and getting real curtains made with built-in black-out liner.

It took me a while to find a well-reviewed local seamstress willing to make curtains, but I finally happened upon Young's Cleaners. I'd recommend their seamstress services. I had to do a little back and forth because of language barriers, but by working with the owner's daughter I was able to get exactly what I was hoping for. I decided to be perhaps a little unconventional with the overall curtain design and went with three panels (instead of two or four) and chose one patterned fabric for the two outside panels and one solid fuchsia material for the middle panel.

These curtains were definitely an investment, but I am happy to spend the most on curtains for a room for a child. If there's one thing we value in our house, it's sleep.

Curtain fabric -- $75 for 8 yards (16 feet of patterned fabric, 8 feet of solid fabric), Jo-Ann Fabrics
Black-out liner fabric -- $36 for 8 yards, Jo-Ann Fabrics
Seamstress labor -- $210 for three curtain panels, Young's Cleaners
Curtain rod, 48"-88", black satin finish -- $32, Bed Bath and Beyond
Curtain rings -- $18 for three packs of 7 rings each, Bed Bath and Beyond

Furniture
Because we moved Natalie's crib out of the nursery and into the new room, we temporarily dodged the bullet of needing to buy another bed. We are still waiting to see if we'll need a second crib for the nursery. I'd predict yes at this point, but for now baby boy (when he arrives) will kick it in the Pack N Play and then we'll reevaluate.

The only furniture, then, we needed to consider for Natalie's new room was a bookcase and a dresser. For her bookcase, we chose the eight-box Expedit from IKEA in white ($70).

For her dresser, we decided to tackle the one real DIY project of this new room and we refinished an old dresser a friend handed down to us when we moved into our house seven years ago. This refinishing project was not a monumental task, as the dresser was in good shape aside from some water stains on the top; I just wish we hadn't waited until the coldest weather of the year kicked in during late November to take on this project inside our freezing garage. We followed the same procedure we did when Matt refinished the dresser for the nursery. Matt sanded the dresser, and then I painted it a shade called Watermelon Smoothie ($15.75 for a quart) manufactured by Glidden, but color-matched using Behr paint thanks to the recommendation from a Home Depot employee and professional painter who told me he'd always choose Behr over Glidden.

As another splurge and mini-project, I decided to line the eight dresser drawers in fancy handmade paper from Paper Source ($46 for eight sheets). I chose gold dragonflies on fuchsia, gold dragonflies on sea green, bean orange, and bean white on green. I used Modge Podge to get the paper to adhere to the drawers' interiors. It's a time-consuming task, but I love how Natalie opens her drawers and says, "Mom made art!"

Art
Actually, Natalie likes to talk about the art all around her room. Specifically, I framed two pieces of art Natalie already had, and I purchased three new pieces of art: Reading Rainbow, 17"x 20", Society 6 ($24); Muppet Alphabet, 17"x 20", Society 6 ($25); Home is Wherever I Am With You, Etsy seller RawArtLetterpress ($20). I was super pleased with the service I received from both sellers. In the case of RawArtLetterpress, my order shipped immediately and it arrived with a few added free goodies that I plan to make into greeting cards. I was a little dismayed when I checked over the two prints I received from Society6 and discovered a couple green dots in the middle of each poster. I contacted the company, and they sent me new versions of each print, no questions asked, that very day. They even responded to my email within 15 minutes. I framed all the art in cheap-ish white frames from Michaels ($54 for four frames after various discounts).

You might notice in the picture above two pink fabric bins with an owl pattern that house some of Natalie's toys and stuffed animals. I picked those up at Home Goods in early November ($13 each).

I also decided to go with another decal, just as I'd done with the nursery. I went with Dali Decals again and opted for the Peaceful Leaning Birch Tree with Blossoms in white with pink flowers ($89 after coupon code). While not absolutely necessary, this decal rests over Natalie's crib and helps fill what had been a giant empty wall in the room. Plus, I love hearing Natalie talk about how the leaves from her tree will fall on the grass (she was pretty jazzed to talk about leaves this year).

Extras
Moving Natalie into her new room meant sacrificing some storage space. Because her new room shares a wall with the hallway bathroom, this room is actually slightly bigger than the nursery, but its closet is significantly smaller than the nursery closet. So, baby brother will be housing some extra gear in his closet. Even still, Natalie's closet has room to expand, as many of the items that are in there are either clothes she'll grow into or toys she doesn't even know she owns yet that she'll be slowly gifted during her brother's first few months of life.

Moving Natalie into this room meant breaking out her P'Kolino Little Reader Chair that I received for her at my baby shower. She didn't have space for it in the nursery, but she loves it and her stool with her name on it in her new room. She especially cracks me up when she reclines in the chair with her arms on both armrests and both of her feet propped up on the stool. She looks like a queen. It's absurd.

Overall, I didn't make a tremendous time investment in this space (we got away with not painting the walls and sticking with the original Behr Sagey we painted the room seven years ago, so that definitely helped). Still, it took me much longer to piece together this room as compared to the nursery simply because of the comparatively limited time I have at this point in my life. I am thrilled, though, that Natalie loves the room so much, and I'll share soon how we got her to transition to the new room.

Simple travel art

Whenever we return from a trip abroad, we always bring back with us some small change (after doing a very good job spending our last equivalent of $5 U.S. on things like chocolate and Gatorade at the airport). So I throw the small foreign change with all our American small change, which I take to Coinstar about twice a year and convert to an Amazon giftcard, inevitably annoyed to realize that I forgot once again not to mix the American and foreign currency when Coinstar gets mad at me.

When we got back from Argentina this summer (I realize I still have not written about that trip -- whoops!) I rounded up all the small foreign change in the house and turned it into this simple art project.

I bought this basic black frame at Michael's. It's not exactly a shadowbox, but it's much deeper than your typical frame. Then I covered the backing in white paper and glued each coin down with craft glue. One or two coins, because of their shape and size, did not want to stick at first, so I did have to reapply some glue, but giving the glue ample time to dry solved that problem.

I used state quarters to signify our domestic travels to places like Hawaii for our honeymoon and the eight states we visited during our cross-country trip (as you can see, I'm still waiting to find a bunch of quarters of western states such as Colorado, Utah, and California to join our lonely New Mexico and Arizona quarters).

This easy art is a sentimental reminder of some of our most memorable travels together and a great way to turn loose change collecting dust into something more meaningful.

Mpix 8 x 10 prints on sale

I order actual printed photos only about once a year, and I placed an order with Mpix for a bunch of 4" x 6" photos a few weeks ago. I like having some recent photos on hand to swap into picture frames around the house, or to place in that imaginary scrapbook I never seem to make anymore, or to give to friends who might appreciate a particularly nice picture or two.

I didn't order any large photos this year because I ordered so many over a year ago when I printed a bunch of photos from our European vacation to create a photo collage on our dining room wall. But if I needed some 8" x 10" photos this year, now would be the time to buy them. Order from Mpix between now and Wednesday night at midnight, central time, and enter the code mpix8x10 for 50% off 8" x 10" prints (regularly $1.99, now $.99).

If you've never used Mpix before, let me assure you that the quality of prints is stellar, and if you have any sort of problems with the order, contact customer service immediately and they will rectify the situation stat. In my recent order one of the many photos I purchased arrived obviously bent, so I emailed customer service the order number and photo number, and by the next day my new photo had been FedExed to me overnight. That was a little unnecessary, but appreciated.

Nursery progress: Paint, curtains, furniture

Today marked the start of the school year and therefore the official end of my summer. It also meant that yesterday was our self-imposed deadline for finishing off items on our summer bucket list. Most of the major items left on the list had to do with the nursery, seeing as we spent the majority of the summer doing everything else around the house in preparation for getting to the nursery last.

Painting
The nursery was a perfect blank slate in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. A week ago Matt and his dad spent several hours painting the nursery Behr's Silver Screen color. As they were applying the paint I kept thinking (and eventually said out loud), "This looks blue." When it dried, I said, "This looks purple." Either way, it did not look gray. The color was not bad per se, but it would not have gone well with the red, orange and bright green accent colors we are trying to use to add color to the nursery. So, for the first time in my life, I decided we had to repaint a room a new color. Friday afternoon I painted two samples over the Silver Screen walls: Behr's Silver Drop and Dolphin Fin. Saturday morning we settled on Dolphin Fin. Even though this color appears to have more yellowish undertones, this wound up being the perfect color to match the curtains I'd already made (and to match the vision I had in my head).

Silver Drop (top) and Dolphin Fin (bottom) layered on top of Silver Screen.

Fortunately, after having painted five other rooms in our house, we are pretty fast at painting and we've learned from our mistakes (our biggest secret: wipe the sides of the edger tool with a wet paper towel between every application to avoid getting paint on the ceiling and the need for the oh-so-nasty touch ups). We also own lots of the paint supplies we would have needed to buy, saving us a little cash. Our paint budget broke down as follows:

Nail hole filler -- $2.48
Paint samples  -- $6.17
Paint -- $63.96 (for two gallons, thanks to me changing my mind about the color)
Edger tool -- $4.97
Edger refills -- $2.54
Total cost of painting supplies: $80.12



Dresser
In early July we found a solid wood dresser on Craigslist in need of refinishing. Though we'd never refinished a dresser before, we (Matt) thought we could take on this task thanks to the handy post about refinishing a dresser (though, granted, a veneer dresser) on Young House Love. I went to Home Depot to pick up the supplies one afternoon, which wound up being right when the mid-August earthquake struck the east coast. I was standing in the paint aisle grabbing the white paint we'd need when suddenly the roof started rumbling (and even visibly shaking) and then cans of paint fell around me. Fortunately none fell on me or anyone else, and minutes later I found myself in the sandpaper aisle, you know, picking up sandpaper, because that's what you do right after an earthquake -- carry on.

Matt picked up a $20 electric hand sander on Craigslist earlier this summer in preparation for this task. We have at least one other piece of wooden furniture that we plan to refinish soon, though we probably have even more projects awaiting us in the near future now that we sort of know what we're doing. The main discoveries we have regarding this project (because we can't say too much beyond what the folks at Young House Love already told you):

1) Painting a refinished piece of wooden furniture is a lot more fool proof than staining one. Paint is forgiving; stain is not.

2) Paint still requires about four coats, even when you use a wood primer, before it really looks uniform.

One more discovery, unrelated to the manual labor that went into this project: World Market has lots of cute knobs. I had been drooling over expensive hardware from Anthropologie, but I couldn't commit to spending $8-$10 per knob when I needed six. At World Market I found knobs identical to this one, this one, and this one, all at $3 to $5 per knob. Also, it worked in my favor that World Market sent me two $10 birthday coupons, so when I found the knobs I wanted, they were quite reasonable. I went with these painted ceramic knobs that match the color scheme in the curtains:

Our dresser budget broke down as follows:

Wooden dresser  --  $40 (Craigslist)
2 packs of sandpaper --  $8.54
4" paint roller --  $4.97
4" paint roll 2 pack -- $4.97
Primer for dresser -- $7.98
White paint for dresser --  $10.88
Knobs for dresser -- $16.44 (World Market)

The dresser is actually not totally complete. We need to put a sealer on it, but Home Depot does not sell any low or no-VOC sealers, so we will probably purchase that online soon. As of right now we've spent $93.78 on the dresser project, not counting the $20 we spent on the sander that we'll be using a lot in the future.

Curtains
It was so nice to get the curtains I made up on the walls, especially after I installed the decal. I never had a chance to show you the curtains in their finished state. Here's a view of the nursery from the door.

Our budget for the curtains broke down as follows:

6 yards curtain fabric -- $100.74 (Jo-Ann Fabric) -- a big splurge!
2 packs of hem tape for curtains -- $5.98 (Jo-Ann Fabric, but now I know it's way cheaper to buy on Amazon)
Curtain rob -- $13.99 (Target)
2 packs of 1.5" curtain clip rings -- $14.38 (Bed Bath and Beyond)
Total spent on curtains: $135.09

Furniture
In addition to the dresser, we also bought the crib and a chair for the nursery. We went with the Baby Mod Olivia crib that is stylish and modern and not-too-expensive...and from Walmart, of all places. Confession: Matt and I hate Walmart so much that we decided to have the crib shipped directly to our house and pay the extra $10 rather than drive down the street to pick it up for free after it got delivered to the store. So, the crib came in at $324.85 when we added shipping and taxes. If you're new to this whole baby thing as we are, you may be surprised to learn that when you buy a crib you do not get a mattress. We have our eye on a foam Sealy mattress that is in the $100-$120 range, so we'll get that sometime soon.

We also bought a chair at one of our favorite local furniture stores called Belfort, which is really an entire strip mall that has been converted into a furniture mecca. I'd been researching chairs for a while but couldn't find anything an appropriate size and cute style for under $800. Because we planned to spend somewhere around $1000 for the nursery, an $800 chair clearly would not make the cut. The chair needed to be upholstered and glide, but I didn't want a traditional-looking wooden glider. So, I was thrilled to find this green upholstered gliding and rotating chair for $225 (marked down on clearance from $500). The color was not my first choice initially, but once I compared it a fabric sample from our curtain I realized it fit the color scheme perfectly, and I will probably buy/make a pillow to bring some additional life to this chair.

The view from the chair...

Our nursery is a relatively small space, with little room remaining for any additional furniture. I would like to get a small bookcase, but it might need to be an exceptionally thin, vertical bookcase that could fit in one of two tiny remaining corners. We also need to decide if we're going to take down the closet doors and make another set of curtains, or if we're going to deal with this...

Not bad...

Bad...

This might give you a better sense of the space, from one wall to another.

We're still going to work on the furniture spacing issue and decide if we need to spend more time and money making more closet curtains. Ultimately, though, now that summer is over, at least the major components of the nursery are complete. I'm going to make a crib skirt, we'll add shelving and/or bookcase solutions, and we'll decorate with fun pops of color, but all that can happen over the next few months. So far with 85 percent of the nursery complete we've spent $900.93 (and not nearly as much time as I thought we would have by now) getting to this point. Summer bucket list victory!

Nursery progress: Dali Decal installation

It's been a busy nursery-focused weekend, and part of this weekend involved learning how to install a wall decal. A few weeks ago on my 30th birthday I won my very first blog giveaway, a $25 gift certificate to Dali Decals. I decided to go with the bird branch decal. Not only was that the popular choice among my friends (most of whom told me so in real life, not in blog life) but it was also Matt's favorite choice. Matt rarely expresses opinions over decorating decisions, and when he does (and I'm on the fence between two options) I tend to go with whatever he thinks is best so he can have a role in setting up our home.

I placed my order on August 23, and a week later I had the decal waiting for me on my doorstep. The decals come with easy-to-follow instructions that involve about nine steps. Larger decals, such as the one I ordered, require following the long version of the instructions, while the smaller decals can be installed in just about five or six steps. From start to finish it took me almost exactly one hour to install our decal. I thought I would need Matt's help, but for me this wound up being a one person job. Matt has done a lot over the past few weeks to set up the nursery, so I was happy to give him a break.

The first step was to grab some painter's tape and get the decal arranged correctly on the wall. Then I took a long piece of painter's tape and hang it down the middle of the decal, creating an "anchor" point. Our tree branch actually came in two pieces, so I took photos of the process using the smaller of the two branch pieces.

The decals are manufactured so that they're sandwiched between two pieces of adhesive. One piece of adhesive is a thick paper backing and the other piece is a thin transfer paper. Once my decal was arranged on the wall with an anchor point, I folded the decal in half over the anchor point and separated the thick paper backing from the decal.

Then I cut off the thick paper backing from the first half of the decal. After that I pressed the decal and transfer paper directly onto the wall.

Once I removed the remaining painter's tape I simply removed the remaining thick paper backing and pressed the other half of the decal and transfer paper to the wall.

The most detail-oriented piece of the process came next. I had to slowly pull the transfer paper away from the decal. The Dali Decal instructions recommend doing so by folding the transfer paper over itself as you move across the decal. I tried this tactic, and it worked well for me.

Minutes later, what I was left with on the wall looked like a real, actual decal!

I repeated this process with the remaining, larger section of the tree branch and had just as much success. The only challenge to this part of the decal installation was getting the tiny twigs at the end of each branch to stay in place while I was peeling the transfer paper away from the decal. I had to press some of the twigs back into place against the wall, but it wasn't difficult to fix.

The orange birds and green leaves came on separate sheets of paper, so I got to choose where to place the birds along the branches. It was a fun surprise to receive four bird decals rather than just the two I thought I'd be getting based on the pictures on the Dali Decals website. When installing both the birds and the leaves I followed the instructions for the small decal installation and simply peeled off the thick paper backing before placing the decals on the wall. Then all I had to do was stick the decal and transfer paper on the wall and peel back the transfer paper. This was very easy to accomplish with the birds. This was a pain in the butt with the leaves. Each individual leaf is basically a small dot decal. I managed to keep them all on the transfer paper, but then peeling them away from the transfer paper once the decals were on the wall took some time because lots of individual leaves wanted to stay stuck to the transfer paper.

An hour later, I was really pleased with the look of the decal on the large wall above where the crib will go.

The decal came to $65, but with my $25 blog giveaway gift certificate, a $3.25 coupon and another $5 off for signing up through the Dali Decals website, our nursery decal came in at $31.75. I can't say that I'll ever order another decal in my life, but if I do I can now recommend this company and I can say that installing a decal is a simple one-person, one-hour task.

Nursery progress: DIY no-sew curtains: mission accomplished

We just got back from a fun, low-key weekend in Amishville (aka a small town outside Lancaster, PA -- not its actual name) with my high school friends and their husbands. We thought we had escaped Hurricane Irene, who thankfully did not accomplish too much in our neighborhood here in Virginia, only to wake up this morning in our rental house in Pennsylvania with no electricity and no water. Still, no biggie, and now we're back. Tomorrow I return to work for another school year -- teachers are back though kids don't return until the day after Labor Day. With summer vacation coming to an end, before we left for our short, final summer trip, I was determined to create the nursery curtains, and I'm happy to report I did it!

I will admit that I was pretty scared of tackling this project, mostly because I was afraid of messing up my expensive fabric. Fortunately, that did not happen, and I've learned that this is one of those projects that falls into the category of, "If I can do it, you can do it."

I started here with the Young House Love post about their DIY no-sew nursery curtains. Their measurements wound up being a little different from my own, though, because I wanted to make curtains 84" long for the nursery window which is 64" long and 33" wide. I did follow the advice of Sherry from YHL and added 3" to each length of fabric so that I could have a proper 1.5" hem on each end of each curtain. So, I laid out my long fabric on the floor and got to work cutting two 87" panels. I used a light gray oil pastel to mark off my fabric and easily cut a straight line.

You'll also notice I bought Heat N' Bond hem iron-on adhesive in super strength. (Way better price on Amazon! Good to know for the future...) I originally bought one roll at Jo-Ann Fabrics for $2.99, but it turns out one roll is almost exactly enough for one curtain panel, so I had to turn this one-day project into a two-day project once I was able to return to the store to buy a second roll.

I followed Sherry's tutorial on how to use the hem tape. Unfortunately, in doing so this is where I made my one significant mistake. Apparently the tape Sherry uses has a paper side and a fabric side. I thought mine did, too, but mine really has just the fabric. So, Sherry talks in her video tutorial about putting the iron directly on the hem tape to allow it to get warm and adhere. As soon as I did this, I got gluey goop all over my iron. Then I read the back of my Heat N' Bond package and saw where it expressly says, "DO NOT apply iron directly to adhesive tape." Lesson learned (after taking a wet sponge to my iron): always read the package, and don't just rely on another blogger's know-how.

Once I discovered the difference between Sherry's tape and my own, I went a little rogue (Ok, I disregarded the rest of Sherry's tutorial). I put my hem tape onto my curtain fabric. I placed it about half and inch from the top.

 

I measured out exactly enough hem tape to run the length of one side of curtain. Then I used books to hold down the curtains and the tape as I folded the fabric over itself so that the hem tape was secured inside a little curtain sandwich.

With my iron on a medium setting, I started applying heat to the hem. The hem tape definitely gets hot even when it's sandwiched between two sides of fabric. I held the iron for about three seconds at a time in each spot along the hem. Another thing I learned is that you do not want to slide the iron across your fabric. Doing so runs the risk of creating a bunched up hem. Instead, be sure to lift your iron as you work your way across your curtain. Below you can see the portion of the hem that had been ironed against the portion waiting for the iron.

I simply repeated these steps for the three other sides of each curtain. Between figuring out what I was doing, cutting the fabric, messing up, fixing my mistake, and then hemming four sides, it took me about an hour to finish the first curtain panel. The next day, when I had purchased my second roll of hem tape, it only took me about 30 minutes to complete the second panel. So, if you do this right, this is an hour-long job for two curtain panels.

As for how we'll hang these curtains, we're using the type of curtain clips that simply attach to the top of each panel and require no addition sewing, holes, etc.

Now that I know how to do this, I plan to make curtains for our master bedroom using the same method. That's a project for another day, though. For now we're prepping the nursery for painting, which will get done this week. Once the walls are dry and we hang the curtains, I'll share how they look in their finished state. For now, though, I am also quite happy that they are the right length with no visible imperfections (and when Matt and I held them up against the window in a test run we were really happy to see that they achieved the black-out effect we were hoping for in the nursery). Remember, if you're wondering whether or not you can accomplish this project, the answer is yes!

Fake flowers for the bathroom

Last week as I was looking at our newly improved master bathroom, I realized that something was missing. Our vanity looked a like sparse. I was used to it holding our orchid, the one that only bloomed for the first few months after I purchased it years ago and had never bloomed again since. I tried following the advice for getting your orchid to rebloom, including putting it outside during our humid summer months. My fatal mistake, though, was leaving it outside while we were in Argentina and Heat Dome hit the D.C. area, which was surely more than even the most humidity-loving orchid can handle. So I came home from Argentina to a completely dead orchid, which is fine I suppose since it was never going to rebloom under my care.

Then we disassembled our living room table, leaving a fake flower arrangement I'd created a couple years ago on the floor with no purpose. So I decided to disassemble the arrangement and turn some of it into a smaller bathroom arrangement. My disclaimer is that I generally dislike fake flowers, but they have their place in life, namely in the bathroom, the place where for me they are less likely to receive TLC.

I took the original green pot the orchid came in, the river rocks that were keeping the former flower arrangement in place, and the two stems of fake grasses and the single white flower from the original flower arrangement. A few minutes later I had my new, free decoration.

Before

After

I love repurposing items in the home. Unfortunately, I will not be repurposing the other flowers and leaves from the original arrangement, so if you'd like them (and I know you in real life) let me know, otherwise I'll be posting them for free on Craigslist or donating them next time I make a charity run.

Something to smile about

I'm not going to lie, today I have been grumpy. And tired. And annoyed that so few students did their homework, even though they didn't go to school yesterday thanks to a teacher workday.

But at least I had these to come home to:

You may have spied correctly how I used my favorite rocks to prop up the short stems I cut for placement in a vase leftover from our wedding. I'm always fascinated by how quickly tulips grow even after you've cut down the stems significantly. I'm enjoying this sign of spring despite the fact that I can hear the cold wind howling away outside, and despite the fact that I had a kind of crappy day.

New duvet cover!

As spring set in, our old duvet cover decided it was on its last leg. Then this happened:

We lived with it for several weeks, then finally this weekend I decided I couldn't handle it anymore. I did some virtual browsing, I found what I liked and picked it up by venturing to two separate Bed Bath and Beyond stores (note to self: the Find in a Store feature on the BB&B website it totally accurate, so double check that before heading to a store). I went with Jaipur by Echo Designs, and I'm pleased with not only the duvet cover and matching shams' appearance but also the silky smooth feeling of them as well.

The new bedding definitely makes more of a statement than the previous bedding. Fortunately, the sheets I bought over a year ago still match the new bedding. My next step is to buy a sewing machine (I have my eye on one, just need to pull the trigger). Then I can figure out how to sew some basic throw pillows -- I'm thinking red!

Jeans victory, clock defeat

First, the bad news. 
A year ago I blogged about a wonderful new alarm clock I ordered from Hong Kong. This little green gadget is nearly perfect. But there's one small engineering defect that has officially made me groan at least five times in the past year and most recently on Friday morning.

The problem rests in the back of the clock.

If you look closely, (besides seeing dust) you'll notice that the on/off button is right next to the reset button. Every morning after I finally make my way out of bed I turn off the clock. If I didn't turn off the clock, it would defeat its entire purpose as a green product. But about once every two months or so I lose my edge and accidentally press the wrong button, which is inevitably the reset button. This is especially annoying because once I press the reset button there's no going back, and this clock takes a solid five minutes to program because it contains so many pieces of data. Definitely flawed engineering!

Now, on a happier note...
As we were packing for Mexico a week and a half ago I noticed that my beloved Citizens of Humanity Dita Petite Bootcut jeans had a massive hole in the crotch/butt region. Not only did I blog about these jeans days after I bought them, but I also saved the receipt in my long-term receipt file so I knew I bought them in mid-March 2010. I bought the jeans at Nordstrom, so I had a good feeling this would work out well in the end (pun intended).

Today I experienced the joys of Nordstrom customer service. I simply brought my jeans and receipt to the check out counter, explained that I bought the jeans less than a year ago and expected them to withstand less than a year of wear and tear. The girl said she would gladly take them back if I had my receipt. While she was issuing my refund, she said that sometimes the jeans simply don't hold up if they're washed and dried too often. Looking back, I only washed those jeans a handful of times because I really only wore them once a week max and basically never wore them over the summer, my prime time for casual dresses, skirts and shorts.

Overall, I appreciated the no-questions-asked approach to taking back my expensive purchase that in my mind was obviously defective (I may have a big butt, but it is not that big). I did try on a slightly different pair of Citizens petite jeans and they fit perfectly, so today I basically broke even. Bottom line (pun intended again): I love Citizens jeans because they fit me perfectly, and I hope this pair will out last the previous one.

Two more feel-good Sunday thoughts:
1) In today's 60-degree weather I was thrilled to see buds prominently visible on trees. That just makes me happy.

2) A-la my friend Lindsay's experience, I also planted an amaryllis bulb this winter (my first one ever thanks to a gift from my friend Zoe) and it is in full double-flowering bloom. Such a nice treat after about six weeks of TLC.

Hope everyone's gearing up for a good week!

Rug arrival: leash the hounds

Our precious rug arrived in the mail last week almost immediately after we purchased it. I hesitated to unfurl it in all its glory until we made some other adjustments around our house. Namely, I needed to devise a way to keep the dogs from destroying another rug. Given my love for this rug and my dogs' tendency to destroy the items I love, I've erred on the side of extreme caution, which also took some extreme patience seeing as I couldn't wait to display our latest acquisition.

Our townhouse is divided into three levels, and our dogs hang out on the bottom level during the day while we're at work. This area is not a basement, and there is no door separating the bottom level from the rest of the house. Because Maxwell is an odd dog who absolutely despises his crate (and destroys more things when he's inside his crate than when he's hanging outside the crate) we knew crating would not be the solution. A neighbor gave us an old baby gate that we have propped up on the stairs connecting the first and second levels that serves as an easy blockade to keep the dogs contained. We've used this baby gate for years, but there are a couple problems.

Exhibit A: It's ugly

When it's doing its job, it looks like the image above. When it's not doing its job, it looks like the image below, which is perhaps even more unattractive and in the way.

Exhibit B: It's precariously placed
We never got the baby gate properly installed, so it sort of teeters in place, resting ever so slightly against the wall....

...and wedged into the banister

Another problem with the baby gate, which may not be totally apparent from the photos above, is that it's really difficult to keep clean. The black marks that show up on the white plastic every Sunday morning as Matt blazes through the Washington Post has me reaching for my Scotch-Brite Easy Erasing Pads.

And, perhaps the most significant problem is that the old baby gate does nothing to keep the dogs from making another future mess on our new rug. The baby gate is too small to contain the dogs in our downstairs living room.

So, taking a note from our neighbors Joe and Laura, we invested in a gate play yard that can be shaped to fit our space and contain our dogs like one giant baby gate. Specifically, I found the North State Superyard Classic on Amazon for about $50. I showed restraint and waited for it to arrive in the mail instead of seeking instant gratification by purchasing the exact same play yard for $70 at the Toys R Us down the street. The gate itself is a bit cumbersome, but for us we just molded it in an open trapezoidal shape to fit the entry from the downstairs living room to the entryway, and we'll keep it that way until we have some need to move it, such as guests using the downstairs living room.

Now when you open our front door, you'll see this:

 
The other positive improvement with this new system is that it gives us a place where we can confine the dogs when guests arrive. We have fallen out of using the penny can with Maxwell when guests arrive, but Maxwell has also (mostly) gotten better about not jumping. He's still a work in progress.

Of course, as much as I like the new dog-confinement system, I am most in love with the new rug. It is a tiny bit small for our space, but the issue is that we really need a 7' x 10' rug, and those are difficult to come by in the styles we wound up liking. Now that the rug is in our space, I'm really happy I went with the bold pattern choice.