A Nugget and a Doodle

I normally feel a slight but steady pressure to blog about a project or a house milestone as soon as it's finished or achieved.  It's become the routine, and I love the closure of putting the project out there into the blogosphere so I can move on to the next, but it's not a trivial time commitment.  As I approach my next project I'm feeling really torn as to whether I'm doing the right thing, and I figured I'd throw it out to my 5 faithful readers.  That constant pressure I feel will be rewarded by your help now.  :) The project in question is [something] above the yet to be started/completed valance for the triple kitchen window above the sink.  The kitchen is an L-shape with a big island and it makes up one corner of the open living area that also contains the living room and casual dining room.  On the right wall we'll have our range hood which goes all the way up to the ceiling as does the backsplash just in that one spot.  Since we've got 11'...

We should have some big house updates soon, but in the meantime, I thought you might like to see my latest transformations.  When I started thinking about the nugget's first big boy bedroom close to a year ago, I tagged some inspiration photos on Houzz.  One of those photos showed a very Jetsons'-like nightstand, and I instantly became fixated on finding some mid-century furniture for his room.  The problem is anything labeled MCM, which is hot right now, is priced really high in consignment stores and on craigslist.  But I found a pair this weekend and instantly scheduled a time to pick them up - $75 for the pair!  The images below were the craigslist photos. And when I brought them home, my mom groaned and suggested they weren't worth the gas spent to drive to pick them up let alone the $75.  Her words, not mine: "Sometimes I can see your vision, and other times I think you've finally taken on the one that's too ...

I know there's plenty of you reading this who think I have my act together in spite of posting true photos of what our house looks like most of the time.  I refuse to post photos of the home office Brent and I share together everyday in our rental home, and I will go only so far as to describe it.  It's actually probably listed as a formal dining room on the floor plan of this house, and it's wide open to the 2 story foyer, that, as you know really serves as my project workshop!  We each have a 6' long banquet table pressed up against opposite walls.  On mine, I usually have any number of paint brushes strewn about from the billion projects I have going on at any given time.  There's a pile of home decor related coupons and catalogs on one corner of my desk, and on the other corner there's an unfinished wood cottage style piece of bathroom furniture that was a temporary place to store our office supplies like pens, staplers, etc but it needed to move up on to th...

It's going to be a while before we have a house update with any interesting photos.  The painters have been there 2 full weeks now and are still just sanding the trim.  Then after they're done they lock down the house for a full week to let the paint fully cure before any other trades are allowed in.  I'm sure it's good for the paint, but bad for our progress.  In the meantime I wanted to share my latest project! I really struggled with the design for our master bathroom.  I seriously spent months playing with the colors, textures, features etc and just couldn't commit.  My goal was a little rustic/country but still fresh and airy, and I wanted a fabulous light fixture centered over the clawfoot tub.  Full disclosure, code prevents us from hanging it truly over the tub, but it will be centered left to right and will just hang 3' out away from the tub's edge.  So I finally decided on direction for the overall look, which left me on the hunt for a...