Little Chicago Bungalow

When Adam and I announced that we were pregnant, his mom had given us about 20+ children’s books as a surprise. Over the last year she had been collecting some of Adam’s favorite books from when he was little and saving them just for this occasion. Adam is going to kill me for telling you this, but when he opened the gift from his mom, he about cried. -Anyhow it was one of the most thoughtful and creative gifts ever.

Since then, we’ve been given so many beautiful children’s books and I want to display them in a way where the covers would be appreciated (versus the spines). And since we’re doing up the baby room now, I thought this would be the perfect solution.

UPDATE: I hung a mini version of the open face book shelves shown above. You can see a sneak peak of the baby room right here.

• The 2 shelves are Ikea Ribba Picture Ledges for $14.99 each
• Crib is Ikea Sniglar Crib for $79.99
• Black + white fabric is from Ikea for $3.99/yard on clearance
• Horse is from Plan Toys and was given as a gift by Jen
• Books + basket of books were all gifts by friends and family

Adam and I are expecting our first baby this April and I am having a lot of fun thinking of ways to make my office into a baby friendly room!

From top row, left to right:

• Marimekko fabric panel stash. -Perfect for the wall above the crib.
• Beaded cord paired with a simple white paper lantern
• Square crib sheet / Lotta Jansdotter fabric to make a nursing pillow
• Moby wrap blanket in forest
• Chevron crib sheet by Dwellstudio
• Hable Construction storage bushel in charcol
• Napkins that would make a great tabbie blanket
• Play toys stacking cone

Emeline Chair + Tufted Leather Ottoman

Classic buttery soft seating that I absolutely love. Yes, I know it’s so much leather and totally not vegan friendly.

Battersea Sofette

A sneak peak of our Fica Xmas Tree, decorated with ornaments from my husband’s childhood. My parents had this tree since I was little and gave it to me a few years ago. I love it.

Plaid blanket tree skirt + an early bird present.

More holiday decoration ideas brewing here.

Originally I wanted to replace our interior and exterior doors with salvaged pieces that were worn, textured and full of character. My hunt for the perfect doors led me to expensive antique shops like Salvage One + Architectural Artifacts to economical non-for-profits like the Rebuilding Exchange.

I found that no two doors measured the same in dimension due to natural weathering + warping, but differed more so because of different standards + building codes. There have been so many beautiful pieces I’ve fallen in love with that are just a tad too big or small for our door openings.

So why not just make the perfect door fit? Changing the size of a door opening means re-framing wall studs, which I really don’t want to do. Also, hanging a door into an egress is somewhat of a more detailed job than anticipated. -Especially when it involves carving out a mortise into the jam for the hinges and trimming a not so square vintage door to fit.

Solution: New Shaker flat panel doors stained to match our dark brown floors. What do you think of the designs below?!

There are so many options for door hardware, but these two are my favorites:

…because,

Geisha cat will destroy all plant matter in the house within a matter of seconds
+
I like to see plants eye to eye.

Removing 12-16″ deep of our Midwest clay in preparation for garden beds. Above are my tools: pitchfork, big shovel, little shovel and flat head shovel. Step back a little.

Standing in the hole…                                         …next to a Tulip in bondage.

1/3rd of the planter bed filled with a compost soil mixture:

1 bag manure + 1 wheel barrel of rich soil

I am 2/3rds done digging out this bed. Tomorrow the waterproofing contractor will be here working on our basement. We’ll be working around each other in the back.

I can’t stop. It’s all I think about. I wake up on weekends at 6am and work until the afternoon.

I’d write more, but I am exhausted and images speak loader than words in this case.

More images right here.

When we bought our home, we anticipated that most of our repairs would be waterproofing the basement. As it turns out the garage has become our major fix up from exterminating the family of 15+ rats, to re-pouring a new concrete floor and currently rebuilding the un-pitched roof.

Also, our garage is 6 feet short and due to that I accidentally ripped the nonfunctional spoiler off our VW Beetle. – I was having a very bad day.