Brooklyn Limestone

Conquered Closet: Kara's Storage Wars Won

2012-02-07T09:00:00.000-05:00

Welcome back Kara of Kara Paslay Designs whose talents seem to know no bounds - when she isn't merchandising some gorgeous display at Anthropologie, she is working with her husband on one fabulous DIY after the next (for example their her dining room and scrap wood busts?). If you have somehow not already devoured her blog, pencil that into your schedule because its so very worth it. So I knew she would have some clever storage solutions for those of us not so blessed with lots of closet space.

Hello! I'm Kara Paslay and that handsome fella in the photo below is my husband, Tim. We write the blog Kara Paslay Designs, and we are super excited to be here today!

I have to admit when Mrs. Limestone told me the topic of discussion for this series of guest posts, I was a little bit bummed. . . mainly because the couple of closets that I do have in my home are nothing special. They are somewhat organized, but definitely not worthy of a blog post. So I started to think about an issue that I'm guessing many of us have.

Living in an older cottage style house, our storage space is pretty limited. This style of house was built with small closets that are few and far between. Because of this, I have found ways to conceal a lot of my ~~clutter~~ necesseities. Today I am going to go over one of those ways, but you can pop over to my blog to see more storage ideas- both hidden and exposed! :)

Buying or building pieces of furniture that have lots of drawers provide you with instant organization! Below you can see the media console that my husband and I built with a bunch of old drawers we found at flea markets.

In order to build this piece, we gathered a bunch of mismatched drawers from a local flea market. Then Tim (my husband) built boxes for each drawer to fit in. We also bought a few metal files and a mirror for a special project!

After the individual drawer boxes were built, Tim built one large box to hold all the drawers. Here are a few pictures we took as we were trying to figure out exactly how things would fit together.

We designed the piece so that the overall feel was a structured and clean even though there is a lot going on. The whole project took a lot of planning, figuring, and refiguring but in the end we were happy with the result! :)

We not only love the look, but we love that each drawer or space is used to organize/hide a different thing, like this drawer which fits our DVD's perfectly.

And like this mirror that rotates to reveal our DVD player on movie night, but conceals it the rest of the time. You can watch this this video of us showing how it works on The Nate Berkus Show.

We also designed the piece to have an opening that perfectly fits a collection of our magazines.

One drawer is used to store all my design consulting materials: graph paper, current catalogs, paint fans, and more.

So that's our 1 stop shop for clutter concealing! We hope that you've enjoyed reading about it and might be inspired to built something similar for yourself!

Thanks so much to Stefanie for having me!

Conquered Closet: Chloe's Dress Up Cabinet

2012-02-06T09:00:00.002-05:00

Welcome back Rambling Renovators. If you have read my blog for long, you know I am one of this blogs biggest fans (check out their beautiful bedroom and favorite nook to see why) . So naturally I had to ask them to share their own little (hint, hint) twist on a storage solution

Hello Brooklyn Limestone readers! I’m so excited Stefanie asked me to be a part of her master closet makeovers series. While my own master closet is in shambles with a wardrobe that needs to be edited, mismatched hangers, and stray shoes everywhere, my little 2.5 year old daughter Chloe has a closet that any adult would envy.

After tiring of seeing her costumes and play accessories all about, I was inspired by this pin to build a costume closet. I found an old 4-drawer dresser at the Salvation Army and tossed out all but one drawer. We sanded the dresser, added trim and a shelf, and painted it.

My girl loves anything yellow so I pasted some decorative paper on the inside and hung a yellow mirror on the outside.

With the addition of a hanging rod and some hooks, she now has the perfect place to corral all her tutus, costumes, superhero capes, jewellry, and princess shoes.

The bottom drawer holds smaller accessories like masks, gloves, purses – and of course kitty cat ears!

Now that Chloe has her costumes out on display, two surprising things have happened – she plays with her costumes more, and she likes keeping them neat and orderly! She’ll even ask me to put things back on hangers when playtime is over. Weird kid :) Maybe I should put pretty wallpaper in my closet and it’ll entice me to keep things neat.

Conquered Closet: Plain & Fancy Basement

2012-02-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

Welcome Amy from from Plain & Fancy Living who is not only gorgeous and talented (take a look at her DIY version of a beautiful piece of artwork) but is also organized to boot! Today she is taking us underground with a peek into her storage area so we can see simple and smart solution to a problem almost any homeowner struggles with: basement overun.

I am happy to share a project that my husband and I tackled over the holiday break. I think everyone is in the mood to organize and shed some clutter for the New Year. We decided to buy industrial shelves for our basement from our local hardware store.

We assembled the shelves and started sorting through the boxes. We now have a large "yard sale" pile.

I knew that I wanted to be able to organize my serving pieces, entertaining and holiday decor. I intentionally left lots of room on the shelves to retrieve items as I need them and I wanted a place for new items that I will purchase during the year.

These adjustable shelves are perfect for our needs because each holds up to 800 lbs. We don't have to worry about overloading them. I can easily see what is on each shelf and I organized items by color (clear, silver and white). I put seasonal decor all on one set of shelves.

Thanks so much for letting me visit!

Conquered Closet: Mustard Ceiling Closet Office

2012-02-03T09:00:00.003-05:00

Say hey to Elizabeth of The Mustard Ceiling who put into action the tried and true solution of repurposing closet space into liveable space beautifully. I love the pops of yellow that bring a a friendly warmth to her "cloffice"

When we moved into our house,we quickly realized that we had to solve the problem of where to do the un-fun stuff like pay bills, do homework and maintain our family records. Our house only has 2 bedrooms and setting up a guest room in our office, or an office in our guest room was "unacceptable."

Solution: Turn one of the many closets in the house in to a mini office.

The process was pretty easy and took us bout 3 days, about 2-3 hours a day. Like any project read all the steps a few times, before starting the project.
Step 1: Remove doors to closet.You can replace them later, if you would like to maintain the illusion of an closet, or hang a curtain up like we did.
Step 2: Remove all shelves, poles, and junk from the closet.
Step3: Patch all holes to make sure it is ready for painting.
Step 4: Paint the Cloffice.
Step 5: Shelves.These can be made out of furniture grade wood and painted any color you want. Make a plan for your shelves, #, height, and if you want cubby holes or not. Draw your shelves to scale on a piece of paper to make sure it looks about right. You can use the golden ratio I discussed in my previous post to make the dimensions pleasing to the eye. The Construction is easy. Use 1/2 x1 pieces that go the depth of the shelves to hold the shelves on the wall.
Step 6: Framing the Shelves.The goal is to make it look like a built in piece of furniture, so once the shelves are up you need to "frame" the shelves to look like a bookcase. A piece of 1/2" x 1" wood down the height of the shelves hides the wood you used to hold the shelves up. A piece of crown molding also works well at the top to give it a finished look. Finishing nails works best for attaching the wood.
Step 7: Prep and Paint.Putty up the holes for any screws/ nails, and joint and sand 'em till they disappear. Then prime, and paint. We used oil based, semi-gloss Benjamin Moore paint, not the stuff from the blue or orange stores.
Step 8: Prepping the Desk Surface.We used a piece of chopblock wood countertop from IKEA, but you can use anything. Stain the wood to your desired color. It may take a few coats, and don't let the stain dry, this will make the stain uneven. When deciding on the dimensions, you want to leave 1/16" space on either side of the desk for crumbs, dirt and other junk to fall through when you clean it. Plus, leave a 1" gap at the back so that you can pass electrical wires up through the back of the desk.
Step 9: Installing the Desk.Use more 1/2" x1" pieces of wood to brace the desk up and attach the desk with small 1" L brackets. Don't forget to leave the gap in the back. Screws work best, but make sure they will not go through the depth of your desk, and you don't attach at a seam in the chopblock.
Step 10: Electrical (Hardest Part)If you already have an electrical socket in the closet then your job is easy. If not you can install an electrical outlet, yourself or hire a professional to to it (Recommended). Also if you have a light in the top of the closet you can replace the simple light bulb with a more fancy ceiling light. Make sure when planning your shelves that you leave enough room to install the light.
Step 11: CreativityLet your creativity go and fill your cloffice with what you think you need, books, magazines, bills, small stone lions. Here is where you design the details. If you want to be able to cover up the cloffice you can reattach the doors or put up a curtain.Those are the basics. You should now have a unique selling feature in your home and a space other than a kitchen table, guest room, garage or box of papers, dedicated to organizing your life. Good luck.

Unfortunately, we don't have any BEFORE photos of the closet, we built the "cloffice" before I started blogging, before we realized the true benefit of Before photos.

However, shortly after I started blogging, I remodeled the cloffice. The photos above are the "remodeled" cloffice.

The original cloffice, before the remodel...

I lightened up the space by repainting the walls. I then sewed a simple burlap drape for privacy and dressed up the storage using spray paint. This is now where I spend all of my time blogging and designing.

Thank you for featuring our "cloffice" project today Stefanie!

Conquered Closet: Bees Knees Launderette

2012-02-02T09:00:00.001-05:00

Guest posting today is Jeanne of Bees Knees Bungalow whose made over laundry room had me smiling the minute I laid eyes on it. She added so much whimsy and personality in here, I can't imagine anyone who could look at it and NOT smile. Love.

Hello Brooklyn Limestone’s faithful! I’m Jeanne and Bees Knees Bungalow is my blog. Stefanie graciously invited me over to share my much improved laundry room space. I am thrilled to be here an happy to share it with you. Here is story of how a darling laundry room was born from an old musty closet. These two pictures are of the exact same place, before and after.

Our house is 62 years old. The closet in our basement was wet and musty, adding to the overall dingy basement laundry room. It was time for it to be dealt with. That closet clean up became the closet tear out and evolved into the laundry room being ultimately redone and made fabulous. It was work, but it worth it. A wasted, dingy space is now bright and fabulous. Who knew going down to do laundry could be fun?

The Cabinet Maker Husband painted the open beam ceiling white. I painted the walls. We stained the floor with cement stain. It has held up REALLY well. We bought the light fixture cords from Ikea. I bought the aqua Ball jars and colanders at flea markets. The dresser was $25 at Goodwill. I painted it red. The color is Ladybug from Behr. I collected the cookie cutter ‘drawer pulls’ and the upper cabinet door handles at flea markets and tag sales. Coco, the dress form was found this summer at an antique show for $40. Score! The doll house was passed down to us. We’ve had it stored for several years and I am happy to use it as a functional and darling shelf. Making detergent and cat food jars easily accessible. The Launderette, I painted on the wall.

The room is open, fresh and has less places for those basement spiders to hide!

This all began because a closet needed to be organized. I’ll take a red dresser in it’s place any day! Thanks for letting me stop by and play at the Limestone.
Now I must go fluff and fold.

xo Jeanne

Conquered Closet: Kate's Centsational Master

2012-02-01T09:00:00.001-05:00

Today's guest poster needs no introduction but I'll introduce her anyway. It's Kate of Centsational Girl! It will come as no surprise that she whipped up her master closet into glam style in no time. Not only does it look beautiful but I love how she did something so few people seem to have the courage to do - paint ugly laminate shelving! I'll let her tell you all about it.

One Saturday afternoon I decided I was tired of the brown shelving and wanted to paint them gray with the hint of perfect peony pink on the walls ~ completely and totally girl. My mister told me I was crazy so I reminded him that he had his own closet with brown laminate shelving off our bedroom and he could keep his brown shelves, fondle them, caress them and sing sweet love songs to them.

As for me and my closet, we were going girly glam all the way. I envisioned something completely feminine, more like a boutique! So I painted the shelves and the walls, switched out the chandelier, and refinished the jewelry chest too. Then I put only half my clothes back inside and I think I’ll just live that way forever.

Originally, I thought about wallpaper on the walls, but after considering the cost and the extensive and precise trimming required to install around all that shelving, I took the simple route and opted for paint instead. I’ve painted laminate before, the trick is to use the right primer. Oil based Zinsser Cover Stain has always worked for me.

For the paint, I chose ‘Mellow Pink’ for the walls, and ‘Pewter’ for the shelving, both by Benjamin Moore, then I added a clematis stencil in champagne and silver metallic paint, and scattered the whimsical stems around the space. A quick coat of white spray paint on an old shiny brass chandy and a new ceiling medallion adds a bit more glam to this closet space.

Conquered Closet: Meredith's Striped Master

2012-01-31T09:00:00.000-05:00

Before we move on to less traditional storage solutions, I just had to pair yesterdays master closet makeover with another beauty. Welcome Meredith Welcome to Heardmont whose master closet I first spotted on pinterest and had to see more of it.

Welcome Brooklyn Limestone readers. Today I'm going to be sharing how my husband and I organized our walk-in closet to make getting ready in the mornings a lot more pleasant. Since I'm an instant gratification kind of person, here's a sneak peek of how it turned out.

Our house was built in 1981, so our closet featured shag carpet, wood trim, and popcorn ceilings when we moved in. Here's a glimpse of the space just three years ago.

Before we could get to the fun part of our closet makeover, we had a lot of prep work to do. An overflowing washing machine on the other side of our closet wall forced us to rip out the carpet within weeks of moving in. We chose to replace the carpet with floor tiles that matched those in our adjoining master bath. It was a messy first experience with tiling, but it turned out great in the end.

We're no strangers to removing popcorn ceilings around here, so when we decided to give the closet a fresh coat of paint, we scraped and smoothed the ceilings as well.

Much better, right?

The next step was taking this mess of mis-matched hangers, clothes that didn't fit anymore, and random items stored on the top shelf and sorting everything into something more manageable.

First we decided on some rules. We chose to only use the closet space for clothes, shoes, items we use in the master bedroom and bathroom (extra pillows, toilet paper, towels), and luggage. All the camping gear and other random junk that had been taking up valuable closet real estate was banished!

Having matching hangers, no matter how inexpensive they are, can make your closet feel instantly more organized. We couldn't justify new wood hangers, so I bought a few more packs of black and white plastic hangers and we donated the rest. We decided to take the visual appeal one step further and organized our clothes by style and color as well.

Here's how our closet looked after we hung a temporary light fixture, purged some clothes, added shoe racks and moved back in.

This setup worked great until I got the decorating bug and decided to bring our white, gray and yellow color scheme from the master bedroom into our closet. One evening of painting gray stripes just above the closet shelf did wonders for making our closet feel larger, taller, and more like an actual room.

The rest of the design snowballed from there, and a few short weeks later, we had a completely transformed space!

One of my favorite additions to the room is the oversized pendant light fixture (CB2). That thing puts out so much light and makes finding clothes in the morning much easier.

I was also pumped to find this gray and white area rug (at Walmart, of all places) to warm up the tile floors.

On my side of the closet, I hung my shirts and dress pants and placed my shoes on the racks beneath. Up above, we found a couple of hat boxes to match our color scheme (they hold purses and hats) and a black and white tray to store extra toilet paper (Hobby Lobby).

Who would have thought a tray of toilet paper could look so fancy?

My husband hangs significantly less clothing than I do, so he graciously gave me a bit of his side of the closet for my dresses. Up above, we have another black and white tray for our yellow towels (World Market) and some photo storage boxes for things like nylons, cufflinks, and other small items we don't use every day.

It's so nice not to have a ton of clutter on that top shelf anymore. I love that we didn't completely hide the stripes with random boxes and that we actually have room to store extra bedding and throw pillows from our master bedroom now.

In the center of the room, I replaced the mirror that hung over our little dresser with this jewelry board for hanging necklaces.

Instead of a jewelry box for earring, pins, and bracelets, I use a snack/dip set from Bed Bath & Beyond. This has to be one of my favorite re-purposes ever, and I recommend it to friends all the time. My earrings hang perfectly around the edges of the bowls and it's so much easier to see what I have in these white bowls than in a tiny box.

Once we'd finished the dirty work in this closet, these surface treatments and organization supplies only cost around $100. Pretty encouraging if you're planning on doing something similar in your home, right?

If you'd like step-by-step instructions on how we tackled the painted stripes or popcorn ceilings or a source list for what we used in this room, hop on over to Welcome to Heardmont and click the master closet link in our sidebar.

Thanks for letting me share our closet with your readers, Stefanie! I'm looking forward to the rest of your closet organization series!

Conquered Closet: 5 days 5 ways Marvelous Master

2012-01-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

Kicking off this organizing series is the very lovely Abbie of 5 days 5 ways. She shared her fabulous master closet makeover a while ago and got me thinking that I want to see more more more of how bloggers store all their goodies. So thanks to Abby for sharing and the inspiration. Hope you love peeking into bloggers' hidden spaces as much as I do.

Hi there folks! I could go on for half a page about how excited I am to be here guest-posting for Mrs. Limestone, but...I have a feeling that's not what you're here for. Still, I have to say that Brooklyn Limestone was quite literally my gateway into the blogging world—the very first blog that I faithfully followed and a constant source of inspiration. I am so thankful to Stefanie for having me over for a visit!

My name is Abbie from Five days…5 ways and Secondhand or Bare Bottom. Yes, that’s right. I run not one but two blogs. Because being a home-schooling mama to three children under 6, teaching fitness classes, trying to keep my house reasonably clean, knocking out a few DIY projects now and then, and spending time with my great husband doesn’t keep me busy enough.
Yeah. Right. : )

Today, I’m sharing a taste of my master closet, which I recently overhauled so that instead of looking like this:

…it now looks like this:

…and from this:

…to this:

It was basically a classic case of good bones (my hubby built the custom shoe-shelf, the closet-rods, the cubbies, and the laundry chute) and bad styling and use of space.

But it was nothing a little (okay, a lot) of DIY elbow grease couldn’t fix.

Actually, grease may have been one of the few gooey substances I didn’t use, but there was a lot of paint, glue(decoupaging = messy magic!), and sweat.

Of course, as you can see from the above pic, I did have help.

Here’s the organizational breakdown for my formerly chaotic cubby wall.

One of my favorite details is this mini-console makeover (Goodwill: $5):

After some decoupaging action, this dowdy lady morphed into a very pretty girl:

…complete with fun clearance knobs from Hobby Lobby:

But maybe my favorite project of all was another decoupaging job.

I took our Plain Jane closet rods and covered them with some “Mr. and Mrs.” wrapping paper that I found at Walmart.

Let’s face it—there never was a Mister that got his fair share of a closet, but I did leave him one rod!

The shoe shelf also got some organizational help as well as a little paint + wallpaper love.

This project was all about the details, which made it rather slow-going, but I took my time finding pieces I loved (for cheap!) from my usual haunts, which include Target, Goodwill, Marshall’s, and Hobby Lobby.

And by working with a lot of supplies I already had on hand (I custom-mixed my paint colors from leftovers I had lying around) + trolling for bargains, I managed to keep the entire the entire closet redo total under $150!

Here’s a collage of some of my favorite details:

Oh, aqua and fuchsia, how I love thee!

So what do you think? Worth the effort? (I know my answer to that! ; ))

Want to see the entire transformation? Here you go. I hope you’ll stop by for a visit and say hi. I love meeting new friends!

Oh, and thanks again, Mrs. Limestone, for letting me share a bit of my corner of the blogosphere with your readers! It’s a huge treat for me!

Going, going, gone!

2012-01-28T07:51:00.003-05:00

Only 4 more hours left in the Joss and Main flash sale!

Don't miss it!

Conquered Closets: Sneak Peek

2012-01-27T09:00:00.001-05:00

So now you've seen my pantry makeover, its time for some truly organized ladies to share their stylish storage secrets. It all starts next week but here is a little peek to tide you over until Monday.

Curious who is stopping by? Here they are:
5 days 5 ways ** Welcome to Heardmont ** Centsational Girl ** Bees Knees Bungalow
** The Mustard Ceiling ** Plain & Fancy Living ** Rambling Renovators **
Kara Paslay Designs ** Wild Ink Press ** Old Town Home ** Neat Method

If you don't already know them well, you should! Go on, start visiting.

Conquered Closet: Pantry Raid!

2012-01-26T09:00:00.002-05:00

Woo-hoo! It's time for my conquered closet series. Starting next week, lot of fabulous bloggers will be dropping in to share their sucesses and solutions to a whole host of storage problems.

Since I asked them to bare all, it was only fair I show you mine.

Exhibit A. My dirty little secret - this messy, disorganized, so bad I buy the same things three times before I realize I have plenty, pantry closet.

It was bad. I've cleaned this out a bunch of times but always ended up with the same disarray in a few short weeks. Something had to be done..

So instead of just stacking everything neatly in there, I devised a bucket method. Like items would go in these plastic bins (found at ikea). Staples got a beautification with matching containers (since I'd be more likely to keep it neat that way). When I need something, I would know where to find it.

So much better! And because I'm fancy like that, I added some sleek labels to the bins and the jars.

I did this more than a month ago (I wanted to test it out before I shared) and it has totally made a huge difference. The pantry is still looking pretty and it has been zero effort to keep up. Yea. Now if I could only do this to my clothes closet.

Stay tuned to tomorrows post for a sneak peek of the storage goodies coming your way next week.

Instant Valentine Love Labels Download

2012-01-25T09:00:00.002-05:00

I don't know why but this year I'm feeling a little more into Valentines Day than usual. I could use a little pink now that the gray days of winter seem to be getting me down. And a sweet surprise, even a tiny one, can be a lot of fun. So with that in mind, I have a little something for you.

I whipped up some simple labels for you that will turn ANYTHING into a romantic valentine. No fuss, no muss. How about that for budget friendly?

See what I mean?

{Download the labels here}

If you put them to use, I'd love to see/hear about it. Email me or leave me a comment with the blog link.

Shop til you Drop!

2012-01-24T20:58:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone, my collection at Joss & Main just went live!

Come on by and check it out. Several items have already sold out! (And if you aren't already a member, skip the wait list by signing up via this link.)

Bucketed

2012-01-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

I really love reading other peoples 30 under 30 lists. I even tried to write my own 35 before 35 list but failed. The world is too big, time is too short. Much like I always seem to think I can accomplish way more in a weekend than I actually can, I figure there was no chance I'd be able to hit all 35 in time. I don't need that kind of pressure :)

So imagine my excitement when I stumbled onto a tumblr site all about making a life bucket list in photos - perfect bucket list. Much more fun, a lot less stress. Want to see mine?

Added bonus is that scrolling through those lists reminds me of some of the cool stuff I have already done so I don't feel quite so old or out of time.

Have you blogged about your bucket list or 30 under 30? How is it going?

Me? A curator? Yah, thats right.

2012-01-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

This is an exciting week! The collection I curated with home decor discount flash sale site, Joss and Main, is going live tomorrow night. Eek! So exciting!

I spent a crazy amount of time pouring through their catalogs to pick my absolute favorite items. Many of them I have in my house already - like the metal stools I have in my kitchen and the ghost chair in my office. Others are very close to items I have like the tufted headboard in my guestroom or lamps in my bedroom. And the rest are pieces I just think are wonderful in their own right. It's full of those special little pieces that revive and renew your home in simple ways. I hope you'll enjoying shopping as much as I enjoyed picking these goodies out.

If you are not already a member, click here to sign up and avoid the wait list. It's absolutely free and the deals really are great.

My collection goes live at 9PM Tuesday night and only goes on for a short time so don't miss it! I hope you'll be there!

Steal this Idea*: Layered Empty Frames

2012-01-20T08:31:00.003-05:00

Its Friday (yippee!) - time for another Steal this Idea* feature - a tiny show of appreciation for a well executed tutorial.

You don't have to be all that perceptive to know that I am kind of a crazed fan of empty frames (see exhibit A and exhibit B) so when I saw this next project on Living with Lindsay, my heart skipped a beat.

I love, love, love it.

Using a mish mash of frames found at Goodwill...

...she made a beautiful, sculptural, conversation piece.

I am kicking myself for walking away from so many cheapo frames at flea markets because I didn't have a use for them.

Check out Living with Lindsay for all the details on this project as well as lots more!

postscript: *When I say steal, I really mean borrow nicely and give proper credit!

**If you have an idea/tutorial you would like me to consider for a feature, email me. I'd love to see!

Lovey Dovey: Simple Valentine Ideas

2012-01-19T10:55:00.003-05:00

To be honest, Valentines Day isn't a big day in my household. You might think it's because Mr. L and I have been together for so long but we never did a whole lot for V day. (He does lots of sweet things for me all year long which is way better.)

That said, Im all in favor having a day dedicated to doing something sweet for your loved ones. Despite what some Valentine humbugs might say about it being created by Hallmark to sell more cards, I don't really care about the commercial agenda. Life is filled with enough gray days that an extra red letter day is always okay in my book.

So with that in mind, here are a few things I've seen floating around that I pink puffy heart.

Did you know you could send Junior Mints in the mail? I didn't either until I saw it on Givers Log. Wouldn't this be just the cutest thing to find in your mailbox come Feb 14?

For those making their own sweets for their sweeties, this free download from the sweetest occassion is awesome.

Or surprise your special someone with a heart shape in their morning coffee.

photo via Daily Cups , how to on wikihow

Ok so now its your turn. What little surprises do you have planned?

Any questions?

2012-01-18T08:37:00.003-05:00

Seems like yesterday but it was nearly two years ago that I asked you if you had any questions for me. Much to my shock, there were quite a few so I got to answering about us, the renovation, travel, and other random things. (There is also a short FAQ on the contact page for the basics.)

Not much has changed in my life but I figured it would be a good time to ask if you had any others. Feel free to ask me anything.

And with that in mind, I'd also love to hear any suggestions on what you'd want to see in the future. A specific topic or project you want me to tackle? A general category you would like to see more or less of? Or maybe something I've never covered at all that you think might be blogworthy. Don't be shy - here is your chance to chime in!

edited to add: thanks to a lovely reader ive been told there have been some technical issues adding comments. Im not sure what the issue is but if you are having trouble, i would love to know. just drop me a line.

Until we meet again: India

2012-01-17T09:00:00.001-05:00

I think I've broken the record for most drawn out trip recap but to those that are still following along - this is the last installment. Hope you've enjoyed traveling with me. If you've missed the earlier installments, read all about my first stop in Delhi, Agra and Jaipur.

Our final few days were my favorite - we got to do more exploring in Old Delhi, score some great souvenirs and meet up with transplanted blogger Kay while we feasted at Karims.

For those who have asked, we used Delhi Magic to arrange the whole trip for us and they were EXCELLENT! If you are planning a trip to India, don't even think of using anyone else. Also not to be missed is a Masterji Kee Haveli walking tour - just a few hours with them and we got to experience a whole other side of Delhi. Just a great trip all around. I hope to make it back to India again.

Well said.

2012-01-16T14:23:00.001-05:00

Steal this Idea: Modern DIY Busts

2012-01-13T09:00:00.003-05:00

Its Friday (yippee!) - time for another Steal this Idea* feature - a tiny show of appreciation for a well executed tutorial.

If you know me, you know that I kind of have a thing for busts. No, not that kind! (Get your mind out of the gutter people.) I fall hard for the lovely lady heads that serve so well as accent pieces or jewelry displays.

So when I spotted this DIY bust project from the always amazing Kara Paslay (who I've raved about before here and here), I knew I had to show you.

She started with some scrap wood and some magazine clippings...

...and made a collection of beautiful busts that are just gorgeous!

A nod to the old in a totally new way. Could not love it more. Aside from being great home decor pieces, I think you could throw a really amazing modern victorian party and use these as fabulous centerpieces. Who's with me?

Run over to the Kara Paslay Designs to check out all the details on how you can make your own and have a look around, her site is chock full of other beautiful, budget friendly ideas.

postscript: *When I say steal, I really mean borrow nicely and give proper credit!

**If you have an idea/tutorial you would like me to consider for a feature, email me. I'd love to see!

Won't you be my neighbor?

2012-01-12T11:10:00.004-05:00

Won't you please? Please won't you be...my neighbor.
{anyone who isn't singing the Mr. Rogers theme, please raise your hand.}

I've often thought how awesome it would be to have some real life blogger friends nearby. (I know there are a lot of Brooklyn bloggers but none that I pal around with) Anyone have an extra few million and want to be my neighbor?

Bring on the real estate porn!

This amazing pad is not too far from me. Think of the aMAZing parties we could have. And brunch, we could have brunch! Swoon. We can be bFFs! (blogger friends forever)

Ok, I'm snaping out of dreamland now. Although that sick bathroom is making me double convinced I have to paint the shore bedroom an rich inky blue.

Away we went.

2012-01-11T09:00:00.000-05:00

One of my (many!) shortcomings I'm trying to work on this year is being more organized. So it comes as no surprise to me that I never shared the finished photo book for 2010 that showed up months ago. (In some twisted corner of my mind, I was feeling quite accomplished for having completed the book just 9 months into the year!) Anyway, it arrived and I can now call my annual travel photo book a tradition as I stack it neatly on top of the 2009 edition.

I guess its time to work on the 2011 edition, huh?

Curious whats inside the pages? Flip through the 2010 version, 2009 version or read what I thought about the book's quality here.

Happy Blog-i-versary to me.

2012-01-10T09:00:00.001-05:00

5 years ago this week, I typed up my first Brooklyn Limestone post. It isn't hard to remember how monumental the task of transforming this wreck felt back then - I was always stressed and overwelmed. While I could do with being 5 years younger, I'm definitely happy to have the stress of a gut renovation way behind me. It wasn't until that was over we started traveling again, I had time to be crafty and just getting back to being normal.

In that first year, we boiled the paint off old doorknobs, hacked off vintage tile to reuse on our kitchen backsplash, made a bedroom into a kitchen, a kitchen into an office, redesigned the most disguisting bathroom of all time, scoured the east coast for architectural salvage, picked out countless paint colors, and sneaked a few fake details in the mix.

I would not have guessed how this blog would have changed over the years (I never planned on showing my face or talking about anything other than the renovation) but a giant hug and kiss for any of you who have stuck around since then. This is my happy place. Happy Blog-i-versary to me.

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Man Cave: Coffee Table Conundrum

2012-01-09T09:00:00.000-05:00

So you might be wondering whats going on in the man cave. I was very excited to share the arrival of the new marble topped coffee table with you. I love the movement in the stone and the shiny base. Sadly I never thought to measure the height of the table and I'm left with a big problem. The coffee table is way too low!

The hubs is not happy. It's totally my fault for not measuring the height of the table against the height of the sofa before ordering (Come on CB2. Is there really a market for half sized coffee tables? )

So now I have a problem. I need to make it higher. Casters would help a little but not nearly enough to bring it up to normal height. So what do I do? Help!