The Estate of Things

An inspiration post, our contribution to the blog it forward chain created by Victoria at sfgirlbybay. Thanks Victoria for your time, here’s a little of our time.

There seems to be an endless amount of people out there doing something inspirational. Some we’ve been fortunate enough to run across and so many more that we have yet to see.

We are inspired daily. Here are just some of the sources that inspire us.

What gets Sarah’s juices flowing…

Photographs of people.

Beach Studios

DC and Anna Colman, age 9

Coastal Living

My mother in 1977, my mother outside of the Paris Market in Savannah in 2010

Elle Decor

my brother in law

Lisa Congdon

Our photo wall in the hallway

a new acquisition of mine, Photobooth by Babbette Hines

Bloggies, blogger, blogs…Ofcourse I would be remiss if I didn’t devote a little time to all those out there who are inspiring me on a daily basis. Without you sometimes I would be bored but most of the time just distracted.

Dinner & A Movie postings at From Me To You, Jamie makes me want to cook.  Thats some serious inspiration, ask most people I know and they’ll tell you I don’t cook. Food aside, the rest of From Me to You is a visual feast of Jamie’s photography work and pretty darn inspiring. I haven’t made any of the dishes yet but it is a very attainable goal of mine. Jamie don’t ever stop doing what you do.

My favorite dinner combo to date is the Arugula & Goat Cheese Ravioli AND Revolutionary Road.

Boundless interior inspiration from Desire to Inspire, here’s a little smidgen of what is going on this week…

Jenny’s DIY projects at Little Green Notebook

Photo play with Photoshop at Swedish blog En bulle ur ugnen

design work life, Illustration, packaging and typeface oh my!

 Outdoor spaces

What gets Betsy…

Sheer Mania
At times, inspiration washes over me with an inertia. It requires no effort and I am indulged in every direction. It is in these moments that I feel I am at my most creative. Motivated. Unstoppable. In these moments I think. I think. I think. and I write. I think and write about the following.

Beautiful Rooms
I’m inspired by beautiful rooms (especially when they have big gypsy dogs lying around in them). I love looking at magazines and also cruising the other blogs to see what the rest of the world is doing. Culling images and thought processes from other bloggers makes me want to make my home a beautiful and meaningful place to live. I’m still working on making my new home beautiful. Here’s some pics from the last one.

Vast Landscapes
Besides beautiful rooms, I’m inspired by a large view in my face. I snap at them with my camera sometimes and then play with them on my iPhone apps. No picture ever does a vast landscape justice. I’ve seen mountains that will break your heart.

Family, Friends & Loved Ones
These people meet me on planes that inspire introspection and inspiration. I’m grateful for them eternally.

Color and Pattern
These are the driving forces in decision-making when it comes to my own choices for making my home a beautiful place to live. I have love affairs with colors and patterns, sometime brief and fleeting, sometime deep and long-lasting.

Travel
I love to hit the road. Before I moved to LA, I was working with my Dad to fix up a 1968 Vintage Shasta Camper Trailer. My goal was to turn it into a traveling gypsy adventure (working my internet based job from it). I don’t require a camper for travel of course, but I am inspired by the thought of the lifestyle!

Music
I’m moved to the core by music, inspired to say the least. I choose to share the video below because I’ve watched it one hundred million times these past few weeks, but also because I’m inspired by the subject matter. I tear through a lot of music, you can catch my musical inspirations on my AudioMuffin Twitter page: twitter.com/bootsy42

Yours Truly Presents: The Morning Benders “Excuses” from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

Yeah!

Here’s a list of the other bloggers that are writing on the subject of inspiration today,

• art wall
• occupation housewife
• charlotte’s fancy
• pretty much art
• dream a little dream
• sloe gin fizz
• inspire wire
• love ashley
• was eigenes

Toast’s Spring/Summer catalog revealed itself in my inbox this week.  I took note of these cross stitched sheets

This week at the Indiana project its all about the exterior.

Repairing those cedar shakes…

The carpenters named that unsightly shelter that once housed the steps to the cellar door the “dog house”.

Well its gone now, the cellar door was removed and the hole sealed and dirt filled in to the cement hole.  I am so glad that thing is gone, I hated it and it was sort of inhibiting me from seeing progress.

Dog house trashing the view, well actually the dog house isn’t the only negative in this image

Dog house gone

The underground oil tank was pumped out last week and my Dad dug it up with his backhoe. He had tons of fun doing that. I think its therapeutic for him. The tank was about 6 feet long and 45 inches in diameter. It should go to the salvage yard soon.

The rain drove the carpenters inside for part of the week.  While inside they removed some original flooring from the master bath and other areas of the house to patch the reading nook upstairs, the master bedroom and the closet in the master bedroom.

By reusing the original wood we hope to save money in material and we like reusing materials original to the house.  We will not however, save any cash in the labor department.

The floors are oak downstairs and yellow pine upstairs.  I’ve noticed in other remodels of homes built before 1940, that the more expensive wood was used in areas where guests were more likely to see it–oak being the more expensive of the two in this case.

As a side note, oak holds up a lot better to doggie toenails than the pine floors I’ve lived with in the past.

Looking forward to window installation possibly next week?!?

I’ve hatched a plan, its a plan for my bedroom.

Great right…wrong.

Wrong because the plan for my bedroom requires that I get all new furniture and my husband Dan would freak out if he knew I was even entertaining the thought. I have so many other incomplete rooms in my home that need much more attention than the bedroom. It’s totally ridiculous really. But it’s all Ethan Allen’s fault.  Ethan made this bed, the Quincy.

You might’ve seen it in the Ruralist category in House Beautiful in the Dec/Jan issue but I loved the Quincy before HB declared it Ruralist cool. Apartment Therapy talked about the irrational fantasies the Quincy invoked, so its not just me. Its comforting to know I’m not alone.

And yes, I know that there is probably an antique/vintage bed I could pick up for much less and paint black, I’ve considered that possibility too. Trust me, every old bed I see with traditional yet graphic curves, I imagine it black.

For now I’ll have to stick with what I’ve got which is this,

I stumbled upon Trisha Brink’s home at sfgirlbybay last week. It was her bathroom with the vintage seaside oil paintings casually propped up by the claw foot tub that drew me in.

After taking a spin through Trisha’s flickr album, I decided you’d probably better have a look.

The bath that got my attention

It appears Trisha stays pretty busy with her store Grandiflora, her blog and creating things for her etsy shop.  With all of this going on, Trisha says that she always remains a Mom and a wife first.

nice little vignette in Trisha’s home

Trisha says a low cost kitchen remodel was completed a couple of years ago and they are still loving it.

another sweet vignette

signature bungalow style door

Thanks Tricia for letting us share your home!

How could I ever pick my favorite at Unhappy Hipsters? Not possible…

 
This time it was “Mondrian: From Naturalism to Abstraction,” but at least the TV was finally on.

(Photo: Chad Holder; Dwell, April/May 2005)

Rosebud’s patience wore thin. Was the door open or closed? She refused to suffer the humiliation of guessing.

(Photo: Jason Schmidt; Dwell, February 2010)

It was hard to tell if social networking had instilled an instinct to compulsively pose, or if there was actually a photographer at the end of the living room.

(Photo: Mark Steinmertz; Dwell, September 2003)

My friend Joel has a beautiful doll of a girl roommate named Aubrey and she is a genius. They rent a Spanish bungalow in West L.A. (total score… full on 3br 2ba house, exposed beams, an amazing backyard and studio out back. I’m gonna show you pics!)

Aubrey is a genius because she has a really fun ceiling, and she painted the room grey with a complimentary dark grey above and I love it. Don’t you!?

Here’s some more pics of the home, so you can salivate a bit. It’s affordable too. Affordable like less than $1000 per month per person.

I love the art deco tile that you run into in LA homes.

Sunbeam & Beams!!

Nice chairs. (Sarah must be wondering, but they are not Joel’s. They are the previous tenants)

What’s up trellis?

Corkboard vs. Chalkboard? I think I’m leaning towards chalkboard.

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”

The wall separating the kitchen from the dining room was removed, one of the best decisions that has been made thus far in the project.

Stage 1, Before

Stage 2, Cabinets, plaster removed

Stage 3, wall is gone!

Earlier in the week Betsy wrote a post about the dining set her roommate inherited. How could they upgrade it?

Might I suggest…

Painting the chairs and the base (?) white and applying this fabric

The fabric is Kravet Streetwise in Cafe. I found it at Modern Fabrics and on Ebay. I thought this fabric would jive well with the House Beautiful kitchen Betsy admired from the tiny kitchen post.

This image from the recent Flor catalog also got me thinking about Betsy & Kate’s dining area.

Looking at the table above made me think that if the table top isn’t in acceptable shape, maybe it might look great white and the base could be left black.

I think I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the stylists for the Flor catalog are pretty damn good in my opinion. There is a really strong mix of modern, antique and traditional in that catalog, free inspiration comes in the mail every few months.