plant photo: 008

the blues... echeveria giant blue... blue lacy... blue italian greyhound.

a Christmas tree in a bullet planter

Will the tall bullet planter save the Christmas tree from Minnow's destructive ways?  We hope so!

naughty and nice

Lottie was the best puppy.  A perfect angel.  She was never destructive.  My furniture and belongings were always safe.  And then there's Minnow. 

My chair with Lottie...

My chair with Minnow...

Minnow also bites the leaves off my plants, chews up my magazines, will jump up on the coffee table and leap from there to the couch, can be found standing on the dining room table, and knocks the water bowl over daily.  Puppies.  I do love them... even when they're naughty.  And it's a good thing she is so cute! 

living room

Got motivated to move the furniture around in the living room this weekend. This is the only place the couch has never been before and this arrangement is the first one that really separates the living and dining areas... well as much as they can be separated in my little house. I like it. The orange chair is back by the windows and Lottie greatly approves of that. She loves her orange chair. The black owl has migrated from the bedroom to the this room and I'm still playing around with the rest of the small stuff. I want some new tillansias and I NEED a magazine rack. Having a bit of regret for not buying an amazing rack I saw back in 2010. We had a nice Friday night sitting around a warm fire. The firewood Mark bought was almost to pretty to burn...almost.

plants and plants and more plants

So many plants in my home right now. I love it!

sunday sunlight

January

This is the result of being stuck inside for most of the week... too many random photos of the living room and dining room.

Ikea

My friends were making the almost 3 hour journey from their home to Ikea on Sunday so Mark and I decided to meet them there. This time our trip only took about 45 minutes as the highways were wide open. Way better than the hour and a half when I went last Fall and swore I was never going back. One thing on my list was the tradig wire bowl. It was only available in red the last time I went and once I saw it in white online, well I had to get one. I also bought a $59 counter top in "as is" for my office. Now I have a workspace that is two feet longer! This will definitely help my goal to become more organized in 2011.

This week I'm giving Ikea's alvine rand rug a test run in the living room. I bought it on that Fall 2010 Ikea run from hell and it's been rolled up waiting for the guest room or basement to get finished. I'm not sure how I feel about it in the living room. I don't hate it. I need to live with it for while and see how it goes.

living room

Today the living room looks like this. I moved a couple of things around... again. Oh and ditched the shabby rug. If Santa brings me new frieplace tools, I will be a very happy lady.

living room: changing things up

before...


and now after I moved some things around...





With all the same furnishings, how different can it really be!! I had the couch this way for the first couple of years that we lived here. Then I moved the couch in front of the window and it stayed there for 3 years. I liked the furniture the way it was but 3 years is a long time and I was bored with it! I'm still messing around in there but this is basically the new configuration. Lottie doesn't want to sit on the couch in its new location so I can probably lose the cheap ikea throw blanket. Or get a nicer one that I could actually use. I also think I want less orange stuff in the room... the chair and the big orange painting are enough. Some things on the mantle might have to change soon too. I definitely need new fireplace tools. We've had that log holder for about 6 or 7 years and it could be time for something different. I'll be adding a Christmas tree to the mix in about a week so I might have to put my complete living room make-over on hold until after the holidays.

Lottie update... she is now napping on both the couch and the orange chair. She just needed a couple of weeks to assimilate.

problem area...


Now I'm on the hunt for a small credenza to put in the entry way. I love these...


credenza photos from Amsterdam Modern