jambox is awesome

I have a new friend. We spend hours together each day and she brings me nothing but pure joy. And what's best, I can carry her anywhere.

"She" is my Jambox. Our neighbors let us borrow theirs one afternoon for a test run and it was about an hour later that we decided we needed to put on our shoes and get one for ourselves. We've had it for about 3 months now and couldn't be happier.

This little honey has bluetooth capabilities which means that she somehow talks to my iPhone and they make sweet music together. I carry her with me to the basement and listen to Pandora while I fold laundry. Then I have her next to me while I listen to podcasts and cook dinner.

The sound it makes is just as good as any big huge stereo and girlfriend can get LOUD when you are ready to jam it out. Which, I try to do most afternoons around 3:30. The English have afternoon tea, I have an afternoon jam. The girls and I turn up the GoGo's and as Yo Gabba Gabba would say, we "get the sillies out".

But I digress.

They even sell a little chain so you can wear it around your neck Flavor Flav style, if that's your bag. You can custom design yours in any color you like and it is so small and unobtrusive it blends right into the room without screaming "look at my sweet hifi system"!

The point is, if you enjoy music half as much as I do, at a volume half as loud as I do, you for sure need yourself a Jambox.

Have you been surprised by a piece of technology lately? Do you ever worry that you've got the music too loud and you'll permanently deafen your children? Nope, not me either.

pig in a blanket

I had my sights set on a new secretary for my entry. Not the ‘here is your coffee and you have a call holding on line 2’ type of secretary (are they even called that anymore) but a nice little piece of furniture. It was old, but not too precious that I couldn’t paint or change it up in some way without feeling bad. Character and charm to spare and spots for all the entryway things one needs. Just what I had in mind.

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Except, it was 2 inches too deep. Two. Damn. Inches. I could have stuffed it in and made it work. But it would have been like those tight jeans that you can’t wear sitting down; great for one night and then just a regret in your closet…or basement as the case may be. And really what sense would that make? 

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I had thought it was a take it or leave it piece and I was the tough cookie who would walk away if we couldn’t get it for the right price. But those extra two inches rejected me before I could reject it. And now that it is for sure not coming home with me, I feel a new obsession to find its replacement.

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Something even better. 

I’m going to show those two inches I can live a happy wonderful life without them. I will survive.

Do you have a piece that got away? Have you ever had a design idea that was perfect in your head but never worked out in real life? Do you know anyway to move a wall two inches without having to make structural changes?

your space or mine

As I mentioned on my 2013 goal list, redoing the girls’ room is on the agenda this year. So naturally Pinterest and I have kid rooms on the brain.

Amelia (5) and I have had many talks about not decorating around ‘phases’. That although you may be really into Dora right now, you don’t want to decorate your entire room around Dora because when that phase passes, you’ll have a lot of changing to do. Not only a good lesson and true, but also gets me out of saying “hell no, I’m not doing a whole room around Dora”. Sorry Nick Jr.

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Whenever you hear designers talk about rooms for children they always talk about not getting too ‘themey’. Design a room that will, let’s say it all together now, grow with your child. And while I completely agree with that I worry that sometimes it can give crazy moms like me a free ticket out of including the kids' in the room at all. 

Of course my idea of a wonderful room is light years away from what the girls would pick. I'm loving a big layered bed with lots of pattern and Amelia wants Tinkerbell sheets. I'd love some really colorful abstract art on the wall and Eve wants pictures of Hello Kitty. And a light up Barbie is not my idea of killer lighting.

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But I do want the girls' to feel like it is indeed their room. I want them to want to be in there. I want them to feel comfortable with and proud of their space, just as I would want for any adult that I work with. So I might have to bend in some areas and pick my battles. Which is true in every aspect of parenting, isn't it? And after all, we adults go through phases as well. We just call them trends. 

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Do you think it's possible to achieve a room that is well designed but also represents the kid(s) who lives there? Do you go with ‘last until they’re a teenager’ school of thought? Or are you more of a ‘we’ll refresh it in a few years’ person?  

DIY monogram stool - color outside the lines

Happy King Martin day! (as Amelia calls it)

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. We’ve been fighting ear infections and some sort of stomach bug so besides a nice long walk; we didn’t get to do much. And tied to the house to monitor temperatures and naps, my hands were fidgeting for something to do.

Enter the victim.

A wonderful little stool my mom and I picked up at a salvage store a while back. It’s the perfect height for the girls and they love using it as a chair/ladder/stuffed animal fort/who knows what else.

This little dude is old though and has the marks to prove it. And to remove all of the layers of paint, scratches and dents would have taken more patience than I possess. So I embraced his battle scars and after a good sanding, declared him ready for paint.

I used spray paint I had left over from this project, and after a few coats step one was complete. Next was adding a bit of fun. My dear friend, and graphic design guru, helped me come up with a monogram for the girls (Amelia and Eve – not Arts and Entertainment). Modern and fun, I love it.

She also gave me the best advice ever. When I told her how much I was dreading cutting out the monogram stencil (remember, me and negative space don’t mix) she uttered two genius words – graphite paper.

$2.99 at Michael’s (minus 40% with their ubiquitous coupon) and I had myself an outlined monogram. Couldn’t have been easier. How did I not know about this genius paper?!

bad basement lighting

After tracing the monogram on the stool I grabbed some leftover navy paint, borrowed a paintbrush from the girls and got to work.

Keeping with the ‘not perfect’ theme of this stool, I tried not to curse (too much) over my coloring outside the lines. Flaws are good right?! Flaws = character. (just keep repeating that to yourself like I do)

If you follow me on Facebook, like all cool people do, then you know I made a game time decision to add the border...using a dinner plate and painters tape of course.

Lovely.

A great stool for two fabulous girls in one of my all time favorite color combos. Outside the lines and perfect.

Try any DIY projects this weekend? Ever used graphite paper? I tell you, I'm looking for something else to create just so I can use it again!

linked up to the Dog Days of Winter Thrift it Link Party

the perfect navy paint

I'm on the hunt. (imagine me in fabulous riding boots and a wonderful tweed jacket with my beagle by my side)

I've got a piece of furniture begging for a paint job. It's true. It told me it wanted to be painted. In a heavy Scottish accent oddly enough. So it's very possible I misunderstood, but I'm certain he said he wanted to be navy.

Happy to oblige Scottish furniture, but the problem is there are no fewer than 10,000 different paint colors claiming to be navy. You may remember I've had navy paint problems in the past, so I'm still rather nervous about making another navy pick.

There is after all a fine line between "that's a really dark royal blue" and "is that black...or blue". I'm going for "hot damn that is one fine piece of navy furniture!".

Something like this...

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So don't hold out on me. Do you have any good navy paint colors in your stash? Please share if you do!

Do you have a color you can never seem to get right? Have any talking furniture? For more furniture ideas see my Pinterest board.

bubbles with my bubbly

We've turned the corner. Now that the holidays are over, we are in the long depressing stretch of the gray, cold nothing that is winter. Not even a cuddly warm sweater or cute new scarf can trick me into being happy about the next two months. My mind is obsessed with nothing but getting warm.

And what better way to warm up than with a nice warm, quite bath. Nothing but me and my champaign (or champs as the RHOOC ladies call it).

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I feel more relaxed already. Check out my bathroom board on Pinterest for more eye candy.

What do you do to help you get thru these frigid months? Do you have a nice big tub you use regularly? If you don't use it, can I come over and borrow it? Little Mermaid always ends up in my tub and she's not keen to share.

color, colors and coloring

Before I jump into a recap of my weekend, let me first say a big 'thank you' for all of your comments on Friday's post. You are good eggs, each and every last one of you. And if I could, I'd hug you all. And I'm a good hugger. Just ask around. I'm kind of a big deal amongst high powered hugging circles. So thank you.

Now the weekend. It was sunny and warm. There was shopping involved and pretty dresses. Not too shabby at all.

I've got a new upholstery project waiting for me.

Had a great day with Client F where we scored many many goodies. I'll have to take proper pictures with a real camera, but here is a ReStore score/project in the making.

Brainstorming some ideas on how to work with this tile combo.

And came home Sunday afternoon to find this masterpiece ON my doorway.

Creativity seeps out of every member of the little black door household. We are unstoppable.

How was your weekend? Enjoy any good food, company or entertainment? What did you think of the Globes? Was Jodie Foster supposed to make sense? She rambles more than I do! And Tommy Lee Jones - lighten up. No one shot your dog. It's a party. Live a little.

shameless plug friday

I mentioned on my 2013 goal list that I'm going to work on opening up a bit more about other parts of my life. Probably not to the lady next to me in line at the grocery store, or my dentist, but certainly to my uber supportive and loyal readers. (tear)

This I'm sure sounds easy to a lot of you but for me it will certainly be a challenge. I don't share a lot of things about myself readily. When I'm with my friends, I would much rather talk about them. In work I'm never good at patting myself on the back or tooting my own horn. It's not really a shy issue, as those who know me will testify - I'm so not shy. It's more of a "I'm sure (insert person's name here) doesn't care about (insert accomplishment here). I don't want to bother them with that boring stuff." So  that's probably a self-esteem issue? I don't know, there is probably a Lifetime Television movie that can work me thru it.

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I've already been working on it for the past year. This blog was a huge step towards teaching myself that it is OK to tell others "Hey I did (insert accomplishment here) and I'm pretty proud of it."

Next step is to push myself a little to share more than just my own projects, but the projects that I do for others. And who knows, maybe even the occasional 'these crazy kids' story. No worries though, design is still my core.

I'm going to start small today with this little shocker. Did you know that you can 'like' little black door on Facebook? It's true. I'm on the cutting edge people. This Facebook thing is going places. And, I'm also on Twitter. I just blew your mind, I know. I'm on Instagram too, but that's a long story that shows nothing but my Instagram ignorance.

So make my Friday, and have some fun. Go on over to Facebook, and Twitter and 'like' me. Shameless plug indeed. If you do, I promise to never post another inspirational quote. Ever.

Happy Weekend!

spin the color wheel

If you could paint my dining room bench any color, what would it be?

Would you go neutral?

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Green?

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Or maybe pink?

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Orange possibly?

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Of course, there are also a million other wonderful colors out there as well. As you all know, I'm no chicken when it comes to color. So I want to know - what would get your vote?

2013 goals

Ok, I know. I'm a little late to the party. And you are probably rolling your eyes to have to look at yet another New Year's list, but I've got to create some accountability here people. If I don't put this list out into the great big interwebs, it will become part of the long list of things that never get done. I need to be able to look you in the eye after all.

After my success with my 2012 goal list I find it best to keep this suckers short manageable. So I'll keep this short and sweet.

1. Entry refresh. It is really too small to be considered a foyer and "entry" is even pushing it, but whatever it is it needs a kick in the pants. The hubs and my dad hung the wallpaper the first summer we were in the house and it is pretty beat up. I also need more storage...somehow. A head scratcher.

2. Sew something. Anything. I've got the sewing machine, it's the whole using the sewing machine thing that is getting in my way. Just to figure out how to spool the thread is a challenge for me. Don't judge. I'm just not a patient person. So the goal is to sew myself a pillow at the very least. 12 months to sew a pillow. I'm pushing myself for greatness, aren't I?

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3. The girls' room. It's almost time for Eve to move into her big girl bed, so it is the perfect time to start from scratch. Hopefully I can make these bossy clients happy.

4. Bathroom redo. All cosmetics. Not the lipstick kind, but the paint kind. I'm over the color(s) in there and something needs to change. Pinterest and I have been consulting on this already. Now if I could just narrow it down to one idea...

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5. Open my little black door a little more. Did you know I have a growing design business? Of course you don't, how could you? I don't talk about it much. That will change, in a good way. More to come.

So there is my top 5 for the year. Officially out there. And I already feel behind. No turning back now, you've read it after all. Have you planned for any big changes this year? Any new adventures?