home and garden junkie

I am an HGTV addict.

It's one of the only reasons I have cable, and probably one of the main reasons I never get around to blogging :).

There are so many great shows.  I am completely in love with Genevieve Gorder. Sabrina Soto's show High/Low Project is super fun to watch (especially when The Man gets all fussy about how cheap the "High" furniture is).  Scott McGillivray from Income Property has made me want to be a landlord, and now one of the newer kids on the block has also got me hooked. 

Meg Caswell was last years HGTV Design Star winner, and her show, Meg's Great Rooms, is based here in Chicago.  It's so much fun to watch, because she's always going to new places around town that I've never heard of. 
A while back I saw an episode where she goes to Nadeau.

Nadeau is a furniture store.  But instead of mass-produced or "assembly required" pieces they house a variety of furniture pieces found around the world and brought back to the good ol' US of A.  Their store in Chicago is right by Architectural Artifacts and we decided to check it out a few weekends ago.

I saw a lot of secretaries that I loved, 

and everything is very decently priced.

There were even some printing blocks that I almost snatched up, but since it was right before the move The Man and I weren't really in a buying mood.

The Morning Man is pretty determined to make all the furniture we need for our new pad, but now that we're a little more settled I think we'll head back to Nadeau soon.

I'll also keep watching Meg's Great Rooms for more Chicago shopping advise!!!

painting yettie's

So the other day The Man and I were walkin' around Target, buying some basics when I passed this:

(picture taken from Target website)

 They definitely didn't have paint-by-numbers like this when I was a kid.

Apparently unicorns and landscape scenes have been taken over by Yettie's.
Kids crafts have gone hipster . . . and I love it!


Also the downtown Target opens Sunday! Now I can go look at laundry baskets and table lamps on my lunch break. Whooopie!!!

old news and guerrilla trucks

There were so many things that happened over my month of radio silence, and even though it may be old news I still want to tell you all about them.

You may have already heard of the Guerrilla Truck Show, you may have gone to the Guerrilla Truck Show, but in case you have no idea what I mean when I say Guerrilla Truck Show, this post is for you.

Tuesday June 12th (yeah, that long ago) we drove down to the west loop to check out a furniture show. A friend of the shop was in Object Society's 4th Annual Exhibition and low and behold that very same night was the one-night-only art and furniture exhibition titled the Guerrilla Truck Show.

The Object Society show was really wonderful.  The work was beautiful and there were many peices I would love to own.

 (This chair rocked my world  . . badum-bum-tsh)

This dresser was my favorite

This peice was rearangable - the colored rectangles ontop could pop-out and be reconfigured into different patterns - very cool.

This beautiful sloped bench was made by Micheal Koehler (that previously mentioned "friend of the shop") and unfortunately this is the only peice I know the maker of.  I wish I had been better at collecting cards, so if you know who made any of these pieces please let me know.

And of course The Man crawled around on his hands and knees inspecting every inch of every peice.

We have an unspoken understanding, The Man and I.

I don't get embarrased when he crawls on the floor scrutinizing other peoples furniture, and he doesn't get embarrased when I sing out-loud to the muzak in the grocery store.  It's a very nice arrangment.

We weren't planning on going anywhere but home after Object Society but the rows of moving trucks had us curious:

It turns out The Guerrilla Truck Show is pretty cool.  The artists involved rent a moving truck and turn it into a temporary gallery.  Like any art show, there was some junk, but there were also some really unique and interesting pieces.

One of the first trucks we came across was New Breed's.  Their pieces are gorgeous!

It was too packed in there to get a really good picture of my favorite piece, so I took this image from their website:

So AWESOME! Don't you think?

There were so many trucks, and soooo many people

There was even a SAIC truck, and The Man ran into one of his favorite furniture teachers

Sorry for all the terrible photos, it was so crowded, once you finally had a shot without a ton of people in it you had to take it, focusing be damned!

It was a great surprise night out, especially at the end of the night when I got to talk to this lady I always see with her 3 Norwich Terriers!!!! 3!! She even let me know the name of her favorite breeder :)

That's all for now
More soon!
I swear!!

rebeccakah!

It's my momma's Birthday!

Just as my dad has Stufest and I have Alypalooza, 

it is now time for Rebeccakah!!!!!!!

It's only eight days,

so let's make it count!!!!!

Happy Birthday Mom! I love you so much!!!

p.s. just incase you have no idea what I'm talking about . . .

by request

This is our Monster Robot Air-Conditioner: 

I think I'll call him Jeffery,

after my favorite t.v. butler.

-brownie points if you know what show I'm talking about :)






UPDATE : I got totally schooled by Binks! It's Geoffrey not Jeffery!
Oops, next time I'll do better fact checking.

back in action and a happy belated independents day

Hello! I finally have internet again!
It's been pretty silent here on ol' Ms. Lazybones, and for good reason, We Moved!! And we were so caught up in moving that we forgot to sign up for internet. So other than checking facebook on my telephone, or the occasional sneak peak at work, I've been internet-less for a while, and although it was boring at times, it was also kinda really totally great. Without internet or cable you get a lot done, and have longer conversations, and ( . . . hold on to your pants . . .) go outside!!! I played baseball with a soccer ball and didn't even pretend to be too cool for it!
I completely embraced it's ridiculousness:

The Fourth of July was sweltering, and sticky, and all around gross.  When we found our apartment it was so nice outside that it didn't seem like a big deal to be without central-air. Then we moved in and Chicago turned into an oven. So on the fourth we decided to bite the bullet and buy an 11,000 btu portable air-conditioner, a.k.a. the best 469.00 dollars I've ever spent.  And to top it all off we got to have a little "Yay America" party without everyone dying of heat exhaustion!!

We didn't go as crazy as last year but I still got in the spirit with some flags and fireworks:

Definitely not as good as last years eagles, but considering how I couldn't (and still can't) figure out what box anything is in and it was so hot the polish kept getting gloppy, it ain't half bad.

We also found out how large our neighbors' fireworks budgets are: 

There is a park directly across the street from our apartment, and people went crazy with fireworks. We're talkin' professional grade, high in the sky, car alarms going off fireworks.  It was awesome and amazing aaaaand way too close.  We first contemplated leaving when I kept getting hit in the arm with tiny flaming rocks but what really sealed the deal was when a few of the fireworks went sideways into the crowds of people. Yeah, drunk parents lighting illegal boxes full of gun powder on fire is exciting and scary.

All in all it was a fantastic America Day! And now that I have internet again I can tell you all the things I've been wanting to share with you for weeks!!!

I hope you had fun last week!!!

daddies day

Hey Everybody, don't forget! 

It's Fathers Day!!!

Happy Fathers Day Daddio!!!

I Love you a whole bunch!!

paper lantern

Remember back when I showed you that to-do list? Yeah, you know, back in January.

Well take a look at what I finally finished!!!

A while back (a.k.a. over a year ago) I saw this bad boy on Design Sponge. I loved it and wanted to make one, but procrastination got the best of me.  Then, a few months later, I saw these puppies on Style me Pretty, and it really got me ready . . . to start thinking about it even harder.

So a few months ago I finally told myself it was time.  I got a paper lantern, cut tons of triangles, and started the long process of gluing them one by one onto the lantern, it took forever but it was totally worth it because look how cool this thing is!!!!

I'm pretty sure the ones from Design Sponge and Style Me Pretty were made with wider strips, which probably made it both faster to put together and a brighter light.  The strips I cut were 1" wide at the top and 8 1/2" long (cut from old stationary we were going to throw out at the office). There are so many layers that the light barely shines through the paper lantern I bought.  It also doesn't help that I decided to buy one of the battery-operated LED lanterns, which don't put out much light at all, and the light that does come through has a weird green hue to it (I didn't check if the LED worked until after I was half done . . .oops).  I think I might put a light bulb in it afterall, especially since there is a socket in the ceiling right where I want to hang it In Our New Apartment!!!! I'll show you once everything is put together. I'm super excited to move, if you can't tell already.

I think I'll try another one with different sized strips, or maybe different colored strips!! This project was pretty time consuming but the end result was so gratifying, I'm happy I stuck to it.

If you want to give it a whirl just make sure to buy the lanterns with the continuing/parallel metal coil, as opposed to the ones with the crazy asymmetrical/criss-cross coil.  The parallel lines are your guide lines as you paste your strips and circle up the lantern.

And when you're done send me a picture! I'd love to see it!

alypalooza!! . . . continued

Don't think just because the day is over the celebration is over, cuz that's not how we do it in this family.
We draw the party out, over days and weeks,
so AlyPalooza is still in full effect!!!

I had such a blast this weekend, so I want to tell you all about it!

First off I painted my nails for the big day.

Then I spent most of Saturday baking this amazingly delicious cake.

 I've never made something chocolatey from scratch before (other than frosting)
I used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, an amazingly great recipe blog, that you have to check out, I have a never-ending list of her recipes I want to try out!

There were tons of ingredients I had to get, but in the end it was %100 worth it.  This is hands down the best cake I've ever made. So moist, so flavorful, so good in fact . . .

that I couldn't even get a picture of it before it was attacked!

It's the Double Chocolate Layer cake, with Chocolate Ganache and a Raspberry/Strawberry filling.  I strayed from the filling recipe just a bit, I don't have a food processor or any sort of blending device so I chopped up the berries added some sugar and let them sit to macerate in their own juices, then cooked them down (so I could eat them without going to the hospital). I also added strawberries to the raspberries, because they're delicious, and it's my birthday so I can do whatever I want.

 We had a couple friends over Saturday night and it was wonderful 

(thank you for coming over, you made my day!).

After a night of alcohol and cake (don't worry mom and dad, we stayed classy), I thought Sunday was going to be a wash. Just a sleep in and watch t.v. day.

But then The Man surprised me!

We went to the Davis Movie Theater to see The Avengers!!!

It was so great!

We haven't been out to see a movie since Alice in Wonderland (yeah, like March 2010, that long). So it was quite a surprise when The Man told me what we were doing.

The Davis is a great theater, no bells and whistles, and just $5.75 to see a movie before 6pm (around $8 after). When the movie got out we took a stroll through Lincoln Square to check it out, becaaauuuse . . . 

We're moving!!!!

To Lincoln Square!!!

YAY!

(but I'll tell you more about that later)

alypalooza!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy AlyPalooza Everybody!!!!

Guess How old I am?

      I'll give you a clue . . .

That's right, I'm a whole Quarter Century now!!

It's my Birthday and I can paint my nails all crazy if I want to!!