Guess what? Isaac took me to see his pals at Colorlife Powder Coating in Hicksville, New York (516. 433.1222) who powder coated a steel chair sculpture of his years ago. They did a great job on his piece so he remembered them and drove me out there last weekend. Their shop is right near an IKEA, so we went there too, but I only came away with some candles and a belly full of salmon salad. (It's unnatural that I can resist IKEA; I know). 

I had the chairs done in a glossy white and will get some colorful patterned cushions for them next. I hope the advocates for chocolate brown and orange will forgive me. I'll see what I can do with the fabric for the cushions.

Here's the before picture--if you click on it, you can see what a wreck they were. The Colorlife shop is below that.

Have you heard that we're holding a decorating contest with a grand prize of $10,000? The details of the contest are here. But more importantly, look at some of the terrific entries we've gotten so far! I call these the early bird entries in the domino decorating contest. You all amaze me. Go ahead and enter your room. And tell your friends! I would if I could.

No one is at work today. Of course, how would I know; I can't manage to leave my house this morning. I'll tell you what: it's because I love my house. My bedroom is so pretty and sunny in the morning I can hardly stand it--the colors, the bottles of perfume, the boudoir lamps. Here's the view from there.

This kind of exuberance, or calm, is the goal of decorating one's house, is it not? Despite my list of things to do, I am happy in my home and I thought I should pause and let you know.

Djuna the cat would like to tell you that she loves to sit in the sun in the same place next to the taped up boxspring, and she doesn't care if it's not perfect or if her mother's scrappy.

Check or no check? I'm not sure these shades are right for the little lamps but it was all I could find at Target. Any way to salvage them? Or is the shape completely wrong? I'm tempted to take a black crayon and just do a rubbing across them or something.

Oh, and can I just complain about how hard it is to find small drum or square lampshades? Thanks.

Three dollars, people. That's what this basket cost me at the Cuban lady's junk shop down the street. I once got a green suede jacket with a rip in it there for three bucks, but I think this tops that. Wouldn't you say?

I'm friends with this couple, M and K. They have really good taste. Really good. So they can be counted on to bring fabulous housewarming gifts that I'll definitely use. Yesterday they came with these coasters and this amazing Super 8 dish they got at this cute little store in Brooklyn called Cog & Pearl.

I turned 40, and guess what? I'm still breathing...sort of. I also got some great home related gifts. First this amazing box construction from my friend over at A Brooklyn Bachelor. I was drifting to sleep on the couch while the artist looked through my Hollywood Leading Ladies picture book when Djuna the black cat decided that she should eat a bit of the flora decorating the bottom of the box. The artist scared the living daylights (and any remaining 39-year-old breath) out of me by screaming at the top of his lungs. Tableau: Birthday girl scared sh*tless by her bachelor even.

Two breadboxes have entered my life lately. The first, which you see above, belongs to Casapinka. She found it on her recent trip to Ireland. It's such an iconic image, the breadbox. If I played a Freudian free association game you'd get: breadbox, grandma, breadbox, pink, breadbox, bigger, breadbox, better, breadbox, butter, breadbox, liquor. Why? I ate bread with a big whole in the middle of it for breakfast today. Then I logged on to my email and found an email from someone who had read my blog and mentioned the liquor I keep on top of my refrigerator. He wrote about how he recently inherited a breadbox from a deceased relative and how he was plagued by guilt whenever he thought of getting rid of it. He eats organic bread and it molds right away if it's not kept in the fridge. Which made me think of two things: 1) he should send me the bread box and I can use it to hide my liquor, and 2) there are so many things we do now that require electricity that didn't before. Like store bread. And brush our teeth with battery-operated toothbruses.

Or do they just go? Minus the shades...

I got them from a very nice lady who is moving to North Carolina to have babies with a man she met late in life. She sort of sounded like she'd read "The Secret", but she claims it's okay that I'm turning 40 on Sunday without love or children in my life. If I don't accept her gift of the cute little lamps am I going to die childless and alone?

Sometimes a small change can make a big difference. Take my shabby chic dresser that I almost tossed until The Eye, aka Nick Olsen, came along and convinced me to keep it and switch out the knobs. Six months later, I went to Home Depot and found these cute Knob Hill clear knobs for $3.99 a piece. They seem so right I can't remember what the thing looked like before.

One thing off the list.

Lest I lose focus, here's what I have to do:

Bedroom:
get rug (ka-ching!)
change knobs on shabby chic dresser
move furniture so vanity is not at foot of bed, but across from dresser
find place for dresser
paint bedside table glossy white
eventually get tree mural painted when i have more money (ka-ka-ka ching)
repair handles on Art Deco bedroom set
get frame for mattress to lift off the ground a bit
mount headboard
get curtains or bamboo shades
get boudoir chair or repair bench for vanity and put at end of bed

Living Room
get rug (ka-ching)
curtains or bamboo shades
have garden chairs powdercoated (ka ching)
get cushions or have some made
find second side table
get rid of rocking chair or paint white and recover
get new couch if i find one really cheap that the cats can ruin
get rid of Wooten desk & replace with something more practical
hang art on walls other than tree walls
get rid of objet collage on wall
paint cat motel orange and make cushion
hang handcarved mirror from Tanzania
hang self-portraits
hide cords
sand base of standing vintage lamp
prop

Hallway
find proper globes for overhead lights
paint bookcases white
get rug  (ka ching)
sidetable or chair to make space useful and wider
bike storage
hang art

Kitchen  (ching-ching-ching-ching)
tear out sink and replace
buy small refrigerator to fit in built ins
get designer
build counterspace and sink area
replace doors on cabinets or strip them
redo floor

Miscellaneous

frame wallpaper and hang
hang artwork
clean out closets
deal with shoe situation
deal with clothes situation
ROB A BANK

Remember me posting about this beauty? I love it so very much. And now it's for sale on Craigslist... Given the fact that both my white cat and my black cat shed white, I can't have it, but maybe one of you can...

One of my friends says that my living room is too dark to have green walls. He thinks I should paint them white. He's even offered to pay for it as a birthday present. I suggested a gorgeous pale blue-green with taupe trim kind of like the one you see below from our paint palette slide show, but not exactly.

Less blue than my bedroom and more pale, pale teal. Or like this picture of a living room from our Traditional with a Twist living room gallery? The color I really want is in our Adventuress columnist, Cynthia Kling's living room (who I've incidentally started to video tape for the site! Look for her video when the October issue comes out in about a month). I'll try to get a shot of her room.

Am I nutso to see green in these blues?

I also rehung the bathroom mirror that's been down since the house was painted last year. But if feels like an even longer procrastination than the doorknobs because my ex-boyfriend and I hung it really haphazardly about four years ago and it was always on our list to rehang. Voila.

It may not be the exact right thing for the room, but I do like a mirror there to widen the narrow space, and it hangs at just the right level for me to pluck my chin hairs.

Scrappy's been a busy little beaver this weekend. I promised my coworker that I would put the doorknobs back on my interior doors. I took them off over a year ago to strip the escutcheons. Since then, the knobs and all the hardware, have been sitting in a little vintage cosmetic case. Tonight, despite having had a bike accident today that left my legs sore as Midsummer's Day is long, I crouched down and did it.

Wait, let me say that again, I did it! Have you any idea how much psychic space I just cleared? I keep running out into the hallway to make sure I didn't dream this, because instead of dreaming about George Clooney, I dream about my doorknobs. Next I need to find a place to store all the books that were piled up in front of each door in a failed attempt to keep Emma the cat out of my closets.

Here's a question:
I screwed on the knobs, but they're still a little wobbly and I'm afraid the latches aren't catching as well as they did before I started. Any tips?

Picked this vintage curtain up at a shop out here in Brooklyn. They only had one panel, so I can't really use it as a curtain unless I do the kitchen in these colors. I've been thinking of a red or orange accented kitchen so I don't think that's going to work. What else could I do with it? It's really soft cotton. Should I make a dress? A pillow? A tablecloth?

(Click on the photo for a closeup of the fabric, Emma the cat in her drawer, and some loose extension cords that will likely offend the fastidious among you.)

Remember how I framed some Brahms sheet music and put it above my bed? Look what reader Kyleen of TexanNewYorker did with the framed sheet music I sent her! Want some of your own? Find out how to get it.

Thank goodness for DIY. That's what I say. I love this make your own lampshade out of a blueprint from Popular Mechanics. I found it on Make magazine's blog. Now the only blueprints I have are for some action figure dolls from the '40s, but it gets me thinking. Has anyone made a lampshade? Besides Julie from Another Shade of Grey...

There are three light fixtures in my hall. I'm thinking of getting vintage schoolhouse-type lights like one of these:

The Deal Hunter, aka Nick Olsen, thinks most ceiling fans are fugly, but he recently posted about the Cirrus Hugger from The Modern Fan Company. He's the second person to point me in that direction. But while I appreciate the sleekness of these modern fans, I think I prefer something colonialist and vintage-looking. If I can't have a couple of hardworking hand fanners with big palm fronds in their hands, I might as well have the next best thing.

Part of it is that they're more stylistically consistent with my aesthetic. But there's also something comforting about an old-looking fan. If I don't have central air and I choose not to embrace modern technology, then I might as well go with what has worked in the past. Or something like that.

This Restoration Hardward standing fan, which I own in black, appeals to me for this reason. And so does the Atomical fan from Emerson which you see above.

I went to Lowe's last weekend to look at ceiling fans for the bedroom, but it was the first time shopping for them so naturally I didn't buy anything yet. Here's what I saw at Lowe's--things that would work mostly in the kitchen. But they're inexpensive and raise my first question: do you need to spend more than $300 on a ceiling fan?

Too many choices there, so what do I do? Look at Acero fans at Restoration Hardware where my second question comes up: do I need to buy something "retro" or can I go modern?

And Cribcandy where I saw this Artemis translucent fan and my third question came up: do I need to have the same ceiling fan in the bedroom that I get for hallway and kitchen?

And Littman Brothers where I saw this Emerson Structures ceiling fan:

Can you tell how hot it is here?

I'm off shooting a house tour video at Cindy Greene's house--she's one member of the duo behind fashion label Libertine. Look for the video on the site (and gorgeous photos in the magazine) when the new issue comes out in mid-August.

So instead of heavy lifting today, here's a cute clock from Infinity Instruments that my friend bought me this weekend. It's found a temporary home in the kitchen where I can watch myself be late for work.

I was finding new ways to annoy the neighbors by moving furniture around the bedroom. I tried making the nightstand/school desk switcheroo that pt suggested. Eh voila! I need you to use your imagination a bit here because I'm late for work. But I think she's right that the white nightstand looks great as well, a nightstand. I'm sort of in love with the pussywillow and the brown lamp on it, too, though I think the gold is also great. Which goes to show what a great, versatile 10 DOLLAR table the nice man in Park Slope sold me. What if I paint the other nightstand a glossy white too and put the gold lamp on it? I'm just going to play, but first I'm running off to work.

Notice all the propping. Heaven help us--I've been bit by the stylist bug.

A lot of people claim to have the answer to my cat hair/cat scratching woes. I tend not to believe them. But today I realized that being a skeptic gets me nowhere. This here gizmo is called The FURminator. Don't laugh. It's a deshedding (make that a deShedding) tool that promises to remove the undercoat of hair better than a regular brush. Think the capital letters will help? Should I try it? Has anyone else?