Outdoor Living Ideas to be Stolen

Last night I got this email from one of my best friends... "Can you please blog about back yard summer décor so that I can steal your ideas as I am helping a friend re-decorate this Sunday. Help!"

Hahaha at least she's honest!!! (And she knows I'd love an assignment like this!!) So, here are some ideas I have & things I love for backyard summer fun & entertaining that hopefully Alissa will like & can get quickly. (I have no idea what type of space her friend has but I can only assume since she's friends with a friend of mine that the budget will be tight & that we'll need to get creative!! ;) The picture above is from Cottage Living and is a look I absolutely love. Easy, carefree, white and casual classic. It's my inspiration for what's ahead...

Here's a quick checklist for Alissa for an instant pretty outdoor space:

-Plants

-Furniture

-Rug

-Pillows

-Lanterns/ lighting

-Flowers

-Accessories

I think it's really important for outdoor dining spaces in particular to feel a bit enclosed or delineated in some way. (like in the country living pic below) This can be easily done by a surrounding a patio or table with flowers, bushes, a pergola, an awning, outdoor curtains, etc. But something to make the area feel special, private & pretty. So, I think they should hit up the distressed plants section of Lowe's and get to it!!


I'm not sure if her friend is looking more for eating or relaxing areas, so we'll give her both. She may already have furniture but that's okay... let's have fun with this ;) I'm going to use this picnic table from http://doitbest.com/ It's only $135 and can easily be painted white or any other color. (Painted tables seem to cost more!! arg) You can find them at garage sales too this time of year... They remind me of summertime when I was little...I really think she should go with a couple of adirondack chairs. I love these white adirondack chairs for only $85 from lovemypatio.com

I do think it's important to go with wood adirondack chairs instead of the plastic ones if you can afford it because you can tell it's plastic from a mile away. (BUT I totally understand waiting for upgrades if you want the look for now for less!! Believe me, I'm SO there right now!!) And check out these painted wooden ones here in white for a steal at only $60!!!! We got ours at Kohl's when they were having a big sale for $65 each and I can't say enough how much I enjoy sitting in them.

Then I'd add a white market umbrella (see Maria from Colour Me Happy's post for details on color choices!!!) because I think they're classic and simple. (And honestly, doesn't it look perfect in our cottage living inspiration picture above??)

I'm kind of obsessing about fans right now. They keep the bugs away and I love the look too!! (Anything to bring more inside stuff outdoors!!) How great is this $80 fan from Home Depot?!!:

Ok, now onto the pretty things!!! (Which is probably what my friend's looking for :) She'll probably want a rug. I LOVE this herringbone natural-looking one from Restoration hardware. (They range from $79 and up depending upon the size)

And I'm kind of going nutty over these pillows from Restoration hardware which are only $21!!!! (--They come in so many pretty colors and they're having a huge sale on outdoor stuff right now.) I've had my Restoration hardware outdoor pillows for a few years & they've held up so well, so this is a really good buy. (Home depot also has some cute ones right now but they're actually more expensive)

Ok, and I don't know if she like to lay out in the sun (i know it's so bad for you!!) but I used to when I didn't have a child (now that sounds like a joke or a dream!!!) so maybe she'd love these gorgeous RH towels as much as I do: (Again RH towels are THE BEST!!!!- barely any fading and they're so thick!) Now I think my excuse to get these might be because we have a kiddie pool! ;) ;)

I love lanterns outside. They're so pretty- night or day- and they really up the look. All of Pottery Barn's are gorgeous but also try Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, walmart & other cheaper places.

When you're having guests or just want the space pretty for you & your family, add a flower arrangement or 2. (Even greenery works when you don't have flowers as in Eddie Ross's fern arrangements below.-- I LOVE THESE!!)

If you'll be doing lots of outdoor entertaining, there is so much adorable melamine outdoor dishware & drinkware. Target always has cute stuff:

And finally, here's a quick something I do every summer. I put all of my condiments & some paper napkins in a basket in the fridge so we can grab them quickly for eating outside. Then you can put in other things you need like silverware and flowers. It's one of those things you can do that just makes life easier. (By the way if you're looking for a good bbq sauce, try Sweet Baby Ray's- It's THE best!!)

Anyway, I hope this helped a bit!!!I'm SO excited for summer & can't wait to find my rug & lanterns!!! (Don't worry, of course I'll post pics!! haha)

xoxo,

lauren

Turning Your More than 5-10 minutes problems into Marital Bliss

This is actually an unauthorized guest blog by Lauren's husband, David. Hello. She is sleeping right now and I wanted to suprise her with her a new closet. She's been dealing with a lot of change lately and has had too much on her plate, running an outrageously successful business, raising the ironically-named Christian and still dealing with the after effects or a flood/ move/ renovations. I read her blog about the 5-10 minute rule, I'm going to fix this... the closet.

I'm going to give you tips on how to do this yourself on the cheap. I'm also going to ramble on philosophically about life and marriage and maybe even, God help me, design. I teach English Literature by day, and am only the master craftsman by night (check the post time, going be well around midnight) so here are my thoughts and some bad jokes, but its all for a good cause.

The only tools I used tonight were, drumroll please

And my little ryobi drill.So the first thing to do is plan out your closet. Lauren showed me how to do this in our townhouse. She says the most important thing about custom closets are the getting the different levels and spaces to stay organized. Figure out if you need lots of room- tall rods for hanging suits or long dresses, or if you have an inordinate amount of shoes maybe you need little cubbie holes. I know, I know all that sounds custom and expensive, but this is how were going to get around that.

It may not look like much, but this little baby is versatile. we spend 10 dollars on five of these things and ten dollars on closets rods. If you knew how little money I gave Lauren to spend on decorating you be so amazed, but they you wouldn't like me as much. So, first things first, lay out your closet. Lauren had already planned this out before we moved into the house (I know, I know) so I'm kind of cheating, but I did some of it on my own. We have your typical closet. Rods hung at 5 and some odd feet.

Wasted space below and above. We need levels. Lauren fixed this problem at the townhouse. In my closet we took a shirt and a pair of pants on hangers and held them up to see how much room they needed. Wow, if you hang a shirt at six feet and change and then hang the pants at three feet and change, problem solved. You still get a shelf above and room for a pair of shoes below.

So let's move the rod. We had one of these, which makes it more difficult. If you just have a rod resting against the wall in a socket, just remove the rod and unscrew the socket and ignore the rest, unless of course your enjoying the witty prose.

You have to remove the shelf, remove the rod and then pry off the wood molding (I use that term as loosely as possible, it is just a piece of 5/4 x 4).

I remove the old nails and use the same wood, waste not. I make my mark based on where I want my top closet rod to be and nail in the pieces of wood. Important- pieces of wood will sometimes overlap, so the pieces on the outside have to come out first and go in last.
See how the piece of wood on the right extends all the way to the wall and the piece on the left runs into it? Well that means the piece on the left is coming out first. So pull them out, put pressure on the corners and where the nails are or you might pop through your drywall.

Oops. But hey it's a closet and that will be covered up by shirts. Select the height you want your top rod to be and then start putting the boards back up. Use the original nail holes, but fresh nails, because they will line up perfectly with the studs, and will just go in more easily. (to any colleagues reading- sorry about the split infinitives but this is hard work) Now I've always wanted one of these suit valets:


The finish is wrong anyway. So I put the next rod in with one of these beauties and a few wood screws. Make sure to use wood screws.



The key to these thing is to put them into studs. I know the man at home depot will tell you that sinkers will work. The actual packages of the mollies, or sinkers, or whatever new name they have, claim outrageous holding capacities, 50, 60, even 100 lbs in 3/8" drywall. Far more than your clothes would ever weigh, right? I've been there, these are just a few of my bad memories:


I've tried them all. They don't work. They will never work, and if you used them before for other things and they worked, you got lucky but trust me, they won't work here. You need to put them into studs. Use this little machine, wait for him to beep. Then he is happy and you will be too. (look again at the picture above, I've shamelessly put the dreaded sinkers on an end table I built) Anway, I set the height on my bottom rod to accomodate a some pants on one side and a dresser on the other.

Well not exactly, you can get into a philosophical style debate on dressers but Lauren had this elfa thing from the container store. (lauren's into these right now)

And I said I want to keep my clothes in one of those things in the closet. That way all of my clothes live together like a happy family, and I don't change locations when my socks don't match. Its all right there now. We purchased one of those thing for me.
Now these things take up space and I sacrficed most of my lower side to house it. You'll see later what Lauren had to sacrifice.

I also got different size mesh baskets because while I have less clothes, I'm larger than Lauren and my clothes physically take up more space. So she has lots of little baskets and I have a few big ones. Here they are together:

I love this thing. Say bad things about dressers in closets, say bad things about Hemingway, but don't say bad things about this elfa closet organizer, I love it.

So Lauren's side only has half of a rod on the bottom because she has long, pretty dresses that go on the other. Very custom. It took me two minutes to measure the pole length and then three minutes to saw the pole to size. If they have the nice poles that have rubbers caps on the end then buy those so you don't have a sawed edge. If they don't put the sawed edge against the wall so the factory edge stick outs.

In my travels overseas I learned an ancient Chinese secret about getting good photoshoots of closets. Matching hangers with sufficient space in between, even if you have to remove clothes and hide them elsewhere.

Try to ignore the racing stripes, that's where the old board used to be. I will fix that later, remember what's important here is not the nailheads uncovered, I'll get to that later as well. What's important is that as we speak sleepy lauren just stumbled into the room and said "oh my gosh, so much better."

She will wake up in the morning and eat breakfast feeling a less stressed, she'll be singing a song, probably some terrible Cobie Calliet (sp?). After breakfast she will bring a bunch of toys into the bedroom and Christian will make and destroy buildings, in that order, while she organizes her clothes.

While most people see piles of clothes and empty hangers, Lauren sees what was an umanageable nightmare turning into a 5-10 minute mess. Maybe they'll be organized by occassion, season, I can't begin to understand the synesthete's mind, but I can observe its patterns. And I know marital bliss is not found in organizing closets, but I have found doing something nice that you know the other person will like always goes a long way. Now whether or not Lauren is pleased I stole her blog to post on a half-finished closet we've yet to see.

In the Garden...

This weekend, we spent most of our time outside. We got a lot further along on the fence we're doing around the property and we also made some garden beds!



We went to Lowe's and the prices were AMAZING!!! You have to go if you have one near you because you can go CRAZY in the "Distressed Plants" section. All distressed plants are 75% off and there are so many that just need a little TLC! (I got TONS of zinnias for 87 cents each!!) (image below) from here

I was also able to get some hydrangea bushes for only $6!!! I went through the "healthy section of plants" and found sad-looking plants & was able to talk to the manager and get them for 75% off too! (The hydrangeas I found literally were just wilted and needed some water and they perked up within a couple of hours of watering them at home.) image below from here

We got the Nikko Blue Hydrangeas but they're pink right now so (me being lazy) I'll be waiting to see if my soil is acidic enough to turn them blue eventually. (If not, I'll have to add some, but I'm actually loving the pink right now because they work beautifully with all the zinnias!) image from here

Our yard & garden is super-rough right now but my next goal is getting some creeping groundcover around some stepping stones like in the Country Living pic below: (This website specializes in groundcovers you can walk on: http://www.stepables.com/ )

We have woods at the back of our property & how amazing would a pathway like this be?!!! (Should be no big thing after that fence, right? ;) ;) ok so this would really be years away from happening...

And next we're planting a veggie garden!! Our sweet friends Amy & Greg have TONS of tomatoes, squash and other veggies for us that they grew from seed. I am SO excited as I am a tomato FREAK and can eat them every day. I also picked up a bunch of herbs and lined our patio with them for easy grabbing for cooking.

yum yum!!! love those maters!!! haha

I've also really been on a pepper kick lately:

Well, I'll post pictures when the plants mature a bit & it's something pretty to look at!! So, what's going on in your garden or window sill for this summer?

xoxo,

lauren

ps- It's June!!! Come on summer!!!!

The 5-10 Minute Rule

No matter how beautifully we decorate our homes, if they're messy & disorganized, we can't appreciate or even see the beauty. However, I think of "messes" as reality, at least in my life. I have a toddler and a job, and hence, my house is almost always a mess. BUT in general, I'm okay with this mess, because it can be disposed of in 5 to 10 minutes, tops.

So, I'll never pretend that I can have a "messless" life-- for me it's just not possible-- but I can have "organized messes." I consider an "organized mess"as a mess that's allowed for a time. It's a manageable mess & the most important thing about it is that it MUST BE ABLE TO BE CLEANED UP IN 5-10 MINUTES! That's the rule. It's easy to get rid of because an organized mess has a place where it belongs: baskets, bins, drawers, cabinets, shelves, etc... a SPECIFIC HOME. (This is the key to putting it away quickly, because you're not shoving the mess anywhere, you're putting it back where it belongs.)

I wanted to share with you some of my favorite tools/ organizational pieces used to handle messes and "stuff." Below is a picture of what I consider an "organized mess." The pillows on the sofa are all messed up, toys are everywhere & there are a few magazines/ books laying around. But it would take only 5-10 minutes MAX to get this messed cleaned up. And I'm so okay with it.

In our living room, we have a shelf with baskets full of Christian's toys. (Now I know some might think it sacriligous to keep toys in fairly plain sight in the living room, but it's the way we want to live... we all want to be able to hang in the same room, so I figure for a few years while we have little ones I can give up a half-wall in the living room ;)

Anyway, toys are all over the floor half the time but when we need to get them cleaned up, it takes 5 minutes to put them all away neatly in the baskets. (The key is keeping them in not-too-full baskets because there's always room, even when throwing the toys in carelessly and the little guy can help too. )

This hutch (below) in the family room (pic is from old house) fits tons off storage for toys and also photo albums & other random things. It makes clean-up so easy and totally hides all evidence if kiddies!!

I never regret spending on organizational items like baskets & storage bins. I'm often reluctant to buy them because I would rather spend the money on something pretty, but they're worth their weight in gold.

I LOVe these huge baskets from ikea. It's where I stick all the pages I've ripped out of magazines before they go into my Style Files:

For my office, these hanging file bins are awesome & when there's a mess all over my desk I can easily & quickly (less than 5 mins!!) stow it all away with these suckers:

So, my goal is to have every room in the house obeying the "5-10 Minute Rule." (and right now I'm SO far from that!! It seems as soon as we got our old house in perfect order, we moved!! I'm NOT doing that again!! ) Here's a quick punch-list for our new house:

1) Our closet --> it's a HUGE 4-6 HOUR MESS right now!! We need to install more bars & storage and get things put away nicely. Below is how we've been living: (ahhhh I can't believe I'm showing you this!!) It's tough to feel organized when your closet looks like this:

2) Little guy's bedroom-> Since I stole the toy shelf from his room, he doesn't have anywhere for the toys in his room and unfortunately the furniture form our old house doesn't fit right in his bedroom, which is driving me crazy!!!!

3) The kitchen-> I have more shelves to go up with baskets for extra storage but I'm waiting on the wallpaper install before I can get to this:

4) The entryway-> To put it simply, it doesn't work right now. We need to add some storage & decorate it asap!! It's so drab & unfunctional right now!! (haha check out my dead hydrangeas in the little vase & the dog chow- now THAT'S styling!!! ;)

There just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day!!! but i know everntually we'll get there... (don't worry, i'll take pics! ;)

Now, what to do with all that stuff that doesn't have a place? Arrggg like the strange piece of mail you don't know where to put (you need to handle it sometime soon, but not soon enough to warrant immediate attention) or those stupid screws that keep showing up everywhere (with all of these projects going on right now!!!) or the returns you need to make at the store or your pile of giveaways?


Take stock of the all items that keep popping up and start creating places for them. They're not going to go away and isn't it annoying to have them keep popping up? If you create a place for them to go, clean up is so much quicker!! Different times & stages in your life will call for different random clutter-busters. Wintertime items vs. beach towels & sunblock or screws and tools all over the place when you're in the middle of renovating. Whatever it is, realize the type of clutter you have as quickly as possible and find a place for it. The solutions should be easy & obey the 5-10 Minute Rule. (Sometimes this means not organizing down to the last minute detail because clean-up could be really time consuming!!)

I'm on my way to follow my own advice now... So, how are the rooms in your house? Do they meet the 5-10 Minute Rule? Any rooms on your "To-do" list? would love to know!!

xoxo,

lauren

Check out Everything LEB

Hi! Good news: THIS NEW COMPUTER WORKS YAY!!! So I'm really, truly back!!

Check out Lindsay's blog Everything LEB here to read my about my favorites in her new series, "Blogger's Favorite Everything!" I was so excited when Lindsay asked me to do this & it was a ton of fun!! Thanks Lindsay!!! Also, you'll love Linsday's etsy shop, here. The pineapple cards below are just a tiny sampling of what she does!!

I'll be back tomorrow with a post on messes!

xoxo,

lauren