Over the last two weeks, my discovery that I have an...ahem...issue with hoarding greeting cards has been weighing heavily on my mind. Even though I weeded through the stacks, dramatically reducing the volume by keeping only my favorites or those with sentimental messages, I still didn't feel that was good enough. What I wanted to do was find a creative way to use a handful of the cards to create a unique piece of holiday decor.
One reader shared a project of how she created a flag bunting using cards of Christmases past. The idea was darling, but I wanted to put my own spin on it. GIven the approaching Valentine's Day holiday, I thought, why don't I take old Valentine's and anniversary cards to create a string of hearts that I could use as mantle decor? After going through my collection (collection is a much nicer word than hoard, don't you think?), my plans were cemented.
I grabbed my trusty craft supplies -- in this case a hot glue gun and my stash of decorative ribbon -- and was well on my way.
I limited my color palette to the more traditional choices of red, white, pink, and purple, with a hint of orange thrown in. I wanted to not only vary the color in the chain, but I wanted to vary the size and shape of the hearts for visual interest.
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Saturday, February 2, 2013
It's become an annual winter tradition in Old Town, and one with clearly defined steps:
Yes, it's that time of year again, and as I'm typing this up the annual Old Town 2013 Boutique Warehouse Sale is in full swing. We actually just got home a bit ago with bags in hand, full of our loot. I can tell you two things about today's sale. It was extremely cold outside and there were lots of hot deals inside.
You all know how much we love and support the various local merchants in Old Town and the Alexandria area, so it's very important to us that we mention events like this on our blog. Even if you're not a local reader, we hope some of the things you see might inspire you to pay a visit to Old Town. The cool thing about this event, put on by the Old Town Boutique District, is that so many of our favorite stores are in one place and have some really great markdowns on their items. In fact, it's so popular that there's always a pretty significant line of people waiting to get inside an hour or more before the sale opens at 9:00am. Just look at this photo of loyal shoppers snapped nearly an hour before the sale officially opened! That's serious dedication, but it comes as no surprise, shopping can be a serious endeavor.
We arrived early this year to take some photos of the event and to say hello to several of the vendors, some of whom participated in our Christmas 12 Days giveaway. It was great to see everyone buzzing around and getting their booths ready, and it was very cool to see some of the behind the scenes set up that takes place to get ready for this very energetic event.
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It's been a crazy day, let me tell you. From getting woken up on this snowy morning before 7:00 am by firetrucks attending to the building across the street, to a jam packed day at work, I've been hanging on since I sleepily rolled out of bed. At least it looks like the building is okay.
But just a few minutes ago we received a nice little surprise and uplifting feeling by way of a nomination for the 2013 Apartment Therapy Homies! If you're not aware, the Homies are a reader driven nomination and voting "Best of the Web" contest for bloggers. They have several categories including one near and dear to our hearts, DIY. Though there's a modest $50 prize for the winners, the real win is bragging rights and getting our name out there so more DIY enthusiasts like you know we even exist.
We can't tell you how great it makes us feel that a reader of our blog would take the time to nominate us, let alone have other people vote for us! And we'd absolutely LOVE it if you take a second to vote for us and any of your other favorites (we put a step by step guide on how to vote at the bottom of this post). Maybe if we get enough votes we can convince Lulu to do a backflip, or better yet, maybe she and Mel will work together to finish our storm windows.
Last year we were completely shocked by the voting when we finished in ninth place overall. I'm serious, we were completely and totally shocked! But the best part about the Homies is that we were able to find several new blogs that we now love to follow, and lots of new readers were able to find us. In the age of online dating and match making, finding a good home blog shouldn't be quite so difficult.
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Thursday, January 31, 2013
It's been a little while since our last Open Housing post, but that doesn't mean we haven't been out there surveying the field and checking out the local inventory of homes on the market. Oh no-sir-ree, we have been busy, just haven't seen anything worth writing about of late, well, until this weekend that is.
There's a little section of King Street (the main street in Old Town) that begins to climb a hill just after you leave the friendly confines of Old Town and head into the picturesque Rosemont neighborhood just to the west. Though the houses along King Street sit on this busier thoroughfare, a handful have the distinct advantage of being built on a hillside with a fairly significant grade behind them. Looking north from these few homes you have beautiful panoramic views of the DC skyline and the surrounding areas. It's truly one of the few "million dollar" views of the area. This past weekend, one of these homes was held open and we had to go check it out.
We've driven past this home countless times, and though it's large white neighbor home is hulking and impressive, this "smaller" brick home has always been quite appealing and lovely. The approach from the street gives you a great glimpse of the home and its relatively modest but very well maintained front yard.
This five bedroom, four bath home is spread across four levels of living, including a partially finished basement and completely finished attic/third floor space. It was built in 1925 and has had a few small additions over the years, but the floor plan is still very much in its original form. The home actually reminds me of a miniature version of the house from Home Alone.
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Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Two days ago we gave you all the "grand reveal" of our DIY closet interiors. We were able to go pretty overboard on the project since the space was small and we were building everything from plain old wood and some basic supplies. Had we gone the route of a closet system we would have been stuck within the bounds of their standard measurements, we would have had wasted space, and it would have cost 10 times what we wanted to spend. But another major benefit of doing this ourselves was our ability to dictate the entire space and how it would be used, not just the lower closet area.
A few commenters noted they could see a glimpse or two of the storage areas atop the closets, and that's exactly what this space is used for. Though we always intended it to be plain and simple storage, like the rest of the project, it wasn't something we were able to just wiggle our nose at and be done with it. Nope, in true Old Town Home style, we still went tremendously overkill even on our storage area. I know you're probably wondering, "How is that even possible?" Well, we found a way given we seem to have a talent in extending our scope of work.
As you can see from the photos, we started using the upper storage long before we had upper doors installed (or even installed handles or made fine adjustments on the lower doors). We were able to use several large pieces of plywood for the base of the upper storage, and it's the same piece of plywood that is the top of the lower closets. At only 3/4" thick we had to add some support to the back of the closets by way of some oak boards screwed to the under side of the shelf. We also affixed the front of the shelf to the door jams I had cut. We can't store an elephant up there nor a hippopotamus, but our plastic storage bins with clothes seem to work well.
The thing I mentioned previously about wanting this closet space to "look like it's always been there" really came into place with the upper storage. At the same time, I wanted to include a modern convenience or two. Before launching into the whole storage door build we installed a television above Wendy's shoe closet. It's a shallow space, and it couldn't accommodate much in the way of clothes or bins, so instead we installed a 32" LCD TV.
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