More art

Set of 8 bird-themed photo prints from etsy seller bomobob. They will live in the laundry room or 3rd floor bathroom, housed in some of my (obscenely large) collection of Ikea Ram frames... which I still need to paint... hmmmm.

Our first art purchase for the new house!

I've been DYING for Ork Posters to produce a Philly version of their city posters; and after months of waiting:
They also have Boston, DC, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, LA, San Fran, and 3 versions of NYC...

Before and After

So, you may recall the dining table we got from Craigslist a while back. For a while we'd been using it with our old Ikea dining chairs until we came across a set of 4 chairs (again, on Craigslist) that matched the style of the table. Since both the chairs and table are very traditional (and the chairs were upholstered with an unimpressive white fabric covered by plastic), I decided to add some retro fabric to the chairs to mix it up a bit. Behold the results:

A preview...

...of new fabric I bought. I'll post pics of it in action this weekend.

[Insert clever title here]

So remember when I posted that gorgeous duvet cover I loved but thought was way too pricey? Remember? And all y'all were like:
You should buy it! $250 isn't too much to pay for a comforter. It's on sale; it's actually worth a lot more than that. And besides, it's organic - you care about the environment, right? Well then why aren't you buying organic bedding, what kind of person ARE you?!?!?

Or maybe that was me...

In any case, I'm glad I didn't take the advice of whatever crazy person that was, because last week I was wandering down Chestnut Street wondering what to eat for lunch and I walked into West Elm to escape the heat and there it was: Everything the other comforter was but better

• One big bold print instead of a smaller all-over pattern
  
• Organic - Because after all I do care about the environment, and my health
• King size - to eliminate the war of the covers (thanks Lee for the tip!)
• Neutral background (but not white) - because really, who wants to deal with white bedding?
• On sale for $40 - you know, less than a sixth of the price of the other one...

yes, it's wrinkled; if you're interested in popping over to iron my sheets, please, feel free.

Oh, and to the left is Brad's nightstand that I stained and painted. Project details to come later...

Ladies and Gentlemen...

...we've got a backsplash! (and range hood).

the backsplash is courtesy of tweedledumber, who tried to weasel out of cutting the tile to fit around the edges at the underside of the cabinets. instead, she wanted to put up some sort of molding between the base of the wall cabinets and the backsplash tiles - though she kept reiterating that she would do "whatever we were comfortable with".

so then why are you even asking us about this molding ???
dude, if we'd wanted molding, we would've asked for it.
we wanted tile, we bought tile; put up the cotton-picking tile!!!
I don't care if it's hard to cut; that's part of the job, so cut it and shut it!!!

tweedledumb in the meantime came by yesterday to install the stair rails he claims to have been "working on at home" for weeks... a brief summary of a lunchtime phone conversation just about sums it up:

me: so are we getting new stair rails today?

the hub: well, he and his helper are here but so far they've just been the in "backyard" cutting and sanding stuff. I don't know what he's been working on at home this whole time.

me: I know what he's been doing - [to quote my niece] NO-THIIIIIIIIIIIIING.

You would've thought...

... that we were probably getting one of the tiles I posted yesterday for our kitchen backsplash; but you would've been wrong. After many hours of handwringing, we're going with these glass tiles:

The plan is that the black and gray will tie the floor and counter together and the reflective nature of the glass will prevent it all from being too dark. Now let's see if tweedledumb and tweedledumber will actually show up on Saturday to install them...