Hello friends. I am pleased to introduce you to an amazing travel and interior design photographer, Mr. Tim Irving.

Tim Irving is a full time photographer, who has been taking photographs since he was 9 years old. He’s English, and attended art school in London, which included a spell at the Royal College of Art.

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I’m right in the middle of remodeling my home office, taking it from blah blah brown to a more chic and glamorous space.  It’s getting a total overhaul from top to bottom, but on a budget. 

I purchased some cabinets with glass shelves from the local Villeroy & Boch outlet store that closed its doors, but I need to paint them and they’re 100 inches tall !  I’m also going to attempt to install grasscloth wallpaper, and make another no sew valance.  Plus all the accessories!  I’ll have lots of posts in the upcoming weeks as I update you on the progress. 

Here are some of the images in my inspiration file: 

Turquoise Design

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Exploring the big city of San Francisco is one of our favorite things to do.  Since the Golden Gate Bridge is about 40 minutes from our house, we took Friday afternoon to adventure across the bridge to visit the renowned Ferry Building Marketplace. 

Those who’ve visited the Bay Area recently may be familiar with this European style indoor bazaar, filled with vendors who feature the finest of California’s bounty.  We arrived at the lunch hour, with the marketplace filled with young executives from the financial district, mingling with the visiting tourists. 

Any food lover will simply love this place.  While you’ll pay big dollars to take away some of these artisan products, it’s still worth a visit just to sample California’s culinary best.   Here’s a peek at some of the displays:

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I happen to be one among millions of multitasking moms who never sits down during the day.  Funny as it sounds, for me it’s relaxing to stay busy, because I can’t relax until I’ve accomplished my tasks for the day.  Between my tiny law practice, raising two small children, cleaning my house, managing a growing blog and finding time for my projects, I have plenty to do. 

The lovely, gracious, and creative Camila at High Heeled Foot in the Door (my most favorite blog name ever) is featuring me today in her series called “IN HER SHOES”. 

For a glance at a day in my life….

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I see so much beauty in nature that I find myself bringing it indoors whenever possible.  River stones.  Driftwood.  Fresh flowers.  Beachy accents in the bath.  Acorns in the fall.  Evergreens during the holidays.  And branches.  I love branches, especially as accents. 

I once saw a designer spray paint gigantic branches in a hot coral color, and place them in an urn on top of a piano in a very grand living room.  It made me swoon.  While this look is a bit over the top for some, I have always wanted to spray paint branches to make them sculptural.

So I was pruning my wild oak tree last weekend.  It should be no surprise that I decided to use one of the Charlie Brown branches to make a jewelry holder. 

Here’s a peek:

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I am overwhelmed at the positive response to yesterday’s post about the staircase remodel.  Thank you so much for your kind words. 

As you can recall from the ‘After’ picture, I not only redid the railing, but for additional drama, I added a wallpaper treatment to the very blank and boring wall. 

Originally, I was going to play it traditional, and add plain white panels to the wall, with molding on top.  But I decided to kick it up a style notch, and add wallpaper panels instead.  It was more dramatic, and less expensive. 

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Whew!  After 30+ hours of intense labor, it is done.  Ladies and gentlemen, friends and fans, we are proud to announce the rebirth of our foyer. 

Welcome to the first of two articles about how we transformed our dated oak stairwell into a dramatic entryway.  Now I make it a general policy not to bore you with too much yada yada, but please forgive the longwinded prelude.  When you put over 30 hours into a DIY project, you milk it for all it’s worth. 

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I have a thing for wallpaper lately.  I’ve just finished my first project using a wallpaper effect on my staircase (reveal tomorrow !).  My next project is installing grass cloth wallpaper in my office.  

Whenever I utter the word “wallpaper” most people sneer.  Perhaps it’s because the word brings back memories of really BAD wallpaper.  You’ve all seen it.  We’ve all chuckled at it.  And if you’ve had to remove it, you detest the word “wallpaper”.  In some homes, it’s a forbidden word.  Many designers are now calling it a wall treatment or wall covering.  Aaahhh, now doesn’t that just sound better?

So in anticipation of tomorrow’s reveal, I’ll share some of my favorite wall coverings.

  Ritz in Blue by York Wallcoverings

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I was just putting the finishing touches on my staircase and foyer revamp when I noticed a glaring eyesore.  Let’s just say that it wasn’t me who decided to put the control to our home alarm system at perfect eye level, sticking out like one sore thumb.  In my newly upgraded space, it just looked all wrong.  So I decided to cover it with a miniature painting of my own.  When I proposed the idea to Mr. CG, he stated with perfect British inflection, “How very James Bond of you.” 

I recommended these dogwood prints in a mood board for Kelly several months back.  They’ve always stuck in my mind, for their color, and their botanical simplicity.  Unfortunately, they’re a bit of an investment at $288 for the pair. 

So in an attempt to inject a pop of peacock blue into my neutral space, I came up with my own imitation, based on the cherry tree branches that sit in my foyer.  Channeling Van Gogh, I used some acrylic paints leftover from my art classes to create a little work of art .  Here’s my little $5 knockoff. 

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With the tightening of the economic belt, I find that I am forced to get really creative with stuff I have just sitting around the house.

You too? 

As you know, I have been recycling some cabinet doors from the kitchen we had before the remodel of 2005.  With those old doors, my first project was to turn two of them into memo boards – those turned out really well. The second attempt was to make wall art. That project resulted in mixed reviews, most of the negativity coming from me.

Project number three was to turn the six doors I had left into a headboard.  I’ve made a fabric covered headboard before that I really love – that headboard sits in my master bedroom.  This one, on the other hand, was a lot trickier.  It’s really easy to make a fabric covered headboard with a solid piece of plywood.  It’s another thing to attempt it with a patterned fabric and six different pieces of wood. 

Here are the leftover cabinet doors before I attacked them with my staple gun:

And here is my headboard from those same doors:

We built a small “granny unit” or guest house above our garage when we added on to our house in 2005.  Currently, Mom and Pop are staying with us while their fancy shmancy house is staged and on the market.  [Should I show you pictures of their Wine Country chateau on a lake, surrounded by vineyard ?  It’s drop dead gorgeous.]

But in our guest house, there was this blank wall.  And blank walls drive me crazy.  So I decided to make a temporary headboard for that blank wall.  

Step One:  I removed all the hinges and leftover hardware. 

Step Two:  I aligned my batting and fabric on each piece, then stapled it to each individual cabinet door.  This was the hardest part of the whole project – trying to get all that fabric to match up. 

Step Three:  I labeled each door with its position on the wall.

Step Four: I located the wall studs, then matched up my D ring hanging brackets with the wall studs. 

Step Five:   I used a level to make sure the headboard’s pieces all hung straight. 

Step Six:  I also added some ribbon detail with a hot glue gun.  I’m like a decorating McGyver with a hot glue gun and a staple gun.  I can decorate just about anything with those two tools in my hands.  I know some of you share that same talent.

Don’t forget the nail head trim !  You know I have a thing for upholstery tacks. 

So here it sits, above the bed in the guest house, my headboard made out of old cabinet doors.  I think when the folks eventually move out, once their house is sold, I’ll create something else for that space.  But for now, this was a fun solution for a very blank wall.   

It’s a bit unconventional, but I think those doors are much happier covered in fabric, and not sitting in some junk yard.