Around the House

Hallway Photo Ledge

/ Erin May / Leave a comment

My house is built so that all the rooms are in a row, with a long, extra-wide hallway in the middle. This hallway is so wide, that you can leisurely walk down it side-by-side with your husband like a big weirdo, or with your arms out and elbows bent so you look like a robot. What I’m saying is, this hallway is wide and affords us a lot of wall space for hanging art. This last weekend, I cooked up a $0 project that I’m pretty darn proud of.

Behold, our new photo ledge:

Easy DIY Photo ledge

This ledge was built with 100% found items in my garage. The wood is two long scraps of butcher block IKEA countertop Kyle’s mom had left over from a project at the cabin. The L-shaped brackets (which you can see peeking out in the center of the top shelf) came with the Ikea countertop, too. This project involved a chop saw, table saw, sander, and a drill. I also cut a thin groove down the entire length of the boards so the artwork won’t slip off if I happen to run down the hallway racing Osa (not infrequent in my house). Once I sanded these down, I finished  up by coating them with teak oil for a really light, natural look.

More details:

Easy DIY Photo ledge

Close-up detail of the groove I cut along the shelf, with a table saw, and all by myself: IMG_9369

Speaking of using scary tools, I’ve been having a lot of fun using our new table saw my parents gave us for Christmas! It’s already come in handy for a number of projects, and I’m finally getting more comfortable putting it to use. Thanks, mom and dad 🙂

I’m really excited to continue to style these ledges and have them easy to change around whenever I like. This is the perfect solution for someone who gets restless with decor if it sits too long! I’ll probably try to mix short and tall prints, photos and books to add a bit more variety – though I’m currently loving these cute square photo prints from Parabo Press. The quality of the print and the heavier stock of the matte paper is fun for displays, and Parabo just announced that they are now permanently offering 25 FREE prints in the 4″ square size. Free. Click here to order some. 

And if you’re wondering what else is going on in my luxuriously wide hallway, here are the other gallery wall sections of the area, and a shot of the entire hallway leading to the bedrooms:

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A very good weekend.

/ Erin May / Leave a comment

I managed to fit a lot of my favorite summertime activities into the last 24 hours:

Drive-n movie theater

Food carts

Ride the OHSU tram

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Milwaukie farmer’s market

Get someone a birthday present

Visit the dog park

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Sleeping in

Time in the hammock

Yard work

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Visit the rebuilding center

Learn to cook on a charcoal grill

Thrift shop

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Buffalo wings

Dinner date

Sunset beers

I guess it’s okay with me that this is the last weekend of August. Now that the deck project is done, I’m working to get the most out of my remaining summer.

New Post – New (Address) Post

/ Erin May / 2 Comments

This weekend saw our first sunny day in a long time. I took advantage of the weather by doing something that is probably only exciting to a new homeowner- I got out my ladder, hopped on my roof, and cleaned my gutters.

With this nice weather, we’ve started pulling together ideas for outdoor projects for our home. When we were house hunting, a huge draw for this property had been the giant deck. Here’s a poorly shot example of how huge this thing is, with a not insignificantly sized 4-person table and chairs on the deck for scale:

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…it’s going to be an amazing outdoor living and entertaining space when we’re through with some of our plans. In the meantime, however, with the days still short and the ground still damp, we decided to tackle another smaller outdoor project: our lack of street-facing house numbers. Because so little of our house is actually visible from the street (a very nice problem to have), we decided to put in an address sign post with a solar light post top for easier night time spotting. Here’s the end project:

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As you might imagine, I’m pretty picky when it comes to typographic choices in my house numbers. These floating numbers from Home Depot matched the post topper really well, and had a typographic flair I enjoyed.

All in all, this project took Kyle a couple of hours. I was pretty much no help in this process. He cut the post, drilled in the numbers, dug the post hole and filled it in today all on his own. What a guy. 🙂

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A Smith Rock Adventure

/ Erin May / 1 Comment

Travel Oregon is doing a state-wide bike scavenger hunt called 7 Bikes for 7 Wonders–and if you find the bike, you keep it! Aside from being a beautifully executed campaign (I mean just look at this video), these bikes are amazing, and it’s been a great excuse to get out into nature.

All that to say, Kyle and I packed up the dog and went to Smith Rock in search of a bike last week. Here’s the photo evidence:

The Crew geared up for our adventures

The Crew geared up for our adventures

Continue reading →

Manic Monday

/ Erin May / Leave a comment
Dino fact: The Apatosaurus is also well known as the Brontosaurus. Confusion was caused when bones of the giant dinosaur were first discovered back in 1877 by Othniel Charles Marsh. After naming the new dinosaur Apatosaurus (meaning deceptive lizard), he later found a larger set of bones and incorrectly thought they were a new species which he then named Brontosaurus (meaning thunder lizard). It turns out that the second set of bones were just the adult version of the Apatosaurus. The name Brontosaurus caught on and it wasn’t until recently that the original and technically correct name Apatosaurus has gained widespread use among the public.

Dino fact via Science Kids: The Apatosaurus is also well known as the Brontosaurus. Confusion was caused when bones of the giant dinosaur were first discovered back in 1877 by Othniel Charles Marsh. After naming the new dinosaur Apatosaurus (meaning deceptive lizard), he later found a larger set of bones and incorrectly thought they were a new species which he then named Brontosaurus (meaning thunder lizard). It turns out that the second set of bones were just the adult version of the Apatosaurus. The name Brontosaurus caught on and it wasn’t until recently that the original and technically correct name Apatosaurus has gained widespread use among the public.


Here are some links and interesting articles to get you through your Monday Afternoon Slump:

Happy Monday, folks!

What I learned this weekend about having two dogs

/ Erin May / 1 Comment

Hello! Happy Monday!

So the highlight of my weekend was having a chance to dog-sit for a couple of friends for a night. Sharky is pretty much Osa’s equal in every way. Same size. About the same level of energy. Both black dogs who love to play. I was looking forward to seeing what life with two dogs might look like, having grown up with 2+ dogs at any given time (not to mention cats, chickens, fish, birds, rabbits, etc.)

So first things first, here’s the cute stuff:

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Both dogs love cheese. But not as much as me, so I didn’t feel like sharing.

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It was hard to get a picture of them both sitting outside, because they were generally a big blur of chasing and wrestling this weekend.

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When it’s time for dinner, dogs go on one side of the gate, and humans with pizza go on the other.

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…that is, until the doggies need a break from bugging each other. Then they both are in time out.

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Osa wasn’t too happy when I took Sharky inside and left her. This is her way of letting me know. Subtle, right?

So here’s my insight from the weekend:

This weekend, I realized something. Two dogs don’t behave like two separate minds. They behave like one dog with a lot of momentum.

Let me explain. Let’s say I call to Osa, and she has two choices. Either she comes, or she doesn’t. Being pretty generous to my training of her, we’ll say there’s a fifty-fifty chance that she obeys. Given this, you’d think that with two dogs, you’d have two cases of this: each dog has a certain likelihood of obeying, given their disposition, right?

Nope. See, with two dogs, they enter this kind of pack mentality. If you give them both a command, they BOTH have to want to obey it to have it happen. If one or both of them doesn’t want to obey the command, neither of them will. That takes a fifty-fifty likelihood down to this:

Osa and Sharky punnet square opposite-01

…about one in four. (and yes, the middle school science nerd in me revels in using a punnet square to explain this idea.)

Now, let’s say, as a hypothetical, that my dog isn’t that well trained. Hypothetically. Let’s say that in reality, it’s more likely a one in three chance that she’ll actually do what I say. Sharky’s a much more solid guy. This would be a better illustration of my weekend:

Osa and Sharky punnet square where osa is a stinky-01

So that’s my big lesson I learned. The collective mind is more powerful than the individual will. Just like the Borg. Or wolf packs. Or hey! Middle school kids. That kind of came full circle.

And today? Osa is missing her friend, and still dead tired from her weekend of fun:

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