Welcome(?) Mat

/ Erin May / Leave a comment

Here is a quick project I recently pulled together after Kyle and I misread a door mat that said “welcome home”

From Kyle:

It’s the perfect door mat, because when we get home, it’s welcoming. And when anyone else comes here, they have to leave.

…and that was good enough reasoning for me! We bought a blank door mat and the rest came together pretty quickly!

The supplies:


Taping the lettering:

  Stipling on the paint:

…and again the final product:


Overall this project cost less than $20 and took about two hours, but makes me smile every time I cross my entryway. Worth it.

Milwauking

/ Erin May / Leave a comment

Here are a couple photos from last weekend’s walk through Milwaukie – we’re really starting to feel at home in this funny little town. These were taken from the new waterfront park. We’re looking forward to nicer weather and getting a river-worthy vessel to take out!

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This duck was cruising along.

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Kyle and Osa like to stop and read every sign, so they can learn about nature.

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…part of our walk included getting new library cards for the Milwaukie library. I’m pretty darn excited for access to the free books!

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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Living(room) It Up

/ Erin May / Leave a comment

December 2015 saw the purchase of our first home – a 1946 ranch style home in Milwaukie, Oregon. We were really fortunate to find a move-in ready home, so little real work was required when we got our keys.

Over the holidays, Kyle and I spent our time off moving, unpacking, and personalizing this blank space. We’re moving a room at a time, and have made the most progress in our living room and dining room. Here’s a peek at where we are today!

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Living room record station, featuring:

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Front door (and part of our dining room over there!), featuring:

  • Typewriter poster
  • Front door wind chime – another wedding gift!
  • Pendleton blanket
  • Pillow – one of the many pillows I made over the holidays
  • This chair is actually one section of the couch featured below – the flexible, modular couch means this piece can be pulled out and used as separate seating.

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Living room couch (and pooch), featuring:

  • Can I tell you how much I love this couch? It’s the perfect height to keep from blocking any part of that large window showing off my backyard. It’s big enough that Kyle, Osa and I can all be laying on it during a movie. And it matches this whole mid-century eclectic thing we seem to have going.
  • Pillows – these are more pillows I made over the holidays, featuring more Pendleton wool.
  • Another Ikea lamp – not sure if it’s still available for purchase.
  • A poster Kyle got from a friend who had visited China during college

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Dining Room – probably the room we’ve put the most work into! Featuring:

  • A table Kyle made his own darn self! Using instructions from this blog, he spent several days planing, sanding, staining and finishing this table and bench.
  • This southwestern print rug from All Modern – very affordable and with free delivery!
  • And sitting on the picture ledge – a mix of local prints, the same log fabric from our pillows and a photo from our engagement shoot with Joe Tobiason.

We definitely have many more projects in mind – and have an office, our bedroom, and a guest room to tackle (not to mention the garage and attached bonus room!) but we’re starting to feel pretty cozy in our new home.