A bit of designspiration for you as you sip your morning coffee…. enjoy!

{All images c/o Lonny mag, borrowed from here}

It may seem strange that I enjoy the company of, well, the dead, and I myself admit it seems odd, but this is so much more than just a cemetery. This is a national park, in fact the first landscaped public park in the U.S., and its rolling hills and lush greenery make it one of the most peaceful spaces I’ve ever experienced. And there is something to be said for the solemn silence you sense, walking amongst all those resting souls. Some quite famous ones too. Mary Baker Eddy. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Oliver Wendell Holmes. And my personal favorite, my idol, Isabella Stewart Gardner.

Here she rests:

Along this quiet little row of lovely tombs, many unmarked.

I love the old tombstones, some so elaborate and ornate, others simple and humble. Some surprisingly modern looking in design, despite their age. I love reading the old names, love the stories you can imagine when you calculate their ages, the way they used to write the epitaphs, “Born in Boston, Died in Boston.”

The pathways all have these lovely names, Oster, Camellia, Catalpa. We saw rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, countless birds, so much life among the tombstones.

I can’t help but feel happy here, at ease with the circle of life. Andreas and I don’t want our bodies buried in the ground but there’s something to be said for having a physical place where your successors and strangers alike can come visit a part of you. I like to say hello to some of the oldest souls as we pass them. I wonder the last time they had a visit, if anyone is left to visit them at all.

Unfortunately we had to leave earlier than we wanted as we were politely informed by a kindly groundsman that dogs are not allowed, which is fair enough (neither are bikes and joggers by the way though, both of which I think are a pity). But it was still lovely to be there again. I highly recommend this place to anyone who’s never been, and if you’re in the market for burying space, they do (often) take the liberty to point out that space is still indeed available.

We’re happy just to visit for now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just wanted to start the week with these incredible animated GIFs or “cinemagraphs” as created by engaged couple photographer Jamie Beck and motion graphics artist Kevin Burg (as seen on their Tumblr, first spotted here). Aren’t they gorgeous?! I love how they effortlessly capture a moment in time in a living, breathing way.

Happy Monday!

Dude, film photography is a DIFFERENT WORLD. Of course I used to shoot with a little automatic film camera when I was a kid. I marvel now at how comfortable I was with loading the film, taking my little canisters to be developed, etc. That all seems like ancient history now, but I’m glad I’m not so young as to have missed real film altogether.

Still, SLRs are far more advanced than what I used to have (I wonder where that little camera got off to…). Everything is manual. You load the film, you set the ASA, you determine your shutter speed based on the lighting, you compose your shot, you focus your shot, you take your shot, you wind your film, and when the roll is done? You wind, wind, wind it back, slip it into it’s little plastic shell, and figure out when you’re going to have time to drop it off to get developed. (Fortunately, the AE-1 does automatically determine the aperture for me.)

There’s a lot of thinking involved and a lot of waiting. But you know what? It’s worth it. I think I’m in love.

With my camera. Though this guy’s not bad either.

My favorite of the bunch, of which I’m particularly proud:

A went as V from V for Vendetta and I was (clearly) a ghostly equestrian a la Martha Stewart last year. And we brought these cookies we made together yesterday… spiderweb sugar cookies! Fun to make but definitely labor intensive.

We also carved some pumpkins a few weeks back. This was my happy little owl (in progress) on a white lumina pumpkin.

And this, believe it or not, was Andreas’ FIRST time ever carving a pumpkin. And they say engineers aren’t artistic!

Unfortunately, we carved these weeks ago and the elements have now reduced them to droopy puddles of black mold next to our door (truly frightening).

For today the plan is to watch Hocus Pocus (undisputedly the best Halloween flick of all time) and pass out candy to the kiddos later with this little lady.

Ava would like to wish you a very Happy Halloween!

No more, folks. I’m the proud new owner of an iPhone 4. Yes. Yes yes. And for all my, who needs a fancy phone? stuff I’ve been saying for years, I have to admit: this is pretty freaking sweet. I’m still getting all my apps set up but one of the first things I was eager to explore was the new world of iPhone photography. Have you tuned into this? There’s a whole world of apps out there that help you create super cool photos. I decided to start with Hipstamatic. And holy. effing. bananas. this is fun.

Here are some of my favorite shots so far.

But I wanted to let you know that I’m back. And it was swell. And yes, I will be blogging more, just as soon as my brain solidifies a bit more. There are lots of thoughts swirling around up there, trust me.

In the meantime, some pictures. (Pardon the strangeness of my family.)

It started off as a storage room, really. As our least necessary room, it was where all the “non-essential” boxes got left after the majority of the unpacking was done. I wish I took a picture of it at that time, but imagine this, without the couch, and with half-unpacked boxes strewn everywhere. It was the perfect place because when I got stressed out about how much unpacking was left to do, I could just shut the door and forget about it!

Now let’s talk about that couch. It was the first thing we got for the office and it really became our “starting point,” as all the design shows would say. I found it on a blog called Crocodile Tears that weeds out the best finds from Craigslist Boston. This really was an invaluable resource as we designed this room so thank you, Keyse! Andreas went to pick it up from a guy in South Boston. We think he’s an antiques/vintage stuff dealer because we’ve seen him with a stand at SOWA‘s vintage market.

Anyways, it’s a pretty aesthetically pleasing, mid-century-esque couch. The back part can be straight up, at a 45-degree angle, or lay flat to form a bed (we’ve heard it called a “click clack” couch). Sadly it has no tags and no markings of ANY KIND on it so we have no idea who made it, how old it is, how much it’s worth, etc. But the guy claimed it was from Mohr & McPherson (a fancy Boston antique-y type store). This was easily the most expensive thing we bought for the room at $300.

Next up was figuring out the paint color. As you can see, we were working with a blank canvas…

I really wanted to go bold and dramatic with the color. We were inspired by some images of offices with dark navy blues contrasted with lighter colored furniture and accents so we chose Benjamin Moore’s Polo Blue. We painted the room ourselves back in February and the rumors you’ve heard about painting with dark colors are true – it ain’t easy! The store recommended we start with a tinted primer, which we did. They thought we’d only have to do that plus one can of the actual color, but we ended up having to use two cans of the color (two or three coats total), so I’m not sure if the tinted primer was worth the trouble after all.

After we had the walls done, the next big thing to figure out was the desk situation. We knew we didn’t want just one desk, because we both wanted our own work areas (we’re such good sharers). Then I came across this images on one of my blogs (sorry, don’t know which one now so I can’t give credit. If this is your image, please let me know and I’ll fix it right away!).

We loved the idea of one long surface that forms two work stations, with shelving above it, so we worked out a way to recreate it. We knew we wanted a sort of rustic looking long piece of wood for the surface, so we drove out to a lumber yard in western Mass and had them cut one for us. They only planed one side of it though so Andreas spent many hours sanding it to perfection, and then putting several layers of glossy finish over it. Wait til you see the result. We attached it to the wall with three strong L-brackets that we spray painted black so you hardly notice them against the dark wall. It seems to be holding up pretty well but we know that if we ever hear a loud crash from in here, it will be this enormous piece of wood falling off the wall!

Those are the big features of the room I wanted to explain beforehand. Now on to the reveal!

Ta-da! It is so cool to see it photographed. I look at this photo and think, I can’t believe this is my office! So the wingback chair we got for $15 from an older couple who was moving in Gloucester. The lady told me that it had been in her family for generations. It is definitely well-loved in all the right spots. The side table from a kind of crazy lady in Medford who collects furniture and art with her daughter. I think that was $25. The rug is from West Elm but we got it off Craigslist for $100 I think. Maybes less. The coffee table, also Craigslist, $40. ALL of these we found via Crocodile Tears!

The two framed pieces on the wall are from my parents house… things they didn’t want anymore that I grew up looking at. Of course I wanted them! The globe we found on Etsy for $45, I believe. But check out our latest addition, the chandelier! We knew we wanted something gold or bronze colored and ornate but they’re hard to find and very expensive. This did end up being our second most expensive piece for the room at $145 last weekend but it was so, so worth it! It’s a beautiful fixture and it totally completes the room.

Now for the desk!

The gold star on the wall we got for $5 a long time ago from Home Goods. It used to hang in our old apartment. The filing cabinet is from CB2. That was one of the pricier items too ($150?) but we loved the stark white contrast. Up top there’s a letterpress drawer that I found on Craigslist (yes, all by myself this time) for $20. Under that on the desk is an actual drawer that we found at an antique store on our way home from buying the wood for the desk. Don’t remember how much it was but in the $20-30 range. It has so much character.

Obviously we have yet to figure out a solution for our printer so for now it rests on the floor. The chairs are from our Ikea kitchen table. We have been looking and looking for real office chairs but never found anything we liked but could afford (office chairs are so expensive!). For now I’m happy with these ones. The giant Bombay Sapphire bottle turned desk lamp is a one-of-a-kind thing we sort of made ourselves. My old college roommate passed along the bottle to me ages ago in a fit of, “I’m moving and want to just get rid of it!”. Her loss, our gain! She had collected it when she worked at a restaurant. Anyways, it pretty much sat collecting dust in our storage unit for many years until Andreas got the brilliant idea to turn it into a lamp. I was leery at first but I love the way it looks now!

So that’s the “new” office! What do you guys think?

Okay, I never had that conversation with anyone. But do you know what I mean? As soon as the weather turned nice, the drone of lawnmowers and weedwackers became the ever present soundtrack to our daily lives and the Home Depot garden department practically the neighborhood hangout. We quickly realized that even though we thought our deck was done, we were actually only halfway down that expensive road. One piece of the puzzle was missing, and that piece was flowers.

So one day a couple weeks ago, I headed to Mahoney’s Garden Center over in Allston, which is pretty much the mecca of all things plants and flowers in the Boston area. I found their prices to be slightly better and their selection infinitely better than Home Depot’s, not to mention the friendly staff (and chatty fellow shoppers!) who hooked me up with all sorts of tips for making our deck planters look  nice.

For example, did you know that a good planter has three elements? A hanging element, a height element, and a color element? Because I didn’t. I was just roaming the place, grabbing random things that caught my attention. Little did I know that you actually have to think about things like shade and sun and height and color. I pretty much thought it was plant it, cover it with dirt, water it. Done. NOT!!! (Remember in the 90s how everyone used to obnoxiously say NOT!!! after every sarcastic remark? “Nice shoes… NOT!!!” Yeah…. good times.) (Not.)

Okay, so maybe I spent way too much at Mahoney’s. Maybe I spent as much as our deck furniture and grill combined. But behold…

BEFORE

AFTER

Eh? Eh? Wait, it gets better.

AND I even planted a few seeds of my own. These are my chartruese zinnia that are sprouting up quite nicely. I have to say, I’m pretty proud of the little guys. (And AMAZED at how much cheaper it is to grow your own flowers than to buy them. You just have to plan ahead a bit more.)

So, was it worth the time and money? I think so. Plus, now we’re the envy of all the neighbors. In my head, at least.