taking HOUSE cleaning to a new level.

 

I stand amazed at how dirty a house gets over the winter.  It just so happens that our upcoming Graduation Party will be OUTSIDE (Lord willing) so yesterday Mike cleaned the OUTSIDE of our house.  He found a great contraption at our local hardware store: a brush head on a long broom type handle that attaches to the garden hose!  You can brush the surfaces while water blasts and rinses.  Our goal initially was to just clean the back (east) side of the house where the party refreshments will be set up - but Mike ended going around the whole house!  I did help.  He handed the hose-broom contraption up to me and I cleaned the upstairs balconies.

Cleaning is exhausting work, but so very satisfying the next day.  (The day after that it is probably dirty again - ha.)

a wyn-ing combination.

 Wyn shot Susanne senior composite photo against our house bricks.

Our family was blessed out of our socks to have Wyn Wiley come to Oakland to photograph our family.  While Susanne's senior pictures were the main game, we also asked him to photograph Miss Charlotte at six months.  Before he left, he captured these pics of our family in front of our house.

We are so glad he did!  Love you Wyn.

INSPIRED HOME was here.

A thrill of a lifetime and dream-come-true experience happened last Wednesday.  INSPIRED HOME magazine came to our home at 315 N. Thomas and spent the day capturing our home in photograph for a feature article.  I am still on a sweet high from the whole experience.

  INSPIRED HOME editor-in-chief Chris Christen is a native of Oakland and was a grade school and high school classmate of mine.  She took over the magazine as editor about a year ago and transformed it into a stunning and tasteful publication.  I saw my first issues right before our photo shoot and my mouth dropped open.  Why hadn't I heard of this beautiful magazine with features centered in our own state?  I would encourage you to look for it and pick it up.   Not only was it a blast to work with Chris, but we got to observe the creative expertise of photographer Jeffrey Bebee.  As someone who loves photography and dabbles at it, it was an absolute thrill to watch this man work.  I have taken thousands of photos of our house project.  You have seen many of them on this blog.  But what this man could do to capture our room spaces was AMAZING.  With his talented eyes, amazing lenses, powerhouse cameras - and his horse sense of years of experience - Jeffrey shot photographs that made me want to tear up.  He was able to capture what it feels like to stand in our living room at dusk with the fireplace glowing... he could place his camera & lens in a way that you can see the whole layout of the master bath... he could capture the light spilling into my office in the morning...  Photography is all about the light.  And Jeffrey Bebee knows about light.

Part of the thrill is that we have been gifted with the chance to restore a very magnificent home, and it feels good to have it captured in a very magnificent way.  The house deserves it.

It added to the fun to sense that editor and photographer had fun during the shoot too.  At one point Mr. Photographer said "This is a nice change from shooting new home construction in West Omaha."

Don't worry, I will be letting you know when the publication is released.

photo shoot touches.

Knowing that the INSPIRED HOME editor and photographer were arriving to shoot the whole house for a feature article, I viewed each room with a new set of eyes in anticipation of the event.   I knew that I had some visual holes in several rooms - so I set out to 'fill the blank spots' with a few additions.  I hung four framed photos in the guest room and added a large pottery vase with greenery to our bedside table.

But I had the most fun in the girls' room.  The white chest of drawers sat with nothing on it... a simple statement, but how could we add some sparkle?  I remembered that one Christmas Emily sent the younger girls a wonderful collection of classic literature - to mature their reading palettes.  The book collection with some Pottery Barn Kids bookends turned out to be a bright touch in the room that the INSPIRED HOME photographer loved.  (He had no idea that the book collection had not been in place even 24 hours - and I did not tell.)

During the photo shoot of this room, the photographer asked for 'something pink'.  I ran to my closet where I had thrown everything that resembled chaos and found the darling art jars that daughter Abby made for Niece Eleanor at Christmas.  Again, a stack of books with the playful jars added a bit of merriment.  Note: Abby glued a plastic farm animal to a jar lid, painted it a bright color, and filled it with crayons & mini pencils. Voila. Darling gift - or decoration!

The girls' room looked a bit brighter and a bit sweeter with some wonderful books and touchs of color.

a favorite christmas gift.

Years ago my daughter Abby gave me a Mothers Day gift that was a collage of photos of all the houses we had lived in.  For Christmas, I got a fabulous hand drawn revised version.  I am sure you can understand why this was one of my favorite gifts this holiday...  Thank you sweet Abby.

thanks for sharing in our joy.

We were blessed by the number of people that toured our home on Sunday as part of the Christmas Tour of Homes in Oakland, Nebraska... and by all of you who are touring it in cyberspace though our blog. Thank you.

 

I may have the house decorated for Christmas by December 2nd, but that doesn't mean I will have the gifts wrapped until December 23rd!  In my shoes? How about wrapping white toile netting around the bottom of the tree... it doesn't look empty when you do.

How can red and white pack such a powerful punch?  Try your own collection of "red things".

Sometimes one simple thing is all you need to say 'Merry Christmas'.

 

If new stockings seem like an overwhelming expense, how about mittens?  It is what our grand kids are getting at Grandma & Grandpa's.

Sometimes 'what you have' makes the best decoration.  The Guest Room is featuring my girls' childhood teddy bears with parts of a treasured advent calendar.  In a former life I was a needlework designer for The Cross Eyed Cricket and these advent pillows bring back warm memories... and are meant to communicate MERRY CHRISTMAS to YOU...

reading room takes a holiday.

This is the room that was transformed by the Pottery Barn Design Consultation.  (I am not even going to show you what it looked like before Shelli and Kathy showed up from the Omaha Pottery Barn store.)  They moved the leather Manhattan chairs to the living room and put my slip covered ones in here.  They gave us the confidence to fill the walls with our kids photos.  They told me we needed three lights (and we knew they were right).  And they told us about the amazing flameless candles that look like real! They are made of real wax, they flicker like a real candle - and - they are on a timer so they come on by themselves every night!  They are on Karen's Favorite Things for 2012.  (They run on 2 "C" batteries and cost about the same as a "real" candle.)

In this room, people often comment on the PB Eton Mirror above the fireplace.  I bought it early in the renovation process when we were spending $ and $ and $ on tuck pointing and insulation and duct work - and I thought we should buy a mirror before we ran out of money - ha.

In my opinion, every house needs some kind of Advent Calendar.  The one above the coal burning fireplace in this room is from Garnet Hill several years ago.  This year each little knitted pocket is filled with a 'couple activity' for Mike and me.  We gave up too many date nights working on the house this past year so December will be about ... "reading together on the chaise lounge for an hour" or "bringing homemade bread to someone on the prayer list at church"...  We need to spend some time sitting in this room now that the house is done!  Don't tell Mike but one of the activities actually says "sit and drink a glass of wine in every room" - ha.