A store is born

We have been searching for the perfect place to set up shop for a while now. We were looking for an older building- a bit of a fixer upper, and we wanted to find the perfect location. We {finally!} found it. It was built as a residence in 1901 and it has been home to a church, a yoga studio and now our little shop, East Street Home.

The building sits on a hill that overlooks the Farmers Market and in the winter the city piles up all the snow and makes a huge sledding hill. They have ice skating, warming tents and marshmallows. As a person who strongly dislikes winter, this actually sounds perfect!

There are a few Anthropology-ish elements like these doors. Chipped perfection.

... then there is this 90's Kitchenette. Yikes. Don't worry, it's already gone to the curb.

We are working on refinishing the floors, painting and reviving the interior a little... and finding lots of goods. Our home is a balance of old, less-than-perfect pieces mixed with new pieces and our store will be just that. Home away from home.

More updates soon.

Red+ Pink= not too cutesy

Adding a little red to pink makes everything a little less cutesy and matchy- matchy. 

I've been noticing the red/ orange and pink combo lately.

Would you wear it?

Could you live with it? I could!

Images via Apartment Therapy, Remodelista and Censational Girl.

Door lovin'

I wanted our new basement to be a little more clean- lined than the rest of our craftsman house. Craftsman is a beautiful, but it can be a little dark with all the stained moldings and doors so I thought the basement would be a little break... a little less masculine and a little more my style.

We always wanted 3 panel doors, but after looking into the sizes, our 7' ceiling height meant cutting off a lot of the bottom panel of the door... and that would look strange. After a little brainstorming with our trim guy we ordered solid core slab doors and added the panel detail with 1/4" thick MDF. We have a few different sized doors, so this allowed us to scale the molding for each door to match. In other words...

P.S. I'm in love with this door. ;)

Not all great ideas are on a fancy- shmancy blueprint... some are random sketches texted to the hubs and trim guy, like this one. We reused 2 doors because you just can't pass on a door that was original to the house. {Our house will be 100 next year!}

 The wine room door:

This gloss black door looks so much better in real life without the flash. Gloss black doors have been on my wish list *forever*. They are beautiful *and* fingerprint proof. Perfection.

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Sunny day for paint color picking

It has been a wild winter, even for this Michigan girl. It is 45 degrees *and* sunny today so we could finally walk to the bus stop... like it is Spring.

Sunny days= perfect lighting to pick paint colors. Most of our house was gold-peanut butter color when we bought it. It felt sooo dark. 

Hopefully the new color will make the room feel less closed off and cave-like. 

It's going to take a miracle! Stay tuned for the *after* pics.

Hopefully some of this snow melts soon. Yikes!

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Working our way from the ground...up

We are making *huge* progress on the basement. The neutral background is done and ready for lots of color. I can't wait to style it and share pictures soon.
The floors are installed and grouted and that crazy day is a distant memory. ;)

 *Someone* is super excited for more space to play. We knew we didn't a want white or black ceiling because that would make the room feel shorter. Having similar colors on the wall and ceiling elongates the height of the room.
{Like how an all black outfit can make you feel a little taller and a little slimmer.}
 Our perfect pair: Benjamin Moore SC-34 Cape Hatteras Sand for the ceiling
            Benjamin Moore Shenandoah taupe for the walls

We are loving all that faux wood tile out there, aren't you? We went with long 6"x36" planks. The larger the area the more realistic it looks. It give the bathroom a been-here-forever-barn-wood-feel.

Wood talk  color: Beige Digue

I had to have a little bit of herringbone pattern somewhere, so we chose these 6x12 terracotta tiles for our {teeny-tiny!} wine room. 

The hubs started setting up even though we don't have wine racks yet. We found the table and stool while antiquing at one of our favorite local places. 

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showhouse

My friend and I took a little field trip to the Arteva Idea Show House last week, and it is a stunner. 

It has just the right amount of bold patterns against a classic neutral palette.

Hello... beautiful paneling and gorgeous chandelier. The detailed paneling helps bring the huge foyer into perfect proportion.

The large- scale basketweave stone floor is a-mazing, and the brown stone makes a nice transition to the dark stained floors.

The Walker Zanger stone backsplash looks perfect in the Kitchen.

The house has a few rooms with beam ceilings, done in a more polished way than the usual rustic beams. Love it.

I've never met a blue-green, teal, or turquoise I didn't like so of course I dig the Dining Room ceiling. {To the point that I've rubbed off on my 7 year old daughter, whose now tells everyone her favorite color is bluish- green!}

Check out more pictures here.

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All about tile... maybe too much

I think I have admitted it before, but I'll say it again: I am a tile nerd. Along with that love comes a little bit of obsessing about the details: grout joint thickness, handmade artisan glazes... it's kinda like fashion for me.

In the old house we had a beautiful, rustic Italian cobblestone floor. After living with it for a few years I realized that it was tough to Swiffer. {I hate vacuuming!}

We decided to go old school and mud-set our basement floor in the new house so that we could have large tiles with minimal grout joints... and no more cobblestone edges.

It was a little scary at first. They contractors brought 4 truck loads of mud {a sand and concrete combo} carried it downstairs in buckets, and worked their way across the floor, leveling it perfectly.

The madness in my backyard:




Leveling the mud:

We unloaded our tile, aka 2 hours of serious cardio.

Terracotta herringbone floor in our wine room:

16x24 Travertine in the Living Room and Studio:

6x36 wood- looking porcelain in the bathroom

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Happy 2014!

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A little DIY Prepping for tonight:

Peyton and I made some festive fringe. The hubs said he doesn't get it. ;)

I made a few polka dot champagne flutes with a gold oil based sharpie. {Just draw the dots and cook it in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Leave them in the oven so they cool down slowly and don't break.} I found the flutes in the dollar area at Target so this was a *super cheap* DIY.

Happy New Year!