house o' rama (pt 2)

When figuring out what to do with space, the upstairs has been a bit of a challenge usability-wise.  It's very "custom" in that there are great built-ins (rare for a German rental) as well as an absolutely fantastic bathroom (more about that later on in the post).  However, the sloping roof makes a good amount of square footage un-usable, including our third floor bonus room, which has pretty much NO usable space for anyone over 5' tall.  Our old house had the sloping ceiling/walls also, but there were wall dormers that allowed more space to be usable.  No wall dormers with this house, so I had to be creative in the placement of things like desks, our bed and shelving.  Also, the fact that our bedroom has built-ins on the only full-sized wall made it so our bedroom furniture has been banished to the guest room in the basement.

Enough of my rambling, onto pictorial goodness!

We have a landing at the top of the stairs which I kind of designated as Mr. Bama's reading area.  It's sunny and bright, so it's perfect for just relaxing.  I really am not a fan of the overstuffed leather chair (I'd prefer something like this if leather is a must for Mr. Bama).  I love love LOVE our scratch map though.

To the right of the sitting room is the super steep staircase to the upstairs bonus room and the hallway to the bedroom.

My office is also off this hallway, but is in NO condition to be photographed.  Ugh it's a mess, I get a headache just thinking about it.
Here's the master bedroom.  See what I mean with the windows!?  There's about 2 feet behind the head of the bed that is totally unusable.  It's really awkward and yes, we have hit our heads on the ceiling once or twice.  However, it is really neat to be able to sit in bed and look through the skylight at the stars as you fall asleep every night.

Across from the bed are the built-ins. This is what I meant about the previous tenants "loving" orange and green.  Shame I'm not head over heels in love with it like they were. Correction: If the green was less teal-y and the orange a grey or natural wood then I'd be a happy camper, but that's not the case with their funky aqua green and peachy orange combo.  

None of my dresses fit in the built-ins (the tall hanging closets are divided in half and every dress I own is too long.  But not to worry - stay tuned to find out where the dresses have been stored).  This is pretty much entirely Mr. Bama's closet. And yes, his wardrobe takes up all but about 5% of the whole closet.  Lots of clothing for a man who wears a uniform to work everyday.

Now, the 360 degree of the master bath:

Far and away the BIGGEST bathroom I've ever had in my life, and marked improvement over the single sink/no storage or counter in the last house.  And yeah, that shower and the tub are pretty awesome.  PS - the floors are HEATED!

But the best part is on the 3rd floor.  Remember the bonus room I mentioned?  Well due to the sloped ceilings, only about a 4ft by 10 ft area is usable in the room, making it impractical for anything other than as this:

Yeah, it's a designated closet, home of my TD dresses (and some skirts, shirts, but mainly TD). 

Across the hall from this is another small hall closet, where my shoes and purses live. 

Sure, it's gluttonous, but I don't care.  After the past year of living super far away from base in a larger house with no yard by myself, this house has been a big blessing, and will probably be the nicest place we live over the next few years.  So we're going to enjoy it as much as we can and be thankful everyday that we were able to find this gem! This still doesn't knock the NOLA house out of first place for "best house ever" but it takes a strong second.

Bear says "Thanks for all the staircases Mom,
they keep me in shape." Same here pup, same here.

Next up? The yard (already mentioned here) and the BBQ festivities!   

house o' rama (pt 1)

In honor of our recent housewarming party I have decided to post some post-move picts.  I finally had everything hung, vacuumed, swept and straightened to a point where I was happy enough to take pictures.

So, here we go. Enter the foyer:

My poor vase didn't make it 24 hours in the foyer, as "husband who forgot there is now a table in the foyer" ran into it on his way up to bed last night, sending water, flowers and glass shards everywhere.  Oh well, it was pretty while it lasted.  

Take a left at the end of the foyer and you get to the hall:

To the left is a giant hall closet, the square on the wall is a laundry chute (!!).  

Go straight ahead and you get to the kitchen

 Didn't think I'd ever be able to match the size of the NOLA kitchen, but alas, I've been proven wrong.

do a 180 turn and then you're in the dining "room."

To the right of the dining room table is the bar.  I pretty much copied the design I had back at the old house (seen here) b/c it is so perfect for above the bar. 

Keep turn to the right and you are in the living "room."

This is probably the most incomplete area of the house, mainly b/c we NEED a 3-seater couch.  Right now we just have the love seat Mr. Bama bought before we were married (seen in the very foreground of the picture).  If we were in states we'd have this badboy sitting in our living room. However, I refuse to spend money that could go to the above couch in order to buy a cheap European sofa (they are SO uncomfortable!). So love seat and oddly unfinished living room it is for now.

Tomorrow: onto the upstairs.

The irony of the party was that none of it actually took part inside the house, hence it should have been properly called a yard-warming party by the sheer fact that so much time was spend in our yard. We're so lucky that we do have such a wonderful and large yard. And someone worked incredibly hard to make sure all of the libations and food was top notch!  Thanks Babe!

my house is officially a hot mess

Just when I was feeling accomplished by hanging pictures, finally buying a new rug, and not having a house of boxes (for the second time in 13 months, mind you), I made the fateful decision to click on a Pinterest pin with the caption "great decorating ideas." Bad. Move. Curiosity didn't just kill the cat, it ran over it and then backed up and ran it over again.

inspiration for decoration

No room in my house looks anything close to the ones in this blog (thanks expensive architecture degree).  Instead it looks like a mix of Anthro-layout wannabe/ leftovers from being a poor grad student - single person / Ikea showroom with mismatching clutter. There is no design philosophy; nada, nothing, zilch.  My grad professors would be ashamed.

I was totally ready to post a few pictures from my newly-deboxed kitchen, but now I just.dont.know.  My competitive nature feels energized and then deflated due to the fact that I can't buy all of One Kings Lane for my new temporary abode.  Stupid budget.

Do you think the rooms on the inspiration for decoration blog really are attainable by real people with dogs, kids, cats and spouses. Or is it just propaganda by the "your house will never be good enough!" design mag people?

kitchen slicing surprise?

So as of today we're still moving, but this morning I had to meet some workers at the house super early to help with some last minute things to prep for the furniture being moved today.  To kill time, I was poking around the kitchen and noticed something in the drawer next to the sink.  At first i thought "darn it, the last people in the house left something behind!" What the heck is this?

Upon further inspection, I realized the contraption was bolted down and actually pops up.  The end result was THIS!

I'm going to be cutting things paper thin to no end with my new, electric SLICER!! Bye bye Mandolin, I've got this bad boy in my drawer! 1/8" potato slices for some scalloping? You got it. 1/2" tomato slices for a sandwich?  Done.  Paper thin slices of bologna? Eww, but no problem, I've got you covered... with my super awesome German meat (and other things) slicer.

Seriously though, who has this pre-installed, of all things, in their kitchen?

so it begins

The gubment took away this beauty Tuesday.

Oh how I will sorely miss the Purple-People-Eater.  Or not.  Despite its obviously interesting* (that's nice speak for ugly, bless it's heart) looks, a number of guests, including my very picky father, said it was incredibly comfy for naps. I guess you can't judge a couch by it's cover... never mind, that won't keep me from continuing to judge away ugly furniture in the future.

This means that moving has officially begun.  Mainly because the movers also moved our washer and dryer to the new house.  Therefore, there's no turning back - we have to move.  Either that or from here on out I just drive 30 mins one way to do laundry.  Ask me in a day or two and I may say "I'll take the 30 min drive over moving."

A Bathroom for Guidos

We have an interesting half bath in the new house.

This just makes me want to fistpump upon entering.  The best part: to the right of this picture you see a toilet.  Next to that toilet is a designated urinal.  Just took the classiness up a notch.

pardon the dust + how to make a street car roll

I've been away, I know.  It's hard to really have an excuse for being post-less for so long other than I've really been trying to chase the "I really miss my hubs" blues by keeping busy.  I've been volunteering at the local military base in their marketing office.  In short, it's been amazing.  I work with a wonderful group of inspiring people who challenge me every day and really encourage me to flex my creative muscles in the world of graphics and design.  Govt cutbacks have made it so that no actual paying position is available for what I do, but I am forever hopeful and I'm expanding my portfolio while I'm at it.  I'm just hoping that the snowy German winters and Bruno's lack of 4x4 capabilities don't force me to hibernate from Dec - March.  I do appreciate you all staying tuned and still reading... this blog has been great to come to when I just need an outlet.

So in an effort to make up for m y lack of blog - presence, I'd figure that I'd share a tutorial on a project that I've had in my mind for about a year and I have FINALLY produced.  I saw a post on Abbey Goes Design Scouting  ages ago and while in NOLA I desperately wanted to make my own street car roll for the St. Charles Avenue streetcar line.  Well, it never happened, mainly because we didn't have any place to put it even if I did make it.  But the idea stuck in my mind because, well, aren't they just fantastic?

I will have a house that looks like this someday -- in my dreams
image via living livelier

Fast forward to Germany and my humongous home full of blank walls.  Needing something to cover a wall in our dining room, I decided it was time for the streetcar roll to finally be made.  So I whipped up a 36" x 60" image on inDesign, exported it as a .pdf and then  went over to rasterbator and uploaded the image.  It broke my image into a number of different pieces of 8.5 x 11 sized pieces of paper

16 pieces of paper (and 2 black ink cartridges) later I had my full image, but what to arrange it on so I could hang it?  Enter number of USPS boxes I had hoarded in my office.

boxes, meet box cutter:

now to assemble my images on the makeshift backing to create a large poster

a roll of double sided tape later and voila! NOLA "street car" roll complete!

I kind of went crazy with this "create a huge poster w/ 8.5x11 sized pieces of paper" method in a number of other places in the house, which I'll share sometime in the future.  Since I have no idea what our next place will be like size-wise, I am refusing to spend a ton of money on decorating, but I hate bare walls. So this is my solution.  So far so good!

Do you have any other simple decorating tips that have helped you outfit your house without busting the bank? 

There's a Change in the Haus

And now for some pictoral goodies showcasing what's been going on w/ the state of the house post move-in.  I'm far from done, but we're getting there.

Dining Room:

Our Bar Right after we moved in:

Our Bar Now... almost done

THIS clock goes in the void.  come on amazon

Dining Room table

Kitchen:

Our new "counter space" via Ikea right after I finished assembling it:

Two people for assembly?  Pshh, please Ikea.

The counter now:

spices and knives to be wall hung once I'm not scared
of drilling into concrete.

The Kitchen wall sans pictures:

Voila!  Pictures:

our kitchen stove, etc right before me moved in:

Kitchen now (i feel though as if it is lacking bikes hanging from rafters above):

View from the Kitchen into the Dining Room:

Heading Upstairs

The family wall. Yeah. Needs "something"

Hard at work on that 'Something":

The Family wall now.  Love me some bunting.

Office (Das Buro):

Yeah, it's messy.  But I'm getting there 

(and no, that is not my desk.  That is Mr Bama's I've been relegated to use)

Yippee I have a place to "do stuff"

view from the desk

So that's all well and dandy, and theres a whole lot more of the house that I have barely touched yet, for example:
The Living Room:

hide yo eyes.  

And of course, there have been some aesthetic bumps in the road:

Like this beauty that was hanging in the dining room

flock of seagulls anyone?

and this AWESOME government-issued couch in a shade that goes with everything:

I have always wanted a purple multicolored uncomfortable couch!  Finally!!!

I guess the name of the game is just improvisation.  Take this as an example.

Need a side table but all you have is an unnecessary amount of architecture & engineering books?  No problem!

no, we did not pick out the chairs.  They were "issued" to us.  sigh.

So much more to do with the house (and pictures to come), but at least for now I have my side table of knowledge!  I am unstoppable.