PAX Dorridge

Oh my word. I did it! Interior fittings of wardrobe officially completed.

Wow. Really weird how the back of the wardrobe looks blue in the picture - it is definitely just white. I should know. I have been staring at it for the last two days. The part that really made me want to tear my hair out was arranging the insides of the two narrow parts so that the places where the door hinges attach to the frame aren't blocked. That meant, for example, that I couldn't have four drawers in a row because the fourth one would block a hinge (there are four on each door). This is strange because the Ikea website lets you design the inside in ways that are technically impossible with the doors on (although not everyone uses doors). Ikea products are generally pretty well-designed so I was surprised to encounter this problem. Also, according to Google, A LOT of people feel similarly. Sadly, no amount of posting on/reading Ikea forums will change this.

I do love me some collared shirts....

Putting in all those shelves and drawers really made me appreciate what a great job the handyman did in getting the frames level.

I've decided my reward for assembling this damn thing will be non-Ikea door handles! The doors aren't on yet - but they will look like this (only there will be four doors in a row).

For you Ikea freaks out there, they are PAX Fardal. Just shiny white doors. I'm not sold on the shiny-ness, but they are the nicest looking out of the white door options.

I have not narrowed down my handle choices very much at all, but I know I want to get them from Sugatsune. No particular reason except for they are Japanese and as such, extremely cool. Here are a few I like:

The MRB Knob

2LC Handle

US Series (I like the smaller one)

26900 Cast 316 Stainless Steel Ring Pull

SND Pull

Pure no-nonsense coolness.

The Anniversary Feast

Jeff and I planned a very special night to celebrate our anniversary. Dinner at the Pizza Hut Restaurant in the mall and then to the cinema (next door - how convenient!) (I mean, next door - in the same mall!) to see The King's Speech. I was super excited to see the movie, but mostly I was excited for CHEESY BITES. I have jonesing for those cheesy bites since I first realized the PH restaurante at the mall had them. Of course, the first two times we went there (for the sole purpose of putting cheesy bites in my belly) they were out! I almost double-checked with the waitress when she seated us on Tuesday just to make sure I wasn't about to be disappointed yet again, but I didn't want to freak her out if I started drooling or got that crazy look in my eye.

You people in the US might be scoffing at us for eating at a Pizza Hut, even a special sit-down one. Let me tell you, THERE IS NO GOOD PIZZA HERE. I'm dying for some red-blooded American pizza and Pizza Hut is the only thing that satisfies. If you are ever here and you get that same urge, absolutely do not buy frozen pizza at the grocery store labeled "American Style". Do not even buy it if you think "well the last one was terrible, but this one is a different brand... it could be good!" They are all bad. Jeff and I know - we have tried pretty much every one. Our urge is so strong, it compels us to do (and eat) terrible things. We were about halfway through the last one when we both agreed that "this is really disgusting", then about 5 minutes later we had finished the pizza and were like "WHY DID WE EAT THAT?!? IT WAS SO GROSS!"

Anyway, from our perspective, Pizza Hut is yummy. We got a little crazy on Tuesday and ordered a large cheese with CHEESY BITES and a medium spicy veggie thing (mainly for Jeff).

You better believe that hand got slapped after I took this picture.

We ate all of both pizzas except three pieces (!) and then rolled our way over the cinema. I decided it would be a good idea to get 2 scoops of Ben & Jerry's Mint Chocolate Chunk for the movie. Taste-wise it was definitely a good idea. I have found our area to be woefully deficient in the ice-cream department. The grocery store ice cream is just not good, obviously, but we were excited to hear about an ice-cream shop in Knowle (the town nearest ours) that was supposedly top-notch. I don't know if we were there on the wrong day or something but after one bite I wanted to throw it back at them and say, witheringly, "you obviously have never had Tillamook ice cream".

Anyway, ice cream = delish, but my belt was uncomfortably tight for the entire movie. Jeff ate like two bites of it which was really evil of him because I ended up eating way more than I expected to. The result of all this indulgence was that I spent Wednesday with the most wicked food hangover of my life. On the other hand, I'm already trying to figure out when we can go see "Black Swan" and do it all over again.

PS The wardrobe frames are up and look great! Our handyman did an amazing job getting them level. Our house is very old so the floors are slanted like crazy.

I'm going to Ikea today to pick up some final bits for the interior fittings so I should be able to show you organized closet bliss by Friday, as promised.

Jeff & Lauren: The First Five Years

On this very day (five years ago!!!!) Jeff asked me to be his girlfriend. 

Okayyyyy so we're averaging about 1.6 pictures together per year. Maybe we'll aim for 10 pics in the next five years!

To do: bedroom

Our bedroom is one of my favorite rooms in the house. The ceilings are really high (which you would absolutely not know from looking at the outside of the house) and one entire wall is exposed brick complete with a fireplace. It might not be a traditional looking fireplace - I think it might have been for coal, perhaps? - but still cool.

1. First of all, we really need to deal with the no closet situation. The spare bedroom has turned into a gross clothing dump. Most of my clothes are still in suitcases and the ones I do wear are folded in little piles on the spare bed. A rickety 7 dollar clothes rack is the only thing holding this room together.

Not having a place to neatly store clothes almost ruins the pleasure of doing laundry. Almost. We may have piles of clothes laying around, but I'll be damned if they aren't CLEAN piles of clothes.

Early on, we decided to use the PAX system of customizable wardrobes from Ikea. I finally assembled the frames yesterday.

That's two narrow frames and one wider frame. In the end, they will be lined up against the wall that already has the wide frame on it. Something like this:

The interior fittings are customizable so ours isn't going to look exactly like this, but it isn't far off. Jeff and I will each have a narrow wardrobe for our folded things and share the middle part for hanging things. The frames we have are about 7 3/4 feet tall so I think we may actually have enough room! 

These things are going to be packed so we definitely need to attach them to each other and to the wall. Wouldn't it be terrible if it fell over in the middle of the night on the dogs??? I'm sure Plato's last thought would be, "I knew there was reason I never trusted furniture....". 

In order for the wardrobes to lay flush against the wall, the skirting board needs to be removed, cut down, and reattached. That is beyond what I'm willing to DIY so we're having a handyman come out tomorrow to do that part and to attach the wardrobes to the wall. I also have full length shiny white doors for the wardrobes that I think are going to look really sharp against the new gray carpet. Hopefully, by the end of the week, I'll be able to show you a perfectly organized closet! That will make me almost as happy as having a stacked washer/dryer. 

2. This is the other side of the room. We didn't buy a headboard or a bed frame because we were wanted to keep the furniture buying to a minimum. I wonder if you can tell how high the ceilings are from these pictures... it is really pretty in person. 

The bedding is from Ikea - it is white, but with a little stripe-y texture to keep things moderately interesting. The lamp is one of my favorites from Ikea. So far we only have one, but I plan on getting another for Jeff's side. Simple/modern is definitely our thing, but even for me this is a little blahhhh. I have the perfect idea though! I plan on painting that entire wall a deep gray. I love the way a dark wall behind the bed can stand in for a headboard and make white sheets pop. These are some of my inspirations:

And who could forget the bedroom of Jenna Lyons (J.Crew's Executive Creative Director). I love it.

Just inspiration, people! I'm definitely not going to paint all the walls and I'm going to go with dark gray instead of black. Still, I think it is going to look pretty awesome. 

3. Window covering!! Not sure if you noticed our current solution in one of the pictures of the wardrobe frames. Yeah - that's a sheet hanging on the contraption that held up the previous owner's window treatment. All I can say is that it involved pink, and floral, and many yards of fabric and... general EWWW. I'm probably going to play it safe with a simple, white roller blind - big surprise. Someone is coming to measure the windows for blinds tomorrow. Hooray!

Other than that, not a lot needs to happen in the bedroom. Once we get the wardrobes set up, my Eames rocker will be able to go live up there. Awww... so cute. 

I'm sure this wasn't very interesting for many of you, but I blog what I want! So there. You're not the boss of me. 

P.S. Those inspiration pics are from my favorite interiors blog Remodelista

P.P.S. Next! The dreaded bathroom. Carpet is involved. That just ain't right. 

Sun/Mud at the park

I just wanted to post these pictures as proof that today was rather spring-like. Look at all that sun! Plato found another gigantic puddle and went all out. Being completely wet and muddy is always preferable to being just a little wet and muddy.

Success! 

Cute Birds

Strangely, one of the first things I did when I got here is buy a bird feeder. I'm just so excited to have an actual yard! Going to the garden centre was one of my first "on my own" outings. The one nearest us is HUGE. I think I spent about 2 hours there. The bird feeders and feed were right by the entrance so I took care of that in about 15 minutes and then spent the rest of the time in the store trying to strike the right balance between seemingly nonchalant browsing and wondering where the hell the exit was. The worst was when I would somehow work my way into a dead end filled with random garden equipment and of course someone had followed me down there so I would have to feign interest and act as if selection of tree pruners was really quite lacking in my opinion. I finally made it to the till. An elderly woman behind me noticed my selection of bird feeding equipment and launched into a lengtht description of her bird feeding set up and bragging (no, seriously, it felt that way) about the various types of birds she has visit her feeders - sparrows, wrens, blue tits etc. Of course, the blue tits were her favorite. She would not stop talking about them. Oh, the blue tits this and the blue tits that. TITS TITS TITS. All I could think was, "please, for the love of god, stop saying TITS!!". She noticed I did not share her enthusiasm for tits and I escaped.

I know it is January and we are a long way from legit springtime, but today felt rather springy! The weather has warmed up near 50 degrees and the birds were feasting. The feeder is right outside our kitchen window so I can watch them pretty easily. It took a while for them to get used to me standing there with my camera, but I finally got some shots. They aren't great because I was taking them through the window. Pretty cute though.


By the way, this is a blue tit.

I bought a birdhouse that has four different face plates to attract different types of birds. To me, they all look pretty much the same.

The diameters of the openings are actually all slightly different because apparently wild birds (according to the packaging) "can often be particular about entering holes that they consider too large".

That's a relief because if there is one thing I know for certain it is: birds do not know how to read.