I’m a huge fan of Amber Lewis who runs Amber Interiors. She’s kind of up there with McGee and Co. for me but even more high end. Whenever she posts, I drop by her shop to see if I can afford anything and it’s always a big NOPE. BUT, she’s come out with a line with Anthropologie which makes her style a little more accessible. Here are some of my faves!
I’ve been on the hunt for a new kitchen dining table and am obsessed with tables that are a mix between oval and rectangular. McGee and Co. has my dream dining table but the dimensions don’t work (and unfortunately this one is also too big)
Hiya, with Oscar back in school I feel like I have regular office hours again and can dedicate some hours of the day to this neglected space. I mean, I’m not sweating it that I’ve neglected here, the blog isn’t a source of income or a business venture, so it typically is the first thing to go, when work levels peak (or you know, a pandemic happens, kid is at home, husband steals your office and you’re kicked to a new workspace in a matter of a week). Enough of that though. I wanted to mention our Halloween Build-A-Gift on PennyPaperCo.com – as you may have seen, in the Spring we pivoted the business to bring in other items to compliment our own (like CANDY). It’s actually a really interesting pivot that came out of the necessity to keep the business going, when all of our stores that we sold wholesale to – stopped ordering. Long story short, I’ve never had as much fun as I am these days, in this new path, and I think we’ve found our happy spot of still making cool products and selling to stores, but we’re also now marketing our products alongside other makers we love, on our own retail platform.
This past Summer when Covid hit I saw that this Fall – especially Halloween was going to be different. In industry news, candy makers were also bracing for the Halloween season. Whatever happens – it’s important to have things to look forward to, which is why I came up with our Halloween box. Like our other Build-A-Gift boxes, you can pick and choose each item that goes into a box. So regardless of your budget you can send something fun to a kid, or, someone who is a kid at heart, to add some fun to the holiday.
Our deck was in desperate need of repair for the last bazillion years, but it was always being pushed to last on our to-do list. When the pandemic hit and we were all stuck at home, I think it drove Aubrey over the edge to see the carpet in tatters daily, so he ripped up the carpet in one foul swoop and we were left with a plywood deck – which was actually, an improvement over the carpet. This isn’t the most design-inspiring post but I wanted to post it none the less, because I found it ridiculously hard to find simple front porch ideas in my search.
We had our handyman help us out with this project because we were juggling my work, Aubrey’ work and Oscar’s home school, so it was way easier to just get the manual labour outsourced. What we did was leave the plywood base, that was already there, and then lay 2×4’s over top, starting with under the door (see above) so that it all evened out as we went left to right.
We lay another 2×4 board at the front of the deck, running parallel to the house so that the boards didn’t just get “cut” at the end and we don’t see exposed end cuts.
The border piece I mentioned above, hung over the top of the deck ever so slightly, so that the front panels (that you see from the street) would be recessed. We installed these new vertical boards in the front and they were the same 2×4 boards as on the top.
Lastly. we added a final detailing piece above the vertical pieces. This was again, a 2×4 board, but we had it ripped so it was slightly less wide, so that it wasn’t as thick as the other pieces.
That’s it! I mean, it’s a super easy design, but gives you some points to consider if you do a porch. Also, I did weed between the stone pathway after the photos were taken. But it wasn’t a huge priority at the time of the photo. 🙂
