Virtual Chalkboard House Tour

Friends! The stars have aligned and today I bring to you, all the way from Roswell, Georgia, a 1500 sq. ft. beauty with books to answer any question and a heart that longs for nothing more than world peace...the apartment in person! I want you to get to know the apartment in as close to the real experience as possible. But because I care about authenticity and transparency, I have to be honest: not everything you see online is as it seems. In this virtual wonderland, I am able to use my photographic wiles to shift the unsightly clutter out of your sightline. I can replicate these wiles in real life, but only with a five minutes notice. Let's start our virtual tour in the most important area, the living and dining room. Come right on in the front door. Will you step this way?

This would be the look that would bowl you over when you first came in the door. You may not be able to help noticing the mirrors. Believe it or not, they didn't think to paint them this color wherever they were made. I made that bold choice myself, and I'm still not sure if I am woman enough to live up to it.

Now, if you are anything like me, you would probably walk five steps into the room and spin around to catch a look at what's behind you:

You say to yourself, is that yellow pot for real? Could a pot get any yellower and could a table be anymore Safari Apartment Shabby Chic? Let's take a closer look.

Wanting to put the shabby in chic, I decided to paint the rubber plant's original pot with 50 coats of yellow acrylic paint. Sam absolutely adored watching me paint the same pot for a week.

After admiring my zen show piece, you suddenly get an urge to back up completely into the corner, so that your head is actually inside one of the bookshelves and this is what you see:

There's little Orange Grandma Whimsy in context. You walk in to get a closer look at the chalkboard, but then you change your mind, flop onto the couch and notice these details:

Okay you crazy guest, it is seriously time for the chalkboard now. Uh oh! Looks like we spotted some of that "hidden" clutter!

Just as you are reading about the husband, in he walks, ready for his lunch. How does our heroine do it? Hold a photo shoot and reheat last weeks turkey chili all at the same time? Someday I'll write a book with my secrets, but for now why don't you join us?

Sam says the turkey chili is so delicious, he is broken hearted that its four meal run has come to an end.

When I put on this shirt, I felt like a Parisian artist or Bridgette Bardot, ready to capture the romance of our SASC style on film. Sam was inspired in a completely different way by my ensemble...

One of the things I love about my husband is that he keeps an eye patch handy for just such a time as this.

Retro Crochet Magic

Well. I've gotten several (and by that I mean four) urgent requests that I get some pictures of my apartment up. By my calculations, in the land of blogging one request represents about 100,000 people, so we are looking at close to half a million people who are waiting to see what in the world I have done with the place. All I can say is soon, I promise. Trust me that it is a stunning creation of Safari Apartment Shabby Chic with just a sprinkling of Retro Crochet Magic. I know that combination is being done to death lately, but I'm keeping it fresh. The thing is it is just such a nightmare working with photographers, especially when you have one as temperamental as mine. These creative types! I seriously have to give her a pep talk just to get off the couch. And the person I'm using to stage the place is just a disaster. When you catch her on the wrong day she will seriously just lose it if things aren't looking like her "vision" and have to sit on the floor, eating coconut pudding and watching Frasier until the fit passes. What do you guys do to motivate your staff? Should I try another flavor of pudding?

In the meantime, I've come up with a tutorial that I think will be very helpful for everyone on creating more seating in your home. For those of you who visited my Boise casa, you may remember that I was heavily into my camp chair period. Moving to the big city of Atlanta, I've realized that I really need to take it up a level, but I still cling to my roots. So (and here I'm letting you in on a little of the Retro Crochet Magic) I've created a camp chair revival piece that I'm quite happy with.

As you can see, I started off with a space that was seriously menacing. It was just one dark, blank, cord-y cry for help.


So with a little help from these friends (and a shout out to Becca who made my beautiful wedding afghan that I adore!)

+

















I came up with...


Pure Magic! I'm calling it Orange Grandma Whimsy, a postmodern masterpiece. I like that it represents my frilly, girly, bright-mod side, but it also has my sporty side hidden underneath, ready to pounce whenever the mood takes me.

And just in case y'all (I can't actually say it and sound natural in real life, so I'm trying it out here) have similar melt downs with people you know and love, here is the recipe for coconut pudding:

Coconut Pudding
from Cooking Light 2007

1 3/4 cups milk
3/4 cup light coconut milk
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
pinch of salt
1/4 cup half and half
2 large egg yolks, lightly beaten
4 teaspoons butter
1/2 cup flaked coconut

Place milk and coconut milk in a medium, heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil.

Combine sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a bowl, stirring well. Combine half and half and egg yolks, stirring well. Stir egg yolk mixture into sugar mixture. Gradually add half of hot milk to sugar mixture, stirring constantly with a whisk. Return hot milk mixture to pan, bring to a boil. Cook 1 minute, stirring constantly with a whisk. Remove from heat. Add butter, stirring until melted. Add coconut and stir.

Spoon pudding into a bowl and eat. I recommend Season 9 of Frasier.

Moab

So I can guess what you are thinking. You are waiting by your computers, refreshing the page every thirty seconds, hoping against hope that I post hundreds of pictures of the arches of Moab from multiple angles for you to look through today. Folks, I hate to disappoint you. While I do have hundreds of pictures of the arches and the shrubbery and Sam and I standing on red dirt, I know that it just isn't going to have the effect that a few dozen well chosen pictures would. It's like too much candy, you think you want it, but it isn't good for you. So try to savor this and make it last.

Some people think that a national park is the first thing to go see in Moab. Not us. We chose the much subtler attraction: Wells Fargo. We were packing enough wedding loot to be bank robbers thanks to our generous friends. Luckily, I had a clever disguise:

There is nothing like chilling out for a couple of hours at the bank waiting for a teller to let you add someone to your account.

I recommend the Wells Fargo mango sucker, 2010. It has an orange finish with just the barest hint of a paradise aftertaste. "Sam" likes the strawberry cheesecake, bless his heart. I love how we still have that newly wed glow in these pictures.

Good as that was, the arches were even better! The beauty of Arches National Park is just not a laughing matter. It is seriously stunning and we loved exploring it.

Despite what you might think, this is totally a staged shot. I was so taken with this ladies white shorts I just had to have a picture with them in action.

You probably know this arch from the Utah license plate. Since Sam and I are kind of a big deal we hiked to it to get our picture taken, a feat we were practically the first to accomplish. The only problem is that, as you can see from this picture, it is sitting on the edge of this frightening bowl of nothingness that drops down far deeper than this picture conveys. Expert climber and mountaineer that I am, even I had to sit and have a think and a bag of chex mix to bolster my courage for the walk under the arch to get my picture taken. I'm sparing you the shots of me sliding over there on my backside. Suffice it to say, I made it, as did Sam.

When you are out in the desert you have got to hydrate. Sam says this picture would have had a greater and more realistic impact if I had exerted the energy to take the cap off the bottle. I'm not so sure.

This picture is the view from our hotel. Sam said to buck up and make the best of it.

And even after all these many days of marriage, they were still happy.

When we last saw our heroine...

She had just gotten married, said a prolifically (is this a wise move grammatically? profilicallly? who uses that? Me!! You should know from the start I'm absolutely fearless) tearful goodbye to her family and friends, loaded everything she could fit (allowing a modest amount of room for her husband) into her Honda Civic to begin the journey South. I am far from being the first to note that this is where the story always ends. For me it is the beginning of a whole new life. So let's see what has happened since that day...

For my sweet millions of adoring readers who don't know me well yet, it is important to say that no important journey, whether it be to pick up the aforesaid husband (let's just give him a name--Sam is one that comes to me from out of the clear blue sky) from work or to travel across the country in a beloved Civic, should begin without a coffee in hand. And so here they are, the happy couple, with their bowls of soul. If "Sam" doesn't appear too terribly happy, it is because he is still learning to love coffee as much as I do. Note that this is also the beginning of Sam's travels into the land of beard-dom.

Round about Salt Lake City we were getting hungry and after a failed attempt to go to the world famous Maddox (at which we only obtained this poor picture because I was too lazy to get out of the moving car to take it)

we went on to our favorite Italian restaurant at the Gateway Mall. It was here that we took more pictures of ourselves making silly faces, and recreated our wedding ring shot as we fought over the unbelievable focaccia bread. Silly kids!

Then my crazy Sam said that since we were at a mall and malls were made for buying things we should really go get...please pause for a drumroll! this is big boys and girls! the first addition to our new family! And! it! is! a!

Were we ever proud of this new addition to our new family! To express our delight we took more cute pictures of ourselves.

I gazed lovingly at our macbook pro all the way to Moab (a.k.a. honeymoon road trip destination #1) and whispered promises to try my hardest to become worthy of the pro in my macbook.

Now I'm sure, having left you with this cliff hanger, you are dying to know what happened next. You are just going to have to be patient friends. I'm very busy and important what with making the bed, going to the library, and looking for places to work or even volunteer. I can't just sit around blogging all day. Until we meet again!