Halloween let down

Halloween in Des Moines is straight up bizarre. There are very set times for trick or treating and they almost never fall on actual Halloween. They call it Beggars' Night and it looks like this:

• It's almost never on actual Halloween, which is a definite buzzkill. For us, it was last night.
• Sanctioned trick or treating lasts from 6-8pm ONLY. No surprise high schoolers in masks at 10:00 'round these parts. 
• Kids expect to tell jokes. (Really, this one doesn't bother me because I remember always having a joke ready for those few stubborn old folks who wouldn't give me a Reese's without hearing a lame knock-knock joke first)

No matter how long I've been here or how much I flat-out love this place, nothing about Beggars' Night will ever make sense to me. 

Add to this cultural conundrum the fact that I live on what I can only assume is the least fun street in the entire city. It's a long, long block and I can see about seven houses in either direction. You know how many had our lights on last night? Three. Three measly little houses catering to just seven groups of kids.

Bah humbug, Des Moines!

Here at Bigger, Better, Best, we refuse to go down without a fight and we shall keep our Halloween humor til the last.

 28.5% of the kids who came to out door declared a definite desire to say hi to the kitties, which was not met with matched enthusiasm by the cats.

Our jacks!

 We made spooky scene with a giant spider and paper bats that flew around on fishing line. They looked pretty awesome in the wind, but where tough to capture in pictures.

Dracula showing off his teeth.

I've got to know: Is your Des Moines neighborhood so lonely at Halloween? Out-of-towners: can I sell you 7 lbs of candy for real cheap?

The $5 fix

With my dear and darling Ma and Pa visiting us this weekend, I decided to get my tookus in gear and fix up the woebegone wall I shared last week. The fact that I scored three $1.47 frames from a Target clearance rack also helped.

Better, right? I'm no professional, but I see vast improvement and the darker frames add good balance and I'm pretty sold on them because they required no painting and were ca-ra-ra-ra-zy cheap. This is what we in the decorating world call "justifying."

We've got a nice shot from our first anniversary outing to Russian River Brewery.

The best fortune ever written, placed on some scrapbooking paper from the Hob Lob.

It says "You are the greatest in the world!" and it makes me quite happy.

I learned while we were engaged that if you send the President a wedding invite, he will send you a nice congratulatory card. I framed ours because it seems so quaint and like something grannies would do.

Yes, these are all camera-phone pictures taken in the dead of night. I not only never claimed to be a decorator, I also never claimed to be a photographer or person with enough patience to find the camera and wait for daylight.

Not bad for a $5 project, right?

In which perfection shockingly alludes me

I've had this little hall mirror since 2004. It was purchased for less than $5 at Burlington Coat Factory in an effort to spruce up my crumbly sad college house.

Here is my wee little dark mirror, circa 2009. Waaay back before the new windows and back when two unruly felines had yet to destroy the upholstery on my green chair.

After living with the dark mirror for seven years, I got the itch. It was time to shake things up with my little discount store mirror and the only kind of excitement I could bring to the table was a pale gray paint left over from an old project.

This chip has been there as long as I can recall. It was likely earned during a legendary house party. 

 Taping mirrors always sucks because you I can never get a crisp line. If you look closely, you can always tell I just slapped some lipstick on a pig of a mirror. Nevertheless, I tried to wedge my tape corners down with a screwdriver and look of serious concentration.

Painting time! 

I failed to realize just how sticky-outtie the designs were until I was really trying to get in there with my brush.

I almost left the mirror in this stage of shabby chicness after just two coats of paint before realizing shabby chic has no place in my home. Mostly because the shabby rings just too true.

So I rolled on a third coat and called it good.

Today, the mirror hangs where it always had and I've got to admit - I'm underwhelmed.

 Missed a spot or two.

It just disappears.

Be honest, aren't you underwhelmed, too? It's just too light and airy that it fades away. I'm hoping that once I get my act together and paint all that trim white, it will be a little better.

Maybe I just need to gallery wall this shizzle and get my pops of boldness that way. What say ye?

This ye says that between my lame painting and having reflected hundreds of hard-partying accountants and pharmacists: That poor mirror has been through the ringer.

What paint mistakes have you made lately?

Pack it up, pack it up, you got it, you got it

As a gal who was once known for her tendencies to blow this joint and head for shores unknown, I have long coveted suitcases as decor. So, imagine how stoked I was when I found this sturdy old guy at the bi-monthly antiques showcase, Urban Finds. I nabbed the case and the antique valet it sits on for a cool $25! I topped it with a rad little mercury glass lamp from TJ Maxx and a woodsy candle since this corner is dangerously close to the litter box hideaway.

Perfect for our basement's so-called talking chairs, where I imagine guests sipping wine and discussing the news of the day. This has yet to happen, but these chairs give a great vantage point to the action on the foosball table so I think we are getting close. 

Nowhere to hide

Warning: This post contains the dirtiest picture I've ever posted online.

The closets in this house have tons of built-ins. Cabinets, drawers and the closet itself times three. That's great in theory, but really when two people have so many places to throw junk and keep it hidden, things get ugly fast.

Case in point, our bedroom cabinet:

See what I'm saying? Dirrrty, Christina Aguilera style. The cabinet was were I kept yarn, clothes to be dry-cleaned or mended, craft supplies and our wedding photos.

After I took down the door and puttied up the holes left behind, I started by sanding the cabinets down since they were the same glossy blond that our hall trim and closets once were.

This wood is thirsty like whoa. So it took me about four coats to get a clean, fresh white.

Once it dried, it was time to repopulate the shelves! This time, in a more organized fashion. I used three woven baskets to hide things like belts, lotion, lint rollers, craft supplies and yarn. To spruce things up, I added some picture frames and flowers.

We've got our engagement photo, the CD case that holds our wedding photos (it's actually pretty, so I figure why not display it?) and a framed used Kleenex given to Hubs and I on our wedding day (we shared it while saying our vows and bawling and my parents' friends picked it up after the service (so, one of my first acts as a married lady was to litter. Not my finest moment.) and put it in an antique frame to give us at the reception. They wrote on the back, "May all your tears be tears of joy" and used a ceremony pogram as the backing. How sweet is that?).

These gladiolas and dark leaves are from our yard. I love the DRAMA. These flowers are the bitchy diva looking hawt and knowing it of our bedroom.

The best part of this project? It was free! I used paint I already had, baskets we already had and stole all those photos from our cluttered dresser. What beats a free project that adds punch to a room?

What's been your best free project?

Flip it good

This picture, taken by Hubs on our honeymoon in Georgia, has hung on our mini-gallery wall in our hallway for the past seven months. This morning, I realized an egregious error in the photo.

Did you catch it? The photo was upside down, people. For seven months. Scores of visitors have inspected this wall as it also has some nice family photos. None have noticed or had the guts to tell me that these poor seagulls have been perched upside down for seven months. In our defense, the reflection of those two seagulls really made our flip nearly impossible to spot. Until now.

Ahhh, all is right with the world.

Shelf of Patience

Ever since we moved into our house, this has been the cat toy corner. I'm pretty sure all 1950s ranches have a formal cat toy corner. This was ours. Clearly, it needed to be revamped into something more urbane than a feline drug den (catnip, people! Catnip).

Then, three months ago, I found a quirky little corner shelf on Craigslist. It had a cute shape and would be perfect for our living room - nothing a little sandpaper and glossy paint couldn't fix. But I never acted on it. The deck/patio project was in full swing and I didn't really want another project sitting around, half-finished.

After the Big Outdoor Redo was done and I resumed my Craigslist trolling ways, I was surprised to find that the shelf was still available. Its owners were from Ottumwa, but they were planning a trip to Des Moines for a wedding, so we arranged a meeting.

The couple I bought it from couldn't have been any nicer, thereby disproving my incessant fears that serial killers dangle pretty antiques on Craigslist to lure in unsuspecting young ladies who only want to refinish a chair (what? Do you not think that? Really?).

With a little love and paint, we ended up with this:

Three cheers for waiting until the right time to buy something! I painted it Stone Gray (Valspar) and there's a surprise.

Do you see it?

OK, so it doesn't photograph well. The underside of each shelf is a suuuuuupppper light turquoise. You can see it best on the underside of the top shelf. Nice, right? I love it, it's like a funky lining on a nice coat.

What's been your best Craigslist score?

Deckstravaganza: Table the issue

What does one do on a rainy and cold night when one is supposed to be building a mighty deck?

Online shopping, like, fer duh.

Now that we’ve officially sat on our deck , we want to have something a tad more comfortable than a 2x8 board to plop our tooshies on when we are done. So, the search for the perfect bistro set has begun! For your reference, the perfect bistro set is:

• Metal
• Non-foldable
• Modern…ish or sleek and retro-ish
• Not thick, wrought iron granny-style
• Has a table tall enough to eat from (so, not a side table)
• Is less than $150

Our demands are high and I haven’t found the perfect one just yet. And trust me, I’ve combed through online shops high and low. From Pier One to Z Gallerie, everyone has failed my bistro set hunt! Here are some close contenders, though.

What a beaut! This set from CB2 is a touch out of our price range and with our hankering for an adventurous anniversary trip later this year, we're watching our pennies.

Not too shabby. The chairs fold, but the table doesn't, so that's nice. The green is a little annoying for my tastes, but that's nothing a can of spray paint can't fix.The current leader, though I'm not 100% sold on it. It's just a little too curly and it doesn't look comfortable.

There's always the option of building our own, but c'mon. We're building a deck and starting on the paver patio in a week or so and I kinda want to sit on my deck the second there are floorboards. But, hubs is slowly convincing me that a poured concrete table with store bought chairs (the CB2 ones! Oh, yes!) is a possibility, if only the hardware store sells some kind of bracket. We'll see!

Des Moines: any hidden bistro set gems I'm missing? Is it possible that antique stores are my answer?

Orchid, round two

Two summers ago, I was living in a tiny, dark apartment that technically sat in the chic Des Moines South of Grand neighborhood (the apartment was oh, about 50 feet south of Grand Ave, so it counted). With my main windows on the north side of the apartment and two high and wide windows in my south-facing bedroom, it wasn’t exactly renowned for its bright, airy feeling. Despite being on the third floor, it felt really cave-like most days.

Undeterred by this, I was determined to grow a house plant. I picked up a pretty potted orchid and read up on proper orchid care. I bought worm poop spray and made sure the soil was really loose. The orchid’s first home was my kitchen table, right in front of those silly north-side windows. It wasn’t long before the petals were falling off and I decided to try the armoire in my bedroom, closer to the tiny southern windows. It was too late; soon I was left with a curved stick in a pot of loose, worm-poop infused dirt.

Now, equipped with a home with windows on all four sides (!), I’m trying again. We picked up this little guy at the fundraiser we went to Saturday; they were selling the centerpieces and we were sadly outbid on all of the silent auction packages we tried for.

He’s perched on our dresser, where he can soak up rays from windows on the north, east and south sides. It’s been two days, and the poor little flower has already survived a trip to the local watering hole after the auction and a certain pesky cat. He seems hardy and determined to keep our bedroom looking classy!

What houseplants liven up your world?

In which I ponder lucite

I love my furniture. From the dining room table with scratches on top from the massive paper cutter we used when assembling wedding invitations to the beloved green piano (a mahogany 1937 Wurlitzer, painted green by my grandmother in a fit of pure genius in the late '60s) to the simple Ikea dresser I bought during a very odd business trip to Chicago – each piece is near and dear to my heart.

We don’t frivolously add furniture in this house. No sir. I have a small wish list of areas that need tables and benches and window seats, so hubs has promised to roll up his sleeves and build them. Our ultimate goal is to leave our future children and grandchildren going for each others’ throats over the furniture Grampy Hubs built. That’s what fams are for.

But lately, as I wait for a deck and paver patio to arise in the back yard so we can start building furniture, I’ve noticed my eyes are a-wandering. Specifically, they wander to Lucite furniture.

Yum! That bench is just darling. It seems like a good start for a lucite ludite like myself.

Yes, loving the legs! The '80s style, not so much. But this, in cream, surrounded by big, fluffy peonies in galvanized buckets in my breezy, imaginary attic master suite? Heck ya!

A tad fancy for my actual life, but - oh! so! pret-ty! Maybe a chair or two in our basement bar?

I love this! We already have a bed, but I'm sold on the see-through foot trend. If I can find lucite feet somewhere, I can definitely see adding them to the mid-century-ish cabinets we use for an entertainment center. Consider it on my to-do list.

Another good way to start small, with something like this set on an ottoman, but for $90, I'll have to pass.

No way am I tidy enough for this. But, for you clean freaks - this as a coffee table, filled with chunky blankets by a fireplace? Oh, how I love contrast.

Personally, after researching lucite finds for this post, I'm convinced I need something. You?

What has become of us?

Our Christmas lights are still up.
My mother accused me of slipping into dangerously redneck waters, even.
It's not all bad, though.
We unplugged them on January 1, the day I'd normally get out and de-holiday.
At first, we had the excuse of the extreme cold and the fact that our decorations were buried under 4 feet of snow.
Still, I convinced hubs to tromp out in the snow and at least remove the big wreath we had hanging on our front roof pitch. He's a trooper for that.
Then, the snow melted, but it was always raining.
I actually considered turning the lights on a few times to let the Jimmy John's delivery guy or party guests easily find us. I figured that as long as they were there, they might as well be useful.
Yesterday, March FIFTEENTH, I came home from work to find him taking lights off bushes and starting to take them off the roof.
However.
We had borrowed our neighbors extra-tall ladder to put lights up on the higher points of the roof. Said neighbor was not currently home.
So, right now we've got a nest of Christmas lights knotted up in the corner of the lower part of the roof, connected to the hard-to-reach lights.
With more rain in the forecast, there is a serious possibility that I'll have Christmas decorations up on the first day of spring.

What's the longest you've gone?

Wedding decorations get a second chance

Since I spent lunch hour after countless lunch hour scouring Goodwill for containers for my DIY dried flower centerpieces, I haven't been able to give up my collection of vases. I just worked too hard to find them.

So, with the Christmas decorations gone and our big wooden dining room table looking a little nekkid, I got crafty and stayed true to my mildly ghetto ways in the process.

I took wo matching vases and filled them with leftover rice that also made an appearance in the wedding centerpieces. Then, I topped them off with left over votives.

A quick rummage through my bag of clothes destined for Goodwill revealed a sweater whose sleeves I sacrificed in the name of table decor (and no, I didn't donate a sleeveless sweater to Goodwill, I'm saving the scraps for some yet to be determined project).

I pulled two mini trifle dishes from our cabinet and plopped in two oranges, which are blissfully on sale this time of year. I tossed all this stuff on the table in a square/checkerboard set-up.

The result?
A centerpiece that echos the coziness of winter and reminds me that warmer weather isn't too far off. Plus, it was free and gave me an excuse to reuse my beloved thrift-store wedding scores.

How'd you battle post-holiday table nudity?