Beldi

I've made a million excuses for not blogging because I'm so busy, but I'm going to start working on at least blogging about some of the potential Lydali suppliers that I've been so busy talking with! 

Beldi is a husband and wife team (gotta love that!) based out of New York, and they work with craftsmen in Morocco to bring us these amazing rugs, plus lots of cool home accessories and leather goods. I've listed a few of my favorites below, and I hope they'll be showing up for sale on Lydali in the next few months!

(P.S. This is my first time doing any kind of Photoshopping for this blog. Do you love it or hate it?)

DIY Success!

Literally five minutes after I wrote my failure post last night, I was watching a how-to video about installing a light fixture and decided to try one last thing we hadn't tried. And look what happened!

It works after all! Jonny and I are successful engineers! And it looks great - these wimpy iPhone photos don't do it justice. If you want to hire me to install a light fixture in your house, I'm there. Actually, just kidding. I hated doing this, and I got super grumpy with Jonny while we were trying to figure it out. I am really pleased with the result, though, and I'm proud that we were able to make it work.

Our weekend in the kitchen

From the looks of the pictures taken on my iPhone, you would think that we spent our entire weekend in the kitchen. I have no pictures of anything else we did. We did actually spend a decent amount of time in the kitchen, but we also did a whole lot outside of the kitchen and outside of the house. Some highlights include... 

Muir, my grandmother, was in town for an elder hostel tour of San Francisco. We got to spend Sunday with her and her friend Mary Pat, and we took them down highway 1 to Sam's Chowder House at Half Moon Bay. After our huge lunch, we had a nap and then got together again for appetizers and dessert. (Sidenote: I made this Molten Chocolate Magic - it was so easy and cheap to make, and it turned out so great.)

Brunch bunch! My friends persuaded me to sign up for the San Francisco half marathon in July with the promise of training and trying new brunch spots together after every run. We did our first run together along the bay to ATT park and tried out Plow in Potrero Hill. Highly recommended!

Mr. Pollo is a teeny tiny Venezuelan restaurant in the Mission that seats maybe 10 people, and one chef cooks a four course meal for $15. Josh and Ashley took us, and it was so so good. I thought it was the perfect amount of food, too, but Jonny and Josh needed a little something more so they had some El Farolito afterwards.

Seems like most of my updates, even exercise updates, revolve around food! Oops. I do have one more non-food related highlight. I have gotten really into Airbnb. I know it's been around for a few years, and I'm never on the cutting edge of this kind of thing, but I'm so fascinated by taking peeks into other people's homes around San Francisco and the world. I also put up some pictures of our apartment thinking that it would be great to rent it out when we're gone for two weeks this summer, and we've already gotten a bunch of interest and one reservation! Check out our listing and like it on Facebook if you want to help us out!

That's all I've got. Hope y'all had great weekends too. 

A weekend of Dwell

I spent all day both Saturday and Sunday in Marin volunteering with Dwell home tours. I've been busy organizing volunteers for the event for the past few weeks, and I was thrilled to have the tours go so smoothly. 

These houses were amazing, and unfortunately I didn't bring a nice camera with me to do the homes any justice. Even worse, I actually only took iPhone pictures at one house, but it did happen to be the coolest house on the tour - the Bridge house! The Bridge house was designed to sit, and almost float, over hilly acres in San Anselmo. The design of the home was so outstanding that even my iPhone photos turned out looking cool. 

Dwell Home Tours

Dwell Magazine is sponsoring ten amazing home tours in Marin County next month. I mean, just look at these places. These are just three snapshots of the ten homes that will be showcased. Can you imagine what it would be like to live there?

I volunteer with Architecture for Humanity, and I'm leading the Dwell Home Tours project, so if you're interested in volunteering for a day and touring one of these incredible homes, meeting the architect, and getting a free subscription to Dwell, let me know.

My birthday present

So, my friend Eleanor who prodded me to post pictures of our house scolded me after my post went up because I left out our coffee table. This is one of my favorite pieces of furniture in our house, and I love the story behind it.

Eleanor and I were hanging out in Tiburon one day that she was visiting, and we came upon this awesome furniture store. Both Eleanor and I fell in love with this table, but when I called Jonny to tell him about it, he said it sounded way too expensive and he wanted to see it if we were gonna spend that much on a coffee table.

After that, I kind of forgot about it until a delivery man showed up at my birthday dinner with the table! Eleanor had described the table to Jonny, and he had somehow figured out where it was from (which is an impressive feat, because I tried for a good 10 minutes to find a link to the store for this post and couldn't do it.) This table was made with found wood in India, and I l-o-v-e it.

One Six One

I haven't talked to my best friend Eleanor in probably two weeks, but the only communication I've had from her have been texts and voicemails ordering me to post pictures of our house. So Ele, this is for you. 

I just went through and took a few pictures, so you can get an idea of what it's looking like. I'll try to post better ones and more soon!

Our bed, again:

Our dining room table from a thrift store and chairs that we found at the Alameda antique fair:

Our bathroom wall flowers:

Our entry way, complete with my beloved church pew that we found on Craigslist:

This is my old desk that has been sitting in our living room waiting to be picked up (Lydia!). Thanks to Julie for the beautiful flowers. Also, the painting was done at our wedding by Jill Steenhuis:

Monday Monday

I don't know how much I've shared about this on this blog, but Jonny has been traveling to Toronto every Monday through Thursday for the project he's on right now, which means Monday through Thursday, I'm living all alone.

It's been tough for both of us, but especially for me because Jonny's busy from about 8am-12am every day with this project so that serves as a distraction for him, while I work normal hours and then come home to an empty house. I've had a lot of great friends making plans with me and making sure I'm not going crazy by myself, and that has been really wonderful.

I'm really trying not to dwell on my disappointment of not having Jonny home with me and to recognize and appreciate all the blessings in my life. So, here are a few of the blessings I'm counting today:

{1} Jonny got up and left really early this morning, but I woke up to this note propped up on the vase of lilies in the kitchen.

{2} In between #1 and #2, I spent four long hours in the California DMV getting a new California license with my new name: Elizabeth Alig Carroll Price. It's a mouthful, I know, and it's caused trouble so far in both the Social Security office and the DMV. My first SS card issued said "Elizabeth Alig Carol Price" and my first driver's license issued said "Elizabeth AligCarroll Price." I know it's tricky, but I just couldn't give up a name!

Anyways, getting to this picture of my dinner, which reminded me a lot of dinners in Kenya (except the sausage might have been mutton, and Eleanor and I might have been part-time vegetarians.) It was really yummy, and I'm glad I actually cooked something. Sometimes it's hard to cook for one.

(Also, please disregard the empty coke bottle and open bag of powdered sugar in the background. Cute bloggers never have that kind of stuff sitting around when they take pictures of their houses.)

{3} The Narcissus on my bedside table that smell so so good. AND, I'm a late adopter and have a new obsession over the instagram iPhone app that I've finally downloaded that makes it easy to take cool pictures. This setting is called "Nashville" so obviously I love it.

Our bed has arrived!

After two months (yes, seriously, two months) of waiting, our bed has finally arrived today. Despite the fiasco of getting it put together with no instruction manual, it's together and made now, and I'm so excited about it.

Sometime soon, I'll take better pictures of the bed and of our whole little home and post them on this blog. 

The most wonderful time

Jonny and I picked out our Christmas tree from the lot that is literally half a block from our house and decorated it last weekend. With the help of some friends who gave us great ornaments as wedding gifts (Thanks Dennis, Josh, Ashley, and the Jewells!), it's completed and our living room is looking festive. 

Anthropologie Christmas

I was in Anthropologie last night making a ridiculously large purchase with my December birthday 15% off discount, and all of a sudden the store was packed with people, cider and snacks were being served, and they set up little demonstration tables all over the store to show how to make their beautiful Christmas decorations. One of my favorites was this feather tree.

If only I a) had more time, b) was better at following through on my crafts, and c) had a fully settled house so that I could devote my time to making Christmas decorations. Maybe next year!

This is what I want.

I have been searching for a long table with a bench for our new house, and this is a picture of exactly what I want. This image came from Yatzer, which I found with the help of my good friend Laura. Someone please tell me where I can find a table like this!

More ideas for crates

The other day I posted about vintage crates as side tables, and then I came across this beautiful picture on Decor8. L-o-v-e.

Drinking out of a camera lens

Isn't this camera lens mug funny? I kind of love it. You can get one here (PhotoJojo is based in the Mission in SF!)

Scratch Maps!

Don't you love this scratch map? You can hang it and scratch off places that you've been with a coin. I want it!

Vintage Crates

I've been a pretty delinquent blogger lately, but I've had a lot going on. I've been trying to plan a wedding (lots to do before October 23), buy a house (almost there!), and hire a replacement for my old position at Kiva (I'm taking on a new role!). Plus, I've had friends in town. So with all of that, I've been a little slow on posting.

But I want to introduce you to a craft that I love. Maybe this could be my next Craft Night project?!

I l-o-v-e vintage crates. I think they're so cool, and it's one of my favorite things to pick up at the Alameda antique fair, and I love these tables that have been created out of vintage crates by Nashville-based Modern Arks. 

Aren't these so neat?! I really want to make one myself!

Layers of Paint

(Photo by Amrita via The Share Bee.)

African Inspired Upholstry

I've always been a huge fan of using African fabrics to cover western-style furniture. I've covered end tables, stools, and ottomans with fabrics I brought home from East Africa, and I love to see the trend making its way into more mainstream design. My best friend and business partner, Eleanor, sent me the link to the before/after pictures of the chairs above on Design Sponge. The others at the top are from Anthropologie (and they have the hefty Anthro price tag to prove it - $1698 for one!)

The (Emily) White House

One of my dearest friends, Emily White, just bought her first home in Charlotte, NC, and I wasn't at all surprised when she took me on a Skype video tour yesterday that it's already looking like a decorator show house. Emily is one of the most talented people I know with an incredible eye for design. She also just won Teach For America's Teacher of the year award for Charlotte! Below are a few photos from her new home, and what's most amazing to me is that she got almost all of her furniture from Craigslist.

Isn't it beautiful? I love that even her bike looks like a work of art. Emily White, you are the shit.

Africa Meets Neon

I'm a huge fan of bringing patterns and colors from Africa into design in interesting ways, and I love what Irina Graewe has done in her Africa meets Neon interiors gallery. I've been browsing through and seeing these colorful fabrics, and after my conversations with my dear friends Esther and Susan, I'm really excited to be leaving for Kenya and Uganda at the end of this week (as long as the London airspace clears!).