Last week I some photos of a few of the beautiful, useful objects in my brother’s woodworking shop. My brother has always insisted on doing things the right way, which definitely means with the right tool. I’m more of a get-it-done-with-what-you’ve-got, perfect-is-the-enemy-of-good kind of person, so I haven’t always seen eye-to-eye with him on that. But I have to admit, he’s usually right.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve done something my way, using whatever tools I have on hand, only to wind up super frustrated. My first few re-upholstery projects, I used a screwdriver and pliers to remove staples and tacks. Frustrating! Turns out there’s a reason they designed specific tools for those jobs. I nearly ruined a light-duty sewing machine trying to sew leather and heavy canvas before I finally got a machine specific for that task. I resisted the magical allure of the crock pot until my parents bought one for me this year (that’s another post for another time, but man, was I wrong on that front!).

And until recently, I would scoop up my laundry in my arms to carry it from the laundry room to the bedroom, making multiple trips and dropping socks along the way. I really dislike those ubiquitous plastic laundry baskets, so I just did it the hard way.

And then this spring I splurged on a beautiful woven basket from West Elm. Suddenly laundry, my least-favorite chore, has become kind of fun. Certainly more beautiful, anyway.

And since I’ve never shown photos of our bedroom on here, it seemed about time for that, too.

Part of why I’ve never posted about the bedroom is that it really isn’t finished (although in fairness, what is?). After more than a year of living here, there’s still nothing on the walls except that giant mirror, which was here before us. I like our bed, but the dressers are just relatively cheap Craigslist finds, nothing special. I do love that chair, which you might remember from several years ago, when my mom found it on the street in Madison and I blogged about it. It’s the only furniture we kept when we moved west.

I also love our copious Pendleton blankets. It’s definitely getting to be that time of the year for stacks of heavy wool blankets. It’s cozy and wonderful.

The rug at the foot of our bed is made of hand-embroidered felted wool. It’s so soft and plush. We picked that up in India, and I’m really glad we did.

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October 30, 2014

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