13 views from the weekend...

my goodness am i one tuckered lady! evan and i have been bit by the spring cleaning bug big time and we spent this weekend getting things DONE! we fully intended on spending this past two days cleaning up around the house, but it ended up taking on a life of its own and we got so many little projects finished. it feels super good to be productive!

on saturday evan pulled out all the dead bushes in front of our house and we planted these sweet little babies right here... so much better then the ugly shrubbery that was there before!

i made a spur of the moment decision that our living room table absolutely needed a makeover. it was blue/grey before and now...

is a violet/grey!

i scored these sweet little vintage doilies on my antiquing trip on friday. they are now our coasters!

i also gave this tiny end table that we found a few months back a face lift. it had been sitting around waiting to be painted, and today was its lucky day...

so much prettier! oh and that skull you see there also got a face lift today. he was originally white! in my opinion there are few things that don't look good painted gold :)

we also rearranged our bedroom and hung up some new little bits of decor. hehe... i just noticed barkley left his kitty toy on the bed. love that pup!

a pretty little birdie...

a vintage tin lid that i also found on friday...

the full view of the ship in its new home...

these lights were in our living room before, but my original intent was always to have them in our bedroom. they finally made it there and barkley approves!

and while i'd love to say that it was all work and no play, we definitely had a few relaxing moments in the hammock. the weather was finally nice here in charlotte after raining for about a week straight so no way were we going to miss out on this!

the view from the hammock. ahhhh, so good!

hope a lovely weekend was enjoyed by all! i think i'm going to head back out to that hammock and enjoy the last few minutes of sunshine before getting back to work...

nibbles & bits from the long weekend

oh oh oh what a weekend! there were salvage yards, thrift stores, bowling, dancing (even if only for a video game), food and friends. all the ingredients needed to bake up some good times! the main goal of this weekend though was to get a bit of decorating and organizing done around our humble little home. i had a little mental list of things that i would love to find while thrifting and salvaging with my partner in crime, steph, and i must say i was pretty darn successful! these bargains weren't too shabby either!

comfy cozy blanket... 8 bucks!

cast iron eagle wall decor... 5 bucks

letterpress drawer... 6 bucks (i've been hunting for one of these for quite some time!)

letterpress spelling out our last name... FREE! (i frequent this salvage yard so much that the owner just threw 'em in. what a guy!)

this isn't so much a find as it is a creation. evan made me this little iphone dock out of an old cigar box i had lying around. i love that man! oh and i've been informed that the object next to it looks somewhat questionable. it's a rusty cast iron vintage claw foot... i swear!

and the best part of all, crates crates crates! you may recall my post last week about the wonders of crate decorating. well here's my take on it! i got all of these for 20 bucks and evan ever so lovingly hung them up for me. i'm so so so stoked on this! i just want to sit in my studio all day and look at them. good stuff!

also for your viewing pleasure is this little video i made of our weekend activities. i recently purchased the 8mm app for my iphone and i now make videos of EVERYTHING! it's so much fun to play with. i highly recommend it! be sure to check out the scene showing where i found the above mentioned crates. it's unbelievable what i found. a decorators dream! enjoy...

vintage lace curtains of my own!

evan hung up our new vintage lace curtains the other day and i am just absolutely loving them big time!

i especially love the shadows they cast on our wall and door. so pretty...

now to vintage up the rest of our room!

before and after... a dresser is reborn!

so, as i've mentioned once before in a previous post, i love refinishing old furniture pieces! a few weeks ago i spotted this dresser at an antique/salvage spot, and it was just calling to me for a face lift!

it's a solid wood dresser that was handmade by a gentleman who lives about an hour from me, right here in north carolina. it had gotten a few bumps and bruises during its life before coming home with me, but nothing that a bit of sanding and paint couldn't cure.

i pulled out the drawers, took off the knobs, sanded the entire thing, and then gave it a coat of grey primer.

it was looking better already!

for its final finish i picked a lovely shade of violet grey. notice that the two top drawers were also changed from two knobs to one.

i fell in love with these ceramic drawer pulls and just couldn't pass them up!

a light hand sanding gives it more of a rustic feel and shows that this baby has indeed been around the block a few times. it also reveals the blue/grey primer underneath, which is just fabulous in my book!

and it would appear that it is now becoming a tradition for juan to jump in the last shot. this is his new favorite spot in the house. at any given time of day i can almost guarantee that this is where he can be found.

so there ya have it. a fabulous little weekend project that i think anyone can take on!

new life for an old piece...

you may or may not already know this about me, but for about a year and a half i worked for a local artist by the name of beth philips doing furniture refinishing. if you happen to find yourself in cornelius, nc at any point in your life you can see her work at an adorable little shop called bebe gallinis.

while i no longer refinish pieces as a profession, i certainly still put that skill to use to decorate my own home. here is a recent purchase that had a bit of new life breathed into it...

evan and i were in need of some new dressers because the ones we had moved with us down from brooklyn and didn't quite survive the trip.

we found this fabulous little solid oak piece for 20 bucks at the very salvage spot i spoke of in my last post. it wasn't looking so good when we found it, but i saw the potential that was hiding under there!

i used a belt sander to get off the many layers of paint and stain that were bringing this baby down!

then used a dark grey primer to coat the whole piece, and chose a rich mustard yellow as the final color...

i sanded the whole thing again and roughed it up quite a bit to give it more of a shabby appearance. the color still felt a bit too vibrant for me at that point, so i rubbed a deep oak stain across the whole thing.

i'm quite pleased with the end result...

...and apparently so is our little juan!

i just scooped up another dresser this past weekend which will hold every bit of our goodies. this one shown here isn't really big enough for much more then some unmentionables :) i'll be sure to share some before and afters of our new piece if it ever stops raining long enough for me to get out and paint it!

we've come a long way baby!

i just realized that i hadn't yet shared the most recent progress on our kitchen renovation. we've come leaps and bounds since my last post. take a second and refresh yourself with the before pictures, before scrolling through the after ones that are about to come... go ahead, i'll wait.......

since my last kitchen update, we've gotten all of the the cabinets, and cabinet fronts, installed. the counter top is in, dishwasher is working, we are still waiting on a stove, but we're making due with our little toaster oven for now. amazing just how much you can cook in these guys! we finally got to unpack all of our dishes, and if look hard you can even see my new teacup collection proudly displayed on the top shelves!

this sink is probably our favorite purchase. we did a little splurging on it and it was well worth ever penny. it's a big ol' ceramic farm sink, and it is heavy as all get out!

so that's where the kitchen stands as of today. we still have to trim out all of the cabinets, windows and baseboards, install a gas line for the stove, move a water line for the washing machine (which used to be where the dishwasher is, but is now in a built in closet on the other side of the kitchen, that you can't see here...), pick out light fixtures, and decide if we're going to get a little kitchen table, or a small island with stools. so much to do, and miles to go before we sleep...

you can see the whole kitchen progress, start to finish, here!

oh, hello kitchen!

this weekend some big progress was made here on the home front...

on saturday evan, and two of his brothers, installed our new floor. they were a determined bunch and busted the whole thing out in about 6 or so hours. gotta love these boys!

here's the new floor in all of its finished glory...

the cabinets have also all been installed. we still have to put in shelves and the fronts, but we're getting there! oh and it's of course still an absolute mess!

look at that butcher block counter top, and all that storage space... it's a thing of wonder!

we're really excited that an end is now in sight. no more cooking every meal in a toaster oven or microwave perhaps?

you can check out all of our progress HERE...

a little more here and there...

a few additions to some previous posts...


the studio makeover is still on going, and some new organizational goodies have been added.


i had a large cork board that i just no longer had any space for. so i cut it down and put bits of it in some old salvaged frames that i repainted. this size is much more to my liking!



ahhh... gotta love a makeover!





i've added onto my teacup collection that i started on our trip to asheville a few weekends ago.


i'm now only missing one green teacup and saucer. i'm currently bidding on one on ebay and i guess we'll see how that turns out!



now i just need to have a tea party, perhaps with wine though. a wine party with these little cups sounds just about perfect!




i also added a few more goodies to my skeleton key collection. 10 newbies to be exact. scooped these bad boys up from miss emily gene over on etsy. somehow i still feel that i need more!!!


ahhh... i just love 'em!



garden update... lots more of our little seedlings out grew their starter pots and were ready to get movin' on up to the east side! they're all real stoked on their new larger homes...



mmmm... squash!




i think that perhaps i actually purchased some magic beans when we went seed shopping a few weeks ago. our string beans are already about 14 inches tall, and on tuesday they grew 3 inches in one day! mind you, we planted these from seeds only one week and 4 days ago. i can see how folks grow (pun intended) to really love gardening. this is fairly amazing!



if all of our plants produce fruits and veggies as expected, we're going to be rolling in produce. i absolutely can not wait for it!




we're gearing up for another productive weekend around here. evan will be laying some new flooring and i plan to do some painting. doors, window trim, and the ceiling are all due for fresh coats. lots of coffee and good music will hopefully get us through it...

happy friday!

pics from the weekend...

evan and i had a rather productive, rather domestic kind of weekend. here are some visuals...

after just 6 short days most of our seeds had sprouted and already out grown their little "greenhouse" that i made for them. i guess it worked!

it was time for them to move into some larger pots. the great thing about these jiffy pots is that they're biodegradeable, so you just plant the whole thing, pot and all, into the ground when the time comes.

cucumbers... lookin' good!

some tomatoes and the sunflowers were also ready for a transplant...

another task that was accomplished this weekend was the studio revamp. i realized a few weeks ago that i just wasn't happy with the color or set up of the room. saturday i woke up and was ready to take on the job of repainting, rearranging and organizing. i'm pretty darn happy with the outcome...

hooks for holding my embroidery hoops that are waiting to be used...

some prints from one of my favorite artists, yoshitomo nara, and a super cute little embroidery i purchased from the great northern, on etsy.

one wall is a few shades darker then the rest....

more hooks for my most used goodies. yes, the pearls get used often. you'll notice them in quite a few of my etsy shop photos.

a shelf of goodies waiting to be photographed or painted...

little birdie shadow boxes that i made last year watch over everything...

to see the original studio, you can go HERE or HERE.

and here is what evan was working on...

the first cabinet was put up!!!

and a second, woohoo!!!

hope everyone else had a lovely weekend. now that we've got this kitchen thing on a roll i should have lots more renovation pics to come.

yaaaay!

meanwhile, back on the home front...

well, my high hopes for bright sunny days this weekend were shot down by the over lords. it was cold, rainy and just all around pretty gross. i'm so very much over these grey days. apparently today is supposed to be nice and sunny, and possibly even somewhere around the 62/64 degree mark... i will take that and run with it!

i wanted to give an update on the flowers that we've got going on outside. if you didn't see the earlier post about the discovery of these little beauties, you can check it out HERE. with all of the previously mentioned rain that we had the past few days, i was a bit worried about how our delicate little sproutlings would handle it. friday night we actually got so much rain so quickly that the flowers were almost completely submerged in water. didn't seem like it would be too good for them. this is what they looked like on saturday...

they plants that were once covered up by the wood pile are now turning green and seem to be getting a bit stronger. the mass amounts of water have got them looking a bit sulky, but i'm hoping that after a few days of sun they'll perk back up.

this little bud is what all of the others should be looking like right now. this one was found growing off to the side of our house. it's getting much more sunlight and is looking like it should bloom any day now.

barkley agrees that this flower is a.o.k!

on saturday i finally got around to planting our little seedlings. evan and i are pretty darn gung ho about having a kick ass garden this year. we're planting 3 kinds of tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, string beans, banana peppers, sweet peppers, basil, rosemary, marigolds, and sunflowers. for two folks who have had a hard time keeping a single basil plant alive, this is quite an undertaking.

while i was planting on saturday, evan was building! i'm so excited about the ridiculous amount of storage that these cabinets will bring us. we've been living out of boxes for months now and i'm more then ready to start unpacking. we're so close i can almost taste it!

the cats were really stoked on the building process for other reasons. empty boxes! these are zaboo's (aka monkey's) little ears that you see here, and that's juan chillin' in the window.

ohhh, all the possibilities!

evan even built a platform for the cabinets to sit on. he's such a handy guy! they will have doors on them a bit later, but we still have to paint the ceiling in the kitchen and we're holding off on the doors until that's done.

evan's new toy. apparently ever guy needs a ginormous miter saw to call their own.

i was just outside a bit ago and now this little flower is even closer to opening up... perhaps tomorrow?

making a house a home...

after a few weeks of not really working on any of our big home projects, evan and i decided to really buckle down this weekend and get some things done!

a couple of days ago we noticed that some flowers were starting to pop up right next to a large pile of wood we had sitting in the backyard that was waiting to be broken down and carted away. this little guy here made us realize that there were probably lots more little blooms struggling underneath the pile to reach the light of day. i was saddened by the thought, but the pile of wood was so large, and we really didn't have anywhere better to move it, so i came to terms with the fact that this year they just weren't going to make it.

i think perhaps evan knew i was sadder then i let on about this, because while i was taking a shower one day he surprised me by moving the entire pile to another location. to my amazement, this is what was found underneath...

they are about the same size as the ones that were not covered, but they are totally yellow from the lack of sunlight. they are also so very soft and fragile. i'm pretty sure they're daffodils, but if anyone knows otherwise feel free to let me know.

i cleaned out all of the leaves that had gathered, and recovered in soil some of the bulbs that were just sitting on the surface. i don't know if they'll make it, but i've taken them on as my new pet project. i know it's not the ideal way for a garden to look, but i do so love the way they have a perfect gradient from pale yellow to deep green.

i also found a few of these larger bulbs just sitting on the surface. i've replanted them and am pretty excited to see if anything comes of it. ahhh, the mystery!

we then took our motivation inside to continue our never ending kitchen renovation. it's really only never ending because we don't often have entire days to spend working on it. to see the steps that it took to get us to this point feel free to read up HERE.

evan finished putting up all the drywall and also mudded and sanded every nook and cranny.

evans mom stopped by for a little visit and helped us prime the walls. we rope as many people as we possibly can into helping us out with this kitchen.

paint time! we decided to go with a really pale grey. we want to keep the kitchen feeling very bright, clean, and airy. with the cabinets being white and the floor a deep brown wood, i think we've made the perfect choice.

this is me in my painting attire. thanks evan for capturing this!

there will soon be tall built in cabinets in this empty space below. oh, how i love me some storage space!

the washer and dryer are in the kitchen, so evan built this little room to keep them all tucked away. he's quite a handy guy to have around. i do believe i'll keep him :)

you can also spot barkley here in one of his favorite spots in the house. he loves to curl up in front of the heat vent and nuzzle his nose right on in there. crazy pup!

i was on such a renovation roll yesterday that i even decided to refinish our back door. the door is as old as the house and was in desperate need of a face lift. we will eventually get a new door, and a little doggy door for barkley, but this will hold us over until that day.

the repainting of the door was such a spur of the moment thing that i didn't even get a "before" picture. it was the same color combo as our front door, so this should give you an idea of what it looked like...

it has such an old feel to it already that i thought i would just go with it and really bring out it's shabby side. i hand sanded the panels to pull some of the blue color through the fresh new coat of paint.

it came out really well and i now know that i can confidently do the front door without fear of ruining it. here's to experimenting!

we still have quite a bit more to do as far as the kitchen goes, but it really feels like it's starting to move along now. i guess having actual finished walls will do that to a room. it's so very gratifying to be doing this all ourselves. it's taking longer (ok, much longer) then expected but evan and i really enjoy working together to make this little home our own. we're shooting for having it done by my birthday which is march 28th. stay tuned to see if we make our deadline...

2010!

first of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR! the end of 2009 was pretty crazy here at casa de monkey & squirrel and the blog updates had to be pushed to the side. with the etsy holiday season in full swing there wasn't much time for things that didn't consist of painting, packing, shipping and shopping! i also took a little time off to have a much needed visit with my family in ny. that has ended now though, and things are getting back to normal. i'm working on lots of items to add to my shop for the new year. all new cast iron goodies as well as a new line of hair accessories and brooches. busy days ahead!

i thought i would use today to catch y'all up on our ever continuing house renovation project. the kitchen has been taken down to the walls, well technically it's been taken down to the 2x4's behind the walls. we're bare bones here! no stove, no sink, no cabinets and the fridge is in the living room! it makes a great statement piece. so without delay, here is our kitchen...

this is a "before" pic just to refresh your memory.

habitat for humanity came and disassembled everything for us one day...

...then came back the next and took it all away. (pardon these pics. they are from evans phone because i accidentally took both cameras with me to ny... woops!)

we're doing some interesting living these days. making for dinner only what can be cooked in a microwave or toaster oven, then washing dishes in our bathroom sink. we've decided to only unpack the essentials for now which consists of two dishes, two bowls, two cups, the cutting board and the can opener. luckily evan and i are both very laid back about all of this craziness. we know that one day we'll look back and reminisce about the early days in our first house when we spent all of our money making over the kitchen and ate ramen for a year to make up for it. ahhh, to good ol' days!

things should start moving along now though. we've got all or our new cabinets in boxes in our guest room and evan is out picking up the new flooring as we speak. i will be sure to keep the pictures coming as the magic continues to happen. 2010 is looking good so far and with the new year comes a new kitchen... let the renovations continue!

renovations...

the new house is coming along at a slow and steady pace. we move in at the end of this week, yay! here's a little update of our progress thus far. oh and pardon these pics... we've yet to add any lighting.

Living Room Before...

Living Room After...

Master Bedroom Before... previous owner smoked in here for about 30 years.

Master Bedroom After...

Studio Before...

Studio After...

Guest Room... sorry, no before. the walls were just white.

Sweet little 60's Style Bathroom... also no before.

and let's not forget the kitchen, which will be a work in progress for a while...

we've still got tons to do, but it's amazing what just a fresh coat of paint will do to a room. stay tuned for more...

exciting times!

i'm such a terrible blogger! it's been weeks since i've updated and i finally decided that i just needed to sit down and write...

it's been quite a busy time here at the pierce household. i've started doing Monkey and Squirrel full time, we got a puppy, and we also just bought a house! all of this together equals zero time to blog. the puppy, whose name is Barkley, is a four month old boxer/shepherd mix. he's definitely a handful, but totally worth it. he's teething now which means he's walking around all the time with his mouth open wondering what he can chew on. he can't be left alone for even a minute. we learned this the hard way recently. i went upstairs for all of two minutes, came back down, and in that time he chewed the speaker wires to our computer clean off. evan was very excited about that. lesson learned! but he's a big snuggle bunny and we love him to little bits already!

the new house is keeping us quite busy as well. it's a cute little brick home here in charlotte. it was built in 1961 and i do believe that it hasn't been updated since. so far in week one, we've knocked down a wall, started painting, pulled down half a dead tree, and decided that the kitchen needs to be gutted! lots of busy days ahead. i'm going to do my best to document the renovations... we'll see how that goes.

the other big excitement is that i know officially do Monkey & Squirrel full time. i knew this day was coming for a few months now, but i still can't believe it's here! it's a lot of work, but worth every bit of stress. the pleasure of being my own boss is not something i will take for granted. i've got a few shops around the country that are carrying M&S items and i'm always looking to expand that list. i look forward to the day that Monkey and Squirrel goodies are in every home and on Oprahs list of favorite things. world domination is within reach! take a look at this little interview i did for the veganetsy team blog... what's my favorite food you ask, now you can find out here!

all in all, happy times here! just wish there were more hours in the day...