Feeling Less than Inspired

So, I'd been feeling a little "uninspired" lately! So,  I've been going out almost every day and exploring my new city with my new friend Derya Aksoy. We've visited tons of great vintage shops and antique stores, thrift stores and consignment shops and we've seen tons of cool things! But I'm feeling sad because I have such a small space and no where to do crafty things, or to store great finds and I want so badly to be creative.

Derya is a jewelry designer and makes gorgeous one-of-a-kind pieces. She's just moved to SLC as well, (her husband and Perry work for the same company) and is having a bit of a struggle while living in temporary digs, like me. So, we've been on the hunt for creative outlets!

Turkish Coffee Set

We've had some wonderful adventures around town finding our favorite coffee shops, our favorite places to shop and eat. One of those places is The Copper Onion which is not only our favorite restaurant so far, but also has the best coffee. And that started...

...a sort of  "coffee pilgrimage". There we discovered Caffe Ibis a Utah coffee company and we LOVE it! We bought french coffee presses at Ikea and watched a youtube.com video of how to make the coffee so we could enjoy it at home!

Derya has introduced me to Turkish Coffee and a friend of hers from Turkey sent me a coffee set! Now, I'm not saying this is going to replace other coffees for me, it is quite strong, but I did love "reading" the coffee grounds afterward! Talk about creativity!

I've done some fairly creative things with "photography" (which doesn't take a lot of room in the condo, but is eating up the memory in my computer; gotta get an external hard drive!) Derya also introduced me to picnik.com, which is a photo editing website and it is so simple, anyone can create great photos! I'm working on a website to display my photography, will post again when it is complete, I never realized how many photos I take!

"recycled" necklace

One of the most fun things I've done is work with Derya on a necklace that I wore on Christmas Eve. We made it from an old necklace, a brooch, and plastic trash bags!

This, along with visiting a few vintage clothing stores and seeing the beautiful vintage ladies hats has given me a new idea. I am going to attempt to create lampshades with a "vintage milliner" feel.

I had to find a way to combine the inspirations I've seen into the passion for decor that I already possess. I haven't started the lampshade projects yet, but have purchased a few old lamps and shades from thrift shops to begin with. My goal is to make these projects from mostly reclaimed or vintage materials, so I'm gathering bits and pieces together and will definitely share more when I get something completed!

So, with these projects I've got a pretty busy next couple of weeks, and will be out and about looking for materials, ideas and inspiration. While this is not really about interior design, it is about living in your surroundings... sometimes what we encounter while out of our homes, can greatly impact how we feel in our homes... and as is my philosophy about interior design... the spaces where you spend your time should feed and rejuvenate your soul! (even if they are not inside your home.)

Happy New Year!

Decking the Halls

My finished tree...

I love this time of year, there is nothing like having the house all decorated up for Christmas. I love sitting around in the evenings listening to holiday music, sipping a warm drink and just stare at the lights ( I would stare at a fire, but I don't have a fireplace).

It doesn't matter whether you live in a cottage at the beach, a cabin in the mountains or a condo in the city; whether your style is country, contemporary, modern or traditional, Christmas trees and lights go with them all! This year in my tiny condo I opted for a sleek, no frills decor on my tree. I have a 9 foot tree, but I left off the bottom section and is only a little over 6 feet now. I have only white lights and blue and silver glass ornaments.

This may go back to the change in my attitude toward accessories, or the small size of my space, but I'm loving the tree without garlands and various ornaments. It just seems to give the tree more importance on it's own. The color palette is also very different for me. I've always used golds, reds, greens and for the past several years some purple with that. However, this year my space has very little color and the accent color is pale blue, so I decided to use the blue for a little bit of a change.

Back in the fall, I wrote about holiday decor that goes with the design of your space. I used this same principle with my Christmas decor as well.


I had these beautiful mercury glass ornaments and I hung them from ribbon on my bedroom door. I usually hang them from the curtain rods in my dining room, but this year I had to be a little more creative. I love the color and texture of these ornaments, so I wasn't about to leave them packed away!

I found these great little dove figurines with the filigree design. I think they are perfect for my bedroom in color and they are "love birds", how wonderful!

While going through my stash of Christmas Decor to see what I had that would work with my new color scheme this year, I was surprised how much silver I already had!  I even found that I had a Santa figurine and hand towels that were mostly teal... who knew?

Because my decor already had so much brushed nickel and silver accents, I didn't have to do much to make it look festive.

You can see more photos of my Christmas decorations and holiday sights I love on my facebook page.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Tree Trimming

Design Happens » Archive » Christmas Countdown: Tree Trimming

photo from HGTV.com 

Today I'm trimming my tree, and I have decided to do it all in light blue and silver or gold (I'll decide when I get to the store and pick out the exact ornaments). I'm only going to put a few ornaments and let the tree be the "star" of the whole design.

I love the tree shown here, I found it at the above link, the blue is the same as in my living room so I'm going to use it as my inspiration, but I have a green tree. I'd love to see your trees or other holiday decor, share them on my facebook page at Regeneration Interiors.

Check out the tree inspirations on HGTV.com at the link above. I'm probably the only person I know who doesn't have their tree up yet, but just in case you're as slow as I am... here's hoping you'll get the tree-trimming-bug! Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!

Change of Plans

Well, weather caused us to change our plan to go north on the return to SLC. So we retraced the trip I'd made about a month ago and visited with friends the past two days, but I had to somehow work in some Frank Lloyd Wright time. So, I found a museum in Denver, Colorado that showcases some FLW works.

We visited the Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Arts.  I had so much fun seeing pieces of furniture and art; in person; of the many designers I had learned about in school. I sat in a FLW chair and the windows were his designs too! I was sad to see that I had by 3 days missed the Eero Saarinen exhibit. Saarinen is said to have been the most prolific architect of the 20th century. He designed some of the most iconic buildings of his time before the age of 50. He designed the St. Louis Gateway Arch, which is where we were day before yesterday.

Looking forward to getting home for a little while, but am loving the traveling and exploring all of the history and beauty in our wonderful country! I am not on my own computer so I will post photos later, but check out the websites I've linked here. If you are a lover of art and design, you'd love a visit to these places!!

Wanted: Handy "Woman"*

must be able to spackle, putty, caulk, snap a chalk line, cut tile, clean, paint, do laundry, make daily trips to Lowe's, pick up groceries, pick up take-out, use a measuring tape, use a chop saw, belt sander, hand sander, jig saw, nail gun, hammer, chisel, dremmel (to repair the nails you break), stain, varnish, reupholster, assist grumpy old man, argue through the "creative process", see project through to completion and then repeat as necessary, pick out furniture and accessories, "decorate", load moving truck, unload moving truck, carry large dressers upstairs, repair scratched floors, repair damaged casegoods, ability to design creative solutions for storage, assemble ceiling fans, install light fixtures, sockets and light switches, and all other duties that come up in a day of "off the cuff" remodeling.


compensation package includes momma's cooking at every meal and a clean, comfy bed to sleep in.

bonus package includes spending time with wonderful parents and knowing that what we're doing now is going to be part of our family for generations to come!

got caught sitting down on the job!

*(this was not an actual job posting, it is the description of the position I've taken on here!)




(I'm wearing Daddy's sweatpants and sweatshirt because the "work clothes" I brought were not warm enough... I look like a giant tomato!)

Nell Hill's Inspired Towel Rack

On my drive from SLC to NC we stopped at Nell Hill's in Atchison, Kansas. I love stores like this! It just goes on and on and there are so many ideas to take home, even if you don't spend a lot of money, you can get inspiration to make projects of your own.

Just inside the front door I saw these wonderful iron hooks for $3/each that had been painted, they looked old and immediately I thought about making a coat or towel rack for Mom and Dad's house. I bought four of them and let the creative juices flow while I was wandering around the rest of the store.

Holiday decor made from old windows!

We (my friend Amy and I) loved that they had used old windows in so many neat ways! This holiday idea is just one of the many uses they had displayed. They had used them as shelves, wall hangings, candle holders, just so many things. So, my little wheels were turning and I decided to use an old window and the hooks to make a towel rack/mirror for the bathroom.

this is what we started with.

Amy knew of a place near her house where I could get an old window for $3, so I got the window in Tennessee to go with the hooks I got in Kansas. My dad had pieces of mirror in his outbuilding so all we had to do was get the mirror cut to size. (I even found the screws in Daddy's building that had the paint on them and they matched perfectly!)

 
We had to scrape off layers of old paint and remove some rusty hardware and add a narrow board to the bottom to make it wide enough to mount the hooks, but I think the final product turned out just great! We decided that we needed a way to know whose towel was whose, so we used an eyeliner pencil to write our names on the mirror above our towel, which can easily be wiped off, we used brown and it matches the bathroom! See what you think! We love it!

Stairway to "Heaven"

We've been trying to finish the last bits of several projects. We get sidetracked now and again and start another project without finishing up the one we had going. (ever do that?) So, we've put down shoe moulding and touched up paint and moved the furniture into the new stair landing, the last bit of this project was putting up the banisters. We built every component of the railings from "scraps" of wood and metal rods, we painted it and then assembled it. This was a time consuming and tedious job trying to line up each and every little rod and hold them in place and get the railing fastened, but the end result is awesome!

Mom and Dad's heavenly coffee spot!

This little landing area is where my parents dream of having their coffee in the mornings and watching birds in the spring and summer, the leaves changing in the fall and the snowfall in the winter. It's right outside their bedroom and we're putting a coffee maker here, so they don't even have to come down to the kitchen to get their morning brew!

As soon as we finished and set the furniture in, my dad said, "That's just like I saw it in my mind." He has "designed" the house in his mind, there have been no drawings or schematics to go by, just what he "sees" in his mind. And, except for the help of a few family members, he's done all of the work himself! I happen to think he's extremely talented to not only dream these things up, but to execute them so beautifully.

With almost every room in the house at some stage of completion, and not one fully complete, except the bathrooms, we've still taken the time and luxury of enjoying our first cup of coffee in this wonderful little nook that just a few months ago was just a dream in the mind of my dad! And for years to come it will be our little corner of "heaven".