Is this the chair for our garden?

After looking forever, I'm crossing my fingers that this chair will work for our garden. It looks cute in the picture and it's $59 at World Market so the price is right.

Decorating the great room at The Sea Ranch house

How would painted wooden chairs look with a table similar to this one? One chair is a bit fussy and traditional and the other a bit kitchen-y but I think the look is still something to think about.





Both chairs are from Pottery Barn but don't hold that against them.

New stool from West Elm arrived today!

Here's Lexi checking the clearance under the desk. That can't be comfortable!

The search for a lounge chair for the garden returns to the favorite from last year.

My cousin checked out the Ikea candidates yesterday and reported back that they don't look too cheap and flimsy in person but might not be the best choice for sitting back, kicking up my feet and reading. I contacted CB2 about the chair I liked last summer and heard good news back today. Yea!!! Last summer I waited and waited for the CB2 store to open in SF in the hopes that this chair would be available in the store and that it would be on sale by then. It did go on sale but it was still an on-line only item so I skipped it. This year I might just do it.

Thank you for your email.

It looks like the Grasshopper Chair will be back this spring and summer. Although we are not certain, all indications are that the chairs will be available at our stores as well as online and through the catalogue. Look for them to be available at the end of March or in April. We appreciate your interest in CB2.

Feel free to call us at 800-606-6252 or email us if we can be of further service. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Sandra
CB2 Customer Service

Great paint color

I'm keeping this photo in case we decide to paint our kitchen.

Update: first published photo of new microwave

Stainless steel exterior, 1100 watts of power, 1.2 cu ft interior and a soften button for accurate butter softening

It's a little messy...

in the dining room but I can't wait to clean up so I'm posting photos of our new artwork now. We put up four of the planned six photographs today! They look really cool.

I finally did it!

Here's our new clock for the kitchen. If it looks familiar, it's because I've blogged about it before. It's the Atomic Clock & Thermometer from Smith & Hawken.

Moving on to the sunroom

The hallway is finished and I'm tired of the hunt for a kitchen clock so I'm turning to the sunroom. My inspiration is the Flora Grubb nursery here in San Francisco and the challenge is keeping the room clean enough for a laundry room but full of plants and cool reclaimed objects used as planters, shelves and furniture.

The Container Store > Cable Shelf Brackets

Our Cable Shelf Brackets can be used with almost any type of 5/8" to 3/4" shelf. We show them here with our Driftwood Melamine Shelves (sold separately). They accommodate shelves up to 16" deep, and hold up to 100 pounds when in installed on wood studs or cement, and 75 pounds in drywall. Installation is very easy. For mounting on wood studs, we recommend using the screws included in the package and a 1/8" Drill Bit. For drywall, we recommend 3/16" x 3" Toggle Bolts (sold separately, listed below) and a 1/2" Drill Bit. $19.99 per set

It would be cool to hang shelves for plants using these brackets. I know, not recycled materials but cool nonetheless. We have the paint for the room so we could paint wood shelves to match the walls.

A red striped rug (Saranac) was suggested...

Maybe it's the season influencing me, but red and green just feel like Christmas to me. How about navy?

Frog Indoor/Outdoor

How about a new rug for the kitchen?

I just can't seem to get enough of my kitchen. I'm not sure what will make it feel complete to me.

Dash & Albert Rug Company

I really like this clock and had almost talked myself into spending $179 when I realized it's it's 27 inches in diameter. Wow!

THE FURNITURE :: Antique Black-finish 'Longford' Clock with Decorative Carved Accents from the Wall Collection by Bulova. FREE SHIPPING

Obsessing about the kitchen again...

I've been looking for the perfect clock for our kitchen for months. I gave up and ordered a clock off the Internet a couple of weeks ago. It was cute but large. Roman numerals which was good but large. Today I received an email letting me know that the manufacturer is no longer producing the cute but large clock and my order has been canceled. Oh no! After all the searching and then settling for something and now I can't even have that.

I don't know what to do. It's not that big of a deal but I've given it so much importance. We went to an antique store in Potrero Hill to look at vintage clocks but they were really expensive and needed to be plugged in. We tried the Alameda Flea Market and found other cool stuff but no clock. When the search began, I tried to find something right for the time period of our building (1908) but just found lots of mantle clocks and funky things with pendulums. Then I tried thinking about a time when the kitchen had been remodeled in the past. Perhaps when the first "modern" set-up was installed in the kitchen but that didn't really work either. Our stove is a 1951 O'Keefe and Merritt so that adds the possibility of something mid-century but that's so trendy and a look I'm actually trying to avoid. A sunburst clock just isn't going to cut it. Back to the drawing board. Here's a contender:

Atomic Clock & Thermometer - Smith & Hawken

Decorating for the way we really live

Decorating for the way we really live seems to be a comment expressed by many interior decorators but do they know what that really means? I see lots of Sunbrella fabric used on the couches in the pool house and that just doesn't mean anything in my world. In my case, our new stainless steel chef's table (craigslist find for $80) is perfect for making dinner (PB&J, tortilla chips and a glass of OJ) to eat alone on our new Tolix stool at 9 pm while the husband watches TV in the front room. This is the way WE really live.

Back to the kitchen

I ordered this clock for the kitchen today. I hope it looks good but at this point I'm so tired of not knowing what time it is, I don't really care anymore. I ordered a 27.5 inch Tolix stool the other day. We're going to cut down the chef's table to 36.5 inches tall from 40 inches tall. I feel like I'm chopping vegetables under my chin when I use it. Also, the height will match the countertops which I think will look nice.

Obsessing about the hallway now

Here's our hallway. The runners are fine but the color doesn't look that great with our hardwood floors so I'm looking for new ones. Since the rugs themselves have worked pretty well, I'm looking back to the PB solid sisal runner again. It comes in some different colors now and I think espresso is closest to what we have. I can't tell if it's a warmer, and possibly better, color for the hardwood floor or not.

Still fussing over the kitchen

Bear with me because it's the same room but from different angles. So this is the old table in the kitchen:

IMG_1227, originally uploaded by Cynthia in SF.

And this is the new stainless steel chef's table:



We're deciding on a stool. I'm still hung up on this stool made by Tolix. It's available at Design Within Reach in a 30" version and elsewhere in various heights so don't worry if it looks puny here:



Good?