Recently in craft envy Category

EDIT: Okay, so I spent some time reading on the web, and it seems like it's generally frowned upon to paint antique furniture with its finish in good condition. Which it is, on my Eastlake pieces, except for parts of the bed that were replaced with cheap modern wood and restained. We do know the value of the furniture and it's fairly significant, so I think I'm going to leave it alone. In light of that, what can I do to spruce up this room? In particular, can you point me to a modern desk that wouldn't totally clash with this style?

My sister-in-law and her husband recently bought their first house. Over the past few months, they've put a lot of elbow grease into transforming it from an over-wallpapered monstrosity to a beautiful, modern, calm space in which to raise their family and entertain.

It's been inspiring to witness (and occasionally take part in) their renovations. While we don't have the resources right now to do anything major - or minor, for that matter - the process has made me look critically at my own home and bookmark a few ideas to refresh our space.

In particular, our guest room is a mishmash of different styles and ideas, but not in a fun, eclectic way. No, the guest room has more of a "here's a bunch of stuff, ta-da" feel to it. I really like the colors we chose for the room - a deep teal and chocolate brown with white accents - and I love the antique Eastlake bed and dresser passed down through Nathan's family.

But I don't love the mint-green rickety farm table serving as a dumping ground for technology. The guest room is an out of the way place for our printer and all that jazz, but I hate how random and unfinished it makes the room appear. For ages, I've been trying to find an Eastlake desk on Craigslist, to no avail. I couldn't come up with a way to tie the room together.

I flipped through some of my old Domino magazines recently, though, and was reminded that it's okay to mix design eras, wood finishes, IKEA and Eastlake even, if you do it in an intentional fashion. So now I'm okay with putting a more utilitarian, modern desk in there. However, that usually requires updating the antique elements of your room.

As a result, I've been thinking about sanding and painting our Eastlake furniture, which is currently kind of an outdated (but very beautiful) honey oak. Sort of like this, only without the mind-blowing lemon. Maybe a muted white and chocolate?

Here's the furniture, for reference:

I'm not really worried about ruining the value of the furniture by altering it; since they're family heirlooms, we'll probably never get rid of them, and I'd rather transform them into interesting showpieces that fit our home. What do you think? Color suggestions? Dire don't-you-dare warnings?

In an effort to bring some discipline and creativity to bear on this holiday season, I'm going to attempt this sweet blog project by Princess Lasertron. (Which, by the way, what a terrific online alias-slash-business persona, am I right? How have I not heard of her before now?)

Here's how it works. Every day, Princess Meg posts a prompt like the one below. I will respond to that prompt here (and also at a private Tumblr I'm working on with some local friends). My plan is to sit down with a cup of coffee during Adelle's first nap of the day and bang it out. It probably ain't gonna be too deep though, y'all. A few bullet points, a few photos. There's a baby to wrangle. Household chores to studiously ignore. Facebook statuses to update. Ahem.

Anyway. Here's to a new beginning.

According to Livejournal, this is what I was up to five years ago. (Remember Livejournal? No, just me, the sole cyber-nerd among you?)

• In 2005, I still lived in Michigan. I worked at Calvin College, thinking and talking and obsessing about pop culture. I was getting restless.
• In 2005, I was writing a blog called Evangelical Expatriate. I was still wrestling deeply with questions about what kind of Christian I was and wanted to be. I guess in some ways, I still am. Looking back, I'm proud of what I wrote there.
• In 2005, I got married to Nathan and we created our compound-named family. We celebrated our first Christmas in a tiny apartment with a single space-heater. We didn't have enough vacation time left to go home to our families on the East Coast, so we spent Christmas day driving around Michigan's Upper Peninsula, crossing over into Canada. We had dinner at the only place open, a Chinese restaurant.
• In 2005, we were pretty sure we were going to move to Philadelphia. I was seriously contemplating a new career as a librarian. I was volunteering at a library and it felt immediately right - one of the few "eureka moments" in my life.
• In 2005, I didn't know any of you [the friends with whom I'm doing this project on Tumblr] except for Josh & Kathryn. I didn't know what I had to look forward to.

This entry was written on Valentine's day, but blog support went down and then I forgot about it. Better late than never?

A single rose for my small circle of readers, on Valentine's day. Sweets for the sweet and all that!

My longtime girlcrush and lexicographical heroine Erin McKean recently gave a delightful talk on language at the Free Library of Philadelphia, and I've since been obsessed with her blog on quite a different subject: dresses, both vintage and modern. Ms. McKean makes a lot of her own clothing, including the cheerful Valentine confection at left (click on the photo to see the whole thing), and displays her projects and eBay conquests at Dress A Day. But my favorite part of her website is a fictional series she calls "The Secret Life of Dresses," sad little vignettes written from the point of view of garments that ultimately tell the story of their human wearers. As old-fashioned as the garb that illustrates them, the stories are heartbreaking and sentimental - perfect for Valentine's Day.