Just For The Sake Of Gratitude

This was my dining room a year ago...

Be sure to drink in the following:

creative bricklaying gone bad
carpet into the fireplace
faux wood paneling
exposed pipes jutting out from wall at wacky angles
crack-is-wack vinyl pull down shades that make the windows look super low
acoustic tile ceiling

Other Decorations...

Since I decorated a fakester tree this year, I used real boughs wherever I could. I sent Joe out to pick me up some greenery and he came back with way more than I had any idea what to do with. Hence my window hanging brainstorm.
I used some vintage ribbon that I recently scored from a church basement thrift store ($4 for an entire box!) and some of those sticky, removable hooks.
Exhibit A.

As you can see they are hard to photograph, due to their back lit orientation. The night photos are even a little sucky.

I hung them in all four windows...

I decorated each with a few of the vintage ornaments I got on eBay...

I can not get enough of those glass birds. It's like a sickness. I had to make myself stop finding an buying them.

Aren't these mercury glass ornaments pretty on the chandelier?

On the fireplace I hung a little clothesline where I thought I'd hang my Christmas cards as they rolled in. Did the whole world get a case of the fuck-its all at once? Because I have received exactly zero cards. Am I officially bitching?
Not really. I totally get it. How many have I sent out? coughzerocough.

So what you see hanging there now is one Halloween card (my MIL is a card addict), a birth announcement (shout out to my cuz Katherine Odessa and her newest bambino Dove), and a Thank You card. I'll give it another week before I cave and take it down.

In the fireplace is a thanksgiving decoration left over. more church basement madness. Am I an old lady for digging on the dried flower arrangements? Are they too harvesty?
Whatever.
Then I decorated the top of my farm cabinet with these silver goblets I've had out for the last month or so. I brought them out for a bridal shower I threw awhile back and kept them out for Thanksgiving drinks, and now I'm still loving the sparkle. Laziness may or may not have also been a factor.
That's a cotton branch you see over on the left. On a recent day in the city I noticed that all of the delis had started stocking them in the flower section. Don't you think cotton would make brilliant bridal decor? I have no idea why I hadn't thought of it before, coming from Memphis and all. Anyway, I love love love the way cotton looks.

I stuck a few ornaments in the bird's nest too. Is it too hokey?
I'm feelin kinda more is more lately.


Here is all of that great vintage ribbon I bought for $4. I tossed it under this cloche and it created its own pretty display. When I took this, I was making my chandelier crystal ornaments - those aren't actually hanging off the side anymore.
The base (and the two cool topiaries that are flanking it) were scores from my friend Dawn's amazing house sale. I'm getting realy into recycling beautiful things betwen friends. I'll do a post coming up about the great pieces I have that I can't use and plan to give away to friends. Let's share y'all. I'm kind of over buying new things at the moment.
Anyway - behold.

Oh and if you are looking for the most ghetto way to hang a wreath, look no further, for I am here to answer your prayers. Simply tie two wreaths together with icky vinyl ribbon (the kind you would use to wrap a car for someones sweet 16 in Jersey) and throw them over the door so one hangs inside, one hangs outside.
Viola - magic.
Looks perfect with the fugly home depot special door dontcha think?


Yes, yes I know that I'm always saying how you can't make chicken salad out of chicken shidt - but really, I just did it for the nice piney smell. I even decorated the ugliest stairway known to man with garland. Just be thankful that I only took one photo of this masterpiece.

The end.
Happy freezing Sunday!

Oh Christmukkah Tree

For some reason I got really into decorating this Christmas. Maybe because last year it was way too homesteader around here. We were just focused on basic shidt like not freezing to death, not burning down the house etc. You know, the really festive stuff:)

Along with piles and piles of holiday-specific crappola, we found two vintage fake trees in the attic when we bought the house. After trying to donate them and getting the ole, thanks-but-no-thanks, I decided to decorate the nicer of the two. I'm so glad I did - cause it looks awesome!
Fake trees are surprisingly great to work with - you can bend the branches however you want to accommodate decorations. Who knew?
I hung real boughs all over the place to get that real, yummy pine smell though. I'll post pics of those next.

I prowled eBay and bought a bunch of antique Shiny Brite (and other vintage) ornaments. Aren't they gorgeous? Lots of them are scratched and dull - but it makes them look more like mercury glass, and I love how they look.

Then a made a bunch of ornaments out of all of these antique chandelier crystals I've been stockpiling.
I also went nuts on these vintage blown-glass bird ornaments. I can not take how pretty they are! this one is a weird parrot-rooster hybrid.


Even though it looks like a lot, I probably spent less than $30 total because I focused on buying lots rather than singles.

This is the piece de resistance as far as I'm concerned. It's such a cool combination of clown costume and Christmas tree topper. So 50's! Hand blown glass btw.

I have so many festive decorate-y pics to post, that I'll have to dole them out slowly so I don't have the most boring monster-posts ever.
Thanks for indulging me.
Happy Hanukkah to those who are celebrating!

Don't Judge Me Dude

I guess it took a lot longer to recover from the trauma of this summer than I thought it would. I won't bore you with too much of it, because this is a house blog goddamnit. But if you want a how-to on navigating medical bills (or if someone you know needs help) you can go here, cause I finally posted it. I've missed you guys - and I'm ready to resume all things housey. Guess I'll start with now and work my way backward - cause I have a lot of fun sparkly things to share.
xx
H.

I'm a Big Fat Winner

About a million years ago, pre-shidt hitting the fan, I won an exciting indoor/outdoor Koko rug from a contest on ILoveUpstate. As part of the deal, I pledged to post a picture of the rug once it arrived.
But then all kindsa hell broke loose and I sort of forgot.
I sort of suck.
So here it is, in all it's glory:

Yep, Bernie the anti-nature dog uses it to get just a teensie bit more comfortable outdoors.
Poor little dude. He was brought up in Brooklyn and has only recently become willing to pee anywhere in the yard. I had to take him to a hydrant down the block for about a year.
Thank God our yard has so many weird cement patches, or he'd totally freak out.
However, cement wasn't quite indoorsy enough for the Bernster who seems to really appreciate the rug.
Thanks Koko! Thanks I Love Upstate!

Bernie Bernstein says thanks!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand We're Back

Hi guys!
A lot has happened. For one thing, Joe got better. And then better and better. He just completed his first week of work on a certain reality show that shall remain nameless (lets just say it stars a certain megalomaniac gazillionaire with hair I can only describe as peachy-meringue-ish).
Joe reports being insanely tired, but is doing alright otherwise. We really don't know which (if any) of his symptoms will linger. So we are opting for all out optimism.
Why the hell not - right?

Though our medical bills are behemoth - we have been able to raise nearly 20 (that's right) 20 grand allready, and we haven't even sold a single eBay item yet. Some of you had a lot to do with that. You know who you are. We love you! No really, we love you.

If you want more health/medical news - including fascinating info about me negotiating those medical bills you can learn more here.

But I feel like it's time to post a picture of us doing some house shidt before everyone mutinies.
Voila: here's Joe tweaking the gutters right before he saddled up and reported to set.
Behold


In other news, Bernie ALSO got diagnosed with Lyme about three weeks ago. I was like, really God? But luckily, it's not as big of a wup for doggies. He's still on antibiotics but he seemed to respond right away.

When Joe got sick people mailed us all kinds of stuff. Stuff to raise money for our bills, fancy supplements to help him rebuild his system... and then stuff like rose quartz, "phone healings" and long distance Reiki. To absolutely everything we said "thanks, we'll take it." I mean cynical or not, we were loving all of the support - and were desperate for solutions.
So this is us torturing poor Bernie with healing crystals when we found out he had Lyme in his lil' kneesies.
You can see in his eyes - in that moment, he would have given anything to have been able to choke us to death.

He hates us a little bit now.
Anyway, I'm back.
Thanks to everyone who reached out to us. It really really really really made a difference.

We have lots of great stuff (that some of you donated) on eBay this week. I'll post links tomorrow.
xx
H

Where we've been...

I know it seems like we've abandoned this blog completely, but trust me. We have lots (and I mean lots) more house to do.
It's just that some serious shidt has happened, my friend.
My husband Joe recently became extremely ill, seemingly out of nowhere, and we spent a week and a half in Columbia Memorial here in Hudson (most of it in ICU). He's home now, and although he's still very ill, he's getting stronger every day.

His diagnosis is Lyme disease, although he has tested negative for it (and everything else under the sun). But since he is responding to the treatment so well, we are inclined to accept the diagnosis. At least for now.
In case you are interested - Joe was bitten by a tick and went to the health department with the culprit in a zip lock bag. There, he was given a dose of antibiotics (which is the normal protocol had he taken the tick to a doc). Joe never developed the telltale bulls eye rash or any other symptoms within the one month period we were told to watch for signs.
But two moths later, he was suddenly deathly ill and became completely incoherent (which lasted for days).

If you'd like to learn more about it - or are interested in helping out (surprise! We have no health insurance)

please visit www.friendsofjosephmoore.com

And other awesome individuals are already rallying for us, including one of my all time favorite homie bloggers www.iloveupstate.com who is hostimg a mini auction on her site. Go over there and give her some love please!


We will be back blogging once we can once again focus on fun stuff like pain chips and bead board.
xo
H.