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Archive for the ‘Home and Garden’ Category

There is a room in our house that is undeniably Captain Cavedweller’s domain.

The room has been referred to more than once than CC’s man cave.

It has a definitely outdoorsy- guy feel to it. The only thing that could make it more hunter-esque would be the addition of something dead mounted on the wall, but a girlie-girl has to draw the line somewhere.

I don’t spend a lot of time in this room for many reasons. One of them is that I have not been fond of the furniture in it for quite some time. A sagging couch and a glider rocker that is about as comfortable as sitting on a crate strapped to a skateboard are my two seating options since CC maintains control of the big overstuffed recliner.

A few weeks ago he noticed one of the local furniture stores was going out of business and asked if I’d like to stop by on our way home from work and look for a new chair for me for his room. I was pretty excited at the idea of having something comfy to sit on.

We stopped and approximately 37 seconds after we entered the store, CC noticed the gleam in my eye and knew he had made a mistake. A huge mistake.

When we left an hour later, we were the proud owners of not one but two new chairs along with a new couch and a new chair for my living room.

It was while we were driving home, talking about picking up the furniture two days later that I suddenly realized the man cave, done in predominant shades of navy blue, was really going to look awful with the new fawn colored pieces we just purchased.

Not one to let that slow me down, by the time we arrived home ten minutes later, I had decided to paint the room, put up new blinds and curtains and immediately began barking out orders and making strategic plans.

The next morning found me bright and early at the paint counter grabbing a handful of paint swatches, trying to match them to the one throw pillow I wanted to keep in the room.

After work, I ran back to the store, selected the paint, filled my cart with new curtains and blinds for the windows and headed for home.

I should have taken a photo before he moved out all the furniture, but you can get an idea of the before color scheme and look from this:

No comment on the dirty carpet, either.

This is the pillow I was trying to match colors to. And yes, I did in fact forget, until this very moment that I needed a photo of it, so thank you Cabela’s for having it on your website.

Here are the colors I selected – the green is Olive Burst and the tan is Hot Cafe Au Lait which, in my head, was close enough to hot chocolate to make it sound like a great color. Thanks to Heather at work for helping me narrow down my 42 selections to these two.

I choose to paint the wall near the bank of windows the dark green with the light tan on the other three walls. It was a good choice since the green wall is what everyone sees when they walk into the room. The tan blinds are up and a big change from the dark blue.

And here is the finished man cave – with the ultra-comfy new furniture that I absolutely love.

It may be a good long while before CC lets me near another furniture store, especially one going out of business with great clearance prices.

She Who Likes the Man Cave

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The other evening we had a rain storm that blew past fairly quickly. The sun came out afterword and the sky turned to a lovely shade of blue.

In fact, all the colors in our little corner of outdoor world seemed oddly, and beautifully intensified.

It is usually in moments like these that I forget that I

1. own a camera

2. can make it function

Running into the house, I grabbed the camera and snapped a few shots of my favorite tulips. These gorgeous blooms came from bulbs dragged across the country a hundred years ago by Captain Cavedweller’s great-grandmother.

 

She Who Loves These Tulips

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A few weeks ago I was lamenting the fact that I wish I had purchased more new clothes hangers to Captain Cavedweller.

(Aren’t you jealous of the intense, completely stimulating conversations that take place at my house?)

Anyway, having a strong dislike for my closet full of plastic hangers that have seen better days, I bought a package of the new slim flocked hangers I’ve seen everywhere.

I love them. As in LOVE THEM!

If you haven’t tried them yet, they are, like, totally awesome, dude!

They have this great flocked coating which means your clothes cling to the hanger instead of slithering off as they tend to do with the plastic hangers. They are also super slim which means I can get about three of them in the space of one plastic hanger.

Not sure that I would like these hangers, I bought one package to give them a whirl. They whirled quite wonderfully and I wish I had purchased several packages.

I was completely surprised the other day when Captain Cavedweller came home from a trip to the city packing an entire case of these hangers.

“What’s this?” I asked, wondering why he bought the hangers.

“You said you wished you had more of them,” he said with a shrug and went back out to finish unloading the car.

When I finally scooped my melted self up off the floor, I quickly changed out all the hangers in our closet, realizing that not only do I have one of the best husbands ever, I now have a lot more room in my closet for more clothes. I see a shopping trip in my near future…

She Who Loves CC

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I’ve noticed a lot of attention is being paid to shades of green lately.

Perhaps everyone is as ready for spring as I am and by turning to the colors of grass, flower stems and budding leaves, it is our way of rushing the season.

Whatever the reason, you can have a lot of fun with the many shades of green. From dark, rich greens to soft sage hues, incorporate a little green into your home entertaining and see if it doesn’t make you feel a little more like spring has arrived.

If you have mostly neutral tones in your decor, bring in a pop of green color with a throw or accent pillow. You can even accomplish this with something as simple as buying a spool of bright green ribbon and tying a bow around a neutral pillow. A simple way to recover a pillow for a dollar or two is to purchase a piece of inexpensive fabric and wrap the pillow in the new material like you would fold an envelope with the points meeting in the center. Gather the points and tie into a knot for an unusual statement.

Go for an elegant yet playful look mixing greens with white or cream. It is so gorgeous and easy to do. Make a green runner out of ribbon, organza or felt, line with cream or white containers (like small dishes, votive cups or flat dishes) and stack on an assortment of white and green candles.

Green and white flowers are a huge hit. Think white tulips or pale daffodils for instant spring impact.

However you decide to mix in a little green, have fun with it!

She Who Loves Green!

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