Sparks & Recreation

It seemed that this week in the blogosphere (I felt like such a nerd writing that), there have been a lot of exciting announcements!

Young House Love bought a new house, and I couldn't be more excited. Okay, maybe I could, like if it was actual news for someone I knew and loved (although if I met them I'm pretty sure we'd be best friends). I'm especially excited because sometimes our house projects can be really discouraging, because we haven't really reached the cosmetic change stage yet, and so it'll be nice to read their blog starting from scratch on a fixer-upper so that maybe I can see them do some of the projects we have on the horizon. 

In other blog news, East Coast Creative's Jess is expecting a surprise baby, so that's exciting! I like to include a picture with each post, but the only picture is of a pregnant stomach that says "Yup there's a baby in there", and I'm afraid of a grandparent seeing it while skimming and jumping to conclusions. Not worth the risk!

The Pinterest Challenge has returned, I'm not sure what I'll make yet but I hope to contribute something. Will have to do some brainstorming this weekend!

This e-book bundle is so tempting to me. It's 97 e-books for $29.97. That's a really good deal. I've resisted so far, but I hope someone I know will buy it so I can live vicariously through them.

What have you read this week? Any interesting new blogs being added to your daily routine? Let me know about them in the comments!

YHL Posers

At last I have the Young House Love book that I've been drooling over since it was released in November! I got it for Christmas...and this is ridiculous, but I for real almost cried.

Anyway...moving on from that.

Philip and I were reading it before bed each night and then we started post-it noting any projects we wanted to try. The hooks on page 145, idea #96 seemed manageable, and we were wanting to hang hooks behind our bedroom door for our robes anyway so we thought we'd try this project.

At first we were definitely at odds with our design concept. I had hoped for a cute patterned background (similar to what was shown in the book) and a solid letter, using white and green primarily. Our duvet is green so I thought bright green hooks or letters could be cute. Philip didn't like that idea at all, but I didn't like his ideas either, he wanted the canvas to stay mostly white. Eventually one of us suggested (I honestly don't remember who - I think it might have been a hybrid of me suggesting a stripe in the shape of an arrow and Philip taking the idea and running with it) painting silver arrow stripes downward (as the hooks will be hanging below) and then painting the letter green.

We started with using Frog Tape (best for crisp lines) to mark an arrow shape on our canvasses.

We painted between the tape with silver paint.

Love how the background looks, simple and pretty.

We painted the letters green with light green sides. They looked okay. In between you see the hooks we are going to recycle from downstairs, just need a little paint!

Halfway through painting the letter we also decided to lighten the green and paint the outsides of the letter the lighter shade. Cool right? Definitely cool, for a 16 year old girl or a college student's locker. Once it was finished, Philip pointed out how juvenile it looked, and now I can't stop seeing it that way either. I actually do still really like the arrows pointing down I think, I like the addition of the metallic, especially since our room turned out much more glam than our inspiration photo had suggested, the metallic would add to that vibe. So we'll see what we do now. We're either going to spray paint over the whole thing white and see how that looks - hoping it's nice like our white clock we bought on our honeymoon. Or, if we don't like that, at least we've got it back to square one and we can add color again if we want.

Poll Results 2 (Must think of a more clever title)

This past week we asked you to let us know what kind of blog reader you are. The results are in, and most of you love reading blogs, and some of you have your own (for those of you that do, share your link! We'd love to share our readers with you and add your blog to our own Google Reader). 

In the spirit of blog reading and sharing, we thought we'd each share our top three blogs to read with a little bit about why we like them. 

Philip's Picks

Since I’m sure Cass has covered the renovation/decor beat off pretty well (and, honestly, she’s the one who monitors the daily goings-on in that world for me), I’ll cover three of my favourite blogs from the non-renosphere.

Grandland's Hollywood Prospectus - Philip's top blog choice

1. Grantland’s Hollywood Prospectus and The Triangle blogs

These aren’t typical blogs as I like to think of them, because their authorship is so diverse and so similar to the more traditional journalistic endeavours of Grantland’s main oeuvre. But I’m a sports-and-pop culture-oholic, and this is where those passions intersect. Shane Ryan’s daily “About Last Night” piece is a daily must-read on The Triangle side; it’s like a brief version of The Daily Show or SNL Weekend Update; I get the top headlines along with a comedic take on said headlines. On the Hollywood Prospectus side, Dave Jacoby’s “Reality TV Fantasy League” infotains me by providing überanalysis of shows I don’t even watch (or would otherwise care about whatsoever).

2. Donald Miller’s Storyline blog

Donald Miller is my alltime favourite author. His blend of memoir narrative, his authentic take on the struggles and discoveries of faith, and his wry sense of humour hooked me a few years ago when I really needed it. It can be a bit dry sometimes; I worry sometimes that Miller’s losing the humour aspect of his voice. But as far as challenging content and understanding the nature of leading and living a great story, Miller can’t be beat. And if you’re looking for more humour with your daily dose of inspiration, check out this honourable mention for Jon Acuff’s blog (author of the also-good Stuff Christians Like blog).

3. All the others I read infrequently.

I don’t read that many blogs regularly in large part because of the house this site is dedicated to and, you know, the need for gainful employment. But I’ll send a quick shout-out to the following occupants of my Google Reader:

Battleship Pretension: Cinema podcast with infrequent articles

Bryan Allain: Author, blogging coach, and resident of Intercourse, Pennsylvania

Chad Gibbs: Author of “God and Football,” which would only be more perfect if the football it talked about would be Canadian and not college.

Cory Edwards: Hollywood director of the first “Hoodwinked” and a hilarious guy I found through the Steelehouse Podcast (R.I.P.).

Hyperbole and a Half: Allie Brosh doesn’t update this anymore , but the archive of her crudely-in-MS Paint life experiences is worth it alone.

Rachel Held Evans: Rachel Held Evans is the author of a couple books that make conservative Christians upset, and that’s a calling in itself.

Seth Godin: Because I’m in Marketing and this is required reading.

The Big Picture: Boston.com’s amazing curated galleries of large photographs from around the world.

The Oatmeal: Matthew Inman is the hilarious (albeit oft-crude) illustrator behind this comic and the book 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Face.

XKCD: I don’t always get it, but XKCD is an imaginative comic lampooning science, geek culture, and everyday life.

Cassondra's Picks

Young House Love - Cass' favourite blog by far.

1. Young House Love

I've talked about this blog in the past, and it's because it began my love for blogs, as well as really helping us to gain confidence in our DIYbilities. John & Sherry explain things really well and come up with really fun projects, plus Clara & Burger make my day. Their blog is definitely what inspired this blog and we only hope to one day be as cool as them (although our friend Brittany said one day we'll be as famous as Oprah & Tyra combined - not sure if we'd need the Tyra boost if we were as famous as Oprah...but we'll take it!) Through this blog I also learned about Katie Bower and her blog is also a great light read.

2. The Faux Martha
This is the most beautiful food blog I've come across. Wonderful recipes, but the presentation of them is what really gets me. The photography is outstanding and the way that she describes food is delicious. I've made a couple of things from her site already, including rhubarb ice cream and definitely recommend it! 

3. Ditto.
I'm in the same boat as Philip as far as picking a third blog, I read a lot of blogs but they are all equal in my heart! Here are some more blogs I love:
Making it Lovely
Cape 27 Blog
East Coast Creative
iHeart Organizing
Ugly Duckling House
7th House on the Left
Our Fifth House

We hope that you'll enjoy reading these blogs as much as we do! If you visit any of these blogs leave them a comment letting them know and maybe even tell them where you heard of them :). Philip has been a long time blog reader, and I am more new to the whole concept but was a quick learner. Definitely a blog addict now and talk about the bloggers as though they are my real friends...

On another note, Christmas is coming fast! With December beginning this week, we'll start chatting about Christmas a little bit more and the decor/renos we have in store for that time of year. You've already seen my pine cone craft which was a bit of an early Christmas decor project, and you have lots of that to look forward to. Answer our poll this week about how prepared you are for Christmas - I'm sure you're beating us.

Poll Results

Well the ballots are in, before we get into it though, we thought we'd share our answer to this question.

Philip

I picked Elegant because my dream house is the house from Clue, and if you have a ballroom, I'm pretty sure you skew elegant. (I'll have to put together a Friday post someday about this; I prefer a pretty literal approach to Clue house design, save for the huge hallways, and yes, I've spent time researching secret passageways.) I was just in the Ralph Connor House over the weekend taking photos with my brother's wedding, and that was pretty cool, although it doesn't quite compare with Toronto's Casa Loma (probably the coolest house I've actually been in).
But my compromise with Cass is contemporary, whose light simplicity I recognize seems like a big departure from the oft-ornate and visually rich nature of more elegant tastes. You see, my love of the latter stems from my love of history and literature, with its majestic hearths in wood-panelled libraries (where pulling at a specific book may cause a certain bookcase to swing open).

...of course, the book you pull out has to have a name like Through the Hidden Door or The Secret Passage.

But my love of contemporary style stems from my graphic design experiences and love of mathematical precision. As Antoine de Saint-Exupery said, "perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." And since contemporary is more compatible with Cass' tastes, I'm happy to explore designing our home in that way.
Until the financing comes through on my Clue house, of course.

Cassondra

While I definitely have primarily contemporary taste, I can feel myself being pulled into the eclectic. Philip is fighting it big time because I finally got him on board with clean lined simplicity and now I'm trying to convince him that we love all things owls and personalized art and tons of accessories. I am definitely still a contemporary girl, but I also want our home to represent us in the artwork, accessories, and other things that personalize a place. Maybe it's all the Pinterest and Etsy I've been browsing, but I can definitely feel my style beginning to shift. My hope for our house is that is can be contemporary and modern, but have a lot of "us" in it. Our condo was definitely my style, but was missing the decor elements that I hope to bring into this house since we'll be staying here a lot longer.

You

It seems that most people leaned towards the contemporary although there is definitely some representation into the other groups too! This is good because it means you'll hopefully like what we pick out as we start decorating this crazy house.

What This Means (not an official dictionary or expert definition by any account)

The photos are all from houzz.com, I just selected the style category and chose from the pictures they provided for that category. I've tried to select photos that are our style from within each category, this way you can see what our style is like and 

Eclectic

To me, eclectic doesn't always have to mean cluttered and unorganized, but rather it contains a lot of visual interest, personality, and a mixture of textures, colors, and patterns. The way I see it (correct me if I'm wrong) a modern and conservative interpretation - and one I can get behind - might be the below. It's a mix of styles, colors, patterns to make a still cohesive look but definitely more visually interesting and has a lot going on.

Eclectic Bedroom design by Orange County General Contractor Patterson Construction Corporation

Contemporary

Contemporary and modern are often interchangeable, however, in my mind contemporary is a little bit less cold and can be a more lived in version of modern. To me it is almost like the difference between haute couture and ready-to-wear clothing, contemporary is like modern except more accessible to an everyday home. To me contemporary can also be a lot less cold.
There is also some solid overlap between these categories, for example the above photo is contemporary eclectic in some ways, and there is certainly contemporary country as well.

Contemporary Kids design by San Francisco Interior Designer Artistic Designs for Living, Tineke Triggs

Country

I think Country is pretty self explanatory, it can be just a little bit rustic, or straight off the ranch. I like this country style photo which is really cozy and sort of reminds me of my brother and sister-in-law's style, contemporary but rustic. 

Eclectic Living Room design by Atlanta Photographer Ashley Anthony Photography

Elegance

The below photo is elegant in its glamour and some of the ornate touches. I chose this photo because while it is more ornate and detailed, the decision to stay within a very specific colour palette  makes it more subdued and beautiful.

Eclectic Hall design by Dublin Architect Optimise Design

For the next poll we'd love to hear from you about your blog reading habits, make your vote and feel free to comment with any thoughts you have! We'd love to hear about the blogs you read or write.

Also in the comments, let us know which of the above is your favourite look?

Also if you haven't had a chance to read Philip's post from this morning, you can find it here.