One of the wonderful aspects of our apartment is the 12 foot ceilings — but it also means an almost overwhelming amount of white wall. We’d been struggling with how to fill the space. (In my fantasy apartment, we’d hang a beautiful large scale Michael Abrams).

And, as much as I’d like to do a photo wall like the ones I blogged about recently, I don’t really have the photos, time or patience to start on a project of that scale (some day!!). However, we’d both seen this image in Elle Decor of a map of Paris that had been cut up and framed:

This bathroom is also in my home clipping book (loving multiples of botanicals right now…):

The idea of cutting up an image and framing it inspired us to put one of my favorite BluePrint ideas to use. Blueprint is one of my favorite magazines these days — they just really get me and my demographic — I feel that magazines like it (that combine shopping, design, culture and cooking in a smart, beautifully designed package) are the future of “women’s magazines”. I cherish each issue and actually save them and re-read them, which is something I’ve never done with a magazine before. In any case, in their March/April 2007 issue they featured “Quick Change” Art installations using “jobbers” or shop ticket holders which I thought was awesome:

I did some searching online and found jobjacketstore.com (25 for $30 = affordable). The husband found a site, rasterbator, that takes images and raztorizes them (turns them into a set of 8.5 by 11 images). We choose a 4 by 4 but we could have done much larger 8 by 8 for those of you with lofts in a city not NYC. It was also his idea to use a snapshot from our honeymoon (in PARIS!!) of the Effiel Tower. We printed them out on our home printer, slipped them into the sleeves, stuck them on the walls with basic office tape (which in my experience has the least negative effects on walls) and we were in business!! I’m really pleased with how they came out.

Action shots:

And, result:

I think this would look great with landscapes, done in color (abuse that work color printer!), or of a vintage snapshot, scanned and uploaded. The best part is that since the sleeves have a slot at the top it is easy to change these as often as you want.

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I think this is a great way to fill a large wall, to showcase a collection, your children’s art, your travel photos, family snapshots. I believe in living with photographs (and memories, I guess). I’ve never seen the point of photo albums you only look at every other year. I’m thinking about making a wall of the vintage photos I’m slowly collecting or maybe just of family snapshots both from my parents and grandparents as well as my own. These are from my house journal, the book I keep of all the images that inspire me for the home. They come from Domino, Elle Decor, House Beautiful, New York Magazine and others, all in the last year. While I was on vacation I finally had time to catch up on my clipping . One of the pleasures of keeping a journal like this is that it is easy to see patterns over time — that an idea, item, color continually interests me. My favorite image is the top above — I like the idea of displaying/framing fabric. I have fabric that I will never use on a chair or pillow (because, really how many upholstered chairs/pillows does one woman need?) that I’d love to find a way to use in my life.

(Via Flickr)

(Via Flickr)

Over all I think that the walls that work the best are the ones with different types of frames. How to make one yourself, easily? Check out these two options from the Conran Store, the Antix Multiframe kit and the Picture Wall Gallery Frame Set.

UPDATE: I came across this funky image today via Liquid Sky Arts:

Via Flickr some delicious miniature rooms to inspire. I can’t quite tell you what fascinates me about mini models of everyday things. My favorite of the lot is the first image which is a model of the kitchen at Monet’s house outside Paris. I was charmed by its yellow cheeriness when I saw it in person, and this model is brings back that sense of wonder at seeing Monet’s talent turned toward his interior.

The Hutton couch arrived on Saturday at 8:49am via two very nice Room and Board delivery folks. First came the awesome blue seat cushion… the color looked as amazing as we thought it would. 9:04am the couch makes it through the front doors. 9:10am the couch won’t make it though the second doorway (1 inch of extra lovely frame). Horror. However, 9:20am a peppy Room and Board customer service person calls and offers to ship the couch to Dr. Sofa. We google him, note that one of the illustrative examples is OUR couch (relief, we’re not alone) and send it on its way.

Back in New York, I continued to plant the porch — this container is my favorite to date. I also rescued the white geraniums that were just not getting enough water and transplanted the basil, lemon verbena and sage into organic soil (which I finally was able to purchase in VT) so that we’ll be able to make pesto in the late summer. This container is planted with: Hawaii Sky Blue Ageratum, Pineapple Mint (with lovely white veragated leaves), thrift armeria, white pansies, Johnny Jump Ups, bachelor’s buttons.

I purchased the plants at Chelsea Gardens (expensive but easy to get to), DIMITRIS Garden Center (still expensive, less easy to get to), Walker’s Farm in Putney VT (cheaper, great selection, well established plants) and Home Depot in Brattleboro, VT (cheaper, selection of “staples”, less well established than Walker’s).

What are your favorite container garden plants? Favorite container? Send me pics! Abbey

Our weekend trip to Vermont yielded the armchair (my father dislikes it, so, I inherited it!) and check out the mod magazine rack from the Tampa flea market. I’m in love.

Hours of searching on Craigslist uncovered this pair of chests: a reward of my Craigslist furniture obsession. Beautiful midcentury modern pieces with white mica tops. I’ve always associated “mid century modern” with the furniture in my grandparent’s lake house — dated, not very comfortable and not very cool. Funny that we now have a table and chests and I never would have anticipated how clean they look in our space. The other picture is of our Rico lamp in action with the orange tree bought in Chinatown. The apartment is starting to come together (although what the photos don’t show is the complete lack of organization everywhere else in the apartment (still no bookcases, filling cabinets, sofa, dinning chairs or place to hang/store our coats).

For the table? From Kurt Peterson.com $87.

Room and Board – I’d heard the hype and I thought I’d be immune. Well, I’m now the proud co-owner of a blue velvet Room and Board Hutton couch. You decide who is immune and whose not.

First, get in the mood. Indigo. This color is mystical. This color has me hysterical. I want to only wear clothes this color, dye my hair this color, get those crazy colored contacts in this color.

I put bum to couch some 50 or so times to find this one. Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, Pier One, West Elm, Martha/Bernhardt, Mitchell/Gold, BoConcept, Atlantic Avenue, Madison Avenue, auctions galore. I’d actually given up. And then it happened, in all its velvet, indigo tantalizingness.

It has rounded edges, it looks just like the tables I’ve been posting about… except… its HALF the price and has the added benefit of not being made in China. Thank god for Craigslist.

I mentioned earlier that I’m looking for a dining room table with rounded edges. T. found this one from Room and Board. Tomorrow we go to check it out as well as test some couches…

For the big move! We drove through a blizzard, T. was in a bank that got robbed and the 249th St. Patricks Day Parade marched on, and we’re still not done! Even though I’ve gone dark on the blog, I’m still thinking — and while I was in Vermont (my childhood home), I thought a lot about the idea of home, emotionally and psychologically. And also about style — how much or how little you can take from your parents style. I took some photos too. Will post when move is complete.

Browsing Duane Keiser’s project on the places we call home:

“Home, aside from being the building in which we live, is a state of mind. Home is an idea that has been silently, and uniquely, cultivated in us throughout childhood. It is where we experience many of our most personal and intimate moments and it is where our memories reside long after we a moved on to other houses: revisiting a home from our past always triggers a flood of forgotten memories that come back as we walk through the rooms in which they were formed.”