Take a tour

Have noticed that button the side bar? Over there--to the right....The one that looks like this:

The tour of homes starts today. And I'm nothing if not voyeuristic. I LOVE looking inside other people's homes. When Sue, Maggie and I go down to visit Sue's Aunt Audrie in Hermosa Beach, we always go out to dinner, and then walk backto Aunt Audrie's home by way of The Strand, where all the houses are practically on the sidewalk. And hardly anyone has window coverings. So really, people, if you don't want us peering in your homes, then move somewhere isolated, with lots of curtains. Anyhoo....

At last count, 729 people had posted pcitures of their homes on the Christmas Tour of Homes. *sigh*. I can't possibly check out each and every one, but I will definitely be randomly picking a few each day.

As for us, our big addition this year was something Mark picked up at an auction after Christmas last year. Santa climbs up and down (and up and down....and up and down) the ladder carrying his little strand of lights, while music-box Christmas carols play along. Charlotte and Levi love it. Fortunately, Santa is willing to go up and down even when the music isn't playing.

Oh, I do still have one item I plan on making. I saw this last year and have been wanting to make it ever since. Can you believe we don't have a single wire coathanger in our house? Not a single one. I traded them all out for plastic. I'm hoping one of my friends can help me out. Super easy to make. Old ornaments, a glue gun and, oh yeah, the wire coathanger.

So go on tour. Who knows what you'll find?

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall

Mrs. Limestone from Brooklyn Limestone did a post on upcycling, wondering whether her readers upcycle things themselves and leaving a link to post their own upcycled projects.

Well, as a matter of fact, Mark and I have quite a few upcycled projects around the house. Here is the way it usually goes down. I drag stuff off the trash heap during our annual city cleanup...and he does most of the actual upcycling. And those pieces of furniture are definitely my favorites.

A few years ago we remodeled our master bathroom. We had one of those plain mirrors. You know the kind--no nice frame around it, just held up with little plastic clips. We definitely weren't going to use it in the new bathroom but we also wanted to keep a memento from the old bathroom. Luckily enough (right, Mark?), I had seen a great idea on HGTV. We bought one of those cheap doors from Lowe's--the kind you could easily punch your fist through--which was the same width as the mirror. Got different kinds of molding and a beautiful wooden medalion. Painted the door white, glued the mirror on with liquid nails and then trimmed it out with the molding.

I know it probably sounds this was a joint project. Actually my part was the idea phase. Mark did the actual work on this one.

It turned out great. We have it attached to a wall in our bedroom.

Taking pictures of a mirror...wow, that's a toughie. It's not like you can stand in front of it and snap the picture. Well, you could do that, but then all you would really see is a picture of me taking a picture of the mirror. So, apologies in advance for the photography. (And if any of you have better solutions on photographing mirrors, let me know, because I want to share the redo of our main bathroom, but keep getting hung up on the whole mirror/picture dilemma.)