perhaps one day it will have a name

A homekeeping trick…

Confession: I like the house to be spotlessly clean, but I have a really hard time keeping it up to my standard ideal. Since I can’t afford a housekeeper, I decided to try a new strategy. It’s deceptively simple, and best of all, it works!

I bought this adorable timer and stuck it to my fridge. Once every day, I set it to 15 minutes, and spend that time zigging and zagging around our tiny house, putting things back in their places, wiping down surfaces, closing cabinets, and hanging up errant jackets and such. Once I get done with general tidying up, I have time left for what I would consider to be a more major task: a quick mopping of the kitchen floor, throwing a load of laundry in the wash, or dusting the baseboards (in one room). When my fifteen minutes is up, I quit. Fifteen minutes a day and my house has never looked better.

A Summer BBQ Suggestion…

As sometimes happens on lazy weekend days, we ended up having a couple of dear friends over to BBQ. We popped in to New Seasons for some asparagus to throw on, and they agreed to pick up the drinks.

Those clever kids, E & D, stopped by the St Johns Pub and filled growlers with three beers: a wheat, the Ruby (a lightly raspberried brew), and a coconut stout.

Growlers are great for a few reasons. Growler is really fun to say, especially if you snarl a bit in the middle. The glass bottle are reusable and refillable at most brew pubs. This means no more pile of cans and bottles to take back to the store. Plus, when you fill a growler and you already own the bottle, it’s really cheap! Next time you find yourself picking up a six pack before heading over to someone’s house, why not pick up a growler instead, leaving the bottle as a gift for your host?

See that 7-Up peeking out behind the other? That’s the secret ingredient for one of my favorite low brow summer cocktails, the Shandy. Roughly 50/50 beer & 7-Up, it goes down easy and is really refreshing.

PS. At the Interstate Farmers Market, if you BYOG (bring your own growler), you can fill them up for just $8 bucks at Captured by Porches.

Sneak Peek!

I spent yesterday afternoon working on a lovely apartment in the sky. The clients had great pieces to work with (most people do!) and she’s a painter, so we had large, striking paintings to move around.

One thing they just had laying around was this print, by local artist Amy Ruppel:

I immediately thought of doing an art wall and including this print, which I’ve had saved in my Etsy favorites for the last year:

Something like this would really round it out, keeping things graphic and colorful and adding a vintage feel, which they love:

To tie them all together, I suggested they pick up a few very basic frames (Ikea Ribba for example) and have mats cut to fit. They have a bit more to do before we’re ready for before and after pictures. I’ll post them when we’re finished.