"And then cried Max, 'Let the wild rumpus start!'

It's that time of year again - and this month (like all the others this year) has completely snuck up on me. Christmas is by far my favorite time of year. While I'm completely a beach girl - there's nothing I love more than snuggling up in front of a fire during the Winter. Normally I'm one of the crazy people out on the Friday after Thanksgiving picking out my Christmas tree (honestly I'd go on Thanksgiving if my husband would allow it.) This year, however, we hopped in the truck and arrived at Home Depot to find everything completely picked over and only the sad, Charlie Brown Christmas trees left. We're a little behind schedule this year but we have our tree! It's still outside drying (are we the only ones that hose down our tree before we bring it in??) but I wanted to post the beginning of Christmas around here!

My mom, sister, Jenn and I all made what I'm thinking will now be an annual trip to Roger's Gardens yesterday and I came home with two Euro trees for our mantel. I actually love how they look even after Christmas. The brass candle holders were a gift from my sister and Jenn last year, and they're one of my absolute favorite things. They found them in an antique store back East.

{Close-Up}

We keep it pretty simple around here - but that's the way we like it! : ) Happy Decorating!

'Round Here...

Anybody there?? If you are - thank you for hanging in there with me. I've been struggling with my little blog and what to share. I've mentioned it before but we officially have a blog up and running for Bixby & Ball and it's been tough to merge, manage, fill, nurture both blogs for me. I started Seagrass Interiors as an outlet for everything in my head and in my life. David and I were just moving into our house and beginning to piece together our home. I've been building a career and trying to have some from of a life at the same time. Bixby & Ball has become a huge part of that life and the struggle comes with what to share there and what to share here. I'm probably about to step all over some sort of blogging etiquette but I recently shared a project that I finished over on the Bixby & Ball blog - but thought I'd share it here too (GASP!!! I KNOW!!) : )

This was a collaboration with a dear friend and fellow blogger, Amber of the blog The Girl is Craftee. Amber emailed me and asked if I would help her out with a game/family room is her house. She had an idea of the direction she wanted to go in but needed some help with the execution. Just because I love having the first photo on a post be a pretty one, here's a sneak peek of the after:

*Excuse the slightly blurry photo*

Amber had a vintage, paint-by-number painting that she had found while scouring a flea market and wanted to base the room around it.

{Photo via The Girl Is Craftee}

We came up with a plan and went to work.

The goal was to create a space that looked like it had been there a while. Amber wanted it to feel a little worn and not at all new. To help achieve this, we covered the drywall with horizontal planking. We used imperfect wood, that contained a few knots for character.

We also added a built-in around the main window for books, games and a little reading bench. (Have I mentioned that Amber has the sweetest daughter that made this project even more fun??)

Next up was flooring. We did a worn brick in a herringbone pattern.

{Photo via The Girl Is Craftee}

Check out that natural light!!

We finished off the room with a few vintage pieces, a new sofa and some fun fabrics that Amber had been collecting.

{Photo via The Girl Is Craftee}

For more photos (and facts) on these fun, vintage picnic baskets that Amber has been collecting, click here.

And for the BEFORE photos, click here.

Day Date

I have a standing, beach cruising, day date with David today! We're off to Coronado to do a little cruising (and probably a little house stalking : )

How are you spending YOUR weekend?

Painted

We officially finished the paint process downstairs and I could not be happier that we decided to do it. Just as a fair warning - this was NOT a big change so no dramatic "after" photo here. It's just a good example of what a little bit of tweaking can do. So, without further adieu....here's the after!

Not a huge change but made a huge difference. (David still can't entirely tell that anything has change. : )

The biggest difference is next to our painting. No more green fighting with our painting.

**Our painting still needs to be ru-hung so that it's not sitting right on our picture rail.

The color we ended up going with is Benjamin Moore's Gray Owl. Gray's are tricky because they can turn, blue, green and even pink very easily. Gray Owl is the perfect balance, and tends to pick up it's surrounding colors.

It looks much darker in this swatch than in reality.

I couldn't quite part with our "mystery green" that we had before. So, we kept it in our desk area but I think we're going to end up painting over it with the Gray. I'm just determined to crack the mystery and figure out what color it is. Until next time....

One Year

David and I snuck away last weekend to celebrate our first year married. As cliche as it sounds - I can't wrap my head around the fact that a year has already slipped by. In May we actually celebrated 11 years together - and he still manages to give me butterflies. This time last year we had grand dreams of spending our anniversary in Paris (in our dreams!) Instead we went to one of our favorite places. We drove up to Mammoth where my family has a cabin and spent the weekend, just the two of us. It was heaven.

{Twin Lake, Mammoth Lakes}

We spent an entire day biking around all of the lakes, went on a sunset horseback ride, and had a lakeside dinner. I couldn't think of anywhere I would have rather been.

On our way home we drove off the highway to the Bristlecone Forest. It's the home of some of the world's oldest trees. Some even argue that the Methuselah Tree is actually the oldest tree in the world. The best part about our detour is that there wasn't a single person around. We stopped on the side of one of the dirt roads and had sandwiches for two.

While we're on the subject of anniversaries, I had to share these two gifts we received. Both are so incredibly thoughtful and are a great idea for anyone special you may know with an important anniversary coming up.

The first is from our dear, dear friends Kathy and Micky. They were the one's that gave us our very first wedding gift here. Micky was the officiant at our wedding that married us. To say they are important people in our lives would be an understatement. On the morning of our wedding, Kathy snatched up the paper from the day. She's been saving it and wrapped it up for us for our anniversary. It's such a simple, thoughtful gift. I love knowing that I'll be able to look back and read about what else was going on that day.

Our second gift was from my Mom & Dad and has a little bit of a back-story. Growing up , probably starting at the age of 7, my Mom pulled out an old demijohn bottle as a place to throw extra change. Over the years it slowly filled. It's where hot lunch money in elementary school, quarters for arcade games in Jr.High, and laundry change in college all came from. We always talked about what we were going to do with the money once it was filled. The jar is finally a few weeks away from being completely filled and my mom has decided that whoever is closest to guessing the correct amount in the jar gets to choose an activity the entire family can do.

The Friday we left for Mammoth we had a jar with a small pile of change in the bottom waiting on our doorstep. David and I now have our own change jar to fill.

David - Happy Anniversary. I love you always. zo

New York Gift Show

Betsy and I just got back from a week of buying in New York at the New York International Gift Fair (NYIGF.) We had such a fun time (probably a little too much fun!) I'm back though and will be back up and posting soon!

{image via Conde Nast}

French Bistro Chairs

I have French Bistro chairs on the brain right now! I've gone into full-on house sprucing mode lately and I'm thinking these may be joining our household. I have been doing a lot of research on bar stools lately and French Bistros are quickly becoming the front runner.

{via Trad Home}

I was thinking about upholstered bar stools for a little while, but I feel like I need something to break up all of our upholstered seating. Our downstairs is essentially one open space where all of the seating except for our side dining chairs (the head and foot of the table are upholstered wing-back chairs)are upholstered. French Bistro's will break that up and add a new texture. However, the best part is, they're indoor outdoor. In other words THEY'RE DURABLE!! Which is a HUGE necessity in our house. Even though we don't have kids yet, I know in the future durability will only continue to be important.

{California Home Magazine, via Maison Gatti}

{via Elle Decor}

{House Beautiful}

{via Ashley Whittaker Design}

I'm doing a little bit of last minute price comparison and then I'm ordering!

**In other news - we finished painting and I've been trying to get a good shot of the paint, but our weather and my schedule has been a little funky this last week and I haven't been able to catch good light. Will post soon though!

Some Much Needed Time...

I'm sorry to have taken some time off, and without warning. I was feeling a HUGE need to step back, take a breath - and a break. This has been a crazy, whirlwind of a year and I still feel like I'm trying to fall into some kind of a routine. I realized that I haven't officially shared the launch of the Bixby & Ball blog. This has been another struggle and challenge. Some of you know that my blog hasn't always been the most (ah hem) consistent. : ) And now to think of keeping up with two feels just a bit daunting. At first I was thinking my posts on Bixby & Ball would be more "business-y" and less personal but let's be honest - first of all, who wants to read an all business blog (NOT ME!) and second, Bixby & Ball IS personal to us. Afterall, it holds a lot of our blood, sweat, and a lot of tears! We're sensitive girls! : ) I'm trying to focus on my reasoning for starting this blog in the first place, and that was a place to catalog inspiration and document the projects we work on at our home. Which is actually a fitting time to kick-start this blog again because we have a lot of changes about to happen around here. Tomorrow we're repainting the downstairs to kick-off the changes! I received quite a few emails asking about our current downstairs color. Right now it looks like this:

and this...

I love this color, and am actually considering leaving it in the office area of the downstairs but the soft green clashes terribly with this:

When we first re-did the house, we had not a thing in it. I generally knew the color scheme I wanted to go with and chose colors that I liked. Then my grandparents started cleaning out and giving us things they no longer had room for. This painting (of the Cyclone Roller coaster in Long Beach) has been in this house (pre everything being re-done) for as long as I can remember. The rich, bold colors just don't go with the soft, pale green.

Below is the original color palette I was planning on going with. These are the colors I always gravitate to for myself. But, as you can see, they just don't go with our painting - and the painting stays. Luckily, I'm flexible and love many different colors.

{Waterleaf Interiors}

Sadly, I absolutely love our current color and somehow misplaced the name. We have an organized binder full of all of the different things in our house (finishes, plumbing fixture brands and models, maintenance manuals, warranties, etc.) and somehow with all of that organization the color for our downstairs never made it in.

I will most likely have to wait to take photos this weekend and will post the after photos then! It won't be a super dramatic change but it definitely will no longer be green.

Home Sweet Home

....for the week at least. To leave this place is going to be difficult to say the least. It is absolutely breathtaking here. It's quaint, historic, and simple. I have so much to share but I have to start with our humble abode that we're calling home for the week. Like, many of the homes here - it has a name: Treetops. Named for its' perch on a hill just grazing the treetops and revealing a sweeping view of the Atlantic. Welcome to Treetops.

The house was built in 1910 and functioned as a "tea house and ladies gift shop." The last part is in parenthesis as the current owner, Eric Drey who also happens to be one of the founders of the town's Historic Society, as well as others speculate on evidence that the building was actually a brothel.

The layout of the house seems to lend itself to that theory. There is one large middle room, surrounded by numerous, curiously small "bedrooms."

Eric has meticulously gathered vintage and antique pieces to furnish the home. Before he left us for the week, he added that it is still a work in progress.

The layout of the house is very unique. The large center room acts as the living room, complete with the original brick fireplace. The ceiling is two stories with exposed beams.

There is a small platform with a railing that runs around the perimeter of the second story with a small room at either end.

There is one teeny, tiny bathroom at one end of the upstairs.

The walk way surrounding the the second story was put to use as a well-stocked library.

Possibly one of the best features of the house is the original floors. I don't know if you can fully tell in this picture but you can actually see through the slates in the floors to the area below.

Below is the staircase leading up to the second floor.

The kitchen has the original wood, slat siding. No back-splash needed.

Although I don't believe that the lights are original to the house, they are definitely appropriate for the era.

It's going to be beyond difficult to say goodbye to Cape Cod, and our little house.

For anyone who is thinking about a vacation to Cape Cod I would HIGHLY suggest looking into renting a house. We went back and forth between a hotel and a house and by the time we did a little number crunching, a house made the most sense. There are six of us, which means approximately 18 meals a day. The house gave us the ease to cook - which was actually a ton a fun!

We traded off eating dinner on the enclosed porch and the family sized pine table.

Thank you all for your Cape Cod suggestions. I think we've done just about everything that was suggested. (I'll post pictures of those next!) The only thing we will be leaving without doing, is a trip to Nantucket. I'm really bummed but that just means we'll have to come back! : )