Category Archives: instagram

People, get ready…*

published on by kati

*Lyrics from People Get Ready as sung by Eva Cassidy. I don’t think I need to explain why this song works here. Well, except that there is a double meaning this week – working on a blog redesign and some exciting new content. So, get ready. Twice.


Photo via instagram (afirepoleinthediningroom).

You don’t need no ticket, you just get on board. And, ok, so you need a TV, and possibly a cable subscription. But, tonight, Heather and Aaron of A Fire Pole in the Dining Room are going to be on HGTV’s House Hunters! Cool people, a drinking game, and a fun behind the scenes look at finding the perfect home on TV makes for a fun evening of entertainment. Or, at least a half hour’s worth.

Check it out, or just check out their blog. You know, if you like original thinkers, creative spaces, and mixing modern with vintage, and clean with character-laden craft.

Congratulations on your big debut, kids!

xoxo

I’m waking up, I feel it in my bones*…

published on by kati

*Lyrics from Radioactive by Imagine Dragons from their album Night Visions. I’ll admit to not listening to the whole album yet. I’ll admit to finding this album by the ‘top album’ feature on iTunes. I’ll admit that this video is bizarre. This song is rather pop-like, and not my usual fare, but the lyrics, and the mood suited my own today, so I used it. Maybe the album will be a good one for spring runs, or spring cleaning, or spring lounging in the sun that is finally penetrating our atmosphere and shining down on us again. Let’s all have a listen on spotify, and report back.

Need I say more?

Spring. She took a long time to get here this year. Maybe she didn’t but it sort of felt like that these past few weeks. Probably because I’ve been living back in The Big House, and away from my normal routine with my husband. He’s never worked this much before (this is his busy season, so to speak, but this is ridiculous), and we’ve never had two homes to keep us apart. Jeff’s office is in the city (well, Brooklyn, but you get the idea) so he MUST be down there during the week. And I’ve got my own things are brewing back at home, working on a new project with Dave from Innovative for some amazing clients on an amazing house. I’ve needed to be nearby for time-sensitive decisions about plans, materials, budgets, etc., while Jeff has needed to be buried in his work for his own time-sensitive deadlines. So we’ve been experiencing the season apart from one another, and our own work has kept us from having any real quality time.

So, this spring, which is finally springing forth, is really a long time coming. read on…

After everything…*

published on by kati

*Lyrics from Heavy Feet by Local Natives. I listened to their newest album, Hummingbird, on repeat for three days straight, and then I took a break so I wouldn’t ruin it for myself. You all know I love them. This song is why. Plus, read on, and you’ll see why these words resonated for this post.

Our eclectic vibe, inspired in part by a gift from my sister.

You see, a few Christmases ago, my younger sister gave me a print of a Kandinsky painting she spied that reminded her of my love for blurry dots. I actually and sincerely love that side-effect of having poor distance vision, that blurring of all the edges and background that happens in movies, the way that light turns into semi-transparent glowing orbs that sparkle and move when you blink. It’s really just poor vision, but I find it beautiful (and one of the reasons I don’t want Lasik). It took us years – quite literally two actual years – to muster up the effort to go and have it professionally framed. It was an odd size, and also a really high quality print – no cheap frame would do. But, once we did have it framed, we decided it would be the major inspiration point for our color scheme and vibe at The Pied.

Custom framed with a coupon at Michael's, this bit of art is the center of our design direction.

read on…

Can I wait the hours, til they find me…*

published on by kati

*Lyrics from The Hours off the new Beach House album, Bloom. I find them to be both enchanting, depressing, and soothing, all at once. Have a listen to the album on spotify for a preview. Purchase if you like. I like. I purchase.

My favorite little photographer working on some spring shots of the house.

Let’s talk about social media. Facebook. Twitter. Pinterest. Instagram (of the famed 1 BILLION dollar acquisition by Facebook). Blogging. Right, blogging. Neglecting blogging. Feeling bad about it. Overcompensating by taking Instagram pictures of stupid and repetitive things, but in a pretty way, of course (who doesn’t want to see dozens of pictures of random flower arrangements?). Updating Facebook statuses more frequently for the blog than actually blogging. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

Clearly, I’ve been busy. With family birthdays, including a darling tea party for my niece’s 9th birthday, a week long visit from my younger sister who’s poised to embark on a six-month stay in a foreign country, and all the requisite parties that we either attended or hosted, needless to say the blog fell off the to-do list fastest. But, I do have some projects so near completion that I’m sure to have a flurry of blog activity in no time. Some of these projects require dry and/or sunny outdoor conditions to complete. Hence the delay.

read on…

From the West side, to the East side…*

published on by kati

*Lyrics from Randy Newman’s I Love LA. Totally cheesy, totally appropriate, totally ’80s. Deal with it.

You know how, when you’re getting ready to go on vacation, you try to do everything you can to make your return home just as relaxing as you know your trip will be? You do all your laundry, make your bed, clean the house, do the dishes, mop the floors, clean the fridge, clean the bathrooms, deodorize the carpets, etc., etc. Yeah, well, we may think we can get it all done, but we never do, do we? (And, for the record, I got one bedroom clean, and the laundry washed, but not folded – that’s it.) One of the tasks I had set out to do before we left on a trip to the left coast to visit family and friends was to load my blog photos onto Jeff’s computer (since it was really a working trip for him – vacations are hard to plan when you  own your own business) so I could blog while we were away (huzzah for multi-tasking!). Forget the fact that I didn’t have time (or energy – we spent half the week adjusting to LA time) to spend hours pouring over pictures, editing images and thinking up quippy captions, and finding songs to accompany my riveting posts; in this case, I didn’t have the pictures either. I believe this is the time when you could stamp a huge ‘FAIL’ on my forehead.

read on…