The Best Bedroom Ever

As we continue with the tour of our Portland House I'll start in my office.

It's where I keep all my pretty Maneki Neko

and where I keep my other crazy cat lady paraphernalia. It's also where I pay our boring bills and read my boring emails and do other boring things. Things are less boring in a peach room.

Next door is what we call our spaceman bathroom.

My first weaving ever hangs in that bathroom!

Speaking of bathrooms, let's get this out of the way. We have a purple master bathroom.

Purple bathrooms are boss.

Now on to the master bedroom. I'm not going to lie. We spend pretty much every waking moment in this room. It's huge and we love to roll around on the floor with the pets.

We also love to sit on this couch and look out the window at our neighbor's not inconsiderable herd of outdoor cats.

Also there's a fireplace.

So pretty much best bedroom ever. Up next we'll head downstairs!

Welcome to Our Portland House!

Drumroll please.

The time has come! 

Let's be honest. We've still got house projects on our to do list.  Some of them are going to be amazing.  But the time has come to share our Portland house on the blog!  We're really excited about the transformation from the sea of tan it once was to a place that feels like home.     

Here's the outside of the house.

And the porch, which we just finished this spring, so it still feels spankin' new.

Somehow the "theme" ended up being rainbow (to the extent that any porch can have a theme.)

I don't think either of us really understands how we ended up with rainbow.

It just sort of happened. By the way, Eddy and I totally made that rainbow bench. Like, all by ourselves. And that's about the full extent of our carpentry skills.

Also we have a bunny door knocker, because obviously we do. Obviously.

There will be a prize at the end of the house tour for the person who can accurately count how many bunnies we have in our house.  Just kidding.  There's no prize.  But please.  Someone count.  I would like to know.

Next we're going to head straight up the stairs to the second floor because if I'm being honest, the first floor is coolest and I want to save it for last. It's the most complete, house project-wise, and it's the most polished. There is still a lot to do upstairs, but here goes.

Just off the stairs is our library.

Remember that time we tried to have a library in our CA house, but it just turned into a dog room? This time we have a real live library and we love to sit up here and read.

This is my workshop, my favorite room in the house and where I spend most days dreamily working away on pretty quilts and weavings and what-nots.

Please note the pit bulls snoring below my standing cut and press station.

The photos really don't capture how heavenly this room is. It might be my favorite. Except it's not because I really love all the rooms in this house. Stay tuned!

My First Free Motion Feathers

When I want to learn new quilting skills I sometimes buy vintage un-finished quilt tops from Etsy so I can make tons of mistakes on a quilt I didn't spend hours making myself.  To date, I think this is the experiment I am most proud of.

Here's the top I bought and the backing fabric that I selected.

The first quilting step for this project was that I wanted to learn free motion quilting with rulers. I purchased some new rulers and now I just needed an opportunity to practice some motifs to build my skills.

But the real magic happened when I tried my first ever quilted feather!

I've always wanted to own quilts with feather designs and I've always wanted to learn how to do it myself. This is just a simple example, but I'm so proud of how they turned out!

Here's what all those feathers look like on the back of the quilt.

Rupert helped me pick out the binding.

Here's the finished quilt!

Yay for quilted feathers forever!

Farewell to the Beach Condo

Eddy's work has stopped offering the beach condo to employees!  I know.  I know.  It's all very sad, but the actual owners of the condo have moved back the Portland and it's almost like they want their own condo back.  Some people, right?  We had tons of great memories there, even in the short time that we lived here, and we got to spend a whole week saying a fond farewell.

We kicked off the trip by capturing what will probably be our only selfie ever with Norman, who stood still and looked at the camera only because that orange thing in my hand is a stick with a tennis ball at the end.

First, let's just be clear. Norman had an amazing beach vacation.

Never before or since has a dog had such fun at the beach.

Cross my heart.

That dog enjoyed many a snuggled up nap after his beach adventures.

For the record, we also enjoyed the beach.

Just maybe not as much as Norman did.

Incidentally, this is Norman helping us dig up some wet sand to build sand castles with.

Because we are 5 years old.

We found this weird horse while digging. Looking back, I'm really sad that neither of us incorporated the horse into our sand castles. But I had a weird only natural materials thing, going and Eddy had this whole romantic sand keep plus tower back story, so I guess it's not surprising.

Seriously, though, we got really into building sand castles this time.

Norman got so bored that he took a nap. He also got so cold that I had to cover him with my coat.

We were pretty proud of our creations.

One day it rained, so we played games and did puzzles and stared longingly at the beach through the windows.

We also enjoyed some of our favorite Rockaway Beach area haunts.

The last day, perhaps to combat our sadness at leaving behind the beach condo forever, we decided to take a little road trip up to Astoria on the way home. But like, not on the way because it's the opposite direction from our house.

We kicked things off in Rockaway Beach because THE PRONTO PUP WAS FINALLY OPEN ON A DAY WE WERE IN TOWN!

You guys, that's a real leather saddle. No joke.

We ate some corn dogs.

But, like, so many.

Next we went to see the wreck of the Peter Iredale, which I have always, always, always wanted to see.

We also went to the Astoria Column, where Eddy promptly fell in love with the relief map because that guy freaking loves relief maps.

Then we, you know, drank some beers,

saw some Goonie house,

and ate some custard.

I think the Astoria trip reminded us that even though we'll be sad to say goodbye to the beach condo, we now have the perfect excuse to say hello to the rest of Oregon. Road trip anyone?