our tiny urban farm

We have not a farm but we have dreams of one. A small one. We live in a quaint little neighborhood  only a minutes bike ride from downtown in our overgrowing green yard where we are creating a nice comfy space for ourselves and our children. For the squirrels, cardinals, blue-jays, finches and sparrows, as well as a neighbors cat or two. 

As we welcomed Spring I watched two tiny little birdies work together to build their nest in a handmade birdhouse just outside our back door.  I saw them flying through the air with one tiny branch or leaf clinched in their beak making many trips to and fro.  I was happy to be watching them work like a sweet family nesting for the birth of a new baby.

Just a couple of weeks ago we welcomed our bee hive that we were keeping on a piece of land on the bayou, it's a pleasant sight to watch these creatures do there work. They are rather calm and not at all aggressive. They are busy bees on a mission to collect pollen and make honey. Honey that we enjoy very much.  Just the other morning as I was sipping my coffee out back I watched one travel the Lily's petal to the center as though it was entering a cave, I love to witness that.

This past weekend we brought home our new friend Pedro, a pygmy goat.  He is a sweet little fella, he and Sage are good friends already.  It is so endearing and funny to watch those two play as they do.  It fills me with giggles as I watch my little goldy locks of a boy walk his new tiny hoofed friend down our street. A delightful sight I tell ya.

As of Sunday we even have a rocket ship for imaginary play that Sage inspired by his recent playtime fascinations.  Made completely from salvaged materials and Super Sage loves it.

It's the small things for us and that is sacred to me.

shed = office

Just a peek at a little project we worked on Sunday. I love a good productive Sunday when you get things done. This is another one of those things that I have been inspired to do for a few months but finally got around to. Though we only just begun, phase 1 if you will, it serves a rather necessary function but jumping into it was like opening a can of worms if ya know what I mean.

When not on a job site, at a meeting or in his wood shop working with heavy duty machines you will sometimes find my hubby at our rather small kitchen table making business calls, doing research or designing plans for a new project.  But we have this ideal space that can rather easily be converted into a home office while sharing space with tools/wood/seasonal & holiday garb/potential project supplies/etc/etc. Led by a narrow red brick walk you will find a little house like structure in our backyard that until days ago was filled with a disorganized collection of keep and don't keep. Again we have only just begun with this but we are off to a good start and our little shed house now functions as a home office while it awaits phase 2. A quiet space to work from home when that space is needed.

our farmhouse table

 Finally my hubby made the time to make our table. It's rustic like I like. He ventured from his usual fine tuned, perfected process just for me. You can find a little more about it here.

lately.

Today has been our first sight of sun in what feels like forever but literally in nearly seven days. It is as pleasant as always. Inspiring if you will. Quite the opposite of the dreary gloom, at least for me.

I have been working on a collection of bracelets like these recycled copper bangles. So easy to just pile 'em on.  Hand hammered for shape and texture.

We are always doing small projects around our home. Some lasting years are getting closer to completion and others only in the dream faze poking at my anxious nature to see it come together already.  I am trying to embrace the process though I am a finished product kinda gal.

I hope these first few weeks in the new year are treating you well and finding you smiling in great company.

a good morning

Our typical weekday morning starts with school preparations (make breakfast, pack lunch, etc) but after dropping Kaya off at school we take time for a little bit of 'coffee & cartoons', that's what we like to call it (we even have our own song).  Mama has her coffee while doing some things she needs/wants to do and little bit here enjoys some cartoon time, we're both happy.  Then we play.

But on the chilliest Sunday morning of the season and Papa's home, we build a fire. With a fire always come s'mores. For breakfast.

lately 'round here

Enjoying each other. Enjoying nature. Enjoying creativity.

at home in the garden

Spring is easily my favorite season but the little introductions of crisp air, especially in the mornings, makes me happy to welcome Fall. Eager even.  It is so refreshing to feel the air cooling off. Being that I spent many years on the sunny coast of southern California where pretty much everyday feels like this, these are my favorite kind of days!  Inspiring, motivating and just plain lovely. Naturally.

My garden is growing over with the wonderful Cosmo. I seeded a few areas a couple years back and its popping up all over our backyard, making its own place.  I love the wispy wild & free way about them and the bold orange of its blooms. The morning glory vine that I have never seeded or planted is volunteering itself and taking over too, smothering some of my chosen plantings. That I don't like so much! I honestly don't know much about plants and gardening, not more than what I like and love really. I enjoy following my intuition and doing what feels right. I like to take the seeds that have dried on the flowers center and spread it throughout the garden with anticipation of where it might grow-up. I revel in Sage's innocent play with worms or as he calls 'em snakes. Lately he is getting such sincere excitement with those crawlers, he lightens me up with a smile. Ahh playing & working with nature. Real joy.

before & after

I know I just posted about our lovely new bath but I could not resist the before and after side by side. Which funny enough I did not consider until after the original post. The before is from before we even moved in 2 years ago almost to the day. What a difference!

a lovely new bath

Inspired by our shared intrigue of old ways and natural techniques our lovely new bathroom is a combination of earth toned slate and a Moroccan waterproof plaster technique called tadelakt. We used a lime mixture with a 'mayan green' earth pigment and surprisingly our color turned out nearly identical to our inspiration color.  My hubby has a passion for olde world building techniques and though until more recently he has mostly worked with timbers he is excited to be broadening his work to include earth plaster and earth pigments.  This sort of plaster work is not an easy feat and involves many messy steps but the outcome is breathtaking. Our new bath transports you to an old home in the European countryside, so we feel.  It is always a bit of challenge for he and I to compromise our ways. He is skilled and fine tuned and appreciates utmost attention to detail while I prefer a more primitive and rustic simplicity.  But through it all we work it out and I think we have come up with some great creations. A true representation of the two of us.

We found this beautiful antique cypress door at a local antique store and after much scraping and sanding my hubby cut the door in half to make french doors. This made the most sense as the original door took up most of the hallway when it was open.  These new doors add a great authentic olde world feel, like our very own primitive palace :).  We added rusty hardware which fits perfectly.

We added wide cypress atop the doors and window to create a beam like look.  We used the original trim around the parellels of the doors and window but we scraped and sanded through to the wood to change them up and add to the overall rustic appeal.

I love the geode and crystal knobs we picked up at Anthropologie on a recent trip to New Orleans.

a tiny antique afghani wool rug... scored on ebay for a great $25

and heres a look at some before and during...

You can never be sure what you'll find when you start to take apart an old house. We had anticipated some work but my goodness. We had to replace a decent portion of the sub floor, we had to change the side of the plumbing for the shower because we did not consider that when we bought our new/old tub. With that though we plumbed our grey water from the tub into our garden which is super exciting for us.

this little man means serious business ya'll

I am so glad this is finished.  Honestly I am horrible at renovating, at least emotionally. It makes me kinda crazy.  Highly irritable and cranky due to all the chaos and mess. Of course I try to contain it mostly but that in itself can make one want to bust ya know. Ain't that ashame. My poor hubby. He is so sensitive to my ways too.  Again, let me just say WE ARE THRILLED this is finished. He worked so hard and did such a great job. This was our summer vacation for the most part.  We had talked of plans for a week long road trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains but instead we spent that time and money on a long awaited, often talked about bathroom remodel. Now that is said and done and beautiful!  Neeeext...

You can find more pictures of our original bath here and more pics and stories of our home here.

around here lately

My time here on the world wide web has been a bit meager.  Especially when I compare it to those days that I find so much inspiration and happenings to share here that I have posts lined up for nearly a week in advance.

I have been busy enjoying my kiddos, down time in the garden and little (or big) projects about the house.  I have photos of our doings collecting and waiting for attention.  Like our bayou beekeeping adventures last weekend that yielded a few cases of rich, dark, delicious, aged honey and of course our brand new beautiful bathroom. Soon I promise. Until then it's an instaPEEK. And who knows there may be a secret or two to reveal someday...when the time is right.

my morning coffee

Just the other morning I was sitting out back enjoying my coffee, in retreat from the chaos and dusty mess of the long awaited bathroom remodel going on inside.

...a great start to any day!

p.s. The bathroom is nearly complete and it looks wonderful. Handmade, natural, rustic, light filled, ethnic.  I am excited to share pics real soon.