Pieces of Anna

For my first real DIY (Do-it-yourself) project, I decided to start slow and simple. Oh wait, slow and simple is not my style. Well then, I decided to jump right in and make over a bentwood chair. At this point, I had zero experience with sanding, priming, or painting any piece of furniture. I've also never reupholstered anything before. And I had absolutely no supplies. What could possibly go wrong? It's like Beauty and the Beast, right? The end result doesn't look so bad after all. What you don't see in this picture are the many days months that this project of mine occupied our balcony, living room, and second bedroom. Also not pictured is D's cursing of the day I bought this chair loving support for my first adventure into the land of DIY. And now, for the gory details. The first thing I did was remove the chair seat. Which turned out to be a total pain in the a**. See, I was under the impression that most chair seats are attached to the base by means of s

About a month ago, I discovered the most addictive awesome website for organizing ideas and inspiration, and I've been hooked on Pinterest ever since. For an organization-obsessed freak like me, this website is so perfect to keep all the random stuff I find all over the internet in one place. No more bookmarking on one computer, and being frustrated over not having the link on another computer. No more emailing myself links or saving them in a disorganized google doc. Those days are over, baby! (Yes, I am really that excited over Pinterest. Or it might be the massive amount of caffeine I ingested today. You decide.) Anyway, the way Pinterest works is it allows you to create multiple "boards" to pin your ideas on. For example, you can have a board for interior decorating, a board for your favorite quotes, or a board for cute kitty pictures (no one will judge you). To "pin" something to your boards, you install a "Pin It" marklet in the bookmark sect

When we recently returned from a ten-day trip to England, I discovered that I took approximately 560 photos while on vacation. Because, you know, it was absolutely essential that I really capture that church door in the best light possible. And that requires approximately fifteen photos per door. Obviously. What the camera did not capture is how I almost got run over by the British drivers, who insisted on driving on the wrong side of the road. For bright tourists like myself, the kind people of England wrote signs in huge letters that told me which way to look. Upon arriving at an intersection, I promptly proceeded to ignore these signs while trying to figure out which of the beautiful buildings before me is Westminster Abbey. But that came later. First, the bf (from now on known as D) and I took a subway, a bus, a plane, another plane, another subway, and a train in order to get to Harrogate, UK. Harrogate was one of the four cities that we visited in England. Actually, it's no