shady times.

Big news everyone. We have successfully moved over to the world of shades. Top down, bottom up cordless shades to be specific. Lucky for you all, I haven't been updating on all our thoughts about the world of shades and the options out there. The short story is, after a consultation a couple of months ago with a great guy here in DC who we would have loved to buy from, we realized for FY14 budget reasons, we would not be able to buy from him! Who knew window treatments are so expensive?

I ended up doing a lot of online research. And my Mom and Olivia also provided helpful advice. And we ended up going with blinds.com which all in, we have had a great experience with. We haven't yet ordered the upstairs, because we wanted to make sure we liked them but the quality is great, installation pretty easy (credit to Ben on all of them!) and the price point fantastic.

Most notably, we really love not having any hanging cords. With so many windows in the house, the cordless option makes it so much cleaner! And the bottom up shades were much needed downstairs so that we have privacy from the street but light is still coming through.

mental escape.

On this fine Tuesday, not even mid-way through the work week, these National Park Views Not to Be Missed, are a helpful mental escape! My takeaway, Ben and I need to get out more. I am missing the west, Colorado, the outdoors, big skies and landscapes....

pancakes&gravestones.

Last weekend already seems so far away! We were juggling a lot and I had also planned out a whole day in Baltimore for us (because Emily gave us her car key while she is away for the week) but we were so tired and I was so out of it, that that plan never took root. Nevertheless, we had a really great Sunday with two highlights of mention. We woke up and went on a short run to Eastern Market. The purpose of this was to check out Market Lunch inside the North Hall. Alex and Brittany had mentioned the spot to us several times, and it was fantastic!

Yes, the line was very (very!) long. But it actually moves pretty fast and gave us enough time to debate whether to get the buttermilk (my default), blueberry, or blueberry buckwheat (I believe Alex's favorite) pancakes. You end up eating at a long communal table in the middle. Ultimately, we went with buttermilk and blueberry buckwheat because you shouldn't have to choose on a Sunday. The pancakes were accompanied by scrambled eggs, sausage patty, and some great bacon. We loved every bit of it!

We then walked it off with a casual stroll over to the Congressional Cemetery. As you know, I love me some cemeteries. I find them really relaxing and so interesting and we always spent a lot of time in Kentucky walking through Cave Hill Cemetery (click here to remember about that), so there is also a nostalgic element. Anyway, the Congressional Cemetery has been on my list to get to for a very long time and I even added back to the top of my list a couple weeks ago. We loved it.

This cemetery is packed with history - congressional members are buried there, it is old but beautiful, and then on one side there is also a giant prison (only in DC). We highly recommend it for a visit and when we get a dog, they allow you to bring your dog in too!

Oh yeah, and we happened upon Hoover's grave...

And we also stopped and appreciated this gravestone...

Take it from me, I have been in a lot of cemeteries and this is definitely one of the more interesting ones!

dresser finale.

It took me a bit longer than expected, but over the weekend I finally finished the dresser drawer project that I had posted about in March (click here if you don't remember). The project itself was straight forward, trace and cut wall paper to fit the sides of our dresser drawers. I loved the floral design from the original link and inspiration, but Ben thought it was too feminine, so I went with a pattern that is more geometric and neutral. My only tip for the future is to start with the sides of the drawers that you won't be seeing as much since there tends to always be a learning curve with these projects. Obviously you want the sides that will get the most visibility to be the best. In any case, here is the short of it....

I bought sample wall paper sheets from Spoonflower. They are just $5 and I didn't need a big roll of wallpaper for this. I then traced the sides of the drawers on the wallpaper...

After, I used a box cutter to carefully cut out the tracing...

I used this Zinsser SureGrip Adhesive mixed with water to glue the wall paper down on the drawers. Admittedly, I struggled with the air bubbles and because the surface of the drawers are not smooth, there are definitely wrinkles, but frankly, not many people are coming over to pull out the drawers and really it is just me who will notice the minor imperfections....

And here are the final results....

Not bad, right? I like the peaks of the design when the drawers are open and the colors blend well with the rest of the bedroom, so all in, it was worth it!

weekend + figs&goat's cheese.

Happy Friday Everyone! What does everyone have planned for the weekend? We have a busy weekend ahead, dinner tonight at a friend's house, BBQ tomorrow at our house with old campaign friends, and we are planning a field trip on Sunday someplace beyond the beltway.

Unrelated - I have decided to grab this great print for the kitchen. What do you think?

porched.

The exterior paint job is still a little ways out but in the meantime our porch has gotten some love in the last month. I bought some black flower boxes at Home Depot a couple weeks ago and spray painted them red for a pop of color and to contrast the brown brick and added an array of flowers. I also replanted the planters that Rags and Mols gave us last year (see here for that post).

I also finally got around to getting us a cute watering can. I would have loved to get a watering can from Terrain - like this one - but they were all sold out and way over the budget. So, I went to Amazon and found this great Hunter Green Watering Can with a little bit of bronze...

And last but not least, we now having rocking chairs on the front porch. For those who don't recall, we have had an ongoing "conversation" about rocking chairs versus a bench - click here if you really care about the debate. I finally gave up and we ordered two Wrightsville Rocking Chairs from Dixie Seating Company. We got them a couple weeks ago and we sit outside watching the street like old geriatrics...rocking back and forth and loving the spring air....

weekending.

Did you all have a good weekend? We planned for a low-key couple of days but still ended up doing a lot. On Friday night, we went on a mini-date to check out the new pizza place on H street, Pizza Parts & Service. They recently opened and are still working out some of the service kinks (they ended up comping our whole meal because we waited so long for our pizza) but we can report back that the pizza was quite good. And that is saying something since Ben has high standards!

On Saturday, inbetween errands and my pilates, we stopped by the 52 O Street Artist Studios for their annual open house. It was very cool. It is this great building where a bunch of artists have work studios that they also live in. It felt like a small piece of NY buried over by North Capitol Street...

We also got drinks/dinner with Georgetown friends and on Sunday we went for an impromptu walk with Erin and Josh over in Anacostia. They picked up sandwiches and we headed over to Kingman and Heritage Islands Park. It turned out to be not so impressive but the walk and sun and lunch were great and it got us out of the house!

Oh yeah, and last night, Ben and I finished True Detective. My god, that show is intense and horrifying!