Some small details around La Casa De S

Just thought I would share a few of the details around my house. As my blog is new and upcoming, I have slowly but surely gotten my feet wet with the blog world. The pictures below are just a glimpse of what you can expect to see soon. Lets just hope I keep my New Years resolution of blogging often (not just peeping into others blogs and not contributing). 

It has been a year and a few months since we have bought our beach house and a lot has changed and progressed around here. I can not wait to share our projects, ideas, designs, successes and failures with this O so welcoming blog world. 

Happy 2011 everyone! 

Ya....I did a chalk board wall too!

I love the idea of being able to scribble whatever I want on my wall. Sometimes its a sweet notes to the hubby, sometimes its a to do list and sometimes its a "you better do this or else" note to the hubs. Whatever it is it seems to bring out the child in me.

My chalk board wall is in our kitchen nook. It is hidden where everything still looks neat when you walk into the kitchen, but with a turn of the head its there and fabulous.

I actually free handed the design. I made it narrow in order to allow the wall color to frame the dark chalk board black. On the top of the board I painted our initials. On the bottom of the board I painted the year we got married.

My nieces and nephews think I am the coolest aunty ever. 

Master Bedroom Progress

         This past weekend the Hubby and I made some progress on our rather naked master bedroom.
                                     We purchased two items from my second home ZGallerie.

      

    We Went with the Victoria Bed. I have been eyeing this beauty for quite some while. I ordered her in a custom fabric called Snow. The fabric has a soft sheen to it and looks more luxuries as compared to the standard fabric the bed already comes in.

The Pauline Chaise has been my Hubby's fav for some while. Since he has a thing for chairs (I know right?) I let him pick the chair. I love everything about it. From the comfy texture to the nail heads. We picked a grey fabric called Storm.

I plan to purchase the below nightstand for our bedroom, however, I could not give in to the $450 each price tag. I saw the same ones at HomeGoods a few months ago for $250 a pop! Im going to be a HomeGoods stalker untill I find them again! 

Although I am really excited for our new items and the progress of our bedroom design I just learned that we have to wait SIX WEEKS for items to be ready for delivery. Which means I just have to dream about them till then. Like the Hubby said, waiting will make us more excited for their arrival, got to love his optimism!

Living Room Mantle

My living room is still in progress, things are always changing. However, for my mantle I think I found a keeper! My living room has very high ceilings, to accentuate that we found a really huge mirror. We plan to paint our walls a soft grey, I think it will really bring out the teal accent color around our house. For window treatment, we plan to start them from the top of the ceiling to again accentuated the height of the ceilings. We plan for the drapes to be a shade darker grey than the walls. Wow, we PLAN a lot! Lets just hope it gets done soon!

Back to the mantle.......

The fishes fit perfectly in our beach house. They belonged to my parents and I always had my eye on them. They did not really fit into my parents rustic style so they were gifted to me : ) 

Putting my DIY skills to the works, I gave the vintage book look a try. I took a trip to my local Library and purchased some used books. Each book was around 25 cents! I brought them home ripped off the cover, dipped them in coffee, let them dry, stacked them and wrapped them with twine! 

I stuck some sea shells and sea stars in the twine to give them an extra touch. 

I scattered the fish and the books on the mantle. The scattered look gave an interesting yet cohesive look.

There you have it, my Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer mantle. 

BAKE THIS!

My little brother is having a bake sale at school today. I wanted to bake something yummy yet fun. I thought these would be fun for a bunch of young ones.

Using a white cake batter I simply divided the batter up into four bowls. In each bowl, I added a different color. I found some super cool neon food coloring at Ralph's. Purple, Pink, Green and blue. The hard part or shall I say tiring part was spooning each layer into the cupcake foil (your hand gets tired after a while). 

They do not only look scrumptious but they taste so! I am sure these will be a hit tonight. The teacher suggests we sell these for $1 a pop. That maybe be pricey for young ones but I think they can manage since they all attend a private school! 

Powder Room

Our powder rooms was dead. It looked plain. It looked like a hospital bathroom. It needed to be resuscitated with LIFE! Here she is all pale:

Using a defibrillator we resuscitated her. Sticking to our beach house naturals I went with sea grass wallpaper. The powder room took 3 double rolls. 3 x 2=6 good job!

Here is the big reveal:

This is what you see from the little hallway.

Walking in you are greeted with the original pedestal sink and toilet.

I had this mirror in our home in Portland. The frame was gold so I decided to tone it down a bit with a soft white. I added a little mantle which provides room for fun decor.

I purchased these Anthropology spice jars and made a couple of sea arrangements out of them. I got the jars when they were on sale so the numbers were limited. They were sold out of #1. I could not resist, I needed my 1 2 3 4. So I bough two #4's, came home pulled out my number stamps and stamped #1 on the opposite site of the extra #4.  I love when I come up with brilliant ideas : )

                                                      Nightlight shine bright!

For extra dimension and texture I added six Ikea plates to help emphasize the corner on top of the toilet.  

Since we lack storage in this powder room, I grabbed a fabulous idea from the amazingly talented Sherry and John (Don't forget Clara and Burger) at http://www.younghouselove.com/. I found a wide mouth glass vase and stack the spare toilet paper. Brilliant!  

On the opposite wall is where the towels spend their life! We wanted to get a bit silly and added a vintage aluminum sign. To make the sign pop, I added an empty frame.

Lets Just hope the toilet doesn't get clogged.

Fresh flowers!

So whatchya think? 

The Do Not Touch Room

Or shall we call it the Living Room. This is the room you see when you first enter our house. It is the room that is rarely used, yet the most expensive. It is the room only special people are allowed to sit in. A room where children are allowed, however, they must be closely monitored. It is my show room and still a "work in progress"!

I will be back with details! 

My own ART

Along my stairs I have a family wall. Every time we go up and down the satires we are able to smile and remember some great memories (and some pretty faces ; ))

I wanted to mix the photo wall up a bit and add some art, or words of inspiration.

Since this art piece will be displayed on our stair landing, I wanted to use some words of inspiration. I have seen the saying "Make your own path" and it struck me a few times. Now every time I walk down the stairs to start my day these words will inspire me. 

To make my art I went to Aaron Brothers Framing with my 40% off coupon in hand. I bought a basic black frame which set me back only $14! Great price for such a big frame!

Next I cut up some old maps to make my background. I glued the map pieces on the cardboard provided with the frame. 

I then typed up my saying in large letters and black font. Next, I cut my letters out using an X-acto knife. I simply glued the letters on after measuring precisely. 

And wallllla...... My art is done! It sits nicely on the landing of my stairs and inspires my dear Hubby and I daily! 

                                                  All images from Surf at the S's

Grammy

(Source unknown because I am horrible with names)

Unlike that fabulous sparkle that sits on the coffee table, the only Grammy sitting in my living room would be my G-Ma or my Mom who is now a G-Ma! Putting the Grammy envy to the side, this photo really does inspire me to use some cow hide in my house. Maybe I can incorporate it through pillows, a bench or a rug! 

Bakin or Fakin?

Today I ba........ I mean faked a cake! Well the picture below is of a real cake of course and I did make it thats for sure!

Let me fill you in on my little secret, its a little secret because I will not till my husband of course! From the bakery section at my local grocery store I picked up a ready made angel food cake. Being that it is strawberry season, I grabbed a few baskets of fresh strawberries, canned strawberry sauce, custard mix and some cool whip! All I did was slice the cake in three and went on to layer it with my goodies. I did not go in any particular order with the layering. I just did what I wanted. Let me tell you it turned out FANtastic! An A+ cake in a few simple steps and time to spare!

Doesn't she look so pretty : )

Trail Mix

 At our house we love trail mix! It is an easy snack on the go and might I add, healthy!

I usually buy a ready made trail mix from Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. Although they are very good we tend to have a least favorite part of the mix that ends up lingering in the bag. I do not like things that linger So I decided to..........

Make my own trail mix!

First, I went to my favorite hang out ; ) TJ's and picked out the nuts and dried fruits that we favor in our trail:

Second, I mixed the goodies all together in a large bowl: 

Last, I decided to put a few scoops in little baggies so that we can just grab and go. I now have them nicely organized in a basket in my pantry. 

My have they became useful as I take a snack break while my students are reading ; ) My hubby loves them too, they fit into his healthy diet as he is training for yet another 1/2 marathon!

Best part of all: we now like every piece of our trail mix! No more picking out the ones we favor!

What will you put in your trail mix? 

MASTER BEDROOM PLANS

Like I said......... we are starting fresh with the furniture deal! Currently our beautiful master bedroom is NAKED! Now most of you might be saying that it is OK to be naked in the master bedroom, however, with just a bed I say this is a bit too scandalous or BORING! 

But do not worry, my room will not be naked for long! I have some big plans for it. 

The plans go a little something like this: 

       Courtesy of HGTV

I want to go all white this time. There is something so pure, so relaxing about an all white room. Yes, we plan to have kids. No, we are not the most meticulous people. But... I do not care! 

So all white room, here we come! Well, not just yet, I still need to find the furniture, linens, wall paper and accessories. 

I want my wallpaper to be of a silver paisley design. I want my headboard to be tufted and white. I also want some rocking accessories. I might be adding a little splash of my favorite color with the accessories. The color: Tiffany blue! 

I want, I want, I want!

I will let you know when I actually get started on this whole process. 

bye, bye SEMI-old Furniture! Hello, new furniture!

When we moved from Oregon to the beach, we came with the following:

  

Cars

Clothes

Shoes

Degrees

Valuables

Which means we had to start from scratch with our furniture.

Piece by piece, day by day, we are working on furnishing our beach house.

Although I loved my place in OR and the furniture that lived in it, we knew that none of our old stuff (not really, it was all 4 years or less old) would work in our new place. Hubby and I came to an agreement that we wanted to start fresh! No convincing needed for me the super shopper!

Here is a few photos of the furniture I HAD in OR:

I do miss that place. It was the first place my Hubby and I lived together as a married couple. Although, we have moved to bigger and better things now, this place will always have a place in our hearts : ) 

Looking at these photos, I can see how my taste and decorating senses are totally different in our new place! I am glad with our decision to start fresh!

Life is a bit more beach-ie with the new stuff! 

An O so Hello Kitty Birthday!

It was my B-day the other day and this was my cake.......

No, I did not turn 4, I turned 24 but have yet to grow out of my love for Hello Kitty. Although it looked too perfect to eat. We indulged and ate a slice or 2 or 3.

The best part of this cake was that it was made by my lovely sister in law. She makes cakes for fun. I say she is very much CAKE BOSS worthy! 

Happy Birthday to me! Next year I might go for Elmo ; )

Reem and I Jewelry Design

Along with all things home, I think I did mention I also love to create! Almost a year ago I started my very own Jewelry line call Reem and I Jewelry.  Here are a few of my designs:

My designs are sold in a few local boutiques in Portland and Huntington Beach. You can also buy some online. If interested, please message me and I will be willing to work with you.

Most of my designs feature charms. My best sellers are the charm bracelets. The charms that I use are purchased from around the world and usually have some meaning or history. When you buy one of my charm designs, I attach a little note explaining what the charm means and where it is from. Enjoy!

Welcome to the blog world I guess......

I have been secretly following a few blogs for some time and well I thought it would be fun to join this O so exciting world of blogging! So here I am. I am young and in love with decorating. My dear Hubby and I purchased our first home a few months ago and we are enjoying decorating it and making it our own. We live on the beach (I know I still can not get over this fact) Huntington Beach, CA to be exact. We love everything the beach has to offer: the sun, the sand, the surf and of course the sea shells! Most would say we are so lucky to live on the beach and by God, I agree! However, our life was not always so "beach-ie". We were living in the lovely and might I add, rainy, Pacific Northwest in the beautiful state of Oregon. 

Although cold and cloudy, I would not have traded living in Portland, OR for anything. In fact I miss it and all its beauty, but more on that later!

View from our house in OR on a Fall day!

On our website Surf at the Sood's Beach House, I am going to include all things house and all things LIFE! Our website will chronicle my Hubby and I's life at the beach, but most importantly our beach house. I will share with you my decor ideas and our plans and outcomes of renovations. Although newer, we plan to do make some changes in this beach house so that we can truly call it our own! Stay tuned, call your blog-friends over and welcome to our blog!