I’m back with the second installment of my garage makeover! We left off with the garage flooding again, after a few weeks my contractor fixed everything (we hope), we licked our financial wounds, and after a lot of drying things out (luckily the furniture and even the rug survived) we set everything up again and NOW for the final reveal…

Black Sconce

Sara wins the award for shooting the most cramped space of all time. Remember, that rug is 7’ wide. My husband is a character, quite literally and figuratively, so some of this content might not be exactly what design nerds are used to seeing. Like, for example, the creepy doll on the right. It’s from a short he made and he loves it. I wouldn’t exactly choose to style with it, but here we are. My job is to make it all as chic as possible and I think we hit a really nice balance. 

Desk | Magnetic Hooks | Filing Cabinets | Desk Chair (unavailable + other option) | Table Lamp (vintage) | Desk Pad | Pen Holder

Although Andrew is truly a creature of the night, we knew that we wanted to keep the desk near the front because on temperate days he likes to open the doors to get fresh air. It’s also nice for natural light while on Zoom. We went with the largest version of Article’s Madera Oak Desk because the editing setup takes up a lot of space. As mentioned, our storage is limited, so we used 2 matching Madera Filing Cabinets to help with all the paperwork you inevitably have when you are your own administrative assistant. If you click on the link for the desk you can see more easily how it has this really great cord organization cabinet. Instead of 234983 cords hanging down the back of the desk, we have a power strip inside of the cabinet and one singular cord coming down to plug in (which you can see if you look closely) HACK: I bought super hardcore magnetic hooks to use along the metal side of the desk to hold his keys that he still manages to lose 🙂

We wanted a comfortable desk chair but it needed to swivel (easy to walk by) and not roll (on multiple rugs? No thanks). This desk chair is no longer available, but this one would work just as nicely.

The art is an original sketch on butcher paper, drawn by Andrew’s favorite animator, Richard Williams. We can’t financially justify framing it at the moment, so we used some scrap wood with paint splashes to mimic the idea of an artist’s desk it sat on at one point.

Bookcases

If it aint broke… 

The shelving behind the desk worked well before, so we did it again, but better. The reason I wanted these shelves specifically is because they had some hidden storage at the bottom for the not-so-pretty things, like a printer or the VHS player that is connected to his vintage television (lower right). They add a ton of warmth.

We are firmly a “no big light” family so vibey lighting is a must. I found quite a few good vintage lights on Etsy. The “slime green” (or brat) lamp is his personal favorite. Andrew is a collector and an avid biographical reader, so the shelves are great for showing off a miniature from his movie, vintage toys, and, you know, his tarantula.

Yep. Meet Audrey:

I’m a mom 4 times over now.

Media Unit | Leather Ottoman | Sofa Bed

Welcome to the living room/guest bedroom! Again, storage is needed, so this ottoman is a perfect place to put up your feet, use as a coffee table (add a tray), use as extra seating (as you will see in another photo), and store all the bedding for when the couch doubles as a bed.

Sconce (vintage) | Rattan Wall Shelf (vintage) | Side Table | Sofa Bed | Alf (vintage:)) | Round Pillow (similar) | Mushroom Stool | Black Sconce

There are the doors to access under the house above the couch. It was tough trying to figure out what annoying situation we wanted to make for ourselves as far as what piece of furniture would inevitably partially block the doors. If the desk was there we would have to move the computers every time and then climb over the desk and if the TV was there we couldn’t hang the TV and then would have to move the TV to crawl over the console. Under the house is unfinished, meaning dirt floors, so crawling in and out over a light couch seemed wild as well. The best thing we came up with was buying a smaller canvas and keeping it folded up in this little footstool/mushroom I had from a shoot. We simply put down the canvas and walk over the couch. It works out pretty well actually. I can’t move on without calling out the adorable mushroom vintage lamp I scooped on Etsy that sits over the Baarlo side table and the vintage Ikea wall-mounted rattan magazine rack. It’s Karl Malmvall for Ikea and you can find them here and there online, it is so dope – good luck! The blue pillow is made from scraps from the sink curtain and the round pillow is old Pottery Barn, they no longer make it round but they do make a standard pillow with the same fabric. Alf is vintage 🙂

Leather Ottoman | Media Unit | Tray | Lamp | Mushroom Stool

In this angle you can see what it’s like when we put the ottoman between the shelving and credenza to create more seating, we mostly live with it this way, the round mushroom is easy to walk around.

iPhone photo incoming…

Frame TV | Tray | Leather Shaker | Green Decanter | Amber Decanter | Glasses (vintage) | Bar Tools | Cup with Tools (vintage) | Pillow on Storage Bench | Bolster (custom)

This whole art wall is based off of the ghost from Betty Boop’s 1933 Snow White that I found at a NicSon Mercantile, a staple in my neighborhood. Do yourself a favor and watch the video. It’s beautiful and at 4:20-6:00 Koko the clown is turned into a ghost where legendary Cab Calloway was rotoscoped while singing and dancing to St. James Infirmary Blues. I found that piece and knew it was the best Christmas gift of all time and knew exactly how it would frame the TV. It was hung months before we got anything else (see in unfinished shots with rugs above). We hung it up right away and taped off where everything was going to go based on it. I based the size of the TV off of it and filled the rest of the space with art that was meaningful to Andrew accented with a vintage Kit Cat clock and a vintage light in the top right corner. The credenza is filled with office stuff you don’t want to look at, and let’s be honest, probably an overflow of Andrew’s VHS collection. A tray with decanted bourbons lives on top with an Oslo table lamp. I have the charcoal, but do yourself a favor and grab it in oxblood. I totally would have if it was available back then.

Lamp (unavailable) | Cabinet | Pitcher | Bowls | Green Wine Glasses | Tray | Green Moroccan Glasses | Electric Kettle | Soap Dispenser | Runner | Mirror | Custom Curtain Rods and Rings

I bought a wood toilet seat to go on the vintage toilet because, of course, and added a found wood shelf. I needed a little storage for tampons, matches, a candle, and an extra roll of TP (did you catch the cheeky TP holder?). 

I love how both of the curtains turned out. The workbench is pretty deep and on top of the minifridge and microwave we can actually fit a lot of storage under the sink, we even added under-bed storage drawers under the shelf because it’s so deep. The curtains make the clutter disappear while keeping the appliances easily accessible. I looked and looked for a vintage kitchen cabinet for this space but I kept striking out, I think because the ceiling is low so it couldn’t be too tall. I found this cabinet on Etsy, made to order. The runner is another custom Etsy find. 

Custom Curtain Rods and Rings | Bowls | Green Wine Glasses | Tray | Green Moroccan Glasses | Soap Dispenser | Mirror

We put a mirror on this wall for 2 reasons, 1. we don’t have a proper bathroom but I still wanted people to be able to wash their hands and check their face, 2. Andrew is often in makeup and needs a mirror which brings me to what you see in the reflection here…

Ikea Ceiling Track

It’s very 80s suburban basement and it is also very Andrew. This is his set. If you are confused as to what my husband does, same. I literally just googled him and it’s only slightly more clear. It’s easier to think of what he doesn’t do but just know for some reason he needs a set. YouTube? TikTok? Probably. We installed black velvet curtains on an Ikea ceiling track when he needs a basic background. Also, when the AC or heat is on the curtains need to be pulled to the side to let air move through, which brings me to trying to explain my space…

Speaking of ceiling tracks, we also used them, along with the rest of the fabric that matches the kitchen, near the front of the garage. Here’s an iPhone photo that shows it from Andrew’s side:

And a better, Sara photo from my side of the garage…

Notice I made a cute valence to go on Andrew’s side. Also – notice the cute baby on his side! That’s Elio! Sara’s babe and he did so good while we worked, but it may be why we will have to depend on some iPhone photos for my side 🙂After the next photo it’s all iPhone until the last photo.

See the line on the ceiling? That’s where the patio is right above, if you wanted to have an idea in your head of the space added. 

Now, this is either going to be the most interesting content or…exactly the opposite. Totally fine. I understand both reactions. Welcome to the mouth of madness aka a stylists’ hoard:

Such an upgrade. 

In the back where the green Ikea shelving is, directly behind that is Andrew’s set. We’ve found that as long as the curtains are pulled to the side behind that shelving unit as well as the curtain I just showed you to the right, the air circulates just fine. Side note: for ceiling height reference, that shelving in the back is 74” tall. Andrew and I are below that so it’s not a problem for us but, it is why the space isn’t permitted as a living area.

Imagine: Me sitting at my workbench, alone in the garage one evening, you get that feeling like…is somebody watching me?

ANYWAY.

Shelving

Does this look crazy? I can’t tell because to me it’s so organized. Being able to have a lot of things just sitting out on shelves where they are easy to find and pack up as needed, is so much better than everything wrapped and packed in plastic bins. Weird thing to be stoked on, but I really like these industrial shelves. The ones we had before, the shelf itself had that particle board type material and over time, especially with the heavy ceramics I have and moisture in the air, they started to bow and break. These are 100% metal and very tough. 

Workbench | Pegboard

On the opposite wall is my workbench with a small pegboard of things I need often, under are all the packing materials I keep and a trash can. Then to the left is my kit, cart, folding tables, ironing board, and garment rack. I like to keep all that by the door for easy load and unloading. I bought that particular workbench because it is on locking wheels, has a powerstrip attached, and is adjustable. If I ever need to use a table saw I roll that baby outside with an extension cord attached and do the work in the driveway for more space and to keep the dust out of the garage. There’s a saved story on what I keep in my kit on my Instagram from a while ago, if you happen to still be reading this and for some reason wish this wildness for your own life. Or you are a Virgo. 

New and improved towel and throw storage is a game-changer. Heaven forbid if I ever just want to use that ladder anymore though 🙂

Wood Wall-Mounted Curtain Rods | Storage Rack | Display Book | Industrial Laundry Cart

I keep my art on a storage rack (loose prints in a display book on the rack) and soft goods like pillows or duvet fillers in an industrial laundry cart. I needed both on wheels so it was easy to move them out of the way to access all the throws and the glassware that I keep in the lower cabinets. I also can move them so that I have space when I need to workout from home (shoutout Pvolve)

We’ve made it! Gremmy (in the window) and I thank you. It’s been a journey. Article is the best and they still have those amazingly comfortable patio chairs (also photographed here) and if you are curious those are Veradek planters, in white and corten steel. Stop by Instagram for behind-the-scenes stuff, and some good video content.

*Design and Styling by Emily Bowser
**After Photos by Sara Ligorria-Tramp

I’m back and excited to share this controversial space with you all!

Waaaaaaay back in August of last year I shared that I was planning a space to put a hot tub from Goodland. We had the teeny tiny issue that Gremmy had escaped (out of this very window!) during this time and was gone for 6 long weeks. We got the Goodland hot tub at some point during that 6 weeks and it sat in the driveway making parking/getting into my garage almost impossible. You see, there was a crawl space under the window where we had successfully trapped him twice before so we had to (obvi) halt everything and wait until we trapped him (Sept 2nd) to move forward with the construction. It was a long saga. See my saved Instagram stories “Gremmy” if you are so inclined. Once we finally trapped Gremmy we had to lay the foundation for the hot tub because it was on a slight hill.

We made the plans, we decided to keep it simple and cheap, a concrete base with a wood L shaped wall (like that technical drawing?) to enclose it a little bit for privacy. They framed it out and then on Sept 10th Daffy started having seizures, on the 15th we went to say goodbye to her, and on the 19th a miracle happened and we brought her home, a lot poorer but very, very happy.

The poorer part was a problem though. Because I am an absolute oversharer, here’s a breakdown of the cost for something very “simple” like this…

We were between a rock and a hard place. The hot tub was already in our possession and I had agreed to this shoot. At the same time, I was shooting our back unit’s yard and installing the kitchen cabinets for my kitchen reveal. All of that costs money. Doing these reveals is so fun and we get some real perks that I am so thankful for, but it isn’t cheap and takes up a lot of time as well. Luckily, Goodland has been very gracious with us because this has been the longest turnaround of any shoot of mine ever. We had nowhere else to put the tub so we had to wait another month before we were able to save up money, know that Daffy was ok, and not going to cost us more money before starting work again. 

As you can see, they covered half of the crawl space entrance, don’t worry it’s not the only way to enter or exit that space, we have two other areas. We wanted to keep it as a vent though, so they replaced it with a permanent screen. The wood wall is made of pine (because it was cheap) and obviously, it needed to be stained to help protect it and I wanted there to be some contrast between this wood and the wood hot tub. While they were doing this work I was working on a big job so I have essentially no photos of the process other than the two above until October 22nd, which I think is the first time we filled up the hot tub…

The stain on the wood wall turned out way darker than I wanted but, you know, I was busy and couldn’t micromanage the situation. I wanted it to be darker than the wood on the hot tub but not that dark, but here we are. As a fix, I decided I would just need plants to grow on it so it didn’t feel so much like a dark hole.

So it’s now the end of October, why couldn’t I shoot the space then? Well, at first it was because I needed time and money to plant things to make the space look nicer. I found that the amount of space I had between the hot tub and the house was perfect for fitting one of my Veradek planters. Veradek has beautiful planters that you can see in this post and you will see in my next post about my front garden. In this case though I wanted it to disappear against the side of the house and their Blok Span Planter was perfect for the job. 

I planted this crawling vine in November and then…it rained.

And rained and rained and rained and rained. 

If you’re curious, the wire grid already existed because on the other side of that wall is a jasmine plant we are encouraging to climb around this area, as well as around the other corner onto the patio. You can see some of her tendrils coming in from the left side of the photo. Let’s get to some reveals so we can understand a little more about where this hot tub area is.

Directly to the left of this photo is my patio which still hasn’t been properly revealed because I don’t know…I’m tired? But you can see some of it in this Halloween post or in this post (from almost three years ago?!?) about the process of my backyard. We’ll get to it eventually. There’s a door to that patio and you walk around where the jasmine is to get to the hot tub. We quickly found out that we needed to make a proper walkway because walking through the garden we were getting dirt in the hot tub and then in the house as we walked in or out. You can see one of our stepping stones near the jasmine in the photo above.

Here’s an old process photo from summer 2020 for more context…

Awww…look at that baby Jasmine. The grass will get greener like this as the weather warms up.

This reveal was finally photographed on February 17th, between rain storms. Apparently, it’s rained more in LA this year than it has in Seattle. It’s been wild – and my garage agrees. I *may* have been able to do the shoot in January between the rain but I was gone in Utah for half of the month and 2 days after we got home (one day after I shot my kitchen) we found out Puck had an aggressive case of cancer. The window above the hot tub was his favorite so he hung out and watched us for the entirety of the shoot. I was in a bit of a haze of shock on this day tbh, but there’s so many sweet pictures of him that I will treasure forever and I’m happy in the end that the timing worked out this way. 

The window above the hot tub is in our bedroom. Puck’s basket that he slept in every day sits on our dresser in this window, we can’t bring ourselves to move it. He always had a fascination with water and really loved watching us in the hot tub.

She’s a beaut, eh? The rain helped everything grow so fast and now, a month later the vine (potato vine) on the left is up on the roof. I took this bad iPhone pic to show you how much it’s grown:

It may need me to go out there and tame it a little bit, but I’m really enjoying the view from my bed with all the little flowers in the window.

Surprisingly adding this little space feels like getting a lot of bang for our buck. As you may remember from one of the process posts about this, a big reason we wanted this tub is because our one and only bathtub (in our one and only bathroom) is tiny and way too shallow to soak in and my husband is a BIG bath boy – a BBB if you will. For us, this adds a lot of value to our lives and is another place to hang out together. However, I was thinking about if we ever move out of this house and took the tub with us, it would be a nice (more) private and definitely more shaded place to sit outside. Because our backyard is a walk-through for the back unit and their living room and bedroom windows look out onto our backyard, you’re sort of on display for them. This isn’t a problem for us now because we love and are friends with our back tenants, but who knows what the future brings? Also, the shade factor. Our patio is in full sun most of the day. It would actually be nice in that situation to replace the window here with a door from the primary bedroom to make it an on-suite situation. This fact makes the $$ spent seem well invested outside of the hot tub of it all.

This photo is taken standing up so you can imagine if you were sitting down, especially later in the spring/summer, the plants and the house tuck you in a bit.

Back to the hot tub though…

The tub itself is absolutely beautifully made. The tubs are made in Canada from 100% recyclable materials. Goodland uses marine grade aluminum, western red cedar as well as oak and raw brass detailing. The quality is outstanding and it was very easy to assemble. Goodland as a company is so good at getting information out there. You can ask away in the comments but I will also direct you to their FAQs and YouTube channel. On the YouTube channel, you can find a set up video. When I say it’s easy to set up, I mean you could probably figure it out without instruction – it’s that intuitive, maybe takes 15 minutes, and doesn’t require a professional as no plumbing or electricity is needed. As far as moving it to the desired location, the cedar planks on the side easily slide out, and if you do so the tub itself is only 125 lbs and all the other pieces can be moved separately.

Couple of honorable mentions before we get into how the hot tub works… 

The tub is nice and deep, which is exactly what we needed, but we were having a hard time finding a side table to set things on that would 1) fit in this small area and 2) was tall enough to be easy to reach. Our trusty Article Hendry accent table is great but sometimes we need more real estate. For example, when I’ve handed Andrew his lunch through this very window so he could enjoy it WHILE BATHING (I mean, if that’s not luxury, what is?), it’s helpful to have a surface that is big and accessible. My conclusion was that what we needed was a bath tray. After searching far and wide on the internet and either not finding one long enough or not wanting to spend HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS, I tasked my husband to make one for us. It’s a simple construction as you can see, I bought a 1”x6”x8’ piece of walnut and a smaller piece that I believe was 1”x2”x24”(not online that I can find). Andrew cut the smaller piece in half to use for the ends (so it doesn’t slide around or accidentally fall into the water) and the 8’ piece he cut into 2 pieces, enough to be wider than the hot tub which is 29” wide + 2” for the end pieces +1” wiggle room (so two 34” long pieces). He screwed the end pieces in from the bottom on each side, finished with a matte poly we had in the garage, and voila! A beautiful (and very secure!) bath tray. It was a little more pricey because I chose walnut but nowhere near what I was finding online and a huge plus that we made it to fit exactly. FYI, we don’t keep it outside, we just grab it from our storage bench on the side of the house when we need it. 

It also doubled as a cat bridge when Puck would get curious enough to jump out. *single tear*

French Press | Coffee Mug

Goodland also makes a very beautiful firewood holder but we simply didn’t have the space. I bought this cheap one on Amazon that works just fine for us and has even done ok with all the rain, probably because we cover it with this firewood rack cover. It’s leaked some rusty- residue but one of the benefits of having a concrete slab is I don’t really care about that kind of thing.

Firewood Holder | Net | Heat-Resistant Gloves | Teak Bath Mat | Green Accent Table | Lantern (similar)

We keep the net, heat-resistant gloves, axe, and lighter on the hooks around the firewood holder. The final mention is the extra long teak bath mat that also assists in keeping our feet from getting too dirty on the way in or out of the bath. Teak is expensive but I splurged on it so I wouldn’t have to worry about leaving it outside. Lanterns are vintage Target, I’ve talked about them before and have had them for years. Every year I spray them with a high heat spray paint to keep them looking new. I hung one on the edge of the wood wall with this hook. All the pots are collected over time from local nurseries. I keep a couple of smaller pots of small-diameter kindling ready to go. Which brings us to how this gorgeous Goodland hot tub works…

Lantern Hook | Lantern (similar)

Craig from Goodland does a great video on how to start your fire here. He recommends starting with some balled-up paper but I’m going to let you in on a little secret…toilet paper rolls filled with lint are the best fire starters out there. I keep a roll on my dryer at all times, when it is filled up I throw it in a bag by my back door to use when I need it.

We have a few trees so it’s easy for us to grab a handful of small limbs along with the small-diameter kindling. We have a stump in the garden for cutting the wood up into the kindling and smaller pieces of wood (seen below with the net we forgot to move before taking the pic 🙂 ).

Arrange paper (or toilet paper rolls of lint), smaller sticks if you have them, and small-diameter kindling in the bottom and once the fire gets going, you can add slightly larger pieces of wood (up to 4” diameter).

As Craig explains in the video, there should be very little smoke coming out of the chimney, and if there is it means the fire needs more air. The lid can slide around to allow more or less air in.

Fireplace Tongs | Towel

After the fire is going, we cover the tub so the heat doesn’t escape. We’ve found that the tub takes about 90 minutes to heat up. Every 20 minutes or so we will check on the fire and add wood if necessary, pull the cover back and stir with the Goodland paddle that comes with the tub. I have the paddle and the fireplace tongs mounted close by for easy access.

The seats inside are cedar and have I mentioned that it still smells like cedar every time we heat it up? I hope that lasts forever. Speaking of smells, I have strategically (and accidentally) planted herbs and flowers around and near the hot tub so that I can easily throw together a bundle for the bath. There’s lavender and rosemary in the planter with the potato vine. I used them, along with a cutting from the potted eucalyptus tree next to the tub, some fragrant Mexican marigolds, and some other variants of rosemary that are planted in the garden nearby. If it’s the first time we are using the tub after cleaning and filling it, I put a half a (almost 20 lb) bag of Epsom salt in it as well. 

Brass Hand Shower

Goodland has a number of bath accouterments, including this brass hand shower. You can tell just by looking at that photo how fun and relaxing it is to be under it. We have left it outside to patina naturally and I think it’s more beautiful than it was the day we got it. It’s also a great over-the-top gift for a loved one who likes bathing.

We keep our water for 10-14 days if we are using it regularly. There is a hose attached underneath on the left side. There’s just enough room between the house and the planter to shove it back there after it’s drained the tub. We use the hose, along with large watering cans to use the water to hydrate the garden and all of our pots and planters especially those that don’t have irrigation. Being able to recycle the water this way, along with not having drying and irritating chemicals on our skin, is the main reason we wanted this tub. Goodland does note that “Our hot tub’s water returns to ambient temperature when not in use, which doesn’t allow harmful bacteria to thrive as they do in always-warm hot tubs. The use of safer alternatives like bromine or hydrogen peroxide can prolong the life of your tub water to three weeks of daily use.” We have not had the need so personally, I haven’t tried using bromine or hydrogen peroxide. A quick Google shows that neither are dangerous for plants though, so I assume you can still use the water for your garden if you chose to go that route. 

After emptying, I throw some vinegar in and give it a good scrub with my power scrubber brush (makes it way easier), rinse with the hose and I’m done. Protip: the bottom of the tub is very square and therefore a little hard to empty all the way. You *can* tip the whole thing over when cleaning, but that would be hard with one person and given the space I have. Last time our tub was empty we put a couple of shims on the right side so it tilts slightly towards the drain to help empty completely. Before we did that I would have to sop up the remaining water with a old towel, which wasn’t the end of the world. Before we build our next fire for the tub, we use the Goodland Ash Scooper to clean out the old ash, which is good to do for fire safety.

In case you’re curious about where the hose is to fill it back up it’s next to the Jasmine bush around the corner:)

Ash Scooper

Some final thoughts:

There were a LOT of opinions on the process post about this hot tub. Mostly people being concerned about the proximity to the house (it’s a smidge closer than Goodland recommends) and to other houses in an area that is prone to fire. I know now, after having and using it for a number of months that yes, of course, you must practice fire safety. We never leave while the fire is burning and we follow the guidelines of the city. If there is a fire ban, for instance, we would not use the hot tub. We can use it as a cold plunge though and I’m excited to try that! There should be little to no smoke or burning ash. The fire that you make for the tub feels way safer to me than a fire pit for instance or even a charcoal grill. It’s more contained and the chimney helps in keeping debris from flying around. I will have to be even more careful in the dry season but if LA keeps up this weird weather, it seems like for half the year I don’t need to be very concerned at all. It was wonderful using the tub in the rain because I didn’t have to worry about anything and it was such a sensory experience!

We have enjoyed having this relaxing space, especially in this very busy, stressful, and grief-filled season. We have had a lot going on, even more than I share here of course, and then there’s the wildness that it is to be a human in 2023… It’s all a lot and I hope everyone is ok. I feel like everyone I know is just going through it and I have a feeling it may be bigger than my group of friends and family. It’s important that we find ways to slow down and connect with each other. This tub has been a part of that practice for me and I want to thank Craig and Goodland, EHD, and of course all of you for engaging. If you have any questions, pop them below, maybe I can even get Craig over here to talk to you all 🙂 Or honestly, if you have any ways you are keeping sane in 2023 or just want to complain/connect as humans, do that below as well. See you soon to talk about another way I’m staying sane – my Down to Farm urban garden!

*Design and Styled by Emily Bowser
**Photos by Sara Ligorria-Tramp

Hello hello! Better late than never? Where has the time gone?? I CANNOT believe we are already wrapping up March. HOW? I was really really hoping 2023 was going to bring a breath of fresh air and some rest for the Bowser household but it has proven to be a challenging and busy year so far. It’s not all bad, we have done some traveling and work has been more consistent than it has been in the past year and a half. However, I bring sad and shocking news for anyone who follows all my cat sagas: A couple days after we got back from Sundance at the end of January, we found out our 7-year-old cat Puck had a large cancerous tumor in his intestine. He got on steroids and gave us another 4 weeks before we made the tough choice to help him transition to the next life. Our house feels more empty than we could have imagined and we all miss him very, very much. He was a challenging and adventurous cat who loved to play fetch, bring me dead (and sometimes alive) mice, fight neighborhood raccoons, had a crush on any woman who came to the house, and in the end, despite his tendency to be more of an independent spirit, made it clear how much he loved and trusted us in the last few weeks of his life. It is wild how much these little creatures affect our lives and I’m hoping our cat luck will take a turn for the positive because I’m not sure how much more heartache I can take. In good news, Puck spending his last days cuddling with us really taught Gremmy a thing or two. I think Gremmy and Daffy were aware something was wrong and they stayed close. During this time Gremmy would come up on the bed and lay close by, which is not something he would do before. This past week Gremmy has been getting on my lap and if you’re one of the few Gremmy super fans you know this is huge. 

Now you may understand why I‘m a little slow in getting these reveals out. The good news is we have shot so much now I just have to write!

I wanted to start with the kitchen because honestly it was supposed to be finished in September! As always, I’m living proof that these things take time. So much time and money and time is money etc etc. You can read the intro to this post here. Cliff notes: It is the last room in the house to be “finished” because it’s been fine after the initial reno that made it safe (there was mold) and liveable. When initially renovating we were WAY out of money so I didn’t get to do what I wanted, I just kept it simple white subway tiles, white shaker cabinets, and black hex floors which felt like they would remain timeless because historically those are pretty timeless finishes but, you know, now it feels very 2015. I wanted to make it feel more “me” while gaining some storage but without doing any major reno, for waste and money reasons. 
Enter my friend Rebecca (a designer, design producer, and entrepreneur) and her company Design By Numbers. We knew each other from working on HGTV’s Build Me Up (RIP) with host Orlando Soria (you may know him 🙂 ). We would all Marco Polo during the pandemic and be annoyed by the fact that my upper cabinets didn’t go to the ceiling (it was often my background and I would force them to look at them while I talked/screamed about the state of our country). It took a while to actually get to it, but I finally 3D scanned the space (more on this is in the process post) and she had a new cabinet box made to replace the one that didn’t go to the ceiling. Now I have more storage space, a working vent, and much prettier cabinets. I had the lower boxes painted and just replaced the doors and drawer fronts. Shall we get to the reveal??

And now with more interest and depth…

To say that photographing this galley kitchen was a challenge is an understatement. Poor Sara. This is the most pulled-back we could get without it getting too fish-eye-ish

As you can see through, the uppers on the left now reach the ceiling AND incorporate the fridge making it feel more integrated. The cabinet style is called “baby shaker” and the color is “Putty”. It’s a greenish, greyish taupe and adds the perfect amount of warmth without being overwhelming in this small space. The simple and modern pulls and knobs are by Rejuvenation. I wanted hits of black to make the floor feel more incorporated into the design, I didn’t want it to feel like I designed this kitchen over 7 years. It was all totally thought through and on purpose 🙂 I had the recessed light over the sink changed so that I could have this beautiful ceramic light by Rejuvenation. It’s both practical in that it gives off much nicer light than the recessed light (had a dimmer put on that switch as well) and obviously makes a much bigger statement than having nothing at all there. 

One more time…

And now…

Over the Door Towel Bar | Ceramic Light | Pulls | Knobs

Soap Dispenser and Sponge Holder | Faucet

I love the way the doors are designed, they trick you into thinking they are frameless. These are good photos to talk about ADHD and design:). It’s funny, some would think that it would be easier to have less visual noise when you have ADHD. I think to some these photos may seem busy, but it all just makes sense to me. I use my kitchen a lot. We both work from home and one or both of us cook almost every meal every day in this tiny space. If things are visible in an organized way it helps me know not only where things are at all times and keep hoarding to a minimum, but it also feels like one less step when I go to cook. It’s hard to explain to people who don’t have the same hang-ups while trying to do basic tasks but maybe my fellow ADHD-ers will understand. I’m actually not a naturally organized or tidy person but I learned early that fewer choices and easy accessibility make my life easier. Liking my kitchen this way makes me think Julia Child may have had ADHD too :). It’s also important that everything that is out is also used often enough that it doesn’t get that weird oily dust from existing in a kitchen. Everything out I use almost daily, with the slight exception of the cutting boards although those are easier stored this way because with my job I often have to grab 5-10 of them as props often. 

Pot Rack Bar | Hooks | Pots and Pans

Rejuvenation’s Emery Pot Rack Bar and hooks hold all my everyday pots and pans and a few other commonly used tools. My shelving brackets on the other side of my sink are from IronAbode. They have so many amazing shelf bracket options and are very affordable. They offer the actual wood shelves as well but because of the cost of shipping it just made sense for me to drive over to our friends Ross Alan Reclaimed in the valley and have a few shelves made there. I also got the wood for the top of my DIY lower cabinet from them, which you can read about in the process post if you haven’t already. The counter under that open shelving is where I end up doing 99% of food prep because the space to the right of the sink (above) is generally where clean dishes are “drying” aka probably sitting there until I use them again :). 

Why yes that’s an oil painting that is for some reason painted on a very old and used cookie pan. You can’t really know that without seeing it up close but I wanted the internet to know because it makes me so happy that it’s on theme. Fun fact, I found it at a flea market in Seattle. On the same trip, I found the string of vintage buoys that hang above my bed. 

I switched out my faucet for an unlacquered brass one from an Italian-based company Francone Bespoke Taps. I bought it to research for a job. Unlacquered brass in America isn’t cheap and at the time I purchased this one it was only $363, which was more affordable than it is now, but I would still say it is a quality faucet and I’ve enjoyed it. I’m sure they realized they weren’t charging enough/could charge more because it is very nice.

I want to mention my paper towel/ towel holder. I love it because it keeps me from just reaching for a paper towel without thinking. Because of pet messes and cleaning out my iron skillets, I like to have them on hand but not too on hand, you know? Another product I want to shout out is my soap dispenser and sponge holder. I want to be a solid soap person but I’m sorry, I’m a Dawn girl until I die. It just works so much better and I use it in so many homemade cleaners so I’m going to buy the huge Costco tubs of them a couple of times a year and decant them into this dispenser. 

Shell Bowl | Magnetic Knife Rack | Knives | Magnetic Light | Shelving Brackets | Gold Dishware | Mixing Bowls | Green Plates (similar)

In keeping with the “put everything on the wall” theme, this magnetic knife rack holds my favorite slicing and dicing knives by Shun. I own more knives than that but they must have been dirty? If you look carefully, above the knife rack and attached to the bottom shelf there is a wooden work light. I’m calling this out for anyone like me that prefers to have their house seem like modern electricity doesn’t exist. Both Andrew and I are very sensitive to harsh light and have dimmers on essentially every light in the house but when making dinner, candlelight-level lightning isn’t really safe when using a sharp knife. After Andrew cut off half his thumb while chopping veggies last year I researched and found this simple (and cuter than it needs to be) magnetic light that recharges with a USB cord. I don’t use the rotatable piece, it comes with a flat magnet sticker as well that I screwed into the bottom of the shelf so it wouldn’t fall off, as those stickers seem to do eventually. This way we can keep most of the lights chill but have a work light where prep is happening.

I’ve owned the Gold Oak Kaloh dishes from West Elm for years. They’re just simple and good. So good in fact that I actually own twice as many as are seen here for large parties/when I inevitably break one. The mixing and serving bowls on the top shelf are from that line as well. The pretty ceramic cups were a gift and the green dishes and black mugs are vintage Hearth and Hand 🙂 The onion and garlic bowl is a Jayson Home concrete shell. Is it food safe? Who knows. Tell me how I’m going to get cancer in the comments. 

Peep my amazing hedge out the kitchen window. Would it even be a blog post from me if I didn’t somehow bring up the only thing in my life that has ever just worked the way it was supposed to, my glorious 20-foot tall hedge?? I used to need a curtain here because my window looked directly into my neighbors but now I can look out to a sea of green. Some people have children, other people have hedges. Truly my pride and joy.

Switch Plate | Tea Kettle | Salt and Pepper Grinders | Pitcher (similar)

I decided to embrace the fact that my kitchen was renovated in this decade so therefore I feel like I have 1 million plugs and switches in a tiny space. Instead of hiding them, I gave them some bling with Rejuvenation’s switch plates. Then the tea kettle is by Fellow and those are vintage Nissen Denmark salt and pepper grinders, you can find them pretty easily on Etsy. I’m fraid the pitcher is old from Target and unavail at the moment.

GREMMY!!

Welcome to the area where Gremmy essentially lives because this is where he gets fed and thinks if he sits there food will magically appear. Also ever since I put this Jean Palmer Home vintage rug here all the cats have loved hanging out with me when I’m in the kitchen. 

Wine Rack | Rug (vintage) | Lamp (unavailable) | IKEA Unit | Cabinet Pulls | Wood Countertop

This is my perfect-size IKEA hack cabinet with Ross Alan Reclaimed top that you’ve seen in the process post. It houses all my cookbooks and our pantry things. I bought a wine rack for this area because we buy natural biodynamic wine in bulk for, you know, savings…and drinkings, so it’s not unusual for us to have too many wine bottles at any given time. I moved this old West Elm lamp from my living room into here because it’s perfect for giving off ambient light and being easy to clean. They no longer sell it but the link is there if you want to try to find it used online. I’m not going to link all my cutting boards because that would be wild. A lot of them are vintage, but if you have a question about any of them, ask away below!

Shelving Unit

Did I say I was going to do my laundry room? Let’s pretend I didn’t 🙂 INSTEAD let’s talk about the whole original inspo for doing anything with this space. I talked about this in the intro but this weird shape at the end of the kitchen has been tricky. There’s about 12” of wall on each side of the doorway to the laundry room and the IKEA hack was great for the right side, but because you needed space to walk past the edge of the counter you see on the right here, I needed something slim and tall on the left. Enter the Hart Modular Walnut Shelving Unit from Rejuvenation. I was also so happy to have some more open shelving to keep some of my pretty things I use when we have company and also a drink station for our everyday coffee and/or matcha…addiction. It’s visually helpful that the shelving unit is floating, it *feels* lighter and I hung it so that it would be even with the counter across from it.

Rail System | Matcha Maker | Coffee Grinder

I loved the Brookeside Rail System, also from Rejuvenation, in Sara’s kitchen reveal and it very practically holds bar/coffee/tea accouterments so I don’t have to dig through drawers for tiny things. The bottom cabinet holds our fancy dishware. Head over to IG to see an up close and personal tour of this very hard-to-capture in photos corner :). The Cuzen matcha maker and Fellow coffee grinder (I bought mine refurbished) are everyday appliances so they stay on the counter, luckily they are as pretty as they are practical.

French Press | Glass Canisters

Look how pretty that walnut is! You can see here that the shelves are entirely adjustable.

If you are a French press person, I highly recommend this very inexpensive ($20!), extra large (34 oz!), double-walled (so it stays hot!), stainless steel (unbreakable!) french press. Save your money for a good grinder. I was shocked at how much that is a game changer. No need for expensive coffee makers in my opinion. Unless they are very fancy, and in that case, yeah probably buy those if you have the $$. Here’s a link for the simple canisters, but please don’t make me link everything on the rail system 🙂 if you have a question about something specific, ask away below!

If you are curious about the Cuzen matcha maker, it stores, grinds, and whisks whole matcha leaves. Apparently, this is the best way to consume matcha. They have a whole section of their website where they break it down. All I can say is it is convenient and delicious. I’ve taken to midday matcha with homemade cashew milk and have cut down our coffee consumption considerably.

Step Ladder

Let’s turn around and look from the laundry room through to the new and improved dining nook. When you don’t have a lot of square footage, you have to go vertical. In the couple of inches between the IKEA cabinet and my kitchen cabinets I have a slim step ladder to reach my upper cabinets (now that they go all the way to the ceiling) and the top of the open shelving as well.

Let’s get into the dining space! As you may have seen, I revealed this space back in 2019. It’s a teeny tiny space, 7’5”x7’7”, that connects the living room to the kitchen. We needed to be able to fit a table but you also have to be able to walk past the chairs without tripping. Here’s a pic from that reveal:

Putting in an L-shaped bench helped a lot with being able to make the most of the space we had but here are the issues we still had: 1. The vintage table that I loved was just a bit too big. It was 48” wide and we had to cram it just a little too much into the corner to make it so that we could walk by. 2. I made a mistake and didn’t consider the fact that the vintage table had a lip, about 4 inches all the way around it, so in reality I should have lowered the bench a few inches to compensate for that. It wasn’t impossible to put your legs under the table or anything, but you couldn’t cross your legs for example, it was just a little too smooshed. 3. My vintage chairs also stuck out a little too much, as you can see the back has a sort of handle that would get caught on your hip as you walked by if you weren’t careful. Don’t worry. They live in my office now. I love those damn chairs. 4. The loose pillows were driving me crazy. They were always thrown around and messy looking 5. The banquette was getting scuffed to hell by our feet.

I looked and looked for a table that would be smaller but not *too* much smaller, I still needed it to be a proper dining table that could easily seat at least 4 people (this is also sometimes a workspace) so I couldn’t have it be a bistro table, for example. When working in small spaces I find that it’s hard because you need every inch but one inch too much is too much, you know??

I found this beautiful, high-quality white oak table by Sundays Furniture. It was perfect because it was 42”, so still big enough, but a  6” difference in a space that’s only 7’ is a lot! They had lovely, comfortable, durable chairs (with easy-to-clean seat pads!) as well so I reached out and the rest is history. And if you are interested in getting anything from them they are offering 10% off with code EMILYB10. Ok wanna see??

Table | Chairs | Runner | Ribbon Art | Chandelier | Roman Shade

What a mood change huh?? I bought a cheap-ish runner off of Etsy. It was $300 and the perfect width where I could split it down the center and make 2 pieces out of it to attach to the sides of the banquette. Don’t worry, it was not vintage. I’ve attached it with Velcro under the cushions and along the side so I can take it off to clean it. Cushions are the same as before, custom, made of green canvas that has held up well. The new pillows along the back are two body pillow inserts with custom cases I had made from vintage wool army blankets. They stay in place much better and offer more support. As you can see, no need to change the window treatments from Barn & Willow, the amazing ribbon art of Angela Chrusciaki, or the understated but perfect Schoolhouse chandelier. The Round pillow is vintage West Elm, sorry!

As you can see, there’s a little more space for the chair to be pushed out, but still able to get around. The chairs can also push in a lot more than seen here if necessary. The cushion on the chair is a must for me. We love hosting dinners and there is nothing I hate more than being uncomfortable or being concerned that our guests are uncomfortable. So far no issues with the cats tearing up the cushions accidentally or on purpose. They are also completely removable and easy to wipe down. The table is super sturdy. It’s solid white oak with a steel base so it’s not going anywhere, not even if Daffy tries her hardest 🙂

The tulip style also gives us the most legroom, especially if we are squeezing in a bunch of people for game night. It also gives us the flexibility to be able to push the chairs around easily.

Vase | Branches (unavailable) | Candlesticks | Candlestick Holders (similar)

This vase is my favorite from CB2. It’s currently on sale and you should buy it, you won’t regret it. I’m sorry to report that the very good faux branches are from Target last year and I don’t think they carry them anymore, same for the candlestick holder. As always though, I will implore you not to waste your money on candlesticks that drip. I usually buy Yummi brand – they don’t drip and they come in a lot of sizes.

Don’t worry! The cat “hide-y hole”, as we call it, still exists. It now even has a camera so we can spy on them with motion-activated lights 🙂

Table Lamp | Vase | Black Tray |

This is where we did the lamp switcheroo, I’m using the Avena Table Lamp from Crate & Barrel here now. The tray on the vintage entry table is by Ferm and the pretty vase is from Jayson Home. The whole vibe change by bringing more depth over here kind of blows my mind. Of course, now I’m thinking of how the living room needs a little facelift in light of all this…someone stop me. Seriously. Next up…HOT TUB! See you all soon!

RIP Puck 🙁

*Design and Styled by Emily Bowser
**Photos by Sara Ligorria-Tramp

Hello everyone! I’m writing this during my most favorite time of the year, the week between Christmas and New Year’s when no one should put on hard pants, open an email, or walk outside. Unless, of course, you’re walking into your perfectly styled backyard that we will be looking at today. 

I am using the time to catch up on rest. This year has been a doozy. For the Bowser’s it has been a year of grinding and grinding and feeling like you’re getting nowhere. On top of that, our cat Gremmy went missing for 6 long weeks and Daffy, my most precious love (also a cat) had a terrifying and expensive brush with death. You know that feeling like you’re digging a hole but like, someone is behind you kicking the dirt back in? That’s been 2022. In exciting news, my husband got his movie into Sundance. Yes. The movie he was famously getting ready for in this room got into the biggest film festival in North America:

Sundance is a really big deal. Huge. Really happy and proud and excited for him BUT a fun thing for ME is that we are going to be quarantining starting Jan 1 so we don’t get sick before we leave on the 17th which basically means this boxing day/week will extend until the 17th! I’m being forced to NOT WORK! I mean, that’s not totally true, I worked on a project with William Hunter Collective over this year and I will be sourcing from home for another one to make ends meet as well as finishing up my kitchen reveal (waiting on one last thing before I can shoot – lead times AM I RIGHT?) and writing a few blog posts for you all. But does it count as work if you’re not wearing hard pants and your cat is on your lap?? The answer is yes, but in comparison to my 2022 – no.

I’ve been mostly off for the past couple of weeks as production always slows down during the holiday season but I’m still vibrating with the anxieties of these past couple of years. I’m excited to enjoy my home, catch up, and reset for 2023. This is also my birthday week, which as a young person was a bit of a bummer but as an adult, it has been the best. No one bothers you, I never have a job, and it’s a great time to reflect and re-evaluate. I know logically that nothing has to fundamentally change because you turn a year older or because the calendar flips to a new year, but I’ve always loved the idea of a fresh start and I have quite a few half-used planners to prove it.

~Resolution #1: Don’t buy another planner. Do. Not. It will not fix your ADD and will only bring you shame whenever you come across it.~

Let’s get into this sweet little rental reveal, shall we? When I last talked to you about my back house’s backyard (BHBY) I had written half of it when Daffy had a massive seizure, continued to have seizures for days, and I lost all sense of self and time and then I guess I finished it? Honestly, it’s a blur. It’s amazing how these little creatures affect our lives so wholly. My friend Lauren dropped everything and flew to be with me because we had always “joked” how she would need to do that if something happened to Daffy. I do not know how I could have gotten through the next few days without her. She sat with me and stared into the horizon, she helped me build the Veradek planters that came for this shoot, went with me to the flea market to find a bar/console for this space, she drove with me to the fabric district to find last minute upholstery fabric for the WH project. She’s a real one, be a friend like Lauren. Also, big thanks to everyone who gave to Daffy’s GoFundMe, it has been very helpful in alleviating some of the financial stress. The update for those interested is that I am in the appeal process with the pet insurance company that denied me the first time around. BUT I am happy to report that Daffy is soundly snoring in the window next to me, and is only maybe a teensy bit brain-damaged? We are thankful and so happy that she is still a sweet girl who enjoys her life, loves treats, and I think maybe even likes Gremmy a little more than she used to, which is the biggest blessing in all of this. Live shot of a sleeping Daffy:

I got off track, the point is: I’m not sure I remember everything I said in that post and I’m scared to re-read it as I’m not sure if it will be triggering. I know I talked about all the different spaces and I tackled most of them. I am the person here to remind you that projects take lots of time and money and you are not going to be able to do it all overnight unless (and maybe not even if) it is your literal job. It may surprise some of you but this is not mine, in fact, these projects cost me quite a bit of money but we’ll get into costs in a bit. Anyway, life got wild so, for example, the sunshade idea got cut because the sun isn’t high enough this time of year for it to be an immediate problem. I had a great idea for an herb garden in the area I called “1” (photo below for reference) but I missed planting season and it would have required more money from me to finish the job well. I ended up tackling spaces 3, 4, 5, and 6. The good news is that when spring comes we will check back in to see how everything is growing and how the rest of the spaces turned out.

Before we get into the super fun stuff, let’s talk about the boring, time-consuming, frustrating, and costly things. My forte really 🙂

Although I would love to get new fencing around our entire property, I don’t have the funds for that at the moment so I decided to stain the fence myself which I 100% do not recommend:) It was time-consuming and my quads hurt for days. I would go out from 6 am-8 am and then work all day, come home and stain more by bistro light. It does look better though and should help while we wait for wood prices to go down (please dear Lord). Because I did the work myself and I had leftover stain, the cost wasn’t too high (financially anyway). I used English Chestnut by Minwax because, well, that’s what I had. They’re about $50/gallon and I ended up needing to buy an extra gallon. This isn’t a long-term solution, something that I just need to last me a couple of years so I did nothing except power wash the fence and then apply the stain. 

After staining I couldn’t stand the color of the concrete. I wanted something browner with more texture so that dirt would hide better. Ok, also because I totally got stain all over the ground and needed to cover it up. I did some research and decided to go with Behr Granite Grip in Tan and I have some information for you: don’t do it unless you are RICH. It is so expensive and you need like 5 times more than you think you would need. I finally just had to stop after 4 coats because it’s $300 for 5 gallons and it does not go far. Annoyingly after spending $1200 on paint (that’s TWENTY gallons) and $1000 to have someone else paint it for days because it took so many more coats than expected (and because I was slammed with work at the time) it still looks…meh. It’s better for sure but you can see a hint of blue underneath. We put on one more coat after this was taken, but as you can see the paint is way more texture than color.

I would recommend being a) rich or b) painting the base much closer to what you want and then adding the texture on top. I guess we will have to put more coats on it eventually? In my estimation, it needs another $900 of paint and I would probably just do it myself to save on labor. I’ve also wondered what would happen if I just painted something close to the tan on top? Anybody have any experience with this product? We are now in our rainy season so I’ll revisit this in the spring. 

The other major cost that I underestimated was the cost of dirt/plants/irrigation for these Veradek planters. The very good thing about these planters is that they are huge, 32” tall, 42” wide, and 16” deep. They have a shelf inside that is removable. You can use the shelf to use less dirt and have the plant appear taller, or you can remove and use the entire space for dirt and allow bigger plants to really take root. I wanted massive planters because for each space I needed the plants to be able to mature. As you may remember, a big part of taking on this project was to cover up an unsightly neighbor’s roof situation (as you can see from the photos of the fence above). In the dining area, I wanted to break up the black walls of the house with greenery and along the neighbor’s fence on the right side of the property (area 1, 2, & 3) I wanted to plant something that would grow big enough to cover the backside of the fence. I also wanted to add as much greenery as possible to a space that is covered in concrete. Irrigation was also a must so that my tenants wouldn’t have to worry about caring for the plants and I wouldn’t have to let myself into their space on a regular basis. Plus I have ADD, out of sight out of mind. Those plants would be dead in a week if I was in charge of watering them. The bad news is this was not a cheap feat – especially because I wanted immediate results.  

As we talk boring numbers, let’s take a break and look at how nice it all turned out. We had 5 large Veradek planters total and used 3 of them in the very back living room area (number 6 on the map) and we put 2 – 15 gallon ficus (same as the hedge in my backyard) in each planter. 

Sectional and Coffee Table | Outdoor Lanterns | Side Table | Privacy Screens | Planters

Oooooo ahhhhhhh!!

Look how little of that roof we see now! So much better. As you can see, the ficus is huge. The privacy screens from Veradek are very tall (100” to be exact) and the ficuses are a good 2 feet taller than the privacy screens. Ok, now that the blow has been softened, 6 – 15 gallon ficus with dirt and install cost $1400. The cost of adding a zone of irrigation for these planters was $1100. Not a cheap situation. HOWEVER, this is now a pleasant area to spend time in that was formerly not being used – and that is priceless. These privacy screens are a game changer. They are heavy-duty and I‘m not a bit scared of them tipping over. They bring so much visual interest to the space while creating both privacy and a sense of coziness – it feels like you are in a living room. It’s obviously not *just* the planters. Article’s gorgeous (and durable!) outdoor sectional (with coordinating coffee table!) also helped out the situation greatly. We decided against adding string lights to the area because the outdoor lanterns do the job, and they cast such pretty shadows while doing it! Hendry side table is great for moving around wherever you need it.

As you can see in this close up, I’m allowing the corten steel to age naturally. There is a way to speed up the process but I’ve been enjoying watching them slowly change with the weather. I think if I got them during a drier season I would have aged them myself. I know Orlando aged his Veradek planters and screens faster with a vinegar mixture which was probably a smart choice as he was prepping that reveal during a drought. You can see the blue-ish hue of the steel peeking through the drops of rust LIKE YOU CAN SEE THE BLUE PAINT PEEKING THROUGH THE TOO EXPENSIVE “GRANITE GRIP” ON THE GROUND. Ugh. I added in some accents of blue so maybe it was all on purpose after all??

Blue Pillows | Green Pillows | Mustard Lumbar | Plaid Wool Blanket

Fun fact about me: I don’t believe in outdoor decorative pillows, blankets, or rugs. Never once have I had them not get gross or just be gross – they’re never a nice material. I opt for keeping pillows and blankets in a waterproof box (like this one) along with covers for the furniture so they are easy to grab and put on if weather is coming. A ladder that can stay outside can be used to put your comfy throws out for people to help themselves to when it gets chilly.

Ladder (similar)

Unfortunately, this ladder is “vintage” Target 🙂 but this one is similar. If you are curious, the plants in the smaller planters are justicia brandegeeana or the “Mexican shrimp plant”. They have a nice fall vibe this time of year for southern California.

As you can see there was little to be done about the neighbor’s taller fence behind our fence situation, and it’s hard to see but the fence takes a pretty sharp diagonal turn in towards us so I couldn’t continue with the planters or privacy wall without losing valuable square footage. It’s hard to capture in these photos, but I took some video at the end of the shoot day, head to my instagram or Emily’s instagram for some BTS. 

Thermos | Blue Tray (on sale!) | Mugs (on sale!) | Towel | Cup (handmade/vintage)  | Snacks (Trader Joe’s:))

In early 2022, before everything went nuts for us, we were so excited to host outdoor hangs and every Sunday we would make food and invite a different couple or small group over. 

~Resolution #2: More friends and outdoor hangs~ 

An easy host moment is a DIY hot chocolate station, as pictured here.

Dining Table (similar) | Chairs | String Lights

Speaking of hosting, may I present the dining/grill/bar area! This photo helps in trying to understand the confusing layout of this space. You can see the sectional in the far corner, bar to the right, house on the left. Not seen: to the right of the bar is the tenant’s grill, which they use often. Hope and Daniel (the tenants) are great cooks and wonderful hosts. A large table with comfortable chairs was a necessity. Article doesn’t have this particular teak table at the moment, but they have this teak table. I’m a big fan of weather-resistant teak that will silver over time and last forever(ish). The chairs are a nice colorful punch as well as very comfortable and will stand up in weather. The metal is powder coated and the arms are teak. The slim seat cushion is easy to remove, throw in the wash if needed, and will dry fast if it gets wet.

For the planter in the dining area I wanted jasmine and bougainvillea to break up the black wall of the house. They aren’t too impressive yet but are both known to be fast growers, we’ll have to check back in a few months. My landscaper put in the wire because I don’t know if you have ever drilled into stucco, but I have and there’s little I hate more. I needed wire here, by my front steps and in my backyard (for my upcoming Goodland hot tub area reveal!). The stainless steel trellis and install was $823.96 for all three spaces, so this area was maybe $300 of that bill? 

Vase | “Runner” (it’s a folded tablecloth)  | Tealight Candle Holders | Candlestick Holders (Studio Mcgee for Target a couple years ago) | Black Candlesticks | Brown Candlesticks | Plates | Bowls | Flatware | Napkins | Cocktail Glass | Woven Coaster | Wine glasses (vintage – similar) | Pepper Grinder (vintage – similar) | Salt pinch (vintage)

The light was really difficult for this shoot, even in sunny Southern California the sun does not get high in the middle of the winter. You can see the cables if you look closely, I will probably have to add a row on the left if the bougainvillea takes off, as it is prone to do here. I tried to make a pretty tablescape for us but by God is it hard to see. 

Planter | Table (vintage ) Drink Dispenser | Tray | Coup Glasses | Glass Straws | More Glass Straws | More Glass Straws 🙂 | Pot with Spoon | Trivet | Beverage Bucket | Towel

This is the Daffy-haze flea market bar find. I chose it because it was the perfect size and made of steel, already patinated, so it will last just fine outside. I fancied it up by screwing two of the Veradek privacy panels vertically to the top of it and planted climbing lonicera ciliosa (orange honeysuckle) next to it in a Pure Kona Planter from Veradek. If you’re like me and end up moving planters around a lot you’ll love these pots, they don’t look like plastic but they are, which means they are lighter and don’t break the bank. You’ll be seeing more of them in my urban garden reveal.
When hosting more than two people I want everyone to be able to serve themselves when possible to take some pressure off of me. In this case: chili, sangria, and non-alcoholic drinks are all available on the bar. Those pretty cans are De La Calle Tapache, my new favorite beverage for dry January. They are absolutely delicious and feel like you’re having a cocktail. Come to think of it, I‘m sure they’d be great mixers as well. De La Calle let’s work together! Slide into my DM’s! (hey, it worked for Goodland!)

I own more than a few drink dispensers (weird flex) and this World Market one may be my favorite yet because of the design and price point. 

Rosemary Sangria Recipe that no one asked for but everyone needs in a hosting pinch :

• 1 apple skin on, chopped into small pieces
• 1 orange rind on, sliced in rounds
• ½ cup sliced strawberries
• A few sprigs of rosemary
• 1 cup orange juice 
• 1 cup brandy 
• 1 bottle dry Spanish red wine

Note: I don’t prefer the extra sugar that most sangria recipes call for, if I want it sweeter I add more OJ but if you have more of a sweet tooth would add a couple of tablespoons of sugar to step 1 below…

Instructions

1. Add apples, oranges, strawberries, and rosemary together and muddle, not too mashed but a little mashed – maybe a minute of muddling. Obvi not an exact science.
2. Add orange juice and brandy and muddle again.
3. Add red wine and stir.
4. Garnish with orange rounds or rosemary or both!

Moving from the dining space over into the cozy coffee area (peep Daffy on the chair!). This is area #3 on the map, it’s closer to the front door and where I imagine Hope and Daniel drink their morning coffee, do the crossword, and talk pleasantly about their landlords. For context, this is the same back side of the neighbor’s fence that I‘ve managed to cover with a hedge in my backyard, and the same fence where I recently planted passion fruit in my front yard. Because I’ve had so much luck with it in my front yard, for the final planter along the fence I decided to go with passion fruit again. 

~Resolution #3: Figure out what to do with passion fruit.~ 

It 100% understood the assignment in the front and I’m hoping it does the same here. BTW: we shot the front yard and it will be coming to a blog near you (this one) in the coming weeks. My desire is that the passion fruit will cover a majority of that fence and again, the plant should be able to get pretty mature in the extra-large capacity Veradek planter.

Chairs | Coffee Table (unavailable right now) | Blanket | Pillows | Tray (similar) | Pitcher | Glasses

Granted, the vine looks a little sad here. We had just planted it and it went into a bit of shock. We will check back in in the spring and you all will be so impressed. We’ll also check in on this PATCHY AF CONCRETE. Let’s talk about something more pleasant: these beautiful Article chairs. Y’all. I talked about this in the intro about this space but it bears repeating: I went to see Dirty Dancing this past summer at Rooftop Cinema Club (furnished by Article) and sat in this chair, the Aeri Chair, and I was like “damn, this is extravagance”. She’s big and comfortable. 10/10 recommend.

It is still absolutely wild to me that these trees have survived with all the concrete on top of them. Asking why I didn’t just dig up the concrete or suggesting that I do came up a lot in the comments on my first post about this space. The simple answer is: it’s very costly. I’ve had a lot of concrete dug up and what I’ve learned is, 1) there’s usually a reason it is there, in the case of my property, I live on a hill so it was an attempt to keep water away from the front house and to make this back space more level (and thus more useable), 2) you have no idea how thick it is until you start doing it and the thicker it is, the more expensive it is to remove. 3) grading, building retaining walls, and landscaping is expensive and necessary after removing concrete on a hill. The point of this mini-makeover was to make it as nice as possible without huge reno costs and mostly without getting myself into one of those reno situations where it keeps growing and growing because the more you tear up the more you find to fix. 

Do you know whyyyyy I can’t spend a ton of money back here?? DRUMROLL…

MY
GARAGE
FLOODED
AGAIN.

I’m unable to process it fully to be honest. The garage seemed like it might be ok with this latest bout of rain but about a week in it finally failed. Luckily my (new) contractor was over helping me put up the kitchen shelves (yay!) when Andrew went down to his office (right side of the garage) to find it had flooded, which means my side (because it is lower) was completely flooded. This has happened so many times so my side is ready for it, everything is in waterproof bins and off the ground – his side is not. My contractor went under the house and came back with pictures. According to him, all the waterproofing that we have paid quite a bit for wasn’t done correctly. 

This is fresh and I’m unsure how I’m going to move forward but you all have been on this journey with me so here we are. It’s supposed to rain the next couple of days and we got everything off the ground on the right side, are ready with a wet vac, box fans, and dehumidifiers and we will be meeting with my contractor, talking to my insurance, and sussing out our options in the coming weeks. I’ll keep you updated.

On the plus side, my Down to Farm garden is really happy with all this rain 🙂

Coming up: Urban garden reveal (I eat salad every day, it’s magical), Goodland Hot Tub space (Spoiler alert: we LOVE it), and my much anticipated (at least by me! 7 years in the making!) kitchen reveal. I guess we can add to this list a lot of screaming about my garage and oversharing about my finances (what’s new). 

See you soon!

*Design and Styled by Emily Bowser
**Photos by Sara Ligorria-Tramp

HI EVERYONE!! It’s been a minute. I am so excited to talk to you about this random room that has taken me So. Dang. Long. to figure out. We are going to talk about its evolution from Psycho Parkway to The Bad Boi Room to The Foster Room to Andrew’s Dungeon to my Recovery Space to its present, multipurpose, hardworking, 100 square foot room everyone (including the cats) want to be in 24/7.

Let’s start at square one, the day we closed on the house:

And now you know why we called it Psycho Parkway.

The footprint of this room has remained pretty much the same. We removed the closet, seen here on the left, in order to make space for a bed in the primary bedroom (my headboard is on the other side of this wall). We also lowered the left window to even them out and replaced them. Other than the living room, this was the only other room with original wood floors and as you can see, not in the best condition (Water damage! Termites! Woohoo!). The drywall had to be removed throughout the house in order to replace all the electrical and install AC/heat.

If you haven’t read the financially insane saga of buying this house, you can read it here. The short story is that we were almost completely financially ruined by the “end” of the reno (is it ever really over?). The point is, by the time we were living in the house, we didn’t have ANY money to do, well, anything. Before living here we actually have lived in bigger apartments (square footage wise) but never in a 2 bedroom. We simply didn’t have anything to put in this space. I couldn’t even find a picture of it finished because what ended up happening is, they fixed the floors, closed up the walls, painted them the same color as the rest of the house (Polar Bear by Bher) and we shoved a dresser we owned previously that didn’t fit anywhere else and everything that we didn’t want our cat Puck to get into. This is when the room was dubbed “The Bad Boi Room”. Puck is our difficult baby that we love dearly. He has a lot of…quirks? He’s gotten a bit better with age, but when we moved here he was still pretty young and if he can find even the tiniest piece of plastic, he will eat it, vomit and then pee in/on it. Also he generally will treat anything he can get inside of like a litter box (ask my friend Ashlee who had her suitcase used as one). ALSO any pile of things. Vague, I know. But if it resembles a pile, he would pee on it (ask my friend Jenna, her jacket was tossed on a chair and sort of was like a pile?) 

They are super fun quirks and only a mother could love him. Truly. Good thing when you move to a new place and nothing can go into your garage that’s flooding, you definitely don’t have any plastic or boxes or piles. You also have a TON of patience when said garage is flooding and you owe your contractor $80,000 and have zero dollars. It was also November of 2016. It was a dark timeline.

So, this room became the room we were able to put sh%t in and shut the door – which of course made Puck all the more obsessed with it and he would sneak in whenever possible, all he wanted to do was go in there and be BAD. This lasted…a year? I don’t know, time is weird. Eventually we were able to get one of those pull out couch situations from IKEA and it was a pretty sad, but completely fine guest room. And by guest room, I mean cat room. Cats were the main guests. In fact, we were fostering the best cat in the world in February of 2019 when we used the space (because it was basically an empty room) to shoot a removable wallpaper project for Target.

(Sherman pictured in window. He was “the one who got away”. Not literally. He’s happy in a home, just not mine, which is sad, for me.)

This wallpaper isn’t exactly my personal style vibe, but shooting in this space made me realize a few things: 1. The more stuff that was in the space, the bigger it somehow felt. I don’t know if I mean literally bigger, but I was surprised by how much could fit in there which made it FEEL bigger, if that makes sense (?). It definitely felt cozier and more welcoming. I wanted to be in it. 2. I really liked that high shelf moment and wanted to incorporate that into my design. 3. I wanted the walls to make a statement like this wallpaper.

About a month after the shoot, my husband went freelance and needed a proper office. I had our friend Shade paint the room Laurel Woods by Sherwin Williams which is an INTENSELY dark green. I didn’t know it at the time but it’s also the color of the exterior of the Mountain House. I went. for. it. I had him paint the trim, the inside of the door and the ceiling. My dream was to turn this into a guest room/office/workout space/TV room and it was all in my head. I wanted it DARK for lots of reasons, Andrew likes it dark when he edits videos (he’s not an editor but has to do edit passes regularly), for TV watching, and also I prefer a dark room when I work out (cardio specifically because it makes me zone in).

We had to trash the IKEA couch. During the wallpaper shoot it rained, no, it POURED – and my trusty-most-floodingest garage (where we were storing the couch) did its thing and flooded, like, A LOT. On the bright side, this made us have to make some decisions about furnishing the space fast, which isn’t really my MO. I had a vision of this custom wrap around desk that incorporated a bed which we did DIY but then, crickets. 2019 was CRAZY. We produced SO much at EHD AND I finally pulled together my primary bedroom, bathroom, living room, and dining room for reveals. THEN in November, I left EHD to work on Orlando’s HGTV show, Build Me Up, and worked on that literally into the beginning of the pandemic. “THE SHOW MUST GO ON, no, literally it must – we can’t just leave these people without houses!” Cut to me, maskless, going into every store as the world was shutting down. “GET OUT OF MY WAY I NEED THROW PILLOWS.” Ironically, by the time I was in quarantine, we didn’t have any toilet paper. Why I couldn’t navigate my 2 carts full of tchotchkes to the toilet paper aisle? I’ll never know.

Suffice to say, the office was pretty low on my priorities. I felt like I was barely home the entire year. Like, I know I slept there just about every night but it really didn’t feel like it. Andrew, however, was home ALL the time and if there’s one thing I’ve learned by being with Andrew since the summer of 2000 (yes, you read that correctly) – Andrew should never, ever, be left to his own devices. No, seriously, forget the before from before and BRACE YOURSELVES.

Y’alllllllllll. This is what happens if you let Andrew loose. He brought WFH to a whole new level. I mean, you could spend a long time finding all the gems in this photo, but my favorites include: 1. the robe being used as a window treatment on the left 2. the monster hands on the ground, and 3. the Elvira pin up on the wall. He never turned off that bat light or the red light so when you got up to pee in the middle of the night (the bathroom is directly across the hall) whatever that thing is that’s wearing a fez would stare at you while you were relieving yourself. TERRIFYING. He is constantly creating so that room was pretty much always in a state of chaos even though I made him “pick up” regularly. But I mean, if you can imagine this picked up, it’s still WILD.

Rewind for just a sec…another fun thing that happened in 2019 (riiiiiight as I was starting the show) was that I found out I had fibroids. Not your run of the mill fibroids (not sure what that means) but a fruit basket of fibroids. Well, I liked to call them that because doctors LOVE describing sizes as fruit like we’ve never heard of a centimeter before 🙄. I had a grapefruit, an orange, a lemon, a kiwi, and a grape. Cute right? (Shoutout to Arlyn for making me go to the doctor!). If you aren’t aware, uterine fibroids are noncancerous growths in or on your uterus. Not much is known about why they occur and I won’t get into it because honestly, this isn’t my field and this post is already long enough, but let’s just say gender and race factors around this particular health condition are very much so WHY we don’t know much. Unfortunately, I was one of the women where a myomectomy was my only option. But fortunately, I was able to pull together enough money to pay for my health insurance out of pocket (as I was now freelance). The doctor was all, “Damn. How’d you NOT know about these? They should come out PRONTO” and I was all “Uh. No. Gotta work. V poor. Paying for insurance out of pocket, bought a house, it’s a long story…ALSO DOCTOR HAVE YOU SEEN I DIDN’T KNOW I WAS PREGNANT???? DON’T @ ME”. And then the pandemic started right before I was supposed to take them out (April) which kinda threw a wrench in things.

I digress. The reason I’m telling you this really personal information is that knowing I had a major surgery coming up as soon as hospitals weren’t completely overrun made me pull the space together a bit more. A myomectomy has an 8 week ~mostly~ bedridden recovery. You are supposed to move around a little bit after a couple of weeks but you have to be crazy careful. It’s like having a c-section but “worse” (according to the doctor) because you have the incision, plus all the other internal incisions. Ugh. I wish it was socially acceptable to post pics of them, you KNOW I made the doctor take pics. Ok, now I’m sharing TMI just for funsies. I wanted my TV room dream for my recovery where I could watch every documentary on NXIVM and Scientology, take edibles, watch everything vampire (missed the bus a decade ago) and fill my glorious museum on Animal Crossing.

Spoiler Alert: I did all those things

In a stroke of luck, our former tenants moved out in August and the newbies that moved in didn’t want/need their side of the garage. The words were barely out of their mouths before I started moving Andrew’s office down there. 

Daffy and I simply cleaned up the space and moved in…

At first, it was nothing crazy. Daffy and I made the bed, Daffy and I patched the walls (the monster had used gaff tape to hang things, you can guess how that turned out), and Daffy and I bought this handy dandy bolster off of Etsy. I bought the king size in “Toast”. (Pro Tip: the length of a full mattress is the same as the width of a king bed) and – voila! Take it off for guests to sleep at night and during the day…wait is that why it’s called a daybed? It actually makes a HUGE difference in the comfort level of using a bed like a couch. Highly recommended. Really, and I #paidforthis. 

During Amazon’s Prime day in mid-October, I finally bought myself a Samsung Frame and we had it installed right in time for my surgery in mid-November (I was very lucky to get in right before the holiday Covid surge). The rest of the room stayed as is and I got to spend a lot of time dreaming up what I wanted to do to the place.

Let’s get to some reveals already!

OK – so there’s a lot going on in this room so I’ll break it up and go through my favorite parts.

The Wrap Around Desk/Shelf/Bed

Rug (vintage) | Chair (vintage | Woven Basket | Wall Color

I wanted something that made the most of the small amount of space in this room. It’s a simple construction, doesn’t really warrant a tutorial because it would vary based on the space you have. I used the cheapest wood I could get at Lowe’s (I think it’s pine?), a lot of Matte Black Stain, quite a few L brackets (big ones to hold the desk to the wall and smaller ones to attach the sides and shelves) and some 2x4s to help secure the desk to the wall. I could have bypassed this and just gone for more L brackets but I liked the idea of  being able to attach the whole back piece all the way around. In retrospect, not sure if I would do the 2x4s again. It’s definitely secure but maybe overkill? I was making this up as I went so I think there’s better and more refined ways to do this for sure. I decided to make the desk 18” deep (two 9” wide pieces of wood connected to each other) on the right side. The part that wraps around (under the windows) is just one 12” wide piece of wood. The right side ends so there’s about a foot of breathing room for the door to open all the way, which is even with the end of the bed, making the desk/shelf/bed sitch an imperfectly perfect U shape with the area rug (HELLO JEAN PALMER HOME), my $50 vintage chair (that is in desperate need of an upholstery job – recs?), and my “Trashcan” sitting in the center of the U. 

Table Lamp | Diffuser | Vase | Wooden Tray | Lidded Dish | Knot/Checkered Tray | Stapler | Ladder (Vintage)

I put shelves on the right side of the desk (by the door). The top shelf holds the box for the Frame TV, the two other shelves have vintage Hearth and Hand faux leather bins (no longer available) with workout gear in the top one, and our Peloton shoes in the bottom. On the desk, I keep my favorite lamp ever by Human Home. It gives off good diffused light for this dark space and has a built-in dimmer (a must for me). My Terracotta Vitruvi Stone Diffuser is among my favorite purchases for my recovery time. The Grove scent is my personal favorite.  (reminder: I #paidforallllllthis) Because of the very limited storage, I keep office supplies in creative spaces. We always say this at EHD, but a good tray is hard to find and this Rounded Wood Tray by West Elm is gooood. It’s a great size, has handles, and the rounded edges gives it that detail that makes it not too basic. Love this Studio Mcgee for Target vase, I use it in practically every shoot I do because it’s neutral, versatile (is it a vase or the perfect crock?), and luckily for you, still available. The Trinket Dish I pulled from my prop collection and it lives here now because it’s so cute while holding receipts that need to be scanned (a regular part of my life). That checkered tray holding my tape dispenser, stapler, and vintage ruler is none other than Tramp Ceramics, as is the knot on the wall hanging above it! 

Natural Woven Box | Cement Head

The “shelf” that wraps under the windows is the perfect side table for the Daybed as well as where I keep my box of small office supplies (extra pens, pencils, erasers, clips, washi tape, etc), my mancala board, and a cement head (obvs). The smokey globe light is IKEA. I’ve had it forever and it’s lived just about everywhere in my house which is good since it’s just a placeholder for a vintage lamp I have coming.

Smokey Globe Light

The bedframe is the cheapest wood IKEA frame, with stained wood pieces screwed in around the side and bottom, making it look continuous with the desk. It *may* be the Neiden but it didn’t have a headboard at all so I’m not sure? There’s a shelf on the side that is even with the bedframe (so slightly lower than the mattress). I have a stack of our favorite games and puzzles, along with 2 of my favorite Target coiled rope bins. In one I keep extra bedding and the other is a catch-all for things I use on the reg. But when not in use I want them out of sight/mind eg: laptop, iPad, journal, a pouch with misc chargers, and the current book I’m reading (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance if you were wondering). In the back corner of the shelf and on The Citizenry side table on the other side, I have 2 power strips that are running from a plug that is directly in the middle of the bed, behind the bolster and impossible to get to. Honestly, I have to share because having a plug for laptops and a phone charger at arm’s reach is so clutch when there is a sleeping cat on top of you, which for me is basically always. On the side table, I also have a vintage container where I keep the oils for my diffuser and a tray to corral my clickers.

The vintage sconce above the side table is actually Sara’s. I had bought my dream sconce, the Le Klint 204 Mushroom Wall Lamp and it didn’t arrive in time. Actually, quite a few things didn’t arrive because of covid/storms across the US, which was sad but I guess it just means I’ll have to do another photoshoot??

Comforter | Stripe Pillowcases | Quilted Sham (similar) | Quilt (similar) | Faux Leather Lumbar

As far as bedding, I went with mostly solids with different textures. The grey comforter base is Hearth and Hand. I decided for the shoot to purchase 2 king pillows because I realized that the length of the daybed wanted longer pillows. I purchased these terracotta linen stripe pillowcases to bring a little interest. I thought about purchasing a different quilt/sham set so that both sets of pillows were king, but honestly, I like what I have, they are vintage West Elm and I’ve had them for yearsss. They are no longer available but it’s very similar to this quilt and this sham set from Casaluna. I think because it’s supposed to feel like a couch I don’t mind that there are different sized pillows? What do you think? Should I spend $$ so that they match?

Throw Blanket

My favorite part of the bedding, however, is the throw blanket from heaven. I told Sara that I love it so much that I can’t tell if it is ugly or not, it’s beautiful to me! Of course, we all know and love the faux leather lumbar from Target. 

Before moving on, I would be remiss to not mention my FULL COVID HAIR. WHOA. I mean, I knew it was intense but this pushed me over the edge. DIY haircut coming to my insta soon! At least I gave you all a middle part that all the young people think they invented…

The High Shelf

Shelf Brackets | Wood Shelf | Planter | Bookend | Potted Faux Eucalyptus

Not too much to say here, just that I’m a huge fan of a high shelf, especially in smaller spaces that need storage. I’m about to do something similar in my kitchen. If you don’t have a lot of floor space, go up! I bought three 12” brackets from this Etsy shop (currently partially shut down because of weather) and used a beautiful piece of white oak from Ross Alan Reclaimed, cut it to size (from the corner to the end of the bed), made sure to adhere the brackets to studs because this thing is HEAVY and styled away with mostly books (because I don’t have space for a bookshelf and I have so. many. books. My big trick for this shelf is faux plants. 1. It’s dark in here and 2. That shelf is high – I will for sure forget about any plant that is up there and it will die. The one on the right is this super convincing fake by CB2, the one on the left is real from another part of my house because this one hadn’t arrived from Target. I actually previously owned this Hearth and Hand fake but I had to buy it AGAIN because every time I bring it to set someone wants to keep it because it looks that good. I just cut the hang-y things off and cheated it inside of that same planter. I returned the asparagus fern to my bedroom and the shelf is now safe from becoming a plant graveyard. Cutie bookend by West Elm. Wood object is vintage.

Magazine Rack

I know there are going to be questions. This DIY may be the best DIY I’ve ever come up with and made Shade build for me hahahaha. This was one of the first things I envisioned for the space and it turned out SO DAMN NICE and honestly, I didn’t exactly wield the tools myself but I’m gonna make it seem sooooo easy.

These were some of my inspo pics:

I had some leather from the Casaluna Shoot That we did at Sara’s a few months ago so I wanted to try my best at recreating something similar. I looked at these pics and I was like, sure, wood? Screws? Nails? Easy enough. And guess what? It kinda was!

HOW TO BUILD THE SWEETEST MAGAZINE HOLDER OF ALL TIME

Step 1: Buy wood. I went fancy and bought Walnut wood from my friendly neighborhood Home Depot. 2.5” wide x 0.75” –  a few long pieces and one piece of 1.5” x 0.75? (just make sure the pieces are longer than what you need so you can cut them down

Step 2: Determine size. For mine, I wanted it to fit nicely between the two windows with a little breathing room – 44”, and I wanted it to be tall enough to hold some larger magazines I sometimes have – 14” 

Should you do step 1 and 2 be swapped? Probably. This is how we did it. I mean, I had an idea of how long I wanted it *holds arms out* This long! Like I said, making it up as I go (an Emily Bowser Story).

Step 3: Cut Wood (see cut pieces above). I had two, 2.5”, cut to 44” for the length. Two 2.5” in cut 13.25” (the 0.75” will be made up by the 13.25” sitting on top of the bottom piece of wood) and one 1.5” cut to 42.5” (this will hold the magazines in at the bottom, sit on top of the bottom piece and between the two side pieces, when next to the side pieces it will be 44” wide. 42.5”+0.75”+0.75” = 44” Stay in school kids! *We used my table saw to cut the pieces.

Step 4: Be an overachiever like our friend Shade and lightly sand the pieces before you put them together (I tried to make him skip this step)! He used my orbital sander with a fine grit paper.

Should fit together like this! Top and very bottom – 44”, sides – 13.25”, mini piece sitting on top of bottom piece – 42.5”

Step 5: Nail gun that ish together!

Step 6: Realize Emily’s nail gun is not as nice as your fancy one (speaking from Shade’s perspective) and walnut is HARD. Drive a half-hour home and a half-hour back.

Step 7: NOW nail that ish together while Emily runs to the closest hardware store to get wood filler because is it really a DIY project if you only had to go to the hardware store ONCE??

Step 8: Fill nail holes and wait 30 mins or so.

Step 9: Lightly sand, wipe with dry cloth

Step 10: Oil, you know, if you want. We used Feed-N-Wax

Step 11: I found the same nails that I *think* may be for laying carpet. I honestly just liked the look of them, they were matte and raw looking. I checked on a spare piece of wood that it wouldn’t split it, I marked the spot I wanted, pre-drilled teeny tiny holes to help the nail along, and carefully nailed one side of the leather in (I used 2” wide), measured to make sure it was level and nailed the other side in. It’s helpful to have someone to hold the leather taught while you do this. And yes IIIII actually did do this part.

Step 12: Carefully drill holes for attaching to wall. We used gold screws I had, with anchors of course, and they blended in pretty well.

Step 13: Attach to wall! YAY!

Window Treatments

If you’re interested in a window treatment tutorial, I may be documenting (made them at night, horrible lighting). They are basically the outside mount version of the ones Orlando made with his mom, and very similar to the ones Julie and I (ok, mostly Julie) made for the mountain house kid’s room but without a liner. They are the same fabric that I used for the temporary wallpaper post and underneath them, I have inside mount, light-blocking roller blinds for when people sleep here or if we are watching TV during the day. The roller blinds are practical, but not cute. When rolled up, the DIY shades act as a valence for covering up the roller blind unsightliness. When down they offer more privacy while still letting light in.

Wall Decor

Wall Grid

Above the magazine holder, I have a simple wall grid for pinning my REAL LIFE inspo board. I’m a visual person (obviously) and I’m also tactile. I prefer things I can touch to the digital and flipping through magazines and cutting things out that catch my eye is very relaxing to me. I like how the grid disappears into the wall making the clippings look like they are floating.

The Gym Nook

Wood Hooks | Bala Power Ring | Yoga Rug

Behind the door, I came up with a simple way to store more of my workout stuff. I bought some simple wood hooks and have my resistance bands, yoga rug, and bala power ring (a cute and more versatile version of a kettlebell). It’s nice that it tucks behind the door but I don’t get mad about it when I have to see it either. Little known fact about me, I was a Bar Method instructor for a number of years and actually early in my assisting days with Emily I would teach the very very early morning classes (5:30 WHAT) and then go work on set. The space between the desk and the bed is perfect for teaching myself some classes (with the desk as my makeshift “bar”) or for taking online classes with my former Bar Method bosses who have started their own fitness studio, Chrysalis, when they needed to pivot during the pandemic.

I am also a Peloton spokesperson. Well, unofficially, but, I’m open – HMU. We’ve had ours since the end of 2018 because I was looking for something that wouldn’t take up too much space or be an eyesore. It’s one of the reasons that I like the reason the room is dark, the bike sort of disappears. I have a tray that attaches to the top of it and I will free ride and check emails for about 20 mins in the am and then do a quick 15 min climb with my BFFs Ally Love or Emma Lovewell. It’s a good workout, low impact, doesn’t have a big footprint, and isn’t ugly. If you can finance it, it costs less than a gym membership for 2 people (in LA anyway) and ours is now paid off.

Wait, MORE Art

Of course, I can’t NOT mention the beautiful Minted art (the only items in this room that were gifted). When picking out this art I had a conversation with my friend Orlando about how and when to choose to have something put on canvas and framed vs not (traditional framed art with glass). I had chosen this art and I felt like I wanted it on canvas but wasn’t sure if that was ok. He gave a simple answer that felt like a “duh” moment but I didn’t think of it until he said it. He said, if framing art that looks like it could be painted on canvas, like this “painting” it makes sense to put it on canvas, whereas if it were a modern print that was obviously made digitally, it should not be. I like that rule but also, rules are arbitrary do what you want 🙂

Rosy Tomorrow I and Rosy Tomorrow II by Stephanie Goos Johnson

I actually have a headboard DIY planned (of course I do) but for now, this diptych is holding its place, because we all know how long I take to get to projects. I think they will just relocated next to the Peloton to pretty up that naked corner in the future. 

Drop the Ball by Keren Toledano | After the Bath by Patricia Robitaille | Wetland Wall by Field and Sky

The other 3 pieces of art in this shoot are also from Minted. My original idea (to cover up the mess that was made of my walls – thanks gaff tape) was to get the Frame TV and surround it with an entire gallery wall full of art, objects, and vintage mirrors perhaps? Because this is my space and I can take my time, I’m using this as an excuse to slowly build a small art collection. Art (and framing!) is pricey though so this will take a while. As my collection grows I will have no problem integrating the gifted Minted art because the colors and textures are very “me”. In the meantime, I’m really digging this asymmetrical look. I feel like it’s balanced with the flowers, knot, and vintage bird ladder on the opposite side but I feel like it may be controversial. What do you all think?

Alright friends, it’s been fun. Let’s talk about cats, fibroids, my monster of a husband, Pelotons, cats that (figuratively) got away, fuzzy blankets, the solutions to life’s biggest problems, cults, Vampire Diaries (problematic! But Ian Somerhalder!), mancala and I guess design stuff.

Until next time!
Xx

*Photos by Sara Ligorria-Tramp
** Design by Emily Bowser

Today’s post is written by GOOD friend of the blog and EHD alum Emily Bowser. We hope you’ll all join us in giving her a warm welcome back : )

Back towards the start of the year I started sharing the saga of my back patio on Instagram, and the EHD team reached out and asked me to share it with all of you here on the blog. Of course I LIVE to talk on and on and on about renovation woes, so I quickly said yes.

Then, the tragic murder of Ahmaud Arbery happened in February, followed by Breonna Taylor’s murder by police in March. And everything was punctuated by the slow, calculated murder of George Floyd in broad daylight, by police, with people filming and crying out for them to stop. To say that a blog post about my patio felt unimportant is a massive understatement.

To be completely honest, the experience of the pandemic, combined with the current civil rights movement spearheaded by Black Lives Matter, months away from a very important (also understatement) election, has me re-evaluating every aspect of my life. I know I was asked to write a post about my patio, not social justice, but I simply can’t without first acknowledging the fact that what is happening in the world deserves our complete attention. I am white and have benefitted from systems that are founded in white supremacy, including buying, owning, and renovating a home. These systems include things like generational wealth, bank loans, and real estate practices. I chatted a lot about some of this in the comment section on my first post because a few readers felt that I was flippant in the way I spoke about homeownership (thank you to those who spoke up). Yes, I’ve worked hard, and despite a lot of other odds I was able to buy this house and do these expensive renovations. However, those facts do not negate the hard truth that had I been born with a different color skin, my odds of being a homeowner right now would diminish greatly.

So, before I go on to the rest of this post, I wanted it to be clear that all of this is on my mind (and hopefully on all of your minds too). I hope that my story of our small backyard renovation is helpful to those looking to renovate on a budget while enjoying the process. With all of that being said, let’s get into it . . .

WHERE WE STARTED

As a reminder, we own a “2-on-a-lot” (multi-family) property built by a single man in 1930. My husband and I live in the front unit (860 sq feet) and rent out the back house (680 sq feet). The whole lot is a little over 5000 square feet and when we bought it, the lot was all concrete, spare a few small openings for trees. There were 3 lemon trees, 2 apple trees, an orange tree, a clementine tree and a -still- unidentified tree (possibly guava) – where were they getting water with all that concrete??

I talked a bit about this before in my other posts, but it bears repeating – I am a very optimistic person. When I saw both houses on the property they were borderline in shambles. But all I could see was what could be versus the reality. The fact that the two houses were separated by a yard made them each feel a lot more private vs the upstairs/downstairs or side by side duplexes I had looked at. Not only were they separated but they each had their own outside space. I mean, it was nothing to look at, but the square footage was there and it was already mapped out to be a lot more private than any multi-unit property I had seen. I saw these outdoor spaces and I saw nothing but opportunity.

LOL. Reality is so annoying TBH.

You can read about the very overwhelming financial situation we were in here but the general thing to know is this: We had none monies. We didn’t even have the money to do the things that sort of had to be done in order to make the homes, you know, liveable or whatevs. The outdoor space quickly turned into a “one day later” thing as we put out reno fires for months then retreated into our somewhat-renovated but largely unfurnished home and licked our THIS-close-to-financial-ruin wounds.

Here were the few things we did do: We ripped up and replaced the sewage line that led from the back unit to the front. This meant pulling up some concrete and I specifically remember telling my contractor not to bother pouring new concrete over the new sewage line because “we will rip all this up soon.” We cut down the 2 apple trees and one lemon tree on a whim. And finally, we painted the exteriors of both houses. The space between the 2 homes became the dump for the renovation from October-January (as seen above).

THEN THE RAIN CAME . . .

All I remember about 2017 is a lot of rain, hustling but not having enough money, laughing with my friend Lauren instead of crying (mostly about the “quick and easy refinance” that was proving to be neither) and cuddling my cat Daffy. I noticed some pretty significant cracks in the walls of my bedroom and laundry room at some point in 2017 but tried to ignore them. The house was just settling, right?? RIGHT????

The cracks got progressively worse, and despite the fact that I still owed my contractor like $70,000 – I had him look at the foundation and turrrrrrrns out all that rain had washed its way down our concrete hill and landed right around those steps, soaking in, destroying the back wall of our foundation. Cue me laying in a fetal position and wondering (hoping?) if my bed would just fall into the abyss. 

My contractor took pity on me, and agreed to do the work knowing I would find some way to pay him. If you want to talk about getting into a codependent relationship with a contractor we can chat more in the comments below.

If my backyard is all concrete then what is that mass of green you ask?? OH, THAT’S A MONSTER TOMATO PLANT GROWING OUT OF A CRACK IN THE CONCRETE THAT I DID NOT PLANT OR WATER OR CARE FOR IN ANY WAY. Not only was it growing out of a crack, earlier in the year my mom had sprayed it with weed killer and STEPPED ON IT. Sorry if this is triggering to find out for anyone who is precious about their tomato plants. So there was something good about 2017 – I had more fresh tomatoes than any other person on the planet.

Anyways, we had fixed the foundation but how were we going to keep this from happening again? We learned that all the concrete poured over the years was likely an attempt to try to keep the water from doing what it did. Remember the sewage line? Well, ripping that up and not re-pouring the concrete had exacerbated the problem. We realized the best option was to pour a sh*t ton more concrete to protect the foundation. So we agreed, but I was like, “yeahhhhhh . . . maybe, pour it into the shape of a patio tho??”

In retrospect, I’m an insane person. WHY would I add more to my debt when I was so far in? Probably because it seemed so counterintuitive to ADD more concrete without at least making it functional. Meanwhile, we were already paying to tear and remove some concrete in other parts of the yard, so the ‘ole “welllllll, as long as we’re here . . .” thing happened and we went ahead and removed all the concrete in our backyard (except of course for the new concrete patio we were going to pouring). When they brought over all the machinery to fix the patio, the chain-link fence gate in the front got damaged and I had the genius/insane idea of adding a stucco wall there as well. All in all, I added QUITE a bit to my already existing debt with my contractor (on top of the $2000 I paid to the subcontractor to remove all the concrete). Luckily my husband got a holiday bonus that year and we were able to give our contractor a $5000 check of goodwill.

NUMBER REALNESS

Speaking on money, let’s take a quick break to look at the numbers: We bought our home for $600,000, put down only $22,000, were able to pay our contractor $38,000 from a construction loan (that was added to our $600,000 mortgage), got a family loan (aka generational wealth) for $60,000, and scraped together the rest of the money ourselves ($40,000ish). By February 2017 we had paid our contractor $130,000 and still owed him around $70,000. Then the foundation problem happened, and $14,000 got added to the debt. It wouldn’t be until November of 2018 when we finally were able to get our house refinanced and pay him the $84,000 we owed him. I’ve talked about this before but it’s worth noting again – my contractor had quoted me $100,000 for the renovation, so it was 100% over what he said ($214,000 total), which is part of why he was understanding about the delay in payment. 

Back to the patio . . .

THE FANTASY STARTS TO BECOME A REALITY

Remember William Hunter’s home? Well, he and his wife Amanda are friends of mine and he just whipped this beauty up for me. It was/is my north star. ALSO, CHECK DAFFY IN THE WINDOW. I came up with the layout of the patio by imagining what size the walkway needed to be to seem comfortable and extending the patio all the way up to that line so there wasn’t any wasted space. I gave myself around 2 feet of depth for planting a hedge against the fence and 4 feet for the walkway. The wall around the patio also created a natural nook for the trashcans to live on the other side without being an eyesore. William and Amanda actually convinced me that I would want one wide step for sitting on and they were SO right. It’s a weird concept, but sitting on the edge of a step is just something humans do I guess? I sit there ALL the time.

At this point the foundation was fixed, we had a structure, and all the concrete was gone from this area. There was just the teeny tiny problem of, once again, having absolutely no money but a very unfinished dirt yard. When this was going on, my friend Anne lived in the back unit and I believe she had shoes she would specifically wear to walk through the dirt/mud (because it was still rainy season!) and change shoes when she got to her car. I got to work as fast as possible creating a new walkway to at least fix that problem. Originally I was going to do a pebble path, but I had learned of too many people on hills having a hard time with them washing away with heavy rains.

I settled on large pavers and medium-sized stones surrounding them. I did a little (a lot) of googling and watched a ton of old men DIY youtube videos on how to make a path like this and here is what I learned: You have to dig a shallow ditch, the shape of the desired path, about 4 inches deep. Line the ditch with landscape weed barrier, use some kind of edging to keep the earth from falling back into the ditch (I used steel edging at first, replaced later by a stone edging), place pavers where desired and then fill in the rest with the smaller stones. Easy enough, right? FALSE. My dirt is made of clay and rocks, and digging that trench almost killed me. If you want a play by play, I have the whole saga saved in my story highlights (titled Yard Reno 3). It’s RIVETING.

We put the hedges in before the walkway so I knew I had enough room for the hedge to fit first. The hedges are Ficus Nitida and I got them from a local place called Planta Nursery. We bought 22 of them and planted them about 3 ft apart. 

After I finished the hedges and walkway the yard stayed like this for the first half of 2018. We were, again, out of money and I had started working a lot more regularly for Emily, which kept me too busy daily to try any more intense DIYs. Personally, I also like to live with things unfinished for a while so I can figure out what I actually want. We put up lights, used outdoor furniture we had from our former apartment and honestly, despite the dirt yard (you didn’t notice that as much in the dark anyway) we really enjoyed the patio. We played Kubb (google it), sat around a fire pit with our back house tenants (and good friends) almost every night, and started letting our kitties out for supervised outside time (game changer).

VEGETATION AT LAST

A few months later we had saved enough to pull the trigger on having a landscaper put in a garden, mulch for under the fruit trees, river rocks for the walkway edging, irrigation, and grass. The total for that was about $7000, but we were able to pay in a couple of installments. A good chunk of that was the irrigation system (around $2000), grass (around $1500), and the install of everything ($2300). I can tell you right now, whatever they charged me for install was not enough. After that walkway and the hedges, I have a whole new respect for landscapers. Digging is. So. Hard. 

During this install, I went to Maryland for a month in June to be with family after an unexpected passing of my aunt’s husband (she’s only a year older than me, it’s a long story, er, confusing story?). And as soon as I got back I jumped on a plane 24 hours later headed to Portland for a Target shoot Emily was doing there and that led right into the Portland Project. Every picture I have of the back yard during these early times of having a yard was of my cats because I would only be home for a day or 2 and then go back to Portland and clearly I missed my cats sooooooo much.

I had planned on doing the gardening part myself but when it became clear that I wouldn’t be home for quite awhile, I went ahead and had the landscapers put plants in as well so they could establish themselves before cooler weather. The direction I gave was that I wanted it to feel very natural. I wanted herbs and lots of shades of greens with some dark purples. There’s rosemary, Kangaroo paws, lavender, olive bushes, black rose succulents, and more…

My hedges. I could write a love letter to them. They were inexpensive, they grew fast, and they just did their GD job. I always say they are the ONLY thing about this renovation that just all around WORKED. 22 of them + delivery = $350. I planted them myself, so that was free but honestly, I would have paid someone if I could have. 8 months after we planted them they needed to be staked because they were growing so fast and falling all over each other. My landscaper did it, the stakes and ties cost $195, the install was $75 (DEF glad I paid for that) so my total investment was $620 and LOOK AT THEM NOW:

I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.

They cover the not-so-pretty (because we were looking at the back of it) fence and add so much drama. That picture was taken in May, and since then they’ve actually gotten taller. I surmise these beauties are about 10 feet tall. You can kind of see where the fence is behind them, and that’s a 6-foot fence. Going from zero green, to the green grass and hedges has completely and totally changed this small outdoor space.

PAINTING THE PATIO – ONE STEP CLOSER TO DONE

We recently decided after living with the unfinished (read v dirty and stained) concrete patio that we left that way because we couldn’t afford tile for 2 years, to just go ahead and paint it. It was a pretty simple process. I bought an inexpensive power washer (the most exciting part. Fun fact: I like owning all the tools), washed the patio, filled in the cracks with concrete filler and painted it the same color as the house. If you go back to William’s sketch of the dream of the backyard, you will notice it is all white. At the time I was really into that look but figured it was not 100% a great choice as far as keeping it clean. Spoiler alert: It’s not. However, this is just for the short term and very fun nonetheless. You can use a Porch and Patio paint like this one. Then to make sure it would be easy to wash (knowing it would get so dirty) we finished it off with a wet look sealer which makes it way glossier and easier to clean. Probably could be slippery when wet though, just FYI.

BEFORE & AFTER (SO FAR)

SO, this is where we are now. Mind you, this is all our old furniture and look how sad that couch styling is! But we have BIG DIY plans for this space! Stay tuned, because I’ll be attempting a very large sectional, built with my own 2 hands featuring Ross Alan Reclaimed Wood. Stay at home orders have me itching to do some gardening. I’m going to be fixing up the garden that has grown in so much and needs some love and even more herbs so it becomes even more functional and not just pretty.

On the right side of the patio I’m going to attempt my first vegetable garden in a raised bed, and I’m going to make myself. Did anyone else watch Ron Finley’s masterclass??

I’m sure I’ll be talking more about the process and selling things we no longer need (and I’m looking for a perfect table to put in this space!) over on the insider community! Please let’s talk in the comments, love hearing from all of you! Until next time xx

Welcome back, we meet again…this time in my dining room. This morning was the reveal of my living room, so head here if you somehow missed that but now it’s time to talk this little eating nook. Let’s get into it.

I knew immediately that a banquette in the dining “area” was the best use of space. I call it an “area” and not a “room” because it is 7’5″ x 7’7″, it has two doorways (living room and kitchen) and is the main walkthrough to the kitchen. My house is a circle so if you really wanted to, you could walk down the hall, through the master, through the laundry and come in the back of the kitchen but generally, that’s not how we get there, especially when carrying in groceries. Putting an L-shaped bench on the two walls that don’t have doorways would allow me to push the seating and table into the corner a bit, opening up more room to walk. My existing dining setup worked for the meantime but Tolix chairs, although slim and timeless, are also very uncomfortable.

Let’s talk about the green that I know a handful of you will be bummed that I nixed. In photos, even in these bad iPhone pics, the green is really striking and pretty to me, not to mention Daffy really shines in front of a dark wall. In real life, the color was striking in another way…like, we’re in this light and bright room (living room) and there was a dark pit in the corner. It was separating the space too much when the idea was to open it up as much as possible. I really like this green though so I kept it for over a year before finally putting on Busy Philipps’ This Will Only Hurt a Little and painting a million coats to cover it up. 

Before I repainted though, I convinced my brother Jacob to help me build a banquette. Look. How. Freaking. Cute:

Ladies. He’s single. I KNOW. (also @Ryobi: let’s collab; I own every single one of your tools already!)

Basically, we (he) built two boxes with 2’x4’s and added high-quality plywood to the top and sides. If you want a tutorial, convince me to write it in the comments :). The side on the right was supposed to be storage but as we were putting it together, I was like OMG WHAT IF IT’S A CAT CAVE. He humored me. For the one Enneagram 6 reader who is concerned for the safety of the cats, the top can still fold up if the cats were stuck in there somehow.

Shop the Look: Round Pillow | Large Neutral Pillows | Rectangular Striped Pillow (no longer available) | Tray (painted, no longer available) | Incense Holder | Table (Craigslist) | Chairs (vintage) | Bench Fabric | Ribbon Art by Angela Chrusciaki Blehm | Chandelier | Roman Shade | Paint Color

The benches stayed in that unfinished condition for literally a year. I finally painted the space and the benches the same color (Polar Bear by Behr). A few weeks after that, I had the cushions made and of course, immediately thought WHAT WAS I WAITING FOR?? It’s crazy how nice it is to basically lay down while your husband eats a late dinner and rattles on about his newest horror short film idea. We use this space so much more now that it’s so comfortable. If you look closely, you will notice that there’s a stack of wooden dice; my husband and I regularly cozy up here with our Bulletproof coffee (what’s a post by me without a shameless call out to a brand I’m obsessed with) and play Yahtzee. 

I used the same canvas as I did for the bench in my bedroom. Fun and cheap upholstery hack: upholstery fabrics can be expensive but canvas is relatively cheap (this one was $4.75/yd) and very durable. I discovered Pacific Blue Denims when sourcing for the tent fabric for the mountain house kids room and found them very easy to work with, they responded to emails and sent out samples quickly. I gave the upholsterer 10 yards and he gave me back leftovers. For reference: As I mentioned, the walls are 7’5″ and 7’7″ and the cushions are the length of the walls. The bench on the right is 19 inches deep and the back bench is 24.5 inches deep, the cushions are 3 inches thick. The upholsterer charged me $300 total for these cushions and recovering the bench in the bedroom. Honestly, I have zero money so is it weird to say it was worth it? You see how slow I move in my own space, so I’d still be sitting on plywood if I had put this on my list of things I needed to DIY.

Let’s get the vintage out of the way: The chairs are probably the coolest things I own. The best thing about them is that I bought them off our very good friends and we have so many amazing memories of games, parties and intimate dinners in them. The table is also vintage, got it for $100 off Craigslist from a Craftsman home where it apparently lived for almost 100 years.  It’s on wheels and it came with three leaves that are tucked somewhere in my garage because I have hopes of owning a home one day where I can use them!

THAT. RIBBON. ART. I stole it. I’m half kidding. When sourcing art for the book shoot this year, Velinda and Erik somehow got this beaut from Angela Chrusciaki Blehm and when I saw it I was like “I NEED THAT IT’S MINE” (I didn’t, it wasn’t). But I guess I manifested that ish because when they wrapped shooting (they used it a bunch but you’re going to have to wait for that!), I “borrowed” it for my shoot and apparently here it will safely “live” until it’s needed for another project. Basically, I stole it.

After stealing art, my current (thrifted) light fixture just wasn’t working. The shape was too oblong and was blocking it so I couldn’t see it at all times. I wanted something that was going to complement it but not compete with it…easier said than done. When I saw the Isaac Chandelier by Schoolhouse, I felt like it was the light fixture that ribbon would have chosen for itself, slightly understated but definitely in a cool not try-hard way, so they could still be friends.

You may have noticed that the gorge linen “I’M AN ADULT NOW, RIGHT??” window treatments are very similar to the ones in my bedroom reveal. That’s because they are!! Barn and Willow sent these through at the same time. Window treatments are like the mascara of decor. I mean, sure, you can live without them but should you really go out in public without it? Coming from the person who does exactly that…very often. Same for window treatments I suppose. I cannot believe I lived without them, but I did—for YEARS. For the sake of privacy, for trying to sit on the couch and work anytime after 4 pm (sun blazing through the dining window specifically directly onto the couch), for trying to watch Survivor on a Sunday afternoon with the glare of the sun (and people’s eyes judging you). They’re also great for keeping this light and bright space cool on hotter days and also for giving the finished look to the room. They are beautiful and sturdy and very easy to install yourself. I got the flat style out here (relaxed in my bedroom) in Belgian Textured Linen Flax. There’s a handy-dandy measurement finder and have free shipping. I’ve been living with them for a few months now if you have more questions, head to the comment section!

Because who doesn’t love a little B&A (before and after), let’s take a look at the above side by side with what was happening prior to this:

I mean…it just feels so much more open, brighter, happier. The green was good, sure, but the white is better…in this space and for what both rooms needed.

I hope you enjoyed this journey. I’m done…for now, but you never know when I might pop back up with another treacherous story about my beloved money pit. See you in the comments!

***Photography by Sara Ligorria-Tramp, design and styling by Emily Bowser

Don’t miss other posts in this series:

Makeover Takeover: An Intro to Emily Bowser’s (Crumbling) Living & Dining Rooms | New Reveal: Emily Bowser’s Refreshed For Function Living Room | MOTO Intro: How EHD Stylist Emily Bowser Tackled Her Awkward Master Bedroom | MOTO Reveal: Emily Bowser’s Bedroom “After” is Unrecognizable from the “Before” | DIY How-To: A Step-by-Step for Making Emily B.’s Wrap-Around Velvet Headboard | MOTO Reveal: Emily Bowser’s 32-Square-Foot Bathroom is Packed With Small-Space Hacks | What It Really Costs to Buy an Income Property in LA (& Why I Thought It Was a Good Idea Even After Financial Ruin)

If you’re here today, that either means you stopped by the blog yesterday to read the “intro” to today’s post or you’re like “who’s this lady and her two cats?” To answer the new faces, I’m Emily Bowser, lead stylist at EHD and this is my living room. If you already knew that, hello again…

We’re back new and improved! No more holes. No more rain falling into my home. Time to make these rooms feel finished. I mentioned yesterday that my old furniture fit pretty well into this space which made it low on the totem pole in the matter of importance when it came to spending any “extra” cash (what’s that??). Add that to the fact that less than a year after going $80,000 over budget in renovations that I had to drop another $20,000 and then 6 months after that an ADDITIONAL $20,000 on the back house, but that’s another story for yet another post. Point is, I had bigger fish to fry. Fish that came in the form of a crumbling foundation, or foundationS in my case. Two houses. Le sigh. That said, we also spend 99% of our time in this space so of course, the stylist in me had been day-dreaming about improving upon our situation although my wallet disagreed. 

Here’s a reminder of where we started (or at least, where we left off before the real “after”):

These were my (not so) major issues in terms of decor:

• Replace my 10-year-old couch that had lived through quite a few kitty fosters and had a bum leg
• Create storage…but make it fashion. We’ve been over this but we have almost no storage other than our clothes closet and need to sneak it in wherever possible.
• Figure out window coverings. Huge windows: YES, walking around naked: NO.
• Get/make art for above couch that actually fills the space
• Replace sconces on couch wall (current ones are too high for the art)
• New rug? Clearly great minds think alike. I didn’t hate my Beni rug but I didn’t want to feel like my living room was too similar to Brady’s.
• Maximize seating in the 56-square-foot dining space that is also a walk through to the kitchen (but more on that later today because the morning is just for the living room…come back after 11 am PT for the dining room!)

Enter: MOTO (Makeover Takeover). You all know this, but there are some serious upsides to working for Emily Henderson. One of the major ones is when you’ve spent over $200,000 renovating 1,300 square feet TOTAL, you can get a little help furnishing it through collaborations with amazing companies that appreciate the styled photos and press. I’ve talked about this before in the comments but would like to make it exceedingly clear here: I do not consider MOTO collabs “free stuff.” Here’s the breakdown: We do not work on these projects on work time. I have worked for Emily for three years and up until the day before we shot the space I was still putting finishing touches on it. In my “free time,” I am planning out, designing, sourcing, spending money so the room doesn’t literally collapse, emailing companies, finding/buying vintage items to keep the space interesting, designing, buying supplies and building DIYs, and finally styling the space to camera. This is to the benefit of Emily’s blog (which in turn pays a lot of people’s salaries) AND the companies involved. I know this is not an opportunity most people have, and I do not take any of it for granted, but it is WORK (though luckily, work I enjoy).

Big plus: In the end, I have a finished space that would have probably taken me an additional three years. Let’s get into the improvements, starting with…

Shop the Look: Pendant | Rug via Lulu and Georgia | Sofa via Article | Long Sconces via Schoolhouse | Short Sconce | Floor Lamp via Article | Credenza | Roman Shades via Barn & Willow | Frames via Framebridge | White Blanket | Ribbed White Vase | Black & White Boxes | (Everything else either vintage or no longer available)

The Rug

In my opinion, Beni rugs are classic. They had a huge comeback in 2015 but like white subway tiles, they never really go out of style. Brady clearly agrees and look how sleek and stylish he is!! (XO Brady). My job is to create content that is new and exciting though and Brady’s gorge living room has been on the blog multiple times over the years, so even though I would not have replaced it in other circumstances, I wanted Brady’s room to be his, and mine to be mine, if that makes sense?

I gave my rug to a friend (for free, because karma) and went on a hunt for the perfect replacement. The problem was I was really happy with the graphic, light and cozy aspect of my old rug and even though I found a lot of rugs I liked, none were comparing. Enter this rug, from Lulu and Georgia. I had pinned it over a year ago, but I was concerned because it read more gray than my former rug but it was cozy and graphic. That’s 2 out of 3. “Done is better than perfect” was ringing in my ears this particular week (the week I was making myself finish my bedroom MOTO) and I pulled the trigger. I reached out to Lulu and Georgia who is always SO lovely to work with (really, I can’t say enough good things about their team) sent it out right away! So fast in fact that I was like, “Sh*T I gotta finish this room!” 

The gray wasn’t too gray at all and actually just made it even more livable. You may be surprised to hear this, but I didn’t have too much of an issue with a white carpet. However, the area where your feet sit next to the carpet was definitely darker even in our (mostly) shoe-free home (dust, etc., from the wood floors I assume) but this rug has just the right about of gray all over that you don’t notice wear at all. It also doesn’t shed nearly as much as our old rug.

The Sofa

When Andrew and I first got married and lived in a very small apt (2009 and 2010), we were so poor that we couldn’t afford a couch and we would just sit in our bed and watch Netflix on my laptop. This was about the same time I started following Emily and began to become interested in interior design. I remember taking screenshots of furniture I liked—this was before Pinterest—and arranging it on my desktop. One of those pieces was our well-loved couch that we eventually scraped enough money together to buy from Macy’s during a sale. That couch moved three times and lived through quite a few cats, including neighbor cats that would sneak into our apartment and sleep on it. I threw out on my Insta stories that I was giving it away, with all its bumps and bruises it’s still usable for sure, and our former neighbor (who owned the three cats that liked to break in) took it! CATSSSS.

I had a hard time deciding on a new couch. Our former couch was the perfect size and scale for the room so the pickings were slim. Most of the sofas that fit perfectly also looked pretty much exactly like our old one, which seemed a little boring, especially because I wanted it to be charcoal again so in that way it was already going to be similar. I played with the idea of a color and/or pattern but ultimately didn’t find anything that I liked that worked well with our burnt orange velvet chair or the pattern already in the rug. I loved the Quadra by Article but was nervous about the high arms, particularly on the side that was closest to the theater chairs and it generally feeling heavier than what was there. For three days I made my husband live with our old sofa in the middle of the entry/walkway so I could stare at a charcoal blanket that was painter taped to the wall and benches holding it up on the side.

Luckily I was right, it worked! Let me tell you everything I love about this sofa:

1. The shape is cool and edgy JUST LIKE ME.

2. The high arms make for perfect corner leaning.

3. The wide flat back is basically a desk.

As I type this, I am sitting with my back against the arm, legs reclined on the couch, laptop on the back. It makes for VERY comfortable typing. Also, my cats like to lay behind us while we are watching Survivor and I can turn around easily and kiss their sweet little faces. The Quadra is a modular couch that comes in a few different shapes so you can reconfigure to your liking. We simply got the left and right arm module and put them together to make a normal couch shape. If I had the space, I would have loved to have the chaise module. Just FYI, it’s a firmer couch (my personal preference) and we have the “carbon gray” although it also comes in taupe.

Article also sent through the task lamp in the corner and a secret side table. This lamp has been a staple at EHD for a while now and for good reason: it’s effortlessly cool. It was the exact size and shape I needed and has a small footprint so I could fit it and their slim side table in the very small space between the couch and wall. You could write (and in fact I think we DID) a whole blog post on lighting layering. I had the sconces, the overhead pendant, 2 ambient lights and I wanted a directional one, as well. ALL THE LIGHTS FOR ME!! 

The super-secret slim side table (a name I really think Article should consider) in matte walnut is one of my favorite things because I love a multi-use piece of furniture. It fits in the smallest of places and has compartments, including an area for cords to live and if you know me you know I love hidden cords. Inside the back compartment, I have this power strip and everything, including a dimmer for the lamp, is plugged into it. DIMMERS FOR PRESIDENT.

Speaking of side tables, it’s kind of too dark to see, but my Nintendo Switch lives on the bottom right of that side table (vintage) and sometimes it’s a little aggressive for my laptop cord to reach over Andrew (MY side of the couch is clearly the Nintendo Switch side) so it’s good to have a phone charger and outlet on this side, as well. I bought these gray extra long iPhone cords and they blend in so much with the couch that we leave them out and just tuck them into the side of the couch so they don’t fall on the ground and get lost or trip someone.

The Art & Sconces

Guys. Did you notice…I have new art above my couch? I owned the frames from a Framebridge shoot I worked on with another stylist (HI Cat Dash) quite a while ago. Ever have this photo come up in your Pinterest feed:

I took that triptych home and had it on my wall with those printed from a home printer basic photos for…over a year? The frames fit nicely though so I had a genius idea. GENIUS. I went back and forth on whether to admit this BUT COME ON HAVE I EVER IN THREE WHOLE BLOG POSTS HIDDEN ONE THING FROM YOU?? But really, have I? Julie, Velinda and I (YES, I’m outting the two of you, as well) may have had a litttttle bit too much wine one night and made collaborative art. As in, we each contributed to each piece in some way. We were SCREAMING because of how awesome we thought we were and you know what, I’m going to go on continuing to believe that we would have fooled ALL OF YOU. Whatever, it was a very fun night with friends that I have enjoyed working with (and enjoy getting a little tipsy and making art with even more) and now it’s mine to keep FOREVER. Or until I get sick of it…BUT WE WILL ALWAYS HAVE THIS BLOG POST.

The sconces, which frame our beautiful and genius art, were another thing I needed to address. I mentioned yesterday that the ones I had were way too high for any art I put above the couch. It always bothered me but now with the new couch, it was a good three inches lower than the last couch, and I knew that would really put me over the edge. The reason they were placed where they were on the wall was to match the existing three on the other walls that were original to the house. I found these sconces on Schoolhouse and I emailed them and said, “would it be weird if I installed them upside down?” They were like, “no Emily, also, that’s kinda your job to figure out stop emailing us we are a huge company with lots of things to do.” Okay, they didn’t say that but they probably should have.

In reality, I wanted to make sure they wouldn’t think it was weird to do that to their product. I had already done the very techy thing of taking a screenshot on my phone and using the edit feature to flip it and then staring at it for 10 minutes thinking “is that weird?”…then decided it wasn’t. It actually had the exact effect I was hoping for, it brought the light visually lower without having to move the junction box, but with the circle at the top, it’s also technically still as high as the other sconces! It’s like I’m a designer guys.

The Credenza

Let’s about-face and check out the other side of the room. It took a while, but we found a credenza that was low enough to fit under our super low and large window (peep those Barn and Willow Roman shades, too. THIS IS ADULTING). It’s from CB2 and I definitely bought it in the short period of time where we felt we were climbing out of financial ruin. The dream was to have two of them directly next to each other so that the second continued underneath the TV, behind the Eames-style chair. It would give a good effect with the added bonus of even more storage but ALAS, it’s not in the budget at the moment. The one we do own holds our records (record player sits on it, with Puck’s special basket—and usually him, as well—on top), part of my extensive vase collection, more Nintendo Switch gadgets, our printer and printer paper. To the side of the credenza, there’s a small basket that holds all of Daffy’s wine corks and Puck’s toys.

My $100 Craigslist Eames-style lounge chair is my unfinished pride and joy. I reupholstered this thing years and years ago (fabric look familiar? It’s the same as my DIY headboard!) but I’ve never gotten around to putting the piping on it because it seemed boring but let this be a lesson: if you don’t do the boring stuff early on, you’ll never do the boring stuff.

The TV & Eames(ish) Chair

The function of this piece is that it swivels. I never want a TV to feel front and center and until Samsung Frame prices go down, or a mysterious check arrives in the mail or an anonymous Venmo comes through or cold hard cash lands on my doorstep (I will leave my address in the comments…), I will straight up put a chair in front of my black box and call it a day. When we watch TV, the chair swivels to the side and the TV is on a crank so that we can angle it towards the couch…like this: 

My final and most important piece of furniture to talk about when it comes to function is the wanna-be sink turned entryway piece.

The Would-Be Bathroom Cabinet (That is Now My Entry Table)

This piece of furniture I would say is the hub of our home. It’s our landing pad, everything in pockets gets thrown in the tray (think wallets, receipts, sunglasses). The top drawer is our “junk” drawer. Scissors, pens, batteries, measuring tape, box cutters, lighters, misc screws and keys that seem scary to throw out (where did they come from??) checks, stamps, etc etc. The next drawer down is where every cord that isn’t plugged into a socket already is put, along with rechargeable travel batteries. Third drawer has a divider in the middle, on the left side, I put all the mail and bills I need to deal with and paperwork I need to file, on the right are all my extra candles and incense. The bottom drawer has stationery, office/art supplies. You might have also noticed the very chic cat scratcher. It’s from Mountain Pet Products and it’s so cute and useful, I swear it’s why my furniture isn’t entirely torn to shreds.

And thus rounds out the living room. IT’S CURRENTLY 3:30 AM AND I COULD KEEP TALKING EXCEPT I’M DAYS LATE GETTING THIS POST TO ARLYN SO I NEED TO STOP WRITING. I do need to be up at 6 am so for you design nerds (come on, if you made it this far, you are a straight-up NERD), let’s talk more in the comments, after I shut my eyes for a sec. BRB…AND COME BACK THIS AFTERNOON FOR MY DINING ROOM. See you there.

***UPDATE: THE DINING ROOM REVEAL IS UP. CLICK HERE TO SEE IT. 

***Photography by Sara Ligorria-Tramp, design and styling by Emily Bowser

Don’t miss other posts in this series:

Makeover Takeover: An Intro to Emily Bowser’s (Crumbling) Living & Dining Rooms | MOTO Intro: How EHD Stylist Emily Bowser Tackled Her Awkward Master Bedroom | MOTO Reveal: Emily Bowser’s Bedroom “After” is Unrecognizable from the “Before” | DIY How-To: A Step-by-Step for Making Emily B.’s Wrap-Around Velvet Headboard | MOTO Reveal: Emily Bowser’s 32-Square-Foot Bathroom is Packed With Small-Space Hacks | What It Really Costs to Buy an Income Property in LA (& Why I Thought It Was a Good Idea Even After Financial Ruin)

Welcome to the next installment in my series of unfortunate (house) events. This time, we’re talking all things living room/dining room (last time, we talked master bedroom and bathroom).

Let’s jump in!

I want you to imagine a situation where you see the below MLS photos and the $600,000 price tag and you’re like “I’LL TAKE IT.” Yeah, I can’t imagine it either and IT IS EXACTLY WHAT I DID. Read all about that nightmare/dream come true here.

Quick recap: The house looked exactly like the photos above and I was, as one could imagine, not feeling very positive about becoming a homeowner. Through a series of insane circumstances, we put an offer on this home and they accepted without my husband ever seeing the inside of it (he was at work when I saw it by myself…like I did many homes during our search with my realtor Keely). Who does that?? Six long months later, we owned the home and the above furniture was moved out. Turns out, it was covering a myriad of issues. See the piece of furniture in the right-hand corner with the roses on top (in the photo above)? Seem random? It was on top of this:

This corner was the beginning of the end for us. Termite damage on hardwood floors points to one thing and one thing only: water damage.

The previous owners had disclosed that the roof had a leak in recent history so it wasn’t a complete surprise. I mean, the gaping holes in the wood floor throughout the home were a surprise but according to the former owners, they had repaired the damage, fixed the roof and everything was okie-dokie. The roof inspection wasn’t great but there wasn’t any hard evidence that at the first sign of rain I would have a waterfall coming into my house. Which I did. Two days later.

After the rotted wood/soaked wall situation, the entire house had to be taken down to the studs to see what was really happening. What had originally been a $100,000 renovation bid grew and grew. Once walls are open, everything changes. You see the truth and you can’t hide from it.

Here’s the punch list of things that happened in this room:

• Demo drywall
• Water damage repaired
• Rewiring (had original 1930 fabric wiring)
• New insulation
• Remove window AC unit
• Remove wall heater
• Replace sconces
• Add 2 sconces on the longer wall
• Remove ceiling light and fan in living room
• Add one junction box for light in the center of the living room
• Remove light in dining room
• Remove existing windows
• Reframe large window in the living room to a standard size (it was very low to the ground)
• Remove tile in the dining area
• Repair wood floors
• Sand and stain wood floors
• Open up the doorway to dining room as much as possible
• Hang new drywall
• Take out the old front door (we painted and reused it in the back house)
• Replace front door to match interior doors
• Replace baseboards
• Paint

Unfortunately, I don’t have $$ totals of just this space because we had SO much going on at the same time. I can tell you this: by the end of this renovation, which included the back house and working on the “yard” between the back and front house, I’ve spent over $230,000. You did not read that wrong. No, I am not rich. No, I didn’t get free things. AND NO, MY HOUSE IS NOT A DREAM HOME. Yes, I am a very privileged person who has amazing family and also did a good amount of weaseling. I recommend reading my first post on the subject and to figure out your own stomach for risky behavior before proceeding in a market like LA.

But, this post isn’t about renovation. Today, I’m going to concentrate on the design decisions we ended up making in the dining and living rooms because of the fact that by necessity, we were essentially starting from scratch. (For anyone who wants to talk more about the renovation, I’ll meet you in the comments.)

Here’s what the house looked like empty (one day before waterfall in the corner):

Maybe you can’t see clearly, but that is a ceiling fan, directly next to a light fixture. Here’s a close up:

Did they not know that as a society we had already troubleshot the issue of wanting air circulation AND light? Can you even imagine the seizure-inducing effect if you wanted both on at the same time?

I want to apologize once again for my before photos. Past Emily was not aware that she was going to post them for hundreds of thousands of eyes. Also, we had a very unfortunate loss of photos during the process. Specifically November and December of 2016. Very frustrating. Luckily, I put a few on my Instagram…

Here’s a reminder of the layout, thanks to my (not exactly-exact) husband:

The general flow of the living/dining spaces stayed the same. Our house is 863 square feet, this space is 266 of it (despite how it looks in the drawing). It’s not a bad size. As you can see, a lot of the living room is, in fact, a walk-through space from the front door to the hallway which makes the real living space of the room about 12’x12′. I saw the layout right away though, and our furniture (that we already owned) would fit right in, thank God.

My contractor matched the height of the other sconces and added two on the wall to the right (where the old wall heater was). He took the width of my couch into consideration when deciding how far apart to put them. I found these matte black simple sconces at a local place in North Hollywood called Practical Props. If you live nearby, check them out for affordable new and vintage lighting. I believe they also do repairs on vintage lights. Everything I bought during this time was literally the cheapest so, as I’ve surely lost the receipt in a file of 1 million renovations receipts, I know they weren’t expensive. In fact, if you want 2 of them, slide into my DMs. I replaced the two on the right for reasons I will go into on the reveal post tomorrow.

Rug: West Elm | Sconces: Practical Props | Light Fixture: The Maison Craft | Paint: Polar Bear by Behr (my go-to white)

An 8’x10′ rug was the perfect size for the room as it would fill the 12’x12′ space without overflowing into the walking area. As for the ceiling light…ah, that glorious light fixture. I fell in love and fell in love HARD with this light before the house was even finalized. I still love it so damn much. It’s handmade in Thailand, makes a huge statement and the shop owner is lovely to work with. I highly recommend it! #ipaidforthis

The wall where the wall heater lived would be a great (slash only) spot for the couch. With the large window straight ahead, it’s like I knew I would one day spend hours sitting on my couch, staring out at the mountaintops, writing these posts and wondering “what are the words I’m searching for??…………..Right! ‘Flirting with…f-i-n-a-n-c-i-a-l r-u-i-n. Perfect!'” We made the new window a little smaller (kept the original window above intact) so that we could actually fit a piece of furniture in front of it. We owned a metal IKEA console circa 2010 that would *just* fit under it.

Books: Surf Shack | If You’re Reading This There’s Still Time | Light: IKEA | Basket: vintage IKEA | Console: vintage IKEA | Pitcher: IKEA (SENSE A THEME??)

There was one problem though: if the window was directly across from the only place to put our couch, where did the TV go?? TVs are v important in our home because Survivor. Let’s talk about it in the comments. I luckily thought ahead and had Ron (contractor) run electrical up where I wanted to mount the TV so that the power cords would be hidden. We really only use an Apple TV and a Firestick. Do we need both? Probably not, but both are attached to the back of the TV so we don’t see anything…and don’t need to figure out where to put a cable box.

Here’s an in-progress shot of an unstyled space:

Theater chairs: vintage | Mirror: vintage | Coffee Table: vintage | Rug on wall: vintage Textiles: vintage | Ottoman: IKEA

And here’s the other side of the room that I’m afraid to share with you because I think you’re going to like it too much…

Dining light: vintage | Chair: vintage | Coffee table: vintage | Dining table: vintage | Rug on ottoman: vintage | Wood hand: vintage…SENSING A THEME?? | Cats: Luxe Paws 🙂

I know, I know the green is pretty great. It’s my favorite green in fact, Backwoods by Benjamin Moore. It is not green anymore, you’ll have to check back tomorrow to find out my reasoning for that. For those of you wondering, the TV is directly to the right of the front door (on right). Sorry, I don’t have a bunch of pics of my TV  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . You may have noticed we were actually able to open the dining nook up to the living room. Not as much as I wanted, but I think we gained about 2 feet which really helps it not feel so claustrophobic in there (it’s a 7’5″x7’7″ space).

We already owned all these things before we moved here, with the exception of the vintage dresser THAT I BOUGHT TO BE TURNED INTO A SINK FOR OUR BATHROOM. WUT?? You will know if you saw this post that the very idea of that fitting into my bathroom is so far removed from reality that you would question the career I’ve chosen. I just got up and measured it…it is LITERALLY twice as deep and wide as what barely fits in in the bathroom. The insane thing is, I pride myself on being extremely good at spatial planning and scale. It’s maybe the only thing in life I’m naturally great at. This, my friends, is what we call “optimistic potential owner” brain vs. “reality of house falling into an abyss” brain and it trumps any amount of “natural gifts” in design. Buy a house and you will very quickly realize if you are an optimist or a pessimist. Clearly, I’m the former.

So here we stayed, for quite a while. I was SO happy that stuff we already owned worked in this space which gave my mind some peace during some very intense months…okay, years. My foundation was crumbling, the garage was regularly flooding, I flirted with financial disaster, but I had my cats, and this light-filled, generally furnished space and it wasn’t perfect, I knew it, but it really did give me the life I needed (see first photo).

Tomorrow, I’m going to talk about how I designed this space to work for us (think organization and multi-function of furniture), why I painted over that gorge green, light planning, more cats, and the emotional state I find myself in three years after renovating. I leave you with this adorbs photo:

See you tomorrow for all the “afters” (but don’t forget to come back this afternoon for an “Afternoon Snack” second post).

Emily Bowser, back with that bathroom I promised you in my bedroom reveal last week (catch up: intro here, makeover here). SO! Welcome to my airplane-sized bathroom. Okay, that’s a little obnoxious to say. I’m sure plenty of people live with smaller bathrooms. Let’s call it economic? My whole house is very economic. There isn’t one space that isn’t used. There’s no “bust through this wall and use that empty space between the bathroom and hall closet,” because that space is where the fridge is in the kitchen. The closest during this renovation that we got to adding space was when we took out two closets in order to make our bedroom big enough to fit our bed AND a dresser, but even then, we lost two closets! I’m here to talk about how we completely renovated without (completely) breaking the bank and got creative with what we had to work with, both with $$ and space. This room is a total #ipaidforthis inside and out! Let’s get into it!

First, I thought it would be helpful to show the layout oft he house, since, after the last blog post, there were a handful of curious commenters:

Neither the home nor the cats are to scale above, but it does the trick. As you can see above, this is the one and only (teeny) bathroom in the house.

Side note: Kudos to Sara, who was somehow able to take pictures of this space because apparently I could NOT. I didn’t take these pictures thinking that they would be on a blog for a lot of people to see one day so my apologies, they are crooked and dark and not terribly in focus.

The bathroom is off our hall and in the center of our home (read: no walls that face the outside). You may be surprised by this because isn’t that a window? Why, yes it is! A window that looks directly into our laundry room! The original home didn’t have the master bedroom or the laundry room (“room” may be an overstatement). We think the laundry room may have been a small porch because the door that leads to it from the kitchen appears to be original. The laundry room is very small, however, on one wall there is a window and a door that has a window in it so a lot of light comes in. The bathroom window is directly across from that wall so the light goes through the laundry room and lights up the bathroom pretty nicely. The window is made of obscure glass, so you can’t see through it and even though it’s not particularly pretty, I made the decision right away to keep it because it was a natural light source.

Side note here that there are SO many decisions you have to make right away when you are doing a bigger renovation like we were. If you are a person who likes a lot of time to think things through and talk them out, this part may be particularly hard on you. The reason being, once demo starts, you better know what’s getting knocked out because if you change your mind later, it will cost you and for sure, there will be things you hadn’t thought of or things that come up because of the demo. The window staying or going was one of those things.

The second reason I didn’t touch the window was because it was simply cheaper not to. In a perfect world, I think I would have taken the window out and done something creative along the top of the same wall, like a long and skinny window that was more interesting architecturally. That way the light could come in while giving me more wall space for a decent sized mirror and shelves. I don’t know, I didn’t let myself think about it too long because it wasn’t an option. Along these same lines, all of the plumbing fixtures, although we replaced all of them, were kept in the same places so that we didn’t have the extra cost and also, WHERE ELSE COULD THEY GO? There are only so many options in a 32-square-foot space.

About the Demo:

As you can see, there was chair rail height tile that continued into the shower and I probably could have lived with it, I mean, with a toothbrush and bleach to the grout (which was a lovely shade of orange throughout). The floor tile is the same that was in the rest of the house. It was damaged, many of the tiles cracked and obviously it was something we weren’t going to invest in keeping. We were ripping the tile up off the floor anyway, so why not go ahead and rip the tile off the wall too? Turns out it was a good idea because there was a ton of mold hiding behind those tiles.

We took out all the plumbing fixtures. The toilet here got moved to the back house because it needed a new toilet and if someone was getting a brand new toilet then IT WAS GONNA BE ME. The pedestal sink was also in fine condition but I wanted to try to find something that would have even a little bit of storage. I gave the sink to my contractor and he used it in one of his other personal projects. The tub was trashed unfortunately because of damage from the demo and the mold.

For those of you who will for sure ask, I didn’t throw the vintage corner storage cabinet in the dump. No, I paid $100 for it to be fixed because I neeeeeded that storage and it fits perfectly in the small amount of space I have between the window and the wall. When the workers were installing, they somehow dropped and shattered it so my contractor sent it off to be fixed and I never heard about it ever again. When you owe someone $80,000 (if you don’t know why, you probably missed my “buying an income property” post, read that here), it is kind of hard to be like “YEAH BUT WHERE IS MY MIRROR, RON?!”

On Choosing Finishes:

Tile:

As I discussed in the master makeover post, choosing tile was as simple as “what do I not hate that doesn’t cost a fortune?” Answer: subway tiles ($2.30/square foot) and black hex ($5/square foot). A little on the boring side? Kinda. Did I wish I could have afforded fancier tiles? At the time: yes. Now, I don’t know. My house is economic so I feel like it makes sense that the finishes are, too? I am one of those people that always picks out the most expensive thing in the store. My soul child is fancy AF (wallet, not so much). If I had been able to get whatever I wanted for this space, I feel like it wouldn’t have fit the house. I live in a box, one that doesn’t have a lot of architectural character, and the kinda boring finishes we ended up with make sense for the house, if that makes sense? I like it feeling more like a minimalist space whose character comes from the art or vintage pieces I bring into it.

I wouldn’t have minded doing the same chair rail height tile situation again, because it makes cleaning up a bit easier and protects your walls from water (and let’s be honest, other bodily fluids) but I didn’t care enough about it to spend the money on the tile or the labor. I did tile the shower walls all the way up and onto the ceiling. I had lived in many a rentals and noticed what the constant condensation would do to the area right above the tiling in a shower. I’m glad I did it.

Plumbing Fixtures: 

First and foremost, I found a toilet, but not just any toilet. It’s the toilet of my dreams. Well, my economic dreams anyway.

This toilet, hands down, is one of my favorite things about the house and I’m going to tell you why. I wish it was because it has a dual flush and therefore conserves water, but no, to me that’s just a bonus to the fact that IT DOESN’T HAVE THOSE WEIRD LEG THINGS THAT COLLECT PEE RESIDUE AND HAIR. This toilet is so easy to clean and I give it 5 stars based solely on that. It’s also not expensive. I will pay $299 (the price when I bought it) all day long to not have to get on my knees with my mouth all too close to the lid of the toilet, and awkwardly use my pointer finger through a rag to try to get in the crevices to remove bodily fluids that are most likely NOT MINE ANYWAY. Pro tip: buy all your fixtures and appliances during Black Friday sales. I even bought all my kitchen appliances and Home Depot waited to ship them out until I was ready for them.

I have a funny story about the mental state of a person in the process of buying a house vs. that of one that OWNS the house. As I’ve mentioned in this post, I was in escrow from May until October of 2016. That’s a long time. It’s also fair to mention that I didn’t get to see the house much before we actually owned it. There was a renter here that was in the process of moving out so we couldn’t bother him. That said, the idealistic side of me that was excited about becoming a homeowner remembered the house very differently than the day after I actually owned it and saw it naked for the first time (the house, not me). The house was naked in that it wasn’t full of the renter’s stuff and it was naked metaphorically because the rose colored glasses I was wearing were suddenly more like a cheap pair of glasses, smudged and scratched, found in the bottom of an unused purse in the back of your closet.

The reality of a $630,000 mortgage and an undetermined amount of money to be spent on the renovation changed my perception. Is this what they call buyer’s remorse? In the five months of being excited about being a homeowner, I did the thing you’re not supposed to do but couldn’t help myself: I bought stuff for a home I didn’t yet own. One of those things was a vintage dresser from the flea market that I wanted to turn into a sink for this bathroom. The dimensions of the dresser are 21.5” deep, 31” wide and 35.5” tall. What actually barely fits there: a sink that is 13” deep and 24” wide. Maybe that doesn’t seem like a lot but believe me, in real life, it is insane and laughable that I thought this piece of furniture (that now lives happily in my living room) would fit in this space. If you could see it you would understand me, as a person, fully.

After realizing we definitely would not be able to use it (immediately), I had to pivot, quickly. There was no time for sourcing a very specific piece of vintage furniture. HELLOOO IKEA. We bought the Hagaviken sink with the Hemnes sink cabinet that we later painted my favorite green and changed out the knobs. The faucet is from Amazon and actually works great. They no longer sell the sink cabinet in the size we have, but they do have the Godmorgon which I honestly don’t know why I didn’t get. I would have much preferred to have a floating sink (easier to clean—sensing a theme??).

I have a lot of opinions on this sink. It’s nice to have the storage. I fit a surprising amount of stuff in these two slim drawers. The depth of it would be fine if it were for a space where people just used it to wash their hands, a powder bath off your mudroom, for example. HOWEVER, washing your face is the most obnoxious process one could think of. I’m going to put this in the same box as “black floors” and “my cat, Puck”—they aren’t for everyone and by not for everyone I mean, “don’t have them unless you don’t mind cleaning, all the time” (we can talk about my cat Puck’s strange addictions in the comment section). Here follows my nightly routine: wash face, dry face with a small washcloth (kept in the top drawer of the sink, folded Marie Kondo style DUH), use used cloth to wipe down the top of the sink, the wall behind the sink, the front of the sink cabinet, the inside tops of the drawers, and finally, the floor. Every. Single. Day. I’m not kidding. You would think I was washing my face like a Clean & Clear ad from 1995—everything is soaked. There are two positives to this situation: 1. I dry my face with a clean towel every day which is good for your skin because of the bacteria that is on our everyday towels and 2. My sink and bathroom floor get a wipe down every day and therefore look cleaner throughout the week. *Rose colored glasses, put back on.*

One of the only—maybe THE only—“must haves” on my husband’s buying-a-house list was that it had to have a tub. There was no budging on it. He’s a bather which I find slightly disgusting (because he doesn’t shower first or sometimes at all). But, whatever, he likes to do his creative thinking in a bath and doesn’t demand a lot, so a bath we would have! Plus, if we can ever afford children, a bathtub would be helpful. We bought basically the same tub that was in there, a run-of-the-mill alcove tub that we got somewhere in the valley for $300-ish. It’s 58” long, by 28.5” wide by 13” deep so a grown human can barely fit in it and have water covering them, but it gets the job done I guess. We put in two inserts for shampoo, soap and what have you and I’m very glad we did but I have a question: Am I supposed to put shelves in these things? They are entirely too tall. If I could do it again, I would make them a more reasonable size.

In 2016, matte black plumbing fixtures were still weirdly hard to find and if you did find them, they were $$$. We ended up with this one in wrought iron and it was only $270 when we purchased it. I wasn’t stoked on it but I will say, it works well and we haven’t had any issues. This one is more modern and definitely what I would buy now. It’s also by Moen so I would assume also good quality and an even lower price point than the one we bought is now. Something else I wish we could have invested in is a matching tub drain, but alas, we used the stainless steel one that came with the tub.

To shower door or not to shower door?? My contractor tried to convince me I needed a shower door and that water would go everywhere and it kinda does, but it was an extra expense and, you guessed it, impossible to keep clean. I bought a matte black tension rod, matte black shower rings, a hemp canvas shower curtain (hemp is antimicrobial and does better in moist climates) and a liner that has suction cups that *mostly* work to help any leakage onto the floor. All in all, it cost me $143 and saved me years of wiping down glass panels. Another positive to shower curtain vs. doors is that if you do have kids, it’s much easier to have the whole space open rather than having a glass wall in front of half of the tub.

I can’t believe I have this much to say about 32 square feet!

Moving on. Storage. If you will allow me to don my rose-colored glasses when the corner mirror was destroyed/disappeared, I had to make do, and as making-do usually does, I was inspired. I saw an opportunity in my window box (22”x22”x4.5” deep) to add shelves and create storage space. I simply bought a piece of wood and some smaller square wood dowels (0.5”x0.5”), cut the wood to the appropriate length, screwed the dowels in from the sides with 2 screws to hold the shelves and placed the shelves on top (with a little wood glue between to keep them from slipping). At first, I put a small tension rod with a sheer curtain over it so that I didn’t have to look at the clutter of misc bathroom stuff but I found that the stuff, along with the curtain, blocked too much of the light. While musing about it on Instagram stories, an acquaintance (shoutout Shadi!) told me I needed to just lose the curtain and make the things on it prettier and I took her advice. This meant I needed to decant and find some minimalist products that I wouldn’t mind looking at every day of my life. In my search, I found Public Goods which has the most simple packaging and simple ingredients to match. I figured if I didn’t like the products, I could just reuse the packaging because at their price point, it was just as, if not cheaper, than doing a run to The Container Store.

Turns out, I do like most of their products (I have a lot) and no, they did not pay me to say that and yes, we can talk about it in the comments. All of the things on “display” are things I use most, if not every day. A great thing about having limited storage is that it’s hard to keep stuff you don’t really want to have. The little containers with cork are Saxborga and the glass container holding my reusable bamboo cotton rounds is H&M Home (similar). I decanted mouthwash into the Korken from IKEA, pulled obnoxious labels off of my nail polish remover, and even decanted ibuprofen. My husband shaves his head and he always needs a mirror to see the back of his head and he somehow misplaces them?? It’s a mystery. My pretty way of solving this problem was to buy a vintage mirror with a handle and a hook for the wall so I never have to hear “WHERE IS THE MIRROR??” ever again. No room for towel bars (at least not if you want art!), but these Turkish towels dry fast so hooks are just fine.

I regret not thinking about lighting in this space. If you don’t specify things, contractors will always do the standard without asking. I came over one day and he had installed recessed lights, one in the shower area and one in the middle of the wall, closer to the window. If I had been thinking before they closed all the walls up I would have had them run electrical over the mirror, but alas. The recessed lights are SO bright and my husband and I are both super sensitive to bright lights. We retroactively put dimmers almost everywhere and will here eventually but immediately upon moving in, out of necessity, threw these string lights up from Target (similar) and they have just kinda stayed.

The naked lady art was $20 from the Melrose Trading Post and came framed (WIN). The wood frame was also a welcome addition to the other wood/warm accents throughout the space. We bought a perfectly small wooden stool from a local neighborhood store (here’s a similar one in two sizes) so that he would have a surface to put a book, a candle, a mug of hot tea or whatever else he needs for his romantic tub time alone. The smaller art is MaryAnn Puls framed in a Ribba from IKEA. I was toilet paper holder-less for over a year before I found this maker on Etsy and I’m glad I did.

Let’s talk about clean butts. Pretty sure that’s the only time that’s been said on this blog. If you have a keen eye, you will notice that I own a Tushy. I wanted to take the opportunity to give a review of their product. I became obsessed with bidets when I moved into my grandmother’s house for a year to plan my wedding 10 years ago. She had a Toto and you could say that there was the Emily before she lived with a Toto and the Emily after. For bidet aficionados, you know that the Toto is the top-of-the-line bidet. They range from $500-$2,000 so you can see why this bidet had me second-guessing if I really should get married and move out of my grandmother’s home.

In truth, there were MANY things about my grandmother’s home that made me never want to leave, but the bidet was up there on that list. 2010-2018 are considered the dark years for me. The years I lived without waking up in the middle of the night to a welcoming warm seat on a cold night, years without the confidence that I was squeaky clean no matter what time of the month it was (PERIOD POSITIVE OVER HERE). Then, Erik (upholstered-my-headboard-while-I-watched Erik) got a Tushy and told me I should, too. With the low price point of $69 for the non-heated (water, not the seat) and $99 for the heated, I opted for the heated. Here is what I have to say about my purchase: I love having a bidet and I 100% would buy it again. However, I would buy the $69 model because the water never really does heat on the other model unless you run your sink water until it gets hot, which is a huge waste of water. One knob would also be easier to clean than two. The place where the bidet connects to your seat is very hard to clean, let’s just say my cleaning supplies for this product includes a Q-tip. So this should be thrown into the box of things to pass over if you’re not a clean freak. However, if you don’t mind a little extra cleaning, are a firm believer that showering every day is probably not good for your sebaceous glands but still want your underbits fresh, want to conserve toilet paper use, this is a good product for you. Unless you can afford a Toto.

I can’t give you accurate labor cost because everything in my house was happening at the same time and my contractor didn’t break it down by room, unfortunately. But here is a breakdown of all the things in the bathroom (rounded up):

***photography by Sara Ligorria-Tramp

Don’t miss other posts in this series:

Makeover Takeover: How EHD Stylist Emily Bowser Tackled Her Awkward Master Bedroom | Reveal: Emily Bowser’s Bedroom “After” is Unrecognizable From the “Before” | DIY How-To: A Step-by-Step for Making Emily B.’s Wrap-Around Velvet Headboard