The Lazy Woman's DIY

One of the hazards of my job is the intense house envy that can develop from day after day of looking at beautiful houses with gorgeously landscaped yards.  Since doing anything major like adding on, or redoing the kitchen is out at the moment, I've become a little obsessive about the DIY projects.  I steal all my ideas from people more clever than I am, then I execute them in this frantic, haphazard way, hoping for the best.  I am, if nothing else, an it-will-do-ist.

My latest project is sort of a house-wide decluttering and prettying-up which includes creating a separate and hidden play space for the twins in our tiny living room and the makeover of our little hallway.  Check it out.

Before

Here's what I did:

1. Removed coat hooks from the outside of the doors and replaced them on the INSIDE to hide coats and bags.

2. Sanded (badly) and painted (also badly) the doors.

3. Applied Japanese paper cut to fit insets.

And, voila!  I still need to do something about our phone area/key rack, and paper the door leading to the garage, but things are looking better, no?

Check out the September issue of Sunset for step-by-step instructions for this and other wallpaper projects.

Sonoma County Fair

I went to the Sonoma Co. Fair every summer as a kid.  Cotton candy.  Horse races.  Rides on the Zipper to Van Halen. Free scoops of Clover vanilla ice cream if you were willing to wait in line for it.  I pined for the huge stuffed Tweety Birds and longed for the sparkling white 4H uniforms.  Oh, the smell of fried stuff and manure.

I couldn't wait to take my twins this year.  First carnival rides.  First funnel cake.  And, most importantly, first photo booth.

Highlights:

1.)Pony rides!  Oh my God, my kids are so brave and cool.  They let the strange mustachioed men hoist them up on Franky and Cinnamon and then they rode those ponies like little buckaroos (okay, they were strapped onto the saddles and the horses just clopped along in a small circle, but still). 

2.)Watching the kids do interpretive dances to the bluegrass band until Mags threw up her funnel cake onto the parquet.

3.) Not having to go into the commercial building to look at automatic beds and astounding vacuum cleaners with my mom!

What we ate:

funnel cake with powdered sugar

tri-tip sandwich

pretzels

apple pie

blackberry pie

corn on the cob

Yum!  A great day.