What to Expect from a Home Energy Audit

I recently shared why we decided to get an energy audit for our beach house.   We LOVE our beach house, and being able to share it with our family and our friends, but the west side of the house was cold, not energy efficient, and cost a fortune to heat.  We knew we needed to do something, but we wanted to make sure we made the best use of resources to make improvements.  Sooooo, we had an energy audit done.

This is what you can expect if you are planning to have an energy audit done for your house.

The Three Best Reasons to Have an Energy Audit Done on Your Home

Earlier this year we had an energy audit done on our beach house.  This was pretty much the coolest thing ever!

If you have never had this done, I would encourage you to look into it!   We had three reasons for doing the audit:

Design Secrets for Creating Beautiful Presentations

Do you ever look at beautiful renderings, sketches, and models created by interior designers and think you could never create anything like that?  I'm here to tell you, yes you can!  

Drawing and modeling are learned skills, and anybody can do it.  Most interior designers will have eight or ten art, computer drawing, and graphic design courses under their belt, but you don't necessarily need a million classes to create simple drawings and models for your own projects.

The Secrets to Creating a Beautiful Heritage Gallery Wall

When I was thirteen, I got a new piano teacher.  Once a week, I would go to her home after school, take my lesson, then wait for my mom to get off work and pick me up. While I waited, I would explore her home. I loved her home. It was full of handcrafted items and mementos, all beautifully arranged.  My absolute favorite thing was the heritage gallery in their main hallway.  I loved how all the generations were sort of jumbled together and none of the frames matched, and yet it looked really cohesive. It even contained items that were meaningful, but weren't actually portraits or photographs.

I eventually talked my mom into letting me create a heritage gallery in our dining room.  I studied lots of shelter magazines and gathered up nails and hammer and, of course, lots of pictures.  I gathered some unusual things, too -- like a round copper shadow box that I filled with grains and stuck a little sepia toned school photo of my Dad into.  My mom thought that was a little weird, but she liked it in the end.

That was the beginning of my obsession.  

How to Weave a Rush Seat

A few months ago my beautiful mother-in-law passed away very suddenly.  She had many beautiful pieces of furniture -- mementos of her travels and of a life well lived.... aaaaand she had a few not so beautiful pieces.

In the days before her funeral, her seven children flew out from every corner of the country and began the heart-breaking task of sorting through her belongings. The children took turns selecting items they wanted to keep, then they decided which items to donate and which items to put in the huge dumpster that had been delivered to the house.

High Chair Makeover

Several months ago I found this little wooden highchair at a local thrift store.  We do a lot of entertaining at the beach house, and our guests often include babies and toddlers, so a good sturdy highchair has been on our list of things to get.

When I saw the price of this highchair, I knew it was coming home with me.  Are you ready for this?  It was $4.99!  I loaded that baby into my shopping cart!

A Little Seattle Tudor

I recently did several paint consults for this little Tudor. This was going to be a big project -- repainting the entire home interior, plus plaster repairs. Basically, this meant that over the course of a few weeks, my client was going to have to move his furniture around over and over again, and move some of his belongings temporarily into storage. As you can see, however, repainting was long overdue!

(I suggested addressing the light fixture while we were at it.)

{Inspired} Ideas for Pretty Painted Beds

In a couple of days I'm heading back to the beach house -- hopefully to paint some bedroom furniture! For inspiration I've been scouring catalogs, websites, and furniture stores. I don't know about you, but I love color. I have these conflicting voices in my head, saying "paint your bed a cheerful pretty color" and "paint your bed a safe color"....  Guess which voice is winning?

I know, I know, it's been two years since the major part of our remodel, and I am still working on finishes and furnishings......  

If You Don't Do Anything Else When You Visit Seattle

Do this:  See our city from the water.

What You Should Know Before You Start Your Kitchen Remodel

This is a re-visit of a popular House Revivals post, with a few updates. Enjoy! 

A popular topic in on-line forums and on blogs is kitchen design.  All the amazing new cooking shows have contributed to the interest, as have many of the real estate and decorating programs on cable TV.  And, I have to tell you, there is a lot of great stuff out there!