Friday, December 28, 2012

2013

2013
It will be our first full year at the Baldwin House.
We signed the lease about a year ago and moved in this past July.
We have moved around a lot over the past 5-10 years, be it bad roommates, bad locations, bad landlords, or just bad timing.
We spent our time at Madison house (lived there for one year) planning what to do next. We wanted to make the right choice of where to go.
I am so beyond happy to of found where we are living.
It is modestly sized and in a very convenient neighborhood.
We have done a little house keeping around the house, but 2013, will be the year of making it home.

2013 A Baldwin House Year

1.Paint Paint Paint
Fortunately our landlords are letting us repaint anything we wish. When we moved in it was a lovely skin color. We had flesh colored walls, perfect. Just kidding I am overreacting, it was a browny beige and a greeny beige. I prefer an all white background for all of my every changing decor. We have already begun, the bedroom is painted white. I made a bit of a disaster, I had a really hard time moving the 5 gallon tub around and kept getting paint on the floor! So as I move onto the next rooms the boyfriend will have to help me a great deal more.




2.DIY DIY DIY
This one could also be called paint paint paint, I have a lot of misc. furniture that needs to either be put together, reworked, re-stained, repainted, and mostly repainted. We found a "tulip" table and chair on the side of the road. All that need to be repainted, someone painted them brown, freaking sick. The tulip table needs a new table top, we have that now just to decide if to leave is strained wood or painted white. It will be a tough choice, you guys might have to help me decide.


3. Plant Plant Plant
I definitely want to start gardening and planting this spring and summer. The yard is totally lacking in all respects of being a nice leisurely place to be!


4.Organize Organize Organize
Everything still really needs to be finned tuned in the house. The kitchen cabinets the bathroom, and most importantly the bloody basement! It is down right terrifying down there. We moved in from a 4 bedroom two story house with ample storage and plenty of closet space, so our current basement is holding everything extra. Extra furniture, boxes and totes and is our laundry room. Some how, everything seems to be spilling out and fallen over. Not sure how this happens. But this will be tackled this year!

5. Decorate Decorate Decorate
I want to start fine tuning all the decorations in the house.
::::Plants
::::Nature
::::Rocks
::::Black and White
::::Good Naturals with pops of bright.

Alright, that is the plan so far. I am sure a tons for shit will come up. Can't wait for a year of blogging and home making!

:::The Baldwin House:::
J. Coffin






Saturday, December 15, 2012

Kris Kringle


I have been so inspired lately by all the hand written typography I have been seeing on pinterest and the rest of the interwebs.
So I thought I would give it a try.



:::happy seasons greetings holiday time:::

the baldwin house

Thursday, December 13, 2012

A Baldwin Street Christmas





Alright, Christmas time. I have a love/hate relationship with this holiday.
The months prior I am head over heels in love with Christmas time.
Ready, planning.
Then a few days following Thanksgiving I start to get really discouraged. 
The days seem to go faster and faster and here we are half way through the damn month.

BUT!
I have spectacular Christmas decor this year.
We have been living the Baldwin House for 6 months now...
SIX MONTHS!
Holy shit, how the hell did that even happen?
Starting a new job and a new semester has really made the last months go by so fast
& have left me to really put this blog on the back burner.
Any ways, here is my Christmasy house.



For the past few years we had been living in "temporary" homes.
Places where I never invested much time into because I knew we wouldn't be there for very long.
We had been using a lovely 99 cent tree that my mother bought us.
Hey, It really wasn't that bad!
This year we planned on using my grandmothers old 1950's beautiful white christmas tree. 
I went out and bought white lights.
When I went to put it together I realized almost half of the tree was missing, so that didn't really get to work out to well.
As you have seen from previous posts that we have this lovely mid-century fire place.
It used to reside in the kitchen.
I was sitting frustrated on the floor, without a tree.
Then the best idea came to me.
Here is the "fake, fake Christmas tree"

Back story:
The fireplace was found at a garage sale on the outskirts of town.
I saw it from a distance and freaked.
Mostly nervous that I wouldn't be able to afford it, but it was a mere TEN DOLLARS.
I have seemed to of made some sort of deal with the mid-century modern furniture devil.
We couldn't get it home that day so we had to pay and leave it there.
The next three days I worried and panicked that they would realize what they just sold.
But low and behold they didn't screw me over and it was mine.
I noticed the log inside and the old cord, I never thought much about plugging it in because I figured that it would explode my house into bits.
I did plug it in for this photo and it made a beautiful cracking noise, and left it plugged in for a few hours, and we seem to be safe.






:::Merry Christmas:::

J.Coffin
The Baldwin House

Monday, September 17, 2012

South through Ohio, Down to West Virginia.

Nicholas and I rarely do much, let alone go on trips. 
It almost seemed like something completely impossible to us.
We have a rickety car, and barely have gas to make it around Grand Rapids.
BUT
We decided we had to do it.
We have to do something!

Nick has some friends (whom he never met) living in Toledo. 
We met up with them and they took us to Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
Ya know that movie with Richard Gere and the Mothman ( it totally scared me)...
we went there.


















& that was the mothman festival


Jamie

Monday, September 10, 2012

chairs.

So I am pretty obsessed with chairs.
If I see an attractive chair in a thrift store, garage sale, or on the side of the road, I have to have it.
So far you have seen my kitchen and my living room...there is a bedroom too that I am not quite ready to show.
But my house doesn't have that much space!
and I have about 7 fairly large chairs. Not to mention all my other HUGE furniture.


Anyways look at this Milo Baughman chair I found.
At least I am pretty sure thats what it is!
If anyone knows ways to identify them, let me know!

Jamie

Monday, July 23, 2012

Friday, July 20, 2012

NEW FREAKING HOUSE

Alright so it has been a little over two weeks since we have moved into our new home. 
I love it!
The neighbor hood is great and we even have a new "porch" cat named Furry Lewis.
It has been bloody hot out since we have moved in so it has left me with little motivation to do anything.
PLUS our main computer has been acting up.
Luckily I was able to order a new computer and it arrived today!
I am more than excited to finally be able to upload pictures and edit them accordingly. 
I am going to start off with a KITCHEN TOUR!



 

 Awesome, awesome cook books and such.





Holy shit, the fire duke.
I found this gentleman at a garage sale.
I had been eyeing these sort of fire places for a while.
I thought maybe at some point I would be able to find a cheaper one around 200 dollars, and hopefully I would have it at the time I found one!
BUT!
This bad boy was TEN dollars.
TEN!
I love him.

I hope you enjoyed the first look at my new home.

Jamie

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

bathroom

bathroom


Hexagon Wood Bath Mat Brown
$25 - target.com

IKEA Fillsta
$40 - ikea.com

6 foot Fern Tree Potted
artificialplantsandtrees.com






 The resolution is so terrible SORRY! 
I already have the bath mat and shower curtain.I am not really sure about it yet.How does it look with the pendant lamp and maybe some greenery?I would really love some input.Jamie


Saturday, June 23, 2012

shoot shoot






































I have been really trying to spend a lot of time shooting.
This is the art museum in Grand Rapids.
It really is quite stunning.
I will have to go back.
This is my new favorite spot, that brown wall has water streaming down it.
So beautiful.

Jamie

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

credenza.credenza

Alright so I am very fond of Mid-Century design.
I don't stop talking about it. I spend most of my free time looking at design blogs and watching documentaries about designers and such.
For the past week I have been really concerned about what to set my TV on in my new apartment.
Right now our TV is on a fire place mantel.
Our new home doesn't have a mantel. So I was not sure what our option was going to be.
I work at a local thrift store and we received two credenzas that were not quite up to my liking.
I thought HEY maybe I could do something with them, paint them, stain them, add drawer pulls...

Our bed is right in front of a window that looks out towards a moderately busy street.
My boyfriend tried to wake me up asking "what is that outside"
Our neighbors tend to be a little trashy, a little obnoxious, so I just figured they were up to one of their antics.
So once I rubbed my eyes awake and put my glasses on I saw it.
The back was facing our window and I could tell that it was the credenza of my dreams.
I hollered out the window and claimed my treasure!
The neighbors claimed this lovely piece of Danish wood was too large for their house and wanted to get rid of it!

I googled mid-century credenza and found a twin.
Looks like the maker is Rosengren Hansen.
I haven't found too much info on his work...but it is indeed teak and Danish!
ALSO
I don't know if you can tell from this picture but this piece is about 10 feet long!
Whoa boy.

The fine furniture gods shinned down upon me that fine morning.

Jamie