That chair on the cover of the IKEA catalog? Is coming soon!

I wrote IKEA because I am totally in love with this chair and it matches well with our decor. Here was the response I received:

Hello Amanda,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us.  We are always happy to
share information about our products.

The Strandmon chair is expected to arrive into IKEA store locations
sometime in November, however, we have not yet received a confirmed
date.

We hope that this information has been helpful, and we thank you for
giving us the opportunity to assist you.

Best Regards,
Julie
IKEA Customer Care Center

 

SQUEAL!

I’m always on the hunt for those awesome, niche stores like you see on HGTV, but they just don’t exist in Cincinnati. When my amazing painter friend Louisa told me about Louisville’s Architectural Salvage a few years ago, I wanted to go but forgot about it. This year, my mom wanted to visit a cool salvage yard for her birthday, so optimistically cautiously, off to Louisville we went!

We were very, very pleasantly surprised with our visit! It was buildings upon buildings upon yards upon yards of so many cool antiques, salvaged pieces, and reproductions. But beware – you need AT LEAST an hour to see all the stuff they have! We both came home with goodies and we found the prices to be very reasonable depending on what you were looking for. Obviously, rare pieces in amazing condition or humongous pieces will cost a bit more. 🙂 Here are just a very few pictures that I took while at the salvage.

(Shout out to my ADPi ladies! Can you imagine this on the porch of the house, haha?)

It’s been my dream (and my awesome husband’s dream, too) to eventually have enough land to raise a lot of our own food including livestock. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but it’s also so much better for you (and cheaper in the long run). We’re not talking about raising enough to sell – while we don’t mind farming for ourselves, we don’t want to be professional farmers. We both like teaching too much!

Now, this dream is a LONG way off for us. It will probably be at least 10 years until we can afford to buy a few acres of land, but it doesn’t stop us from dreaming and scheming. We also try to learn as much as we can about sustainable farming so that when we do eventually begin our farm, we’ll be able to avoid things like pesticides and antibiotics that are very harmful to nature and to our bodies.

While searching Pinterest one day, I came across the documentary FRESH and happily found it on Netflix Instant Streaming. Unlike most of the other documentaries, this movie does not rely on shock tactics to tell you why our current agricultural system is unsustainable. Instead, it shows several farms, both industrial and sustainable, and focuses on what the sustainable farms do differently that make it so much better. For example, I knew about cattle rotation so that the feeding grounds can naturally regenerate, but I didn’t realize that if you put chickens in the fields a few days after, they will eat the larvae in the cow patties and help recycle the fertilizer back into the ground to encourage natural field regeneration. Super cool!

I highly recommend that you watch this film, even if you never intend to grow or herd your own food. It explains much better where our food comes from, why it’s important to pay a little more for sustainably-produced food, and that research suggests strongly that we are completely capable of feeding the entire world using sustainable agriculture (one of the food industries’ biggest lies to keep us hooked into their cheap and dangerous supply of products). I hope you love this honest yet non-villanizing film as much as I did!

What’s your home style? I think the best way to describe mine is Contemporary Traditional. I like traditional pieces and homes with clean lines and only a few patterns layered in. That’s why I am super excited to find that Traditional Home magazine has paired up with Lonny Mag this month to combine the two styles! Check it out here!

http://www.lonnymag.com/issues/19-trad-home/pages/1