The gang is back together for another round of 14 days of Love. For this summer edition I curated a little art collection inspired by the flowers and sky in summertime. The work is by some of my absolute favorites and I am going to give it all away to one lucky reader! Enter to win below. Here's a little bit more about the artists in the collection...
Read MoreI thought I'd give a little update on our front yard project. We've made some serious headway! Gone is the icky chain link fence, and dead grass patch, we've replaced it with drought resistant landscaping and a set of new side fences. Remember this?
Read MoreIf you've been reading this blog over the years then you know I have a fondness for The Parker in Palm Springs. There's just something a little magical about it for me, as if Wes Anderson and Jonathan Adler got together and had a hotel. It's a place that is dedicated to the art of lounging, decked out a bit like Megan Draper's Laurel Canyon home, a mix of boho textiles, mid century furnishings and amazing mood lighting. This past weekend I finally got to spend a few days on hotel grounds to really take it in when we celebrated our 10 year anniversary. The magic of The Parker is the way its cut into several different secret environments, paths lined with overgrown mimosa trees, palms and grasses carve out hidden passages to swaying fields of hammocks and circles of butterfly chairs. Inside it's cut into conversational spaces framed by hanging rattan seating and womb chair nooks. At night it is enchanted, lamp lit and mysterious. I took notes. Lots of notes. We have our own groovy project to design, and an ever growing collection of vintage chairs, and lamps to weave into the mix. Now if I could just get my hands on a wall hanging like this...
Read MoreLast week Adam and I celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary. It hardly seems possible that a decade has gone by since we gathered our family and friends together in a redwood grove in Berkeley and traded vows and rings. Yet here we are. He with silver in his hair, and I with a little more laugh in my lines. We have our two wild haired boys, our now 15 year old cat, and the shelter and promise of our new home. As it turns out, a lot can happen in ten years. We managed to sneak away for a long relaxing weekend in Palm Springs, where we slept in, laid by the pool, and ate late night dinners, but before we left we celebrated with the boys. At our wedding Adam and I served a family style paella at each table, so we thought it would be the perfect way to recreate the memory. As we sat together in our new backyard, pink peonies on the table like my bouquet, telling bad knock knock jokes, squabbling, sneaking kisses, talking about the big day, we ate our wedding food; our family complete.
Read MoreA little over a week ago Adam's brother and his family, including cousins Sam and Henry, moved from the East Bay to our neighborhood in Petaluma. We still can't believe it. In less than a month his folks will pack it up and join us as well, also just down the street, AND our best family friends from the hilly perch in Oakland are officially in contract on a house about 2 miles away, with plans to send their boys to school with ours. I don't know how this happened, it's like it's all coming together. When we moved here two years ago we didn't know a soul, and we assumed we were always going to be the lone family to the north. As the school years have passed we've built a little framily of like-minded transplants, and settled in as Petalumans. I run into people at the grocery store, we have a steady stream of kids running through our house, and Fridays tend to lead to late night hang outs with their parents. Now, it seems, we have it all. To celebrate our close proximity, we had the family over to break in our new fire pit.
Read MoreMake + Haus is the new name and online home for the blog Poppy Haus. Established in 2011, the blog archive now contains hundreds of original design projects and whole food recipes, many featured on the likes of Apartment Therapy, Martha Stewart, Design*Sponge, Curbly, and Epicurious.
