window safety

Our house has tons of windows. One wall in our living/dining room is almost entirely windows, but the weird thing is, there are only four windows in the whole house that open, and one is painted shut. There is one in the kitchen that opens, one in our family room downstairs, one in Alden's room (the non-functioning one), and one in Tula's room.

It hasn't really been a problem yet because our house is very shaded and is cool all the time. We also have several doors that open onto our deck if we need a little more breeze. Our big concern is that the windows that do open, swing out. There are no screens, and no child-safety locks. That's a problem because our house is built on a very steep slope, so although the corner of Tula's room is at ground level, there is about a twelve foot drop outside the portion of the window that opens.

The latch on her window is particularly hard to maneuver, but I'm not relying on that because just when you think something is impossible for a 2-year-old, they figure out a way to surprise you. Since this situation would have much more serious consequences than say, figuring out how to lock oneself in the bathroom, I think it's imperative that we come up with a solution to prevent a dangerous tumble out of the window.

I'd like something that doesn't look like a jail, so vertical wood slats are out, but I don't want to block off the whole window. My idea is to frame in some sort of wooden geometric pattern with holes large enough to reach through to the latch to open the window, but small enough that a thirty pound little girl can't wiggle out. I found these modern headboards from West Elm that have the kind of look I'm going for:

And here's one of their headboards that I cropped and shrunk to mock-up the actual window:


Now I just have to figure out how to actually build and install something. Has anyone ever seen this type of thing done?

weekend project: the results!

I love a good deal and I don't splurge on all that many things, but paint happens to be one of the few items on which I'll spend the extra money. We have purchased a lot of paint over the last five years—everything from Behr to Sherwin Williams, but my absolute favorite is Benjamin Moore. Without sounding too much like an infomercial, here's just a few quick things that I think make it worth the price...

The Natura product line comes in a zero VOC with virtually no odor. If you've ever used primer, you'll know how bad it can stink—for days. We can use the Natura primer without worrying about making our kids high. It also covers really well and has a great texture when applying. It's not stringy, sticky, or watery. Lastly, they have a great color palette to choose from.


I've never been one to be indecisive about paint colors, but choosing the right color for our entryway was really hard! We narrowed it down to blue and yellow, and then bought samples of each color. We stared at the small patches of paint on the wall for at least half the day, changing our minds every twenty minutes. Dolphin's Cove or Yellow Rain Coat? Maybe it was the names that pushed us over the edge, but finally we decided to just go with our first reaction and paint it Dolphin's Cove. Also, I liked the way my yellow purse looked hanging on the blue as opposed to the yellow (I know, it's silly). So far, we love it, and it's really lightened up that whole area of our house. What do you think?

weekend projects

This weekend is Memorial Day weekend which means two things for our family. First, it's sale weekend at Goodwill. Monday most of the store will be 40% off, and some will be 99¢. If you plan to go, you should get there early as it gets picked over pretty quickly. Second, it's a four day weekend for us. Patrick works Sunday through Thursday, but he gets this Sunday and Monday off—yay!! We were hoping to get outside and tackle a few projects in our yard—actually it's more of a forest—but it looks like it's going to be rainy all weekend. Instead, I think I'm going to get some painting done.

Most of our walls are white, and with our dark wood floors and wood ceiling, I plan on leaving them that way. The only walls in the house that aren't white are the ones that get the most sun. Our house is built on a steep hill, and we have lots of douglas fir trees surrounding us which block out most of our sunlight. We live in Seattle, so sun hard to come by anyway, and our trees make it even worse. The best light we get comes in through the windows in our entry and stairwell. The stairs actually get really bright, so the kids and I sometimes sit on them to eat a snack or read a book—sad, I know.

I intend to lighten up the walls that are currently painted dark blue, but I haven't really settled on a color yet. Here are some of the ones I've been thinking about.


I want something that will reflect some of the light into the living room, so it has to be something a little bright. I also plan on carrying the color onto the front side of the kitchen bar (currently painted black). What do you think?

Are any of you tackling home projects this weekend? I'd love to hear what everyone is up to.

vintage children's books

Yesterday, grain edit tweeted about a vintage modern kids book for sale in their etsy shop. It is a fun looking book that reminds me so much of a vintage book that I snagged from my parent's house. Mine is a first edition book called Everything Has a Shape and Everything Has a Size, by Bernice Kohn and illustrated by Aliki from 1964.

My mom is an elementary school teacher and she gets to dig through the library discard pile every once and a while. She found this book and had it in the toy box she keeps for the grandkids at her house. The illustrations were so lovely, I just didn't want to see it get its pages ripped out, or chewed to a mushy pulp—which has been known to happen to our books from time to time. We rescued it from the bottom of the bin, where it was buried under old stuffed animals and barbies with chopped off hair (thanks to my sister) from my childhood.



One particular spread seemed so fitting in our home. The little girl and boy on this page remind me so much of Alden and Tula, and I wanted to find a way to display these illustrations without removing them and destroying the book. The picture of the little boy was, however, just a little too sad. I made a few adjustments in photoshop—flipped the frown to a smile and made the balloon a little bigger—before printing it out. Patrick has a great method of making simple transfers using acetone and color copies, so we decided to enlarge and transfer them onto wood panels. If anyone is interested in the process, I can put together a step-by-step instructional post.


Now the pictures hang together in our playroom and the book sits up on a shelf. The kids love to read it, so we take it down quite often, but it always gets returned to its special little spot... out of reach.


Alden insisted on being in this picture, so I suppose this is his first Modern Thrifter cameo.

Friday Finds - May 14th

Today was another gorgeous spring day in Seattle so we spent most of the day in the sun, but I was able to step away this evening to check out Deseret Industries for a few minutes. I was met with disappointment again in the furniture section, but on the bright side, I picked up some great vintage canisters for my kitchen that I plan on spraying a bright yellow. I'll post some pictures of that project when I get to it. I also found this shadow box frame:
A few months ago Patrick took Alden to the Emerald City ComiCon and they picked up a pile of buttons that one booth was giving away. I've been wondering what to do with them, and I've finally decided to frame them for Alden's room. I'm excited to hang it up tomorrow.
I've been feeling pretty crafty the last couple of days, so here's to hoping I stay motivated enough to complete a few projects!