The Shaffer Christmas Card

Merry Christmas to YOU!

Have a house full of warmth!

Go tell it on the mountain!

Celebrate often!

Have a very blessed year!

Have a home full of friends and family!

Keep life simple!

Remember that we falalalalalove ya!

 LOVE LOVE LOVE, 

the Shaffers

The Night Shift

Do you recognize this space at all? 

My new office. 

My creative space. 

This is where I get to hang all the wierd stuff I love that doesn't belong anywhere else in the house! 

For instance, that Ryan Adams print that Brad calls "the dumbest thing in our house" which I LOVE of course. But no matter, cause now while he sings to me while I work, he is looking at me with that dumb expression of his too. Perfect. 

Now here is YOUR creative space. The new guest room. Sleeps four, perfect for bands coming through town and fun parties that last too long. The curtain closes so that when I am sitting at my desk I don't feel like I am sitting in your room. 

We ripped out the wall in the room that closed off the slant of the roof and used that space for the sleeping cove. It was such a waste! It has added so much usable space for us. I believe it was Frank Lloyd Wright that didn't believe in Garages because it just makes you accumulate more STUFF. That was our problem with that storage cove, we just threw stuff in it. Now we are forced to put it in a place. (Right now that place is in the middle of the hallway. . .but hey, one step at a time. . .)

In fact, we are going to tear down the walls to the storage space in the bathroom, the hallway, and our bedroom too. I can't wait. It makes a huge difference. 

 Here is the same room before we bought it!

Yep. The second picture down is the same view as these, go ahead, scroll up again to take another lookie loo!

And then send us a high five!

And a back massage.

"We could do a bit more marketing. But then we'd have to deal with the problem of being successful."

-Taped to my computer from some old music magazine from years ago. I can't remember the band that said that for the life of me. So true though!

The (water) Closet.

SO, we moved into a two bedroom, one bathroom school house. And as any friends that know me or worse, road trip with me know . . .I use the bathroom a LOT. Running up and down those stairs to get to the bathroom between commercial breaks of whatever dumb show I happened to be watching at that moment just wasn't cutting it. 

So you know what. . .who has jackets these days? who really uses "coats" anymore? Not us! This closet was doing NOTHING a couple hooks and nails couldn't handle. 

SO closet,  OUT(house) YOU GO!

BEFORE:

WAYYYYY BEFORE:

AFTER:

WAYYYYYY AFTER:

 We bought this door second hand from Construction Junction in Pittsburgh, we figured we would keep the NRA sticker on the window to scare intruders from interrupting.

This inside of the closet. A little chop there, some wood work here, a bit of plumbing there and a mess of olive green hi gloss paint and we are in BUSINESS. 

Literally. 

Listen, I loved America before loving America was "cool" design.

To me. this is a symbol that will never go out of style. 

We snagged these amazing and totally imperfect faucets at a garage sale up the street. Our plumber thought we were crazy. Swapping out two old ugly faucets for two OTHER ugly faucets. 

I said, "that's fair. a faucet."

(get it? he didn't)

An old mug from my childhood makes up for the lack of space for a soap dispenser. 

The essentials.

Love this other find from Enjoyco.net

Now this guy watches over you in case the NRA sticker doesn't scare off the intruders. This is  . . .Butch Rose. . .named after his mom. The other Butch Rose. 

I made a man let me buy this thing off a wall in an Argentinian vintage clothing store. We had a serious language barrier, as I walked out with that thing, I realized that language barrier worked majorly to my advantage.

Love Butch. 

The power of black spray paint

My Main Man. 

He angled the mirror JUST SO . .. so guys can smile at themselves while doing their business.  

 www.meettheshaffers.com

LIFE OF THE POTTY

Giving Thanks

We had our first Thanksgiving at our house this year! Thinking of what this room looked like exactly a year ago is beyond wild. 

Things I am thankful for: 

(meet the shaffers edition)

1. a mom to bring the turkey over

2. a friend that visits that knows how to MAKE a turkey

3. a husband to get the "stuff" out of the inside of the turkey

4. an oven that ACTUALLY COOKED the turkey!

 I went up to the woods and picked out a bunch of vintage bottles from our "backyard" but some flowers and a tag on them and presto, our place cards.

You might also recognize this antique lace tablecloth from THIS PICTURE

http://thebandescondido.com/

(don't worry I washed it)

And if you look at that picture you will also see our two Nashville guests that helped make all the food, eat all the food, provide all the laughter, music, and scrabble competition. 

Jess made this pie from SCRATCH. I watched her. I didn't learn anything, but I watched her!

I was the hostess. Therefore, I put myself in charge of ambience. And only ambience. That is my forte. Cooking meat. . .is not. . .

 And the mood was beautiful and light hearted!
A great thanksgiving with our family and friends!
And I am so thankful for that.

spying

On the 7th day, God took a breather.

Or for us, it's on the seventh month.

BUT here it is, the family room. After many rip, roaring good times. (Ripping out walls, roaring fires) We are in a good place! A few things to tweak, like window curtain needs to go up and I think I might but some twigs around the chandelier. . .but here we are.

new/old walls
new ceiling
old/new floors
new paint
new/old furniture
new canvas and carpet
new stove
SO cozy.

we needed somewhere to put the woods in our family room, think this was a perfect solution. we took off the doors to the cabinets below the window and used it for even COOLER storage. wood. 

  the gold eagle mirror from my childhood house. i always had my eye on this thing! my mom finally handed it over.

amazing 1800's chairs from france via brimfield via enjoyco in ohio. our one year anniversary gift to each other. so according to gift rules, one of those chairs is brad's, one of them is mine. but according to marriage they are each half ours. that's why we sit on one together at the same time.

If love aint cool!

After seeing it framed in friends houses all over America . . . 

Over a year later . . . our wedding invitation finally gets the frame it deserves!

Love the Ikea frame department!

We have a thing about working after midnight. . .

By the light of the moon. . . .and one light bulb

The best part was about twelve seconds after this shot was taken, the guys realized they were sleeping in the corner for the night. 

Just kidding! There is a doorway on the side.

And so it is complete another ebony floor down. Literally.