The Glorious Pile

Can someone please tell me what the key is to publishing a successful blog? Do I need to be a better photographer, a better decorator, figure out how to do 'giveaways', take a daily picture of my dog wearing a wig,  make a masterpiece out of popsicle sticks and paint, rant about the challenges of motherhood even though I'm not one????? What's the secret?  I have 10 followers and most blogs that I read have at least 500 (some have thousands)! I thought I did a pretty thorough job of chronicling my bathroom renovation and I'm incredibly pleased with how it turned out, yet I have ZERO comments on that post! I've even posted it on other sites and I think they've been deleted!!!! Is it the shiny brass, the white grout on the subway tile, the lack of wallpaper, the commonplace choice of color? WHAT?! Maybe I need to provide a service, like selling a product on an Etsy page?  Anybody need some flower pots made from recycled coffee cans? I'm starting to doubt...

I was a docent at this house for the 2011 Modern Home Tour . The owners bought the back area of a church lot and in the process had to take down several white oak trees, which were later planed into the flooring for the entire house! I really enjoyed my experience, and the homeowners and architects were extremely interesting.  I made it to all of the houses on the tour except for one. This might have to be something I do every year to keep my design eyes open and as a way to meet people. Here are some of my pictures: I always want to ask a modern home owner this very important question, "where do you hide your clutter!?" ;-) btw, For me, this is the perfect mix of contemporary and vintage! I feel like expanding my attic just so that I can have a room that looks like this!

 on the Modern Home Tour 2011 Modern Home Tour 2011 A few posts ago I showed you my living room, which has two comfy chairs and a cowhide too! Next, I have to work on the side tables...  I'm thinking either one of these: But I still have to work on a lighting solution...which may have to come much later, so for now, I'm just admiring the cow! Sweet Sanity posted these photos from decorpad.com  Modern Home Tour 2011 Cowhides are so soft to the feet, low maintenance and stylish.  http://cowhidesinternational.com/ and Ikea have really good prices. I will post more on the Modern Home Tour as soon as I load the photos up onto Flickr. Please don't judge me for liking this, especially if you wear leather soled shoes or eat hamburger.

...since the last post was long enough to be it's own blog! Little red (my Canon Power Shot) is starting to ebb into electronics heaven. She looses focus every other shot. After just getting her back after loosing the battery for several months, I so depend on her to capture things, just the way I see it. I tweaked these a bit in iphoto, but I end up deleting many of my shots because they are just no good. She's been my faithful pocket pal for almost a decade so I suppose she's due for early retirement... What am I gonna do without her?

For years I've tried to fix up this bathroom on my own so I could at least have guests over without cringing.  When I really needed a roommate I couldn't do it because I didn't have the funds to complete it. So I've been saving since last August and I FINALLY finished it! Most of what you see I have hoarded for close to 7 years so I really didn't have to buy anything new, I just needed the physical labor to do the hard stuff and an impossible deadline to motivate me. (I almost made the deadline: my college friend came to visit 3 weeks ago but the final sink wasn't completed yet, so we used a temporary one until the final one was delivered). Forgive me for this post being so dis-jointed! I've jumped the gun and posted pics during my process and now there's so many that should sit side-by-side, from my research, inspiration, before and after that I haven't had time to organize them all. So if you have some time to kill, click on the links and catch a...