End table dilemma number 168. It's not that I can't ever find furniture pieces in stores; in fact, I discover wonderful pieces all the time. There are beautiful pieces but their price tags are just short of the balance in my checking account. In fact, they're so far down the road from my budget, that I can't even see them in my rearview mirror. You know the places I mean? The shops I like to call the Fantastic Four: Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, Pier 1 Imports and Crate & Barrel. I spend some time walking through their physical stores or...

I'm looking for some ideas on a new coffee table for our family room. Naturally, I will be building one myself. It needs to be sturdy and robust - lots of feet will wind up propped on top - but with a classic rustic design. Here are some of the ones I'm considering so far. My first contender comes from Nina at Everyday Enchanting for Remodel-aholic and it's a terrific knock-off of a Pottery Barn table I've been lusting after for a long time but I'm not quite ready to pony up the $700 price tag. What I like about this...

The darling man always knows there is a project coming when I start a sentence with  "don't you think it would be nice…" followed by something like  "to have a nice comfy chair in this empty space in the family room to lounge in?" In Theresa-speak it really translates to "I think we need to fill this empty five feet in our family room that I've been staring at with disgust for a month." Let's be honest here, I think he's on to this. Of course, I don't mean "let's go spend hundreds of dollars at the furniture store". No. He...

Around the early part of the afternoon is my sleepy time. I really wonder if I would be better off living somewhere that embraces afternoon naps as an essential part of life. I feel like many people frown on the person snoozing at 2:00 in the afternoon, particularly if you are supposed to be working. Coffee has become a critical part of my diet for this very reason; I just can't nap enough. It's true; it's actual science. Look it up. I'm pretty certain that's why Pinterest was invented.  Pinterest provides you the opportunity to look busy on your laptop...

As the country is heating up I sit here comfortably in my cool house with significant gratitude for my central air conditioning. And here in Washington, it's not even as hot as many parts of California for example, where today it is scheduled to reach over 100 degrees. That is not for me. I melt easily. Anyhoo, the central air does come with one small problem. The great big compressor thing that sits in the backyard is rather unsightly. It really doesn't meld with the overall forest scheme we have going on back there. Don't you agree? I'll never make...