Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
One of the women in my book club had already read this young adult trilogy, comprised of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay and highly recommended it. We decided to read The Hunger Games for one of our meetings. If you haven’t already read it or heard the buzz about it, here is a short synopsis. In the future, North America has been destroyed by natural disasters and has risen out of the ashes as Panem. Panem is divided up in 12 districts and the very wealthy Capital. Every year, one boy and one girl (ages 12–18) are selected by lottery to compete in the Hunger Games – a reality-show-style competition where the 24 contestants are forced to eliminate each other until one is still standing while the rest of the nation watches. The first book follows Katniss, who volunteered for District 12 after her younger sister Prim was selected from the lottery. Katniss heads to the Capital with her male counterpart Peeta and we read as they are matched against those who have prepared their whole lives for the Games.

This series – thus far – has been awesome. Although there have been comparisons to the other young adult series – Twilight – that has taken the world by storm, that doesn’t even come close to the fantastic writing and storytelling in the The Hunger Games trilogy. Tons of suspense and a little romance makes for a very entertaining read. I could not put The Hunger Games down. I read a couple of chapters two nights in a row and then stayed up way too late reading the rest in one night. I wanted to immediately move onto Catching Fire, but didn’t want to have them confused for book club, so the night after our meeting I stayed up and read the second book right away. I am currently rereading the first and second books before I move onto the third and final one, which I hear is pretty heartbreaking. I highly recommend. Grade: A+++, a must-read

Saving Ceecee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
After her mother former Southern beauty queen Camille dies, Cecelia Rose Honeycutt moves from Ohio to Savannah, Georgia to live with her great-aunt Tootie. Cecelia’s life in Ohio had been marred by her mother’s mental illness and her father’s cold personality. While in Savannah, Cecelia becomes friends with the eccentric group of women in her aunt’s life. Ever since The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, friendships between Southern woman has been a hot topic for women’s literature. This book has some stereotypes and is pretty fluffy, but I did enjoy it as did most of the ladies in the book club. We read this following The Hunger Games, so the more lighthearted story was very welcome. Grade: B

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacey Schiff
A much lauded biography of Cleopatra, one of the most famous female leaders of all time. Everyone was talking about this book, so when one of the members of book club suggested we read a biography we all thought Cleopatra: A Life was a great idea. It was chosen as one of Martha’s Picks and it seemed everyone loved it. I am not normally much into biographies of historical figures – those are my husband’s first choice – but I figured we’d give it a go! That’s the best thing about book club, the opportunity to read things you wouldn’t normally and step out of your reading zone. Well, ha! That horribly backfired. I couldn’t get through 50 pages of it, and most of the ladies in my book club stopped right around there. The thing about Cleopatra that no one mentions is that – there isn’t a lot of recorded history about her life. This book was not told chronologically, jumped around from one historical figure to the next and just made for an incredibly confusing read. Only one member read the whole thing – she was a history major and is a huge history buff, and even she didn’t care for it. I’m guessing some might disagree, but this one just wasn’t for me! Grade: D

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana DeRosnay
Another historical fiction choice (which seems to be popular with my group of ladies), this book is a look at the 1942 round-up of Jewish families in Paris. The book is interlaced with a present day story of an American journalist living in Paris who is investigating the details of the round-up for her magazine. She discovers a secret her French husband’s family has kept for years in the process. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, but I have always loved fiction surrounding World War II. If you are into historical fiction, I definitely recommend this book!

I still have quite a bit of reading to do from the list I mentioned in my last book club post, but I still have some books to add to it.

The Summer We Read Gatsby by Danielle Ganak
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

I finally bought the first Harry Potter book and as soon as I am finished with the Hunger Games I will be getting started on it. I am hoping to get a lot of reading done this summer! I also recently joined Goodreads to keep track of books and see what my friends are reading. If you’d like to, you can follow me there.

What books are you reading while you’re on the beach this summer? What are your favorite summer books?

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Now it is time to decorate and bring more container plants into the patio area. We have a table and chairs, but want an area for lounging and relaxing, and need to do it on the cheap. The weather is warming up quickly, so it is time to get the ball rolling! I have been on the hunt for ideas and wanted to share some outdoor living inspiration with you.

{images via Pottery Barn}

I love the look of the all-weather wicker Palmetto collection in black from Pottery Barn shown above (photos 1-3) and the Portsmouth collection (photo 4), but unfortunately I don’t love the price. Since we won’t be in this house forever (thank you, Air Force), I don’t want to commit to something this pricy when I don’t know if it will fit with future homes. Either way, Pottery Barn’s outdoor styling is incredibly inspirational and somewhat doable. The black wicker mixed with rusted, brown metal pieces would be something I might be able to recreate. The abundance of multicolored pillows could easily be reproduced – I can afford the pillows! :)

{images via Style at Home, photographer Michael Graydon}

This space is fantastic and is a great example of bringing the indoor decor outside. The candles mounted on the trellis and the fountain add another dimension.

{image via House & Home, photographer Donna Griffith}

{images via House & Home, photographer Brandon Barre}

The spaces shown above show the divided spaces I am looking for – one area for dining and another for lounging and relaxing. Now let’s see if I can bring some of this inspiration to life on a smaller budget. Do you have any plans to re-haul your outdoor living spaces before summer officially hits? Or is your patio summer ready? If so, do you have any recommendations for fabulous, but not outrageously priced patio furniture?

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Posted in: Decor, Outdoor Life

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{images via: 1. Domino. 2: Domino. 3: Elle Decor design by Steven Gambrel. 4: Coburn Architecture}

I set to work studying inspiration photos to figure out my plan. Did I want white frames with color photos? Or would I rather have a color frame with black and white photos? Should the frames all be the same size? Neatly organized or haphazardly placed? The options seemed endless, but after all that “studying” I settled on matching, black frames with color photos as neatly organized as I could get them. Black frames would tie into the chairs and I am way too grid-oriented to do something unstructured. A slim frame similar to those in #3 and 4 above would keep the look modern and sleek. After some quick online browsing, I found similar style frames at West Elm and Pottery Barn. However, I didn’t love the price, so I kept searching.

Eventually I discovered Aaron Brothers’ signature frame. Armed with my inspiration, I mocked up a layout using Adobe InDesign, a program I use daily for my design work. This was the most important step for me. I am pretty visual so seeing the frames roughly laid out helped me to really decide and have a plan before I just started putting frames up there. I know a lot of designers suggest arranging the layouts on the floor, but I wanted to see them as in place as I could without nailing a hole in the wall or using paper templates. Laying everything out digitally really helped. I also placed some possible photo choices to make it even easier to visualize. You could use Photoshop or even just plain graph paper to mock-up your layout. After some finagling, I came up with two layouts I liked.

Then I waited patiently for the semi-annual Aaron Brothers Penny Sale and bought enough frames for both layouts – all for a song. I cut out templates of the frames using tracing paper I had on hand. (This is helpful because the frames are not exactly the size they say. For example, the measurement 8×10″ refers to the opening of the frame, so the frame itself is approximately 8.25″x10.25″.) Then N and I hung the tracing paper for both layouts to see which we liked better.

{image via author’s personal collection}

Very quickly, we decided on the first layout with more frames. It just filled the large wall better. With the tracing paper still up, he set about to hang the frames. He started in the middle and worked his way out using the tracing paper as a guide and carefully measuring the distance between frames. I decided to let him tackle that project solo for sanity’s sake. ;) He had it all up in one evening, and it took me about six months to fill all of the frames with photos.

{image via author’s personal collection}

And it is done! Pardon the poor quality photo, but I wanted to save the full view for a future post on our living and dining room. I am so pleased with the way the wall turned out. It is so wonderful to have more photos of us on trips and with our family on display. I have had lots of compliments on the wall and one friend was so inspired she borrowed the idea and created a similar wall in her home. Our house is finally starting to feel like home! What touches do you think make a house a home? For me, personal photos are a huge component. Do you have a gallery wall with family photos?

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Posted in: Around the House, Decor

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One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus
At a peace meeting in the 1850s, a Cheyenne Chief requested 1000 white women as a trade for 1000 horses and means to help the Native Americans assimilate. Their request was vehemently denied. In One Thousand White Women, the past is rewritten and that request is fulfilled by President Grant behind closed doors. The book told from May’s perspective shares the journey and life they lived while out West.  I found this book very intriguing! I couldn’t put it down. The characters could be somewhat stereotypical, but were still interesting. It was a sad, touching novel with romance and family drama. If you enjoy historical fiction, especially those set in the Wild West, this book is great! Grade: A

Beach Trip by Cathy Holton
When it comes to books, I am a sucker for two things: beach setting and stories of female friendships. This book featured both of these themes, but neither could save it for me (or most of my book club). I just couldn’t get into the story and I didn’t find the characters engaging. I found them very frustrating. I won’t give anything away, but I was VERY annoyed by the ending. With a title like Beach Trip, we expected a light, beachy novel, but this was a deep, depressing novel. We spent the majority of our meeting picking it apart, which we rarely do! However, it did bring up lots of interesting “friendship” type questions to discuss at a book club. However, there are lots of other books that could bring up similar questions. Grade: D

Everyone in the book club felt that these novels were dark so we set out to find something funny and different for the next month.

The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin
Steve Martin’s second novellea and follow-up to Shopgirl was not as engaging as I hoped. The protagonist is a savant who has lots of neuroses and obsessions and few friends. He is currently unemployed and his life is highlighted by walks around the block to the drugstore, encounters with a realtor across the street, and visits from a therapist in training – a graduate student from a local university. Although it had an interesting premise and was fairly easy to read, I didn’t finish the book. (This pains me! I hate to leave a book unfinished.) I wasn’t going to be able to attend the meeting for that month, so I ended up scrapping it in favor of reading the next month’s book after I couldn’t get into it. Everyone in book club seemed to agree that it was much more enjoyable after 75 or so pages, so I am adding this to my list of books to finish. Grade: I (Incomplete)

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
This fictional story begins in 1986 as an older Chinese widower hears news that the belongings of Japanese families who were interned during World War II have been discovered in a Seattle hotel. The discovery stirs up old memories and soon the story alternates between the present and past (1946). I had never heard of this book and wasn’t at the meeting when it was selected, so I had no idea what to expect. As a child I read Farewell to Manzanar, a story from the perspective of a child of one of the internment camps, and remembered enjoying it. I have always been a fan of historical fiction taking place during World War II and this was no exception. It made for a very interesting book club discussion. My only complaint was that it was slow moving at first. Grade: B+

Since my second book club disbanded, I took on some of the books on my own.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen
This tale of a working woman returning home to her Mennonite parents’, just didn’t measure up to the reviews. While there were some funny and heart-warming scenes, the book overall was very choppy and didn’t flow well. I finished it somewhat dissatisfied. Grade: C

The Romantics by Galt Niederhoffer
Another book turned into a movie – it came out last summer. I had to read it before it came out, but unfortunately I was never able to see it in the theater. The story follows a group of college friends dubbed “The Romantics” because of their musical chair-like dating habits and takes place at one of the couples’ wedding. It was a quick read. Not necessarily a great book club book since there aren’t a lot of issues to discuss, but I still enjoyed it. Grade: B

One Day by David Nicholls
One Day chronicles the story of a man and woman over the course of their 20-year friendship – observing them on the same day every year. This was yet another novel, I could not put down. The characters are flawed, and watching them grow and adapt throughout their lives makes for a page turner. Life isn’t easy and this books tells that story in a beautiful way. I highly recommend this book! Grade: A+

Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan
Another novel featuring friendship from college to careers with an unexpected twist. This was much better than Beach Trip, but still not quite what I wanted. The characters are navigating the strange waters of life post-college – which I could relate to. Grade: B-

Now for my to-read list:

The Hunger Games Triology by Suzanne Collins: We’ve chosen the first book of the trilogy for next month’s book club.
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden: I know this is an old one, but a friend keeps telling me I need to read this, so it is going on my list.
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
You Know When the Men are Gone by Siobhan Fallon: A fictional book of eight connected stories of military spouses, because I am not involved in it enough! Ha! I read an excerpt from this book in Oprah’s magazine and it was very intriguing.

I also have the very lofty goal of reading all of the Harry Potter books before the final movie comes out this summer. I am very behind here! I was late to the Twilight craze also. Do you have any reading goals for this year? What books are on your to-read list? Have you read any of these books? If so, what grade would you give them?

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Posted in: Books and Reading

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We didn’t end up reading many of the books featured in my post, but we read some other really great ones. The OSC ladies and I have had a lot of fun getting together. Sometimes we talk about the book a lot. Other times we barely speak about the book at all. Either way I’ve had a great time and I’m looking forward to the rest of the year!

Since my last post on book clubs elicited so many comments, I thought I would share our selections for the past year and some books I’m looking forward to reading in the coming months either with the book club or on my own. Once again, for full descriptions click on the book title.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
This book was hands down the book club favorite. It is no surprise to me that it is being made into a movie (starring Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson). Check out this movie website here. Water for Elephants is an absolute page-turner. The writing, the story, the way it played out. I don’t want to give too much away, but I can’t recommend it enough. I have been telling everyone I know who enjoys reading to get it now. A must-read before the movie comes out next fall.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Set during the Civil Rights movement and told from the perspective of two African-American maids and an affluent white woman. Everyone in the OSC book club had heard that it was great, but none of us really knew what it was about. We all really enjoyed it. The topic is heavy, but there are moments of humor to balance out the seriousness. My second favorite book from the year.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
I enjoyed this memoir about Walls’ tumultuous childhood with nomadic, sometimes crazy parents. It was definitely a heartbreaker, but very well-written and poignant. A lot of us wanted to reach through the book and shake some sense into her parents.

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin
A historical novel uncovering the truth behind the real Alice in Wonderland, Alice Liddell Hargreaves. I first read about it in Entertainment Weekly. This book paints a portrait of what might have happened between Lewis Carroll and Alice and how she dealt with being Alice as an adult. To be honest, some of the women in the book club felt that this book ruined the innocence of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I didn’t mind it as much, but found it slow-moving. I prefer a book I can’t put down and the action is constantly moving.

Chocolat by Joanne Harris
I recently watched this movie for the first time last year. I know, what was I waiting on?!  Chocolat is now easily one of my favorite movies. A friend mentioned it was a book first, so we decided to tackle it for my second book club. We thought it might be fun to choose books that have been made into movies. For the first time ever, I can honestly say the movie was better. The details in the book were quite a bit different than the movie. Either way, it was an interesting read.

Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik
I can’t resist a book about a group of friends and this one is no different. Set in 1968 in a sleepy cul-de-sac, Angry Housewives is funny, sad and sweet. We all enjoyed this book.

We didn’t finish a ton of books in the first half of 2010, but this year should be a good year. A small group has already formed and we are all ready to start reading once OSC kicks off in September. We choose these two books for our summer reading:

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus

Beach Trip by Cathy Holton

My second book club has decided to go with the books to movies theme, beginning with the book and movie that no one can stop talking about:

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
I’m 100 pages in and can’t believe it took me this long to read it. I love it thus far, though I know a lot of people don’t care for it. I’m hoping to be finished by next week, and then my friends and I will be hitting up the theater to see the magnificent Julie Roberts.

Some other books that I’d like to see on the book club circuit this year:

The Life and Death of Charlie St. Cloud by Ben Sherwood
I know Zac Efron makes some people groan. Since 17 Again keeps playing on HBO, I can’t resist him. I have to read this before watching the movie. The book sounds wonderful.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

One Day by David Nicholls

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home by Rhoda Janzen

Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan

What books has your club read lately and liked? What books are on your list to read? Book clubs are a great way to get to know people, especially in a larger organization like OSC. Are you in a book club? Or interested in starting one? If you want to join a book club, but don’t have a lot of friends interested, Erin from EAD Living and Blue-Eyed Bride and Rachel from In No Simple Language have started a blogger’s book club: Book Beginnings and Bookends. If I weren’t already in two book clubs, I would totally participate!

All book images from Books•A•Million. Eat Pray Love movie poster from SpoilerTV.

© Elizabeth Anne Designs, 2010 · Permalink · 8 comments · StumbleUpon It!
Posted in: Books and Reading

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{author’s personal collection}

My dream chairs are the Thonet Bentwood Chairs, featured below in the now-defunct domino. Growing up my grandmother had a version of these chairs with caning seats and I have always wanted a set. I found a source for them at a reasonable price ($99 per chair), but they are not in the decor budget just yet – other pieces of furniture are higher on my want list. (Like a new sofa to replace the plaid one and provide us with an extra bed for guests.)

{left: from domino, photographer unknown; right: from domino May 2007, photographer Dittie Isager}

I set out searching for a cheaper, temporary alternative. I remembered a photograph of Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick’s Hampton house dining room with different chairs all painted black. I loved this look, it seemed eclectic, but still unified!

{Elle Decor, photographer William Waldron}

So I headed to some thrift stores in search of four to six different chairs, possibly using one of the hand-me-down chairs we already had. On our first trip to a nearby Goodwill, Nick and I stumbled upon four matching chairs with good bones and a cloth seat for only $8.99 each. On Tuesdays, they offer a discount if you hold a rewards card from a casino. Jackpot! We did and we were able to score all four chairs for less than $25. That’s exactly the kind of cheap I was looking for.

{author’s personal collection}

N removed the seat cushions and the old fabric. I sanded the chairs to rough them up and painted them using Home Depot’s paint and primer in one in black. After two coats, they were good to go and I used wipe on polyurethane to make them more durable and wipeable.

A note about painting furniture: I painted my desk this summer with no problems. I primed separately using a tacky primer from Home Depot, then painted, and polyed. The desk is fabulous – not perfect, but super shiny and durable just the way I wanted. For the chairs, the poly did not dry as well; after a few days of drying it was still really tacky. I left them in the sun and that helped, but I can still see some streaks from the poly. I would recommend priming and painting separately, not using the all-in-one. That and not giving the chairs as much drying time in between coats of paint might be the reasons I didn’t have the best luck with this project. For more information, on painting furniture see Bryn from Bryn Alexandra Interiors’ guide and Jenny from the Little Green Notebook’s tips.

At a designer’s tag sale last year, I’d picked up a remnant of this caning fabric from Michael Miller for $10. It was perfect for the seats – I’d get my caning after all! After the chairs were painted and the polyurethane dried, Nick stapled the fabric onto the seats and put them back onto the chairs.

{author’s personal collection}

All things considered, I am really pleased with the way the chairs turned out. The full reveal of the dining and living room will be coming soon. Up next on the to-do list: the gallery wall.

Have you finished any home decor projects lately? Had any experiences painting and/or recovering furniture? Do share!

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Posted in: Crafts, Decor

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Our “Home Sweet Home” was introduced in this post, and has changed a bit since those photos, but we still have a lot to do to make it truly “sweet.” We can’t afford to do everything I want all at once, so I’ve selected a few less expensive projects to complete before they arrive. The first room to tackle is the dining and living room. This room opens up into the entry and is the first room you see when you walk into the house. These photos show some views as of November, hence, the Halloween/Thanksgiving decor. Sorry for the terrible photos; they were taken at night before a dinner party.

Please ignore that beautiful plaid, hand-me down sofa peeking out in the corner and pretend it is a fabulous tan or green sofa from Pottery Barn. For now, it stays. I try to ignore it. Also, pretend you don’t notice the horrifying vertical blinds. For now, the blinds provide privacy and a break from the constant sun. Those will be dealt with during their visit. I might not have mentioned that my MIL is an interior designer.* During her visit, she is planning to help me choose, purchase or order and possibly hang curtains.

My short term to-do list for this space includes:

1. Find chairs. I know exactly what dining table chairs I want. However, they are relatively expensive, so I’m hoping to find some cheap yet attractive chairs to paint black and hold me over until I save up for the ones I really want. The black folding chairs aren’t doing it for me!
2. Get a gallery wall up. To the right of the dining table, I really want to do a wall filled with black frames showcasing old family photos, wedding photos, etc. This is one of those things I’ve been putting off pulling the trigger on for the past few months. Now is the time.
3. Organize and style the bookcases. I threw the books and magazines in the shelves right after I put them together, so I want things to be a bit more styled and edited.
4. Remove and repaint chandelier. The light fixture is brown speckled with black. A quick swash of black spray paint and one other small touch should do the trick to make it look more fantastic.

The long-term to-do list includes so many more items, but these will get me to a place where I actually like this space and finally feel at home. Plus, they are somewhat easy to accomplish in a short amount of time. I am looking forward to checking these to-dos off my list all the while sharing the process with EAD Living readers!

Do you have any tips or recommendations for completing my to-dos? Are any of your New Year’s resolutions decor-based? What are your goals for your home in the new year?

*Could this be why I am so freaking out about our house looking nice? Why, yes it is! She and I have different, yet similar tastes and are both very opinionated, so the curtain process should be interesting.

© Elizabeth Anne Designs, 2010 · Permalink · 5 comments · StumbleUpon It!
Posted in: Around the House, Decor, Newlywed Life

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