The North End Loft: Tucker

Showing posts with label Tucker. Show all posts

Sep 16, 2016

My Lazy Days Fall Decor

I have a secret to share with you today...

I haven't decorated my home for fall yet!

It's not that I haven't noticed fall is coming. The leaves aren't quite changing colors here yet, but I can definitely feel it in the air; a cool crispness in the mornings. I sat and looked at the summer flowers on the family room ottoman this morning as I drank my coffee, thinking to myself that I really should change them out to an autumnal arrangement, but there I sat - unmoving and (dare I say it?) unmotivated.

As I got up to put my empty coffee cup in the dishwasher, I stopped suddenly and gazed down the hallway from the family room towards the dining room and noticed the light in there looked different. I realized with a smile that fall decor had found its way into my home all by itself without me changing a thing.

Something you may not realize about our home is that it's surrounded by tall shade trees and gets very little natural light. Most of my blog photos of our home have been shot on a tripod with long exposures and wide open shutters and then light-edited a lot.

So, trust me when I tell you, the little glimpses of sunlight you see in these photos are very exciting to me! They mean the sun is moving low enough in the southern sky to slant through the tree branches and enter my home with the soft glow of fall - my very favorite fall decor!

So no new autumn flower arrangements today (and no tripod and light editing, either!) I just grabbed my camera this morning to share what I see, the soft glow of my lazy days fall decor!

Even Tucker is glowing today!

Thank you, fall sunshine!

May 18, 2015

Our Oregon Coast Spring Vacation

Hello, friends! I'm back from my spring vacation with some photos to share today.

My husband and I took a road trip to the Oregon coast last week. We love to visit the coast in the spring when it almost seems like we have the whole place to ourselves. We don't let the unpredictable spring weather slow us down and just pack clothing for whatever may come. On this trip we had some of everything, from light rain and wind, to misty fog, to sunshine.

We always stay in our favorite beachfront condominium where we can enjoy a warm fire or a home cooked meal while looking out at the beautiful ocean view.

We had our own patio and grassy area, which was great for Tucker. Our hosts greeted us with a big basket of cute dog bowls, towels for wet sandy paws, and even some sheets to cover the bed in case Tucker sneaked up there when we weren't looking.

The condo is next to Tillamook Mountain at the quiet residential south end of Seaside, and there's a cute pub, a breakfast café and even a little neighborhood market just down the street.

Here's a view of the sun setting from our little patio. Our bedroom shared this view from sliding doors, too, and we kept them open a bit at night to hear the waves breaking on the sand. Our condo complex lends out cruiser bikes to ride along this promenade into Seaside if the mood for crowds strikes. We could sometimes look all the way down the promenade and not see another soul here, though, and it really felt like we had the whole beach to ourselves!

Tillamook Mountain is included in Ecola State Recreation Area, which is our favorite place to explore when we visit the coast. We especially love hiking through the lush green ancient forests.

Tucker has to be on a six foot leash when we walk here, but on the sandy beaches from the grass to the low tide mark, dogs under voice control are allowed off leash on all state beaches. Oregon is considered one of the dog friendliest of all states for well behaved dogs.

There are trees so huge here that we can't see their tops. These trees were here when Lewis and Clark hiked in these forests. Maybe they even stood here and looked up at this very same tree.

The views of the coastline from high up on the trails are stunning, and we stopped often to take photos with our iPhones.

This is a view of Cannon Beach (a charming seaside town with fabulous shopping) and Haystack Rock (a popular tourist attraction) from the Ecola State Park viewpoint.

It's hard to get a feeling for how huge Haystack Rock is unless you're standing next to it.

To give you an idea of how huge it is, this photo of me with Haystack Rock in the background was taken from almost three quarters of a mile away. You can see the tiny people on the beach at its base if you look carefully. There are tide pools full of fascinating sea creatures here and hundreds of seabirds nest atop it.

Cars are allowed to be carefully driven on Oregon State beaches, too. As soon as we arrived, we drove down onto a deserted beach and introduced ten year-old Tucker to the ocean. It was his first time experiencing all the sights, sounds, and scents of the ocean.

I caught his excitement with this iPhone video. (You might want to turn down the volume a bit before clicking on the arrow.)

As you can tell from his big silly grin, he loved it!

We all had such a great time beach combing, hiking, and watching the tides come and go.

It rained here in Boise almost the whole time we were gone on our vacation, so we came home to lots of pretty spring flowers. When the sun comes out I'll be outside with my camera again.

Until then, I hope you have a wonderful week!

Let's party at

A Stroll Thru Life
Coastal Charm

Jan 15, 2014

DIY Photo Clipboards

I hope your week is going well so far! I've been having the best time in my craft room the past couple of days working on some small projects for our home.

Love Grows Wild

The one I'm sharing today is a tutorial for making my version of some DIY photo clipboards inspired by Liz at Love Grows Wild. I featured Liz's clipboards last August on Friday Finds and thought they might be just the thing for a long narrow wall space above my family room sofa.

My Television Console

I changed the finish on my version of these clipboards to fit the vintage feel of our family room and tie in with this white chalk painted media stand with a dark walnut stained top that's on the opposite wall. I've been wanting to display photographs of the beloved furry members of our family for the longest time, and I think my informal distressed clipboards are just right for some lighthearted four legged artwork.

Following Liz's tutorial, I started with a 1" x 12" x 6' pine board. I cut the length into five 13" pieces to make five clipboards. After sanding, I applied a coat of dark walnut stain and let it dry overnight.

The next day I applied two coats of homemade chalk paint. When the paint was dry I used coarse sandpaper to distress just down to the dark walnut stain. After sanding the boards once more with fine sandpaper I applied a coat of clear furniture wax for protection.

I didn't like the way sawtooth hangers made the clipboards stand out from the wall, so I improvised my own hangers by wrapping some floral wire around two small nails. I measured each hanger carefully to make them all the same. Taking the time to do that made it much easier to hang all the clipboards level with each other on the wall.

I hot glued squares of cardboard over the nails so they wouldn't scratch the walls.

For clips I found these cute miniature clothespins in the craft section at Fred Meyer. I dropped them into some dark walnut stain and then drained them on a rag and wiped them off.

I used a piece of 8"x 10" scrap paper to figure out where I wanted the clothes pins to hold each photo, marked the spot on the board with a pencil line, and then used a thin line of hot glue to apply each one.

I probably should have used wood glue for that step, but I was impatient and didn't want to wait for it to dry. So far, so good, though. The hot glue is holding the clothespins just fine.

I think it took me as long to find and prepare my photographs as it did to prepare the wood. I edited and re-sized each photo to 8" x 10" using Photoshop. If you don't have photo editing software on your computer, I highly recommend PicMonkey.

At this point, my printer ran out of ink. Grrrr... When my sweet husband brought me some home that night, I printed out my photos.

I trimmed the photos on my paper cutter, but scissors will work great too. The last step was the easiest: clipping the photos onto each clipboard.

And here they are! Our little ragamuffins!

Our family room has a high bank of windows on one wall. We love the view of the trees, but they only leave a narrow strip of wall above the sofa on which to hang artwork.

I think our new photo clipboards fit here perfectly.

Every time I walk into the room and see our furry family members looking at me, they make me smile. Each photograph captures their unique personalities; Tucker, my black lab, is smart and he's always watching me attentively to see where I'm going and what I'm doing. It's hard to see here, but there's a big grin behind that lolling tongue. Molly, a golden lab and my oldest grand dog, is loving and gentle. Jake, the West Highland Terrier and my youngest grand dog, is always looking for trouble. He's so darn cute, though, he melts our hearts, and no one can stay annoyed with him for long.

Our pets enrich our lives so much. They really are family members, and we're happy to give them a place on the wall. And in case you're wondering, my daughters' photographs are hanging on another wall in our family room. I haven't forgotten the humans!

I'd love to know if you display photographs of your cherished pets around your home too.

Thanks so much for coming by today, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your week!