Casa de Berry

Have you met the Queen?

August 23, 2011by casadeberry1 Comment

If you’ve spent any time around the blogosphere, then you are probably familiar with vinyl decals being used around the home. In my case, I was longing for some order mixed with ornate for my pantry, and I found it at Leen the Graphics Queen’s site.

She has a really cute set of canister labels, which added to my new IKEA canisters, resulted in a seriously pretty addition to our pantry.

Or rather, my husband liked them so much that he asked if we could get them off the pantry shelf and put them above our microwave. They look great and bring order and prettiness to things we use often. The labels are custom-made so you can have them say whatever you wish – as you can tell, we don’t really use sugar, so one label reads Splenda!

I was not paid or gifted anything for this post, I purchased this set and was so happy that I wanted to share with y’alls. I’ve also purchased Leen’s chalkboard decals and liked them a lot. Her prices are very reasonable and she ships very quickly – go do some browsing! Now!!!

clothing, colors, fashion, peru

Vogue Latin America Aug ’11

August 22, 2011November 15, 2011by casadeberryLeave a Comment

Vogue Latin America’s August 2011 issue features my homeland, Peru, in a gorgeous photoshoot starring model Tiiu Kuik:

I love the vibrant colors and the unspoiled landscapes; you can see the rest of the photos at Fashion Gone Rogue

clothing, fall, fashion, winter

Fashion Friday: the leopard print trench

August 19, 2011November 15, 2011by casadeberryLeave a Comment

As with every summer, the prediction for fall/winter fashions include animal prints. It is a classic print, really, so you can safely spend a little bit more than you would on something like the color-of-the-season.

Here, I present the Banana Republic Mad Men Collection leopard print trench. Whew!

It’s gorgeous, isn’t it? Fully lined, nice shape, I do happen to love Mad Men but you don’t have to love it to covet this trench. I usually wouldn’t go for a print trench but like I said, animal print, if done right (i.e. not in hot pink) can be timeless. And the print scale is discreet, not obnoxiously, in your face, huge animal print patterns.

I’m saving my pennies because between this and the Missoni for Target collection, I am seriously in trouble!

living room, mantel, wood

Our new mantel

August 18, 2011November 15, 2011by casadeberry3 Comments

The living room mantel is the focal point of our main living area. You see it as soon as you come in the front door – here it is decked out for spring back in March:

The problem is, the “wall” above the mantel was just a sheet of foam over the brick, which goes from floor to ceiling. We discovered this when we tried to hang a picture and made a huge hole instead.

We decided to tear down the foam and put up some sheetrock instead – at the same time, I really hated the current mantel, so my husband graciously built me a new one 😀

Below is the 2×4 that is nailed to the brick wall – the mantel is attached to this and it serves as support.

Checking to make sure the fit is perfect.

Applying wood putty to the rough edges and nail holes:

Our oldest was a very big help!

Painting the sheetrock to match the rest of the walls – we chose to paint the new mantel and frame in a dark chocolate brown:

The rich brown is a very close match to our TV console, coordinates with the large IKEA picture above, and is a good addition to our warm-toned living room.

Here is our new mantel area dressed up with some vintage Paris pictures and pretty flowers:

I LOVE this area, it looks brighter, cleaner and so much nicer – hope you enjoyed our little project!

boys, family, school, summer

Lazy days

August 17, 2011November 15, 2011by casadeberryLeave a Comment

We are enjoying these last few days of school vacation – we recently went up to a local park and rode on the train, it was wonderful. The day had cooled down and my three men were having a lot of fun together:

In a few days my sons are back in school. Is it just me or did this summer just fly by?

boys, bright, colors, green, painting, yellow

Featured at Beneath my Heart

August 16, 2011November 15, 2011by casadeberry2 Comments

Holy painted tables, Batman! The wonderful Traci from Beneath My Heart featured my little green table as one of the best DIY in July projects! Yayness!

You really couldn’t find a sweeter lady than Traci out there in blogland, and she’s crazy talented, too, so I am very psyched to have been featured on her blog.

I got a new project my husband and I (and my oldest) worked on these past few days, so I’ll tell you all about it soon – have a great Tuesday!

bath, bedroom, colors, decor, dining room, house, kitchen, living room, paint

My house colors

August 15, 2011November 15, 2011by casadeberryLeave a Comment

We’re in the middle of a little living room project:

and I had to look up my living room wall color. I did a post about my house paint colors in my last blog so I thought it better to list them here for future reference.

Our master bedroom has a sponge-finish treatment on the wall combining the 2 shades of tan. The wall where the lovely mirrored closet doors got the dark burgundy but lord knows I regret that decision. My plan is to do away with the closet doors completely and paint the wall to match the rest of the bedroom.

Our living room has a similar warm palette but instead of the burgundy we’ve added a dark chocolate brown accent color in the form of our new IKEA TV console and the project we are currently working on, which will be painted to match the console.

My little man’s room has two shades of light blue, and we seriously need to upgrade his bedroom soon. Aside from a few Mickey-themed items, there’s nothing else there and he outgrew Mickey a couple of years ago.

My kitchen/dining room colors are super warm and cozy, I talked about the changes we made 8 years ago in this post.

My bathroom got a cheerful coat of bright, warm yellow paint, which I continue to love, and it’s going to get remodeled in the next couple of months (fingers crossed) – I’m debating tile choices.

The paint color is Ralph Lauren’s Chamois. The cabinets were painted dark brown, echoing the living room console.

I will be updating the progress on our living room project in a few days!

cats

Feline royalty: update

August 13, 2011November 15, 2011by casadeberry1 Comment

After I posted about my Egyptian Mau, I was asked in a comment how Willie-Boo had come to lose his eye.

When we adopted him, we were told by the shelter staff that they had found him with one eye in such bad condition that the only recourse was to take it out. He had, apparently, been in a fight, and the eye was pretty much hanging out. Poor guy. Willie was definitely someone’s lap cat who ended up getting lost or was abandoned or something, because he is the most loving, cuddly cat ever. The shelter doctors did the appropriate surgery and he has no problem getting around with just one eye. He jumps on and off tables and sofas with no problem, and as I said in my last post, he RULES Bernie. They get along really well but just like my human kids, they love to play and fight sometimes. But they are each other’s BFF and companion.

At this point, Bernie is 11 and Willie somewhere around 10 years old.

One more thing – I am terribly allergic to Willie! True. I had never any problem with Bernie, but the night Willie came home with us I had to go back on inhalers. Call me crazy, but I chose to take my medication instead of taking him back. I am allergic to some cats and dogs; for example, I can’t be in my mother-in-law’s house or in my friend Kathie’s house for more than ten minutes without having a major allergy attack. What does that mean? I start having difficulty breathing – I can feel my lungs getting heavy inside my chest – coughing starts soon after, and at that point even if I take my emergency inhaler the only solution is to remove myself from the place or I would die from being unable to breathe. And this is why we now host Thanksgiving and Christmas 😀 My husband’s parents used to host but I just couldn’t make it through the entire thing.

If you have any further questions, just let me know! ;D

gardening, veggies

Garden update – August 2011

August 11, 2011November 15, 2011by casadeberry1 Comment

We haven’t had as many of these as we have in years past:

But just a few are definitely welcome! I hate buying them at the store, I always get ones that are half-rotted inside.

We’ve had so many delicious salads thanks to our cherry tomatoes

I like to keep it simple and refreshing with some mozzarella cheese and fresh basil.