do you remember this messy mess, the jumble of jewelry and gems that sat on my dresser top as a constant reminder of my organization failure? IT’S GONE! if you’ve been following along on instagram (sarahyates) you’ve seen bits and pieces as i worked to replace it with my dream system- my favorite bracelets displayed on the dresser top with my watches. and two drawers containing the rest of my collection, tucked neatly away and organized well enough to make martha herself happy! and i finally framed a bunch of our wedding photos! when our bedroom is complete i’ll show you the whole shebang, including our final decision on the wallpaper. it will be the first (and only) room in the house that will be all done. we can’t wait!
i found these black velvet display cases at the container store for my necklaces. and i edited. anything that didn’t feel entirely ME anymore- gone. just my most favorites made it into the drawers. i’m hoping this will also keep me in check with my consumerism- if i know i have to lose something that i have in order to bring something new into the collection i’ll think long and hard before making a purchase.
these acrylic bracelet stands are from here, and the ring storage was from here (unfortunately it looks like the seller is out). i was worried that lou was going to fight me on the girliness of it, but let’s be honest it was such a major improvement from the old mess i think he was too happy to see it clean to complain!
the dish i use to hold my watches was a white elephant gift exchange win. such luck that it works so perfectly for my watches! since those are in heavy rotation it’s great to have them so easily accessible. from left to right : marc jacobs, nixon, nixon.
to go alongside the black velvet trays i got two of these white lacquer trays for earrings, bits and bobbles. they’re the perfect place to store my ban.do goodies. and, that’s it! what do you think? it’s a pretty major improvement, right! do you have any tips and tricks to share on how you keep your jewelry organized? *wedding photos by max wanger
i’m starting to dive into decorating (or at least fantasizing about it) and we’ve landed on two wallpapers for our master bedroom! since we’ll be decorating this house piece by piece, wallpaper is a good way for us to get a lot of proverbial bang for our buck and some instant gratification. the idea behind this wallpaper is that we want something to balance out that big wall of built ins and frame the view of the pool (see pictures of the room here). we like the idea of monochromatic and graphic, so these two amazing papers were an obvious choice. so tell me, which would you choose?! i’m leaning towards the second one and lou is leaning towards the first. it may or may not be a decorating standoff.
well, here’s the reality my friends. two weeks after this, we’re living like this. HA! the kitchen is unpacked, our bedroom is livable and our pool is glorious. that’s the good news. the bad news: our furniture is oversized in this house and we want to sell nearly every piece of it. unfortunately, we can’t afford new furniture. so we’re living in this sort of weird in between phase.
all of the boxes in the dining room are filled with the stuff that used to be on the shelves in the living room. (remember this?) so i need to unpack them, even though we eventually want to replace those living room shelves with a white built in. because living like this for six months is crazy, right? don’t tempt me!
pretty much everything but the dogs is up for sale. check out our home tour here and email me if you’re interested in anything you see. i am off to LA for a couple shoots and to spend some time with friends! have a fantastic weekend!
ps- can we please talk about the expression in bean’s face in that first one? she kills me. shameless hussy.
thank you all so much for all the love and happiness about our new house! it feels amazing to share this with all of you. i have to tell you, this is a wildly huge event for me. i think it’s a big event for everyone, but for me a house has always had an even larger meaning, my history of homes is a colorful one.
when i was a teeny tiny person i lived in a van with my dad and his girlfriend and a funny little cat named “bouchette”. my dad built a bed into the van behind the front seats for them and my miniature toddler bed folded out of the wall in the back where it was stored during the day with bungee cords. we drove across the country having adventures and living a sort of hippie nomad lifestyle. i remember desert lessons: how to listen for rattlesnakes and the proper way to poke at tarantulas with a stick. i remember sitting on the hot, carpeted engine of the van in between the two front seats, the seat belt stretching across my lap.
our van home and a gathering outside of it. i’m in the red shorts.
before that there was a period of time that i lived with my mother, and we had no home. i was too young to remember, but i grew up hearing stories of being homeless and a life lived on the streets. she was alone, without shelter or transportation and caring for a baby. i can’t even imagine the struggle and fear. she later got back on her feet and created a company with my stepfather that has helped non-profit organizations (homeless shelters, literacy programs, women’s abuse shelters, etc) raise over 25 million dollars. she started this company because she had $75 in her bank account and decided it was time to start giving back to the community.
before the start of the business we lived in a tiny apartment and every dollar was hard earned and spent with careful deliberation. there was a jar my mom and step dad stored change in to save up for a tv, a water bed, reeboks for my mom. it was a simple life and not easy for them, but we were happy. we lived like that for 5-6 years. after the business launched we moved into what we considered a luxury apartment that had wall to wall carpet and a chandelier in the hallway. it was on a busy street, had a music store below it. they bought a mercury cougar and we thought we had ‘made it’. we celebrated like we were the fresh prince moving to bel aire. years later our small family moved into a charming house in the suburbs and then eventually a beautiful modern house built into the cliffs in an affluent community in cape elizabeth, maine. it was truly a rags to riches story.
the view from the house built into the cliffs in cape elizabeth. it was our dream home.
when i was an adolescent / teenager my father lived on st. john in the us virgin islands and i spent a good chunk of my summers living on a sailboat anchored in a bay. i learned how little space one really needs when the weather and lifestyle are permitting. i fell in love with sailing, with the caribbean, with the slow pace of island life, with simplicity.
in my adult life i have lived in 13 apartments & homes in the span of 7 towns/cities. i lived with a weird cat lady, with strangers, with friends, with family, and eventually with my husband. i have had the world’s worst landlords and some great ones. i’ve tried to make the best of every place i called home. and now, as we’re settling into this, OUR VERY OWN HOME, i’m so incredibly filled with gratitude, both for where i am and for the path that brought me here. i have a deep appreciation for what a home is, what it means for a family, for the variety of shapes, sizes and forms they come in. i’m so aware of how fortunate we are, and how fragile these things can be. i have a small thread of anxiety that runs through me that it will all be taken away, that it’s too good to be true. lou and i are both wandering around this house in a bit of a daze, feeling just so grateful and overwhelmed. we know how lucky we are, that even though we have worked long and hard for this there are millions of people who are just as deserving and working just as long and hard (and often longer and harder) for a lot less. we’ll never lose sight of that.
the first home that lou and i shared, in san diego. it was my first “grown-up” home.
it was important for me to share this with you because i’m always very conscious of the fact that blogs can make life appear easy, beautiful, better-than. and i’m not saying that our life isn’t beautiful and wonderful, it really is. but there’s a story behind us, we’re real people with lives that aren’t perfect and never have been. i want this blog to be our story, and i want you to know us as more than just the two crazy lucky fools that we are. thanks so much for reading, for being so kind and generous with your words, we are always thankful.
before the movers arrived on wednesday i rushed around our new house trying to get a few shots of it empty…the calm before the storm. i know it will never look this way again so i wanted to remember the feeling of the emptiness and crisp white modernism.
the view from our bedroom really can’t be beat. pool, mountains, beautiful landscaping and lots of bird watching! (it’s a shame we don’t have a cat, really) more after the jump. i am so excited to share!
the master bath is my dream come to life: double shower heads, teak flooring, hidden drain, connected to an outdoor shower. there’s a gate in the outdoor shower that’s accessible from outside, so you can hop out of the pool, shower and then come inside all clean and refreshed! it’s brilliant.
this view from the living room shows the entry way to the house and the hallway that leads to the bedrooms/baths. i’m having a little bit of a hard time figuring out how i want to decorate it (remember our old home tour here?) i think i want to go in a brighter, more modern direction with the decor. but i’d still like pops of color and textural/bohemian accents. more on that later… we need to save some pennies before we can start that process. in the meantime we’ll be working with what we have and i’ll keep you updated.
the living room facing the other way..towards the kitchen and lou’s office. you can see where it’s wired for a tv. we’re thinking of putting built-ins there to make it cozier, house the tv and hide the speakers.
this is the view from the living room, and eventually where our couch landed. we want to replace that outdoor patio table with outdoor living furniture- i love the idea of outdoor couches, chairs and spots to lounge around (i’m even trying to convince lou that an outdoor tv would be perfect for movie nights under the stars!)
i forgot to photograph the kitchen and the two other rooms (our offices). but i’ll get to those. i can’t wait to show you more as we start to unpack, decorate and really make this beautiful house our own! eventually we are going to build a casita (guest house) and add a garage- a construction/design project that will be a ton of fun! a few people who deserve a gigantic thank you:
solterra development inc tore this 1955 house down to 40% of the bones and rebuilt it to the beauty you see here. they were 98% completed with construction when we purchased it and then were kind enough to make a few changes per our request. they have been brilliant to work with, professional, kind, and you can see the pride they put into their projects reflected in every amazing detail of this house. i cannot recommend them highly enough.
michael langham – i think he has to be the best damn real estate agent west of the mississippi. if he hadn’t held our hands (with so much patience) through every step of this process i wouldn’t have made it through to this happy ending. he found us our dream home within our budget and worked tirelessly with us to make it all happen. if you’re looking for a home in palm springs, i promise you will love him.
our family and friends- your support of us, as always, is what gets us through the days. we love you endlessly and are incredibly grateful to have you in our lives. all the love in the world to you.
to all of YOU: thanks so much for your kind words and excitement for us, it has made the whole experience that much more fun and exciting. i am hugely appreciative that you follow along with us and beyond happy to have an internet community to share this with. big x’s & o’s.
a big fat NO THANK YOU to wells fargo who made our loan process so stressful and operate with such unimaginable unprofessionalism that i was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. (i do not recommend working with them under any circumstances!) they took 7 weeks to close with a file that our officer said was clean and perfect (and we had a 4 week escrow- those extra 3 weeks were insanely stressful!). i have heard that all of the banks are notoriously difficult to work with right now, if i had a do-over i would ask around for recommendations on a private mortgage broker and save myself some headaches.
moving on from the well fargo yuckiness. we feel incredibly fortunate and grateful for where we landed here in palm springs and are looking forward to lots of new adventures! thanks so much for reading!
i recently photographed catherine’s sweet home for this feature for the glitter guide. here are a few outtakes. and i’m sure i’ll be posting even more soon because there was just so much greatness it can’t be covered in just one post. styling by the fabulous jessica marx atelier. see more of catherine’s style here and here.
