Just a little inspiration from Orla Kiely’s bedroom, in honor of the fact that she now has a U.S.-based outpost for her online store. Hooray! (Thanks, Holly!)

I’ve had no time to post updates lately because I’ve incredibly busy. Lots planned for this weekend, too! While I’m busy being busy, how about you take a look at these three new-ish blogs that I love:

→ Chez Larsson Benita has been posting photos and describing all of her organizational and storage techniques, and it’s all so inspirational! She makes me want to move everything out of my house and then move it back in again, fully organized. She also makes me want to buy every clear plastic bin that Muji sells, because they are apparently the keys to a better life.

→ Haus Maus Holly from Decor8 has a new second blog, and she’s using it to document the process of setting up a whole new second home for herself and her husband in Germany. Great stuff! I’d never really thought about how much is involved with an international move, especially when furnishing an entire empty apartment is involved.

→ Verhext Tamera just moved into a new house in Oakland, CA, and it already looks beautiful. She has amazing style, so I’m excited to see how everything comes together.

I have a another great friend, Adam, who also lives way too far from me—300 miles away, in Potsdam, New York. Adam and I have lived together, worked together, gone to see Siouxsie and Rufus together, laughed together and cried together…but we have never decorated a house together. And it’s about time we tried!

Four years ago, Adam bought a beautiful sandstone house in Potsdam. It was built 1812, and “wreckorated” 160 years later. The situation is dire—Adam is living with things like shag carpet-printed linoleum. (Did you even have any idea that such a thing existed?!) He’s constantly saying that he wants my help in figuring out what to do with his house, so I figured it would be fun to work on his house from a distance, through photos and a blog. Everything is going to be done on a very tight budget and with a whole lot of DIY!

Adam is going to be documenting progress on healing his home over at his new blog, Fixing Adam’s House. I’m going to be posting there as well, mostly with words of encouragement, ideas for decorating, and inspirational photos. Adam will be doing all of the hard work, but he’d love to get feedback as he moves forward.

I guarantee it’s going to be a massive and uplifting transformation, and I hope you’ll join us!

I’m not sure how I missed this monumental event, but Loobylu is back up and running! Claire took a year off from blogging (a choice I completely understand), and I missed her writing deeply during her absence. She has been an inspiration to me in many ways for a number of years, and I’m so pleased to see her words, illustrations, and beautiful family again. Yay, Loobylu! Yay, Claire!

A tour of my house is on Apartment Therapy today, along with an interview and a long list of resources. You can see all of the new photos here, most of them new.

I’m so flattered that Kathryn at Perfectbound has given me a “you’ve made my day” award, because really, isn’t making someone’s day just about the nicest thing you can do? Kathryn and Julie’s blog is so beautiful—such attention to detail! Thank you.

Now I’m supposed to pass along the award to five blogs that have made my day! This kind of thing always makes me nervous because I can be shy sometimes, but this is all just about showing appreciation, right? So I’ll try.

Jen at My Polariod Blog
Jenn at Jenn Ski Studio
Kelly at Hoping for Happy Accidents
Sandra at Smosch
Tina at Swissmiss

Thanks! You’ve made my day!

Here are the obligatory “rules” that follow these sorts of posts…
The ‘you make my day award’ works like this:
1) Write a post with links to 5 blogs that make me think and/or make my day
2) Acknowledge the post of the award giver
3) Tell the award winners that they have won by commenting on their blogs with the news!

A few days ago I was skimming through the Design House Stockholm website, and I came across these gorgeous “Bono” mugs designed by Catharina Kippel. Instantly overtaken by the perfection of the one with the droplet pattern in particular (I have a bit of an obsession with teardrop shapes), I grabbed the photo, posted it on Flickr, and started to agonize over the likely cost of shipping and VAT to get a set of these delivered to me in New York.

Shortly thereafter, Katie popped in to inform me that Crate & Barrel is selling all four of the Design House Stockholm mugs for a mere $10.95! HOORAY. Needless to say, I’ll be stopping in to C&B tonight to pick up several.

More things that are making me happy today:

I love this kitchen by DAPStockholm (found via designsponge), with its red Arne Jacobsen faucet (part of the Vola line I love) and the Cole & Sons wallpaper (which I really expected to be tiring of by now, but I still love it). It reminds me of another favorite kitchen of mine.

I really do love red in the kitchen! Isn’t it nice how everything starts to tie together after a while?

Also:

+ I’ve really been enjoying Alice’s posts over at Peapods.

+ Camilla posted really beautiful photos of her morning walk yesterday.

+ It’s almost the weekend!

Yay! My poster from Elisabeth Dunker of Fine Little Day arrived yesterday. It’s beautiful! I can’t wait to have it framed and find just the right spot for it in my house. The colors (which remind me very much of those on the Eames Hang-it-All) are so beautiful and cheery, and I love (what seems to be) her combination of computer and hand-drawn illustration.

Elisabeth’s posters sold out at her new Etsy shop almost immediately, but hopefully she’ll have more items for sale there in the future. In the mean time, have a look at her blog and this great interview at Design*Sponge. Her style is such an inspiration to me.

I picked up a couple of yards of the Patricia fabric from IKEA I mentioned the other day. It’s very nice in person; the size of the print is much larger than I expected it to be. It’s a medium-weight canvas, and definitely suitable for lightweight upholstery.

++ Today I came across Et lille Hus, a blog chronicling the creation of a “perfect summerhouse” in Denmark. There are some great inspirational photos and moodboards posted right now, as well as photos of what looks like a very cute house with what will soon be a lovely view of the sea. Ahhh…

My new favorite site to start the day is Simply Breakfast.

My new favorite blog is Smosch. I just spent 3 hours (shhhh…) reading the old entries and dreamily sneaking through all of the beautiful photos. Love-love-lovely.

Fine Little Day has been making me incredibly happy lately, too.

(And they both live in Göteborg! A most photogenic city, apparently.)