The Truth about Wood Toys

When purchasing a new item my decision matrix is as follows :

1.  APPEARANCE

2.  What does the item look like?

3.  Peer reviews

4.  Value

5.  Practicality 

This matrix leads to interesting purchases- like a not warm, quilted Ralph Lauren jacket for a two year old who lives in Michigan, Lola the Border Terrier and a cottage where my 6'5" husband can't stand up straight in the shower.

Lately I find my desire for pleasing aesthetics haunting me in Fisher's playroom.  It's no secret I love wood toys.  They're much cooler than their plastic counterparts. I hate the bright primary colors and general tackiness of all the plastic kids junk.  However, I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that plastic = progress.  Less your wood kitchen and pickles begin to look like this:

Here is a shot of Fisher's wood heavy playroom.  Not only do the wood toys not wear as well as their plastic counterparts, Fisher seems to prefer the bells and whistles of his plastic acquisitions.  He clearly has not been versed in my purchase matrix.

I swear I am not going to order anymore wood toys.  But then the wood piano I just ordered is so cute. . .

Open House: Blue/White Cabinet

There have been many requests to see the new place and really I would love to show you . . . but not one room is complete.  Its hard to spend money on a rental and even harder to piece together your furniture from many other rentals into a new rental jigsaw puzzle style.  We've lived in three places in four years.  Ugg.  

This being said, my friend Brooke posted this picture on her blog today.

Ann Spiro (I guess this is how you credit photos in the blog world?)

I felt (kind of) cool, because I have a similar concept in my built in.  Note, I use the word similar very loosely.  Okay, the only thing similar is a blue and white color scheme and the minor Asian pottery theme.  More on that later.

Mixed amongst the glasses are a few pieces of rice china from my great aunt Weze.  Her Filipino friends buried it for her in her back yard during World War II, while she was a prisoner in the Santo Tomas internment camp.  After the war she dug it up, everything was in perfect condition! 

I have (had) plans to use the rice china along with the plates my mother in law gave me for Christmas (also blue and white) for Fisher's baptism.  Unfortunately it doesn't look like that is going to happen anytime soon. 

How did I start talking about home decorating, touch on WWII and end with baptism?  Most random post ever.