DIY travel map

I love travel, I love maps, and I love keeping track of things, so it's no surprise that I've wanted a travel map for years. (Plus, Larry and I have a goal to visit all 50 states, and we're a tiny bit competitive about it.) It's lame that it took me so long to actually follow through with this project, though, especially since I searched and searched for years for an acceptable map and finally bought one in 2011. Yes, I've had this map rolled up in a tube for TWO YEARS. It's finally on the wall, though!

I wanted a map that was simple and modern and found this one on Amazon. It was $1.68 when I bought it two years ago. It's 24x36 and printed on a metallic silver paper. The map does have a few geographic inaccuracies, though. (Where are the Great Lakes? What happened to Michigan???) I'm not sure if this is because it was a $2 map or because it was printed in the U.K. (Evidently, Americans aren't the only ones who suck at geography!)

I had initially wanted to hang the map in a public area in our house, because I think it's a good conversation piece, however, there just weren't any good spots in our living or dining room, so I decided to hang it in our bedroom. This worked out for the better because the metallic paper shows every fingerprint (I wore cotton framer's gloves while framing), and I think our visitors would think it was pretty snotty if we had a "Please don't touch" sign next to it in our living room.

I really wanted the map to look like a frame-worthy piece of art, so I mounted it to adhesive-backed foam core and framed it in a walnut frame (without glass, obviously). I've seen maps mounted to corkboard using pushpins, but this looks wrinkly and sloppy to me, so mounting the map to foam core was important in achieving a smooth and professional appearance. Plus, the foam core works as a backer board for the map pins.

Orange pins | Places I've traveled
Blue pins | Places Larry's traveled
White pins | Places we've traveled together

(For the sake of clarity, I'm only putting one pin per state/country regardless of how many cities we've been to. I would like to get a larger U.S. map someday to pin all the cities we've visited.)


The map was a good reminder of how big the world is and how little of it I've seen. I haven't done anywhere near as much traveling as I'd like - I didn't grow up in a military family (or in a family that traveled anywhere besides New Jersey, really) and I've never had a job that sent me to any interesting places for business, so all of my traveling was for pleasure or school (I studied abroad twice). Larry, on the other hand, has done a lot of business travel and has been to some very interesting places in Asia and Europe, as well as a good amount of domestic travel. Of course, the best trips have been the ones we've taken together. We've done some amazing traveling together in the good ol' USA as well as a couple trips to the Caribbean, but we definitely need to add some white pins to international locations!


And while I wish we could stick pins all over South America, Asia, Australia, and Africa (some day?), I do feel very lucky that I've gotten to experience a (tiny) bit of the world outside of the United States. To put it in perspective, I recently heard that over 50% of Americans have never been outside the U.S.

It's a big big world! Let's go!

king vs. queen

Confession time! Larry and I sleep on a double bed. And we've been sharing a double bed for nine years. Yes. A double bed.

We're not small people. It's uncomfortable. And while we do like to sleep close at times, I'd prefer it be in an Awww, let's snuggle kind of way, not an OW, GET YOUR ELBOW OUT OF MY EYE kind of way.

When we were house hunting four years ago, the thing that sold me on this house was the master bedroom. It was huge! It took up the entire top floor of the house! It had a cathedral ceiling and skylights! It was my dream bedroom and I couldn't wait to transform it into a cozy nest for two (er, four - since the dogs share our bedroom, too).

I used to watch a lot of home decorating and DIY shows on HGTV. In just about every episode, the owners would admit that while they had renovated the rest of their house, their own bedroom was a sad state of affairs. The camera would pan through a beautifully decorated living room/dining room/kitchen and then go up the stairs to reveal the master bedroom: a mattress sitting on the floor topped with a brown comforter from 1989.

I always wondered how this happened and vowed it would never happen to us. The bedroom is the most important room in the house. It is the room that you spend the most time in. It must be comfortable, it must be a retreat.

Anyway, we moved into the house, got settled and thought SOON WE WILL FILL THIS GIANT BEDROOM WITH A GIANT KING SIZED BED!

WE WILL SLEEP LIKE KINGS!

IT WILL BE VICTORY!

Yet four years later we are still sharing a double bed. It rests on a metal bed frame - the kind that come free when you buy a mattress (a mattress that is ten years old*). Want to know what other furniture we have in our giant master suite? Two nightstands from Ikea and a trampoline.** THAT IS ALL.

This photo is from last summer's bed jumping escapade, but it also accurately expresses my frustrations over our sorry-ass furnitureless bedroom.

You will note that we DO NOT OWN DRESSERS. Guess where our clothes are? Did you say "in the closet"? You are only partially right. They are also ON THE TRAMPOLINE. AND THE FLOOR.

We have turned into those people from the HGTV shows. It's a sad state of affairs. It's our dirty little secret. When friends come to visit and move towards the stairs, we fling our bodies in front of them and shout "DO NOT GO UP THERE!"

If you're wondering "Why the heck didn't you just buy a bed and some dressers then?", you must not be a homeowner. Being a homeowner is expensive and unpredictable. Things break. Trees fall. HVAC systems need replaced. These things eat up your budget, and since we already had a mattress to sleep on, it stayed, and the renovation of our bedroom was sacrificed so that we could afford to have a house that was cool in the summer and warm in the winter. (Both of these are very important. We have lived through both a broken furnace and a broken air conditioner and these situations are way more uncomfortable than sleeping a little bed.)

But we are finally at the point where we can buy some bedroom furniture. A bed, a mattress, two dressers. We'll paint the walls, buy new bedding, hang some art, and put the clothes in the drawers.

Except that we can't decide...

KING VS. QUEEN

We originally thought we'd go for it and get the King. I know, I know, King beds are enormous and maybe a little tacky. As an architect, we advised our clients to never get King-sized beds. They take up the whole room! A room full of bed will be ugly and awkward! They're heavy and difficult to move! You can't get them up the stairs! BUT, after sharing a double bed for years, we wanted a serious upgrade. We wanted space. And with a bedroom that is 18 feet wide, we certainly have the room for it. To fit the other furniture in the room we settled on a California King (which is four inches narrower than a regular King and would allow two dressers to fit - we think). But then we realized that a California King mattress still wouldn't fit up our stairs...

Unless, we bought a latex mattress***. I've been interested in these for years (ever since Young House Love bought one). They are organic and don't have the potentially-dangerous chemicals that are found in regular spring mattresses. I'm not an alarmist when it comes to these kind of things, but not sleeping on chemicals couldn't be a bad thing. Most importantly, latex mattresses come in boxes. They are flexible. They will fit up our stairs. To make things even more convenient, the top-rated latex mattress manufacturer, Savvy Rest, has a showroom just a few miles from us. They are a local company and the mattresses ship from the Charlottesville area. I'm always keen to go green/eco-friendly and to support local businesses. And Savvy Rest is a good one. Problem is, a latex mattress is more than TWICE as expensive as a spring mattress. Ouch. Then again, a mattress it the most important piece of furniture you own. Consider that you will own it for 20 years (Savvy Rest has a 20 year warranty), sleep on it 8 hours a night, and avoid nasty fireproofing chemicals, and it doesn't seem like such a splurge.

Latex mattress samples from Savvy Rest. A mattress is comprised of three 3" layers of latex in your choice of densities. 

The layers are zipped into a quilted organic cotton and wool cover.

BUT. Do we really need a mattress that big? We slept on a King at the beach and I dare say it was too big. Larry and I would wake up in the morning and the bed WOULD STILL BE MADE between us. It kind of took the fun out of sharing a bed with someone since that someone was sleeping in another zip code.

So, maybe we just need a Queen. Cheaper, fits up the stairs, isn't the size of a cruise ship. Problem is, I think the Queen is too small.

I know, I know, just call me Goldilocks.

But a Queen sized bed is just 6 inches wider that a double. That's 3 extra inches per person. That is not enough space to keep Larry's elbow out of my eye.

Image via El Colchon Mattress.

Why don't they make a bed size that is between Queen and King/California King? What to do, what to do?

If budget was our deciding factor, we'd just go with a Queen-sized spring mattress. If eco-friendliness was our deciding factor, we'd go with a California King latex mattress. If assuring that other furniture will fit was our deciding factor, we'd go with Queen. All of these things are important, but to me, the most important deciding factor is comfort. Which mattress will provide the best night's sleep? I don't have an answer to which is the best choice for us. Is King too big? Is Queen too small?

Decisions, decisions! AAAARRRGGGGHHHH!

We've been trying to make this decision so we can just GO AHEAD AND ORDER THE DAMN FURNITURE ALREADY, but we're stuck. Larry's favorite party question these days is "Can I ask you a personal question? What is the size of your..............mattress?" 

Not that the size of anyone else's bed will determine what is best for us, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Anyone out there have a King-sized bed? Have you ever felt squished in a Queen-sized bed? Anyone have a latex mattress? Is it impossible to find sheets for a California King?

......................................................

* When I moved into my first apartment after graduating from college, I didn't have a mattress or the money to buy one, so I SLEPT ON THE FLOOR for three months. No lie. Sense a pattern here?
** The trampoline is for exercising. FITNESS. (And also clothes storage.) It is not some kind of sex equipment. JUST WANTED TO CLEAR THAT UP.
*** A latex mattress is not the same as a memory foam mattress. We are not considering memory foam. It is stinky and made of chemicals. Also, it doesn't bounce. (Warning, that link is NSFW. Also, MOM, DO NOT CLICK THAT LINK!)

bad ass metal deer head

Meet our newest family member - John Deere*:

Never in a million years would I have thought that I'd ever have a deer head decorating my house.

Obviously, the taxidermied kind are completely gross. But I've found the recent trend of fake deer heads to be disturbing, too. Even the ceramic/cardboard kind are just copies of what? A dead animal's head mounted to the wall! Yuck.

So I really can't explain why I fell in love with this metal deer head while window shopping in St. Michaels the other weekend. Nor can I explain why this metal deer head is now hanging above my fireplace. Oh wait, yes I can - because it's a freakin' bad ass metal deer head and it's awesome.

Our attention was first caught by this metal moose head hanging on the outside of a cute art shop called Artisans of the World. We were intrigued, and while the moose is awesome, his red and green color scheme doesn't go with what we have going on in our house.

So we went inside and spotted this guy:

Larry: This is awesome. I kind of want it!
Me: Let's get it!

Now, Larry and I never make these types of spontaneous purchases, and when it comes to art, I'm so indecisive that my living room walls are still completely bare three years after buying our house. So I don't know what made it so easy for me to agree to drop the big bucks on this big buck. Oh wait, perhaps it was the fact that I had already had a few beers and Larry had had more than a few beers.

Whatever it was, within 5 minutes, the deer had been paid for and was under Larry's arm en route to the trunk of Bryan's car. He's made of recycled farm machinery and he will cut you. Seriously, Larry wants to put rebar caps on his razor-sharp antlers.

The next night we hung him above our fireplace. This process nearly resulted in divorce.

I googled "metal deer head" the other evening and found that the artist, The Steel Fork out of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania has an Etsy shop! Now I kind of want to fill my house with bad ass metal animal heads. (I realize that would be terrifying, so I won't. Bad Ass Metal Deer Head alone is likely to frighten small children.) How cool are the wolf, bear, steer, and...octopus? A bit creepy, but cool. Ok, the octopus is the stuff nightmares are made of, but I still kind of want to hang him in my dining room. Or above the toilet.

* I thought we should name him either John Deere or Uncle Buck. Larry prefers Uncle Buck, but that just gives me images of John Candy's head tacked to my wall...and that is creepy!