I've been a distant admirer of CB2 for a while now. I get their catalogue in the mail all the time, but I'm that kind of person who has to see things in person before I buy them. Since there's not a CB2 in Denver, I've only purchased small little accessories here and there. NO LONGER! I want all of the things!

While we were in San Francisco, I had a strong suspicion that there was a CB2 somewhere in the city. After a quick search on Google Maps I expressed my excitement because we were staying a mere 3 blocks away from it! Our last day in San Francisco I speed walked myself with Matt and Marcus in tow to go check it out.

My celebration was slightly premature. I didn't notice that the store wasn't quite open until after I had pulled on the door handles once or twice. Ok, it was twice. After a quick stroll through Old Navy to kill some time we were greeted with unlocked doors. Look how excited I am!

First up, these sofas! Matt and I have been longtime fans of the Aidan sofa from Crate and Barrel, but the Avec sofa looks really similar and costs less than the Aidan chair.

There's even a smaller apartment sized version! These two are staying on our list of potential upgrades from our big L-shaped sectional.

I also saw a lot of stuff that I'd like to upgrade our bedroom with. You remember that right? No? Well good! Anyway, I'd love a low platform bed, but without the protruding platform that is just begging you to slam your shins into. The Dondra achieves just that!

These Junction dressers are what I envision fitting into our room someday. One tall one and one wide/short one.

And two of these Slice storage shelves would be perfect for night stands. I like them because of their ability to hide crap, they're so sleek, and they are floating!

The rest of this stuff isn't bedroom related, but I thought the Torino desk was genius! The top slides out to reveal yet another place to hide all your crap. Are you sensing a theme? My desk is always a giant mess, so much so that we never use it. Hopefully we can get to work on the loft and remedy that after we're done with the painting.

This little Cuckoo clock is an adorable modern twist on the old classic. Say hello to the tiny bird that pops out.

I'm always a big fan of lighting. Signal Floor Lamp, Chord Pendant Lamp, and the Cloche Table Lamp. I think the cloche lamp would be cool on a bookshelf, maybe with this sneaky on/off switch!

I also am a big fan of tea light candles. They are just so magical! These Glow Candleholders look like they'd reflect the light nicely.

And I'd like about a hundred of these Whirley Hanging Candleholders because, well look! (Maaaa-gic)

I also love plants, and want this in my yard now! Teardrop Vase and Beaker Vase.

Oh, and there was this Washing Machine Hamper. Ridiculous!

Do you have a CB2 near you? Or are you Ike me and have to admire them from afar?

Nikki Kelly

While it was more efficient than trying to trim it with scissors, it was a little bit of a mess. It's hard to get the grass to be even, and the weed wacker sends bits of grass flying everywhere. There were clumps of grass splattered all over the lattice and garage, not exactly pretty. Matt was also nervous about accidentally killing the clematis plant since its kinda close to the grass.

After complaining about discussing this at work and talking about wanting a push mower one of my co-workers, Michael, offered his to us. Now he never has to use a push mower another day in his life, and I can have even grass without spackling our garage with grass clippings! That's a win-win situation. I wonder how long it will take Matt to regret the day I brought home a push mower?

The grass was a little long, so it took a few passes and still isn't perfect but I think once we re-seed and the grass fills in more it will be!

Like I said, it's a work in progress. I hope it's super lush by the end of summer though. Oh, and this picture is two weeks later than the first. Judging by how fast the clematis is growing it should be all the way across the garage by my birthday.

Holla to all my tiny yard havers out there!

Nikki Kelly

Well, I was finally able to upload pictures of these little plant stands Matt made last week without accidentally deleting them! In my defense, the import button and the delete button are right next to each other AND it doesn't ask you if you're sure you want to delete the pictures. Come on iPad, you're supposed to know what I'm thinking even when I tell you the opposite. Anyway, if you remember back when we bought a big old beam to make two mantles from I mentioned that we had quite a bit more than we needed. It turned out to be a good thing for two reasons. First, cutting through a 4" beam with a saw that only cuts 2-3" deep is tricky. Secondly, these cute little plant stands!

They were really quite easy and you could pretty much make them out of any decent sized chunk of wood you've got lying around. Sadly I took no "in progress" pictures. Not a one! But since they are so easy, I don't think they're really necessary.

Step 1: Cut a hole in a box Sand your chunk of wood.

Step 2: Seal your chunk of wood.

Step 3: Put legs on your chunk of wood.

We used some Polycrylic that we already had to seal the wood and we picked up two different sizes of CAPITA legs from IKEA to vary their elevations.

I think Barbara approves of the addition to her favorite spot. Now she can feel like an exotic jungle cat while she snoozes ontop of a heat vent. Treats n' snoozin!

Later this week: more cats (I went to a cat show and a big cat sanctuary) and crafty fun times at IKEA! So make sure to check back for that.

Nikki Kelly

Now that we have officially crossed into the spring season, my green thumb has started twitching. Wait, that's a lie, I don't have a green thumb. The only reason we are surrounded with living plants is because of Matt's diligent watering. I do have to put in more effort to water outside in the summer, but I can just use a hose and it takes all of 5 minutes. Anyway, back to that twitchy green thumb. Since we've been getting a few days in the 60's here and there we have started perusing the gardening centers looking for a small tree like plant to replace the contorted filbert we bought two summers ago that pretty much died. We planted it in the wrong spot and it got a bad case of bark cancer, and by bark cancer I mean it got burnt by the sun. While we were checking out the trees I came across my dream tree! It's a Dwarf Ranier Cherry tree! Maybe I'll call it Cherrion Lanister. You know, since its of the dwarf variety. Oh, and don't you love how we got it home?

I felt really luck to find this little tree since 1. this is the first time I've ever seen Rainer cherry trees for sale and 2. I found a dwarf version for our dwarf sized back yard. Seriously, our yard is 260sf, thats smaller that most decent sized living rooms. The little tag said it should only grow to be between 10 and 15 feet tall.

Matt spent the previous day digging out dearly departed Phill to make way for a new tree, so planting Cherrion when we got home was a snap.

And because I was waiting for a few leaves to sprout before taking an after picture (or I just forgot) I only have this picture during from our last spring dump. If you look on the very left side of this picture you can see our little bird feeder we picked up too. Sadly we haven't been getting any bird action yet, but I'm hopeful it will be the new trendy/overpriced eatery for those hipster finches.

The earliest bird feeder patrons can move into this adorable little ombré bird house that we picked up from Crate&Barrel. I am really hoping to drive the cats nuts with the two additions.

I also had some pictures of two plant stands that Matt made to share today, but when I ment to import the pictures from my card I accidentally hit delete instead. That's ok, they were just quick pictures and they weren't that good anyway. I'll try again this weekend. What kind of spring projects are you gearing up for?

Nikki Kelly

Its that time again!

I think the first time I heard the word gabion I was watching an episode of Yard Crashers a couple of years ago. I instantly fell in love with them, but had no idea how I could work them into my life (aka tiny microscopic back yard). Originally they were built to give soldiers something to hide behind so as not to get shot. It seems pretty logical, large basket type thing, fill it with rocks, no bullet holes (as long as your standing behind it). Since I among battling in a rival gang dispute my gabion is a little more on the decorative side. Oh, and here is my inspiration (it looks like the listing is no longer available), and more gabion pins are on my outdoor board!

Here's mine! I love how it turned out, and that tiny succulent is just so adorable!

Ok, now that you've see the finished product, go grab a snack because there's a lot of pictures, and probably a lot of words to go with them! First you need tools and supplies.

• Hardware cloth (wire grid stuff)
• Needle nose pliers
• Dremmel tool with metal cutting disk (not completely necessary, but very helpful)
• Large-ish river rocks (check the aquarium section at the pet store)
• A plant or candle
• Gloves (I didn't use any, obviously)

I decided the size of my planter based on the size of container I wanted to put in it. You want a minimum of two squares between your plant and the end of your gabion. Once you've decided how big the top should be go ahead and cut your first piece of hardware cloth. I know in this picture I have a top and bottom piece that are cut the same way, but after working through this I would suggest leaving the fringe wires that go past the squares you need on the piece you use for the bottom. Just to help clarify, the four on the top are my side pieces, then the bottom row are top/bottom pieces and the long one is for the tube in the center.

After you cut out your pieces you'll need to put the sides together. I started by pre bending the fringe wire to make connecting them a little easier.

Line them up like so. Oh, and excuse my grimy fingers, I had been doing this a while already.

Once you have two sides lined up like this use your needle nose pliers to bend the fringe wires around the perpendicular wire and back onto itself.

Do that to connect all four side pieces. When you're done it will probably look a little off like this.

Don't worry, once you close up that last corner it will be nice and box shaped!

Now that you have the outside done you need to save room for your plant in the middle. Grab your long piece and your top piece.

Use the fringe wires to join your long piece end to end and mould it into cylinder.

Now center you top piece on your wire cylinder. To attach them together I started with the north east south and west intersections. Wherever the wire meets up with the circle I would cut and bend the fringe wire around.

The corners here were just a little bit inside of the circle. To leave myself enough wire to wrap with I used my pliers to break the bond that holds them together before wrapping them around the cylinder piece.

Tad a!

Now that you've got the top pece put together, insert it into the box and fold those little fringe wires around just like before. I noticed that the wires in the very corners of the box were in the way, so I just cut those off with my dremmel.

Now turn it over and fill it with some rocks.

Finally, you can close the gabion up with the bottom piece. I chose to pre bend two sides of the bottom piece because the fringe wires that were not bending around the perpendicular wire that they were attached to had a tendency to break off. Bending them ahead of time seemed to minimized that a lot.

Now drop a plant (or maybe a candle if your thumbs are of the darker variety) in there and admire your handy work.

I'm so excited for spring to get here already, I think this will be great in the back yard. Sadly our yard is filled with snow at the moment, so no outdoor shots. :(

Welp, this concludes my Pinterest Challenge (winter edition) project. What did you make this time around? Wanna see more pinspired projects? Oh, and be sure to go check out all the other Pinspired projects at Young House Love, Bower Power, The Remodeled Life, and Decor & the Dog.

Nikki Kelly