Zhush it up

I work in marketing, a field that is predominately female with a few rare breed men that aren't afraid so embrace their more "communicative" side.  My D is actually one of these rare men, but even he (much like the few men in my department) was unaware of what "zhushing" means.

I always thought this word was yiddish but it turns out to be more French than anything, which is rather fitting since it's really the action of putting a little je ne sais quoi into action.  I bring up the whole marketing thing because of a scenario I recently encountered at work.

A female colleague and I were wearing very similar espadrilles and were discussing their comfortable in the middle of one of our main throughway's.  A fellow male colleague comes up just as I'm explaining that the cording on my shoes just gives them a little "Zhush."  At this he stops and says asks what on earth is Zhush.  After providing several relevant examples of Zhushing - straighting your collar so that it stands up  (use starch people, BIG pet peeve of mine), selecting an appropriate man bag or complementary scarf as an accessory - not even going into how Zhushing can be used to make your house, albeit your LIFE, more fun, and after a few more examples he got it.  This colleague, straight as an arrow mind you, now frequently asks me if he's "Zhushed," partly joking but not enough to disregard the answer entirely when I jokingly (not entirely) say no.

I digress.

It's time to start Zhushing the house.  Now I have particular anxiety about this because Zhushing essentially says alot about your personality, or what you hope to convey about your personality.  Whether its in the details of your necklaces and shoes or which books and trinkets and art you display in your home, it's important.

I started with the "most close to complete" room  - the Living Room.  What with the new furniture, fresh floors and new paint color, we're getting close.  We're currently using an older armoire and two older black bookshelves that we already had from the old house.  Eventually I'd like to see some more white in here with some floor to ceiling shelving but we can't get what we want overnight.

Now with this house we're looking for "more modern" than the last and a nice clean aesthetic, so that being said, D put down the mandate that these shelves remain as simple as possible - no cramming them with milk glass and books like the old house.

I started with this blank slate and gathered some groupings of things I knew I'd want to include.  Sorry for the crappy iPhone pics.  I was just happy I remembered to snap some!

semi-blank canvas, I already figured out the top by the time I remembered to take a pic

So you can see what we're working with, two short bookcases, about 4 feet tall and then an armoire around 5 feet.  I started with the Hatch Show prints mostly because they were the only two pieces of art that actually had the same size/proportion frames.  I also love these pieces and they were burried in our office in the old house.  I'm not sold on this as their permanent home, which is why they're still resting not hung, but they are a nice pop of color in an otherwise conservative room.

 

now onto filling these guys up

After collecting what I knew I would want to include in these shelves, I broke the pieces up into categories on the dining room table for easy picking.

 white stuff (mostly milk glass), greens, pretty trinkets and books (in that massive HD box)

From here I just went with symmetry as much as possible, relying on the physical differences in the materials I chose to (hopefully) create the interest I was going for.  Here's the end product.

decent first pass

up close finished version.  let's talk about how blah the backs of these are.

This likely won't stay this way for long but it accomplishes the goal of getting something in, keeping them fairly clean, and showing just a tiny bit about who we are.  Some of my favorite things in this: my gramma's old books, milk glass I've collected over lots of antique malls and thrift stores, a picture of D and his first ever pup Cody, and the little blue and white china box from our house in Texas.  It's where we always stored the spark plugs to the Christmas tree lights growing up and strangely where I keep mine now.

Up on the blog later this week: kitchen redo phase 1, and the details for a bridal shower I'm helping to host for good friend E this weekend.

xoxo,

KC