Welcome to Lemane Vintage! Any excuse to use 'Fecundity' more often.

Hoo boy.  Who would have thought that a year of absolute awfulness would have been punctuated with a fascist exclamation point?  Did Mercury retrograde itself directly into the Sun?  Did I verb a noun one too many times and now we're here?  

Most of 2016 was just a series of unfortunate events - everything broke just when I needed to use it, I hemorrhaged money, technical difficulties, you name it, tragedy happened.  But I was really proud that no matter what random daily shit storm that was served to me on a silver platter of awful I didn't lose sight of my goals and I'm not going to do that now.  We can't let the terrorists when. Even when the CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE.

Rather than wait even longer until our world isn't on fire anymore - both figuratively and literally here in TN - I'm officially announcing the opening of my Etsy store of fabulosity.  Squeee!  

So welcome to Lemane Vintage, online pusher of eclectic finds and vintage soul.  And that's Luh-mane.  Bonus points for how many syllables you can drag the 'mane' out to be.  More than two and congrats, you're Southern.

The shop is all about vintage decor and accessories (and maybe some clothing soon)!  Finally I have a real excuse for spending so much time at those estate sales.  IT'S FOR BUSINESS, MOM!  And despite this year's atrocities, I've had so much fun gathering all kinds of goodies and finding them new friends to hand out with in the studio... 

...until they come to live in your stylish home!  I'm essentially opening a rescue mission for vintage decor.

But all this is happening because of the renovation I told you about last time.  Welcome to the home base of Lemane Vintage, my new studio.

It went from room of shame to workroom of smiles with only all my savings and a bucket of tears!

All of these shelves are lined with my wares which I've been collecting over the past year or so.  Turns out I'm much faster at shopping than taking pictures.  

Not only is this my craft room, art studio, online workshop, laundry overflow and sometimes yoga room, it's gonna be a jungle too!  All the plants that were suffering in other parts of the house have been moved in here for more sun.  A ficus was even donated to the cause.  

I love hanging out in the space because of the light but also because it's constantly in movement.  Friends are coming and going and new items come in and move around... just good positive vibes all around.  More homey than fussy.  That should be my shop motto.

We got your wall hangings and your boho brass and all the mid century glittery things your heart (and mine) could desire.  Seriously, some of these things are hard to let go.  Please give these good homes before they wander back into my living room...

I honestly felt a little guilty launching a personal venture during our country's time of crisis but if I've learned anything recently it's that ACTION is key.  Just gotta add activism to our hobbies.  Your Tindr profile better say you like homebrew and social justice.  

So once I realized I could multitask and both fight injustice AND start a passion project, I got serious with setting up the shop.  Self care to facilitate service.  Embodiment for empowerment.  Fecundity against fascism!  Damn, I obviously should have opened a pithy tshirt business instead of a vintage store! 

And I have a framed picture of Lagertha so a warrior can watch over me and kick my ass when I need it.  I will have her bless every item with badassery before it heads out the door.

Both this room and setting up the shop took a long ass time to happen but it's 110% worth it and I'm loving it.  I'm having a lot of fun and sending these rescued items out to their new homes is the best feeling!  

This handsome Bauer casserole and server needs macaroni and cheese in it ASAP.

Come hang out with me on Etsy at Lemane Vintage and on Instagram.  And since y'all have a special place in my heart all ModSauce readers get 15% the rest of this month using the code ModernSauce15.  I heart y'all and will try to set up listings for lots more items for y'all to choose from.  The sun is such an asshole and sets at 3 pm so it's cutting into my photography time.  Ugh, thanks astronomy.

Lemane and Lagertha and Lacy 4eva.

A Black Flamingeaux Summer

*rolls rock away from cave, squints into the sun*

Look who it is, ghostbustin babes!  Feels like I've just been gone a few months but according to science it's been a year.  I have the internal clock (and body shape) of Jupiter.  If you're still here I applaud your loyalty/inability to update your blog preferences.

This year, y'all... truly the Coachella of all fuckfests.  Not only were all the planets in retrograde but everybody kept dying, we're in a severe drought and now we have Fuckface Von Clownstick with his tiny fingers too close to the nukes.  Feel the radiation burn.  I can't wait for this summer to be over.

But we did get Lemonade, Dr. Jillian Holtzmann and probably a lady president so there's that.  I had a really good hair day last month so this year hasn't been a total waste.

Turns out not blogging freed up some time to do some things like live life again, garden, write things in my MochiThings planner, renovate the Ranch and try to finds words that end in -o that I can replace with -eaux to make me sound edgier.  Pinteaux beans?  Dildeaux?

As much as we love butchering the English language, I know y'all love a rags-to-middle class makeover more.  Let me introduce you to my storage room/den/swingers' dungeon of delight that I spent six months transforming earlier this year.

This is AFTER the thrift store came and picked up tons of my shit to donate.

It was the former carport that was closed in some time 40+ years ago and never touched again. It holds my junk and Christmas decorations and Charlemagne also likes to nap in here because it gets great sunlight although you can't tell because the walls and floor are made of sadness.  Also duct tape which holds the seams together.

So New Year's day I had an itching to paint the walls and give her a good scrub down so I could quit thinking of this space as a sasquatch airbnb room.  Just a simple refresher, she said!  I'll be done by January 3rd!

Well the fresh paint highlighted just how ugly everything else still was...

Well, shit.  I guess I gotta paint my adjoining laundry room too...  And although the purists in my life wanted me to keep the original wood stain on the ceiling I just didn't have the mental strength to do any more loads of laundry under that shroud of cigarette-stained darkness.

The storage room/room of shame had an acoustic tiled ceiling which I assumed had wood underneath but wasn't sure.  I got bold after a gin-and-grapefruit one night and did some mild demo and WHEEEEE a pretty ceiling was revealed.

As was my new Spring hobby of removing hundreds of tiles and staples one by one.  

Look at that disgusting fan blade. I obviously didn't even go in this room...

My shoulders are boss now but my hands have been permanently deformed.

I have future plans for that stunning art, don't you worry.

So many tiles I had to Shawshank Redemption them and take them out in batches into my trash for a month straight.

Once all the demo was done and every staple were stepped on, each surface required three coats of Kilz and another three of Valspar's Ultra White in Satin finish.  I spent more time and money on paint than I ever have in my life.  But I LOVE the satin finish on everything.  All my future paint finishes will be this.

You have to cut in all this mess in the laundry room... Fuck me.

Time to go low.

Poor flooring dude scraping away two layers and decades of filth.

At this point since I was all in I decided to replace the disgusting old linoleum with fancy NEW LINOLEUM.  I was already spending all my tax return money so what the hell.  I didn't need that new laptop... The exact size I needed - down to the inch - was found in a dusty warehouse and that kind of serendipity can only be explained by Our Prince Who Art in Heaven and you can't say no to vinyl from the great dance club in the sky.

There were a few small hiccups to this whole process such as this disgusting brick ledge at the base of two of the walls I had to figure out how to cover nicely...

I just patched the wall holes, nothing fancy.

I found a handyman - who happened to be the kind of handsome that handyman porn cliches are pulled from - that helped take care of some of this mess.  He decided it would be easier to use a self-leveling concrete rather than building out a wood box over the brick and I didn't care as long as it was done fast and cheap.  Which is exactly how I prefer my porn.

Close enough.

It took weeks to get some concrete poured and trim installed and I'm just happy that I didn't end up in jail for murdering his handsome face.  Apparently beautiful people never developed the normal life skills that the rest of us ugly schmucks need to survive like time management, reliability and honesty. The longer I waited, the uglier he got.

Ok fine.

But in the end and after lots of paint this little ledge turned out more beautiful than he could ever be.  It's the Dorian Gray of home improvement projects.  And who would even care that this floor is basically plastic?!  Looks damn good to me.  But I'm just an ugly schmuck with Purple Jesus on my side.

Ahhh, sweet relief.  Not gonna lie, this room makes me immensely happy.  It's fairly huge - about 15x20 - and I do a lot of twirling in here.  And eventually yoga and barre and lots of crafting and other general merriment.

Don't forget about the laundry room!  I cannot believe I ever questioned leaving the dark wood ceiling.  My washing machine already leaked all over the floor and because my floor is waterproof I JUST MOPPED THAT SHIT UP NO PROBLEM.  

I haven't painted the back door yet. I just... couldn't go on...

Still looking for the perfect laundry room accessories and bins.  I think a rolling cart is in my future.  And lots of cool hooks.

The storage room of shame is now renamed the STUDIO and as soon as I get done caulking - so much caulk! Caulk everywhere! - I've got exciting things planned...

To review my extensive list of sources: Valspar Ultra White paint, IKEA Melodi pendants, brown "wood" vinyl from a local dirty warehouse, Edsal shelves I painted white and would never do again because it was awful, cheap rug from a different dirty warehouse, months of labor from myself, my dad and above handyman.

I had wanted to renovate this here blog or find another avenue for expression before I posted again but here we are.  Bloger is positively retro now.  I may not be posting mood boards and lifestyle fun times but I do want to keep a diary of home renovations.  I like to have the process all in one place and we can get all the other stuff at Pinterest.

But the exciting news is that this here studio space is going to become an Etsy shop in the next few weeks so stay tuned!  If you're still reading this you deserve a prize so expect deals and fun stuff just for you.  I might be entering an oversaturated market but I'm stoked and I have a lot of vintage beauties that need good homes like y'all's.

So I hope your year has been great so far and let me know anything I missed!  And how many Pokemon Geaux guys you've caught so far...

You knew it was coming...

Gather round, saucy children, and let's talk about blogging.  *communal groaning* You may have noticed (you haven't) that it's been two months since I last blogged because I just ain't feelin' it this summer.  Also, I have melted from the death heat. 

In fact, I think it's time for the dreaded...*dun dun duuunnnnn* HIATUS.  

*internal screaming*

It's kinda like the kiss of death for bloggers.  Fortunately none of my income or sanity relies on blogging anymore so it only hurts my sense of duty and pride.

I feel like a completely different person than when I started this blog SIX YEARS AGO.  Back then my sanity DID rely on blogging.  At the time I was reading a lot of blogs which were wildly addictive with their sparkle and shine girl-next-door vibes but even as a counterpoint to magazines, they still felt really far away from my life.  

A life where I enjoyed pretty things but I was at the end of my quarter life crisis, just got out of therapy, hated my job, overwhelmed by my recently-purchased shit hole of a house, wildly insecure and in an emotional and creative depression (little d).  Hell, I didn't even think I WAS creative.  

I think what I was doing with blogging was asking permission - from myself and the "world" - to do the things I wanted to do even if I didn't know what they were yet.  And if I gained nothing else from blogging it's realizing FUCK PERMISSION.  Of course, there are enumerable things I gained from this here blog about vaginas and mood boards but that one seems important.

But I'll be a wise and mature 35 year old next month and what feels like way more than six years away from the person who started this blog.  I feel comfortable trying new things without being behind the protective space of this dirty computer screen and exploring creativity (that word still makes me cringe) in lots of different ways.  Blogging is just becoming less and less one of those ways.  Not because I don't like it - I DO - but I have limited time and want to branch out.  I'm gonna take ALL the Skillshare classes!

Besides, there's nothing less fulfilling than wanting to do something creative and then having to come home from work to your computer and format a contrary word document for hours.  Margins and code-writing and pixels and bullshit.  It's like if I wanted to paint abstract art and someone made me lay it out in AutoCAD first.  I die.

So long story still long, ModernSauce will continue to be my home base just not my primary focus for a while.  I have a lot of fun things I'm working on and planning to do - probably the cliche etsy shop - and I just need time to get that shit going.  

And probably some time to figure out how to blog without using this outdated format/platform.  I swear to Beyonce I've started dozens of posts in the last year that I cannot bring myself to finish just because it's like trying to use an abacus to Instagram.

So make sure to follow me over there on the 'gram and the Twitters because I'll miss y'all's comments and community and I'm greedy.  This probably sounds like a goodbye and it's NOT but all of you are amazing and I can't express how appreciative I am of all your support, comments, friendship and just general existence.  

Read the amazing story of these found negatives here.

So until we meet again, which will hopefully be sooner than later, please remember to:

Summer dreams of calculated fug.

So I'm finishing up the last of my major yard stuff and getting ready to stay inside and settle into my summer spot (straddling the air conditioner vents).   However I have a few stray plants that I'm just throwing in the ground and wishing well.  Best of luck come August, random plant that seemed like a good idea at the time.

One of those plants is a Black-eyed Susan.  I got it at the plant swap this Spring because it needed a home and I hate seeing an unwanted thing.   I know they are super easy to care for and are good in the clay dirt around here but...  I...

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...just don't like them.  Yellow and brown are the saddest color combo to me and their dumdum flower shape is just so "basic."  They're the basic bitches of flowers, if you will.  (I won't.)  But still, I was going to give them a home because all Gawd's creatures yadda yadda yadda. *makes jacking off hand motion*

And because I developed a judgey, ill-informed decision Gawd decided to remind me I don't know shit and showed me this on Pinterest today:

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Well, damn!  That's a stylish mix!  And not only do I like this mix of flowers but I think the Black-eyed Susan look-alikes are the glue here.  It's the perfect amount of contrast, methinks.  I love Black-eye Susans now.  The workhorses of summer gardens.  Please don't die on me now!

The moral of this story is make room for ugly in your garden/space/life.  Or maybe redefine your definition of ugly.  One of those sounds pretty important so probably you should do that.  It's called 'calculated fug' and we will all be the masters of it.  The End.

When I found the source of this delightfully, mind-changing picture it gets even better.  It's a PRE-PLANNED garden pack that you can buy from High Country Gardens.  I didn't even know you could do that!  I'm full of awe and wonder.  

This pack featured above fits a 5' x 5' space and includes our pal Rudbeckia Goldsturm (the Black-eyed Susan-looking coneflower), the purple coneflower, Agastache 'Blue Fortune' (tall blue in the back), Solidago 'Fireworks' (the goldenrod in the middle), Physostegia virginiana 'Crystal Peak White' (Obedient plant?), 'Autumn Fire' sedum and Liastris aspera (the purple Blazing Star in front?).  

The fun thing is that I have already have sedums and purpleish coneflowers and have been looking at the blazing star so this little pack was made for me!  It's called Summer Dreams.  I'm singing it to the tune of Summer Lovin.

Check out these other non-fug garden kits:

August Afternoon. Ugh I might like this look even better.  it feels very dramatic.

Jumbo Waterwise Garden.  Not my personal fave but still an attractive grouping.

Seems like a lot of these are great for dry areas in the West but I've grown many of these here so fellow Southerners can at least get some good ideas.  They have tons more pre-planned kits to buy but these were the only group shots they had.  

I hadn't planned to talk about gardens yet aGAIN (it's really all I think about in person right now) but here we are.  

Just consider this your friendly semi-annual reminder to embrace the fug.  LOVE the fug.

And love plants that are great for pollinators.

She sheds seashells by the she shore.

Well, it's been a hot minute since I've been here but Springtime is Busytime at the Ranch.  I went on some work trips, had a quick trip to Nashville, went to Miami for a design show and didn't get sunburned - SUCCESS.  I did sweat through my first outfit of the year and it's only May... thanks, Florida.  But I got so many damn shells from the beach Florida should start paying me to haul away their junk.  

You should follow me on Instagram - I 'gram way more than I blog!

Wait, you can take shells from the beach, right?!  It's not illegal like taking plants from a national park, right? 

*mails shells back to Florida*

And after years of traveling I've FINALLY made a permanent toiletry bag so I can grab and go - SUCCESS.  All hail the tiniest of eye cream containers!  I'm adulting all over the damn place.  It's like a bukkake of responsible decisions around here.

When I wasn't jetsetting all over the Southeast region I've been doing never-ending amounts of yardwork.  This month is just so damn sweaty!  I'm reaching the end of my giant bush removal project (for this season) so I'll post some updates on that soon.  It looks... unimpressive for the amount of bitching I've been doing.

So what happened during all this tiny shampoo organizing and endless hole digging?  The Mad Men finale which I'm a season behind on so no spoilers, Janet Jackson announced a new album and tour (!), blackhead-removing videos are my new obsession and favorite lullaby and SHE SHEDS.  

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She sheds are the hot new alliteration all over the websites your mom reads.  It's the lady version of man caves... in case women were feeling left out of the home decor world?  I read some hot take about "gendered spaces" but I could only get three sentences in before I lost all interest in living life.

She sheds seem like nothing other than a catchy blog post name for the cute spaces in a lot of Pinterest folders.  I think we can attribute all of it to that NYT cottage way back when - remember this shabby chic Victorian cottage that induced much eye-rolling (probably from this blogger too?).

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I don't really care anything about the concept of 'she sheds' and somehow just having a discussion about it feels like a women's studies class led by Mike Huckabee so let's just agree to let people of all genders drink wine while knitting dreamcatchers or brewing craft root beer in whatever small outdoorsy space they need.  End of discussion.

Of course, I like my own personal space so much I live alone in my own house.  IT'S THE ULTIMATE SHE SHED!

As a general rule, I'm very pro-shed.  Where I come from, 'behind the shed' is where you smoke for the first time, get fingerbanged or bury a body.  All are glorious rites of passage no matter which one you choose.  As an adult (thanks to my tween rite of passage, you guess which one), I find sheds very useful for all my dirty, dirty tools. Except for the gross barn I had removed last year...

And that's kinda the problem... sheds are gross (see above about numerous amounts of vaginal fluids and corpses) and are like poisonous hotboxes filled with all manner of critters.  I know what lives in a shed outside and it ain't ruffles.  It's spiders.  

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Just some giant open walls for maximum spider passage directly into your BED.  

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And if you want to have a potting shed and paint it pastel well then I hope the Lordt blesses you with a maid and a clue because obviously you've never potted a thing in your life.  My potting shed - because yeah I want one - would be made entirely of black rubber and metal so I can hose it down.  And it has air conditioning.  And a sink... ok it's just a small house filled with piles of dirt that I don't have to clean up.

Seems the UK has a huge shed movement but they are taking it to a whole other level: pub sheds!  Those squirrelly Brits also have a contest for the best sheds and they do not disappoint:

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This urban bike shed is the winner of the best eco shed and it looks delightful.  Bet the British sheds are actual places to sit and have tea and probably not the prisoner of war shed like mine was...

I can definitely get behind this modern shed more than I can that lace and chicken fuckery above.  To each his own I guess.  I mean, she own...

But since this is my blog I get to feature the sheds/greenhouse/unattainable cottages I like.  .

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So let's shed this bitch

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Shed to the max.

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 Shed is bae.

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This glass shed of silence is adorable and I would like it very much.

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I could practically live in this one...

I lost the source...??

This one looks like it really came from a Home Depot kit and I approve.  Home Depot hobbit.  Of course, you could grow vines over a laundry crate and I'd try to rent it on Airbnb.

San Francisco's General Store by On A Hazy Morning

A single room is nice.  Small space for potting but you could also just sit alone with a chair and shut the door.  No judgment.

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This counts as a shed. I bet getting fingerbanged behind this turns you into a fairy.

Nitty Gritty Dirt Man

This half-shed, half-greenhouse is my favorite because he gives you the plans!  How super.  It's a great gardening blog too.

But don't forget the most important part of the yard: Charlemagne.

Unknown.  I probably blogged it before anyway...

Cat shed.  

Just kidding I'd make her hang out in the she shed and kill the rodents that are nesting in my daybed.

I'll probably be blogging light this summer (I don't have a blog shed) but I'll try not to let a month go in between.  That's just rude.

Hope your May was delightful!  Hope it was in a shed.

UPDATE: After I published this post about eleventeenfifty shed articles came across my dash/stream/pins within a few hours which lets me know we all got shed brains right now.  But this one was worth adding.  It's technically a playhouse but I'm saying it's a shed... 

See the whole cute place at Rue

WITH A SLIDE.  All other sheds are moot.