Happy Birthday, Riley.

This weekend we got a bunch of things accomplished around the house.  We picked a paint color for the nursery, assembled the dresser in the nursery, revamped a vintage chandelier, reorganized my closet, and a bunch of other things (more on all of those things later).  But the most important thing we did was celebrate Riley's 9th birthday.

After our sweet Riley was so very sick last year on his birthday, I knew I wanted to make this year extra special since last year I wasn't so sure he would make it.  So he got tons of extra snuggles today, we went on a walk, and he (and Zoey) got to enjoy homemade doggie cupcakes.

Riley's cupcake eating style is to delicately lick the icing off first, then devour the entire cake portion in one bite.

And because they both were being extra photogenic this weekend, I can't resist sharing two more pictures of the two of them riding in the back of the car and sunning by the backdoor.

I am totally biased, but aren't they just heart-melters?  Hope you guys had a great weekend!  

Home Tour: Powder Room.

Yikes.  It's been a while (thanks for your frequent reminders, mom and Ellen).  But let's ignore that and focus instead on the fact that I am finally getting around to showing you our powder room.  Who doesn't love a good before and after?

Basically, the before was a massive snooze-fest.  Complete with a bad brass and chrome faucet, a claw-like light fixture, pale yellow walls, two toilet paper holders (why?), and a toilet and sink that were undersized.  Needless to say, this room didn't do anything for us and needed some major help.   

     

And here's the after!  Bye bye snooze fest, hello gorgeous (if I do say so myself). 

Absolutely nothing from the old powder room stayed.  I'm all for re-using what we could, but in here, there was nothing worth even working with.  I knew right off the bat I wanted to do some bold wallpaper in this room.  If you can't be bold in the powder room, where can you?    

And for some detail shots . . .

My mom bought this vintage mirror and it was exactly what I was looking for.  She was sweet enough to let me have it for the space.  I love the detailing on the frame and the contrast the dark frame provides in the space. 

The light fixture proved to be more difficult than I thought it should have been.  Probably because I kept envisioning sconces in the space (that wouldn't fit) or a chandelier (which would require us to re-wire).  I also wanted to add a touch of brass in this room via the light, but wanted to keep it simple.  At the end of the day (and lots of searching), this fixture fit the bill. 

I struggled with what to put on the walls for two reasons:  (1) I didn't want anything to compete with the wallpaper; and (2) I was scared to put a hole in the beautiful paper.  I'm happy with my choice to go with simple black frame (that works with the mirror), which has a large white mat to provide some separation between the picture and the wallpaper (and only required 1 tiny hole).  Win, win, win!  The picture itself is one we took of a street in Paris right by one of the hotels we stayed in.    

As a bonus, here's a before shot of the hall that leads to the laundry room and garage with the powder room off of it (the door on the right). 

And here's the after.   You can't tell from the photos, but the wood floor and the handrail were all stained a darker, richer color.  And we replace the ceramic tile in the powder room with some fun black and white mosaic tile.  We still need to paint the laundry room, but that's a subject for a different post.

Oh!  And we added the chandelier in the hallway.  I mean, why not?  Since we didn't want to redo the electrical to put it in the powder room, we did the next best thing . . . we put it right outside the door.  It's actually perfect there.  I love the way it totally glams up the hallway.  Some things just work out.  (In case anyone's curious, the wall color is Benjamin Moore Silver Chain.)

If it's something that would be helpful, I will do a post with the sources.  So what do you think?  Much better, right?        

Craigslist Loot.

I mentioned in my last post that I scored some cool finds on Craigslist last week.  But pics or it didn't happen, right?

First up . . .  a sweet pair of end tables.

Yes, I realize this picture doesn't include the pair, but, take my word for it, the other one is exactly the same.  They are flanking our couch in our formal living room.  And while we're on the subject of the formal living room, the whole room is coming together!  I'll share my design plan for the room with you shortly (let's just say it involves leopard, floral, dark teal, and brass).

Next up . . .  the matching bad ass (sorry, that's the most fitting term for it) credenza.  The piece is in amazing condition and deserves some fabulous styling.  I really hate that the light switch is smack dab in the middle of that dang wall.  It really puts a cramp in my style.   

Look how pretty she'll look when she's all dressed up.

(photo: design crisis, which is a great blog, btdubs)

But that's not it . . . I also found a vintage chandelier from 1913.  The coolest part about it is that it was from a landmark hotel in town.  As of right now, the plan is to hang it in the master bathroom.   

And last but not least . . . I found a pair of nightstands for our guest room at an estate sale in the neighborhood.  P.S. Could this room be any more boring?  You can kind of see a tiny sneak peek at the color I'm painting the room in the upper right corner (it's Wild Aster by Benjamin Moore).       

So even though they are in no way styled, I'm super excited about these pieces!  And a shout out to my wonderful husband who is the one that has to do all the heavy lifting (literally) when I find something on CL that I can't live without.

5 things . . .

We are in the process of finally getting our official office set up at home, which means it will be tons easier for me to edit real pictures (as compared to the "fake" ones from my iphone).  In the meantime, here are 5 random things:  

(1)  This video of Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum on Jimmy Kimmel after the Oscars is freaking hilarious.  Justin and I have been singing the song for the past week.  It's so catchy.  Oh, and watching Channing at the end isn't bad either. 

(2)  When searching the interwebs today for a mint green paint color, I some how stumbled on this amazing baby mobile.  I have no need for a baby mobile at this point, but if and when we get pregnant, this may be the first purchase I make.  She has all kinds of different breeds, but of course I'm partial to this one.  Riley and Zoey are in favor too!     

(here)

(3) We are going to New Orleans soon and a trip to Leotine Linens is definitely in order.  I won't be able to afford anything, but I can drool at all the eye candy anyway.  

Source: leontinelinens.com via Emily on Pinterest

(4)  This amazeballs print from Black Crow Studios is totally happening in our dining room.  I can't wait to have it stretched so we can get it up on the wall.    

(5) I have found some incredible things from Craigslist and a nearby estate sale.  I'll have a post with pictures of my finds, which include end tables, nightstands, a buffet, and a vintage chandelier.  Thank you, Craigslist!   

Hope y'all had a wonderful weekend! 

5 things . . .

I know it's been too long, but I have to pop in to share 5 things about Justin in honor of his birthday today.  I can't have a blog and not even mention my husband's birthday!

 
(1)  He puts up with all of my shenanigans.  He listens to me talk about work, he approves leopard carpet for my closet and an ostrich in the entry way, he pretends to care when I show him pins on pinterest, he looks at the million craigslist links I send him, and even pays attention when I talk about design.  He used the word ikat the other day (and he even pronounced it correctly too).  Impressive.    

(2)  He can hang a chandelier like it's no one's business.  It must be all the practice I've given him over the years.  But regardless, he's good.  (And this year, he's proven his mad skills at hanging Christmas lights at our new house.)     

(3)  He works hard and is great at what he does (even if he is an IT nerd).  I'm proud of what a hard worker he is and how good of a job he does for his company.  And it's always an added bonus that he can fix my computer problems!      

(4)  He cracks me up. all.the.time.  There is not a day that goes by that he doesn't make me laugh.     

(5)  He's the kindest and most patient person I know.  Which is good, since frankly, I am generally neither.  Obviously, I love my husband.  But I also like him a lot too.  And respect and admire him. 

He deserves to be celebrated every day, but especially today.  Happy birthday, Justin!  I love you. 

Homeowners!

We're officially homeowners again!  We closed remotely, as previously discussed here.  Thankfully, our lender moved our paperwork to the front of the line and was able to get it all to the title company in record time so we could sign the docs before we headed out of town (and we would just have to fund the following day).  The only hiccup was that the sellers' paperwork was delayed because they were sailing off the coast of Florida and tropical storm Debby slowed down FedEx's delivery schedule.

But despite all of that, we closed and picked up the keys to our new house from our realtor on our way home from the airport!

(if we look excited but tired, we were.  we had been up since 4:45 am to catch our 7:05 flight!)

Of course we've been spending lots of time at the house.  Here's some iPhone shots from around our new digs.

Zoey's just chilling in the middle of the living room.

I love our huge crepe myrtles.  You can't really tell from the picture, but the flowers are pink and so pretty.  Not to mention the trees add such great privacy in our back yard.

Justin holding up our new entry way chandelier for size.  When you see the old one, you can understand why I was in such a hurry to find a new one!  

For those of you who are wondering, we've officially decided to go with white marble.  And don't worry, we will also be replacing those sweet cabinet handles. 

Justin was honing his MacGyver-skills and rigged up the hose to drain out our fountain, which is in desperate need of good cleaning. 

And my favorite of them all . . . sweet Riley and Zoey peeking out the backdoor.  

And I have to give a shout out to two sweet bloggers who I met up with this weekend.  First, Elz picked me up some amazing chocolate and almond croissants at the new Trader Joe's.  I knew we'd get along just fine when I discovered she was also addicted to TJ's mini peanut butter cups.     

Then I went over to Megan's house from Honey We're Home to check out her white marble counters.  It was so thoughtful of her to let us come check them out so we could see how they've worn before we made a decision.  Yippee for sweet friends met through the blogosphere! 

Hope your week is going well and you're ready for the 4th!

House Tour: Kitchen.

It's been a very long time since I've done a home tour post, but I thought I'd start 2012 off right.  So here's a tour of our kitchen and breakfast room.  This area may be the part of the house I'll miss most when we move. 

 

All of the lighting in the kitchen is from Restoration Hardware (even the light over the sink that I forgot to turn on). 

The best part about the space is how the kitchen is open to a den/large breakfast room area.  Everyone always congregates in the kitchen and it's wonderful to have a large space for people to mill about/keep you company while you cook. 

It's funny seeing this next picture because I've gotten used to the new chandelier we hung up when we put our house on the market.  The lighting over the breakfast room table is was from Z Gallerie.  I guess because the area can be set up in any number of different ways, there was no lighting installed over the breakfast room area (except for the pot lights) when we moved in.  We put in the light over the table and the pendants over the island.  What a difference lighting makes -- the kitchen looked naked before (and believe me, no one wants a naked kitchen).

From this angle, you can see the little seating area in the "den" off the breakfast room and kitchen. 

As much as we try to keep the dogs off the settee, they love lounging on it when we are in the kitchen.  They usually start off following us around when we're cooking hoping that we will drop something, then they sit and beg from us, then they give up altogether and go lay on the settee.  There's not much cuter than our dogs laying around on this couch. 

We keep our bar ware and more "embarrassing" alcohol (i.e. handles, peppermint schnapps, sweet tea vodka) in that black cabinet.  And the black box on top of the cabinet is a speaker -- I've got to have my sweet jams while I bake.  

And of course, my favorite kitchen accessory -- the bar cart.  Justin thought we may turn away buyers with our excessive impressive stash, so we've removed many of the bottles seen here from the cart and tucked them away along with the embarrassing alcohol bottles.  I don't know why he thinks the large amount of wine bottles that line the pantry floor are any better; but hey, pick your battles, right?        

 
Up next is the living room, which you can see as you walk out of the kitchen.   Then we'll head upstairs to the third floor!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend ringing in the new year! 

Home Tour: Dining Room.

It's been a while since I did a home tour post -- I know it's shocking, but there's actually more to our home than just the outside, the entryway, the first floor bathroom, and the office.   

From the entryway post, you can see the staircase.  As you walk up the stairs, this is the view:

(why hello, neighbor's roof)

If you look down, this is what you'd see:

You pretty much walk up into our dining room.

We painted the walls a red in a flat finish, marked off the lines with tape for the stripes, and then did a coat of gloss poly in every other stripe.  The paint in this room is one of the first things people notice and they always love it.  This room was one of the first rooms we painted when we moved in (and one of the few rooms I haven't wanted to repaint . . . yet)! 

As I've mentioned before, I am nosy and am always curious where people get things.  So if you're like me, here's where the big ticket items are from:  the rug, wood table, chairs, buffet, and china cabinet are Pottery Barn; the upholstered chairs are from Ikea; the three large canvas prints are from High Fashion Home; the drum shade chandelier is from Restoration Hardware; the buffet lamps and mirror are from Z Gallerie. 

Here's a better look at the buffet set up.  {Random aside:  I pronounce the word "buffet" as "boo-fay."  I blame it on my mom (who pronounces "turquoise" as "ter-kwaz").  Anyone else out there say boo-fay?  Anyone, no?}

To the right of the mirror, I found this awesome vintage Vogue cover from Etsy.  I wanted something vintage-inspired and this cover had the cool blues from the fabric on the chairs, rug, and table runner and the red from the wall and rug.  And my awesome husband cut a custom mat for it. 

Isn't it perfect for that space? 

So there's the dining room (and as a bonus, you can see a sneak peek of the living room in the mirror in the previous picture).

The kitchen is up next!  And you can (finally) check out the rooms under the House Tour tab above. 

Hope you guys are having a wonderful week.  I am headed out of town for work, but will be back home in time for the weekend!

Trip Recap: Hotel La Belle Juliette (Paris).

I mentioned that we took over 2,000 pics in my last post.  Well, we miscounted -- there are over 3,000. We've sorted through the majority of the Paris ones, so I should be sharing those with you in the next couple of days.

In the meantime, I thought I would share my take on the fabulous hotel (La Belle Juliette) we stayed in that I previously blogged about here.  I don't plan on sharing such detailed recaps of each hotel we stayed in, but if you're curious, please let me know and I will answer your questions and give you the deets!    

The hotel was every bit as fabulous as I had hoped it would be.  The sitting area on the main level was amazing.  I mean seriously two pink couches?  Yes, please.

This ornate gold mirror was one of my favorite things.  Beautiful!!

The stairwell was also stunning.  The top right picture is looking down; and the bottom left picture is looking up.  They had little birds suspended the entire way up on the wires you see and the lighting was so dramatic. 

On to our actual room . . . here's the hall leading up to it.  Super dark and moody.  Loved it.

And inside the room . . . the green color on the walls was so pretty.  There was a small fridge, safe, electrical outlets, and hanging room in the built-ins on both sides of the bed.  Oh, and that lamp in the foreground was baller.  It was kind of chandelier-ish -- it had crystals under the shade (you can kind of see, if you look closely).  It was lovely when it was lit up.

Across from our bed was the desk/tv area.  The computer monitor also doubled as the tv (not that we had time to watch tv, but it was a cool space saving idea).  I loved the desk and the soft green color.

 

We did take advantage of the internet to access maps, check store hours, and other things to fine-tune the last minute details of our day.  It is amazing how using a slightly different keyboard that what you're used to can totally throw everything off! 

 

A few other little areas around the room . . .

Our bathroom was small, but that's to be expected.  However, it was still incredible.  It has beautiful stained glass, hence the coloring of the following pictures.   

Not sure how appropriate it is to post a picture of the potty room, but the walls were too cool not to share!  I love how they totally jazzed up the small space with paint (and yep, it was paint and not wallpaper).

Justin and I are still talking about the shower and want to install something similar here!  It was one of those car wash showers with plenty of jets (and super high water pressure). 

And a few other little details that I loved.  First, the gray color of the inside of our room's door.

The chevron trim on the pillows.

And last but not least, the door handle to the restroom (or toilette, as they would say).   

In addition to the accommodations being fabulous, the hotel staff was also great.  We mentioned that we were arriving early in the day and just wanted to ensure they could store our luggage while we hit the town to sight-see.  When we checked in at 10:00 a.m., they had our room ready!! It was so nice to freshen up after nearly a 10 hour flight before walking around for a full day.  They also provided excellent restaurant recommendations and spoke great English! 

I'll be back soon with pictures from Paris!  Thanks for your patience!  Hope y'all had a wonderful weekend!