Friday, December 12, 2008

The Befores

Okay, so I've now been in my new house for a little over two weeks and I feel like I am finally starting to make some progress. Slowly, but surely, it is starting to resemble a house instead of a dumping ground for brown cardboard boxes. Since I hope to be posting my After pictures soon, I decided to go ahead and post the pics that I took of the house before we bought it. When I first saw it I knew it had potential and now I'm starting to actually get to see some of my visions come to light. So I hope you enjoy the Befores and I hope to have at least a few Afters in the very near future!
(You can click on the pics to enlarge them)


The House: It was originally built in 1952 but was gutted earlier this year and was completely rebuilt except for the framing. I love the mix of the newness with the feel of the old. I really love the colors of the siding and trim. The concrete on the big front porch is stained and looks really nice. There will be a bistro set on the front porch just as soon as I can find one that I like and can afford. December is NOT the time to be looking for outdoor furniture though and I'm having a hard time finding anything.


Master Bathroom:
I was really excited to find that this house had a master bedroom suite which is not typical of older houses. Since the bathroom at my old house was huge I was worried about having a smaller bathroom. This one has good space though and it doesn't feel cramped at all. I actually really liked the wall color so I left it. Its hard to tell in this pic but the countertop is a really nice brown/black stained concrete. I also really liked the open storage beside the shower. Its the perfect place to put cute baskets and adds a lot of valuable storage space. The master bathroom is probably the room that I have closest to being complete and I love the way it is turning out!


Master Bedroom:
I know its kind of hard to tell much from the pics. But the wall color is a really pretty silvery/grayish/blueish/greenish. :) I picked a black and white damask comforter and this color complimented it nicely so I'm not planning on changing it. The master bedroom is right off of the living room and is split from the other two bedrooms, something else I was suprised to find in an older home.


The Living Room: The same gorgeous wood floors are throughout the entire house with the exception of the bathrooms and kitchen/utility room. They have stained concrete. I'm not sure if the floors are original to the house or reclaimed wood from another home but they are stunning. They are probably 95% of the reason I chose this house. When you first walk in through the front door you are in the living room and can see through to the dining room and kitchen. I loved the visual of the three rooms flowing into each other. There is a seperation but also an openess and I really liked that.

The Dining Room: I am a big formal dining room person so I was so excited to find a house that had a seperate dining room. The dining room has a beautiful chandelier and lots of space. I finally have a table in there and my baker's rack from the old house and once I get my hutch in there (which I still have to pick up) it will be complete! Oh, except for the painting. This is one room that I definitely have plans to paint, I'm just not sure when...


The Kitchen:
I really liked this kitchen. The cabinets go all the way to the ceiling which gave me a lot of space. My plans are to lightly glaze the cabinets with an Espresso glaze to tie the countertops and cabinets together. The countertops are the same brown/black stained concrete used in the bathrooms. I was pleasantly suprised by how much I liked the stained concrete countertops. I would have preferred granite but I knew that I would have a really hard time finding a kitchen that had it (since the whole point was to find a cheaper house to live in while we build our new house). I think the stained concrete is a much better option than formica. There is a big sink and a cute little window above it. The kitchen and utility room both have stained concrete and access to the back yard so its the perfect place for the dogs to be during the day. Speaking of the back yard...


The Backyard: It is beautiful. Its got lots of room, gorgeous trees, a brand new fence, a small deck, and a beautiful flagstone walkway leading to the gate. The dogs have really enjoyed it and as soon as spring gets here I'm going to really enjoy planting some flowers in it.



Second Bathroom:
I loved the pedastal sink! I have always wanted one. I think they are so charming. This bathroom was the same color as the other one and I decided to keep it the same as well. I found a gorgeous black and white shower curtain for this bathroom but still have a few finishing touches left. One of the main ones is to add a white candelabra/chandelier. I think it will look fantastic!



Second and Third Bedrooms: As I mentioned earlier, the house does have a split floor plan. Both of the bedrooms are good sized and have large closets with double doors. And those floors! One of the bedrooms is now my office and the other is currently the home of all of the boxes I have yet to unpack but will soon be a guest bedroom for my adorable nieces. I would eventually like to paint both of these rooms but we'll see...

So there it is! I love it more every day and it starts to feel more like my home every day. I'm so excited to get to live out my dream of living in an old house. And living downtown has been fantastic. There are so many beautiful old homes and I keep finding new ones everyday. I still have a lot left to do to get it the way that I want but at least I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere!

Friday, November 28, 2008

Update

Just wanted to let everyone know what's been going on and why its been so long since I've posted. I am FINALLY getting moved into my new house. It has been a massive undertaking. After 5 straight days of moving stuff out of my old house I've come to the conclusion that I have too much stuff!!! I am now living in a beautiful new house that is crammed full of boxes everywhere I turn. My obsessive-compulsiveness is starting to get the best of me and I'm getting a little panicky that I'll never get them all unpacked and get the new house the way I want it. I am VERY excited to share pics of the new house and hope to have at least one room done soon. I wanted to go head and decorate my blog for Christmas though because at this point it looks like I may have to skip Christmas decorating this year. :( But right now I'd settle on just having a cleared out corner where I could put a tree if I had the time to decorate it. I'm thinking about doing a blog post where I reminisce about last year's Christmas decorations. Maybe that will help get me in the Christmas spirit a little more!

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Jungle Fever







Here are some pics of a shower that I did for someone this weekend. It was for a little baby boy who is already here. The mother didn't have a theme or color scheme for his nursery so I was free to choose whatever I wanted. I'd seen these plates before and just loved the colors in them so I knew that I wanted to do a jungle themed shower so that I could use them. They ended up being super appropriate since the plates say "Welcome Little One" and the baby is already here. I also had most of the stuff to do a jungle diaper cake. This was probably the easiest shower I've ever done. Everything just fell into place. I was even lucky enough to hit the jackpot and find the aqua satin fabric, green table runner fabric, and aqua tulle in the remnants bin at Hobby Lobby. That kind of luck never finds me! With everything I have going on right now though I was so greatful to be able to find everything that I needed to pull the shower together without having to search high and low for what I needed. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Monday, November 3, 2008

Blank Canvas

Just wanted to share some exciting news. We finally sold our house, again, and hopefully everything will go through this time without a hitch. For those who don't know the situation, we've had 2 offers fall through on our house. One was due to financing on their part and the other was a contingency offer and the people were unable to sell their house. So this has been a long process which may be finally coming to an end. We are currently looking for a house to buy and live in while we build our new one. So pretty soon I will have a blank canvas to decorate! I'm very excited because I was out of places to put things in our house and have been itching to try out some new design schemes. We should have a new house decided on in the next day or two and I'll post pics as soon as we do. I've already started looking for new stuff and my head is filled with so many ideas it may explode! So get ready for tons of pics of ideas, possibilities, and the end results.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

A Little Halloween Fun...Just In Time!

Well, I have done a horrible job lately of keeping this blog up to date. I've had so many things I wanted to post but so little time to do it. So just in time for Halloween here are a few pics of my seasonal decorating creations. :)

Pull up a chair, if you dare:
Here are some pics of my breakfast nook table. I found some wonderful fabric at Hancock's that had black velvet pumpkins on a orange mesh background covered in silver glitter. It was kind of expensive so I only got a yard of it. I made the arrangement by spray painting some twigs with black paint and silver glitter. Then I used some black roses that I found at Wal-Mart and some of the silver sparkley Christmas picks. I added a few spider webs for extra creepiness.


Enter At Your Own Risk:
This is how I decorated my entry table and foyer this year. Its kind of a combination of fall and Halloween decorations.



More Mantel Pics:
I was so disappointed in the first pics that I took of my mantle that I decided to try it again. I think these turned out a little better.

Creepy Candles:
I, morbidly, love the way the bleeding candles that I've seen before in stores look. But they were a little pricey so I decided to make my own. I just lit a red candle and held in over the white ones and let the wax drip onto them. I think they turned out pretty cool!

A Haunting Weclome:
Okay, so its not really "haunting" but here are some pics of how I decorated the entrace to our house this year. Its a little different from last years but the concept is the same. I love it with all the candles lit. It just glows. We may break out the fog machine on Halloween night and if so that will make it look a little more "haunting".

Friday, October 17, 2008

Halloween Mantel



Here are a few pics of my mantel for Halloween. I'm going to change some stuff out in November to make it look a little more fall-like. I'm also going to figure out how to take better pictures. Nothing is looking as pretty in the picture as it does in person, which is kind of defeating the purpose of this blog. I've also come to the conclusion that I can't photography sparkly things.

More Princess Party Pics

 








These pictures did not turn out nearly as well as I hoped they would. :( I think everything looked much prettier in person but maybe this will at least give you an idea. I'm especially disappointed in how the fabric on the skirt of the high chair photographed. It was the most beautiful pink chiffon with a glittery diamond pattern all over. It was the perfect princess fabric for a very special Princess.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

London's Princess Party


I've been kind of slow to post pics from London's 1st birthday party. I'm still trying to recover from it. But I stole this picture from Rebecca's photography page (http://www.rebeccacphotography.blogspot.com/) since she was nice enough to take some pictures of the party for us. I'll be posting many more pics really soon. This is one of the cake that mom and I made for London. I'm glad it looks so pretty in this pic because it was a LOT of work!

Friday, October 3, 2008

Last Fall


I was so thrilled last year to find sparkly pumpkin garland!




This was my foyer table last Halloween. I did it a little different this year and I'll post pics soon.
By the way, you can't really tell it too well in this pic but the leaves are glittery. :)

Foyer table last fall.