Sunday, March 27, 2011

This Old House

We did a lot of cosmetic work in our old house. I wasn't blogging at the time and so did a horrible job snapping before pictures so now that I have afters, they are sort of out of context.  I learned my lesson and took TONS of before of the new house the day we closed, so I could document the journey of making this new place ours.  But since 1) I may not have any other reason to post some of my favorite shots of our old house 2) I hope to already have a few before and afters of the new house to post soon and 3) I am pretty proud of what we did, I thought I would share.



This was an area of our dining room.  Our dining room was originally yellow.  I used to describe it as "tuscan yellow" until I was standing outdoors one day talking to a friend about the paint color and saw a school bus drive by and realized it was the perfect color match.  Since I like light and airy, I went with Behr's Chocolate Froth above the chair rail and Behr's Wheat Bread below the chair rail.  Not only did it double the size of the room, but going with the two tones in a lighter color really lifted the ceiling of the room and made it seem taller--a welcomed trick in a 1923 bungalow! 



I am not going to lie, we bought this house for the kitchen.  We wanted to live in a historic neighborhood, but I just didn't have the budget of the patience for the full kitchen gut most of these house require and or need.  And it was just perfect.  The floor tile was a terra cotta with a one inch cement grout.  The first thing our realtor said when he saw it was "this will really limit you on the resale--not everyone likes this look."  Let's just say that it was the first thing people complimented us on in the kitchen, even before the lead glass cabinets or granite counter tops.  Can you tell I just loved it?  The one thing we did do was find appropriate fitting furniture for the space.  The previous owner had this round table there with three chairs--it was really crowded and didn't suit the true "nook" feel (and square footage) of the space.  The print came from Hatch Show Print's store in Nashville and was a limited run they did for a winery that they designed and print the labels for that we actually really love.  



This was the room off our living room.  Technically a "third bedroom" because anything with a closet counts in historic homes in our neighborhood, it was accessed off the main living through french doors.  We used it as an office, crafting space and general hang out space.  part of what we wanted to accomplish with this room was to keep it nice and open because when we kept the french doors open (which was always) it made the living room seem larger.  

I have to confess I debated posting these pics because while this is the room that my little sis and T painted for my birthday I am still not convinced that I picked the right paint color.  Ah well, live to paint another house, right? 






This is just one of my favorite little areas of art found in our dining room.  Sorry the picture is not that great--I was still figuring out my camera.  The one on the left I ordered off etsy (sorry can't remember where) and the one on the right is a framed copy of our wedding vows that T had laid out by a friend and graphic designer for our first wedding anniversary.  I added the birds, which were originally Christmas ornaments made of recycled paper, that I turned towards each other to look like over birds and hung above the frame.  



Another favorite area of mine was our bar.  A friend of mine was retiring and so was downsizing into a condo.  He had a entire book box full of all the match books he had collected traveling all over the world from the 60's through the 90's.  They were so cool I couldn't pass them up.  I then got the hurricanes from West Elm and while I was playing around with them, I got the idea to use the vintage matchbooks as part of our bar decor!  The funniest part of this little display is that for about a month this winter we did light any candles because we had run out of matches in the junk drawer--until we realized that we actually had tons of matches--right out there as part of our decor!  Sheesh!  

The owl is actually part of a pair of bookends that I found of all places shopping with my aunt at Coldwater Creek back in the fall!  I saw them and knew I wanted them for the nursery even while my aunt was insisting that the owls would scare the baby!  But since the nursery was in progress I set one out here on the bar and made it a temporary home in the fall and just ended up staying through winter. 

Hope you liked the quick home tour of our old place.  There are still a couple of other projects and such that we did that I never got good pics of--but like I said we live to re-do another house!  

Not So Bumpy Ride

Several of y'all have requested a picture of the bump and I have been really bad at taking weekly or monthly shots that intentionally showcased the bump.  But here is one I took around 32 weeks when I was playing around with the tripod and remote for my new camera.


On an related note I am 39 1/2 weeks and doing great.  In fact, I feel a little guilty that I am near the end and feel fantastic.  I am still able to exercise and stay active and am getting full nights of sleep aside from the occasional trip to the bathroom.  When I went for my weekly check up last week my OB asked if I could rub off on all her full-term patients because I was so happy and easy going for being this far along.  

Monday, March 21, 2011

Nesting Update and Silhouette Giveaway!

Sorry for the silence over here at Pretty as the Morning.  Between the move, nesting and just needing some time to think about the direction and purpose of the blog, it has been really quiet over here.

But since i am in the nesting mode I just had to blog about the Silouette.  There are so many cool crafty projects you can do on this machine and guess what?!  If you hop on over to Decorchic! you can enter to win a Silouette!  There are so many awesome things this little machine can do--including cut fabric!  I see some very cute projects in store for the little miss!