Amazing Grace

We finally have the Amazing Grace chalkboard prints available in our shop! I actually drew this one back when we were still at our old house but thanks to all the craziness of moving and then traveling we just finally got them ready for sale.  As usual we have them available in the 8 by 10 size print:

The 11 by 14 size print:

And the 24 by 36 download: 

 

I've started working on some autumn chalk art so that's what we will have available next! I've got one all sketched out that I am excited to hopefully have available in the next couple of weeks.

Some Cell Phone Shots with a Little More Done in Our Family Room and Kitchen

As I mentioned a few posts ago we ended up leaving to head to NH rather suddenly a week earlier than we had been planning on so I never took any photos with my real camera with more of the projects we worked on in our family room/kitchen. I normally hate to post cell phone quality photos of the blog, but I figured I would make an exception this time seeing how it will probably be at least another week before I will be able to post any real photos of the space. These were all taken just so I could text pictures to our family as we were slowly making progress in here and therefore I didn't put any thought into the layout or angle and they are super grainy.

Here are the upper cabinets before we removed them:

I will not be posting any tutorials on how to do this. I thought it was something I could easily do myself but that was not the case. =) Our cabinets were not screwed in like we were anticipating, they were in there with some huge nails and because we didn't have the right tool my father-in-law and I got stuck mid-way through taking in down and ended up having to call in some help - haha! Once it was down this is what it looked like. (I hung two pendants my mom had passed on down to me a year or so ago that had been sitting in our garage to see if they would look okay or not and even though they were not what I originally had in mind I loved them so we had an electrician come and wire it so that I can properly hang them as soon as we get back). I took this shot a couple days before we left. Everything is all fixed up perfectly now and I will get shots of what an amazing job Fred Nice (the contractor who repaired the mess I made) did on it when I get back. You would never know there had been an upper cabinet there.

You can see a little bit of the kitchen in this shot. We will be doing the kitchen in two parts. The first part involved removing the upper cabinets and painting all of the cabinets London Fog. We also replaced the appliances and are adding a custom built hood above the stove. We are just waiting on the stove to be installed and the hood. Both of those should be ready to photograph at some point next week. Then at once we have saved up enough money we will be replacing the counter tops (we will probably be sticking with a similar color) and adding an overhang to the peninsula area so we can add some counter stools, doing a subway tile backsplash and replacing the sink with a farmhouse style one. That might be a little ways off though. We'll see how soon I can convince Jon =)...

You can see the back of our sectional from IKEA in this photo. We went with the Karlstad even though it was a bit more modern than my usual taste. I will show more photos of it as soon as we get back and I can get the legs painted. And I am still deciding on which sconces to go with to replace those teeny tiny on either side of the fireplace. I hung some drapery panels on the window above the sofa but it's hard to tell from this picture. There are more things we are planning on changing up in here but for now this is where we are at.

That's it for tonight! I hope you all are having a lovely week!

My Parent's Guest Bedroom

 

I am so excited to show you the guest bedroom at my parent's new house! I am in love with how it turned out. My mom did a fabulous job in here. She did pretty much everything in here herself. The only things I helped with were the rug and pillows. Although this technically is the guest bedroom, Lillie and Lola seem to have laid claim to it and I am pretty sure they think it is their bedroom.  (The beds do normally have guard rails on them to keep the girls from falling out. However, I took them down when I took these photos and set them out in the hall seeing how this is how the guest room looks most of the time - just not when we are visiting.) 

I also am completely in LOVE with the dresser. My mom hunted and hunted for the perfect piece to go between the beds and just recently found this dresser up in Wilton, NH at White Home Collection. I love everything about it - especially the color. I cannot wait to get back home and paint something either in our new dining room or our new master bedroom in this color! Well, I don't know what this exact color is called, but I am going to do my best to find a similar paint color that I can use.  

I have always loved these beds. One belonged to Lillie and Lola's great-great-grandmother, Dorothy, and the other one belonged to her sister, their great-great-great-aunt. I slept in one of them my entire childhood and Dana slept in the other one (and eventually as we got older they both ended up in my room). I know some furniture can get pretty banged up over the years but these have held up beautifully and are still gorgeous pieces!

The wall color is Benjamin Moore's Pebble Beach. If you think it looks a little familiar it is because this was the color we used in our guest bedroom at our last house and also the same color Jamie and Josh used in their guest bedroom. I think it's safe to say our family is a big fan of Pebble Beach - haha! It is one of those pretty colors that looks gray in some lighting and pale blue in others. The draperies are from Ikea and the rods are from Bed, Bath and Beyond. The pieces above the bed are from Pier 1.

My mom had everything together but was just waiting for the final touch. She'd been looking for a rug to finish the room up and give it some warmth. She watched the girls one evening last week and I took a little trip "into town" to see if I could find anything for her. As far as places to shop go, their options are very limited up here so I ended up at Target. While running through the home decor section to get to the rugs I saw these pillows:

And then these:

I liked the traditional feel of the first ones and loved the modern pop of the second ones. Plus I loved the idea of pulling out the color of the dresser in the pillow. I figured I would get them both and see which looked better and return the other ones. Well, we ended up loving both of them though so they both stayed.

After putting those in my cart I finally made it over to the rugs. At first I didn't see anything but then noticed this one. I was afraid it would be a bit too modern and busy for my mom but I knew the color would be perfect so I figured it was worth a shot. The trellis pillows and the rug ended up adding a nice little modern twist to an otherwise very traditional room. And although I love a traditional room, I think it's fun to add a bit of a pop to it either with an unexpected color or bold print of some kind.

Over in this little corner they have another dresser (this one used to be Dana's growing up) and a beautiful mirror.

I tried to get a better shot of the miror without getting myself in the picture but didn't have much luck.

The entire time I was taking close-up shots of this room Lola was snuggled up on the floor. She was quite enthralled that first day or two with the "comfy new rug".  It took a bit of convincing but eventually I was able to get some shots of the room without her in it. The first bunch I took all look like this:

 

However, I was finally able to get a couple close-up shots of her while she was sitting there so I can't complain. I hope everyone's week is off to a great start!

A Little Peek at My Parent's Guest Bedroom

 I should be able to get my post finished up and posted tomorrow but until then here is a little peek.  I hope you all had a lovely weekend!

My Little Princess

A couple of days ago while I was attempting to photograph my parent's guest room (which I will post either tomorrow or Monday depending on when I can finish typing it up) my lovely little Lorelei Wren decided to plop herself onto the new rug in the room and take up residence. The girls are normally pretty good about standing next to me while I am photographing a room but thanks to the very comfy new rug, Lola just wanted to lay right there in the middle and play dress-up. (Mimi has the best dress-up box!) Although it made photographing the room a tad difficult she actually sat still enough for me to take a few pictures of her. And although thanks to her mischievous little personality she generally is grinning from ear to ear, she was giving me mostly a serious face when I took these.

There's a smile...

Then she decided to pretend she was asleep so I'd quit taking pictures of her. =)

I hope you all have a blessed weekend!

The Family Room - Phase 1 - Painted Trim and Fireplace

I took these photos right after we finished painting this room. Before we even got the kitchen cabinets done on the other side of the room. And as of now they are the only photos I have taken of our new house with my "real" camera. Since taking these photos we have made a few changes and also have a few more we plan on making but for now here are some photos of the changes in this space we made by adding our furniture and just simply painting the trim...well, maybe not so simply! Haha - it took FOREVER. For four straight days my mother-in-law and I painted endlessly. First we primed all of the woodwork with Zinzer 1-2-3 and then we used Benjamin Moore's London Fog in their aura line in a semi-gloss finish and did two coats of that. At least the painting part was much easier going than the priming part.

Here's a before:

And here it was after we painted. You can see the wires where we removed the ceiling fan. I haven't decided yet what I am going to put in it's place for a light fixture. It depends on what I go with to replace the sconces. The sconces are driving me crazy - they are so small for that spot. I have been hunting for a replacement for them and think I may have found something that's worth trying although I haven't decided for sure yet.

 

When I took these photos we had our white sofa in here. We have since moved it into the den and now have a large sectional there and I've also hung some curtains. I will share those pictures as soon as I have a chance to take them. Actually I may go ahead and share those soon just using my cell phone pictures so you can get a general idea and then when I get back home I plan on adding art/photos to the walls, changing out the light fixtures, adding a rug and making a darker slipcover for the ottoman.

Here's another before (we removed that light fixture along with the fan):

 

I I hope you all are having a wonderful week so far!