It's Christmastime!

I was traveling for work all week so we've stayed home all weekend getting the house decorated. I can't believe Christmas is only a few weeks away. Where did this year go?!

I bought the gold metal wreath that I hung over the mirror at Sophie's Christmas open house. Love it! I'm planning on using it year round. Also, it's hard to see but I bought little wooden birds at Sophie's that I clipped on the branches. Cute! I've had the glittered numbers for a while, but just pulled them out to hang on the tree.

And, the tree and mantle. I have a few more things to put on the mantle, but it's mostly done.

And, this year, I bought a live wreath and sprayed a light dusting of gold spray paint over the wreath. I also put a few gold feathers in for an added punch!

I bought some prelit garland at Ace. I've always loved Christmas lights but didn't want to go overboard (although, I must say, if it's not my house, the tackier, the better!), so this is a little something to add sparkle.

And, I did the manger scene again in my rice bowl. I just love how it looks. Wish I could leave it out year round. Come to think of it, why not?!

dresser

Yes, it's quite embarassing, but after 6 years of a marriage, we thought it time to buy a dresser that we could both use. We've each had our own for years now and decided to combine clothes and purchase one for our bedroom! This photo doesn't really do our new dresser justice. It's 80 inches long and almost 4 feet tall. Solid mahogony wood and really a gorgeous piece. I'd been looking for quite some time, online, the major catalogs, and in furniture stores. We needed one large enough for the room (and our clothes!). And wanted something quality. The Pottery Barn versions are only 66 inches long and almost $3,000! We stumbled upon a furniture clearance store here in Chattanooga. We got this dresser for 75% off! As soon as we saw it, Brooke stood by, holding tight while I found sometime to help us put a "sold" tag on it. Exactly what we wanted and at a steal!

Rooster lamp

One of my favorite websites is Design Sponge. GREAT ideas. One day I found this photo (above) of a blue and white room with blue and white plates and a rooster lamp. Their rooster lamp is a few hundred dollars, but I realized that I had a $20 version from Target, only it wasn't white. So, I painted it!

Rooster lamp before...

And rooster lamp now (forgive the terrible photo!). I painted it with high gloss white spray paint. It look quite a few coats but eventually covers and looks great with the blue and white in the room. And, a fraction of the cost of the "designer" room!

NYC!

It's been a while! Sorry for my delayed posts. Our computer is acting a little crazy so it takes twice the time to download photos. No excuse, I know! Brooke and I spent a long weekend in NYC to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary. We tried to cram it all in...Broadway, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Natural History Museum, 5th Ave. shopping, Soho, and of course food from fancy to pizza and hot dog stands! It was a great trip with beautiful weather. I posted a few of our photos below.

A view from behind the statue, looking towards the city.

My absolute favorite movie is Mary Poppins. Brooke was REALLY sweet and took me to see the Broadway production. He might kill me for posting it, but he actually really enjoyed the show, too. It was just wonderful! Here I am with the playbill, program, and yes red wine from a sippie cup!

Gorgeous day in Cenral Park with a jazz band. Lots of fun!

Our anniversary dinner at the 21 Club. It was truly classic New York and we enjoyed every minute and every bite!

Master bedroom paint!

Because it's been raining here for about 2 weeks, last weekend we decided to begin a pretty simple project, painting our bedroom. Fortunately, our bedroom is sheetrocked, so it didn't require a lot of painting between grooves like we have to do with the paneling. The room is a nice sized room, has a pretty large closet for the house (which one day we'll make bigger by taking over the attic), and our bathroom is right outside the bedroom door (and, one day we'll make that bigger as well by taking over part of the attic and old closet). It's been painted a nice yellow, mostly that I didn't mind, it just needed touching up and we decided to go with a blue/green/grey that would match our bedding. The color is Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams. Great color!

Before (standing in the nook where Boone sleeps)...

Looking towards Boone's nook (one day I'd like to put a vanity there), and to the left in this shot is the closet door.

The first coat of the new blue.

And, the finished product! I put a new arrangement over our bed. I found the antique french mirror (reproduction and 40% off!) at Southside Galleries in Chattanooga, one of my favorite places. And, the botanicals I've had. The other two floral paintings I picked up at the Ballard Designs Outlet in Alpharetta several months ago. I never knew what I'd do with them, I just liked them. And, the starfish came from Perdido Key. Brooke is still questioning this arrangement, but I like it! :)

View going the other way...

Finally, the finished product!

It's taken me a while to get the finished house paint pix up, but here they are! It's hard for me to see how far we've come with the house because I live in it every day. But, then I take a look back at the house the way it was the day we bought it and I remember...quickly! And, then I think, why did we do this again?! :) But, I thought the comparision was better looking back 2 years and then the photos of the outside of the house today.

Outside of the house when we bought it (no landscaping, old wrought iron poles on carport and front porch, old door and old paint).

And, another shot the day we bought the house.

And, today!

Front shot of the house with finished paint.

And, closer up shot of the house.

Lantern

I've disliked our outdoor lighting since we moved in and have been waiting until we painted the house to replace the old lantern that was always much too small, dingy, and old. FINALLY! New lighting...and it makes such a huge difference!

The old, tarnished lantern.

Too small!

With really scary wiring!

Ahh...SO much better!

It makes a huge difference on the front porch!

Day 4

Day 4: Looking better! Well, I came home from work on Friday afternoon and was pleasantly surprised with the new, updated color. Much better and much more of what we were looking for (a warm gray). You can tell that they stopped at the dining room. But, they will hopefully finish most of the rest of the main house paint on Monday!

Look at the right corner (where the telephone wires connect to the house). You can see that that's still the old color, so it gives you an idea of the difference in color.

Front shot (doesn't it look strange without the shutters...can't wait to get those back up!)...

And, the contrast between the old color and new color...

Day 3

Day 3: Uh oh. Well, we had a minor set back on day 3. Brooke texted me a photo of the front of the house painted as I was on the way home from work. I almost wrecked the car. It truly doesn't look as bad in these photos below, but the house was YELLOW (think Boone color!). While the Greenbriar Beige is a lovely color, it's just not what we wanted. This was completely our fault as we'd picked the color. But, it was very disappointing to see it up and know we were going to have to shell out more money to have it repainted. Fortunately, they had only done the front and were kind enough to just charge us a day of labor. Still, it hurt, but it could have been much worse. Brooke and I drove down to Lowe's and Home Depot on Tuesday night with a shingle tile and the Greenbriar Beige swatch. Somewhere in between was what we were hoping for. Fortunately, we found a nice Stone Manor color that I think we'll be happy with!

The mistake: too yellow! Notice the new swatch to the right of the door (Stone Manor). We also tried out another color to the right of the dining room window, but it ended up being too light.

A close up of the color difference between Stone Manor and Greenbriar Beige.

Day 2

Day 2: Shutters down and new white paint on the trim. Wow what a difference just the trim paint makes! The guys mostly scraped and painted trim and handled a few shingle repairs on day 2.

Boone gaurding the front yard with the paint in progress...

Shutters down (I don't think they'd been removed since the day they were hung!).

New white trim paint around the kitchen window!

And, new trim around the bathroom window.

Pressure Washing

I promised to post again quickly...here I am! The crew arrived at 9 this morning to begin pressure washing the house for paint prep. Fortunately it seemed that it did plenty of the scraping work, as well! As Brooke said, "gotta break it down before it can be built back up!" But boy does the house look bad now. It's amazing what a bit of water can do to old, layered paint!


Paint crew beginning the pressure washing on the front of the house.

I was pretty amazed at this guy's climbing and acrobatic skills. I guess he's done this a few times!

The vent post-pressuring washing!

Front vent and dining room window after the wash.

Side of the carport. Crazy how it pulled that old paint right off.

Screened porch and our bedroom windows after the pressure wash...

Back corners of the house stripped down!

Carport...

Front entrance looking blasted!

Carport well washed!

PAINT!

Well, we finally bit the bullet and have hired painters to paint our house. Most of you know how stubborn Brooke is when it comes to house projects and doing it himself. If he can do it (or learn to do it), he won't pay anyone! So, we evaluated several painters, got quotes, and after realizing that it would take considerable time and effort for us to do it ourselves, we decided to hire someone to paint our exterior. So, I took a few before shots...be warned they are ugly! I'm really exposing all of the flaws to the outside of our home (and most of you thought the inside was bad!). It never did look that awful from the street, but look below and you can see how really awful it is! Can't WAIT to get this place cleaned up!

View of the front of the house.

Here are the color options. As you can see, most are a bit warmer than the current gray. We're going with the one second from right (Greenbriar Beige by Benjamin Moore). The shutters will be painted in a color called Dragon's Breath, also by Benjamin Moore. It's a very dark charcoal.

This is the screened porch (minus the screen). We'll be painting the frame white instead of its current shade of gray.

Peeling paint on the column at the front of the house.