Up close of the new rug...the green is much more of a "spring green" than in this photo.

And, the new wall hanging framed and up in the dining room!

Wider view!

Here's the "teenage male" in front of Mr. Hulsey's garage.

And, the two deer feeding in our backyard!

Chandelier!

We finally purchased the chandelier for the dining room (I think I made a post on it originally over a year ago!!). I went back and forth about it many times, but in the end, I decided I really did want a "traditional" yet "contemporary" chandelier. So, I hit the order button online and it arrived in about a week...in a MILLION pieces! Brooke put it all together and I worked on placing the 1,000 crystals.

Here's the old chandelier...old brass and way too tiny for a dining room!

And a better shot...yeah, look at all of that dust! I never liked the thing, so I guess I never bothered to dust it. :)

Here are just a few of the many pieces and parts.

And, here it is all put together...unfortunately, the electrical outlet isn't centered in the room, so we had to buy a hook and hang it from the hook to center everything. Not ideal, but better than having it "off," and better than tearing up the wood on the ceiling to move the fixture!

And, "ta da!" Here it is hung. We still need to put in the dimmer switch, as 7-60 watt bulbs light up the room a bit more than we'd like. Hopefully that'll get done sometime this week.

Ick...the old mudroom

This always makes me feel better...take a look at the mudroom when we bought the house...gross floor and awful stairs, stains on the wall. UGH. It's come a ways from that...thank goodness!

Countertops in mudroom

We feel like we're finally nearing the end with the mudroom project. We finally got the butcher block countertop for under the window last weekend. It's about 7 1/2 feet long so it will provide a great workspace for both Brooke and I. Of course, I have visions of a gift wrapping station, a place to arrange flowers, and possibly a bar for parties. Brooke says he's going to use it to "work on things." Whatever that means! :) Regardless, this is some great extra countertop space right off the kitchen. We'll be buying bar stools and of course organizational pieces for storage (and maybe a gift wrap bar or perhaps that really cool Pottery Barn office set up with the bulletin board, wipe board, calendar, and mail slots!). The only thing we now have left to get together out there is the shelving for around the fridge. We hope to purchase that at Ikea in the next few weeks.

Before the countertop (sorry that I didn't get Brooke's bike out of the picture, but you get the idea).

Start with a piece of butcher block countertop (great deal from Southeastern Salvage!).

Build a frame and mount the countertop (with a few additional supports!).

Add some legs (actually newel posts cut down...we've used them for many purposes), and some trim.

Paint it white and poly the top.

And, done! A great countertop for workspace, and perhaps a nice space for a bar set up at parties!

If I had a Million Dollars...

...I'd buy ALL of this! I was flipping through my new Southern Living this afternoon and found a web site: www.leontinelinens.com. I decided to check out the site as I thought the monograms in the article were really great. This stuff is GORGEOUS. But, be prepared to drop some money. No, I haven't ordered anything, and chances are, I won't be anytime soon. However, I'd love to see my (or our!) monogram in these gorgeous appliques all over bed linens, bath towels, and napkins. Fantastic! I just had to share!

Brighter and Better!

All of you know that the house was a dark, dungeonous cave when we bought it. So, anything we can do to add light makes me excited! These pictures are all out of order, but you'll get the idea...new paned glass door from the mudroom into the kitchen, and then one between the "official" mudroom area and the laundry room. I'm excited because we're so close to being done with this room. We went to Ikea a few weekends ago and found wooden shelving that we're going to use around the fridge out there. Of course, we didn't buy it there (we wanted to make sure all of our measurements were just right) and then got home to order it online and found out that most of the pieces were only avialable "in store." Why? Oh well, we'll be back down to ATL soon and will purchase all of the pieces then. After that we'll be putting up countertops and other than "decor," it'll be done! Yea! Another thing to check off the list. Then, on to ripping out and re-doing the downstairs bathroom and painting the exterior. We're re-financing the house and have an appraiser coming tomorrow. Let's hope that all of this sweat equity has paid off and that the house is actually worth more than when we bought it! :)

New french doors (to be painted white!).

And, the finished product. SO much better!

Still some scraping to be done..

Before paint..

The old solid wood door. No light and boring!