Monday, April 30, 2012

A little art, a lot of fun, great friends

This weekend I went with Brandy from Chateau A Gogo to Birmingham for the Magic City Art Show. We stayed at her sister and brother in law's beautiful home and shopped for art, clothes, and drank a few margarita's. It was the perfect weekend with amazing friends. I bought a small piece from an artist that I fell in love with last year:




The artist is Ashley Lindsey and you can find her here http://ashlindsey.com/. She is young, sweet and crazy talented so check out her website. Also continue to check out Brandy's blog to see her purchase.

While I was away the hubs put all the cabinet doors with hardware back on:



Looking good Mr. Kotterrrrrrrrrr!

Then I get a call this morning from the marble company and my marble is on back order. I have people, a lot of people, coming here at the end of the month for Em's graduation. I need to have this done! So I hung up the phone and did this:



Source: google.dk via Ditte on Pinterest
Source: google.com via Leslie on Pinterest

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Gnaughty Gnomes

Ever since I saw the gold garden gnome on  the Novogratz's show, I have always been on the look out for a gnome at either the GW or flea market to spray gold.




So tonight I was in Hobby Lobby with my son and there was a whole area dedicated to these creepy guys and they were 40% off. I had to do it.




And while doing "research" for this post, I came across these that are not creepy at all...they are actually really amazing:




These are made by an artist named Joe Velluto and were featured at Milan Design Week this month. He calls them "Baddies" and they are made with a luminous resin that absorbs light so at night they glow. I don't know why I can't get one of these at Hobby Lobby?


Another super cool gnome I found was this one:




Sorry...I couldn't help it.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Kitchen Reno Is On

This weekend has been spent sanding, priming, and painting and I am about over it. If this was on HGTV it would be over and we would be basking in the glow of our new kitchen...but apparently I live in reality tv and so I am living amongst s**t everywhere. I know it will be worth it in the end but I don't like a messy space. Here is a "work in progress" pics:

Day 1

Day 2


Cabinets have 2 coats on them and my garage looks like it's full of headstones. It's freezing here so I am painting outside with gloves, scarf and sweats on. I promise I am not this messy. Why did I post these pics? It's cocktail hour...I'm done.

Friday, April 20, 2012

The Power Of Paint

Painting a brick fireplace is not a new idea but it is a great one when you inherit dark ugly brick. My adorable niece Michelle recently purchased her first home and we couldn't be more proud of her. The house is Acadian style, which is extremely popular back home in Louisiana. She has been putting her stamp on it from the minute she moved in and last weekend she tackled the fireplace. Whiting it out was the perfect solution:

Before



After




It's a lot of hard work but so worth it. This 23 yr. old is on her way to creating a magazine worthy, or at least blog worthy home, and I am so proud of everything she has accomplished at such a young age.

Here are some other blog worthy spaces:










Thursday, April 19, 2012

Can You Fall In Love With A Table?

The answer is YES! You can fall in love and want to marry a table, because I did. The table from craigs list ended up in my kitchen and it is perfect. The glass really opens up this space that has been a challenge from the get go. It is narrow and I have tried so many configurations, so trust me, this is the only one that works.




My long term goal is to have a upholstered L shaped banquet built but that is way down the line. For the meantime I am basking in the glow of my new love and will probably use an entire bottle of  Windex by the weekend.

Thank you so much David and Emily for selling this table. This couple was so interesting to talk to and were super knowledgeable about mid century modern furniture. 

So now that I have this new love of glass top tables, I really hope I can find this on CL one day:





I really do not understand how this works but I would be willing to learn.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

This Domaine Is Indeed Insane

We have so much going on over here and it is all really exciting.

First of all I have chosen a counter top for my kitchen and the guy is coming in the morning to make the template! I'm going with a quartz product that is virtually indestructible so when I spill red wine, dribble evoo, or splatter tomato sauce, I won't have a heart attack. This is what the counters will look like:




We will be painting our cabinets black and am hoping the whole effect will be something like this:









Still obsessed with this one.


Hoping all this gets done before graduation weekend. Yes my baby will be graduating from high school next month and I want this to be done by then. We are expecting family to be piling in for the big event and of course we will be cooking like a bunch of crazy cajuns.



While surfing the web this morning, I find this:





So the hubs and I are going to take a look at it this evening. It would be perfect for the large amount of people we are expecting. I currently have a round black table in my dining room so I can just move that to my kitchen and it will all work out beautifully...that's what I keep telling myself.


I really need to get to addressing and stuffing these graduation announcements but that would be facing the reality of the subject and I would rather be like Scarlet O'Hara and think about it tomorrow.


Thursday, April 12, 2012

Turquoise and Gold

This pic is a little late to post since Easter has come and gone, but my daughter just showed me this photo of my ya ya mom yesterday that she had snapped while sitting in the backyard after lunch. She was clearly not happy about having her picture taken, nevertheless, her outfit was such a great color combo and she is so stinking cute for 82 yrs. old, that I had to post it.



She would kill me if she saw this!

The color turquoise is her favorite and mine too. I love it mixed with gold which she has done with the over sized necklace and in a room the affect is nothing short of amazing.

















Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Gold Rush

Lately the GW has been a bust but yesterday it seemed like there was a brass bonanza going on. I am like a magnet to that particular metal so I was like an insane person when I saw this:





Brandy and I already own 3 bar carts...what's one more?


Not sure how many lamps we own but who could resist these?




I love that brass/gold is back, it just makes a room a little more glam and special.



Why can't this table show up at the GW?











Monday, April 9, 2012

Seeing Green

Spring break is over and company is gone so it's back to business as usual. My niece Michelle was here for a week and we covered many miles and lots of stores. She recently bought her first home so I, of course, encouraged her to mix old and new so it doesn't look like Rooms To Go. While we were shopping for her I found a couple of things for me:

New item:


Acid green planter...yes the front porch needs to be painted and new kick plate needs to be installed.


Old Item:


Date on back is 1969...I was 4yrs old and having a blast.

I put it on my foyer table.


Riding around Nashville and Franklin with Michelle last week was amazing because the weather could not be any better and everything is green and blooming. I always seem to gravitate toward anything the color green...it just makes me happy.