The Bench

My Grandmother & PapaJack's Country House garage strikes again! 

Last year around this time we picked up the 100+ year old mantle that belonged to my PapaJack's Mom. As you know, we have since made over that mantle (read all about it here, here, here and here). Earlier this summer we picked up another oldie, but goodie - a 100+ year old bench/pew from a church in Nashville, Tennessee.

We had spotted the bench last summer but it took us a whole year to get our lives together enough to actually pick it up and take it home.

We had a few ideas as to how we could incorporate this bench into our space. One thought was to use the bench in the dining room. We both love the look of a bench on one side of the table and chairs on the other. But, by the time we got the bench home we had already figured out our chair situation in that room so we crossed that idea off the list. The other option had been to put the bench in the hallway, off the garage, to serve as landing spot for Croix's Diaper bag, our work bags, my purse, etc.  You know...kind of like a mud-room.

We had always planned to build-out some type of mudroom here and this bench felt like a good place to start.  While I had always envisioned our mudroom being made out of cabinetry, I think building out a space around a cool piece like this bench could be a lot more interesting. We spent our long car ride down to the beach a few weeks ago scheming and dreaming about a lot of house plans, this mudroom space included. After sifting through a ton of inspiration images and sketches I think we have a pretty solid plan and we are pumped to jump in.

I have a feeling this one is going to move pretty fast, because once you have an idea that can add organization AND pretty to your life you just have to get it done ASAP! 

Unless otherwise noted all photos are my own. 

Fake Plants and the People Who Love Them

I love plants but they can be tricky, tricky little beasts. I've gotten better at tending to my plants over the years but I still struggle to keep some of them alive. My two biggest areas of struggle are my succulent wall and any plant/flower I try to keep on our coffee table.

The succulent wall is hard because a.) succulents in general are just such divas, water them too often they die. Don't water them enough, they die. And b.) my succulents are housed way up high above the built-ins in my living room, so climbing up to them, water in hand and tiny boy child wanting to assist is a task all on it's own. As for the coffee table, the only issue here is Croix likes to touch, move, knock off, rearrange and play with any and all the things on the coffee table. So, putting anything with actual dirt and or fragile petals/leaves atop it is just a bad idea.

Lucky for me, I was recently contacted by Silk Plants Direct to try out one of their products. A fake plant that looks real, is not fragile and requires zero upkeep sounded like an idea I could get on board with. The website is full of great options in a range of sizes, price points and variety of plant. I finally I ended up choosing this plant with my coffee table in mind. When it came in the mail I was luke warm about it. The container was a little more country-eque than I prefer, but I fluffed up the leaves and arranged them to hang down around the planter like they do in the photo on the website. Once on the coffee table I was pretty happy with it.

While I was on the whole fake plant train I happened upon some great fake succulent options at Hill Street Warehouse here in Atlanta and at Scotts Antique!

Both had tons of options and you could buy them individually to create the fullness and arrangement you were looking for. I picked up a few and added them to my succulent wall.

Now, the wall is a nice blend of real and fake plants and I'm pretty happy with it.

Gone are the days when fake plants automatically equal tacky. There are and will always be cheap (looking) options out there, but there is a whole world of fake plants on the market that just make sense to incorporate sometimes. As is always the case, make selections for your home that works best for your lifestyle and maintain the overall vibe you are going for in your decor. In my season of life right now, faux plants are a lifesaver and I'm a fan!

All photos are my own. 

Master Bedroom Gallery Wall

Having 14-ish days off over the holidays was SO nice. My days were filled with friends, family, reality TV, organizing and a whole lot of relaxing. On our last vacation day, in the midst of binge watching Homeland and perusing Instagram, Brent and I were able to peel ourselves off the couch and complete a house project that has been on our "to-do" list for a year. Yes, a year folks - procrastination station right here. I'm happy to report we FINALLY hung a gallery wall in our Master Bedroom.

Our master bedroom has gotten little to no attention here on the blog; which is funny because this room, especially our bed which we adoringly call "The Cloud" is a major hangout area for us. I know this goes against pretty much all rules for "healthy living" but we work, eat, scheme and dream, watch TV and of course sleep in the cloud. Who can resist a giant fluffy, soft, warm landing pad? Not us!

Our room was happy enough with great natural light, a beautiful tufted king sized bed, pretty pillows and fun lamps. But honestly, I never feel a room is complete, warm or inviting without some art. Lucky for us, art we had and the wall above our bed was the perfect spot to display it - gallery style.

A little Before shot for ya:

As you all know, gallery walls can come in many a shape, size and context. For us, we simply wanted to fill the wall with pieces that were special to us, bringing in texture, color and interest. To begin we measured the space from the top of the headboard to the ceiling and then taped that space off on the floor in front of the bed/wall where the art would hang. Then, we took the various pieces of art and started placing them within the taped off rectangle until we had the orientation we were happy with.

I'm super visual so this approach really came in handy for me. The rectangle actually lived on the floor for months. The first time we attempted to lay out the art, things were off and we knew we needed more/different pieces in certain areas. So, the art sat in the corner of our room. Slowly, but surely a few more pieces came to the party until the day came that we were ready to hang. Once the nails and hammer came out, things moved pretty fast...

OK, maybe not THAT fast, but truly this baby was up in less than 30 minutes. As Brent installed each new piece I got more and more excited. I love all the color these pieces bring to the room, it makes the space feel so happy and layered. Even better? Most of these pieces are near and dear to us...We have 3 original paintings done by Brent's Dandy, Nancy Niblack. Photography of an outhouse on my Grandmother & PapaJack's Country House property by my Mom, Lori Foster. The North Carolina picture with a heart in Highlands, where Brent and I got engaged, was a gift from my sister and her husband. We have 2 paintings from our travels together, one from Tuscany on our honeymoon and the other from Prague in 2010. A piece Brent picked up in San Francisco of Lombard Street. The gold sunburst is from Ballards, the giant metal S is from Scott's Antique and the coin art was an antique store find in Chattanooga. And finally the panda picture was recently given to us by Brent's mom Cindy. I have no idea where it came from, but it reminds me of Luke and Cows and all other things black and white so I love it.

It sure does feel good to re-boot every now and then, but I'm super happy we took 30 minutes to get this wall up, because now that we are back in the swing of real life it's nice to have something so happy and fun to go to sleep under each night.

All photos are my own. 

Spotty Dotty

Earlier this year I posted about the progress in our upstairs den. New couch, new curtains a turtle shell suspended on a curtain rod…things had improved in a snap, but in order for you to have an accurate understanding of  how far this room has come I need to show you the other side of the room - The built-ins:

This room came with the built-ins and I was excited from day one. I love built-ins and I'd never gotten to decorate and style my own. Happy Courtney!! As soon as the house was officially ours and the renovations had begun I began thinking about what I wanted to do to the bookshelves. Obviously I could add books and knick-knacks but I wanted to take it to the next level and customize them a bit. What to do, what to do? As is typical I day dream about such things and one random day I remembered this wallpaper I'd seen on several blogs over the last few years.  

Tiffany Richey Design. Photo via Google search. 

Meredith Heron Design. Photo via Google search..

Dalmatian Spots - I'm a fan. In fact I've been a fan for sometime….anyone out there remember Spotty Dotty, the Sanrio character? 

Photo from Google Search. 

She was my obsession during my elementary school days! 

Anyways, back to the built-ins. I loved the look of the dalmatian spot wallpaper, it was fun, fresh and just the pop I was looking for. Boom! Decision made, I was ready to go. But I knew our budget was pretty tied up with other renovations (cough,cough KITCHEN) so purchasing wallpaper didn't seem feasible. Plus, installing wallpaper... what a pain! After looking at the pictures I decided I was going to tackle this look myself! I was going to spottily my bookcases. As soon as I made this decision I was practically elbow deep in spots. The back ground for the spots was already there and the supplies were on hand - black paint, small paint brush - I went to town.  

This particular day, Brent was downstairs, caught up in his own project, when he realized he hadn't seen or heard from me in a while...  He ventured up stairs and this is what he found... 

TOO LATE TO TURN BACK NOW!!!

 

I fast became obsessed and crouched myself in and round each opening until I had spotified each one.  I'm really good at instant gratification projects. I could see the concept coming to life right before my eyes which just encouraged me onward. 

Once my shelves were spotted they sat in all of their glory for months, empty waiting for some love.  It wasn't until we bought the couch that we  got ourselves in gear and began stocking the shelves. I focused on styling the shelves, which was fun and challenging at the same time. I loved integrating accessories and keepsakes we have collected individually and as couple over the years. 

I also switched out the undersized knobs for some fun Anthropologie hardware that I spray painted gold. 

Photo from my Instagram. 

Brent tackled turning the giant cavity on the far right into a space for a TV. He had to build a platform for the flat screen to sit on and in doing so created two smaller spaces for the stereo and Playstation 3 consoles; because, according to Brent, no room in our house is complete without a TV and Playstation.

The spots are everything I'd hoped they would be and more. This is definitely a DIY project anyone could take on to jazz up their own space. The spots are a fun, little unexpected surprise and frankly all of our do-dads look better sitting in front of them. It's instant happy! 

Unless otherwise noted all photos are my own. 

Meet My Kitchen - Part 1

So...My house. Remember that project? Yeah, a  LOT has happened since I last updated you. In the midst of final wedding details, the actual wedding, the Luxury Living Show Kitchen and the two weeks in Italy for my honeymoon, the house has be-bopped along and a whole lot of progress has been made. It's officially a home. Not a dust pit, not a construction zone, but a home, our home.

With that being said I am WAY behind on updating you all and if I put all of the updates in one post you may be reading for a few days straight and that just can't be good for your eyes. So, I'm going to break it up a little, starting with the kitchen. WARNING: even within the kitchen itself there are many layers of progress, so this will definitely be My Kitchen part 1.  I could go to part 10, but I'll try to consolidate and hold back my long winded tendencies.

Last time we talked about the kitchen it looked something like this...

It stayed like this for weeks while we worked on other parts of the house and tweaked this space preparing it for it's new cabinetry. We had to paint, add some electrical, slightly rearrange the plumbing, add a gas line for the new range and have some HVAC work done to relocate a floor vent and prepare for the hood that would vent to the outside. You may also remember the addition of the picture frame moulding in the dining room that Brent installed in this post, it too was part of this prep stage for operation new kitchen. All of these tweaks and modifications were necessary, but other than the addition of the moulding and the painting not too much pizazz was added to the space during this period of renovation. So, while we were making progress, it didn't really feel like it, because there was a whole lotta work with no added pretty. It was more like added dust and backaches and then some more dust.

Finally after much sweat, dust and tears (Brent gets really emotional when he is able to successfully wire a new outlet) we found ourselves at the eve of our cabinet installation. We FINALLY got to take up the plastic that had been covering our newly refinished floors and the kitchen looked like this the night before the big install.

As some of you know I'm a designer at Bell Kitchen & Bath Studios and we make custom cabinets. And Thank God we do, because as you can see, and as I have said before this kitchen is small. Of course removing the wall between the dining room and kitchen as well as closing off the random door to the outside significantly increased the opportunity for functionality and really opened up the space, but still the space is small and the design had to be carefully considered (obsessed over) to ensure we made every bit of the space as functional as possible. We schemed and tweaked and literally thought through every single cabinet determining what would be stored inside. I will post a whole cabinet innards post at some point, but for now just know no cabinet in our kitchen just happened. It happened because we deemed it worthy or necessary to take up precious real estate in our small space.

It was D-day. The install team rolled up and got to work.

Our cabinets are from Bell's Studio frameless collection. The cabinets are maple and painted Benjamin Moore's White Dove, OC-17. We painted the walls the same color except for the under the chair rail which we painted Sherwin William's Caviar, SW6990. The existing crown molding was removed and replaced with new crown molding around the cabinets and into the dining room so everything was the same and there was no weird transition.

 

The kitchen and the dining room are now divided by a peninsula that houses the microwave, trash/recycling, cutlery divider and a few rollouts on the front side and a hidden cabinet on the back. 

Love the happy little corbels. 

By the end of the day...POOF - the beginnings of a kitchen! Stay tuned, the countertops were templated a few days later, more on that soon!

All photos are my own.