The entry is coming along...

Here is my new light! Freshly installed, dangling. and sparkly!

After much discussion and many returns to Home Goods, here is the vignette I finally decided on for my entry hall table:

This apothecary jar is full of sand and shells from the trip I took recently with my mom and sister to Sanibel island. This was a special trip, so it needed a special place in the house.

I am however needing opinions on a few other options for the area - it seems like it is taking me forever on this area that is the smallest square footage in the house. But it is the entry! Your first impression, your first glimpse of what is to come. It might be coming a few years later - but it is still coming!

No. 1: The rug
I bought this rug at Steinmart when we moved into our first house in Tennessee. It has been our entry rug in all four houses we have lived in. I still like it, surprisingly enough, and even more surprising, it has fit perfectly in every house. But I might need to spruce it up a bit, mix up the style to give it that "collected over time" feel. What do you think?

I tried this rug, and when it came in the mail it was Cheapo McCheaperson, so it went right back:



Here is the rug I might want to replace it with:



I would love to have this rug by my BFF Nate Berkus, but they don't have it available in this color anymore:



Or this one from West Elm might work, but I can't decide if I like the little touch of red:



No. 2: The lighting
The hub was finally home during daylight hours this weeked (kind of sad for him to think that in two weeks time he was never home while it was light outside), so he could turn off the electricity to put in my new light. There is a spot in the front of the hallway for a light, and one in the back of the hallway. So...do I need two of the fancy dancy chandelier? Or should we convert the boobie light in the back of the hallway to a recessed can that you probably wouldn't even notice? Opinions?

Linking to:

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas...

I think I am finished decorating for Christmas, well - mostly finished. I think I continue to tweak until I start packing everything up. This year in our new house we are still figuring out where everything should go. I did really enjoy putting together my mantel this year - I started with your basic garland and I was able to add pine, juniper and boxwood from my yard (and a tree that is straddling the line between my house and a neighbors - I doubt they will miss a few twigs!).
I got this Santa picture last year at Kirklands, but it got broken in the move - I started to be sick about it when I saw they didn't have any this big this year, but I just emptied out the broken glass and touched up a few scratches with a sharpie, (don't you love a sharpie?) and almost good as new!

Can you see my pretty greens?

This is Ryan's Nutcracker Collection:

This is a fun snowman hat I picked up at Cracker Barrel. It was headed for the top of my tree until I found one I liked better. I thought it might be fun on the kitchen table.

Here is our elf friend Mittens that comes and hides in a different place every morning. Sometimes he even brings gifts. This is his hiding place today.

Where, O' Where could Mittens be?

O' Where, O' Where could he be?

Here he is, I found him now,

Hiding in the tree!

Linking to:

 

My New Chandelier!

I got my fancy dancy new chandelier in the mail today!!



This is going in my entry.  Now to get enough daylight for Mr. Workaholic to put it up! Might be waiting for the weekend...
I also need to take pics to share our chalkboard wall and my new kitchen chairs - woohoo!

Gallery Wall

Our upstairs hallway needed a little sprucing up. Here it is before we bought the house:



We painted the walls the same color as the entry - Sherwin Williams Pony Tail, and painted all of the trim and doors SW Pure White. I love a good gallery wall, but I haven't had good success getting them to look right on my own. I found this inspiration pic from Martha Stewart:

And here is my attempt:

We just put it up last night, so I haven't decided if it is a keeper yet. Some of the pics are in table top frames, and aren't adapting well to the wall - no matter how much sticky tac I use. This hallway will also be receiving a lovely treatment of "crown molding", and hopefully removal of those lovely boob lights that are all over the house. (No matter how hard I try, I can't see them as anything else!). I haven't decided if I should use a flush mount chandelier in their place, or change the lighting to recessed can lights. Any thoughts?

Linking to:

  

What's Cooking?

In my kitchen, not dinner, but a chalkboard wall and some new paint!

Here is one of my many kitchen inspiration pics:

I love this color, and I had the hardest time finding a blue that didn't look like it belonged in a nursery. I stumbled upon this lovely blue gray that The Nester used in her front living room:

Sherwin Williams Comfort Gray - Love it!

Here it looks like a gray green blue - but it does look more blue in person.

So today I trimmed the Comfort Gray and worked on my chalkboard wall - all of the above are still works in progress. But I am loving them both, even in the beginning stages - that is a good sign, right?

Copycat

I found this great inspiration for my hall entry table from Emily A. Clark, who is a design master mind. I love her style, and I have a very similar table - so as I learned on The Nate Show this week - I am a major copycat designer - "I'll have what she's having...". I think my paint is even similar, but I did that all on my own. Here is her table:

As hard as I tried, I can't find mirrors as similar to these as I would like, so the following are the two choices as close as I could get. And there are also two lamp choices too.

Mirror Option #1: Seems a bit too Asian for my liking, but I do like the visual interest. If I keep these, I might make them a bit more gold.

Mirror Option #2: I love this mirror, but not as interesting as when there is a pattern on top of the mirror.



Lamp Option #2: Love the cork shade on this lamp, but the table is narrow, and so is the first lamp.

Any thoughts and opinions are welcome! I also found out about myself this week that I am a troubled decision maker. I do love an honest opinion...thanks Whitney.

The Never Ending Floor Refinishing...

After two weeks, and 5 coats of polyurethane, I am ready to live with a few imperfections! I'm not sure how Ryan will go on this one, I left it up to him to call the poor guy to come and fix the few blemishes that are still in the floor. I was so stressed over what stain to pick - our color in San Antonio was so dark that it showed every footprint, every speck of dust - it was a nightmare, especially the 163 times I cleaned it while our house was on the market. So here, I wanted a dark medium. I picked Rosewood by Minwax. I am very happy with how it turned out. These are just the pics of the stairs and the hallway. I will post more pics of the kitchen refinish when I get it painted and all my furniture back in there!

 

The Wood is Here!!!....

not finished yet, but here!

Last week it took them over 20 hours to take out the tile in our entry way that apparently the last residents wanted to stay in the house forevermore. I felt sorry for the guy, but so glad it wasn't me!

It looks like tomorrow or Wednesday they might finally be finished with the new floor, refinished floor, and refinished stairs (minus the nasty carpet runner that matched nothing else in the house.) Today they did finally put my stove and refrigerator back into working order, guess that means an end to - "oh no, I guess we have to eat out..." Claire will be glad to have my kitchen table  her tent out of the playroom, but she did enjoy the brief hotel stay with a pool that had water as warm as bathwater.

Is it still DIY if your Father-In-Law does it for you?

At our house this week we had our own version of "While You Were Out". While I was gone on my most relaxing trip to Florida with mom and sis, my husband and in-laws were hard at work here. They wouldn't send me a peek, they made me wait for the big reveal moment when I got home, and it was so amazing!!

Here is the room when we looked at the house, previous owners furnishings included:

(The cutie pie on the couch was included in the sale.)

Here it is empty:

(Hard to tell from the pics that the ceiling panels are painted alternating colors of green, a purply cranberry, and beige - eww!)

Here is is before I left:

(Notice the presence of the weird little kneewall that really serves no purpose except to close up this lovely room.)

And here is what I came home to:

Isn't she lovely!? Not nearly complete - but oh so lovely! My tall hubby still need to finish painting the ceiling and beams, and new furniture and furnitire arrangement are in this rooms future, for sure - but I LOVE the new built-ins. And all the white makes this room seem so light and lofty. I think my FIL logged over 80 hours working on these, a huge thanks to my MIL (the gopher,painter, and design consultant) and FIL!

Black Beauty

I had my eye on this black beauty at Pier 1 several months ago when I was still on buying restriction from the hub ( Why would you buy something just to have to move it across the country!? - Because it was on sale!!!) - they since put it on clearance and it was no where to be found. Last week I came across one that was beaten and battered and being used to display stuff. I asked ever so sweetly if they might consider selling it to me, and low and behold!, they had one new in a box. After finding out that it was apparently illegal in the Pier 1 hierarchy to sell it to me, I strong armed gently persuaded the sales lady to sell it to me, and now it is mine! All mine! Now on to finding some chairs....


Choice #1: Black and White Damask cloth, pretty but might make me cringe anytime we have company over for spaghetti, not that I often serve spaghetti to company, butcha' know what I mean.

Choice #2: More durable woven banana leaf.

Choice #3: Another more durable choice, might look like it will give you rope burn to sit down, but actually quite comfortable.

What do you think?

Liz