Six-Chairs-A-Loving!

(Sung like "six geese a laying" from The Twelve Days of Christmas, of course)

When she found out I was moving, my friend Heather (who we've featured here and here and here) asked if I might be interested in her six cane-back dining room chairs.  She had recently inherited a lovely dining room set from her grandmother and she no longer needed her cane-back chairs.  I couldn't say "OMG YES" fast enough.  I adore the style and she sold them to me for a really great price.  Plus, six chairs!?! Totally my style? Already painted a soft white with a hint of distressing?  It couldn't be more perfect! Here they are as Heather gave them to me:

The dining room is far from done, but I decided to take an hour or so and recover the seats.  I already had the fabric on hand: I bought it for a project at the old house and (thankfully) never got around to it.  It's the Salisbury fabric from Ballard Designs.  

One small glitch: I only had enough fabric for five chairs.  I was bummed ... until I realized I had just enough fabric in a white upholstery weight with a pretty charcoal coral print on it, which would be perfect for the living room.  I could use the sixth chair in the living room at the desk!  Problem solved.  

Recovering is super easy: take off the seat, use the seat as your template, cut your fabric and then staple the fabric onto the back, pulling and checking your work as you go.  I repeated the process six times, screwed the chair seats back onto the frame and voila! The new (to me) chairs.

I love them!  I'll eventually paint the dining room table - maybe cream, maybe grey, maybe a combination, maybe something entirely different. But for now, I am loving this look!  What do you think? What color do you think the dining room should be? I think I'm going to add some white moulding and a chair rail around the space and paint the upper part of the wall a darker grey.  Any suggestions?

See you swoon,

This rug fits MUCH better

Well by now you know Shanna and I made an insane trip to the Pottery Barn outlet to check out a sale that we had been notified about through email.  We usually have fantastic luck with rugs and that is exactly what I was looking for to replace the striped country style kitchen rug that my husband and I bought on a whim.  Funny how a lot of the things you buy when you first move into your home end up getting replaced.  Looking at this purchase I wonder what I was thinking because it does not match our style whatsoever.  The new one is perfect.

This was the striped rug in the kitchen before:

As you can see this is not meshing well with our light, airy, soothing color theme that we have going on now, here is a recap of the kitchen that I just painted next to the dining room curtains:



And here is my lovely new Pottery Barn jute runner, I tried to find it on their website but I guess it is discontinued at this point:

Love the subtle stripes!

So much better right?  Wait until you see what Shanna and I have in store for those cabinets...

See you swoon,

Everyone needs a dress to turn 30 in don't you think?

It's true.  And this is exactly what I bought.  The necklace I talked about on Monday actually looks fantastic with the creamy, ivory lace so when I go out I am wearing these together....now for some shoes which I have yet to find.  I was a little worried when this dress arrived, there was some concern about the length being too short and not quite age appropriate (I know I am not 80 but I am not 19 either so length is an issue for me) but to my surprise it was perfect and hugged me in all the right places.  I am sure all the ladies reading this can attest to how amazing a dress can make you feel when it fits exactly how you had hoped (it is not every day that this happens).  This dress is it for me.

Urban Outfitters Pins & Needles Lace Dress:

When I have an occasion to wear this to I will take some pictures to show you what everything looks like together, oh and the shoes I end up wearing as well!  What I want to know is if any of you splurged or treated yourself to something special when you hit 30, and for those of you who have not yet entered this decade, any fun purchases on the horizon?  I highly recommend it :)

See you swoon,

Birthday Danglies!!

A pair of gold DANGLY Anthropologie earrings.  I am usually a pretty plain girl, I never really venture into drop earrings, trendy necklaces, or fancy rings (except for my diamonds-moooahahahaha!).  My every day accessories include my wedding rings, a pair of stud earrings and maybe a silver necklace that I barely ever switch up.  So I am breaking out of this mold, with very small baby steps and jumping in so check out what I bought! 

Anthropologie Maritime Danglers, I love em'.

I don't usually wear gold but as you can see with my new necklace purchase that I showed you on Monday, I have decided to try a few new things. So far I am very pleased with my new look that is helping me to start this new, very FABULOUS decade!

What kind of accessories to you gravitate towards,?  Trendy?  Classic?  Nothing at all?

See you swoon,

PS ... Shanna's upholstered coffee table was just featured on one of our favorite sites: Ikea Hackers!  Check it out here - yay!

Den Curtains Are Done!

And I love-love-LOVE them. Capital L-O-V-E! With unicorns and rainbows and tons and tons of sparkles!

Here they are!

As soon as I first saw this gorgeous fabric, I knew I had to have it in my den.  It's a little bolder than I usually go for, but I think it's a great addition to the space.  I ended up making them myself and it took less than 2 hours.  I don't sew, so I got out my trusty heavy-duty no-sew seam tape and iron and got to work.  The width of the fabric was just the right size for my windows, since there is not a lot of wall space on either side of the window.  I measured the height of my window and then used this calculator to determine I needed 6 yards of fabric.  I ordered 6.5 just to be safe.  

First, I hung my curtain rod.  I found it at Overstock.com, and I love it so much I will order it for the other large windows in my home.  Our den window is huge and it was hard to find a rod to fit the space that wasn't really expensive. I love these and they were only about $50.  Then I clipped the curtain rings on the rod.  I found the rings at Lowes.  I bought two packs of 10 rings, which was just enough.

I got out my tape measure and measured from the bottom of the curtain rings to the floor, which came to exactly 84 inches.  I added two inches onto that measurement to account for the top and bottom hems.  Then I laid out my fabric on the floor, measured 86 inches and cut across.  

Because the fabric is a bold Ikat print, I wanted to have the panels match up as much as possible.  So I found a guide on the edge of the fabric and lined them up.  I placed the cut fabric over the uncut fabric and then used the cut panel as a guide for my second piece.  I will admit that I was super nervous about all of this: this was the most expensive fabric I have ever worked with and I only had about a half a yard extra.  I had to do it right the first time. 

When I had my panels, I put them on the ironing board and started with the top hem.  When that side was done, I clipped it to the rings just to check my work.  With both panels, I ended up having to cut a little more off the bottom before using the seam tape.  I marked with a Sharpie where I needed to cut.

Once I cut, I used the seam tape on the bottom hem and then the two sides: fold the fabric over to create a seam, and then follow the instructions on the seam tape: this brand had me hold the iron on the seam for 10 seconds.  

When all of my seams were done, I attached the fabric to the rings, played around with the pattern, and voila!

I'm itching to do more in this space!  The walls will be a light grey soon enough and I think I've decided to paint the built-ins and the stone fireplace both Dover White.  The rug needs to go (this is just here to fill the space).  The new rug is en route!  I found a charcoal trellis rug that will look amazing in this space.  I want to hang my picture wall over the sectional and I found a really cute print that I'm eager to receive and hang up!  I'm slowly getting there ...

Do you have any ideas for decorating the den? I'd love to hear!

See you swoon,

I bought some things-eek!

I have been trying to be good lately and really just focus on buying things for the house but I have to confess, this year kicks off my 30's so I figured why not indulge just a little :)  Shanna introduced me to EmersonMade probably at the same time most of you saw her (unless you knew of her before and in that case, LUCKY!) in the blog post about seersucker which you can see here.

I have yet to splurge on this dress that I have been swooning over although I am so close to pulling the trigger, however, while pining over those beautiful threads I did come across something beautiful and meaningful at the same time.  This necklace is a piece that I want to carry around with me to remember how fantastic life is and that even though every day is not a dream come true, we are always moving towards better things and this is exactly what this necklace means.  Thank you EmersonMade for touching my heart :)

Here is that gorg seersucker dress again, fuzzy heart LOVE, god I want that dress!

I know in the title I said I bought things (plural) so you will just have to wait until Wednesday to see the next item, I know the suspense is going to kill you!

See you swoon,

Paint Chip Moving Cards!

We have been in our new home for just over two months now, and all that time I have been trying to come up with a cute but inexpensive way to announce our new address and phone number to our friends and family.  Then a good friend of mine who knows all about my love for pretty paper and my obsession with painting shared a pin on Pinterest with me that was practically perfect in every way.  A paint strip moving card!   Here is my moving card (with identifying info hidden, of course).

Didn't it turn out sweet?  The inspiration photo was a little different:

I liked it, but I also felt cutting and sliding would get old really quick.  Initially I wanted to print directly onto the paint strips.  I tried a bunch of different strips and they all had the same problem: the ink smeared.  So back to the drawing board.  I'll note that the paint strips were given to me by another dear friend who works for an architectural firm that happened to be cleaning house and was tossing tons of old fan decks - just wanted to make it clear that I did not go into Sherwin Williams or Home Depot and take 100+ paint strips.   Look at all the fan decks!

Here's what I did.

First, I downloaded the little "home sweet new home" with couch motif from Brooklyn Limestone.  She is an amazing graphic designer and is kind enough to post freebie downloads on her blog.  Yay!  Then I uploaded that pdf file into Adobe Illustrator and played around with it and with some fonts.  It took a little trial and error: type, print, hold up to paint strip, make more spaces, print, repeat repeat.  Finally the text looked just how I wanted next to the strips (the flower is hiding our address and phone number).  

I decided to print onto white cardstock, which I would cut down to the same dimensions as the paint chip.  I printed three to a page and then used a paper cutter to trim the pages down to size.  I liked the four large squares in the Ralph Lauren fan deck, so I went with that one.  Then, I bought some simple metal fasteners and used them to tack the moving announcement behind the paint chip.

Finally, I bought some long skinny mailing envelopes from Paper-Source (they're business size but have a different flap, which makes them feel more special), addressed them and sent them on their way.

What do you think?  I'm really happy with how they turned out and love that really, I am only out the cost of stamps and envelopes.  Everyone who knows me well will get a kick out of these when they arrive: what could be more perfect?

See you swoon,

Grey is one of my favorite colors

My mother would agree with this, she always tells me I dress like a mourning dove because I am always wearing grey.  Let me say this, it goes with everything and can really look fantastic with a little blush on your cheeks.  Big, big fan right here.  So it's no surprise that when Shanna uttered the words Sherwin Williams comfort GREY when we were talking about colors for one of the rooms in her house I had to test it out for my kitchen.  It.Was.Perfect.

I wanted a calming color that would go nicely with my other two rooms that are painted Sherwin Williams rice grain.  Comfort grey has a slight blueish tint to it if you ask me so it blends really well.  Even my mom liked the grey/blue color!  The funny thing is that the entire paint strip the has comfort grey (kitchen), sea salt (in my bathroom), oyster bay (this one is a little too dark for my house but still beautiful) all resemble sea glass colors.  This is exactly the feel I am going for in my house, a beach house in the suburbs of Philadelphia!  So I am pretty much just saying this color could not have been more perfect for me and my home.

Oh and as a side note, no matter how small your kitchen is, it will not take you an hour to paint it like I thought it would.  I am not sure what was in my corn flakes to make me think I could paint at mach speed but this tiny room took me six long hours, insane I know!

Enough talk, let's see some pictures!

Before:

After a touch of comfort grey...oh and one of our readers, Heather, requested a shot of my barstools at the counter so I added that for you below! I love how the grey walls and black barstools go with the framed organization board that I painted black to match, everything is coming together so nicely.

After shots, and I swear that coffee mug has not been sitting out since those before pictures were taken!

 Love, love, love.  What is your favorite paint color in your house to date?

See you swoon,