A Big Day

I'm nostalgic today because a year ago we welcomed our sweet little girl into the world. She is our sweet little sunshine each and every day and I am so blessed to be your Mamma.

I'm also going to be signing off for a week or so - we are beach bound! Although Hurricane Irene seems to be cramping our style and may is preventing us from leaving on time - aaaarghhh.

Etsy seller thewheatfield

I'll be back to posting when I return. Have a wonderful week/weekend!

Thanks for reading and for all of your wonderful comments - I am very appreciate of all of your support!

Where is Your Inspiration?

Have you ever found your inspiration in the most unexpected places?

Do farmer's markets inspire you?

I was at the farmer's market last week and just started snapping left and right. Everything was organized in big barrels and wonderfully colorful.

Can we say hello pretty colors??

And then I came across some metals. How cool is this grouping of galvanized buckets? The market uses these to display all of their fresh flowers.

Darn it, I don't have any photos of the zinnias, but they have a huge field of zinnias and you can even pick your own. For anyone local, all of these photos were taken by yours truly at Maple Acres Farm Market in Plymouth Meeting.

I do have a photo of one of the flower arrangements we had for my daughter's birthday party. I had bought a bunch of zinnias and snapdragons and they threw in a few sunflowers for free - it was so nice and love how they jazz up the arrangements (done by one of my good pals Christina).

Can't forget the Mike & Ike's! 

Have you found inspiration in any unexpected places recently? 

PS - I went to see The Help last night with a good friend and yes, it is worth all of the hype it is getting. Cried like a baby, sat in the chair while the credits rolled (and I never do that), and just thought it was great.

Keeping Up With the Times - Retro Renovation

This past week's Home section of the New York Times caught my eye. One of the cover stories was a feature on Pam Kueber, founder of the blog Retro Renovation.

Pam's passion is helping people preserve the mid-century style of their home and Retro Renovation was started to house all information Pam has compiled on the subject. There is a ton of information and resources for those looking for certain materials needed to preserve the mid-century style.

Check out a photo of Pam Kueber's kitchen:

Photo courtesy of Retro Renovation

Retro indeed!

Why was I so drawn to this article? Because many of the features of our house (before it was renovated) remind me of some of the featured homes and rooms on Retro Renovation. It's amazing and intriguing to me that people are passionate about preserving these materials - very well made materials I might add.

Pink bathrooms, Caloric wall ovens, steel cabinets - these are just a few of the highlights from the blog that remind me of our home. Our home has/had all of these at one point!  (We still have the Caloric wall oven with warming drawer and I love it - and thankful that it is stainless and not pink).

Here is a find that one of Pam's readers wrote in about and got lots of comments about:

Photo courtesy of Retro Renovation

Pink Caloric wall oven with warming drawer = awesome

Want to know everything there is to know about steel cabinets? You can read all about them here on Pam's blog.

Photo courtesy of Retro Renovation

I think maintaining this mid-century look is all about personal preference, but what are your thoughts on the subject and look?

Take a look at Pam's blog if you have a chance, it's filled with a ton of great retro styles. 

Front Door Reveal

Remember this curb appeal post?

The curb appeal to-do list is three quarters of the way done:  door has been painted, hardware has been polished, and the new shutters have been installed. Last item left is to paint the railing, but we're thinking we'll wait until the fall to do that.

Here is a before look at the hardware on the door (I can't believe I don't have any full length photos of the door before):

The hardware was in need of some serious polishing.

And here is our front door today...

The paint color is June Day by Sherwin Williams. You can also see the new shutters in the photo below.

I LOVE it!! And I also love that we are the only yellow door on the block. 

How about some bling bling?

Love how shiny it looks.

Knocker still needs some shining but overall I think it's looking pretty good.

I love seeing this door from the street.

Do you have any curb appeal plans for the fall? 

A Spotlight

Whew! What a weekend - a great weekend but I am thoroughly exhausted. My daughter's birthday party was a huge success and we were able to share it with all of our family and a few close friends. The rain even held off which was even better. And now another work week ahead, so let's start the week with some amazing before and afters...

Today I am spotlighting the incredible interior designs of Amy Meier. I had first seen this jaw-dropping before and after of a kitchen renovation, which Amy title's nautical gut job. Here is the before...

Are you ready for this?

Both photos courtesy of Amy Meier Design

Are you moving up and down and up and down just like I did to see the before and holy moly is that really the same space?? It's incredible isn't it?

The whole slicing this wall in half and opening up the space is incredible. The columns that were added and the light fixtures - amazing. And I love the paint color on the columns too. I also really like that gold pendant fixture above the sink. 

You can read more about this renovation here.

This is the most recent project that Amy revealed on her blog and I'm speechless. The one feature I'd like to specifically point out in this space below are the windows. Please take note of windows and how the window treatments transform the windows. Here is the before...

This appears to be a really nice sized space with a decent amount of natural light. See the photo below for how Amy worked her magic.

Both photos courtesy of Amy Meier Design

Go ahead, do a couple scrolls up and down. I did about 10.

The color palette?? Amazing. 

The window panels?? Amazing. Do you see what I mean how the panels make the windows look enormous?

You can see this transformation along with the inspiration for the room here.

Amy has also done some posts on the nursery she is creating for her daughter. 

You can see more details on Amy Meier Design here.

Have you come across any designs lately that you couldn't get out of your head they were so incredible? Have you seen or are you familiar with the work of Amy Meier?

Celebrate We Will

Simply can't believe it.

This weekend we are going to be celebrating my daughter's 1st birthday!!!!  (Her official birthday isn't until next week but we will be going on vacation so decided to celebrate this weekend with our family) 

I can't believe it. Really can't believe it. Ok, so we are gearing up and getting prepped for the party. As you can imagine it's been pretty crazy around our house trying to get everything done and still manage to keep the house in somewhat good order.

In honor of my sweet little girl's birthday party...

Etsy seller lauridesigns

A big birthday cupcake for my big girl who brings us joy every single minute of every day. 

I'll be sure to take lots of pictures this weekend and will recap the details.

Have a wonderful weekend! I know we will!

Mood Board Monday - September 26th

There are so many fun projects going on right now with many of my fellow blog buddies (another post on all of this exciting stuff to come soon), but this one project in particular was really fun and something that anyone can participate in so I figured I'd spread the word...we're good like that in blogland, aren't we?

If you are interested in creating a mood board based on a given inspiration, then set your calendars, set your smart phone reminders, write down this date...September 26th is the big date to link up your mood boards.

Here's the scoop...Cathy from Room RX and Sarah from Pewter + Sage are coordinating Mood Board Monday which will take place on Monday, September 26th. I love this idea!

Sarah did a great guest post at Room RX which you can read here that gives more details on MBM, but here it is in a nutshell...

Sarah (and Cathy) presented an inspiration piece, and for this MBM they chose wallpaper! (**Sidenote: Those of you who know me personally (like in real life) know of my wallpaper woes when we bought our house, so I'm still divided on the topic BUT there are some really great wallpapers out there right now and they can really create quite the statement and draw attention to an area of a space that would otherwise look a little lonely. I know I said I would never ever ever use wallpaper in my home but I might just try it one day)  Here are the wallpapers that Sarah and Cathy presented:

Amy Butler Lacework Sunset by Layla Grace

Spherica Parchment Paper from Layla Grace

Amy Butler Passion Lily Field from Layla Grace

Leafy Scroll Sky Paper from Layla Grace

So you need to choose one of these and base your mood board around it.  Sounds like fun, doesn't it? I'm using this as a challenge for myself to start creating more mood boards and this is the extra kick that I needed to get going. It'll be fun to see what others do with their rooms. 

Anyway, check it out and give it a try if you're interested.

Any guesses which paper I might choose as inspiration? Which one would you choose and what type of room would you create? I love the endless possibilities there are to dream up.

Guest Posting at Saved By Suzy

Today I'm very excited to be sharing what my Dream Home would look like over at Saved By Suzy. 

Suzy and I started blogging around the same time and connected instantly. She is so talented and rocks the house when it comes to updating furniture. I think this chair and desk makeover for her daughter's room is what initially brought me over to Suzy's blog and we've been blog friends ever since!

Suzy also recently won an e-design project and will be getting a living room makeover which you can read more about here.

Are there any features of my dream home that you would enjoy as well?

New Window Treatment

This week is busy, busy with lots of prepping for the big 1st birthday bash this weekend. Trying to clean, finish up projects around the house, and of course major to-do list for food, cake, etc.

I wanted to show a quick update I did to the full bathroom. I knew that a window treatment was needed, so I have been browsing fabrics for something that would fit in the bathroom nicely. You can see my bathroom post here for a recap.

Since I have no sewing skills whatsoever, I also knew I'd be breaking out the Stitch Witchery to hem this one up. I decided to do just a straight valance - simple and easy.

Here is the before photo. Yikes. New blinds will be coming at some point, but for now the valance will somewhat camouflage the ugliness of the blinds.

And the brackets had already been hung before I realized I didn't have a before/ugly shot.

Here's the window now...

I was really second guessing my fabric choice at first, but it's grown on me a lot. The fabric is Waverly Fishbowl in Caviar which I got from Fabric.com. 

Initially I thought it was competing too much with the shelf, but I'm happy with it (anything is better than ugly broken blinds). I wanted something that had a little yellow in it to compliment the shelf, but also something to neutralize the space which I think the black helps with nicely. I was also a bit hesitant that the large scale print on the fabric would be too much (since this is a really small full bathroom), but it's working for now.

What are your thoughts on the fabric choice? It is bold which I know is not for everyone. Have you ever had a small bathroom such as this one? If so, how did you make it work and maximize its potential?

Learning

We will be in our home for three years come November. It's been a wonderful three years. We've gotten married. We've experienced the most joy one can ever have with the birth of our daughter last year. And we have learned a lot about owning a home.

My husband thought I was crazy when I told him we should buy this home. He didn't see it the way that I saw it. We're both happy with how far our home has come, but there have been many changes as you have seen just a few.

I've received some comments and questions (I love your feedback!) about some of the renovations throughout our home, and I thought you should know that we didn't do any of the large renovations.

We don't know how to do plumbing (scary!), electrical (scarier!), installing sheetrock/drywall/whatever (not fun!), etc. etc. etc.

I wish we did. But we're learning. Check out what I just "pinned" recently onto my Pinterest page...

Design Sponge via Holly on Pinterest

I'm proud to say that we own all of these tools (since I recently just got my first staple gun). But I thought this was a great reminder of the essentials.

Although we have the essential tools, we hire out the big stuff to our chief renovator. We'll call him Bill.

Ok, so maybe this isn't Bill, but I liked this lion creature. And what renovator isn't a lion when they go in and demo the crap out of a space? HA! (Can you tell I'm having fun with this post?)

Things we have been successful with so far: painting (our painting skills have improved a LOT since 2008), caulking, installing shelves, installing a closet system, painting, and most of all envisioning our home for us.

You get the point. We do the small stuff - the stuff we know we can handle.

And we're learning a heck of a lot and asking a lot of questions along the way. I believe asking questions is the best way to learn.

Maybe ten years from now we'll feel confident enough to take on a whole renovation project ourselves, but for the time being we are more comfortable hiring the big stuff out.

So how did some of you learn your tricks and skills? Do you have family or friends that you were able to shadow? Were you just a risk-taker and went to town? (I'm envious if you're a risk taker - I'm such a chicken!)

Guest Posting at Room RX

Happy Friday!

I'm ecstatic to be guest posting today over at Room RX. I'll be sharing some of my favorite Fresh Fabrics for Cathy's Fresh Fabrics Friday feature.

I hope you'll be pleasantly surprised by the fabrics I'm sharing.

Go on over to Room RX and check it out!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

No More Pink Bathroom

That's right...we got rid of the pink bathroom (if you didn't guess already). It just wasn't current and it wasn't anything that we could work with even slightly. So out with the old, in with the new.

Here is a photo of the pink bathroom in case you forgot how PINK it was...

And a few more "before" photos...

Can you also see that the inside of the closet was pink too?

And here are a few "in progress" photos...my vision for the bathroom was bright, clean, and airy. This is a very small bathroom as you can see, so I wanted to keep it fairly simple. You can see a few of the paint samples we tried out.

We ended up using Feather Grey by Benjamin Moore. I love it. It's more of a blue grey, so I knew I wanted a white shower curtain and crisp white towels. 

The monogrammed towels shown here were a bridal shower gift. A monogram is the perfect gift for someone in my opinion. It's personal and practical.

Looking at these pictures is like a breath of fresh air compared to that pink explosion.

And here is a photo as of today. 

I had recently gotten that shelf above the toilet while thrifting and spray painted it yellow. I wanted to add a pop of color as I thought the space really needed it. This bathroom is fairly narrow, so it took me a while to find something that would fit above the toilet but not be too deep. This shelf has been a great addition.

I also just ordered some fabric to make a valance for the window in here as well. I hope to update you on that in another post.

What do you think of our renovated bathroom? If you have a small bathroom like this one, how do you make it work?

Behold...the Pink Bathroom

I know what you're thinking already...Ooooohh a pink bathroom, how chic and sophisticated and so "now".

I wish.

First, I have to admit, I've been pretty smitten with pink lately and I wouldn't consider myself a pink person. For instance, this image below from the most recent House Beautiful is the perfect amount of pink for me. It's gorgeous, actually. I love how it's balanced by neutrals but still so feminine at the same time.

House Beautiful

Little did we know that when we bought our house, we were so ahead of trend.

Take a look at our bathroom as it looked when we bought our home...

Ok, so what do we have here...pink vinyl curtains (that were probably hand-made as the former owner was quite the seamstress). Pink wallpaper - not so much. Pink tile on the floor - not horrible but needed to go. Pink and maroon tile - not my ideal color combo. And yes, on the right hand side of the picture, that is a sliding wooden accordian style door (for the bathroom? really?!) Oh, and don't forget the floor to ceiling trapeze-style towel rack.

Also, if you've been reading this blog for a little while, do you notice any items in this photo that you may have seen before?

We thought the sink was in great shape, so we saved it in the hopes of re-using it someday in the basement bathroom - and that's just what we did.

Check back tomorrow and I'll show you some more photos of this bathroom renovation.

What are some of your favorite color combos that you changed up in your home?

A Foyer With A Statement

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to meet up with some other local bloggers during I <3 Thrifting Day. If you ever have the opportunity to connect with other bloggers in person, I highly recommend it. It's so much fun to meet in person, exchange ideas, and of course hear about what's going on with them.

One of the bloggers I got a chance to talk with was the creative cat behind Madigan Made. When I tell you this girl drinks some serious creative juice, I'm not kidding. She has some excellent projects and tutorials over at her blog.

Madigan Made recently revealed her foyer update, and I just had to show you the new look. I love the originality of the new look.

Via Madigan Made

What I also love about the look is the repeat of the color palette, the functionality of the bench and storage bin beneath the bench, and of course the statement that the wall art and frames bring to the foyer area.

Check out the post on this foyer update over at Madigan Made for further details on the project.

Have you had the opportunity to meet other bloggers in person? It's so much fun!

Yes, Please!

I could really spend the morning here...hanging out on that pretty sweet banquette...drinking a nice cup of coffee (or three). I love the industrial look of this space.

Via Apartment Therapy

After doing some research, I found that this coffee shop actually exists in the Northern Liberties section of Philadelphia which got me very excited (new place on my to-go list).

You can read more about this spot here.

Happy coffee drinking.

Random Friday Tidbits...

Ok, just a few random things for this beautiful Friday...

Remember my curb appeal updates a few weeks ago? You can see that post here. Well the shutters have been replaced - woo hoo! And the front door has been prepped for priming/painting - sanded, wood-filler, all of that stuff that goes into prepping an old wood door. Maybe I'll have a reveal next week (fingers crossed!).

Remember this yellow shelf that I had gotten at a local consignment shop? I linked it up to Suzy's Thursday House Party. Lots of fun house project stuff over there - check it out when you have a chance!

Also, if you ever read Centsational Girl, I'm sure you have seen her dining room reveal earlier this week. Number one - it's fantastic. Number two - her dining room is painted in Benjamin Moore's Camouflage - which is what we have in our dining room! I was so excited when I saw that color in action elsewhere. Got me thinking about bringing that color into the kitchen, but I think the kitchen is staying orange for the time being (thanks to some great comments and support on the orange!).

Lastly, I just had the most amazing vegan chocolate chip cookie at Whole Foods! Do you have a Whole Foods near you?

Does your brain also work like this on a Friday?!

Have a great one!

Color Palette for Basement Bath

I had given an update on our basement bath not too long ago. You can read that post here. This is one photo to give an idea of what we're working with now.

This is the towel that I had found at HomeGoods that serves as the inspiration piece for the space. I was really drawn to the blue/green in the towel and thought it would look nice against the variation in the brick.

I also had this image in the back of my head as well that I had pinned a while ago into my Tiny Love board on Pinterest to possibly do someday in my daughter's bathroom. But why not work the palette into this bath since I loved it so much?

Martha Stewart via Pinterest

I love the coral and blue together.

So for fun I started playing around with the goodies I have for the bathroom already. Here is a photo to give you an idea of my current thought process on this one.

The paint swatch on the bottom left is Beryl by Martha Stewart. That paint is going to go on this wall.

The piece of trim above the brick will be white.

I picked up the vintage looking peach frame today at HomeGoods for $2.99. I thought it would be perfect for here.

The print is called Roses in a Vase by Childe Hassam. Have you heard of this artist? I picked up a calendar that had a collection of his paintings included in it for $2.25 at a local consignment shop. When I was thinking about artwork to use, I remembered that I had picked this up and that there could be some options to use for here. I really like this Roses in a Vase print and I think it pulls the blue/green and the peach, but I also played around with a few other prints found in the same book all done by Childe Hassam.

This work is called The Church at Gloucester. Pretty but not exactly what I was looking for.

This is Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. I love this one but a little too dark for here.

I'm fairly certain I'm going to use the flower print. I think it's perfect.

There are a few other small cosmetic updates we need to make to this bathroom, but overall I think with some paint and accessories we'll be good to go. 

I am happy to report that things are moving along smoothly and quickly with this room update (for once). Hooray!

Have you had a room that you were able to update fairly quickly? It's quite rewarding! 

Have a wonderful weekend! We are off to a family party in Maryland and very excited to catch up with some family.