Where's your Mouth?

Preston has a new trick that I taught him. Check it out!

Entry Hall Additions

Here is what I decided on for our entry. I knew I wanted a bench of some sort, and I've always wanted to do a sunburst mirror somewhere in the house.

I found the bench at Market Street Consignment House up in Champions Forest. I highly recommend this shop if you are looking for used, reasonably priced furniture. I would like to get a linen cushion made for it, but I have not gotten around to it yet. For now, I added some pillows that I previously had in the formal living room, and I bought the vintage sack pillow at High Fashion Home. The sunburst mirror is from a store in Marble Falls. I am wishing it was not quite so gold, but I might try to fix that by adding some darker paint to it.

My next post is going to be about how the nursery looks today. Quite different, but it's still my favorite room in the house. Stay tuned.

Update to the Kitchen

I finally added some curtains to the breakfast room, which was much needed. It's funny, you never realize how important curtains are until you put them up. Then, the before pictures of the window just look naked.

I'll show the "After" pictures first:

The curtains are ready-made from West Elm. As soon as I spotted them in the catalogue, I knew I should just order them and be done with it. Even if I were looking for fabric to have them made, this is exactly the kind of fabric I would have picked anyways.

Here is what the room looked like before, with no curtains. See what I mean about the windows looking naked:

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Our Home: Before and After Pictures Part V: Dining Room

For the past 3 years our dining room has been a work in progress. I've been constantly moving furniture around, changing my mind monthly on which setup I like best. It's almost funny when people come over and say--"you changed the way your table is turned." Well, yes, I change it constantly. I have a very patient husband who pretends to be annoyed but I think he secretly likes seeing things improve too.

Recently I finished redecorating our dining room. Here are some pictures of the evolution of the room and pics of the finished product!

First, let's go way back to 2008 when we first bought our home. This was before the major renovations started on our house.

 It had dated chair railing which we ripped off, and old green-ish carpet which we replaced with hardwood floors. We took down the poor old chandalier which was original to the home from the '60s, and replaced it with a more updated and timeless crystal chandalier. We added a thicker crown moulding and painted the room and ceiling.

This is how the room looked for the first Christmas in our house (2008). Brett bought this furniture at a model home sale before we got married. Was it nice, yes. Was it something I would have picked out, no. Just somewhere in the middle for me. It was livable like this-for awhile. Mostly though, I really needed a rug, so we got this Pottery barn rug in 2009...

This is how the room looked in 2009 for my friend Kim's baby shower. Not only did I add the rug, which ironically is named the Preston rug at Pottery Barn, but I also bought and hung those two coral prints on each side of the mirror. I couldn't afford to get all new chairs, so I bought just two upholstered parsons chairs for the end chairs to soften things up a bit. In comparing the last two pictures, it looks like I also replaced the lamps. No surprise there. I am constantly changing out lamps and swapping them with lamps in other rooms of the house. They are always a-changin'! The room stayed like this for at least a year, with the table moving back and fourth multiple times. 

The next big change was earlier this year when I bought 6 new chairs. I did a post about them here.  I found them at an antique store and at just $45 a chair, they were keepers! All they needed were a little TLC, so I recovered the cushions. Brett and I did it ourselves and it was super easy! I chose a tan and cream colored big check pattern to keep them traditional and a bit french-looking. Here is the before and after of the chairs--

Left: Before, Right: After

Then, I sold the buffet we used to have in there on Craigslist. Goodbye, you mediocre buffet with brass knobs--

 I then moved the mirrored buffet that we used to have in our formal living area into the dining room. Here is a photo from my blackberry...

This was okay, for a few months, but I really did not like the fact that the buffet was ultra-modern when my taste is leaning much more back to traditional/french/antique-y. I can thank the blog Cote de Texas for this. Thanks Joni!

So there I went. I sold the mirrored buffet on craigslist too. By now you are starting to think I am crazy, right? I mean, I just bought this less than two years ago. I used to love the mirrored stuff. But now, it just doesn't match the direction I am headed. So, it found a new home. A newlywed who paid me close to what I originally bought it for. I combined the money from the two buffets I sold on craigslist and bought for just a fraction more....

are you ready...

this beauty.

1920's italian antique walnut buffet. A major upgrade. A forever, will hopefully get passed down to my grandchildren someday piece. My first true antique. I'm in love.

I totally agree with Joni from Cote de Texas when she says that antiques make a room. She says it anchors the room and gives you something to work around with different decors-for the rest of your life! Agreed.

I kept the same two lamps but gave them a facelift with new lampshades, the medium sized linen drums from Pottery Barn.

So last it was the token item. The silk billow-y drapes. I have been wanting drapes in the dining room for the past three years, but I am so glad I waited until I really knew what I wanted. Every other room downstairs has pale blues and greens, which I love, but I really wanted to do something different as far as color goes. A statement room, so to speak. I went with a solid coral silk. l  already had those two coral prints and I wanted to work around those. I followed Cote de Texas' curtain formula to the T. Her blog has really become my bible for decorating, if you can't already tell.

Okay, well here it is. The final "after" pictures. Hope you like.

I would actually really love to get a seagrass rug in there instead, but I just can't justify getting rid of a perfectly good Pottery Barn rug yet. I am so glad to be done and simply in love with the finished room. I wanted to take my sleeping bag down there to sleep the first night it was done. We really do entertain a lot at our house, so it's a room we use frequently. We even try to eat dinner in there a few nights a week, just to make things more special. I've been making a whole lot more changes to our home recently, so stay tuned for more updates.

Preston {10 Months}

I can't believe Preston is 10 months old!

• Eats 4 times a day (around 7 AM, 11 AM, 3 PM, and 6 PM). For the 11 AM and 3 PM feedings, it's a 5 ounce bottle of pumped breastmilk since I'm at work. But he breastfeeds for the first and last feeding. How I have managed to still be breastfeeding, I have no idea. I just know that everytime I think about weening him, I get really sad. I'm not sure I'm ready for that stage in his life to be over. I know I'm borderline approaching the "this is weird" stage, but I don't care. I will stop when we are both ready.
• He really loves meat! Hamburger patties, ham, turkey, chicken...he just scarfs it down. I do not eat a lot of meat, so I was worried he wouldn't like it either, but thank goodness he does. He pretty much eats whatever we put in front of him.
• He loves to walk around the house pushing toys. He gets in this zone and is so focused. If he wasn't bearing all his weight on the toys, he could probably walk.
• He loves to give "High Fives!" It is followed with the biggest grin I've ever seen!
• He has FOUR teeth! His top two and bottom two. They are so cute.
• He usually naps twice a day, around 9 AM and 2 PM. Each nap is about an hour, on a good day.
• He sleeps wonderfully thorough the night from 7 PM to 7 AM, sometimes 8 AM. I can't even remember the last time he woke up in the middle of this night. Hope I didn't just jinx that.
• He said his first words! His first word was "Ball" when Brett and I were playing with his ball with him, and shortly after that he started saying "DaDa" and he hasn't stopped.
• He loves to hand me anything and everything he finds, and loves it when I say "Thaaaaank You."
• He loves to play tug-o-war with Winston with anything he can find. A piece of paper, a toy, whatever. Those two love to play together and Winston is so gentile with him.
• Believe it or not, he has not gained an ounce since May! He has stayed at 22 lbs, 11 oz. for 3 months. The doctor says thats normal and that he is just lengthening out now, so he is getting thinner. But people still comment all the time that he is a "Big Boy" even though I'm sad that he's not as much of a little chunk anymore. He is starting to look more like a little boy.
• His hair is longer in the back, but he still looks bald because it's so blonde.
• He likes to grab my nose and put his fingers up my nose and laugh.
• He knows these words: Book, Ball, Train, Truck, Nose, Golf Club, Winston, Dada, Mama, ....
• He cracks up when we read "Where is Baby's Belly Button?" He just thinks it is the funniest thing!
• He just started standing by himself, with no help. He can do it for about 10-15 seconds.

He hates the feel of grass, but this would have been a great picture if he was smiling.

There's that smile!

Learning about Bubbles for the first time! He loves them!

Mommy and Preston in the bounce house at cousin Holt's first birthday party!

He likes to touch noses, and "bunny kiss" with Aunt Lulu.

Getting out of the bath for bedtime, precious moments

Okay, I'm pretty embarrassed to admit this but yes, we went to the Ramona Singer wine signing at Kroger. Don't judge. The pinot is actually pretty good!