Changing it up!

After the holidays, I pulled down all of the Christmas decorations and left everything bare for a little while. Obviously, given my decorating ADD, that didn't last all too long. The buffet in the dining room felt huge and empty with nothing on the surface. I wanted to create a little tabletop vignette that didn't feel season-specific, and that I could stick with for a while. Here's what I put together:



There are some wintry hints, but nothing too literal, since I want to be able to leave it alone for a while.



That is one of my favorite photos of me and B, in a frame that I fell in looove with at TJ Maxx. (Oh, the Maxx. How I love and loathe you all at the same time.) The print in the back was my mother's from ages ago. I've always liked it, and the colors are almost exactly the same as in the area rug under the dining table. That silver vase stuck around after Christmas, when it was stuffed with sparkly stuff, and I added some texture with those balls in a vase.

On the other end of the buffet are some apothecary jars, which I love even when they're empty:



I added some cinammon sticks, but this could easily be switched up and anything could be added... candy hearts for Valentine's Day, leafy sprigs and wildflowers if the two billion feet of snow ever melt this spring... anything you want.

The prints in the frame are one of my favorite pieces I own. I made them years ago. They're polaroid emulsion transfers, made from old slides. The one on top is of my mom in the 70s, at Niagara Falls. She has enormous super sweet glasses on in it. (Love ya, Mums!)



I'm really happy with this general setup, so maybe my design ADD won't rear its ugly head and everything will stay in one place for a while... ha ha, yeah right. :)



OH, I also don't think that I ever drew proper attention to the painting hanging to the right of the buffet. B and I got it at an antiques store a couple of months ago... it's an old portrait of a Saint Bernard! I know that probably makes us like crazy dog owning people or whatever, but we don't care. We both genuinely liked the painting and the frame is gorgeous walnut. It's kitschy and kind of weird, and we like it that way.


Over on the other side of the house, I switched up the shelves above the television in the living room (again). After the Christmas stockings were down, they just looked pretty bare. So I decided to shop around the house and see what I already owned that I could put up there. We still have boxes of things that haven't been unpacked, so I dug around and had actually forgotten about some stuff!



Those three ceramic vases I picked up for $1 each, I think. They're each a different texture and they look exactly like the Ikea ones that I've seen pop up around some design magazines.



In "shopping my house" and making use of what I already have, I found a stash of postcards that I collected while living in London. I spent a lot of time at different museums and galleries in the city (the Tate Modern and National Gallery were my favorites) and I'd buy a few postcards from the gift shops here and there. The one in the frame above is of a Gilbert & George installation. Amazing stuff. I have a bunch of different cards, so it will be fun to switch them out from time to time.



I also dug out this woodblock painting that I bought a number of years ago from a local artist in Portsmouth. The colors are so vibrant, it just makes me happy.



So there you have it. Everything un-Christmas-ified, and probably staying put for a while. Did anyone else feel the itch to ditch their holiday stuff pronto?


In other news, we've been getting dumped on with snowstorm after snowstorm around here. Lucy is loving it, of course, but I don't know how much more I can take! Here she is just soaking it up during one of the (many) storms last week:



(Oh, and see that tiny sliver of reddish wood near the fence back there? That's the retaining wall that we built this summer. It's about 2 1/2 to 3 feet high, and you can barely see it at all... When is spring, again?)

More Christmas cheer!

When I said I was like a crazy Christmas fairy lately, I wasn't kidding. I've been buzzing around the house putting little sparkly things here and there.

Here's the new buffet table in the dining room, all decked out for the holidays!



I went for metallics in mostly gold and silver, with some touches of green and red.



Love that reindeer! I filled the apothecary jar and glass vase from the living room with sparkly ornaments, sprinkled mini ornaments around the votive candles, picked up two cheap-o metallic candle holders, and a silver vase at Homegoods. Then I shoved in some glittery branches with beads and crystals on them from Michaels. Easy peasy.





The dining table got a new centerpiece, too.



We picked up a holiday tablecloth. I used the same wicker charger from the fall centerpiece and threw on a big candle, wreath with berries on it, and topped it off with some red bead garland. Then I popped some red tapers into the candlesticks and called it a day!



I'll post pictures of our tree next, so stay tuned! With the lights outside done, stockings out, and tree up we are officially ready for Christmas!

What a weekend!

We got so much accomplished this weekend, it feels so good! Most importantly, my 5-month long quest for a buffet table for the dining room has FINALLY come to an end!!!

After searching endless antique stores, furniture stores, and consignment shops within a 1-2 hour drive from here, plus scouring Craigslist every day, I was ready to give up on ever finding the right piece (at the right price). Then today we took a last-ditch drive down to an antique store in Newburyport, and we found exactly what I had been looking for at an amazing price!



It's seriously exactly what I've been envisioning. And the woodwork is beautiful.



From researching the manufacturer's plaque inside one of the (dovetailed!) drawers it's from anywhere between 1917 and 1959. My guess is 1940s. (Those things on top won't be staying--I threw them on top quickly just to get an idea. I'm also thinking of hanging that mirror above it, but before I commit to mega-holes in the wall I'm going to keep it propped up for a day or two...)



The dining room is so much more pulled together. But most importantly we gained tons of storage space, which was the biggest reason I've been looking for a piece like this. With nowhere to store things, we would end up dumping stuff in the corner of the room. And it was driving me completely nuts. Like, borderline homicidal. So now I can breathe easier. :)

In other weekend work, I painted the beadboard and almost all of the trim in the bathroom. It took a few coats and was pretty time consuming, but it's almost finished now. So once that's done (I only have a couple of sections left around the door) I'll be able to post some complete before and after photos!

We also started tackling the next enormous project (did you really think we'd rest after the bathroom??) and are finishing part of the basement. It's a huge deal! We have no easy place to put a washer and dryer in the house, so after discussing many options, Branden came up with the idea of finishing off half of the basement to make into a laundry room. The floor is already underway!

This weekend I also picked up a new chair for the computer desk in the living room. Having the giant office chair on wheels had always driven me crazy. I've been searching everywhere for a parsons chair for here for a long time (almost as long as the buffet table, but not quite!), because I knew the smaller footprint would help this corner feel less bulky. They go for $80-$100 everywhere, which is just too much for me to justify paying for one faux-leather chair. So I was psyched when I found this guy for less than $40!



It takes up so much less space, is the perfect height, and it's nice and comfy too. Also, Branden is happy to see his favorite Picasso finally find a home. :)



In other news, I'm getting geared up for Thanksgiving, and I'm going to try my hand at piping icing for the first time. We'll see how that goes!

Also, these guys have been feasting early on my front porch pumpkins. Lucy hates them more than anything.

Before and after: dining room progress

Since I finished reupholstering all of the dining room chairs (after having to go back to Jo Ann's for more fabric... oops), I figured it would be a good time to show the progress in the second most complete room in the house: the dining room.

Lest we forget what we were dealing with, here's the dining room when we bought the house, complete with weird ceiling panels and peeling wallpaper:


And during renovations:

(I know my sis won't be psyched about having this picture up! Sorryyy!)

It was a hot mess, for sure. So without further ado, here is the dining room currently:




Amazing! While there's obviously still a lot to do here, I kind of can't believe how far this room (and the house in general) has come. Beautiful new ceilings, walls, crown molding, paint... it's an entirely new house.

We bought some stain for the solid oak table (which Branden is incredibly attached to), so once it's darkened up a little bit it will blend with the room a lot better. Though I thought I hated them before they were recovered, the chairs are working for me now. The ornate scroll designs on the chairs are actually kind of a nice juxtaposition to the hard angles of the Shaker style table. I'm liking it for now.

Anyway, the chandelier needs to move over a bit and we need some kind of buffet table for the corner, but we're in no rush. For now I just can't believe that it ever turned into a real and beautiful room!

Before and after: chair re-do

While I love love love the color of the dining room, I haaaate hate hate the fabric on our hand-me-down dining chairs. They've been recovered many times, and the last time was by my sister on a very limited budget. The fabric was pretty hideous (sorry Laura!).

So I decided to finally just go pick out fabric and reupholster them, since I've hated them for so long. Branden and I took a trip to Jo-Ann Fabrics and picked out fabric for the chairs as well as for our bedroom curtains. (I've never made curtains before, so stay tuned for how those turn out! Eep!) We ended up picking out the same pattern for both, just in different colors. We didn't even realize it at first. I guess you like what you like!

Here's the chair before:


And here's how they look with some fresh new fabric:


It's such an easy and inexpensive way to give the room a completely different feel. The light green pattern works really well with the wall color, the drapes, and the area rug under the table. The dining room is still in a bit of disarray, so once that's in better shape I'll post a picture of the whole shabang. Until then, you'll have to deal with just this little sneak peek makeover!