GreyAndYellow

I took so long trying to come up with a clever title for this post last night that I finally just stole Fox’s made up term for “New Girl’s” Zooey Deschanel and made it even more confusing and nonsensical.

Okay, so last night, Lindsay and I decided to take advantage of the ridiculously pleasant weather and walk to one of our favorite ice cream spots, “The Cow”, which is roughly 1.5 miles from our house, when we happened upon a screen door a-door-ned with a “Free! Free!” sticker.  It just so happens that we’ve been in the market for one, so we can show off our recently painted front door.  Not only did this thing look to be about the right size, but it also matched our front porch perfectly.  The only problem?  We discovered it at the tail end of our journey to The Cow.  My practical wife suggested heading back to the house after The Cow to grab the car, but I, being completely impractical and constantly feeling the need to balance out my less manly activities (this blog, for instance) with real, sweaty grunt work, volunteered to carry the thing back on our return trip.  After all, why risk someone else snatching it up?  Plus, a little exercise never hurt anyone, right?
Wrong.  Because of the width, I basically had to hold the stupid thing slightly in front of me for the entire 1.5 mile trek back to the house.  Not only did my arms feel like they were on fire, but it had the added effect of me looking like some weird thief, or worse, a protester using the door as some kind of metaphor.  It didn’t help that a good chunk of our route home consisted of a busier than usual Main Street, full of confused onlookers.  But in the end, my arms remained in tact and the door, with a few tweaks, looks like it may just work out.  But that’s another post.  Until then, I leave you with this a-door-kable shot of yours truly, post delivery.  I’ll probably go the air conditioned car route next time:)

I love Pinterest and I think that the Pinterest Challenge inspired by Katie and Sherry is so obviously brilliant.  I am guilty of abusing those 40% off Michaels coupons to buy endless art supplies and then they just sit and sit and sit…

I needed a kick in the butt and the Pinterest Challenge provided that motivation.  So I broke out the watercolors and went for it.  My inspiration Pinspiration was from this talented Etsy seller

And here is my take on it (just ignore my reflection in the background, haha)

I wanted to depict a place that was special to us, so this place may not look familiar, probably because it is a small county on the Eastern shore of Maryland.  It is where I went to college and Matt was born and raised.  Most importantly it is where we met and fell in love.  We do not live there anymore but I still wanted it represented in our home.

My idea of how to make this was very simple and I was even more surprised it worked!  I searched for a picture of the area and drew it onto a sheet of watercolor paper.  Then I just cut it out, simple simple.

I laid the stencil on top of a fresh sheet of watercolor paper, and started painting.  I held down the stencil as I worked my way around the outside.  I brushed from outside of the stencil inward attempting to get cleaner lines. and it looked like this…

Once I removed the stencil (and before I picked out all of the annoying brush hairs) I was left with this

I tried it out in a frame

I think I am going to keep up with these paintings and add additional places that are special to us to display in a set.  So I can check this off of my Pinterest inspiration board. CHECK!

Thanks again to Sherry, Katie, Cassie and Erin for inviting all of us to participate right along with them in the Pinterest challenge!

When I saw this tutorial on Kristy’s blog Hyphen Interiors, I knew I wanted to give it a go.  I followed the tutorial exactly (as in same colors, same brand of paint and textile medium) and it turned out great.  I think the key is to not be shy with the water bottle, the fabric being damp allows the paint to go on smoothly.  Oh! and don’t be afraid to sand! I sanded between every coat and also once it dried. I like that it made it slightly rustic/worn looking.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a proper before picture, luckily my laziness paid off and I can show you the original color because I left the underside of the seat cushion au naturale.

I found this Wing-back chair on Craigslist for $35. I liked the claw feet and I think the beige color served as a good base for the color I was going for. I also added the nail head trim for the finished project.

There has not been a person yet that has guessed that the chair was painted and it is always a conversation starter once I tell them. I would say that it is accurate to describe the texture as a little bit softer than canvas.

The chair now sits nice and cozy in our dining room right next to the pellet stove.

(Excuse the flash, troubles of shooting in a 100+ year house not an abundance of great natural lighting)

Living with open shelving has not been much of a transition for us.  It feels natural now and I think it actually provides more functionality.  We stock the shelves with our everyday dishware, nothing fancy, its from Target probably 5 years ago.  The problem is that this is our everyday dishware which meant that most of the time our shelves were looking a little bare.

We have been on the lookout for new plates, but could never agree enough to bite the bullet.  Until the other night on one of our window shopping trips to Marshalls.

We found these beauties…

Aren’t they pretty? I don’t know if we will actually even use them, I just like looking at them.

And an up close of the detail

And here they are sitting pretty on the shelves, they will never be bare again!

I am finally hopping on here to check in, my goal was to have a post within the first year and that deadline is swiftly approaching.  I can’t wait to share our home and the projects we are working as we go.

When we first walked through the house we saw tons and tons of potential.  It is over 100 years old and has plenty of charm.  So far we have completed a lot of cosmetic updates, aka de-80s-ification…ripping up old carpet, painting, etc.  Our biggest overhaul to date was our Kitchen reno.  We went with open shelving and never looked back!  We loooove it!

Gotta love old yellow tile and lots of it!

I will be chiming back in with more pictures of the house as well as details on projects and renovations we have completed so we can get you up to date on what we have done up to now.

I really don’t even know where to start, but I guess if I would have started blogging when my husband first set this up for me almost a year ago I wouldn’t have all this catching up to do.  Oh well you live and you learn!

Happy Valentine’s Day, babe:)  You’re not allowed to complain about this pic since you look amazing and I even look like I have hair;)

Alright, I have no excuses for taking so long to post, but one of my many, many resolutions is to add a lot more content.  (By the way, stay tuned for a cameo post from Lindsay…you, know…the person this blog was made for;))  We had a ton of projects going on around the house last year, most of which I have photographic evidence of, so I’ll be updating over the next couple days.  Oh, and we now have one officially registered subscriber, Petkami.  Thanks for registering and feel free to comment on the fact that my wife has yet to post on the blog that her husband set up for her birthday in May of last year:)  Maybe that’ll guilt her into actually contributing;)