Happenstance

There were so many things to love about the Living room, for me, right off the bat! There were just a few things I felt needed tweaking before it was just right for us. My main focus was u pdating the color scheme and brightening the room up. I originally planning on keeping the fireplace painted the same color as the room - but luckily, my mom talked me into white. She was absolutely right! I love the ceilings in our Living and Dining room. Also, I was shocked at how much lightening up some of the color choices and painting the main ceiling white (it was this really odd light yellow throughout the first floor) really opened up the space! The lighting in this room is wonderful (during the day - there are no overhead lights) and I also really love a lot of the storage/display areas in this room. Some closeups! I learned a little about staging a room when we sold our house, but my sister really helped me out with this so much!

Honestly, I'm not sure we're 'Formal Dining Room' kinda people - but the house has one and we own a hutch and matching table... So we went with it!  The wallpaper that was originally in this room was supposedly silk and shipped in from Asia. Which is pretty cool, but the design made me feel... uncomfortable .  As you can see, I narrowed my replacement wallpaper down to six options before I fully committed to rehanging wallpaper.  In the end, I felt the room really called for a wallpaper and I found one that I loved. I love the ceilings in our Dining and Living room. Also, I was shocked at how much lightening up some of the color choices and painting the main ceiling white (it was this really odd light yellow throughout the first floor) really opened up the space!

When Mark and I bought our new house, we knew there would be A LOT of remodeling needed to modernize the house and make it more functional for our needs. However, we wanted to make sure we honored the style and design of the house while we did this. My understanding is that the house was built in the 1950s and has had MANY expansions since then (if you could see the ducting in this place!).  One of my first updates was to expand the Master Bedroom into the small random room next to it. Here's a layout (not to scale) and some pictures to help visualize how it originally looked. You'll notice we updated the color scheme and refinished the hardwood floors. Here is the updated layout (still not to scale) of the final Master Bedroom (the master bathroom is another project in itself) and some pictures of the updates.  We still need to buy or build a lot of furniture (to replace some current temporary pieces) needed to finish out the room. Plus, we're considering expanding the Ma...

There wasn't a huge need to do much more than update the paint colors and refinish the hardwood in the upstairs. But I was excited to get our son's room ready to go and inviting for him. It was the top priority when we started working on the house, as we wanted to make the transition as comfortable for him as possible.  The carpet was down when we bought the house, but outside of that, here's what we started with: If you haven't noticed, I am very partial to blues, teals, greens, grays, and oranges. I think it would be hard to leave my house without being aware of that. Hopefully, our son is into that as well! You might have noticed that his bookcases and changing table have fun backings. As He outgrew his muslin blankets and I needed to start hiding cords from him, I temporarily adhered the blankets to the backs. 

Here are some pictures from the wedding!! We wont have the professional photos for several weeks, but  McShane Photography  provided us with some sneak peaks (towards the bottom of the blog) and other people's photos have been rolling in! The first thing I noticed when I looked at these photos, was thankfully, how much I loved them and what a wonderful day it had been! However, my critical nature soon kicked in and I noticed how tired my eyes looked and the dark circles (from lack of sleep, stress, and let's face it, age) under them. I instantly felt self conscious and upset. Generally, I wouldn't Photoshop my own image, but I felt the need to (they are my wedding pictures after all!) make my eyes look a little nicer. I have no excuses for my vanity. Here are Jena McShane's Sneak Peaks (of absolute mind-numbing fabulousness that already made my eyes look nice): Plus, she captured our Bridesmaids Poster picture perfectly! ...