A Work In Progress

Edited Note on 8/20/10- Linking up to Nesters spur of the moment liky party about tables and chairs. Our dining room table is from Havertys. The chairs are Pottery Barn inspired  and the bench I purchased at an unfinished wood furniture place in Baton Rouge. The french country arm chair in the corner is a local yard sale find! Thanx for stopping by and be sure to check out my April Cornell Giveaway!

Happy Friday ya'll! Hope this week has been a good one for ya! Today I am sharing the progress I have made in our dinning room. It has been a long process with much indecision because there are just soo many beautiful inspirations out there. I attempted many colors and was thinking of actually going with green on the walls and then doing black and white toile curtains. I ordered the fab but sent it back. I was then thinking maybe red but that would make it too dark and I wanted to warm it up and brighten it up.

I purchased many testers. I just could not make up my mind.

Then what made it harder was the fact that I found these curtains at Tuesday Morning back at the beginning of the year. I loved them but they are a funny green/beige color which made paint choices even harder. See that cream in the corner on the wall. It was in the lead.

Here is the dining room before we moved in. A blank slate. How endless the possibilities were!

Here is the dining room today! I finally decided on Ivorie by Sherwin Williams for the top and then just a basic white for the bottom. Funny thing is is that cream color in the corner in the previous picture was the tester Ivorie. The gallon Ivorie is totally differ....or maybe I mixed up my colors. That could very well have happened. Either way I ended up loving it. Ivorie is one up from Whole Wheat on the strip and we have Whole Wheat in the main portions of our home. This pic is with the light off. We are going to purchase bamboo blinds for the windows eventually. They are a pretty penny since they have to be custom made.

Here is a pic with the lights on and the flash on. There is the blue Windsor bench. I like the subtle punch of color.

Here is the view from the kitchen hallway into the dining room before we moved in.

Here it is now. One of the first things I purchased for this room other than the table was the rug from Ballard. Not sure I will purchase a rug first next time. It made the curtain choice hard as well. I do love it though!

The curtain dilemma continues for the mere fact that I do not like how I hung them.

It was suppose to be an inexpensive way to get around purchasing an expensive wooden rod that we would have to cut and then the finials on top of it all. I have since purchased a rod at HobLob that we are gonna attempt to cut down. I will let ya know how it turns out.

See the hem is let out and they are still short and of course there is the issue of the trim not being long enough. They will soon be re-hemmed.

Here is an option to add more punch to the room. I am thinking of making a topper with this gingham fabric I purchased at Garden Ridge. It was $5.99 for 2 yards! A steal! If I make a topper then it will solve my length issue but may mean I have to undo the pinch pleats of the rooster curtains. I would love some ideas if ya have any!

Once I get another hanging kit the scrolly Pottery Barn votive holder will be hung on this wall.
What should I do on this wall?? Eventually I want to rip down the chair molding and do board and batten. We have textured walls though so it will be a huge undertaking. Instead I am thinking a fancy picture molding that I can maybe mirror around the chandy on the ceiling.

Here is a pic of the bench fully painted. I am thinking of making the seat darker. I have not put poly on it yet because of this.

Thanx for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed the tour. Please flood me with ideas!! I sure could use um!

Linking up to It's A Hodgepoodge Friday over at It's a Hodgepodge Life!

Making A House Feel Like Home

Happy Wed ya all! It really is still Tuesday for me since I have yet gone to bed. I have been having trouble sleeping these past few nights so I figured what better way to spend my sleepless hours than making a post. We are now in week number two here at our new house. I am still grappling with the fact that this is our new home because it sure does not feel like home yet. I know "things" do not make a house a home that memories and love are what make a house a home and that is I guess my biggest issue. We have not been here long enough for memories and though there is much love the entire family is yet to be together on a daily basis so that just leaves me with the "things".

I like order. I thrive off of order. Now do not get me wrong, I do make messes and that is just fine because I am the one to make the mess I know I am the one who has to clean up the mess. So if my mess sits for a few days so be it. If somebody else causes disarray I go insane. So in essence I am going insane because I did not make this "mess" of moving. I do not deal well with change and the fact that I am left to clean up this " mess" is driving me somewhat again somewhat insane. Until it is done then and only then will I be at peace and fell like this house is our home.

Hubby keeps telling to get over it and just deal. I am trying. I really am. Last week I gave up insisting that every wall had to be painted before I would hang up anything and begin nesting. I decided that was the big piece to the puzzle that I was missing. I decided I HAD to start hanging stuff up and I HAD to start nesting with or without paint because this house would never feel like home if not. So I finished up all .....well most ...of the boxes last week downstairs and I focused on our new living room.

This is what I came up with for the fireplace surround. My dresser that use to be in the foyer at the old house is now in our living room thus so is my year round "Christmas" tree as my hubby likes to call it..which by the way he HATES. I keep chanting "It does not have to be perfect to be beautiful" from the Nester so I can make it thru the day. Though it is not perfect it does make it feel a little more like home. I can not wait till we can rip out the flooring and get new hardwoods. I also can not wait till Thursday when we get our new t.v. armoire so that the cable box can actually have a home not on one of my end tables. I had found a mirror at HomeGoods that I just loved but when I went back to get it it was gone. In the last house I had a PB iron scrolly candle thing hanging above the fireplace but I wanted something different here.

The next thing I did while nesting was to make the mistreatments. Hubby bought me this fabric the day before we moved from BR because I had loved it so much and was afraid that I would not be able to find it at the HobLob here. Good thing because the HobLob here does not have it. He gave in only because I showed him how much a curtain panel with a 108 length cost and that being said he decided $50 a panel for custom"curtains" was not a bad thing after all.

I got the idea of the poof from the Nester and then the idea for the Fleur De Leis hanging thingy from Shannon over at Bless Our Nest. I saw her do this in her living room and just knew I wanted to be a copy cat at this house! Thanx Shannon for the inspiration! Once I finally choose a paint color these mistreatments will just pop out at ya when ya walk thru the front door.

Speaking of the front door here is ours. Remember earlier today...err yesterday when I said I had painted more than several places in the house!? HA! Here is another one of my attempts to become one with a color. SW Blonde is on the wall but if you look real closely down near the bottom you can see a tad darker color there and it is Tobacco Road. Looking at Shannon's home over at Bless Our Nest and her beautiful Peanut Shell walls by Pratt & Lambert I just want to kick myself and say pick a darn color!! I just do not know why paint seems like such a big commitment!? I guess really for me it is because we will have to hire somebody to paint the two story foyer so I will never be able to change what it is I pick so it has to be right. You can see where I pinned a piece of the Moire Plaid fab on the wall there by the door. I keep waiting for it to speak to me.

Please if anybody else is as paint fobic as me do share!! I need to show my hubby I am not the only one!

Have a good night ya all...or err I mean good morning!

My Life

Hey ya all! So that is my life right now. And that is not even the half of it ladies! I literally have been thru probably 25 different colors for the new nest. I am so lost it is not even funny.
How many colors are in the above pic? Who knows. The bottom is SW version of the Nesters Tobacco Road. The top sides are SW Blonde. The center is the color that it was already painted and off to the sides of the sides is SW Relaxed Khaki which was in our last nest. And this is NOT the only spot that has several paint colors going on.

Here is the hallway to the mother in law suite aka 4th bedroom. It is painted with SW Whole Wheat I think. So here is my question, do I paint the hallway the same color as the kitchen since it has tile in that area like the kitchen or should I paint it the same as the living room and the rest of the common areas of the house? If I go with Tobacco Road for the common areas should I use it for the kitchen too or should it be a different color and if different what color? I was thinking maybe SW Macadamia?? Also I have that art niche, what color should be the contrasting color? Oh I so need some help from you gals!! My hubby thinks I have completely lost it and truth be told I have. I just don't feel this house will feel like a home till I get the paint right. I really am out of sorts. I am wanting ya to walk in and feel right at home. A nice warm feeling but not dark like our last home.

On a different note but I guess not really because it involves paint as well, look at what I found today at a local resale shop! They are rather hideous right now but I have been wanting some tall candle pillars for the fireplace hearth and when I saw these today for just $15 for all three I had to grab um up. I attempted spraying them this evening but hated the color so tomorrow they most likely will go black.

Look at this beauty! She is a little bright and shiny right now but when I get done with her she will be beautiful....I hope! She was just $10 on the local yard sale website! I am not sure if she will go in the kitchen or in the dining room. We have nickle fixtures in both now which are nice but they are not me. I like chandys that I can top off with shades and they both have globes on them.

Here is a sneak peek. I think I may be going to Lowes tomorrow though for an antique bronze color though. That is what I was wanting but WM had one that seemed more black than Antique bronze so I passed. This is a hammered nickle I think and I am not sure it is as dark as I would like.

So there ya have it ladies! As you can see I did finally find my cord to down load pics but now I am missing my battery charger!:( Will the madness ever end? Of course all this was done when I should have been unpacking the boxes still in the game room but oh well. A girl has to have fun some time right!? HA!

Be sure to stop on by tomorrow. I will post my mistreatments I did last week. They are made from the Moire Plaid you can find at Hob Lob. Also one reason I am having such a paint dilemma!