Before & After: Nashville Family & Living Rooms

Happy Friday to my friends!  Today I wanted to share our updated living room and family rooms.  One of my favorite parts of our Nashville House were these two front rooms connected by french doors.  It was perfect for entertaining, and I loved the challenge of decorating two connected, but defined spaces.  There was still so much that I was hoping to get done, but I think we brought the space a long way.  My favorite decision was probably the "orange fiz" paint for the family room.  Everyone thought I was a nut when I declared I was painting the family room orange.  1.  Who does not love a nut?  2. I really loved how it turned out.  Keep reading to find out, what we did, what we paid someone to do, and what we still wanted to do.  Do you dig it....J 

What we did.

-Painted the family room "orange fiz."

-Hung new light fixtures.

-Pulled up the tile below the cast iron stove.  The tile had been put directly on the hard wood with cement, wire mess, and nails.  Took us about 5 hours to get 3 by 4 feet of tile up.  One of my favorite memories from our marriage.  

-Hung new curtain rods and curtains.

What we paid someone to do.

-We asked our movers to take the cast iron stove with them.

What we wanted to do.

-We wanted to get builtins done for the entire wall with Stuart's TV.  I know, I know. That TV is too big for the room, but it was all he wanted.  

-Reupholster the camel back sofa and the wing back chairs.  

Before and After: Nashville Dining Room

Hiiiiiii.  Just don't even know what to say, I have been away so long.  Just a few things that have been keeping me busy.  1. We moved.  So excited to start showing you the new place.  2.  I had to have a little unexpected surgery.  I am almost back to my old self.  3.  I have been crazy busy with my new job.  But I am happy to be back with our final Nashville house pictures and lots of fun new posts coming your way.  

Next up.  Our dining room.  As you can see, when we first got the Nashville house the dining room was so sad.  Gloomy, crazy wall paper, and not a place fit for dining.  But after hours of wall paper scraping (I will forever be thankful for my mother-in-law for taking on that exhausting task), several coats of paint, and some furniture shopping....the old gal, the dining room that is, was looking in tip top shape.  Don't cha think?  Happy Thursday...J

What we did.

-Paint, paint, and more paint.

What we paid someone to do.

-Hang chandelier

-Should have paid Stuart's mom for scraping the wall paper.  That woman is a machine or as we fondly call her, THE BOSS.

What we still wanted to do.  

-Get the built in cabinets and fireplace painted white.

-Purchase some fun curtains and a neutral rug.

Before & After: Nashville House Study

 

Happy Monday! What did you think of the hallways makeover?  It might not seem like it, but we were so proud of that little hallway.  So excited today to share our office makeover.  As you can see from the photo above, the office was being used as a holding space by the previous owners for items.  Many items.  My parents were kind enough to give us my dads old office furniture.  It is exactly the same as the furniture in my parents study.  Every time worked in that office it was a special reminder of my sweet parents.  The old post office box has been great storage for all my jewelry materials and was the perfect addition to the office.

What we did.

-Hung a new light fixture.

-Took down old window dressings.

What we paid someone to day.

-Nothing.

What we still wanted to do.

-Potentially freshen up the room with new paint.

-Get custom drapes.  I had been going back and forth about the fabric.

-Get a rug.

Before & After: Nashville Hallway

Happy Sunday!  Taking a little time today to share what we did with the main hallway that ran the length of our Nashville home.  The hallway was so long it almost felt like another room, but we knew we needed to break up the long space.  So I came up with the idea to install this arched bookcase.  

What we did.

-Came up with the design concept.

-Primed and Painted the arch "Polar Bear White" by Behr

-Painted the front hallway "Intellectual Gray" by Benjamin Moore.

-Painted the back part of the hallway "Worldly Grey" by Benjamin Moore.

-Painted all trim and doors "Polar Bear White" by Behr

-Updated light fixtures

What we paid someone to do.

-Install the bookshelves.

What we still wanted to do.

-We wanted to have a second arch put in towards the back of the hallway with a door to section off the master suite at the back of the house. 

-We wanted to drop a third light in to the middle of the hallway. 



Before & After: Nashville House Curb Appeal

So I have some pretty exciting news to share.  In less than two weeks, Stuart and I will be purchasing our second home together in South Bend, IN.  It was all very sudden and very unexpected.  We were blissfully happy renting because, honestly, our little Nashville house had been exhausting.  Don't get me wrong, we loved it, but we spent countless hours fixing her up.  And let me be clear, the hours were not only spent picking out the right pillow or the perfect, little accent to decorate the place. Weekends were spent elbow deep in dirt, tile, paint, and things I don't want to share.  

 

The Nashville House really did have everything on our wish list.  In the heart of the Nashville 12th South Neighborhood, location, location, location, front yard, back yard, huge porch, hardwood floors, dreamy windows, big rooms, and character galore.  But once we got in the house, we realized it needed so much more love than a deep clean and paint.  I had planned to eventually share the finished product with you all, but since we moved and sold the house before we got everything on our wish list done, I never got around to it.

 

Of course my mind is all a flutter with design ideas with our upcoming purchase, but it pushed me to take a trip down memory lane, and I decided that I wanted to share the progress we had made on the old Nashville House.  The rooms are certainly not perfect, and we still had so many plans.  However, I thought it would still be fun to share with you all the "Before and After" pictures, what we did to each space, and the plans we still had left.  I hope you won't mind the trip down memory lane for the next couple of days and a detour from my love of fashion to my love of interior design.  Happy Friday...J

 

What we did....

1.  Started to pull out all existing weeds and plants.

2.  Cut down 4 of the 5 overgrown trees with chain saws.

3.  Created a large front flower bed with bricks and mulch.

4.  Planted 4 azalea bushes.

5.  Purchased porch furniture.

6.  Purchased large flower pots with ferns and hanging ferns.

What we paid someone to do...

1.  Paid someone to finish pulling out all existing weeds and plants after we got tired.

2.  Paid to have a fence installed. 

3.  Paid someone to install sod.

4.  Paid someone to plant 6 large boxwoods.

What we still wanted to do...   

1.  Pay someone to plant two cherry blossom trees in the strip of land between the street and our sidewalk, directly in front of our big windows.

2.  Pay someone to plant two crate myrtles on the strip of land between our fence and the neighbors driveway to the left. 

3.  Pay someone to repave the driveway.



TBT & Giveaway Winner

 

 

 

 

 

 Ohhh...you know...just -5 degrees yesterday, so instead of new pictures, I decided to do a little throw back Thursday.  Looking forward to the days when I can run around with bare legs and ditch the larger, puffer coat look.  What looks are you getting most excited about for Spring...J

 

**P.S. Thank you for your patience with the INPINK giveaway as I waited for my contact to get back in the office after a personal matter came up.  All of you that kindly entered should have received a $20 coupon via email, and a big congratulations goes out to Mindy Aptecker for winning a $150 INPINK shopping spree.**   

 

 

 

 

 

Shopping Bag

So I would love to tell you that the shopping in my new town is amazing.  That there are a plethora of amazing spots to spend hours on my weekends drooling over all the things that I shouldn't and can't buy.  That there are too many places that I now call favorites to even be able to visit them all on a Saturday afternoon.  That I have had to put myself on a very, very strict budget to stop myself from blowing my budget out of the water with all of the amazing goodies found when I am supposed to be "window shopping."

 

But, the reality is a bit different.  There is one cute boutique in town, a couple of fun vintage shops, and a Forever21 and J.Crew at the mall.  Other than that, my options are limited, unless I want to haul myself up to Chicago.  So I have started to explore online shopping a bit more.  I am really not that big of an online shopper.  I never know what size I am going to wear, sometimes my foot is an 8.5, sometimes my foot fits in a 9.5, sometimes I wear a 4, sometimes I really look better in a 10, and I just really love the shopping experience where I get to see everything in real life.

 

The one great thing about online shopping is that I feel I am very selective.  I will not pull the trigger unless I absolutely love something because I don't love the sending back items option.  So I though I might share with you my purchases from the past couple of months.  These amazing over the knee boots from Lola will be perfect for fall, winter, and to put some edge into my sweet summer looks.  Did I mention they are on crazy sale?  This amazing J.Crew statement piece {need I say more} will be amazing as I cheer on the Irish during football season.  This versatile  Asos dress will come in handy for the weddings and graduations I have coming up, and these sturdy, festive, neutral Riffraff heels {they are kind of business up front and party in the back} will help me happily skip in to Spring and Summer. 

 

So what great buys have you made lately?  I am dying to know.  Happy Thursday...J