House Tour: The Master Bedroom

When Brad and I started the house hunt, we knew that our chances of getting a two-story home were slim. They’re just not very common in this area, in our price range. The vast majority of homes are brick ranches, and we thought we were ready to accept that. But once we saw the house we ended up buying, I just couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. I’m not a person who unwinds or relaxes easily, and being one room away from my kitchen doesn’t make for a great night’s sleep. Plus, having a separate personal area that guests don’t see is so underrated. Especially for people as messy as us!

So, we’re pretty big fans of our second story, simply because it exists.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Stairway

There’s a random window across from the top of the stairway, which is awesome because it lets in light, but it’s going to be a bitch to dust. Hope it stays clean!

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Random stairway window

Once you reach the top of the stairs, the doorway to our master “suite” is immediately on the left. I’m calling it a suite, even though I know how obnoxious that sounds, because the master bedroom itself is sunken, and the master bathroom is at the top of the stairs. So, they feel kind of separate, but they’re both inside the door to the “suite,” so … that’s what I’m calling it.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Stairs to sunken master bedroom

Side note: I actually grew up with a sunken bedroom – I LOVE having the stairs there!

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Stairs to doorway and master bathroom

God, I love ensuite bathrooms. I never dreamed of having one back when I lived up north, but they’re very common in newer homes down here. We had one in our first rental home, and from then on, we couldn’t imagine living without one. I hate myself for saying that.

Anyway. I’ll get to the bathroom in another post – let’s stick with the bedroom.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Master bedroom

The size of the master bedroom was another aspect of the house that really sold us. Again, we’ve been spoiled – we’ve had large bedrooms in our past places, and now we just have so much STUFF. It’ll be nice to have somewhere to put it!

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Master bedroom

The gas fireplace is nice, too. We never would have sought one out for the bedroom, but it sure does look nice. And maybe we’ll use it on cold wintry nights (because there are so many of those in Georgia!).

The closet size leaves something to be desired, but at least there are two of them. And there’s a walk-in closet in my future office/dressing room, so I’ll definitely be utilizing the extra storage.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Closet

We probably won’t make any major changes to this room, other than the new paint color. Here’s a sneak peek – it’s Benjamin Moore’s Horizon.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Master bedroom - Benjamin Moore Horizon

It’s hard to see the difference in these pictures – my tendency to over-expose my photos means that the light blue and light gray kind of look the same! Whoops. But trust me – the light gray looks SO much better.

I know the rug is ugly, but here’s a confession: Comfort-wise, I love wall-to-wall carpet. Especially in bedrooms. Maybe we’ll get rid of it some day, but for now, I’ll enjoy walking around barefoot!

Most of our bedroom furniture is good quality and in pretty good shape, so our new bedroom won’t be very different from our current one. Soon, though, we need to replace our queen-sized bed with a king-sized one. Queen was fine when it was just the two of us, but now that Macy and Bela both sleep with us, there’s suddenly very little room for the humans. I know that the obvious solution is just to kick the animals out, but we love them too much. We’ll live with the discomfort until we can upgrade. At that point, I’m dying for a tufted headboard (preferably in gray velvet, of course).

Lonny Mag - Gray tufted headboard

Via Lonny

Lonny Mag - Beige tufted headboard

Via Lonny

There’s just one problem: Our cats scratch and destroy every upholstered surface in our house. It’s like, a real problem. We’re trying to clip their claws more often (and MAYBE some day, we’ll try the Soft Claws), but we’ll never declaw them, so it may just be something we need to live with. I almost hope I’m over the upholstered headboard look by the time we get a new bed, just for the sake of convenience.

So, anyway, that’s our bedroom! I love it. Any suggestions for updates or decor?

     

House Tour: The Dining and Living Rooms

The house tour continues!

Directly off the kitchen is the dining room. No more eat-in kitchen for us, but we’ll live. We found that when we had both (in our first place, which was huge but WAY too far from downtown), we never used the dining room. So, this dining room will hopefully do double-duty.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Dining room and kitchen

You’ve already seen quite a bit of my dining room inspiration, so I’ll just move right along. You should know, however, that the vertical blinds have already been taken down and burned. PHEW. (OK – we didn’t really burn them, but I wanted to!)

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Dining room

While we’re gaining a dining room, we’re losing our foyer and “sitting room,” so we have plenty of furniture to stuff into this room. In addition to our new dining set, which will seat eight with both leaves in the table, we’ve got to fit a china cabinet, a sideboard, a console table, and two Ikea Rast dressers. It’s going to be a challenge.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Dining room from living room

The living room is next to the dining room (and also accessible from the entryway).

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Living room from dining room

It has three windows, and a gas fireplace(!!!).

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Living room

For some reason, I have very few photos of the living room, but these two pictures I took of the couches for Craigslist do give a better idea of where the living room connects to the front door/entryway.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Living room couches

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Living room wall
(Incidentally, does anyone in the Atlanta area want to buy these couches and matching ottoman? They haven’t sold yet, and they need to GO!)

Our current living room is about the same size, but has more wallspace, so I wasn’t sure how we were going to fit everything. To get a better idea, I measured the walls and our furniture, and used FloorPlanner.com to create a rough layout.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - FloorPlanner.com - Floor plan of living room and dining room

Glitter and Goat Cheese - FloorPlanner.com - 3-D Living room and dining room

We’re keeping our current furniture for now, but I can’t wait to replace our dingy beige couches with something charcoal and velvet. My goal is for the living room to feel comfortable, but stylish. Fashionable AND functional. I don’t want anything fussy or formal, and I want people to walk in and feel at home.

Here are some of my favorite inspiration photos:

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Warm living room via Marcus Design
Karen‘s home via Marcus Design

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Jennifer Margolin's home via Glitter Guide
Jennifer Margolin‘s home via Glitter Guide

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Erika Brechtel's home via Glitter Guide
Erika Brechtel‘s home via Glitter Guide

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Victoria Webster's home via Marcus Design
Victoria Webster’s home via Marcus Design

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Living room via Savvy Home Blog
Via Savvy Home

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Lauren Seeman's home via Small Shop
Lauren Seeman’s home via Small Shop

While I was collecting these, I noticed that almost all of them have several things in common: Neutral-colored walls; neutral-colored, comfortable-looking couches; pops of color via accessories, textiles and art; brass/gold accents; and fur/sheepskin pieces. I have most of these covered already, and will definitely be introducing more. I have to squeeze in a gold spray-painted Vittsjo hack (like this one) somewhere!

So, them’s the plans for the dining and living rooms. And that’s the entire first floor of our house! It’s not super-spacious, but it’s cozy, and we love it.

Got any suggestions? I’d love to hear them!

     

House Tour: The Entryway and Kitchen

You’ve seen the front and back of our new house. It’s about time we went inside, no?

When you first come through the front door, you see the staircase on your left, the living room on your right, and a hallway directly in front of you.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Entryway

We’re keeping the little wooden table, but I’m definitely going to paint it. I’m leaning toward white at the moment – maybe with a dip-dye effect, like this? I’m open to suggestions!

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Entryway Angle

The entryway and hallway have tile floors, which extend into the kitchen. I hate them. When we have the money, we’re going to put down hardwoods through the entire first floor. And the ceiling in the hallway is lower than the rest of the first floor, for some reason, so we’re hoping we can raise it at some point. Plus, why the hell was there a door there?! We’ve already taken the door off, and the frame needs to go at some point, too.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Downstairs hallway

While we live with the tile floors, I’m thinking of putting down a runner. We’ll also need to replace the light fixture, but until then, I’m thinking maybe I can use some Rub ‘n Buff to dull the shiny brass finish, like in this post.

On the left of the hallway is our “powder room.” We had one of these in our first rental home, and we loved it. They’re so much easier to keep clean for guests!

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Downstairs half bath

Eventually, we’ll want to replace the toilet, vanity, mirror and light fixtures, but for now, we’re just painting the room Champion Cobalt by Benjamin Moore. It looks like this (featured by West Elm!):

Benjamin Moore Champion Cobalt - From WestElm.com

After the bathroom is a coat closet, then a short hallway to the garage. Yes, that’s a doggy door.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Garage hallway

We’ve already ordered a new door. Macy hasn’t figured out how to use the doggy door yet, but she will eventually, and we do not want her in the garage. Macy + chemicals + sharp tools + potentially open door = Not a good combo.

After you pass the hallway to the garage, you reach the kitchen.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Kitchen - View from dining

It’s not huge, and it’s not particularly pretty. We’ve got big plans for a total overhaul in the future, but we’ve got some saving to do first.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Kitchen Pantry

It does have fairly new appliances, though, and a pantry, so we’re not complaining.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Refrigerator

The gas stove is brand-new, and it has FIVE burners. Five! What are we going to do with five burners?!

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Stove

And of course, I’m obsessed with the window over the sink. I’ve always loved sink-windows, and I’m especially thrilled that I can put plants in there, and my kitty cats can bask in the sun. My parents’ house had a bay window over the kitchen sink, so I think it’s a nostalgia thing.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Sink

There are so many changes that we want to make to this kitchen, it’ll need its own post. But since it’s going to be at least a few years before we can gut the thing and start from scratch, we’ve got to make the place livable in the meantime. This weekend, Brad and his dad took down the cabinets blocking the view out of the kitchen. That will get its own post, too, but here’s a sneak peek:

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Upper cabinets removed

It makes such a huge difference. The kitchen doesn’t feel anywhere near as cramped anymore, and so much more light gets in there! And you can talk to people in the dining room! It’s wonderful.

There’s a truly horrible fluorescent light on the ceiling, so we may want to replace it with an inexpensive fixture, like one of these from Lowes.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Ceiling lights for the kitchen - from Lowes
one | two | three

The cabinet hardware is already antiqued brass, so I’d really like to paint the cabinets dark gray, for a look like this:

Cote De Texas - Dark gray cabinets with brass hardware
Via Cote de Texas

House and Home - Dark gray cabinets with brass hardware
Via House and Home

The wood is super grainy (is that a word?) and pretty banged up, though, so I’m not sure if painting them is within my DIY ability. We’re going to ask our painter how much he’d charge to paint them for us, and then we’ll assess whether that’s worth it. He and his crew are starting today! I can’t WAIT to see how the house looks with all the light blue gone! The entryway and kitchen will both be painted in our perfect light gray, Benjamin Moore’s Alaskan Husky.

So, that’s it for the first interior portion of the house tour. Next up: the dining room. We already bought our dining set, and I’m so excited to show it to you!

As always, PLEASE share suggestions for home updates, renovations, decor, etc!

     

Meet My New BFF: ORB Spray Paint

In my last two house tour posts, I alluded to the fact that we’d already started a couple outdoor projects. Now that we’re finally finished, I can finally post about them! Both projects featured one of my new favorite DIY tools: Rust-oleum Universal Metallic Spray Paint in Oil-Rubbed Bronze.

Inspired by Young House Love, I decided that our deck furniture had potential. It was a brave call – the metal was covered in chipping paint and rust.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Outdoor Furniture - Before

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Rusted Outdoor Furniture

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Chipping Outdoor Furniture

The first step was to get rid of all of that. I used my handy-dandy coarse sanding block to start scrubbing. I could have used a wire brush attachment for our drill, but it didn’t seem necessary. The paint came off really easily. It didn’t require much physical effort – just a lot of time. In the next photo, the chair on the right is sanded, and the chair on the left is not.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Sanding outdoor furniture

As you can see, I didn’t sand off all the paint. Just enough to get a smooth surface. I probably could have sanded a lot less, but I knew that if I could see uneven spots, they’d bother me. So I sanded, and sanded, and sanded,and sanded some more. Carpal tunnel be damned!

Finally, it was time to move the furniture to a drop cloth, where I wiped it down with a damp rag to get rid of all the sanding dust.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Sanded outdoor furniture before painting

My next step was to spray the rusty spots with Rust-oleum Rust Reformer. It’s really cool: it bonds with the rust and turns it into a paintable surface, while also preventing future rust. I sound like a Rust-oleum commercial right now, I know – so in the interest of full disclosure, Krylon makes a similar product.

I’ve found that when you’re spray-painting furniture that has to be coated on the top and bottom, it’s best to start with the bottom. That way, when you flip it over, only the feet touch the ground, and if they’re not dry and get smudged, it doesn’t really matter, because it’s not going to show.

I let the Rust Reformer dry for 24 hours, then got going with the spray paint. Unfortunately, this part of the process took almost a whole week, because a) I kept running out of spray paint and b) I kept running out of daylight after work. FYI: This project ended up using four cans. Yikes!

But when it was finally done, it was all worth it. Look how much better everything looks!

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Spray-painted outdoor furniture

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Spray-painted outdoor metal furniture

There are a few uneven spots from the paint underneath, but you can only see them if you look closely.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Spray-painted outdoor furniture - close-up

We even found some cushions for the chairs in a plastic storage unit on the deck! They don’t fit perfectly, but I think they look pretty nice with the umbrella, and they’re definitely comfy.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Spray-painted outdoor furniture with cushions

When you factor in the cost of the spray paint and Rust Reformer, this project cost about $35. Not bad, considering how much a brand-new metal furniture set would have cost!

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Spray-painted metal outdoor furniture - Before and after

While I was toiling away in the backyard, Brad was in the front fixing up our mailbox and mailbox post. They looked icky.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Mailbox - Before

The wood was dirty, the main mailbox was banged up, a newspaper mailbox was taking up unnecessary space, and several house numbers were missing. His first step was to take the mailboxes off the post.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Mailboxes off post

He used another can of ORB spray paint to cover the main mailbox, and we decided to ditch the newspaper mailbox. We also decided we wanted the mailbox post white, but it was in rough shape, so we figured we’d just use spray primer and white spray paint. In retrospect, we should have just replaced the whole thing, but we didn’t realize how tough it’d be to cover such beat-up wood. The spray paint, unfortunately, didn’t do the trick. After Brad put the mailbox back on, I went back over the post with some white latex paint I found in the garage, and that looked a little better.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Painted mailbox and post

You can’t tell from the pictures, but Brad also cut new wood pieces to screw the mailbox into. The ones on the original post were all rotted. Yuck.

We bought brand new oil-rubbed bronze house numbers from Lowes, but I only photographed the “1.” I’m sure you can imagine how pretty the rest are!

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Spray-painted mailbox

Like the deck furniture, it’s not perfect. But it looks a lot better than it did before, and it’ll hold us over until we can afford to replace the whole she-bang.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Painted mailbox - Before and after

I still need to go over the post with some spar varnish. Interior latex, clearly, isn’t meant to be outside, and the post will probably start looking pretty rough if I don’t coat it soon. Here’s hoping I can find time this weekend!

What do you use YOUR spray paint for?

     

Countdown to the Half: 6 Weeks

Guess what, everybody! I’ve been running long enough to kill a pair of shoes!

Glitter and Goat Cheese - New Balance WR1400
Them things are dead.

Technically, my New Balance 1400s are racing flats, which means they wear out faster than regular running shoes, but WHATEVER. SHUT UP. I’m awesome! I’m a runner! Plus, my new ones are really pretty.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - New Balance WR1400
(I swear my ankles aren’t actually crooked. I’m just standing/photographing at a weird angle.)

Want to know another reason why I’m officially calling myself a runner now? A few weeks ago, Brad and I ran a race in Gwinnett called Ella’s Run, and … we actually … WON AWARDS. We both placed second in our respective age groups. Yes, you read that right. I know what you’re thinking – there must have been like, two people in my age group. INCORRECT. THERE WERE 17. You can look here if you don’t believe me. If you do, you’ll also see that my time was not fast. I mean, it was a time that someone like Bianca or Alex could get while, like, wearing flip flops and singing showtunes. But for whatever reason, 15 other women my age were slower than me. It could be because the course was really hard – half rough trail, lots of steep hills – and everyone else was like, “Screw it. It’s 9 a.m. and I’m in Buford. No one’s around to see me blow this race.” Whatever! I’m awesome! I’m a runner!

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Ella's Run 5K
Photo via Right to Hike on Facebook. I’m the one in the yellow shorts, muttering “Get out of my way, fools!” under my breath.

Other than that, training for the half has been going fine. We did a trial run with our coach a couple weeks ago so he could plan our pacing charts, and I ran my fastest mile ever at 9:55. I fully realize that 9:55 is still pretty slow, but considering that I started off running 14:00-minute miles in January, it’s a decent improvement. It’s tough for me not to be hard on myself, though. I asked my coach recently why I’m not faster. I asked him, is it because I’m not trying hard enough? Am I not in good enough shape? He assured me that it’s mostly genes. Some people are built for speed, and some aren’t. I definitely fall in the latter camp, and I have to live with that. I guess I’m lucky to have two legs, or whatever.

Anyway, I can’t believe we’re halfway through our half marathon training already! I have a confession: I haven’t been doing my strength-training to protect my bum knees. This is extremely foolhardy, considering that my physical therapist straight-up told me I’d get injured again if I didn’t keep up with my exercises. It’s just so hard to find time to run as it is, you know? But I have to get back into it. I HAVE to. After all this hard work, if I screw myself over right before the big race … it’ll be bad. Real bad.

Anyone else training right now? How’s it going?

     

House Tour: The Backyard

I already mentioned that the fenced yard at our new house was a huge selling point, but it wasn’t the only one. We also love the deck.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Back of the house

Our house was an estate sale, and the seller (the owner’s brother) chose to leave a good chunk of possessions behind. Everything you see on the deck and in the backyard is still there.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Back and deck

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Deck

The table and chairs were in really rough shape, with chipping grayish paint. Eventually, we’ll want to replace them with a rectangular wood table, but until then, we’ll be using these. They just needed some TLC – you’ll see that in another post!

Doesn’t mean I’m not daydreaming about this set, though.

Pottery Barn - Chatham Rectangular Dining Set
Chatham Rectangular Extending Dining Table & Chair Set – Pottery Barn

I’m also dying to add two wooden chaise lounges with cushions, so I can lie out there with a glass of wine after work. Something like this, but preferably, uh, cheaper than $750 each.

Pottery Barn - Hampstead Single Chaise Lounge Chair
Hampstead Single Chaise – Pottery Barn

Anywho, the backyard also has some beautiful gardens and landscaping.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Backyard

The woman who owned it obviously loved gardening. Look at this potting shelf thingy!

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Potting shelf

Unfortunately, I don’t share her affinity. I have kind of a black thumb. (Plus, I kind of just hate gardening. And by kind of, I mean totally.) Brad’s pretty good with this stuff, though, so hopefully we can keep everything alive.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Backyard

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Pond

I do love all the thoughtful touches – especially this grassy path on the side of the house.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Side of the house

It doesn’t look quite that nice anymore. We had some structural repairs done, and while the path survived, some of the bushes didn’t. Maybe we’ll replace them with some hostas. I know how to take care of those, I think. Maybe.

So that’s our backyard! Got any gardening tips? Outdoor living tips? Things you’d add or change? Lay it on me!

     

House Tour: Full Frontal

Ready to meet my new house? OK, cool. My apologies in advance: Some of these photos aren’t great.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Front of the house

So, as you can see, it’s light blue. It has vinyl siding, so we won’t be painting it – it’s light blue FOREVER!

One aspect that we loved right off the bat was the front porch. Some giant bushes make it quite private. We’re trimming them. We want to people watch!

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Front of the house

The porch isn’t very deep, but it’s decently wide. On the longer side, we want to add two comfortable chairs – either Adirondack chairs or something with cushions – and a little table for cocktails and snacks. You know, people watching fuel.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - World Market Outdoor Furniture
Via World Market

How much is that doggy in the window?

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Front porch

I’m also hoping to add big planters on either side of the door, and hanging plants over the railings.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Front porch

See how the porch floor looks different in front of the door? There’s sand mixed into the paint so that it’s not slippery when wet! Cool, right?

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Front Door

The front door is red, but it’s not very noticeable behind the storm door. I’d really like to paint it yellow, a la Love & Renovations/Young House Love.

Young House Love - Yellow front door
Via Young House Love

The house has a two-car garage and a fenced backyard – two very important items on our house search checklist.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Garage

The garage is really tight right now, though, due to tons of shelving and storage, and a very large hot water heater. Hopefully, we’ll be able to fit both cars after we clean it out, and potentially upgrade the water heater to tankless.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Mailbox

We’ve actually already started sprucing up the mailboxes and wooden post. They needed some serious TLC. That’ll be another post, when we’re done!

So that’s the front of our house! Got any suggestions for further sprucing?

     

Fourteen Shades of Gray

Over the past week, The Hubs and I have purchased 22 Benjamin Moore samples. We may have gone a little overboard, but we’re actually paying for a real professional painter – we feel like such grown-ups! – so we want to be absolutely sure we’re picking the right colors. Plus, as I recently discovered: it is damn near impossible to find the perfect gray.

Of the 22 samples, nine were various shades of light gray. The Chosen One would cover our entryway, living room, dining room, kitchen, stairway, and two hallways. We had also decided that our bedroom should be light gray (though not necessarily the same light gray as the rest of the house). So, as you can imagine, we weren’t messing around. We were looking for a warm, soft gray that was light enough to make the room feel airy and bright, but dark enough to pop against white trim and frames. I won’t lie: I went in with a bias. I thought Moonshine would be the winner.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Benjamin Moore Light Gray Paints

But once the colors were on the wall, I got confused. Moonshine was the right intensity, but not the right shade. It was reading too tan in our house – it even seemed to have a hint of olive green. Brad agreed. In fact, he hated it. We checked a few rooms just to be sure.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Benjamin Moore Light Gray Paints

We both agreed that we liked Horizon, but I was worried that it was too light. Iced Cube Silver was a really nice color, but too blue for such a large space. Marilyn’s Dress was too light and too blue.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Benjamin Moore Light Gray Paints

Paper White was too light, and looked a little dingy. And Silver Satin didn’t even look gray to me – more of a peachish-beige.

I brought over some small white frames to see what, if anything, would pop. Horizon did not.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Benjamin Moore Horizon against a white frame

There was a clear contrast between Moonshine and the white frame, but not the contrast I was looking for.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Benjamin Moore Moonshine against a white frame

So, we wanted something a teeny bit darker than Horizon. We wanted something cooler than Moonshine, but still warm. We wanted something grayer. It seemed impossible, but we went back to the paint store anyway.

After all our hemming and hawing, at least we had a better idea what we were looking for. We came back with three more paints and painted right over the three colors we definitely planned to veto.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Benjamin Moore Light Gray Paints

You can’t really tell from these photos, but Alaskan Husky was the same darkness as Moonshine, but much grayer. It was cooler without being cool. REJOICE.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Benjamin Moore Light Gray Paints

We liked Gray Owl, too, but it was just a hair too warm. And Sleigh Bells was just a hair too dark.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - Benjamin Moore Light Gray Paints

So, Alaskan Husky is the winner for the majority of the house. The decision for our bedroom was a bit tougher. I was gunning for Gray Owl, but both Brad and I were having trouble letting go of Horizon. We ultimately decided that it didn’t matter that it wouldn’t pop as much against white, since most of our furniture and frames in our bedroom are black, anyway. So that’s that!

And since we also liked Iced Cube Silver, we decided that could work in our master bathroom. We’re going for a soothing, cool feel in there, so ice blue should be perfect.

Now, I’ve only mentioned nine shades of gray so far, and the title of the post is “Fourteen Shades of Gray.” I know you’re disappointed. Don’t worry – there are more coming. We also picked colors for our guest room, office, and two more bathrooms. But I’ll save those for another post.

Have you ever gone crazy trying to find the perfect color? What’s your favorite paint shade?

     

A Major Milestone

Today was a big, weird day. Brad and I actually became homeowners. Can you believe it? Because I can’t.

Glitter and Goat Cheese - New House

We’ve been under contract since the end of July, so as you can imagine, this has been a long road. In fact, it took us so long to close that once it finally happened, it was almost anticlimactic. After we left the closing attorney’s office with our new set of keys, we immediately headed to the house to meet the locksmith and security company, then waited for hours while they made our new home safe. As the time passed, I found myself thinking about all the things we had to do, and I started to feel a little anxious.

But later that evening, we went to pick up our dog so she could inspect the premises. She ran straight outside to the fenced yard and literally galloped across the grass with that big, happy, tongue-out look on her face, and I knew immediately that it had all been worth it. She loves the new house (she sniffed every square inch to make sure), and so do we!

Get ready for this blog to fill up with tons of home projects and renovations! We’ll be testing out paint colors this week. In the meantime, I can’t wait to share pictures of the house and our plans for changing tons of things. Stick around!

     

Off the Map

I’m baa-aaack! I actually didn’t tell you guys I was going anywhere – can’t have you robbing my house – but now I can tell you that I recently spent 10 days at my favorite place in the world: our family’s cottage on Cape Cod.

Steph and Brad - Cape Cod

We swam, soaked up the sun, ran with the ocean breeze at our backs, and ate. Oh, man, did we eat – oysters fresh off the beach, giant lobsters, chunky clam chowder … all the wonderful seafood that just isn’t the same in Atlanta. I would like to go back – right now.

Lobster Pot - Provincetown MA

Sadly, it’s back to reality for this slightly-sunburned girl. We did come back with a few mementos, though. Brad was beyond excited to visit a store he had found online months before: Maps of Antiquity in Chatham. He’s been dying to get his hands on an old map, so this place was heaven.

It was tough to control ourselves – this place had everything! – but we managed to leave with just five maps. (That’s restraint. We wanted nine.) Brad found two original maps of his hometown (Danbury, Connecticut) from 1867.

Town of Danbury - Old Map - 1867

Town of Danbury - Old Map Plan - 1867

I didn’t come across any from my tiny hometown, but I just had to get a few Cape Cod maps. This one is a hand-painted reproduction of a map from 1880. Wellfleet is the town where our cottage is, and I just love it there.

Cape Cod - Wellfleet - Old Map - 1880

The purpose of visiting the store was to get our hands on some old maps, but I just couldn’t resist these two newer ones I found.

Cape Cod - Treasure Map

Cape Cod - Ghost Map

I’m a big doofy kid at heart, so I get totally giddy about things like pirates and ghosts. I thought these were so cool. They’re hand-painted, so they’re one-of-a-kind!

We’re going to get all five maps framed professionally so that they’re protected from the elements. (Does anyone know of a good framer in the Atlanta area?) We don’t have specific plans for the first three, but we’re hoping to hang the last two above our couch. The question is: what kind of framing job do we want? The owners of the shop recommended we frame them without mats, which makes sense, since they all have their own borders. But I’m kind of a mat girl, so I’m struggling with that. And then, what kind of frame?! In my heart of hearts, of course, I want simple gold frames (similar to the one Earl the Octopus lives in). But custom framing isn’t cheap, and I’m terrified that gold will go out of style or I’ll get sick of it. With that in mind, I’d usually go with white. But I’m not sure if that would clash with the off-white paper that the maps are on. I’m hoping the framer can help us out, because I’m totally lost.

In the meantime, I’ve been collecting inspiration photos.

BHG - Framed Maps on Mantle
Via BHG

Majesty Maps - Larged Framed Map
Via Majesty Maps & Prints

Elle Decor - Framed Maps on Floating Shelves
Via Elle Decor

Timothy Whealon Interiors via Veranda - Large Framed Map
Timothy Whealon Interiors via Crush Party

Majesty Maps - Large Framed Map of Italy
Via Majesty Maps & Prints

Apartment Therapy - Framed Old Map
Via Apartment Therapy

Pinterest - Framed Map
Via Pinterest (Can anyone help me source this one?)

What do you think? How would you frame our new/old maps?