Speechless

We have officially received our first (non-wedding shower) wedding gift. Our dear friends Kathy and Micky came over for dinner this weekend. Micky will be marrying David and I, and he wanted to discuss the certain things we would like him to include (and NOT include) in our ceremony. They took the evening to give us their wedding gift. To say the least - it left me speechless.

Kathy knit this herself - Micky helped by holding LOTS of yarn. The detail is incredible.

I still don't know what we've done to deserve two such incredible people in our lives, but we are beyond grateful!

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend - I have a few exciting bits of news to share next week!

Answer

Sooooo definitely wasn't planning on leaving you hanging THAT long! I was in Chico this past weekend for my (future) brother-in-law's graduation. Since Chico is my alma mater and this was possibly my last excuse to go up there, I decided to live it up big. My body is certainly not 21 anymore and it couldn't handle it. I came home with a MAJOR cold and was out until Thursday!

Here it is: my biggest purchase on a single item to date. A hutch!

We have a guy that does amazing custom furniture at the store and I have been going back and forth on having him make a piece for me. I was more than willing to be patient and find a piece at a flea market or craigslist, but the problem was that the wall that it now sits against is HUGE! It needed a LARGE piece to fill it up. We also registered for a lot of large platters, and with fairly narrow cabinets in our kitchen, we needed a deep place to store them.

The nice part was, I got to design every last detail. I left plenty of room for a "buffet" space. You can see the corner of our dining table poking in the first picture. I wanted an area big enough to have wine, or a cake plate. Most hutch's have a tiny little buffet area - I wanted PLENTY of space!

All of our serving ware that we registered for is white, so I wanted the top to be glass so that you could see all of the stacked, white dishes.

I have our hutch pretty centered on the wall right now, but eventually I want to shimmy it down to the right. We have a large space to the left that I want to fill with a bench. I've had my eye on an amazing five-board bench with its' original chippy paint. I can't justify the $300 price tag, but the last time I visited it, it had dropped to $250, so you never know, it may drop more!

Plus, I need to find something to cover our eye-sore in the floor!

That grate would be our in-floor sub woofer (what? You don't have one??) And that wood grate was David's solution to "making it pretty."

Hope you all have a happy Memorial Day!!

All Dressed Up

On to project #2! This has been a little bit of a challenging project (Not to mention the purchasing of 9 curtain rods, and about 17 trips to 3 different stores.) But who doesn't love a little bit of a challenge?

I have a confession.....for the last 2 years I've had naked windows. I've really been trying to prioritize my projects. What needs to be done, and what is just something I want to be done - 2 very different things! Well the naked windows/curtain situation jumped to the top of the list when I peeled back the rug underneath our dining table and saw a yellow square (where the rug sits) staring back at me. Yes, it was time and no, I do not clean under my rug often.

{Please excuse the non-hemmed curtains on the left}

{David experiencing what it will be like to be married to an interior designer}

I'll post an overall picture as soon as I haul out all of the empty boxes, and mistake rod boxes!

Without Further Adieu

I finally got my act together to take pictures of my flea market finds. Now, before I get any hopes up - I unfortunately did not find any amazing pieces of furniture that I just couldn't live without. And I was so in awe of my first (well really second - but the first time I went, it was pouring rain, and many of the vendors ended up packing up early) flea market trip, that I completely forgot to take pictures while we were there!

My favorite booths were the guys that had a bunch of old doors and windows with all of the original chippy paint. I was threatening of circling back around and snagging one before I left, but my mom and I decided that this was only our first trip, to check out how everything works, and that we would definitely go back.

I didn't go home completely empty handed - in the last section, there was a guy with a table full of a bunch of odds and ends - or "chachkee's" as they are better known in our house. Nestled in the middle of all the "chachkee's" were a bunch of blue and white pots, for DIRT cheap!

I love the classic look of blue and white pottery - so Ralph Lauren! (cue the sophisticated voice)

{image from William Sonoma Home}

{image found via Name is Grace}

{image found via Name is Grace}

It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like........

{CHRISTMAS!!}

it's been way too long since my last post I know.... I was wanting my next post to be Christmas themed, since it is that time of year. For some reason - this year - I could not seem to get my act together! Normally I'm the girl who has the lights, the tree, the ornaments, and the decorations all up the day after Thanksgiving. I really don't know what happened this year! But, they're up and the house is finally Christmasy!

{Cute Monogram ornaments from Restoration Hardware}

{My mom made our stockings a few years ago - I love the buttons!}

When my grandparents moved out of their home that they had lived in for FIFTY + years, and in to a much smaller condo, they had to do QUITE a bit of cleaning out, and pairing down. As I mentioned before, I was given an abundance of "hand-me-downs." I have no idea the history of this box, but I think it's perfect for Christmas cards

{The inside has the most perfect red and white paper - and notice it's empty! We really need to check the mail!}

{Close-up}

New Friend Old Friend

Our house received a new friend today! The downside to working at a place with cute furniture, is that you want to take it ALL home. I have come up with a rule for myself however, that if something comes in and I ABSOLUTELY have to have it, I wait until the end of the day, and if nobody has claimed it, then I'll take it! Well, rustic rooster furniture goes FAST because this is actually my first furniture purchase (since becoming a rooster chick myself - we have a lot of r.r. furniture at our house!) So here she is - our new coffee table!

Here's our old coffee table. I found it for $10. It's the perfect shade of light blue, with splatters of art project remnants. I was originally going to paint it white, but there was something about the splatters of paint, and glitter that was so endearing. I think I'll actually, kind of miss it!