Charleston, SC

Phew! We just got back from Charleston, SC for a short weekend away for my husband's birthday. We left Sunday morning and got back Monday evening.

Charleston is such a beautiful city full of amazing food and breath-taking homes.. two of my favorite things. But let me tell you, it was HOT... like real feel of 105 degrees. Way too hot to walk around the city, which was a bummer. But it didn't stop us from doing A LOT.

We got into Charleston around lunch time and started our mini-trip off with Sunday brunch at High Cotton (sooo good).





We walked around the city after brunch but got pretty overheated, so we retreated back into the AC until our dinner reservations at Husk. (I kept asking myself... HOW did they do it back in the day with the heat and their long dresses and suits and no AC?!?!)

Husk was a great restaurant and I was flipping over the design.









My pictures didn't do the restaurant justice - seriously click here to see how gorgeous it is!

Monday morning we took a carriage tour of the Battery area.. it was so amazing! I took a million pictures of gorgeous old homes and architecture... here are some:






















I loved Henry, the guide horse.

I will tell you what NOT to do - tour the Calhoun Mansion. We passed it on the carriage tour and the guide mentioned it's open for tours. Given it's history, we thought it'd be really cool to check out the inside of an old mansion. Well the new owners are apparently billionaire hoarders. I am pulling this off of Trip Advisor.. it's exactly how I felt: "It is best described as cluttered, tacky and junky. You can no longer enjoy the Tiffany original decor and chandeliers for the new owners myriad of eclectic things that do not belong in this grand piece of Charleston architecture. It is sad and a shame. The longer the tour lasted today, the sadder and madder I got."

After the tour we ate our last meal at Hominy Grill. Just like the rest of the food on the trip, it was amazing!

It was a great little vacation and I'd love to go back!

1 bed, 2 looks

Today I'm over at Amber's blog posting about one bed with two looks. Check it out!!

I LOVE this nursery

I have nurseries on the brain. No, I'm not knocked up... but I just finished up a nursery design board (which can I add is SO fun. I love doing nurseries!!)

Anyway, I thought I would share this nursery with you.. it's probably one of my favorites ever. It's the nursery of Ashley Putman, who was in Lonny last year.

Unfortunately, the only bit of the nursery in Lonny was the small image in the bottom right hand corner (of the cow):



Which is understandable.. there was so much greatness to the Putman's home, they couldn't show everything.

Well luckily Lauren from the Semi-Designed Life went to their Holiday Open House Tour last year and snapped some more pictures :)





PERFECTION! Whenever we do have kids someday.. this is what I want the nursery to feel like.

I'm excited about the nursery board I created for my e-decorating client's baby boy.. I'll be sure to share it here soon!

Take Notice

Another installment of the 'take notice'.. I definitely had to save this one. Large mirrors can be EXPENSIVE. But when I saw this image, I thought - "genius!" If you have a really long dresser, you can use two mirrors instead of one.

[ image via Oh Dee Doh ]

Mirrors that would especially be fabulous for this (click to be directed to the site)...

Pretty Pillows

A while back I shared this design board:



My e-decorating client didn't love the gold, so we did some minor tweaks and this is the final design:



I'm revisiting this room, because I sewed the pillows for the room and I wanted to share with you:





I'm going to push hard for "afters" of this project :)

ps - wow my floors look red. Although they are reddish.. they aren't THAT red. I do have dreams of getting them refinished...... someday.

I don't usually do this...

I don't usually do this, but I wanted to tell you guys about a new flash sale site that I came across. No, they aren't paying me or even asking me to endorse.. in case you are curious. But it's a new concept and I think it's really cool so I thought I'd share.

In short, celebs curate their own sales. There are some great designers who are on the list such as Windsor Smith, Martyn Lawrence-Bullard (guilty pleasure), Project Nursery, Cynthia Rowley, and a lot of others.

Here is an example.. Liz Lange (the maternity gal at Target) just posted these bracelets:



And what I love about this flash sale site are the quotes:

Liz Lange: "These bangles have a 70's vintage vibe to me. J'adore the mix of skins with gold (I am a gold girl). I want to wear one of these on the same wrist as the 1980's man's size gold Rolex (it used to belong to our father) that I wear everyday."

All I know is I cannot wait for Windsor's sale.

The site is called Open Sky. Click here to join:

Project Shots

I debated whether or not I wanted to post pictures of this project. It was a unique circumstance... this client had hired and was working with another designer but unfortunately there was poor business being practiced so he had to move on. He hired me to finish up the job.. because of this, I'm only posting snippets of the work I did.

(Please keep in mind these spaces aren't really styled... they aren't going in my portfolio, just here on the blog)

This is his media/game room. A HUGE open space with a large sectional and a pool table.







These stools are upholstered in faux ostrich leather.. aren't they cool?


I had a local nursery create two SUPER large terrariums for his dining room. I really love how they turned out and they are still alive.. success! (We got the art from One Kings Lane)


My favorite room of the project was his daughter's room. The only thing the previous designer did in this room was pick the paint, so it was a blank canvas for me... fun!! The daughter is currently in college and doesn't live with him, so the room also functions as a guest room. (this room isn't quite finished/styled, which is why it looks a bit bare).



The X benches are from Ballard (and I JUST realized they are going the wrong way.. LOL! The guest bedroom had just been used and I didn't notice as I was taking pics.. oops).



I adore these botanicals. They are actual pressed flowers/leaves!








This dresser is one of my favorite pieces.. isn't it awesome?! It's vintage and I found it on eBay and we had it sprayed in white satin lacquer.

Thoughts from Pinterest

Some notable images from Pinterest..


I really need to bring some trim into my life. But first I need to learn how to sew it onto pillows!


Sigh.. I just love a classic piece painted an unexpected color. Do you think this is a trend that will go away?

I remember the very first piece that started my love affair. This piece was in Lee Kleinhelter's home in the 2006 Cottage Living (image from the Pieces website)

And I just realized the two pieces above are exactly the same. Cool!





Plaid upholstered furniture.. one of my favorites.



I just sold this EXACT SAME LAMP at Slate! This picture is from Lonny.

All images (except for Lee's sideboard) from my Pinterest.

I love a good clearance sale

My husband I have slowly but surely been working on the front yard to make it look better. We're not going to be winning any landscape awards by any means, but my goal is to have nice curb appeal and show pride in our home.

Here is a picture of what we started with early this spring:



It's a bad iPhone picture.. sorry! On the right side of the yard there was never any definition between the planter and the grass. There was also tons of weed-y looking plants that looked messy. Our first plan of action was to define the space and pull all the "messy" plants to make the space look cleaner.


Here is the "after" for the right side. Much better! But the front planter has bugged me for a long time. I don't like the christmas-tree looking shrubs (like how I describe the plants? I have no idea what they are called).

This past weekend I went to Lowe's to find some plants to fix up the front planter with. And here is where the title of the post comes into play. Luckily I found TONS of plants on clearance! Sure, most of them were dead.. but I dug around and found the ones still alive. Most of the plants I planted below were either $.50 or $.25! Now I won't feel so guilty if I end up killing them.

(sorry, I took this picture right after we did the planter so everything is still really messy!)

It's not the best landscaping in the world, but it looks a lot better than before (in my opinion). It was very economical and I can always add more later down the road.

The section in the back left side is just ground cover, but I really like the ground cover plant. I have plans to put some planters there.

I LOVE galvanized bucket planters but I wonder if it may be too casual for my front yard...

[ via ]

But then again, the inside of our home is pretty casual and we are a young couple.. thinking out loud here. What do you guys think?

An All White Nursery

A while back, I sold some gold peacock statues I found while thrifting. I wrapped them up, shipped them out and didn't give much thought to it.

Well, one of the peacocks came back to me in form of pictures yesterday in a GORGEOUS all white nursery. Kelly, who also has a great blog, created the room with the help of her husband. When I saw the pics I had to share!








There's the peacock on the shelf!


I love the wallpaper stencil (oops, fooled me!)


Wow, such a cool light switch!!

Great job, Kelly! Thanks for sharing!


ps - I love seeing beautiful spaces that my readers have created. If you have any fabulous spaces and would like your hard work to be featured on my blog, email me pics at brynalexandra at gmail!

A mini powder room update

This past weekend was SO productive.. I love weekends like that. We finished the laundry room, cleaned out the garage, and ripped out/replanted the front planter in our front yard on top of our usual weekend chores (mowing the lawn, cleaning, laundry). And we even got in some pool time).

As I was cleaning out the garage, I found these silver little cups that I had purchased at the Salvation Army a while ago. And it sparked (no pun intended) an idea for the powder room.

Here was the powder room sink before:



It needed a hand towel and some more color.

Here is the powder room sink now:



The pink towel and soap you've seen already. This weekend I added the glass tray that I have had for a while.



I was happy to discover my basic box of matches had pretty pink tips that matched the hand towel and soap. Yay for details!

I got the matches idea from this picture from Pintrest:

[ via ]

I had two sections on the glass tray, and two silver cups found in my garage (well actually four but only needed two for this), so I cut the strike strip from my box of matches, folded it in half and glued it. It's cardboard so it's nice and sturdy and easy to strike.



Now all I need is a granite countertop and the room will be done ;)