It's Almost September :)

Anyone else super excited that it's almost September! I've said time and time again that Fall is my favorite time of year, and September is one of my favorite months! Our anniversary is Sept 29th and we've planned a weekend getaway to Charleston.. I can't wait!

Yesterday we got some bummer news that our countertop installation has been delayed... the fabrication machine broke. So it looks like our kitchen will still be in a state of disarray until next week. 

So until then, I'm going to keep thinking about September. And these gorgeous fall shoes that I currently have on my wish list:

Addison Boot - Sole Society

I've also been eying these swingy dresses in different colors... I think they would be SO perfect for transitioning from summer to fall:

ASOS Glamorous Swing Dress

Kitchen Update

It's funny.. we set out on updating our kitchen with the hopes that it would be a really quick & easy job, but of course that's never how things go when you renovate something in your home!

Earlier this week, our dishwasher just happened to die right in the middle of things. As much as that new expense sucked, it worked out pretty well! We were able to find a gently used stainless steel dishwasher on Craigslist and the guy selling it was a repair guy. He ended up removing our old dishwasher (and disposed of it), and delivered/installed the new one for a REALLY great price! It worked out so perfectly!

You can see our old dishwasher in this picture:

I'm going to keep it real here.... our kitchen is a DISASTER zone. Here are pictures of it this morning:

And here is our "new to us" dishwasher.. it's still sticking out because we're going to push it back in when the counters are installed. You can also note that half our counters have been pulled up.. ha!

 We are also living with our fridge pulled completely out.. it's crazy over here!

The counters are going in tomorrow (yay!!) and the floors are being installed on Saturday. After all the back and forth with the floor tile, we finally have all the tile purchased and I laid some out to get a feel for it. It's just a basic neutral, but it flows perfectly with our carpet which is what I was looking for!

I'm praying everything returns back to some sort of livable normalcy by the end of the weekend.

So here are the plans once the counters and floors are in. We are keeping our current fridge and stove for now. We can always replace those later down the road, but truth is we'd probably move before investing in those pricey appliances. 

We will be replacing the old, ugly hood range with this stainless steel one from Lowe's: 

Then comes the DIY backsplash project! I found this post from Dream Book Design to be very helpful: 

They used a product called Bondera, and we plan on doing the same. It's a bit pricey, BUT it will save us time and energy, which is well worth it. 

I'll be using this basic white subway tile from Home Depot:

I'm planning on using medium gray grout, similar to this: 

via

I'm using Oyster Gray grout on our floors, and considered using that on our backsplash as well, but then I found this picture and it looks a little light. 

Oyster Gray Grout via The Inspired Room

I'll probably go one shade darker since our counters are dark gray/almost black!

And that's where we are currently at with the kitchen! Hopefully everything will go well and we'll be ready to tackle the backsplash on Monday! :)

Lilac Pillow Round Up

Although I've been busy with our kitchen lately*, I still have my heart set on bringing in some new pillows into our family room. I'm still pretty set on the Thibaut color/leaf fabric below (top left hand corner), but I also was looking at some other options, too.

TOP ROW: 

Thibaut

Kevin O'Brien

Barbara Barry

BOTTOM ROW: 

John Robshaw

Designer's Guild

Schumacher

*We had another little mishap with the kitchen... our dishwasher broke! And it cannot be repaired (too old), so looks like we'll be getting another one! I guess the silver lining is that it happened right in the middle of the kitchen renovation, so we can just knock it out all at once.

New York Market & A Kitchen Update

Hello! I'm sorry for the radio silence.. Erin (from Isabella) and I went to New York this past weekend for market and found some really great things and inspiration for the store.

This picture is of a light filled room in the store Ochre. I LOVED this store, and I especially loved this room!

Another store we both love is Calypso Home. We were inspired by this white and metallic bed we saw there!

We LOVED Tulu Textiles and created a bed with some of their pieces.. I can't wait to put it all together!

We also found a ton of great pillows for the shop in great fall colors.

In other news, we hit a little hiccup with our kitchen.. I posted about it on Instagram last week. The tile I had ordered came in looking COMPLETELY different!

I had to do a side by side comparison.. the tile on the left is a picture I took of the sample, and the tile on the right is what came in. It had a ton of strange bluish specs in it ?

 So, we have been living with this while we tried to figure out what to do....

To move things along, I decided to go with my other tile choice.. a basic neutral from Home Depot. It's pictured below (on the left). The tile on the right in the picture below was what we had ordered and came in pretty different.

I know there's not much to get excited about with basic neutral budget friendly ceramic.. but I promised I would share the process with you :) So that's where we're at right now! If everything goes as planned, we'll get the tile in on Friday and then the countertops are coming in next week!!

Artist Spotlight: Jennifer Levine

Since I had a couple of you ask about the artist of my art I featured yesterday, I thought I would do a post dedicated to her!

Her name is Jennifer Levine and she's located here in Charlotte, NC. I've been a HUGE fan of Jennifer for a while and have used her for a handful of client projects. She uses a lot of different mediums and they are all so different and unique!

She did these screen prints hanging above the sofa for a client of mine:

She also did this large abstract landscape for another client:

(wasn't hung yet in this pic)

And she also did these two block prints (in the frames) in the recent HGTV Mag space:

She has a website you can check out HERE. And here are some pictures of some of her amazing work:

(We had these at Isabella and they sold SO fast! They were gorgeous!)

She sells some of her work at Slate Interiors here in Charlotte.

I really love her work and will be a collector for many years :) If you are interested in her art, you can contact her here!

A New (More Muted) Color Palette

I'm currently working on switching some things up in our family room. Which is sort of insane, because I feel like I just recently "finished" the family room!! Here it is currently:

I've also had this artwork and table skirt in a corner of our family room for a while:

Ironically, a client of mine has a similar color palette of blue and magenta/mulberry purple. She has been wanting a piece of art for her space, and I've also been craving a bit of a change and something a little more neutral.

So it worked out perfectly that she is purchasing my watercolor and I'm replacing it with a very similar watercolor (from the same artist) in a more neutral color palette. I also got a new table skirt!

The colors in the above picture aren't too accurate, the new piece looks more like this:

I love it!! It still has some beautiful, rich colors.. but a lot more muted.

I came across this image from Pinterest recently and it reminded me of the new color palette I was striving for:

Luckily, our green ottoman still works with this new palette. I have my sights set on new pillows, though.

I'm looking to bring out that bit of purple in the painting.. sort of what I have now but more muted. I love this fabric from Thibaut:

I'm going to the New York market this weekend and I am going to see if there are any good pillow options :) If not, I may go with the Thibaut!

I'll keep you guys updated!

Finally... updating our kitchen!

I'm excited to share with you that we are FINALLY updating our kitchen! Currently, we have pretty terrible linoleum floors and laminate counter tops.

Here is the "before":

We're sticking to a very tight budget. I originally dreamed of having wood floors in our kitchen, but this isn't our forever house so I decided tile will do. We chose a very neutral tile.. sorry I don't have a picture of it but it's starting to go in Wednesday!! So I'll definitely share pictures then.

As for the counters, Home Depot was recently having a 10% sale on countertops, and I priced them out compared to many other options here in Charlotte, and theirs was the lowest.

We are going with "Steel Grey":

It's a very basic, almost black. Simple and classic.

And I may be crazy, but I am going to DIY our subway tile backsplash!!

backsplash inspiration

I'll definitely be sharing the progress with you guys! I'm very excited :)

Friday Find

I've been looking for budget friendly bench options for a client, and I came across this pretty bench (unfortunately this style is too deep for my client's space):

Safavieh X Bench - $289

They say the color is "champagne" but I would call it "mushroom" - I've been loving that color lately! Not quite grey, not quite brown. This would be beautiful in a bedroom at the end of the bed. 

Happy Friday!

Transitioning Into Fall

It's almost my favorite time of year.. fall! And these next couple months are my favorite when it comes to clothing. I love being able to layer my light, airy summer pieces with blazers, close toed shoes, scarves, etc.

Here are some great pieces I'm coveting right now that are PERFECT for transitioning from summer to fall!

Open Back Blazer

Black & White Floral Camisole

Wide Leg Jeans

Black Patent Leather Wedges

Leopard Print Flats

Coral Infinity Scarf

Decorating Snapshot

I've been working on an e-decorating project and my client has wanted to use Hot House Flowers in Spark for years. I agreed, it's a great fabric!

I planned these peacock blue faux silk douppioni curtains with trim to go with Hot House:

Partnered with cream walls, I think they will be AMAZING!

ps- thank you guys for the love yesterday! :)

HGTV Magazine!

I'm really excited to share that a project of mine is featured in HGTV Magazine this month!! This is one of my favorite projects (emerald green sofa!!) and I really adored working with my client.



It's in the September 2013 issue of HGTV Magazine if you want to check it out!

Here are some more pictures of the project I took a while ago for my portfolio:

Jamie was also featured in this month's issue and her project is AMAZING as always!! Check it out here!