Last week we headed to West Elm after Matt picked up his marathon run kit. I was planning on purchasing various mercury glass items (I'm obsessed) but then came across the PERFECT dining room table. It goes so well with the other furniture in our living room and our side board. So we went back today (after measuring the dining room), and bought it. It's going to take a few weeks to come in, but it will be here in time for Christmas! It's the Mix and Match Table, with solid wood top and base. We also got four Porter upholstered dining chairs (our table seats six but we have two navy chairs in our living room that we'll use when necessary). West Elm is having a 15% off dining room furniture event, so we got a great deal. This table and chairs (in sand stone) is our set - the table is actually a bit darker than this. The style is very similar to our living room coffee table I also had my eye on this doormat last time, and got it today. I mentioned to the salesgirl that I couldn't wait until winter to put it out. Matt asks "why can't you put it out now?", and I say "because they're penguins...and it's not snowing!" He looked at my like I was nuts, but the salesgirl got it. *Sigh....those boys just don't understand!* Cute! Oh yes, and guess what? We found a living room sofa there too, so waiting for a sale! It's the Bliss Sofa . They also have a chaise and a chair and a half that are nice, but we don't need them. It's a bit smaller than our sofa now, which is fine, and it doesn't have multiple cushions, which I love, since I am also sliding into a crack between the two on the one we have now, haha. Pretty, and I'll stain the feet darker brown. Oh yeah, and since we bought such big items, I skipped these mercury glass log vases...for now...
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Ohhhh tiny white pumpkins - how I love you! Close-up! Front door - the mums are in bloom and the fall wreath is up! PS - I know you love my photo-editing skills to get rid of our address. Better than this time at least. Wow - I didn't kill a plant - it's a miracle! Must be all that water I'm feeding it...who knew? Fall Wreath Green apple switched up for a red one A few lanterns too!
More to do - painted pumpkins in the front at least! This past summer, while we were in New York City, my dad offered to paint our hallways, which he did, and we couldn't be happier with the colour (and the job). Thanks again, Dad! He did the ceiling in Benjamin Moore's Cloud White, and the walls in Gray Owl. We decided to leave the trim, because I wasn't sure I wanted the very warm Cloud White next to the gray. I googled a few things, and although I wanted a warm and not stark white, I wanted something with a bit more gray undertone. I ended up choosing White Dove, which is very similar to cloud white without the yellowy undertones. I love how it turned out! Now since we had already painted some of the door frames upstairs in Cloud White Oil (never again), they needed to first be primed and then painted in latex semi-gloss. Oil paint yellows over time, and I have a feeling that I will need to redo to the trim in the living room, dining room, and bedroom in the next year, in latex. Plus oil is bad for the environment, smells horrible, and pretty much destroys paint brushes (unless you want to use paint thinner to clean them, which again is horrible for the environment, smells bad, and causes cancer). So the moral of the story - don't use oil paint!!! So anyway, I did all the baseboard trim and doors, plus the downstairs doorways, and Matt did the upstairs doorways (with the priming). Here are some before and after pictures of the paint job! Before: baseboards After: love what some white paint can do! Before: front entry After: need to move the shoe mat to open the door, and we got rid of the runner for Fall (one footprint and it looks really dirty - need something darker!) Before: view of front hall from other direction (and bad lighting and editing - oops!) After: much cleaner (except for the stairs) Before: the stairs and upstairs After: again, much cleaner (except for the stairs). Notice the red tinge on the right wall? We'll get to that. Before: upstairs hallway After: brighter, and removed the ugly light above the stairs (now we need lights - we are 2 down and it is very dark at night) Before: upstairs hall from the other direction (and the guest bedroom is still green!) After: ahhh the source of pink/red tinge discovered - the red brick wall of the house beside us through the middle room window...do you think I can reach a paint roller across and just paint a section of their house white? Before: another view of the front door from the stairs a year ago After: ugly light # 2 removed, but again, needs to be replaced with a pretty lantern Next steps? Rebuild the upstairs railing so it is to code (right now it is 2.5 feet, and it's supposed to be 3.5-4 feet), add 2 lantern lights (one up, one down), paint the vertical parts of the stairs and stain the landings, and add a gallery wall of black and white pictures up the stairs. All before Christmas - wish us luck! Also, notice the tiny white pumpkins in the dining room window?
Fall decor post to come! Me and my brother like to be goofy and run at the camera. We did so yesterday at the farm, and last night I learned how to make GIF animations. I used Picasion, and it took just a minute. You need to resize your pictures so that they are less than 1MB, and then just upload them, and choose the size and speed. Mine are 450, and the speed is "faster". Enjoy! Adam running like a monkey man, with Jessica looking on incredulously in the background Me running like a person with crazy eyes, and Matt laughing at me in the background.
Yep, we're weird. I love it. Family photos from the farm and my dad's side of the family. More of these two, plus running animations to come! There's more of us too! Yeah...this is only half of the family...16 of us aren't there...
Here's a pretty self-explanatory photo shoot from Thanksgiving at the cottage with Matt's family. Momma "rapping" as Jamie says Classy Jamie
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KathleenAdventures in married life, cooking, teaching science and new home renovations in the city! LinksArchives
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