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Designing our Dining Room- Before Pictures

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We have now been in our new house for four and a half months now and are now starting to get antsy to make this place feel like our own.  Instead of painting right away, we have waited a few months so we can get a feel of the place before we committed to any particular design/color.  One of the first projects we are hoping to tackle is our dining room.  Our front door opens to our dining room so it is the first impression guests have when they visit.

Thanks to real estate listings, we were able to see how previous owners had decorated the space:

And now today it looks like this…pretty much a blank slate (except for our two paintings…I’ll post more about those soon):

We do have some dining room furniture that we had in storage while we lived in the city.  However, the furniture was slightly banged up and not quite our style.  A few weekends ago at the SoWa Winter Market, we found a vendor called Painted Pretty at the vintage market.  We loved all their pieces, but we especially loved the distressed slate grey color (for an example, here is a buffet table painted slate grey.)  Their studio is actually located very close to our new town so they were able to pick up our dining room table, buffet table, and grandmother clock to bring back to their studio to be painted.  I am so excited to see the results in a few weeks!  I will post pictures of the painted furniture once it is finished, but for now here are the before shots:

Dining Table:

Buffet Table:

Grandmother Clock:

It’s pretty overwhelming to think about pulling together paint colors, rugs, window treatments,  lighting, curtains, etc.  For now, it’s off to Pinterest to start thinking of some more ideas for this room.

What are some of your favorite sources for design inspiration?

-m

Can we have the HGTV dream home please?

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Sister K and I have decided that we must win the HGTV dream home in Stowe, VT this year.  I seriously drooled over this kitchen (as well as the rest of the house) while watching the special on HGTV.  Can you imagine the dinner parties you could have at this place?

A few years ago for New Year’s, we rented a house in Stowe and had about 20 people stay at the house.  It had a huge bunk room that I think slept 14.  It certainly did not look like this bunk room:

Is it bad that Sister K and I have already discussed the logistics of how we should handle the tax payments should we win this house?  Can you imagine the great blog posts we could have if we won this year’s dream home?  We could have a different group party every weekend year-round!  I just read the fine print of the contest and the winner will be contacted “ambush-style” on March 12th…I’ll mark it in my planner to be ready :)

-m

*All photos in this post courtesy of hgtv.com.

Ready for Arrival: Airplane-Themed Nursery

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I’ve been on maternity leave for a little over a week now and I finally finished a few last minute touches to the baby’s nursery this morning.  I wanted to share some photos of the airplane-themed nursery that we put together.  Husband M and I decided (well, perhaps I decided) to go with an airplane theme as Husband M has loved planes since he was a little kid.  Growing up in London, his dad would take him to Heathrow every weekend to watch the planes take off.  When we were initially deciding on buying a place, I think one of the main selling points for South Boston  was its view of the runway approach to Logan Airport.  He spends half his summer up on the roof deck watching planes take off and land.  Hopefully our baby shares the same love of planes!

The final reveal:

airplane themed nursery

airplane mobile

airplane crib

We purchased all the furniture from Baby Furniture Warehouse in Braintree.  The crib, bookshelf, and baby station are from the Romina Karisma collection and the glider is from Dutalier.  The bedding, mobile, airplane & boat pictures, and storage containers are all from Pottery Barn Kids.  The airplane lamp was a gift from our good friends at Crescent Harbor Lighting.

As I reach the end of my to do list, all that is left is to wait for baby’s arrival.  Hopefully he is not following the trend of the airline industry and decides to come right on time!

-m

Roof Deck Inspiration

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We are in process of having our roof deck re-stained for the summer and I finally ordered a set of teak furniture for the deck…something I have been wanting to do for a long time.  We had a plastic table and chairs for the past few years that served the purpose just fine.  After some crazy storm last year, a huge hole was blown out of the center of the table.  No idea how that happened, but it was definitely a sign to finally invest in my beloved teak table.

Husband M is having his 30th birthday this summer and I would really like to use the roof deck for a party.  I put together an inspiration board of the design/feel I am trying to achieve this year.  I’m hoping to get the deck pulled together soon and will post before and after shots.  Roof decks can pose some challenges with outdoor designs.  First off, everything needs to be pretty rugged as there is so much exposure to the elements.  I’m hoping that teak will last a lot longer than our plastic furniture.  Secondly, any small accessories need to be pretty portable  or be able to be tied down so you can either remove them or store them before a storm.  Third, forget the candles.  My candles usually stay lit for about 10 seconds before the wind blows them out.  I highly recommend getting a set of candelas.

What are your outdoor design ideas?  Do you run into any challenges while attempting to decorate the great outdoors?

-m

Roof Deck Garden

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We have lived in our condo coming up on 4 years. Whenever my husband and I discuss this, we are always amazed at this number…4 years- that is the entire duration we spent in college. Needless to say, time has certainly flown by. Since we closed on our condo in September of 2006, we have had three seasons to enjoy our roof deck. The first summer, we had our wedding and since I was pretty much tied up planning that, having the wedding, and then going on our honeymoon, I did not get a chance to do much with the deck. The past two seasons, I have attempted to plant flowers and trees to make it the perfect city oasis. Something like this roof deck we went to in Madrid should suffice:

Our deck somehow never seems to turn out like this. Each year, the plants die off one by one in the harsh conditions (full sun, constant wind from the harbor), and I sadly begin to throw out each plant that I painstakingly carried up 4 flights of stairs. Two summers ago, I eagerly planted cherry tomatoes and hot peppers. Coming home from work each day, I would race up to the deck to water and admire my beautiful vegetable plants. A most perfect tomato or pepper would start growing and I would wait for it to reach the perfect size before picking it. When that day would arrive, I would go to the plant to find that the perfectly ripe tomato was gone….nowhere in sight. Because you know what birds like, perfect little morsels for food grown for them in their airspace….grrr! All I can say, is that I hope those birds got their payback when they ate my habanero peppers.

Last summer, after a particularly hot and dry August (when I happened to be at that above roof deck in Spain and not home watering my plants), even my tough as nails pine trees bit the dust. Which leads me to this summer…a summer where I don’t even have a pine tree to start with. However, I do have my chives. I planted these chives by seed about three seasons ago and they always come back to me early each spring. They are pretty much my only redeeming gardening skill.

Well, I am going to attempt it again this year. We went to the nursery this past weekend and bought some new pine trees and plants. I’ll post pictures this weekend with the results.

Do you have any urban/container gardening tips?

-m

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