glitter girl

Sorry for the lack of posts. It's only a reflection of the lack of progress. We had a very busy white tie weekend, which was fun, but exhausting. It was then, rather sadly, followed by some ailments. For your patience with my lack of posting, I will share this picture.

Here we are in our ball attire. That is obviously not in front of our house. It's too lovely.

The ball was at Cheekwood and they have this amazing Bruce Munro exhibit right now. We only saw two of the installations, but we agreed we needed to go back and see it again. I took a picture of the Cheekwood Mansion as we were leaving and one of the installations in front of it.

I wish we could do something like this in our front lawn. It would be one way to solve the hillside landscaping issue. (kidding.....kind of)

I saw this today and I HAD to share, especially for the enjoyment of my parents:

from La Bonne Vie

Now, I'm pretty sure this quote was meant to mean something more artsy, but I read it and immediately interpreted it more literally. As a child, I LOVED glitter. In the first grade I asked for glitter glue for Christmas. My grandmother got me packages of glitter instead, and I learned the joy of glitter. My parents often found glitter in the creases of my eyelids. I loved it so much that it might be permanently adhered to this table, which is now in our basement. With that, here is my only house shot for the day:

The glittered table. Isn't our basement flooring lovely?

I'll provide a sofa update and hopefully some painted paneling update soon.

Draw the Drapes

Ok, if drapes are drawn, does that mean they are closed? And if they are open, does that mean they are drawn back? I just get so confused with this word and Amelia Bedelia didn't help because when she was told to draw the drapes, this is what she did: 

Which I would too, if I was around those curtains. It's funny, because I had still have this Amelia Bedelia book at my parent's house and I haven't seen it in years, but when I found this picture online I was struck by how much I love this image. I love the drapes with the fringe and you know I LOVE the green. All the different shades of it!

While we are on the subject of these fabulous green drapes, let's turn to this room by Miles Redd:

Now, I heard Miles speak at the Antiques and Garden Show in 2012, and he showed this picture (which I got from Splendid Sass) and said how the curtains were inspired by the hats in the racing scene of "My Fair Lady." Now, I can definitely see it, but after revisiting this Amelia Bedelia image, I have to wonder if he too read that book as a child and unintentionally referenced the book illustration too. Either way I love both curtains in both the fictional room and the real one.

The whole reason I ask the "draw the drapes" question is because I drew (or drew back) the drapes in our living room today for the first time. Before, when closed:

 and open from one angle:

 and the other angle:

Since we sit upon a hill "mountain," we don't have any shade on the front of the house, so I really need to keep the windows covered so that we are energy efficient, at least in the afternoon.  Until we reconfigure the window coverings, they're just going to have to stay closed during the summer. It will be great in the winter...I hope!

I also got my fabric swatches of the Pyne Hollyhock in today and it's just as fabulous in person as it is in photos. I'm trying to decide where I want to use it. It will have a place somewhere in our home! Here are the three colorways spread out on our table. Lighting provided by the drawn (or is drawn back?!) drapes):

I bought some new shades for the den windows and they arrived yesterday. Once the den is primed and painting, we'll put them up and show you how it looks.

A Sofa Manifesto

I'm starting out with a rough picture, but here goes:

Phil and I have been VERY fortunate and blessed to have been given A LOT of furniture as is evidenced by the photo above. We have been blessed with very generous friends and family who have given us all kinds of beautiful pieces. As in, in all the furniture you see in this picture was given to us. Of all the furniture in our house, only one little parsons table has been actually purchased by either of us. And I bought that table in the garage of an estate sale for $60, so it doesn't really count as a big furniture purchase.

Here is the poorly-styled orange parsons table as it looks right now:

I also bought those green benches at an estate sale, also for a great price, but I don't count those as furniture.

SOOOOO...... The one thing we need are two sofas for the den, so we are approaching our first real furniture purchase. Let me tell you: this is a TOUGH decision. Both of us believe in buying high-quality pieces that will last years to come. If you've spent any time around us, you have probably heard us get on our soapbox about buying quality furniture. I'm currently sitting on the Sherrill sofa that Lipscomb grew up on while looking at my grandmother's Vanguard couch from the late 1960s/early1970s. Both of these sofas are in remarkable condition. The upholstery has been loved on and worn, but overall, these couches have stood the test of time and don't look saggy or distorted. So all that to say, we plan to buy high-quality couches that will last us for years.

While the upholstery can be changed down the road, the shape cannot be altered, so we're trying to find the perfectly shaped pair of sofas that will fit our needs now and in future homes. This past weekend, we (mainly Phil) moved around the furniture in different configurations. We love to entertain and we want this room to offer as much seating as possible. But in my words, I don't want it to look like a dorm room with as many couches stuffed into the room as possible. So after lots of scooting and shifting and pulling we have come up with a floorplan that we both like enough to commit to. We can have a pretty long sofa (86-90 inches or so) facing the TV, but the one on the side needs to be more loveseat-sized. I'd really like the small sofa to be something I can still kind of stretch out on, so I need it to be around 68-75 inches wide, which according to the blue tape, will fit.

Where the striped sofa is where the long sofa will go, and the empty space will be the shorter sofa. 

So now that we kind of have that somewhat maybe figured out, it's time to choose an actual sofa that we like that also fits these dimensions. So now, it's time for you to help us!

We've got 3 options, shown below. All of these will be covered in a charcoal grey fabric. MAYBE with red welting or some red accents, but maybe not. But they will definitely be dark grey. So now, for the options. Ignore the things like the finish color, or feet shape, nailhead trim, etc. because all of that can be modified.

Option 1,  from Lee Industries:

Option 2,  from Hickory:

 Option 3 from Sherrill:

So we'll get into customizations later (fabric, trim, feet, finishing), but which sofa shape do you like best? Voice your opinion in the comments...one day I'll figure out how to do a real survey.

Morning View

This is the view that greeted me from the den this morning. I need to get out my real camera and start shooting, but for now, we're stuck with iphone pics and instagram edits.

This makes me excited to see this view in all the seasons....think fall leaves, snow and the fresh greens of spring!

Parquet revealed

Let's get down to business and discuss what we've done to the den.

This is the den on moving day:

Everything in the house was loaded into this room and the front room because of some tight scheduling, so that's why it looks like this. We've put everything away (or at least just somewhere else in the house). This room has already proven to be the one we use the most. It's so nice to have living space next to the kitchen, which was not the case in our rented duplex.

We arranged this temporary set up so we could enjoy some TV at the end of our days spent unpacking and cleaning:

Yes, those are flourscent lights surround the room. When I first saw them, I wanted to take them down immediately, but they've kind of grown on me. It would be tricky and spendy to put can lights in this ceiling, so for now I'm going to try my best to see if I can make them look a little more 2013 instead of 1969. Any ideas are welcome.

Last Thursday was the last day of the carpet in the den. I have a bit of carpet removal experience, but most of that all of that was in elementary school. We took up the carpet in our living room when I was in the 2nd grade and I decided to take a lot of pictures of our cats sitting on the rejected carpet pads. I was very proud of my skillz with a disposable camera . I'll have to see if I can find those photographic works of art next time I'm home.

Back to the present. The den right before the carpet came up:

And after the carpet and carpet pads had been dragged to the garage: 

DRUMROLL.........

 PARQUET

Now, on Thursday, I figured the hardest part would be getting the carpet up and moving it. That was surprisingly simple. The alarming reality was what we had to do once it was removed. The floor was covered in staples and all the edges had nail strips. 

Turns out my extensive carpet removal experience AND carpet photography skillz were useful 20 years later, as is evident by these high-quality images. I was weirdly good at getting the nail strips up. Within an hour or two of the two of us working on these, most of these guys were gone.

In case any of you are doing this anytime soon, I will share my method. I used one normal-sized flat-head screwdriver and one really large one. I would gently wiggle the the base of the strip with the smaller screwdriver and when I got some space, I would use the larger one to hold my place. Then I would slowly move down the nail strip. It works best to loosen all the nails on the strip before attempting to pull it up, or else it will split.

We also had to remove all the staples that had secured the carpet pad. That was a lot harder. I felt like there were about 12,000, but it was probably less than 100. Phil was WAY better and much faster at this than I was. Removing the staples took two days, but we finished on Friday. The floors without staples and another angle (and another shot of the lights):

 So my last step was to sweep, vacuum and then clean the floors with Murphy's Oil Soap. While vacuuming the floors, I decided to vacuum the stone fireplace, which was a good decision considering how many tiny mortar bits and cobwebs came off. The freshly vacuumed fireplace:

So now the floors are cleaned and I think every staple has been removed....I hope. The floors now:

I'm working on the walls this week.....more updates to come.

Officially Ours

We've officially owned our home for 1 week now. I would have posted pictures earlier, but there were some unexpected twists in our moving plans and so I'm a little behind.

Here are the pictures from the real estate listing, so this is how it looked when we first toured....I'll update the current status soon with pictures of the house with our things in it. Enjoy:

The Exterior...in all its 1960s mixed materials glory:

 The view from one corner of the front yard:

 The back "Yard." In this picture, everything is still dead from the winter....now it is is THICK GREEN brush...you can't see through it like in this picture.

Close-up of the terrace: 

Welcome to the inside. 

  one last shot of the home in it's natural habitat, our mountain:

There is also a garage and a finished basement, but I don't have the fancy photos of those. They aren't very photogenic either. So far I've basically just done cleaning and unpacking, but we did rip up the carpet in the den...and I'm thinking through paint colors and the plan for that room. Hopefully I'll have some clarity soon.