All you need is Love and the Farmhouse…

Friends… we are finally to the point (in some parts of the house) where it actually looks like someone lives there! We even had a little party this weekend, with guests and all!

I think it’s time for a few more before/after images of where we are right now!

Let’s start with the fireplace in the living room. Bless this room, someday we will paint the walls… it just won’t be today. However, the fireplace is wonderful!

Fireplace before:

And now: (no paint on the walls yet)

The pink magnolia room is also coming along very nicely! Let’s remember where we started with this one…

It makes perfect sense that, when we started, this room was my biggest nightmare. It was horrid. I just could not even with it, as the young people said. And now? It’s one of my favorite places in the house. I truly, truly love it. I want to hug it. Here’s why:

Now for the dining room! I feel like such a grown up with a formal dining room, right? We had a little party here this weekend and it was just fantastic to get to gather around the table and have chairs to sit in! It really feels like a home.

Dining room before:

And today!

Let’s talk about this farm table! We are so happy about this! Our new friend, Johnny, made this for us out of wood from the house. It’s perfection!I may have to keep my butterfly chairs since y’all said I should keep everything I like! I recovered these at least 15 years ago but they are still doing the job. We’ll see – maybe I’ll have a design moment and break out with something new!

Ok, I think you’re up to date. We still have two porches to clean, sand and paint – if the weather EVER cooperates! We still have a living room to paint and lots of touching up to do. We still have counter tops in the kitchen to renovate before I can post photos from that room.

Thank God I have this one to lead me out of the weeds!

Y’all come see us!

Cushy Couches – You just need one!

We’ve been living full-time in the house for more than a month now. And it certainly feels like home – it feels like a dream, actually! But there has been something about not having the living room finished that has made it feel a little incomplete for me. I’m an introvert in an extrovert’s job (Eric, too!) so when I come home after talking and people-ing all day, sometimes I just want to crash on a cushy couch for a minute, maybe flip on the tube to HGTV. But since we’ve moved in, the living room has been a catch-all for boxes, equipment, and … stuff.

You may remember that Eric has been working on renovating the ceiling in this room for months. He’s SO close to being done. I bet he never wants to get on this ladder again – but here he was over the weekend, still working hard at it!

AND, even though the room has not been painted yet, we got to put our cushy couch in place. We are hosting a shower here in a couple of weeks and just wanted a place for people to sit! We’ll worry about finishing out the painting later… and the curtains, and the trim, and…! We found this cushy couch at the Alabama Furniture Market in Calera – definitely worth the trip if you’re looking for furniture. They let Eric test this piece out for napping right in the store. It passed.

Let’s talk about this coffee table.

On one of our most recent trips to Laurel, MS we were window shopping at J Parker Reclaimed.

This business is regularly featured on our fave, Home Town. They create all their pieces out of reclaimed wood – it’s great when a business’ name tells you exactly what they do, right? We’d been in before – there’s LOTS to admire in there! This table was under another one, but I just kept staring at it. At some point it dawned on me… Here’s the top of the coffee table:

And here is a close-up shot of the ceiling in the living room:

Yeah, we couldn’t go home without it. Impulse buy? Not at all – we’ve been waiting for the right thing and we found it! I love this table – it’s not fussy, you can put your feet on it (with socks, preferably!) and it looks right at home in our living room.

One other great find was this rug we lucked up on in Sam’s one day – $99. You just never know when you’re going to find a good deal. This rug feels great AND it’s made out of plastic soda bottles. WHAT?

Here’s a good place for some feedback from our faithful readers:I’ve had these lamps and these rattan, glass and iron end tables for about 20 years – at least, maybe longer. Can I tell you that I absolutely love them? I never ever see end tables and think, “Oh, I love those so much more than mine!” Nope – these are my favorites. Are they dated? Is it ok to use end tables that may or may not be from another era as long as I love them? I mean, I don’t want to be that person who hangs on to their avacado green appliances because she loved them in 1975, you know? But these tables… they just make me happy! 🙂  Please tell me if I should start trying to get over them.

More soon, thanks for following along with us!

 

The Secret to a Happy Marriage…

Actor Michael Caine says the secret to a happy marriage is … separate bathrooms. Maybe this is one reason Eric and I are happy as clams! Our leaving-for-work schedules are different enough that since Day 1 we’ve had separate bathrooms – 2319 days later and I think we’d still recommend it.

Both of our bathrooms are new, not renovations – but we still had a great time working on them. In the new sections of our house, we’ve tried so hard to make them fit with the old. This is an old farmhouse, so we didn’t want to hang crystal chandeliers anywhere. Still, the original house didn’t even have bathrooms, so some upgrades are good. I hope we’ve done a good job of straddling that balance.

Eric’s bathroom is almost completely his own design! He picked the colors, the paint, the rug, the mirror – even the deer-head towel hanger! I think he did a marvelous job, personally.

This bathroom opens off the dogtrot – it’s for guests, too.

Now, on the other side of the color wheel is my bathroom! These rooms are still works in progress – we don’t have a thing on the walls other than the iron hanger (above) in Eric’s bathroom. But, honestly, I am loving the slow-go on how these rooms are developing. It’s fun to find just the right thing – and to wait on it. Probably the only time in my life I’ve been happy to wait on something!

How great is this door???

I’m basically in love with this tile:

Thank you for keeping up with us! We’ll have more updates and marriage advice coming soon!  🙂