It was a beauuuutiful day..

..to be in Florida! This was our view as we ate dinner, beautiful palm trees swaying to the breeze as we listened to beachy music roll from the speakers. It was glorious. Earlier in the day when we were 'pooling it', there was not a single cloud in the sky. Speaking of clouds, there is a chance there is some rain in our future so I have my eye on two thrift stores.

We went for a stroll on the beach afterwards and watched some adorable little ones play in the water. It was the perfect ending to the perfect day.

My mom even made some sun art. Can you say cuteness?!

Later, gator <3

Things of the Springs...

The first full day here in Bonita Springs was a big, fat success. After dining on two cream cheese danishes for breakfast on the tiki deck, we headed to the pool for a sun-filled afternoon and caught some rays. Lunch was a delicious Mexican feast that consisted of a trio of beef enchiladas, but dinner is what I really wanted to talk to you about. Here it is in the flesh...

Why yes, that's a crushed Reese's sundae from Royal Scoop. It consisted of one scoop (which was really about four scoops of ice cream) of homemade vanilla with hot fudge and peanut butter sauce, a ton of crushed peanut butter cups and some whipped cream. After dinner, we headed to a local outlet for some fabulous deals. My mom scored some gorgeous Anne Klein luggage for amazing prices PLUS an extra 15% off. I scored some great deals myself...

Zebra frames in various shades? Well, yes please. I loooove me some animal print. I had to do some digging, but these darlings were $7.99 and then 95% off and then another 15% off of that. Can you imagine? Well, you don't have to. But wait, it gets better. I've been perusing the online aisles for weeks now thinking about getting a cover for my new iPhone. Of course my faves were the glitzy ones that were covered in rhinestones and crystals. Well, hold onto your hats, ladies and gentle.....ladies.

I scored this beauty for $7.50. It was "OMG" at first sight.

So tomorrow we're hitting up the wonderful and famous outdoor flea market as well as picking my great aunt up at the Ft. Myers Airport.

It's here! It's finally here!

It's that time of the year. For as long as I can remember, my family has been visiting Bonita Springs, FL. I'm talking every. single. year. Not only did I grow up going there every spring break since I was little..so did my mom..and her mom..and HER MOM. Are you with me? My great grandma went to Bonita Springs as a little girl with her parents. Now, I must be perfectly honest, I did miss one year. That year was 2008. There was so much going on at school with trying to pass my very last speed tests and I just started my internship that January. It was worth not going that year because my internship soon turned into a jay-oh-bee. I know what you're thinking...will this tradition stop here or will there be someone else to carry it on..DUN DUN DUNNN. If you weren't thinking that, humor me here.

My bags are packed. My travelling duds are picked out. I'm ready.

Oasis that I know as the Flamingo Hotel, here I come.

I will now leave you with some photos that don't require words.

See ya in April, everyone!

Our Loving Room...

It's a labor of love...so what better to call it than the "loving room."

Let's have a quick recap of where we came from:

(My oh my - such humble beginnings. Just adding a rug made a huge difference.)

Where we went:

And last but certainly not least, where we are now:

I feel like we have molding everywhere now. It's wonderful. The room not only feels larger, it feels taller (which I guess is the same as larger, but whatever) and most importantly, BRIGHTER. So much brighter with all of the white in there. My favorite time to look at the room is in the daytime when the lights are off. The grey is such a peaceful grey. The room just looks serene, like so:

I'm loving it. My favorite thing in the world...after my family and yorkipoo.....would be the wonderful contrast you get when you combine a beautiful grey with a lovely white! I know it's March, but won't you be my valentine? Yes, I'm talking to a room in my house. I can't wait to find the perfect hooks to add right inside the door.

Has a room in your home changed your life recently? Do tell!

P.S. I'm aware I need new pillows. Other final touches include: converting to white light switches and cover plates - I already did the outlets and some wall art. That's all, folks.

Livin' Large....

Okay, not really..BUT my living room doubled. Not spatially (That sounds like it might be a word, right?), but visually it feels SO much bigger & better. If you're asking why, perhaps you didn't see my last post. If that's the case, maybe you should get on that.

So here's the first wall in the living room in its present status:

And here is what it looked like until mid afternoon today: (The painter's tape hasn't been on the wall for an extended period of time....just a good 14-16 hours, that's all.)

Here's my blank canvas a long, long time ago..way before this idea was even born:

Duh. Winning. Yes, I just went there. Prepare yourself for one final Charlie reference at the bottom. I'm so sick of hearing his name, but the things he said....so ridiculous. I'm getting rid of the plain walls one boring room at a time!

I'm very excited about the b&b because even though I put paint on the wall, it lightened up the room and made it feel bigger. I don't know how it is possible, but I wouldn't joke about a thing like this. I used lattice as the battens..they were $5.12 each, which is why I lowered my design. Because of this minor change, I could get two battens out of each lattice strip. Score. For the top board, I used window casing and then stacked another piece of casing on top of it. I hung it with one thick side on the bottom and one thick side on the top. Do ya follow? It's a no brainer for me to use chair rail because when you buy a contractor pack at Lowe's, it comes out to like $2.25 for each 7 foot piece. Plus, I don't go to Lowe's without a coupon. I save $10 on every $50 I spend there, that's 20% off ON TOP of the already insanely reasonable price. I, of course, used 10% off coupons when we replaced all of our appliances a year or two ago. Good times with coupons.

Moving on, I mentioned in the previous living room post that a tv frame may be phase two. I'm so skipping that, even though I'm dying to use silver leaf on something..ANYTHING. The new phase two may be kickin' the parquet out and tiling that little area right inside the door from the garage. I'm still not done with phase one so I WILL complete (sweaty forehead) that before moving on. Ahem. I promise I will finish phase one before moving on. There. I said it and I meant it.

Seacrest. Out. That was a throwback to old school American Idol in case you didn't get it. Man, I feel like a rock star from Mars.

Linking up at:

http://www.decorchick.com/molding/molding-link-party/

http://firefliesandjellybeans.blogspot.com/

living room design

So as far as our living room goes, you know, just the little room that we spend 75% of our time at home in, we really haven't done that much. I decided since Husby was going away for a few days, I should take this time to figure out what I want to do and invest in some projects to make the room seem larger and more welcoming. Rarely ever does anyone use our front door, which means they enter through our garage and directly into the living room. I'm envisioning some gorge. board and batten, a few dainty hooks for coats and such right inside the door and maybe even some horizontal stripes. We'll just have to see. I don't want to go overboard on the visual stimulation, but then again, who am I kidding, yes I do.


So here is my template. I'm going to pick out a thin batten to make the "cord hider" - very technical terms here, stay with me - under the TV blend in. I'll paint it like all of the other battens and you'll never know the difference...except YOU will because I just told you what I'm doing. I'm going to do a thick board on top. I don't think I want anything fancy with a ledge, but I definitely want thick. Of course, the grey that you see in the other 90% of the first floor will be above the molding. You know the drill, iPhone pictures.

Please excuse my not so straight tape lines. And not to worry, my b&b will not be electric blue, rather a nice glossy white. You may be confused by my mixing of not so traditional things with semi traditional wall treatments. I love craftsman anything. I don't follow the rule of your entire house being one style and not mixing and matching. I think our houses should be filled with what we love. I love a little bit of everything so this is what works for me. As for my husband, well, as long as he has clean underwear, he's happy. I believe we touched on that in the laundry room redo post. He could not care less about the things that grace the walls and halls of our home. Gosh, I love him.

So back to the plan. This is phase one. Phase two involves constructing a frame for the TV out of two simple pieces of baseboard like we used around the french doors. Depending on how the b&b looks, I may not do the frame. I might love it without. We shall see.

Stay classy, blogland.

P.S. Anyone out there rooting for Brad & Emily? Anyone out there not care?

a nice transition...

So you probably are not aware, because I have been too ashamed to show the world, that we have a large, clashing transition piece in the most heavily used part of the house, between the kitchen and living room. If there's anything this girl isn't fond of, it's naked oak. If there's something this girl just cannnnnnot stand, it's a piece of oak in a place where it should not be. Excuse the iPhone pictures in advance, please.

Let's check out the before, shall we:

After we had the kitchen floor installed, I kept saying, I'll stain it one of these days. Yeah, well one of these days never came around....UNTIL (dun dun dun DA) last night.

New and improved:

I know it's not the perfect match, but it is perfectly imperfect for ME and it blends in 364,654,875,234.5 times better than the naked oak did. Can I get a what what?! Is anyone wondering what stain I used? It's an interesting color called ORB spraaaay paint. Thank you very much. Yes, I said SPRAY to the PAINT.

Snap. Why the crap didn't I do this sooner?

In other news, the dear, sweet love of my life goes to Cali next week so the living room will be turned upside down. Shhh... what he doesn't know, will NOT hurt him. I'm going to rock that living room's little world. Seriously, big plans - HUGE. Ya'll have to come back and see what I have in store. I promise...I'll have lots of sleepless nights and I'll think about it all day at work....it will be like having a newborn, except it is just a room. in my house. Speaking of rooms in my house, I have a few tricks up my sleeve for the ole master. I stumbled upon a picture on a random blog the other night and I. MUST. have it!

There has been a lot of door painting going on in these parts. Now, mind you, not just any doors, I'm talking the impoooortant doors, like front door....door to the garage. you know the ones, the ones we use every day at least five times each.

Can you believe it's Thursday?! We're one day closer to Friiiiiiday. Thank you, Jesus.