The Finished Living Room

My first priority the day that all of our stuff was delivered was to unpack, place all the furniture, and then decorate our living room.  Since it is really the main living area, I knew that we'd be spending lots of time in the room, so it was important to get it ready to go as quickly as possible.  48 hours later, here is what the finished product looked like:

One of my favorite things in the entire space is my coffee table.  If you remember from an earlier post, my hubby and I found the table at a lighting store (of all places! lol) called Lee Lighting in Huntersville.  We were there on a trip to find light fixtures for our bathroom, but when I saw that they were having a 50% off sale on furniture, I knew that this gilt and mirror table had to come home with me!  It's just the right proportions, and I think it makes the room.

Don't you love how my little guy Donut is snuggled up on the couch? lol He just loves this room... I swear that dog might as well be a cat as much as he likes to sun himself.

The rug is something I picked up from the 75% off sale that Rugs USA was having back in October.  I wasn't sure how it would blend with all the other patterns in the room, but now that it's in, I like it.  Plus, it was a steal, which makes me like it even more. :)

The bookcases are from Target (circa 2007), and to make them look less cheap, I removed the back lining so that you could see all the way through the shelves to the wall color.  After they were accessorized, you can hardly tell what they were before.

I made most of the pillows and slipcovers in the room with fabric that I got from a local store, but the chevron pillows (and lampshades) are from Target.  The teal fretwork pillows are my inspiration for the entire room, and I ordered them from Caitlin Wilson Textiles.

I'm also super excited about our wooden monograms that just came in from Southern Proper Monograms. 

We ordered two: a larger one for our front door (which I will post after we get our new door put in), and a medium sized one for our sunroom door.  I spray painted it black with Rustoleum (good for outdoors).  Because there's no way to hang the monogram from the center without it tilting, I had to improvise and get creative with some wired ribbon.  The finished product is pretty cute!

Don't worry, we are replacing that ugly doorknob and lock-set.  I want something that has a more decorative lever handle... hopefully we'll get that done soon!

I'll be posting more of the rest of the house soon!

Kitchen Update

Sorry I've been blog-absent.... moving has been crazy!  It will never cease to amaze me just how much paper and cardboard you have left over after you unpack everything.  But after all is said and done, we are FINALLY in the house and it is starting to look like home:)

Here is an update on the progress with our kitchen remodel:

** UPDATE **

To see our styled and finished kitchen, visit my home tour:

UPDATED FINISHED KITCHEN

 

Our home was also featured in Charlotte Home & Garden magazine (Spring 2014) -- you can see that article here:

DIY In Plaza Midwood

Getting our countertops in and our dishwasher/stove installed was quite a process, but the kitchen actually looks like a kitchen now that everything is in!

 

I especially love our ROHL faucet.  Finding a polished nickel faucet that worked in our kitchen was a pain in the behind (and cost a fortune!), but I'm really happy with the one that we chose. 

When I decided to save money by using hardware from Home Depot (Martha Stewart line), I wasn't sure if they would look cheap next to everthing else in the kitchen..... but the other options were $80 each, versus $5 each for the Martha Stewart ones, so I figured it was worth a shot.  After they were installed on the cabinets, they ended up looking pretty darn seamless with all the other polished nickel fixtures. 

We found our kitchen chairs at Furniture Row in Charlotte, and I think they fit pretty well with the overall look of the room. The chairs are actually counter height, since both our desk and bar area are 34' high.  They came with black cushions (yuck!), so I recovered them with some fabric that I found at Hancock Fabrics for $7.  Fortunately, the fabric is made by Premier Prints, so I'm having this lady on Etsy make matching roman shades for all of the windows.

I'm not done accessorizing yet, but I think i'm going for a mixture of glossy white and shiny silver accents.

 

(P.S. - I'm super glad my husband talked me into having under cabinet lights installed....

totally worth it!)

I'll stop being a slacker and try to be better about posting more house updates this week! :)

Our Big Floor Surprise

So.....

During the course of our renovations, our original inlaid wood floors in the kitchen have become scratched and damaged (severely scratched in some areas).  So much so, in fact, that my husband decided that he wanted to refinish them right after the cabinet installation was completed.

Our floor refinishing guy Chad showed up the first day, and he sanded all of the top poly coats and the stain off of the floor to expose the raw wood.  And guess what he found?  Our floors are actually Brazilian Cherry.

That's right.  Brazilian Cherry.  Allow yourself a moment to let that sink in.

Yup!  Holy Crap!!  We were pretty much shocked.  I mean, first of all, where on EARTH did these people get the money in 1941 to put in Brazilian Cherry hand-laid parquet floors?  (Backstory: Our house was built by the wealthy old-Charlotte Victor family for their newlywed daughter and her husband back in 1941)  Pretty crazy stuff.

We decided to do a light ebony, which is several shades darker than the floors were before....but not too dark where it doesn't fit with the rest of the house.  It came out nice, don't you think?  The final super shiny poly coat goes on tomorrow, then we are good to go :)

Our light fixtures for the bathroom went up today, and they look pretty sharp!

It's going to be interesting to see how all of the fixtures blend together.  Everything is polished nickel, but the light fixtures are a lot more modern than the vanity hardware and the faucets.  Hopefully everything ends up blending well.  I'm excited to see what it all looks like when the faucets and towel bars go in on Monday.

Have a great weekend! :)

We Have A Kitchen!

Well, at least we have part of a kitchen! lol

We had a break for Christmas, but since then it's been super busy in the house.  Our kitchen cabinets are now in, and they are beauuuuuutiful.  

Our cabinets are the KraftMaid solid maple Torrington style, and we purchased them (as well as the installation) through Home Depot. I wasn't sure about the whole thing at first, but trust me, they do a great job; it's worth every penny.

You know what they say, it's "all in the details", so I really tried to put a lot of thought into the small things that make a subtle difference in the overall feel of the room.

Glass "X" Mullion doors:

 

 

High Double Crown Molding:

 

 

Polished Nickel Pulls (Martha Stewart Living from Home Depot!):

 

 

Roll-out Spice Rack and Storage drawer:

 

 

Built-In Cutlery Organizer:

 

 

Trash/Recycling Pull-Out Drawer:

 

 

We are still waiting on a few things (like one of our glass doors is on backorder), and the shoe molding and some trim still needs to be installed, but you can finally get an idea of what the finished product will look like.  It's so neat to see all of the research, planning, and hardwork starting to pay off!  Next stop....Carrara marble countertop installation next week!