The brick started kind of a yellowy speckled color that I always knew wouldn’t be long for the living once we were moved in and settled. The chimney is actually the same color and outside I kind of love it, but inside it was doing nothing but taking away from that gorgeous mantle. It instantly grabbed your eye when you waked in the room and definitely not in the good way. It was quite distracting actually. So finally after months of sitting and waiting and being sure I was 100% on the painting train, a few weeks ago I got the job done!
Home + Living
Back when I was still pregnant with Emerson, I started hunting in earnest for the perfect baby book. I wanted something that would be special for her as she grows older and wants to flip through the pages, but frankly, I know myself well enough to know that keeping detailed records, creating monthly scrapbook pages or in some other way extravagantly keeping memories in a physical way was never going to happen. I finally picked the Lucy Darling Little Artist Memory Book, which is easily among the best baby books out there.
Today’s post is long overdue, but no less exciting – the completed renovation of our dining room! Our dining room is easily one of my favorite rooms in our house and one where we spend a lot of time. Unlike a lot of people, a majority of our meals are actually eaten around our dining room table and we also play cards here a lot on the weekends. The kids can be playing a board game on one end while we’re playing rummy at the other and it acts as the perfect hub for entertaining, eating, and lounging. Because I’m getting ready to make some final decisions in this space regarding curtains, a big area rug to anchor the room and art, it seemed like the perfect time to take a look back at what this room looked like when we closed on the house and what it looks like now.
Guys, I am so excited to be joining up with an insanely talented group of moms for the Real Talk with Real Mom series spearheaded by my friend Jen of The Effortless Chic. Most of these ladies have been blogging together about motherhood for a year or more now, and I’m really looking forward to being part of the pack. I’ll be using this as an opportunity to talk more about about the various issues, large and small, surrounding motherhood (and how I try not to screw up my kid) on a monthly basis in a way that is hopefully an interesting read for you. My monthly posts will also link to each of the other participating moms so you can read their stories and perspectives, too. This month we’re all dishing on friendships and, quite honestly, this could not be a more timely topic for me.
Say hello to the newest addition to our family! Little Miss Harper joined our family just before Christmas, a few days before we said goodbye to our sweet old Nina girl. She was intended to be Nina’s new side kick and to help ease our hearts when the time came for our lovable old lady …
I have been an avid reader since the earliest of days. As soon as I could pick up a book and flip the pages, I was hooked. I was a mega mega bookworm as a kid, to the point where I think my father even thought something might be wrong with me because I preferred …
Friends, let’s talk about planners! Does anyone else love starting the year with a fresh, crisp, clean new planner? For me it’s a carry over from my college days and while I use Google Calendar for tracking my editorial calendar and deadlines (gotta love those reminder alerts), my daily go-to system for staying organized is …
When we last left off with our home renovation and decorating adventures, I shared that we were starting to really work on a design plan for our living room. I created a mood board to help capture the vibe and color palette I was after and then jumped into the details of pulling things together. Our …
This post was sponsored by Eagle Brand. Thank you for supporting the sponsors that help make The Sweetest Occasion possible! Baking cookies around the holidays has a long, sweet history in my family. I remember gathering as a kid with my mom, grandmother and aunts to mix, roll, cut and bake cookies for an entire weekend …
This post was sponsored by Dr. Oetker Virtuoso Pizza. Thank you for supporting the sponsors that help make The Sweetest Occasion possible! When we were planning our recent housewarming party, I was determined to come up with a couple of really killer appetizers to accompany the Dr. Oetker Virtuoso Pizza that was the star of our menu. With Virtuoso’s …
This post was sponsored by Dr. Oetker Virtuoso Pizza. Thank you for supporting the sponsors that help make The Sweetest Occasion possible! Approximately a million years after closing on our house (or, you know, five months), we finally had a chance recently to host a sweet little housewarming party for a handful of good friends. We were thrilled to …
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve finally started to pluck away at the puzzle that is decorating our living room. When I shared my general inspiration for our living room decor, I mentioned that since our initial living room renovation (removing 3+ layers of wallpaper, fixing the walls, painting every square inch of wall …