Art hung at the beach place

Decided that hanging art comes first for me and actually finishing decorating rooms, well I guess doesn't come first.  Yes with rooms in the "not nearly done" phase, furniture and rugs yet to arrive and a ton of shit to do, today I thought to myself that if I could not actually pull the rooms together, I could at least play with hanging some art, some of which was already here.  I just love how I justify my thought process.

Hit a cool little gallery today and left with 2 pieces I love.  I even shopped and bought art with twins in tow - let's just say I felt extremely accomplished.  Normally, they would NOT be into me shopping for art and hanging with me through the process of selection and negotiation.

For your review, some of my newer pieces:

Love this painting and supporting local artists in the community.

 

Next up a painting on glass that will probably serve as the top of a bar cart.

 

 

The artist suggested lighting it from beneath the piece and told me it was beautiful when it was illuminated. 

I was honestly thinking that I thought this was a great idea, but at the same time I was also envisioning my blue martini glasses, a martini shaker and some vodka on top.

A useful piece of art! :)

 

Next up are two pieces we had commissioned specifically for this space:

 

 

They are each 48" x 48", so large in scale, but are in the LR on a large wall and I love them.  They just make me happy!

I also see something different almost every time I sit and stare at them.

I might add this is even before I drink the the martinis.

 

A shot of a painting the we recently purchased at an art fair:

 

 

The piece was framed by the artist in the stainless, which I might not have chosen myself, but actually do like the look.

 

and my last piece to share today, which was painted by an artist in Miami:

 

 

There's a story behind the painting that touches my heart, has to do with a very sick child and a parent who donated his work to support the mission who helped his son.  I purchased the painting due to the story I know behind it and also because in some odd way it reminds me of me and my twins.  I should add that this is despite the fact my daughter looks nothing like me, rather like her father and is not blond!

 

There you have it - while I probably should be trying to pull rooms together to show I am making progress, I'm just strolling around looking at my art and thinking to myself - yes we do need a DR table....but until we can find what we want, we at least have some beautiful paintings to enjoy.

 

Does art make you happy?  even if you are sitting in unfinished rooms?

For me the answer is a definite YES.

 

 



The Beach Place

So, I now know people actually read this blog - because I barely mention that we bought a place at the beach and I got emails saying "show us the beach place"!  So, I figure why not bring my blog friends up to speed, despite the fact it's not all gorgeous on the interior (yet!).

Here's the story.  About a year ago we started looking for a little place at the beach that we could enjoy weekends at.  My initial thought was, how hard can this be? That was until I found out that what we were looking for was not exactly easy to find.  Quick determinations had us seeing places and ruling out what we did not want: a drive that was more than an hour from our house, a high rise building, a "cookie cutter" interior layout and a busy touristy area.  All of those are easy to find in FL and truly are a dime a dozen.  So we finally decide on the area we want - a very small beach community without buildings of mega proportion and a small village type feel.  Once we found the area we wanted, we quickly found that the inventory there was very low....especially because we did not want the standard cookie cutter model and wanted to be on the water with views from the LR and MBR.  Oh, did I mention we had a budget?  well we did!!  We looked and looked and just when I was about to throw in the towel on the whole idea (or area), we found something I thought could work.  The fabulous Mr. S was not quite as sold on the place as I was. I had to point out how different it could look if we got rid of all the bright canary yellow painted walls and dark wood trim.  He finally agreed that we could put our own stamp on it and that it did indeed have most of the things we wanted on our checklist.

So, here you go.  First a shot of the exterior of the building - as seen from the beach side:

 

It's a very private small building, which is shared.  The shared part is a good thing, as we also share the cost of the hurricane insurance.  If you know anything about FL coastal insurance, you know it's outrageously expensive.  Our place has 3 BRs and 3 baths (small baths, but full baths) and beautiful views.

 

 

This is the view from our LR and balcony.  LOVE the privacy and the little trail to the beach.

 

 

The beach is beautiful and perfect for looking for seashells early in the morning.  The twins and I have already started our little collection for a Christmas project we plan to do.

 

 

And every night we get to enjoy this view from our new little place.

And you just know that every night, there is a glass of wine in my hand while I'm watching the sun set and thinking.....life is finally good again.  It's been a long road.

Lastly, my 10 yr old daughter took this shot.  She also informed me that I should have a new photo of myself that shows my fun mom side vs. my professional head shot for work.  So she now think she's a budding photographer and is on a mission to show the new relaxed me....and get me up to speed with Instagram.  Yep, my twins are keeping me current!

 

Interior before and after shots soon, I promise. 



I'm finally back!

So it's September already and I'm wondering exactly how that could be.  I remember mentioning 2013 would be the "year of the big merge" and ok, I'll blame my absence on that.  See how easy that was - I feel better already.

So yes, I did marry Mr. S and we did merge the 2 households this summer, which turned into a boatload of work in the 90+ heat.  The process of deciding what to keep, what to purge/donate/give-away was challenging, but for the most part I'm done with the bulk of that challenge.  I still have a storage bin area with a boatload of things I want to keep and they will be going to our new beach place just as soon as the workers are out of there.  But, I'm getting ahead of myself....

Let's begin my catch-up fest, by showing you a project that I can finally check off my to-do list.  Moved out of the interim house and was happy with the progress completed.  A couple of before exterior shots: 

And now a couple of after shots:

 

 

 

I can't take the credit for any of the exterior work, because daughter #2 (owner and her husband) were in the States this summer and oversaw the exterior painting.  What a difference a paint job can make.  Love it.

 

But I will give an award for my most favorite interior room transformation and it goes to

the LR.  Before/after shot below:

 

 

 

It's nice to look at a completed room and think yes, eventually I will complete others.

 

Ask me the real reason that I came back to the blog and I would have to tell the truth - I have resigned my professional gig and now may actually have time to enjoy all the things it's hard to do when you are a working solo mom with zero time.  and yes, I must give credit where credit is due - Mr. S convinced me I would LOVE being able to focus on family and fun.  Well, it didn't take that much convincing.  We also agreed to buy a little place at the beach, under the condition that "you have time to enjoy it"  (his exact words).  So, now I have no job but a funky little place at the beach and a brand new project.  It's not a real big ugly duckling, more of a mini-me ugly duckling, but a fun new project indeed.  So here's to future posts of finishing the merge/projects here at our home and shots of progress at the beach place, that's underway as well.  

 

It feels good to be back :)



 

 



From Man Cave to Dining Room

I hate it when I read a blog that starts with an apology for not blogging forever.  So, no apologies to my few friends who read this.  Lord knows I have like zero time available to get shit done and then find more time to actually post.  So people, this is a rare day!

Although the room is not yet completely done, I will show you that I am making progress.  I keep saying I just want 1 room in the entire house to be done.  Just ONE....is that asking too much?  probably, since I am working on the entire house.  I skip from 1 room to the next and think:  Good God will this place ever be pulled together?  So you know what I decided to do?  Throw a party at the end of June.  You know how hosting a party kick-starts your ass to accomplish an attempt to at least try to pull it together?  Hoping it works.  It at least forced me to order some furniture this weekend.  It's a start. 

Now for the room I feel I have made the most progress in - The Dining Room.  Remember it started out looking like this:

Loved the rug, hated everything else and the room was NEVER used.  I promised if I converted it to a DR, we would actually use it and we have.  Not as much as I would like to....remember the woman with zero time to throw fabulous dinner parties.

Anyway, when I do find some time for those dinner parties, we now actually have a place to host a group for dinner.  Take a look:

From this angle you can't see that the fabric still has not made it to the upholsterer to have the window seat cushion and pillows done.  Let's just say - it's on the to-do list.

 

Sorry for the glare, but when I took the shots the sun was blazing.  I also thought that the bright glare might just keep you from noticing that very bare unfinished window seat.

 

Some details:

 

 

An old favorite I have had stored forever, in hopes that one day I could again use it.

My framed Hermes scarf with a beautiful slew of tassles.  Loved it long ago, love it still.

This piece will be mounted above an English pine hutch, also dragged out of storage.

 

And another piece of pine from storage was mounted to the other end of the room.

 

 

The sideboard trestle table (which flips open) was originally white and blended into the wall.

I decided to paint it to match the base of the DR table and it looks 100% better.

Gotta give it up to Martha Stewart metalic paint selections now available. 

 

I was trying to match this table base:

 

 

And a detail of my CL rug!

 

 

This might be my bargain of the year and I LOVE it.  It's really beautiful in the room.  I found it on CL, went on my lunch break to see it.  The woman selling it had many rugs in her home and said that this was from her grandparents collection and made in a village in Afghanistan about 50 years ago.

Negotiated Price: $125.00

Can you believe that?  I left and felt a bit guilty.  I mean I think the rug pad was close to that.

It has 1 imperfection, but I think it adds to it's character.  And only 1 imperfection after 50 years.....well, we can all only hope to be so lucky.

 

The only thing I needed to purchase for the room was the DR table and chairs, which I found at Arhaus in Atlanta.  Ok, I know that's sort of a big thing, but I love the fact that with Arhaus there is 1 flat fee shipping price.  Buy 1 piece or a room full, the delivery fee is $299.

On top of that, I ordered everything when they were having a buy 1, get 1 free deal on the side chairs.  Add to that the deal on my rug and the fact that I had everything else, I think the room came in at a very affordable price. 



 

So here's to progress.  Still need to hang the art, finish the window seat, bring in a few odds and ends that I have - just have not yet taken them from storage or the other house - and oh yeh, then find the time to actually host a dinner party.  When I do, I'll take pics and send you the completely finished room.  That's IF that ever happens.  A woman can dream....



Freeing up space by wall mounting the TVs - all of them!

Ok, the projects have been mapped out and we have a plan.  I figure mapping out the plan is half the battle.  Ha!  Well, at least it gives me something to shoot for.  We decided to upgrade and wall mount the TVs - which doesn't sound like a big deal, until you times it by 5!  The tv-mounting-wizard came yesterday to start moving all the electrical outlets and cable hookups up the walls, so that we don't have wires hanging all over the place.  Did I mention we have 5 to do? oh yeh, I did.  Well he was there for what seemed like forever.  Two TVs are actually mounted to the walls, 3 to go, but I want to paint the walls in those rooms first.  The good news is that paint colors are picked out.  See I told you I had a plan.

The wall in the family room also had to have drywall work done before we could get that TV up.  What I thought would be easy: bang out the arch, patch the wall and paint - naturally turned into more work than I thought it would be.  That seemed to take forever too.  So I started feeling like this was an OMG this will take forever project and for good reason, it has!

Started with this:

I know, I know, it was God awful looking.  Makes me happy that we are transforming the "guy's place" when I see how sad this room looked.  Thus the reason for "the plan" for most of the house. Room by room it will slowly but surely end up eventually looking better (I hope!).  My plan for this wall in the family room was as follows. Take down that arch over the fireplace and remove that ugly mirror.  Get rid of the monster TV and ugly stand in the corner.  Remove everything from the bookshelves on the right, so that they can be styled with something a bit more lovely, etc.  It sounds easy enough, but let's start with that ugly arch.  It was a bugger. 

 



I give you the shot of the during - while we hit Best Buy and proceeded to spend a bloody fortune on upgrading a few TVs.  Throw in the mounts, installers, things like a new Blue Ray, cables and yep - it adds up to a small fortune.  In fact we might have been able to buy a small island for the amount we spent at Best Buy.  Ok, maybe not.

So finally, we have the FR TV actually mounted.  Actually done twice (mo money, mo money) because the 1st guy that installed it, had wires coming down through the mantle.  The 2nd team came in and did a much better job.  Wires now all tidy and hidden - just requires another little patch job.  After all this, I am sitting here thinking....does a family really need 5 TVs????  oddly enough, ours does.  Quite sure this says something twisted about us.  As does what's on the screen - my favorite guilty pleasure, Bravo, where watching Jeff Lewis makes me feel much more normal.

Why pitch it just because it's ugly?

I know it's not yet February, so I am doing more than 1 post this month.  Wow - that's huge for me.  Especially, since I am known as the woman without 1 room in the entire house finished.  Everything is in the state of oh let's see....maybe 50% done.  It will be cocktail time when I finally get 1 flippin room actually to 100%.  It might even be champagne time.

Since I am feeling like any sort of real progress is really not taking place (despite the fact we are actually making slow progress), I decided to repurpose an ugly.  I am slowly but surely removing every ugly thing in the house that the ex-wife left.  Perhaps I should have more politely said every thing that's not my cup of tea, but let's be real - these were ugly:

So, I find some cool Ralph Lauren plates at HomeGoods on the clearance shelf for $6.50 each.  Come home, take the frames apart, spray the frame and paint the matt and background and I come up with this:

There are 2 of them, so it has a "twin", because everyone knows I like twins :)  I often think about how thankful I am that my twins weren't triplets.  Just can't imagine throwing another 10 year old into the mix.

So, as the room is pulled together and if it's EVER finished, you just may see these twins in a future post.  For $13. (I had the paint) they make me happy.  Some things should just not be hauled off to Goodwill.  I figure with just a little bit of work, I can put my own little mark on them and be pleased to have them more look like "me".  And yes, I am still into that pop of orange, although I fully understand that's last year's color and everyone is now into green.  I'm sticking with my orange groove.  Here's a newsflash - I did that green a really long time ago, so for me it's old news.

2013: The Year of the Big Merge

So I have spent the last week trying to recover from the entire holiday season.  I have also spent some time reading what I should say are some the very inspiring blogs, listing the zillion things they plan to accomplish in 2013.  The truth is, several made me think that many bloggers try a bit too hard to make their lives look perfect.  Really? My world is so far from that, it makes me laugh.  There are a few who keep it real and that I feel like I can relate to - mentioning panic attacks, kid's meltdowns, mommy meltdowns (smile), work/life balance, drinking a few glasses of wine or a few margaritas AND trying to work in DIY projects.  Yep, those are the bloggers I relate to and most enjoy.

While I do have a list for 2013 and it may be every bit as long as many others, I feel no need to stick my neck out there and commit to getting it all done.  In fact, when I woke up the 1st day of the year - miraculously without a hangover from the vodka martinis the night before - my first thought for 2013 was simply to be happy and make this "the year of the big merge".  Merging 2 households, some would think far too many children between us (we can't send them back now!) and 2 worlds.  That sounds like enough of a challenge to me. 

Stay tuned.  I'll do my best to keep you posted and try to get something accomplished to actually post....like maybe a room that's actually finished or finding the time to make my blog a bit more lovely. :)