Springtime!!

Spring has officially arrived! (…and the crowd cheers). Saturday was the official start and the weather gods must have been told because it was a beautiful weekend. I tried to spend most of my time outdoors even though a lot of it was in stores. But I did get some time to work in my plants. Everything has survived the winter and I’m going to have some blooming tulips in the next couple of days, as long as they weren’t too damaged by the workers who, when edging(more like digging trenches) yesterday, covered them in dirt. I’m so excited by the way my plantings turned out. I was just looking at a photo from before I bought the place and compared it to now, what a drastic difference. It looks like someone actually lives there and cares about it. Once all my plants get their leaves I’ll have to take another picture and do a before and after. What fun!

My shopping goal for this past weekend was to finish buying items to decorate but I either didn’t find things I like, or didn’t want to pay what was being asked for them. Instead I bought more dishes and some bath towels. And I did buy a coffee grinder to grind my espresso beans. Now I can make a pretty darn good latte. I even did a little hosting. Aaron came over to help me change my headlight bulb in my car so I treated him to some freshly made cookies and an espresso. Me, myself, I have another latte. It was a big caffeine day. But I was glad I got to host because I got to use some of my pretty dishes I just purchased at Home Goods.

I was thinking about it how I’m doing all this research and shopping to find things to use for entertaining, but I’ve only had one official dinner and a few casual gatherings. What’s the point of wasting my time and energy if I’m not actually entertaining? Maybe I’ll actually entertain more once I have the place complete, like have my desk and finish my photo wall and paint my lamp base and my chandelier.

Below are some photos that Marci told me about from Southern Living. It’s such a bright and cheerful dining room. I might also use the bar cart idea in place of my random tv tray I have in the one corner. And the last image is one that I found where someone mixed and matched vintage plates and it turned out so well. It's what inspired my dishes purchase from the weekend. They don't match but they work so well together. Just wish HG had more than 4 plates.

I might even uncover my dining room table for the summer. Will have to see what condition the wood is in though.

Evolving

So I know it’s been a while since I posted but I’ve been trying to focus more on work while I’m at work which results in me having less time to (a) find pretty things online to post about and (b) take time to write about my place.

But over winter break Mom and Marci helped me install curtains and blinds in my living room and a chandelier above my dining room table. But I’m still waiting on my desk to get here that I bought over Thanksgiving.

I also hung more frames around my tv and this past weekend I put real photos in them as well.

All of these projects however, still are not completed yet and I didn’t want to post pictures until they were so you could see the final look. But I decided I would give you a snippet so you could see how my place is evolving.

Sarah Richardson

Since being back at work I think I have become addicted to researching Sarah Richardson. I just had to close out of my browser windows because I just kept getting in deeper and deeper.

I had admired Sarah's interior design style for a few years when I was able to watch Design Inc. on Fine Living and was very sad when I no longer had Fine Living as a channel. At which point in time I stalked her projects online. So obviously I was delighed to hear that she had a new show coming to HGTV US called Sarah's House. The first and second episodes aired on New Year's Day and we get to follow her as she buys a house to remodel and sell. So far she bought the house and redid the baby's room and home office. Each episode she will be tackling a different room and we get to follow her from start to finish. And it's fun to watch her baby bump grow!

Once back to the office yesterdayI decided to check out more of what Sarah had been up to since I last saw her and apparently she's been a busy woman. The Sarah's House we're seeing now in the US is the second house she has done. HGTV US did not air the first house. And the next remodel show, Sarah's Cottage is now airing in Canada. And She's currently filming Sarah's Farm. I learned all this by checking out her new and very fun website where she shows great photos of the redos and gives a lot of advice. I would copy and paste the link here but that whole copy and paste into blogger thing still isn't working.

But while checking out the Sarah's House now and trying not to look at the final outcome so I'll be surprised when I watch each episod, I looked at House 1. It's so great and is so much of what I love about Sarah's style.

Here are some selected photos from House 1 that I wanted to share.

I think you should check it out! She has so much talent and is involved in so many projects to write about.