Wall of Fame

Hi lovelies!!

Its been awhile. I have been working my little fingers to the bone. BUT, i'm still working on my house.
Also, its my first Christmas that I'll be hosting!! So stay tuned for those pics because I plan on going all OUT!

But I'm also trying to finish up some projects before we have guests. Not the least of which is our Wall of Fame Gallery wall.

A little back story, last year I had a big birthday party with a Photo Booth. All of my friends and family were there and they all took photos. They are AWESOME.  I decided to take some of these photos and make a gallery wall.
This wall required many steps:
1. Determining the best place to display the photos
2. Determining how many photos I wanted to display (there were a LOT).
3. Determining what size frames
4. Layout
5. Frame Hanging

I'm on step 5.

This is what I decided on for layout and location. It'll be the first thing you see when you step in our house.

And this grainy shot is me trying out the frames.

Trying to figure out how to mount these puppies was a giant pain in the you know what.  As you can see, these aren't even. Sooo, now I have to go and get a level. Crooked frames will drive me crazy.

Can't wait to show you the final!

xoxox,
Summer

Designing Woman

Now that my renovation is complete, I'm on to the business of decorating. So before I get to deeply in this, let me say: The Kid is broke. So alot of what I want to do, will have to wait. But I can style it with what I currently have and dream up what I want to do...so the master bedroom for now is this:

 This is the first iteration of my bedside table...styled with all my favorite things...fashion magazines, a crystal vase a dear friend brought me from Paris, a photo of my favorite sculpture at the Louvre and roses. This is pretty girly, even for me, so I don't think its long for this world.

The other side I wanted to play with metals so I have a gold spiky knick knack that I love a gold toned and framed water color print that's giving me some color.

 The primary pattern I have in the room are the silk link curtains from West Elm, sheers will get behind them eventually.

That's all for now. This is really a kind of before shot. I'm for sure replacing the bed side tables. Right now we have a lot of grayish blues working in here, too much actually. I need some contrast. So look for a rug coming, and end of bed bench, new side tables and lighting and different styling on those stands. I want to drop back on the sweet a little and give it a bit more Va-Va-Voom. If any room can be sexy, its your bedroom!

Luckily, its not a lot to buy in here, so I should be able to manage in 2014. Now the living room? That's a whole 'nother Oprah.

Stay tuned!

xoxoxo,
Summer

Backyard Boogie

So here's the thing. I am broke. I spent all of my capital, I mean all of it, on my interior renovation. And the outside was just a dirt pit. It made zero sense. We added glass doors to all of the back of the house. And our view was a dirt patch.
When we got burglarized it also became apparent that we needed a fence. So, I thought we could just put in the fence...but that seemed silly. We maybe would do it in stages, fence for safety, then patio, then grass. So with this strategy in mind, I hired a landscape designer. I reasoned, I would pay this, to make sure we didn't install things that we would need to just redo later. I met with a few and settled on Vanessa Rutter of Foundation Design. BEST. DECISION. EVER.

Firstly, she got what I wanted. Her design was flawless. The plan was so exciting, we decided to do it all at once and just be done with it. We asked our current contractor and the contractor she worked with to both bid. We went with hers because we wanted her to oversee it and I know how difficult working with someone else's vendor can be.  SECOND BEST DECISION EVER. Jose Luna. A God. Both of us living here in this house are punchy about deadlines...maybe because the front of the house took F O R E V E R. They said about two and half weeks. Suuuure, we thought. But I'll be damned if they didnt finish in LESS than two weeks. So quick, I didn't even have time to blog about it! So here it is:

So this is how it looked when it all began:

The view from the kitchen door before we took up the tile.

This was our "backyard". Pay close attention to that trellis. YIKES. 

The grey concrete is where the addition would eventually live.

 This is the view of the nothing-ness is where my master bedroom is now.

That damn trellis. GEESH.

This is the dirt patch after we took up the 4 different cement tile combinations we had back there. 

You may also notice the HUGE step it required to get inside as our house is elevated.

I don't have a picture of our cement fence. It wasn't special. But the now, the now IS special.

This is them building out the stairs and the patio. Behind it is the secure fence, 8 foot high now. 

This is them digging up the lawn for the grass. 

This was after they poured the cement. OMG. I was so excited.

AND THIS. THIS is now.

Can you stand it? To save money we went with baby plants, mostly drought  resistant succulents. The trees by the gate will eventually grow to 6 feet plus for another layer of protection from prying eyes and prying fingers. I have to say. I LOVE this space and I probably have exactly one month of good weather to enjoy it.

xoxox,

Summer

Bang Bang!

Bang bang in to the room...you know you want it...

I. AM. DONE.
Can you believe it?! I can't. The addition is done!!!!! This isn't a proper reveal because its unfurnished and the closet doors aren't on but HOORAY nonetheless.

Now on to the photos. We can finally enter the room from the rest of the house...

We literally only have one step left! The city sign off and then I'm moving in this sucka!

Side note, have you ANY IDEA how expensive closets are?? No? Well I'll tell you ALL about it in my next post.

xoxox,

Summer

Summertime

Summer summer's fine...ooooh Summer's fine.

Summertime was like my favorite song ever when it came out (DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, stop playing like you don't know)
 The actual lyrics were Summer Summer time, but I sang it with my updated lyrics so much when the song came on the radio all my friends would sing it with my remix! And Summer is fine...because Summer is almost done!!

WANNA SEE??

The outside is completely done...stucco and errrythang.

I honestly can't believe there used to be NOTHING here. 

That's a peek inside...I know you can't see much but its a great picture...

Our chandelier is in and the color is on the walls.

Entry to the En Suite

This a view into our master bathroom...do you spy my HUGE tub?? No?

There it is!!

We have one side entirely covered in Carerra Marble.

And the Carerra shower with chrome fixtures and frameless shower doors.

That's our vanity. It's boring now but it won't stay that way. Can you believe how far we've come? We used to be this:

Hooray! Still more to do, floors and finishing (knobs, handles, countertops, recessed lights etc.) but we are dangerously close to being done.  

HOORAY!

and for your viewing pleasure

xoxoxo,

Summer

What you know about that?

Carrera Marble wall?

Progress Pics!!

This is the outside...can't believe there used to be NOTHING there. Bananas.

And we're ready to paint, so of course we're doing tests:

From left to right, Benjamin Moore Silvery Moon, Flint Smoke Behr, Sea Glass Benjamin Moore and Pale Smoke, Benjamin Moore.
The rest of the house is pretty muted, so I wanted some color in here. We're going one feature wall Flint Smoke and the rest Silvery Moon.
Now what you really came to see:

This is our whole Marble wall, with shower.

This wall is where the tub will go.

This is a close up of the floor - doesn't it look JUST like wood? It's porcelain tile!

This is a straight up shot of the tub wall. We're getting there....so close I can taste it! More to come...

xoxox,
Summer

Rub a dub dub

Summer got a big 'ol tub!

I love a good bath. In fact, I love a good bath so much I specifically designed my entire master bathroom around it.

That's why it hurt my soul when I had to go with a much smaller bathroom. But being who I am, I found a way to squeeze a huge soaker tub in that puppy anyway. Thanks in no small part to the Floor Plan Pro APP - which. is. genius.

So listen, I smushed everything in here. There won't be any room for dancing, BUT there will be room for bathing. I don't have a before picture, well because there was nothing there but this is the inspiration for after:

I really, really wanted a Gray vanity. I'm doing these super cool dark Ash Gray wood looking tile floors and I thought a light Gray vanity would have been awesome. But with all the unexpected budget hits, I ended up having to go with a builder grade white cabinet. But I tricked out the hardware AND am doing a Carrera Marble top, so that should help.

If the tub is the Star, the Carrera is the Producer. The entire east-facing wall is Carrera marble from the ceiling to the floor. Due to the fact that I smushed that tub in there, I had to make the fixtures come out of the wall, instead of a free standing tub filler. Its a downer but it its what it is. I also have a 3 x 3.5 foot glass enclosed shower. Of course, a toilet with a privacy wall and two ginormous mirrored medicine cabinets to bounce the light around in there. OH. Lights.

I goofed here, I have a ton of recessed so I should have done pendants but I didn't. I did those cheesy sconces. I don't love them but I was under the gun. I do however love my chandelier over the bathtub. Its not the safest thing, but whatever. I love it.

Its also a hodge podge of suppliers; sconces and mirrors are Pottery Barn, Glass Pulls and Knobs are Restoration, tub and Shower Fixtures are Grohe, Tub is Modern Bathroom and Chandelier is Shades of Light.

Tile is going in today!! Progress pics to come...

xoxo,
Summer

Fly me to the Moon

Well you don't have to actually. I've lit the outside of my house so that you can, now, see it from the moon. That's kind of the same...isn't it?

BEFORE

AFTER

What a difference day makes... well that and eight LED floodlights and 12 landscape lights, but I digress.

xoxox,

Summer

Come back to me, I'm begging you please

I want you to...come back...
These Janet lyrics are two fold. Please come back to reading my renovation diaries! I know I've been gone too long but I had a very, very good reason.

I got robbed.  Despite living in a fantastic neighborhood with a Sheriff across the street and little kids riding their big wheels down my Magnolia lined streets, someone broke in to my house.

It sucked. Mostly because I made a lot of mistakes. I hadn't gotten around to installing the outdoor lights, so it looked like this:

Pretty GD dark. Next, my contractor forgot to board up the outside of my french doors. This is not his fault. We boarded up the interior, so even if you came through the french doors, short of hatcheting through the door you wouldn't be able to get in to the main house. BUT it made me look like a target.

Next, I left my tiny 3 foot kitchen window open, that's nine feet off the ground. Thieves I have found are tenacious and in my case, very, very small.

3 strikes. OUT.

They tried the addition first then came in through a window and had about two minutes uninterrupted before they triggered the alarm. They got away with a lot of my things. My jewelry mostly. 30k of it. Plus a few expensive handbags and one pair of Christian Louboutins. Thieves also had great taste.

Now, before you say, wait you had 30k of jewelry just LAYING around your house while you have workers there, what are you an idiot??

I had no idea how much my jewelry was actually worth until I had to itemize it for a police report. The most expensive item, my diamond earrings. I actually wear every day but in a rude twist of fate the back broke the day prior so they were in my jewelry box waiting to be repaired.  I also have never been burglarized (besides my car), ever in my life. And I had a sort of genuine naiveté about it.

And I know what you're thinking.. 30k, new house, renovations, you must be loaded!! I'm actually not. Every piece of jewelry that I owned, I either saved copiously to buy, was inherited or given to me. Thats why it stings. A lot of it was irreplaceable. And because I just moved in, I didn't really do my due diligence on my insurance, so most of it sadly is gone.

I want you to come back...

So there are two way this could go down. It could, one, make me feel violated, unsafe and bitter. Or It could, two,  remind me of how lucky I am to never have to steal from another person, to not have been home when they did, to not have any vandalism, to live somewhere where the police arrived in 3 minutes and now have sent extra patrol cars every day since the break in ...to be a home owner to begin with. I pick two. World, you're just not going to convince me that you're only a dark and scary place. There is darkness and there is light. And I chose the light. Always.

Good news? My addition is swimming along. Dry wall is in...windows and doors are in. Inspector Approved. Hooray!

 That's the pocket door to my master bath.

 My hard fought for windows.

 Another view...well just to remind you to look on the bright side.

A peek at the french doors and the hallway leading to the rest of the house.

So instead of having a woe is me, why me?! moment. I will instead choose a giddy why me!!! moment. As in, how did I get so lucky to be able to have a home like this? Hiccups and all. Grateful is my choice.

In the words of Bob Marley, Light up the Darkness y'all.

xoxox,
Summer