I know you have seen alot of this from me lately...

...but I promise no more dark rooms for a little while if you let me show these.

 via House Beautiful

Craigslist, you do it to me every time...

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I am racking my brain here trying to figure out how to fit these two beauties into our crammed tight apartment. Nate would just fall over if these were here when he got home :) Will someone out there love them. Was even going to try to convince a client to use the buffet/chest thing as a baby changing table...now talk about using grown-up pieces in a baby room, I would do it if I had a bun in my oven. Paint it glossy red, or black, or blue? YUM.

It would feel like this piece in a room designed by Jeffery Bilhuber.

My apologies and (my dream) stone floors

Greetings to one and all. My feelings about my hiatus are twofold: on one hand I really missed seeing what everyone was up to, but on the other hand, I have really enjoyed my time away to work on gifting, sewing, LOST watching etc. I just wanted to stop in and let you know whats going on over at the lake house. We were blessed to snag the craftsman who worked on my parents kitchen renovation to help us out up there, and will be heading into the new year with hammers in full swing. And, while I won't promise to be here every day until the new year, I will stop in and say hey.

With the holidays in full swing it becomes difficult to make progress on some of those projects, but we will plug away nonetheless. My dad found this system to replace the tub in the lake house basement:

Tile Redi

It can be installed quickly (and not much skill required) and then tiled over. Next thing to check off on the list is the direction we will go with the flooring. This will determine the "feel" of the room. There are two basic directions. 

Farmy-rustic-mountain

Using flagstone as the flooring/shower walls also. I found a neat-o company that does authentic stone veneer. They have hundreds of them and they are cut down to less than 2" thick.

Other examples of flagstone used on the interior.

Last picture of natural stone floors, promise, this one is my favorite, by GP Schaefer architects....(have I introduced you two yet? Well, I will soon!)

While re-visting this post I realized that I was pretty sold on stone floors for the bathroom. The other option was clean, white and beautiful, but stone just feels right for a lakehouse, no? So, my dear parents, you now know my vote!

M.I.A.: The Mysterious Case of the Design Student

Greetings. It is almost 6:00 pm on Thursday and I just now read my first blog of the week. 4 days until final exams/ final projects. Can you guess what I am doing this weekend? I just accepted the fact that my final project would not be turned in tomorrow (which would have been early) and I am now sitting down with a glass of wine to see what I missed while I was painting/drawing away. I missed alot, in case you were wondering. There is a brand spanking new issue of House Beautiful and Elle Decor sitting one foot away that I still have not had time to read. Nate pointed out (btw, he has read BOTH of them already, I love making him a decor-phile) that the amazing "cabin" I posted last week was in this issue of Elle Decor. Designed by Mary Lynn Turner and her daughters, Marie and Emily, located in Idaho. Don't you think it is time for a picture?

(random picture from who-knows-where, loving the dark cabinets)

I must admit that any free hours during my week were spent Christmas shopping for our families. I LOVE Christmas. To the point that it would probably drive the average person crazy. I only have 3 gifts left to buy, am currently anxious about not having our Christmas tree up yet, am excitedly anticipating gift-wrapping and Christmas baking. We have been devouring episodes of LOST Season 6....dum, dum, dum, every night as we guiltily avoid responsibility and, as of 10 minutes ago, went from  a free weekend to hang out in Charlotte to four eating engagements: Friday night, Saturday morning and evening and Sunday after church. If I didn't know better I would think we had tons of friends here in Charlotte. Sorry for rambling. See you later.

Have you Rue-ed?

You know my growing obsession with dark walls, and the new issue of Rue had just the medicine for this grey Monday morning.

Bathroom by Windsor Smith

Jolene Ballard and Amanda Malson

Cozy chic retreat

I saw this house over on Full House and fell in love.

The new office: Mom's house

As mentioned previously, the office moved from the green room to here. This was the office in its interim stage.

Those pictures were hung up years before by the decorator when there was nothing else here. This is the rest of the play room. 

 The foosball table will be moving to the lake when the basement is finished! I don't know why, but that excites me, apparently.

Last weekend when I was home I moved the picture wall from mom's new office corner...seen here, again...

To the mostly empty wall above the bookcase...

I began by laying everything out on the floor and pool table, added in all of my parents diplomas, awards, etc...

Then I picked a corner and began nailing. 

I started this project at about 7 pm, and (as we can tell from the lopsided pictures) kept pushing through till I quit around 10:30. When I left Monday morning the office part of the playroom was beginning to take shape. We took the two lamps from other parts of the house, I put together the bulletin board and we finalized the fabric choice for her desk skirt. Tune in to see how I put it all together!

P.S. I am often tempted to wait until the end of these projects to share them with y'all...you know that amazing before and after post...BUT I have decided to keep it real and show you the chaos and process it takes to put a room together, especially for a DIYer like me who wants to be hands-on with every project. Lucky for me I have an amazing family who puts up with it all!

Lampaholic

I have a thing for lighting. Growing up I loved coats, purses and shoes...I couldn't have enough of the perfect accessories that fit all the time. But lamps have taken their place. Here are a few of my favorites these days.

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Overdone or not, I still love it!

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In my 1, 200 sf apartment I have 12 lamps.  Did I just admit that?