The Thistle House

Last week presented another first for me. I've slept in all the dorms, as well as spent time in a almost all of the faculty houses and apartments. But after over 10 years of being a part of the St. Margaret's community, I got to spend the night in the Thistle House. The alumnae house is across the street from campus and is open to all alums visiting the school. 

The Thistle is a beautiful old house, as are most SMS houses. It has some quirky features and classic structure. As part of my alumnae presidency, I have some ideas to make this house warmer and more welcoming, a place where alums are happy to visit. It's the perfect blank canvas.

Every class gets a class compilation, framing our senior portraits. I read that there should always be a portrait hanging, if only just to never feel alone. These classes of girls gave me some pretty awesome company when the house randomly settles.

Girls in White Dresses at Mayball.

It would take a bit of rearranging, but I would love to have a nice bookcase with all of the books published by alums. I'd also request a much bigger TV that actually works.

All the rooms have twin beds. There is also a nice-sized dining room, a small kitchen and 2.5 baths. Most of the house has been decorated with furniture that has been given or left to the school.  

 What would you do with a house like this? 

Snow in ATL

It hasn't substantially snowed in Atlanta since 2011. So when it started coming down yesterday afternoon, I was very excited to see the house covered in snow. 

Since we've been house-bound for the last two days, I started a couple paint projects. 

There's a great wood-working store down the road called Woodcraft, and they've been a huge help with my furniture refinishing project. This time, we picked up a couple different wood stains from General Finishes. 

So far, I've painted our living room bookcase and our stairwell bannister. When I get back from my next trip, I'm hoping to also update our bathroom cabinets. Still very confused about which door hinges to get.

I hear the Gel Stain is much better, but my patience is limited.
I picked the water-based so I wouldn't have to deal with oil-based messes.

The Black is very, very black. But, it does anchor the room much better.
It also puts getting new couches higher up on the list. 

This project took about three days to complete, mostly because I could only do it in the evenings. The spindles are Whitewash and the bannister and stairs are Espresso. I went back and forth on whether or not I loved it, or if it didn't work with the carpet, or the floor, or any other random house-flipping factor that I might not have thought hard enough about. 

I do like how it turned out, if I don't pay attention to little smudges or not perfectly straight lines. Overall, our house is starting to split between very, very white and very, very saturated color. Still waiting to see if it will all come together.

Family-ready

This past weekend, Troy's family came to stay with us. It was their first time in the new house, and we did a lot of sprucing up to accommodate everyone. From smoking a pork roast for 10 hours, to making the guest bathroom inhabitable, to finally unpacking all of our books, the house is a couple steps closer to done (very little steps).

The wish list Ikea Expedit bookcase for the office.
Still needs a couple things to be fully styled, and we plan on getting a second unit to make it floor-to-ceiling. 

New fluffy white comforter from The Company Store, so our family doesn't freeze at night.  I'm picturing all white sheets and curtains, and hopefully a bigger framed print to go above the bed. 

This dresser and mirror set was given to me by my other great-grandmother.
It was polished up and looks pretty nice in the space. Since this is our first photo of the guest bedroom, the color is Sherwin Williams "Sand Dollar".

We finally replaced the mirror in the guest bathroom, and it makes it seem much more spacious. We will eventually replace the light fixtures and repaint the cabinets to lighten the space even more.

A new addition to the house. We found him antique shopping. 

This is our third bookcase. We've put it in the upstairs landing to fill up the space.
While I have a lot of classics and chick lit, everything on the right side are "man books" and anime.

The weekend went by very well, and I think we managed to keep everyone entertained. I have exactly one month until our next big event: a bridal shower. That puts a dining room sideboard, curtains and a Pinterest party on my schedule. 

In the meantime, here are some new things that will find their way to our house soon.

This is a Parks Duffey print of my alma mater, St. Margaret's in Tappahannock, VA. It's getting framed and mounted in the guest room, which will probably be the SMS room before too long.

I found this on Pinterest and it's the perfect piece to go in our foyer. It's originally from London street artist, Mobstr. Since he doesn't really sell prints of his graffiti art, I get to create it myself after a trip to Michael's.
Source: The Chic Pad 

Two topiary trees to go on our front porch.
These will hopefully stay green all year and make the front of the house a bit more welcoming until the spring.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!

I don't think I'm ever as conscious of my position in life as I am around the holidays. I am a lover of New Year's resolutions, cleaning up on Boxing Day and putting your best foot forward to close/begin the year. The house is no exception.

In fact, it was torture trying to not begin a new project this past weekend. Every time I'm on Pinterest or looking for last minute gifts, I bookmark more and more ideas for the house; from side tables to bookshelves to knickknacks. I'm hoping that some Ikea gift cards are in our future.

Not only are we having a small Festivus party next weekend, but my parents-in-law will be visiting the house for MLK weekend. That's two very big reasons to get the house looking like we didn't just finish college.

This year's Christmas tree.
It's Cardinal-themed, although we only have three cardinal ornaments,
the colored ball ornaments have painted trees with little red birds in them.

Did you know the Red Cardinal is the state bird of Virginia?
My grandmother gave me this ornament so I don't forget.

Vader is not a state bird, but he has a spot on the tree;
along with a stormtrooper, Hello Kitty, Nic Cage (above)
and this copper frying pan ornament from Williams-Sonoma.

Back to the project side of this blog, two weekends ago, I started finally painting the Master Bedroom. Thanks to an early Christmas gift card from my best friend Merritt, we picked up the supplies we needed at Home Depot. The project took about two days cumulatively, since my arms felt like they were going to fall off by the first night. 

The first coat. Big difference from the original light blue. 

Behr "Sailboat"

Yes, it photographs very very dark, partially because of the front windows

A bit of a better view. Dark blue walls. Clean white trim.

Now that the walls are done, Troy was able to mount the new TV we bought on Black Friday.
The wire rack is temporary until I can find a suitable media table.

Lastly, the accent table for the entryway arrived from Target. My father gave me a little slack for not buying "real" wood furniture. I know that compressed wood from Target and Ikea aren't ideal. However, I am 28 years old with a limited budget and an empty house. Anyone who feels strongly about the real vs. fake wood debate is more than welcome to buy us the real stuff themselves.

Minimal setup for the holidays. We're planning on hanging an oversized mirror above the table later on.

Still not sure what to put on the shelf below, but the matching Hunter Rain Boots make it quaint. 

We have a lot of plans coming up for the next couple months; including the parent visit, a bridal shower and our first spring. Stay tuned!

A Home Wish List

I love this time of year, pre-Christmas. Making lists of gifts to buy, taking advantage of sales, setting up the first Christmas tree of our first house. And while it's thought of as a hectic time, December and January are historically the least hectic for us. 

All of our friends and family are asking what we'd like for gifts. While I can't really ask for the things we need around the house, or even knowing a place we could request a gift card, I have put together our house wish list. 


1) Ledge shelves with this awesome tutorial

2) Finishing the office Gallery Wall

3) Repainting the Master Suite
The Spa Blue feel that I was going for was a little disappointing. We picked the color hoping it would be calm and relaxing. Instead, it looks like we sleep in a nursery. Now, I'm falling in love with this dark, inky blue color. It's very modern and masculine, but so is Troy. 

4) Finishing the Foyer
On Black Friday, I bought this side console table from Target, for our front entryway. The red will look great, since everything in our front area is white. We'd like to work in some oversized mirrors for the walls, and we'll check out World Market and Target for other accents.

5) More and More Bookshelves
Lastly, on Pinterest last week, I saw these Ikea Expedit bookshelves. Yes, everyone has them, but I love how these were used floor to ceiling. It gives the room great height and would be a perfect wall unit for our office. It would give us more storage space without taking up square footage. 

That is our December plan for getting this house ready for the new year. Luckily, they are all projects that can be done in minimal time. Here's hoping for gift cards. 

Winterizing

"We can't. It's too late to save the front yard…"

This past Sunday, Troy decided that today was THE day to seed our back yard, whether we liked it or not. The weather was perfect, and we absolutely could not put it off until next weekend after payday.

So a bag of seed, a borrowed seed spreader and a rototiller rental later, we have a newly-seeded, fingers-crossed-for-grass, back yard. This was made possible by three hours of raking years of dead leaves, pine straw and mulch from the previous owners. We had 17 bags worth of lawn waste.

I know everyone says that pine straw is cheaper, but unless you have actual pine trees, it looks like you haven't raked in 10 years. At least mulch looks intentional.

I also cleaned out the front flower beds; and this week, am prepping to winterize what hydrangeas we have left. I like to think I know more about gardening that the average 28-year-old, but I still have a lot to figure out. It may just have to wait until Spring when I can start from scratch.

Spring will bring new paver stones for the flower beds, the end of the ivy overgrowth and fewer trees shading our area. 

Reminds me that we eventually need to repaint the deck and exterior siding...

Another thing off of our ever-growing checklist is cabinet pulls for the kitchen. We can now open our cabinets and drawers like normal people.

November will focus back to the inside of the house. We'll be getting the house ready for the holidays, as well as a bridal shower for February. 

We'll be repainting the Master Bedroom and the sink cabinets for both guest bathrooms. Also we're framing all of the art we've collected and finally finishing the office gallery walls. 

Autumnal Equinox

Fall is always a busy time for me. It's always the culmination of many projects that I've been juggling all year.

Slowly, bit by bit, things are starting to come together in the house as well. And as a special treat, I got to tour another house, way more famous mine.

Thomas Jefferson's Monticello in Charlottesville

My first panorama pic on my iPhone 5S

View from the famous vegetable garden

A very glam monogram TJ

In the meantime, back in Atlanta, we finally purchased our kitchen cart from Ikea. It's found a nice home with all of our  cookbooks and liquor, and makes the kitchen feel finally complete. The basket next to the cart is where we keep our cookie sheets, cutting boards, wire racks, etc

I found the silver tray at an antique store for $2. The hobnail was a gift from my grandmother (we have a hobnail obsession) and a few of the items were gifts from our housewarming.

It's still a little bare, but we do plan on picking up bar cart essentials later on. We've also installed cabinet knobs and bars onto the new cabinet fronts. 

Next on the list is finding replacement light bulbs for our fixtures. The previous owners installed the fixtures and they require specialized bulbs. We haven't seen them in any hardware stores or Home Depot, and the company website is a joke. Seen anything like this before?