Friday, April 27, 2012

Vacation Details

Good morning everyone.

I am currently not here, because I am at the airport going to California with my husband for a long weekend.

We'll be gone Friday-Tuesday and I couldn't be more excited. Want to know some details?


Its basically a compound, but its pretty incredible having the water all around you



We rented a convertible so we can really enjoy ourselves. I don't know what brand or anything, I just googled convertibles.

We plan on visiting:




The spa




Our pool 

We couldn't be more excited to take a little weekend-moon without the baby, and go out and eat and just worry about ourselves and relax. Kennedy will be staying with my parents and will be well taken care of, so I just get to be excited.

Are you going on vacation soon? If so, where to? 


Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Wednesday Wishes

Hello again!  It's Cassie here from Primitive and Proper with my "Wednesday Wishes."  We have had great Spring weather, but the past few days have been cold and dreary.... leaving me wanting COLOR in my life.  Right now,  pops of color equal pops of happy!  ROYGBIV.  We all know it, right?  The colors of the rainbow.

RED
red room
Via

ORANGE
creating space
Via

YELLOW
love the tablecloth and the yellow chairs
Via

GREEN
Bright & airy living room
Via

BLUE
old painted aqua pantry door retains built in look via white trim detail
Via

INDIGO
Block print indigo bedding
Via

VIOLET
Violet living room
Via

So what do you think?  Are you ready to add some color into your life?

Monday, April 23, 2012

before & after

Today I wanted to share with you the mother of all before and afters. I could have shown you my favorite room, or a favorite before and after project, but I decided to show you my entire home. Because believe me, when we bought this 122 year old diamond in the rough, she needed a lot of TLC. Looking now through the pictures I actually cant believe that we bought this house, but I thought she had "good bones" and I was more than right. 

The Foyer


  



The Kitchen








 The Dining Room








The Living Room




The Downstairs Bathroom




The Mudroom






Kitchen looking into the mudroom before


Mudroom looking into the kitchen after

The Upstairs Hallway





 The Master Bedroom






The Nursery







My Office




  
The Upstairs Bathroom





Our home is FAR from perfect, but to us its beautiful & comfortable and that is perfect for us. I hope you enjoyed my before & afters and you'll check out AP2CH a little further

Friday, April 20, 2012

How to dress for success at home

Today we are going to talk about our wardrobes after baby...I haven't completely figured it out, but I wanted to share with you some things I think about when shopping.

1. Is this item comfortable enough to be a mom. (aka- pick a baby up, bend down, play on the floor, run if needed) I think about how it feels on my skin, if its pulling, if I can wear a normal bra. I also like the fabrics to be something that doesn't feel too dressy. I want to feel good doing my daily errands and not like I have a fancy party to attend later.

2. Is this item really cute and versatile. I need to love it in order to buy it. This goes with buying a rug or a dress. I like to think about the outfit and wear it might go. Can I rock this at a playdate? A BBQ? Target? Just hanging in my living room?

And that's literally it, maybe you thought it would be a long list? But its not.

My favorite items to buy this season

- Dresses. Its the no brainer outfit that takes 1 minute to throw on but always feels dressed up and cute. This dress actually looks like 2 piece but is not.



- Skirts- whether they are long or short, the important thing is comfort. I plan to mostly wear a tank or v neck with most skirts, maybe a scarf because that's also my go to item. I like to get colorful skirts so that my shirts are really easy to figure out, so I can do it quickly.

- Jewelery- I have bought so many cute necklaces this season because they dress up anything!! I'm a skinny jean, v-neck every day kind of gal.

But with a big chunky necklace and a boyfriend jacket, I go from plain to hip. Its OK to be hip as mommy's, I promise! I'm still young at 27 and I want to feel 27, I want to look cute and be a stay at home mom. Jewelry helps me make a statement, when really its like a no brainier to make an outfit pop.





Pyramid stretch bracelet




Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Wednesday Wishes

Hello again!  I am so excited to be here for my second installation of Wednesday Wishes. Last week I shared my love of toadstools.  Today I wanted to share 5 things I can't stop thinking about. 

 1. Kilim rugs.  I really want one for my master bedroom.  Check out these fine examples.  I love the old worn out colorful ones! 
 
(Both found here) 

 2. Herringbone wood floors.  Oh, if I could!
herringbone brick floors
found here
8-17-chevronlittleblueheer_rect540
found here
8-17-chevronlittleblueheer_rect540
found here
3. This song:
   

 4. Emerald Green.  I painted a piece this color almost 2 years ago.  And I would love to do it again! I am obsessed with this image (I found on pinterest, but cannot find original source) Green chairs

5.  I am really digging unique planters right now.  Part of Spring fever, I guess!  My pal Tracy just shared how to make your own concrete planters.  Here is hers. 20120415-IMG_9211 That's all!  See you next week!

I hope you all enjoyed Cassie and her series here Wednesday Wishes. I don't know about you, but I am crushing pretty hard on a couple of these things, my favs are the herringbone floors, and those gorgeous green painted chairs.  Thanks for sharing Cassie, see you next week!

Monday, April 16, 2012

Do it now

With a baby around, there really isn't too many opportunities for the right time to get things done.

When Kennedy was younger I tried to get everything done while she napped, but now that she naps less, I dont want to use all my alone time doing menial house work.

I find including her in the projects is usually pretty successful.

Of course including a 16 month old baby into the situation will make the process go longer. But longer is better than not getting it done at all.

The reasons I like to include her:

1. Teach your child whatever you are doing. cleaning, organizing, decluttering, even decorating. Your child will be happy to be involved, and you are teaching them new skills. Sure they might not get it when they are only 1, but done over years they will absolutely pick up these skills. Not to mention so many adults struggle with some of these issues, so showing your child how to do these and the importance will only be a great life skill.

cleaning

2. Variation is the key when you have small children. My daughter likes to be upstairs because we spend so much time downstairs and shes looking for a change of pace. If I want to work on something, she absolutely wants to help.

.

3. Alone time is precious try to do something you enjoy. I really try hard to get things done with my daughter so I can enjoy a little me-time. So I try to involve her as much as possible so that when she naps or goes to bed I'm done or pretty much done with all the house work.

Spa food..

4. No time is really good, so why not now? I'm doing more stuff right when I notice it lately. Case in point her drawers were filled with clothes that were too small, and I had to weed out all the small clothes and organize her new bigger clothes into them. It really wasn't hard at all. I closed her bedroom door, looked around to make sure the area was safe and then let her play as I did it.

cute matching

There are 2 schools of thought, people who do things when they see they need to be done, and others who see it needs to be done and adds it to their to do list. Both work, and I fall somewhere in between, probably closer or more often to the list person. But doing items right when you see them takes a lot less mental effort than doing it later. Try it out, tell me how it goes!


Have a fabulous day!
  - Jen


Friday, April 13, 2012

Be sentimental....sort of.

Happy Friday the 13th everyone!

I have a new client, we are working on her kitchen. Her kitchen is like many older kitchens, the space is used poorly and the cabinet space is very little.


She also doesn't have a dishwasher. So all of her plates and cups and glasses end up sitting on the drying rack. Instead of putting things away, like many people she just recycles whatever she needs from the clean drying rack pile. Sound familiar?

All of her plates are mismatched sets, hand me downs, and scattered around her precious cabinet space completely unused. So part of our makeover is going to be open storage and new plates. Probably something clean,white, timeless.


She pointed out her grandmothers plates. I asked her if she wanted to keep them and use them, if it was important to her, it would be important to my design. She said she wasn't sentimental and she would pack them up and store them in the basement.



How many of us have said that? Done that? Regretted that? Thought about it for years as a burden? Later needed to clean the space, unwrapped the item and then didn't know what to do with it? 

Well that's pretty much what I told her. I think it's better to offer the plates to someone else in the family, in this case her mother or aunt and to  keep one tea cup. Use the tea cup, think of her grandmother when she does, see the tea cup, let the memories visit her on a daily or weekly basis. That is a better way to honor her grandmother.

vintage tea set

There is a way to be sentimental and have beautiful design.


What do you think? Have you ever been in this position? Have you stored something only to regret it?