meet chandelle

i teach a high school bible study with a couple of my besties from watermark. it is pretty funny being around high school gals. a couple of them were telling us about their high school dance. it is called chandelle(please picture chandelle written in fancy cursive letters). seriously? since when did sadie hawkins get renamed chandelle. for some reason, i thought it was hilarious and may have lost the last two cool points that i have, while trying not to snort laugh at chandelle.

the next day i was working on finishing up this chandelier for our house, and i remembered chandelle. so, of course, our new chandelier has been affectionately named, chandelle. we love her!

behold...chandelle

(i think i'm going with the goldish fabric in the background)

 below is a picture of her before she got all spruced up
i gave her a fresh coat of paint and changed her pointy light bulbs to little round ones. i also decided to forgo shades for a more modern look.

might have learned a little life lesson from chandelle. when your huz has both hands above his head, sweat dripping from his head, is balancing on a step stool and is working by the light of a flash light to install your freshly painted chandelier he might not want suggestions on how to do the install...i bet you didn't know that! :)
ps thank you aunt suzi for saving this piece for us...we really love it!

New Things

i was telling jeff the other night at dinner that i wish i blogged more. i get to see so many fun spaces that, i think, would inspire you! the thing that holds me back is feeling like i have to get perfect photos and then write and write and write. well, i'm going to take a different approach. somedays, i may write more, but more often, i am just going to give you a glimpse of where i am working and what i am up to. and the pics will be from my phone, most days.

so here ya go.
i finished up refinishing these fireplace screens on monday.

 this particular screen was was solid metal with tons of burn/welding marks when it arrived. 

i gave it a warm champagne finish with a bronze glaze.

  this next fireplace screen is in the mama's retreat. it is a secret room that opens from a hidden bookcase in the hallway. the stair case in the back connects to the master.   

one of the littles in this family asked if she could watch me paint. she is four. oh she was so adorable. she kept asking when i had to leave and would sigh when i told her soon. melt me.

the little gal also asked if i ever cry. i told her that i do cry when i feel sad, but try not to cry when i'm just feeling like acting ugly. she said, "me, too." :) apparently, santa visits little girls who practice being sweet when they are feeling like acting ugly.

 i painted this screen solid gold with a warmer gold glaze. i added a wax gold rub to the inset areas.

 instagram eats all of my detail work in this shot, but you get the idea. 

have a good one!

video of our old place

i am working on some posts about our progress on the house. for some reason, it's taking more effort than i anticipated to get my thoughts in order with that one. 

i thought you might enjoy a tour of our old place. i took this video right before we moved. i thought it would be fun to show our lil' kiddies one day. 

we made many a memory in that place. i loved it. 

not gonna lie, though, kinda nice having a kitchen where the fridge doesn't hit the other cabinets when you open it, and your hineys don't touch when you and the hubs try and walk by each other:)

hope someone else is loving this place as much as we did.

hand painted herringbone wall

Well, I'm getting a little(okay totally) out of order with the house. We have been making so many structural changes, that I decided it was time to do something fun. Don't get me wrong, the unseen things have tons of value...but I was sooo ready to do something light-hearted and fun.

A while back I did this hand painted chevron nursery. I loved the way it turned out and filed it away for our house. I saw this tutorial and this tutorial on herringbone, and loved them as well.

I combined all of these ideas and came up with a game plan for our dining room. I knew that I wanted to do the herringbone pattern, as opposed to chevron, and I knew I wanted to incorporate three distinct colors. I settled on navy, gray and white(the base color throughout our house).

Here we go...

before

 during

A quilting ruler is my major time saver whenever painting any stripe pattern. Mine is 24" long and 8" wide. I can see through it to make sure I get my lines perfect, and it is large enough that I can gain a lot of ground in one movement. I also use chalk to make my marks on the wall...almost always(mom says never say never or always). It wipes off with a damp cloth and never bleeds through to paint(unless you use a crazy color and then try to paint white on top of it).

 ( i feel like i should defend my appearance in these photos...my excuse is vacation:))

 after

(or should be say, for now:))

 the pink blinds were making jeff nutty, so i replaced them with these sheers. i am going to hang some yellow panels that have a large organic pattern on them in ivory. just have to save my pennies for them! the yellow panels will hang on a double curtain rod in front of the sheers. i think they will add some great visual weight to the room. we will also get a new table, new light fixture, chairs, rug...but this is a start.

(next time you see this piano, it will be yellow!)

I was a little nervous halfway through that I'd gone too bold, but in the end, we love it. It is fun and bold, but breaks up all of the white in our place.

Colors

base color: Sherwin Williams Alabaster

navy: Benjamin Moore Old Navy

gray: Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray

Happy New Year!!