Eulalie's Sky Milk Paint and a New Booth

I'm back in the saddle again!  After not painting furniture for a couple of months because of the move and closing my booth in Raleigh, it felt good to work on new project with a new color.  I'm sort of a product junkie when it comes to paint and supplies.  I love to try new colors and brands of paint, wax, etc and when Miss Mustard Seed came out with the Eulalie's Sky color for her line of milk paint, I knew I had to try it since I gravitate to blues.

Summer Showcase of Homes - My House Tour

There have been some beautiful home tours this week on the 2013 Summer Showcase of Homes!  Have you seen them yet?  If not, I put together a full list of all the home tours through yesterday HERE.  Today is the last day of the tours and I'm happy to be included among such talented women.

Recent Projects and Market Preview

It's been a while, hasn't it?!  I've been incredibly busy the last week or so... From out-of-town house hunting trips, two hour nightly swim practices for the girls, and the fact that all the kids are home all day fills up quite a bit of my time.  But...I've also been super-busy getting ready for the first Carolina Vintage (mini) Market this weekend.

Farmhouse Style Front Porch with Pops of Red

Remember my mom and step-dad's house that I shared a few months back?  They've been slowly adding their personal style to the place through careful shopping and as many DIY projects as they can to save money on furnishings.  They like to curate their home by picking up furniture projects, sewing custom draperies, and finding bargains that they can make over.  While many rooms are partially done, there are still many things that they are on the look-out for and some weekend projects still to go.

House Listing Photos

First of all, I want to thank all of you for the encouraging comments on my last post about having to move again!  I am still a bit down about it, but I feel better after reading your thoughts on moving. I thought I'd quickly share some of the photos from the MLS tour that my realtor gave me permission to use.  There are actually quite a few rooms that I never did put up on the blog because they just weren't finished (for me) and because we've only been here a short time.  I also made a few changes for the sake of staging and many of the chandeliers were swapped out. 

Moving On...Again!

This is one of the more difficult posts that I've had to write and I've gone back in forth on how and when to write this post.  I think I've typed and re-typed it several times... I try to keep my blog strictly about home decor, DIY, furniture projects, etc as I know most readers aren't too interested in my personal life, but the time has come to let everyone know about some personal changes that do affect the blog, etc.

Our house back when we moved in...

As of this weekend, our house will be officially for sale.  Those of you that follow my blog will know that we haven't lived here very long and that our family relocated from the Pacific Northwest to the Raleigh, NC area a little over a year and a half ago.  That wasn't our first move, in fact, we've had to move three times in the last three years due to job changes, so the fact that we have to put our house up for sale and move yet again is not exactly good news for us.

Snippets of the New House

Last week, I mentioned that my mom and step-dad were closing on their new house in the subdivision next to mine.  They moved out to the Raleigh area from Spokane, WA last summer and lived with us for a few months and then stayed in an apartment while their house was being built.  After much deliberation of house plans and communities in the area, they ultimately chose a beautiful community with the equestrian barn, miles of beautiful jogging trails, and many other amenities. It's a great community with lots of wide open spaces which was important to them after moving from their previous home on three acres.

Expanded Booth Pics and Recent Projects

I'm on a bit of a recovery day today...recovering both my house and myself from the past several days!  As I've been mentioning the last couple of weeks that I was working on some projects for the newly expanded booth at SuzAnna's Antiques that was set for yesterday.

A Year in Review - Favorite Projects and Posts of 2012

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas this year!  We had a great time around here with a full house for Christmas dinner and out-of-town guests for several days.  Before I start breaking down the Christmas decorations, I wanted to share a recap of some of the favorite and most popular posts of 2012. Since I started blogging regularly during the 2011 holiday season, 2012 is pretty much my first full year of blogging and sharing projects.

Getting Ready for Holiday Events

I've been painting and crafting up a storm this week in preparation for some upcoming local events that I'll be participating in...

Classic Cottage Sideboard

It's been a while since I've painted a distressed white piece of furniture... When I first started painting furniture 5-6 years ago, I painted most pieces white or off-white and distressed them.  While not everything was painted this way, I started veering away to experiment and try new "looks". I'll go through phases of paint...like black furniture, a favorite paint color, etc.    

I usually have a vision in my head of what I want a piece of furniture to look like before I start painting and I didn't plan on painting this sideboard white, but I knew that I wanted to distress it and/or use dark wax or glaze to bring out all the details.  I started off mixing some custom colors with my paints and tried them out on some areas and just didn't like anything!

Inside Spoonflower - Custom Fabric Printing

Have you ever searched high and low for that perfect fabric only to come up short?  You have this picture in your head of the fabric or a design that you love, but just can't find what you want...

Fall Table Centerpiece

A few weeks ago I shared my new planter box centerpiece and that I was excited to decorate it all up for fall.  I didn't think I'd find any white pumpkins for a while and to be honest, the weather in North Carolina doesn't feel much like pumpkin weather.

An Antique Bed, Furniture Facelifts and a Blog Hop Party!

I've pretty much have always loved those old beds with curved footboards...aren't they so pretty!  I found this antique bed about a month ago when a few of us Raleigh thrifters got together for "I Love Thrifting Day".  I had a blast and found some great things, including this bed that I picked out for my pre-teen daughter's room...

Eastern Migration

Well, it's official!  I'm excited to announce something that's been in the works for a few months...  After my husband and I and the three girls moved from the Pacific Northwest to Raleigh, NC last summer for my husband's job, my mom and step-dad decided to migrate east as well.  It's been a stressful time for all of us the last couple of years with two 2600-mile moves (and them having to sell their gorgeous home above), but we are all happy to be together again and of course, the girls love being with their grandparents...

The Church

I've always been the sort of person that likes to take the way less traveled.  I'd much rather take a winding country road lined with farms and homesteads than an interstate or highway clogged with traffic and billboards.  Maybe it's because I grew up on those country back roads as our family's dairy farm was little ways away from the small, rural town that we lived by?  It's all I ever knew until I was 18 and I'm still very much that farm girl longing to get back to the country. 

Footstool and Flea Market

Since my conversion to chalk paint last week, I've been busy hunting down furniture and painting like crazy.  I call it my "instant gratification paint" since it dries so quickly and I can get projects down a lot faster than I used to.  I already used most of a can of Old White and I'm anxious to get a hold of more colors for the furniture I'm stockpiling in my garage.  I had a fabulous weekend shopping (and adding to that stockpile) at the Raleigh Flea Market on Saturday and painting outside for most of the day yesterday.    

One of my favorite things about North Carolina so far is that I can paint outside almost all the time!  I still can't get over the fact that I can sit in the grass (not snow) in JANUARY and paint.  I get giddy over it every time I think about it.  Since paint fumes really bother me, this is a big deal for me.  Even though I finished my daughter's dresser and few other pieces, it's rainy and too gloomy today for pictures, but I'll share my little footstool that I painted and recovered during a naptime last week...

A Great Day with Miss Mustard Seed and Fellow Bloggers

I've always been so inspired by Miss Mustard Seed.  Not only is she amazingly talented, but her blog is so authentic and a joy to read, so when she put the call out to do some shopping and socializing in Raleigh this weekend, I was so excited to have the opportunity to meet her and some fellow creative women from the area. 

Raleigh Historic Home Walking Tour

Despite the fact that our new house in the Raleigh area is brand-new construction, I would have loved to have settled into an older home that is full of charm and character.  When my husband and I first visited Raleigh this past May, we drove around the city to explore a bit.  We'd heard that there was a pocket of beautiful, older homes from our realtor and it didn't take us long to find it...

This is my all-time favorite house...My mom and I call it "The Storybook House".  You can read more about it here