A Fantastic Feast

And what a feast it was! As our house is a pescatarian one, for Thanksgiving we served "everything but the turkey" and Dave's famous salmon took center stage. Cedar plank grilled with a jalepeno blackberry reduction sauce. Now that's what I call fantastic! Other dishes included roasted apples and sweet potatoes, stuffing, mashed potatoes, spinach souffle, and a homemade sweet potatoe gnocchi with spinach and mushrooms. Talk about an abundance of food!



Sitting down at our new farmhouse table that I just love, love, LOVE! Look at how gorgeous in festive decor.


So pretty!

Here's another angle of the same

I think we all enjoyed ourselves immensely. Now who's ready for another dinner party???

It's getting there, but slowly, verrrry slowly

After the initial hustle of moving everything, the putting stuff up and starting to decorate is finally starting to happen. In fact, the "Parlor" is nearly complete!

The only thing I wonder about now is the placement of the painting. Dave wanted it really super high, but I'm not sold. 

It looks good in this picture tho'! So elegante!

And Dave's office is fairly well finished as well. He sort of had to with school and all, but it's really looking good in there. the pictures do not do it justice!

He's got so much built in space that his challenge was to not fill it up. Sigh, oh how I understand.

And of course my closet was a priority, but keeping it free of clutter is my biggest challenge!

I've got so many nooks and drawers. But no long space for my hanging dresses. Design flaw!

Moving in

The move did not go very smooth. Because I spent so much time painting, I really didn't get much packing done. We had scheduled the truck and friends to help us move on saturday. And truly, in my mind, so long as the big stuff got on the truck, we'd be fine. Well, there are a few problems with that. 1.) Most of the big stuff or furniture has little stuff on or around it. You can't really get to the big stuff without dealing with the little stuff. And 2.) if you have helpers, you want as much help carrying boxes down 3 flights of stairs as you can get. Me personally, can only carry one box at a time and going down 32 steps to drop off 1 box, turn around and go up 32 steps to get the next box is sloooooooowwwwww moving. Oh how I wish I'd packed more boxes. In any case, most of it got done, but we are still quite a ways off from being done.

Here's a glimpse of making the parlor room pop!

I really thought the chaise would fit in tighter to the bay window, but it's still nice. Those shades really go down far.

Do you see Capone? He found a spot on my orange cube.

Dave loves to unpack and make our aspect shelves look nice.

Capone lurking about...

Still some more tweaking to be done, little flourishes to add, but not too bad for now.

and even Larabee discovered a way to the top and can be king high above!

What's so awesome is that he really loves to roll around up there. I hadn't had a chance to clean it, but he dusted it off so nicely for us. Tee hee...

And from the other side we played as well. He loves it up there!

The Parlor: Another Victory

Even though I knew the color I picked to replace the electric blue would look good, I had no idea just how much I would love it. I think it's absolutely gorgeous!

But I tell you, painting around the windows was no walk in the park. Not to mention, the painter's tape is nearly the same color blue as what I was covering. Kind of a brain tease.

Then I thought the big wall wouldn't be too bad until I remembered how high the ceilings go. It was a stretch, but I made it to the top.

And once we started adding a bit of furniture, it really looked rich and gorgeous!

Loves it!

Coming next- more furniture!

Master Bedroom: Victory!

I am so happy with how the color choice of this room came out.

I was so nervous about painting too much until I saw it. But what a good feeling to see it hit the mark.

It's a pretty good sized room too. Long hallway, keeps going...

So much rolling, but it got (more or less) done. The blue really works with the wood color. It's that mid-tone wood that can look dated (like in the guest room) but with this blue it just works. We decided to put Dave's mexican furniture in there as well.

Here it is with the armoires. Not bad at all. Can't wait to add the masks and other art work!

Guest Bedroom: failed attempt

This is the one room I am not happy about. I so wanted a green color.  Green Tea Ice Cream? Avocado? Celery? Spanish Olive?

Well, I did try with the latter, and it's not working.

The close-up and the far shot.

The thing is, this room gets beautiful southern light, and if it's nice, it really is one of the brightest rooms in the house. Do I really want a darker color in there?

Maybe working with the mauve is the way to go. Do some faux effects and purple it up?

But I think a cheery sunny mellow yellow is probably a better choice. Urgh! I wish I knew what to do!!!

The Master Bedroom

So the brown in this room is really a depressing shade of turd. I know I could just go with an off white and keep it nuetral, or I even considered a sunny yellow. But again, I will be bringing my trusty painted boards and see what works with what.
One of the funny things we discovered about the house, is how many times the bathroom and closet has been madeover. Apparently there used to be a soaking tub where the closet now is. I don't know. It's a pretty sweet closet, but for hanging anything long (like all my long dresses), I will have to keep them in the guest one. Only short things can be hung in this designed space.
But, on a positive note, there are quite a few built-ins. There's about 12 cubes, and 24 shoe holders. Sweet! Now, this photo isn't so bad as far as the color goes, but you know me and I will change it. I really wanted a warm rustic pumkin like orange color, but my fear is that it will blend in too much with all the wood trim in there, as well as Dave's mexican armoires. Here is my attempt at painting orange. I had to make it stippled as the bright orange with this light just looked too bright. And come to think of it, maybe doing it as an effect is the way to do the orange color?

Boy, that really is bright. So, now it's not so much the wood trim that bothers me as the dingy looking carpet. Yes, I'd love to rip it up and put down some hardwood, but that project is going to have to wait.

The more likely winner of the color of this room will be a pale light blue. At least that's what Dave's asking for.

Now that I'm looking at this, I might be leaning towards the blue too. So, that is all I'm planning to paint. It's also a bit ambitious? I mean, if we close tonight and I want to paint before we move, that gives me like 2 nights to get this done. Crap! Not closing last week has really put a crimp in my plans. Cuz you know I haven't even started packing yet...

More Color: The guest bedroom

So, this room needs a makeover! Whoever picked out the mauve was just craaazzzzyyyyy! Look at such nonsense-

After much deliberation, I have (for now and until I actually see it in the room), picked out a green color called "Spanish Olive". Now you know when I'm painting these photographs, I'm not really painting the color I've picked out. It's just a best guess. But I tell ya, a beautiful warm avocado (or spanish olive, natch) will be gorgeous!

Filling this in was a bit of a challenge. When I painted over that wallpaper trim it looked odd. I do think it needs some sort of "molding" or painted trim. And since that far left side was in shadow, I tried that out as trim. At first I forgot about the reflection in the mirror, but that's filled in too. I know it looks weird, but I really think it will be awesome!

I don't even mind the wood trim with the green. Maybe if down the road we paint the wood, I will add molding for where the wall meets the ceiling. But for now, I know I will need some sort of trim there.

Back to color, the Parlor room

Now that we're "this close" to closing, I'm ready to play with color again. I'm feeling really good about that deep dark burgundy chosen for the bay window. I took some more photos of the entry room (the Parlor, the gallery, still working on names) and filled in that awful blue with the burgundy. Feels really good.

You can see on the right side is a part of that bay window. I was a bit nervous seeing such dark color for the entry, but I am loving this!

After you open the front door, this is the wall you see (enhanced by the dark burgundy border).

What's so funny, is that weird looking door to the left is another access to the pantry in the kitchen. I don't know who came up with that design element, or how I can use it to my advantage, but for now it just seems weird.

And just to see it all together again, here is that same wall but to the far left.

It's going to be so awsome having these walls showing off my beautiful paintings. It's weird though, I'm so happy looking at this beautiful purple color, that when I see the blue in real life, I'm shocked.

I've made up some colored boards with the paint that I'm leaning towards and can't wait to actually see it in the house rather than these images. I'm also glad that I went with this color palatte in here. It will be a good transition to the red kitchen. BTW, I don't think I'm going to change that red at all. I love it actually.

Ha! You can still see that hideous blue in this photo. And yeah, there's that pantry door on the left.

We sign tomorrow!

Finally it's happening! There's been such a back log at the banks that I wondered when we would finally get that call. It's been such a headache playing the hurry up and wait game. But once we sign the papers, it shouldn't take much longer. My best guess is that we'll close on Tuesday the 20th. I'm so excited!

Closing tomorrow? Not likely

I had no idea how tricky these last few days of waiting would be. We were cleared to close last week, and yet the bank still hasn't gotten the papers to the title company. If (and that's a big if) we can sign tomorrow the 15th, there is the smallest chance we will close on friday the 16th. Can I say how depressed I am? I was really planning on starting to move this weekend and now it's looking like we won't close until monday at best. I am so bummed out...

Bay Window: success perhaps?

I made another attempt at getting that deep eggplant color. I really like how this looks now.

And it's good to see with the other wall that enters into the kitchen. (the trim also had that nasty electric blue)

Unfortunately for now, the brown walls as well as all that wood is going to stay.

You know what's funny? See that wooden door? It is another access door to the pantry in the kitchen. I find it hilarious that you can access the pantry from the parlor room.

But how about that gorgeous red in the kitchen? Yeah, I like it a lot!

Bay Window, continued

I just don't know. I do like the idea of teal. Maybe that would go?

But it does seem rather vivid. And the chaise is very muted.

I was going for a celery green, but neither of these seem to be what I'm going for. Can't go too light or it starts looking minty. Too dark and you get that hunter green. Hmmm. Maybe the purples really are the way to go?

Let's talk color: the Bay Window

So this bay window is the first thing on my agenda. Now maybe I'm going about this all wrong and should look at the house as a whole, but this blue is not working for me. I like blue, but this is just very electric. So I've been playing with color trying to figure out what oh what to do with this window. Here are some of my options.

I thought I would be digging on the purple action.

But the burgundy is quite pretty too. The thing that I need to consider is that the furniture going in this spot would be my sage colored chaise and either nuetral accessories, and/or my orange cube. Hence why I was going with the purple thought.

I have tried out some greens and blues, but my concern is they won't work with the green sage moss colored chaise.

I'm now thinking that dark purple, slightly eggplant deep in color is a good idea. Like a cross between the dark purple and the burgundy. Nice!

We close in one week!

At least that's what the date tells me. I still haven't gotten the clear to close call yet, and the tic-toc of the clock makes me nervous. I wish I had the all clear by now. I need to set up my utilities, do change of address, etc... Uh, at what point do I say, yes this is really happening and move forward?

So a co-worker put out an email asking who would like some iris bulbs. Or I guess they are really tubers, or are they rhizomes? In any case, she had a ton that hadn't been divided in years, and of course I said YES! I want 20! They looked so pretty...

And now I've got this bag of tubers for a house I don't quite own yet. I know they can be planted in october, but that clock is ticking too! Think I can just sneak in the back and plant these guys before it get's too late?

Ha ha. I don't even have a plan for how I want to landscape. Besides, they could be so pretty in the front yard as well. Maybe that's it, I'll plant them in front! But wait, the front faces west. Is late sun going to be good enough? Augh! It's just flowers and I'm driving myself crazy! My south-eastern backyard is plotted for my vegetable garden. And the southern side is where we eventually want to expand. Ok, it's settled. I will plant the majority of them in the front, and a few in the back. From what I hear, these are some hardy plants and as long as I can get them in the ground soon, I should be fine. They'll reproduce. Whew, one decision down, 8 million to go!