Little Table

For our wedding gift, my Grandmother brought me to her favorite auction house to choose some pieces I liked. She stayed for the auction and called me the next day. She had won two tables for us! Woohoo! So, I went to pick up my tables and only one was there, wah wah. The table that was still there had a good shape but was not nearly as cool as the missing table :( So I took the not as nice table home.
A few weeks later, the auction house called to say my pretty table had been returned! Someone had taken it by accident and was nice enough to bring it back. And the best part was it looked 1000x better. They had cleaned it all up. We took it home right away and use it as a front hall table. The poor ugly table, it stayed in my parent's garage for a few months. I brought it to our house to put our toaster on so it was off the counter. It REALLY didn't work with our overall taste. Finally I had enough and decided to paint it. We had a nice-ish weather day that I used to sand and prime it outdoors.
I got a little too excited and started to sand it before taking a 'before' shot. The top is definitely not original to the base. It had a lot of damage on it and only a light coat of stain.

Banquette Follow Up

Last week I wrote about my newest dream of banquette seating in our dining area. The only thing getting  in the way of my dream is $$$ (isn't that always the problem?) I am sure I could figure out a low cost way of achieving this look by scouring stores and websites (CraigsList, EcoBuilding Bargains, goodwill, etc.) But, we already have 6 chairs for our table, so why not try and use them? So I started moving furniture around!

Before

Things That Make Me Smile

Last night I read this post from AtticMag. I have always loved banquette seating, so I was really excited they featured some well done ones. We have often recommended them to clients for multiple reasons, the main reason being space. A chair needs about 36" to be able to, comfortably back the chair up or for someone to walk behind it, while a banquette only takes up about 18". I have considered doing some type of not-built-in banquette in the corner of my eating area.

As Is (in all honesty, the table is usually pushed against the left wall)

Spring Birds

Since spring teased us here in New England last week with warm, sunny weather then SNOWED this week, I am looking for some spring-y items for inside. Over the last few years I have started a mini bird collection. In all honesty, I found a super cute bird beer bottle opener when we first moved in.

Some Inspiration

Things have been crazy busy at work. The kind of crazy busy that makes you love what you do. So, not a whole lot has happened at home this past week. I do have a large scale 3D project due at school tomorrow, I found some inspiration here. I have returned to school to continue my bachelor's degree. My first time around, I made a LOT of art projects that either sit in a closet or have since been thrown away. Not anymore. I am really trying to create things that I can keep and use for at least a little bit.
Some capiz light fixtures to oooo and ahhhh over...

World Market I LOVE World Market, but, I live very far away from one :,(

Quiet for Japan

While tonight I celebrated my husband's and my Irish heritage listening to Irish music,

Tomorrow I respectively honor and donate the ongoing struggle of the people of Japan,

.

 Thank you to Ever Ours & Utterly Engaged for organizing this fundraiser.

Have a safe Friday...

Details from our Wedding

A little over six months ago, we were married in Castine, ME We tried to keep everything simple, I was the third  and last of my sisters to be married in Castine. I knew it wouldn't be a stress less weekend for my wedding planning mom, but we did try to keep it as low key as possible. We were going to have all of our family and friends in town, so how can it not be fun? We enjoyed every second of the weekend. It was chilly the two days before the wedding but the day of turned out to be PERFECT weather. We really lucked out.

I just wanted to share some of the details/scenery from our wedding day!

Little galvanized buckets held flowers on the side of chairs lining the aisle

Petfinder Puppy Love

With our perfect puppy's 3rd/21st birthday in just 8 short days, I thought I would give a little thank you to Petfinder. When my husband first had his first interview with his current job, he promised that we would get a dog 5 months into the job if he got it. Well, he got it, and 5 months later, Sophia arrived. He never had a dog, and he knew I would definitely choose being able to have a dog over being with him, which sounds horrible, and it is, but I have ALWAYS wanted my own dog. I know he was very nervous about being a pet owner and the responsibility that come with it. We did a ton of homework on raising a puppy, and we think we have done a pretty good job! After a month of looking on Petfinder, a couple heartbreaks and setbacks, we drove the 90 minutes to Logan Airport in Boston to pick up our girl. After a road trip from her shelter in Paragould, AR she flew with a shelter mate in the cargo section of the plane from Memphis, TN

Things That Make Me Smile

My cousin's girlfriend, Christina Watka, is an amazing artist. She has found an outlet to not only be creative, but to make a living. She does retail installations and has recently been working with Twelve Chairs Boston . Her most recent installation has me dreaming of it at night!

Bedroom Closet pt 2

Almost two months ago, I posted before pictures of our master closet. 

Spring cleaning has begun!

I know it's only March but somehow I feel like it is no longer "New Year's Resolution Cleaning," now it is "Spring Cleaning." Also, it helps me keep that resolution going just a bit longer. Living in a small place like ours, is like living on a boat. Things just need to be shifted and cleaned out constantly. So I began with a few kitchen cabinets and drawers that had not been touched recently.
This is our utensil drawer, not terrible but there was a bunch in there we either don't use or got a better version as a wedding gift.

Happy Table

I recently purchased a coffee table and matching end table off of Craig's list. The coffee table base was in less than perfect condition. 

Digital Pictures

Between my camera and phone, I take a lot of pictures. Mostly of our family, our friends, our puppy and for my blog. This week's A Bowl Full of Lemon's Challenge  was fairly easy for me. Because I have so many pictures, I keep them organized by date. At first, I organized them by friends or family, now it is by "shoot date." When I upload, I choose to upload into a "shoot date" folder. So months worth of pictures are automatically uploaded into folders by date. I then put them into the year's folder then the month's.

My main picture folder