New House Entryway

We're finally making some progress on the house.  Yesterday Damian spent hours tearing out old carpeting on the stairway, and I spent countless more hours getting rid of staples.  But it's all worth it as underneath are beautiful wood floors! 

This is how the stairs looked with the old owners' furniture.

And an orange landing!

Can't wait to get these stairs cleaned-up and painted.  I'm thinking something fun.

New House!!!!

It's taken a few years, but we've finally found a new house that we're happy to call home.  It's a rambling old Victorian that needs a lot of love, but I think we're up to the challenge (I hope so anyway).

Without further ado, here's a picture of the dining room on the day we took possession.

Notice the net curtains lying on the floor; the empty glass of champagne; note book and measuring tape strategically placed on the floor.  I think this is the room that I already have the perfect vision for.  

In fact I've already made a decision on the dining table.  I've decided to go with this one from Overstock.

As much as I'd love to have an original (wouldn't everyone?), it's just not in the budget.

It's possible to find these tables under $1000, but I wanted a 60 inch so as to seat eight.  I also wanted it to have a real marble top.  There are reproductions that have faux marble, but I don't really know what faux marble looks like, so I opted for the Overstock one.

And here's some pretty pictures that were my inspiration.

All sources and other dining room delights can be found on my Pinterest page here.

Anthropologie bedding

I love mixing it up in the bedroom (that sounds a bit personal!). What I mean is, I love to change out my bedding from time to time. And I can't resist a good sale. Anthropologie had this fantastic sale after Christmas where they were discounting sale goods by an extra 40%. That's when I snapped up the tufted Emilie armchair for the music room, and some new bedding and throw pillows for the bedroom. That sale unfortunately ended, but they've just announced another sale with an extra 25% discount using code EXTRAEXTRA.

You can pick up the duvet cover here.  The little throw pillow is here.  And the sheets are here.

And my marble countertop for my kitchen island just arrived.  And it is so beautiful.  Can't wait to show you.

Adding some marble to the kitchen

When I redid my kitchen 12 years ago I debated between soapstone countertops or granite counter tops.  Marble was unheard of, especially in Utah.  Now you can't open a magazine or interior blog without being confronted by glorious, magnificent marble kitchens!  What's a girl to do?  Well I could rip out my perfectly good granite countertops and replace them with marble, but I don't think I'll be staying here long so I really can't justify the expense.  So instead I've managed to introduce some marble into the kitchen by adding some accessories.

The first thing I added was a marble slap from here.  Its a great size, not too big that it's difficult to clean and move, and not too small that you can't roll out pastry for a pie!

I also ordered a marble paper towel holder.

I was amazed that both items arrived the next day.  And I didn't have to haul them back from the shops.

The french marble utensil holder I picked up from Crate and Barrel.

The cake stand is from Williams Sonoma and usually has bananas or some other fruit on it.  Incidentally, the stand that I picked up from the store is different from the one shown online.  I actually prefer the one in the store.  You can't see it very well from this picture, but it has a lovely carved wood base and a subtly veined marble top.

The last marble accessory I added was a French Kitchen Marble Fruit Bowl again from Crate and Barrel.

At this point I seem to be going marble crazy.  I even bought a marble picture frame from Anthropologie to go on the wall above the sink.

But it was way too small, so it went back.

Next I ordered a marble shelf from CB2.

I didn't like the look of the brackets, so I bought some wishbone brackets from Anthropologie.

But the marble is heavy!  And I didn't really want to risk it crashing down and potentially taking out my faucet, my sink, or my granite (although that would be a good excuse to replace it!).

So instead I ended up with this pretty mirror from Sundance Catalog.

It does a great job of filling that awkward space, as well as reflecting some light back in to the kitchen.

I bought this kilim rug from a seller on Ebay.  It's really long, so I'm planning on cutting it down and using the left over piece to reupholster the window seat cushion.  Well, that's the plan anyway.

Finally, you thought I was done with the marble, didn't you?  Well, although I'm not quite prepared to shell out $3000 for new countertops for the cabinets, I did decide to buy a remnant piece of marble for the island!  I'm super excited; it arrives on Thursday.  I decided to make it larger than the island so that the stools would fit underneath.  I hope it looks good and doesn't crowd the kitchen too much. I'll post pictures soon.

Move over Lunet chair, there's a new favorite in town!

I collect chairs like most women collect shoes!  I guess there's something similar between a pair of shoes and a well crafted chair: they both can be sculptural like a piece of art; they both can be pretty as well as practical; and they both can elevate a room or an outfit into a statement.

I love looking at all styles of chairs, but I don't become obsessed with them until they reach my price range AND I have somewhere in mind for said chair to go.  No point lusting after an Eames recliner if you can't afford a real one and you don't have room for one anyway.

Luckily both of those prerequisites were satisfied shortly after Christmas when I realized that after the tree was taken down, there felt like there was a huge empty space in the corner of the room that was just crying out for something.  Previously the space had been taken up by the drum kit, but since moving that to the basement, that spot had been left bare.  Also, luckily for me, my favorite store, Anthropologie, were having a huge sale with an extra discount of 40%.  I snagged this chair for less than $500!

And it finally arrived today.  It's now taken up residence in the hollow spot, but I like it so much I may have to swap it with my other favorite from Anthropologie, the Lunet chair.

Here it is, not where it's going to go, but doesn't it look pretty against the white fireplace?

Tufted Emilie Chair

And here it is in situ.

Still debating whether it looks better with the cushion or not.  It certainly matches the painting which incidentally I picked up for $95 from a local thrift store.  The thing that drew me to the painting was that it's a picture of Union Square in San Francisco which is where my husband proposed to me 21 years ago!

Here the chairs are together.  You can see that there's definitely similarities between the two so they work together in the same room.

Look at that gorgeous tufting!

It adds a spot of color to this corner.

But I still think I prefer the Lunet chair there; the scale is better suited.

The only regret I have is that I didn't buy two!  I think in my next house, they would look perfect together either in front of a fireplace or around a small side table.