My aunt is making some progress. She’s still not fully recovered, and at this point she’s been told she should look into finally filing for disability (she has had major back trouble for years prior to her recent illness). That’s a big blow for her. She honestly enjoys her work as ER Director. I’m sure it’s hard to accept, especially since she’s already lost so much of her independence, but we all (with the exception of a couple of people) think this could be the best thing for her. I do and I don’t, and I say I don’t simply because I know she doesn’t enjoy not being able to do much – being holed up all day.

I’m still playing catch up on my work. I’ve made a huge dent, thankfully.

There’s been a lot of progress on the renovation of my new house. I can’t remember if I ever gave any details about the house. It’s a brick house with 4 bedrooms (one will be the office, one master, one guest room and a bedroom for my nephews when they visit) and 2 baths. It has a separate dining room off of the small kitchen (and when I say small, I mean itsy bitsy). It also has a beautiful living room with a wood burning fire place. With the exception of the kitchen, bathrooms and east side hallway, the floors are the original hardwood. They recently put down laminate wood floors in the kitchen and down the east side hallway. I would love to eventually do this through the entire house, with the exception of the bathrooms which I’d love to re-tile.

The only room that is currently lacking is the pink bathroom, which I’ve now dubbed the pepto powder room. I really love the character of older homes, and things like the older style tiles but the pink is nauseating. So many different shades on the wall and the floor. Without gutting the entire thing, I have no ideas to tone that room down. Aside from using a white shower curtain. Any suggestions? You can see it if you scroll down through the photos below – you can’t miss it! They’re still working on it, and since the photo was taken they’ve put in a new toilet. There is still painting to do (I asked for them to paint the walls above the tile white). The only thing I can think of is checking to see if I can paint over the tile.

They’re also working on the exterior this week. They’ve power washed it, put up the new shutters and primed the front door. All that’s left is to put new screens on the windows, touch up the trim work, finish painting the front door and touch up the iron rail around the front porch. I’m going to do my own landscaping. I already have some ideas and Tam’s nephew Nathan is going to help – suppose to help I should say.

I’m planning on painting the kitchen some shade of blue or green, or blue-green/teal/aqua. The office will be teal, and the master bedroom will be a light blue since it will be all shabby-chicish. These changes will be made before I move in so I’ll share updated photos when I have them.

So, here are a few photos I took about a week ago. Excuse any and all messes you’ll see in some of the photos. I took this while they were still doing a lot of the renovations. Also want to say that I love the chandelier my mom bought for me!

The pepto makes me sad.

PS.. I’m not checking for typos. Too tired and still have work to do tonight. Sorry!

Guilty as charged. Behind again, on this blog and catching up.. which I haven’t gotten a chance to do yet. There’s just been a lot going on and I’ve been working a lot.. A LOT.. which is good, and I love it.

This weekend is going to be packed full too, so I’m trying my hardest to complete all of my design work by late tonight. This weekend is the Onion Festival. Friday night we’re taking the boys to the fire works show. We’ve decided against the street dance though — too many people, and it would be hard to keep up with the boys since they tend to run off from all of us at times. My absolute favorite part of this festival is the air show. We’re going to that Saturday. I can’t wait to see the Blue Angels. They’ve been practicing some this week, so it’s getting me super excited about Saturday. I’m not sure what events they have for the air show other than that. Usually they have the stealth flyover but yeah, not sure that’s on this year’s schedule. I’ll have a look at the website later today.

I bought some furniture from an antique store a couple of months ago, so my dad went with me yesterday to pick it up. I can’t believe they didn’t have someone there to help us with that, especially that chest. It’s solid wood. Even the smaller two top drawers are heavy. I noticed some pain in my lower back shortly after we did it, which makes me think I did something to it when we moved it. My back is still sore today, but not nearly as bad thankfully.

With all of this beautiful sunshine we’ve had lately, I decided to change out my bedding. The previous bedding wasn’t really that dark, in fact it was really bright colors — pink, aqua, lime green, yellow & purple (plaid quilt set). I just wanted something that wasn’t really so bold. My mom bought a really lovely set by Simply Shabby Chic for me, so I changed it out to that. I’ll post a picture below, but it’s a little dark so I’m not so sure it’s going to do this bedding justice!

I need to get back to work. I have a lot on the agenda today. Hopefully after this weekend I’ll have time to finally catch up with everyone!

Now that I don’t have to get approval on my decor, I feel like I really decorate the way I want. I’ve always loved the Shabby Chic style (refer to Rachel Ashwell). I don’t want to overdo that whole style, but I do plan use it in moderation. I found a few pieces I’m going to use, and hopefully it’s going to work the way I want it.

The first two pieces are from Kohl’s. I actually plan to paint the iron frames white and sand them a bit so you see the darker iron in some places. I think white, or even eggshell, will make the pieces look better and work better with the style I’m aiming for.

I found these really cute, shiny ornaments at Pier1 Imports (bought 4). I’m planning on adding small round mirrors to the centers rather than use them for small pictures as they suggested. Then I plan to hang them from the pegs of a white shelf. I will probably change the ribbon to a shade of light blue or green. I think white would be a little too much against the white pegs.

And last but not least, I found canisters at Pier1 Imports that I think will work with this style. I only got the “flour” and “sugar” since I don’t drink coffee enough to use that one, and the cookie canister was much larger and just didn’t look right with the small flour and sugar canisters. I absolutely love them!

I also found shower curtain hooks (by the Simply Shabby Chic brand) that I’m going to buy. I picked them up while we were at Target, but put them back without buying them. As we walked around a little more, I thought I should go ahead and buy them since they only had one set left. Unfortunately someone got them before I could get back to that aisle. Ah well. That will teach me to just go with my gut and buy something if I really like it (and can afford it of course).