:: happy halloween

Happy Halloween dear friends.

Hope your night was as spooktacular as ours.

Here I am cooking & taking care of my baby Jacob.

While my other children are forced to work for candy because they lost their allowances.

What has the world come too when children have to work for their kandy?

When I was a kid we had a thing called Halloween.

All we had to do was say Trick or Treat,

 & the candy would be ours.

My poor poor children.

 

The End....

of another fantastic halloween.

{peace, love & hugs}

p.s. my family in no way thinks homelessness or joblessness is funny, 

this is simply our modern day attempt at hobo costumes.

:: she's a brick

She's a brick----house
Mighty might just lettin' it all hang out
She's a brick----house
The lady's stacked and that's a fact,
ain't holding nothing back.

-THE COMMODORES

Okay guys, I have brick on my mind this morning.

While I was gone away this weekend our refrigerator decided to pop a leak.

Our pretty wood floors that were entirely refinished only years ago due to extensive water damage,

are once again ruined....me thinks we aren't meant to have an entire house of wood floors.

Back then we had to completely move out to have floors replaced & refinished,

as our entire main level has hardwood floors & nowhere to stop or end.

Not really sure I'm ready to go through all of that again,

so this time we are thinking of replacing the floors in the kitchen & keeping room.

Still a huge job, but our insurance will pay for the replacement,

and we are thinking of something that can stand up to water this time.

Wood kitchen floors as lovely as they are, are not practical...too many water appliances.

Soooo, the first thing that popped into my mind was brick.

I love the look of old brick floors in a kitchen area.

I had a friend who lived in an old farmhouse & the floors were brick,

way back then I fell in love with them and said I would one day have them in my kitchen.

Well, looks like now's the time...and I'm ready for a nice change.

A little looking around on Pinterest has me stoked about my options.

I'm really loving the herringbone pattern of the floors in the first photo above.

Not sure about the color though, as this is very similar to the brick on our house.

I want a really rustic, maybe a little more brownish brick.

Definitely herringbone patterned though...love it.

Nice to see the brick in a kitchen that has painted cabinets...love the gray.

This is more like our kitchen with the wood finish cabinets.

I really like the look and think the floors will really make the room.

I like that these bricks are really big, again in a herringbone pattern.

I would also love to get the farmstyle sink & fixtures,

and add old planks to the inside of my pantry....how cool.

I love to dream.

This floor is really nice too, and I love the contrast of the white walls with the brick.

That black dutch door is awesome too, I just love everything about this entry.

So, what do you think?

Should we go for it?

What's your favorite flooring option in a kitchen?

I'm really excited to finally after 8 years get to add some unique touches to this house.

{peace, love & hugs}

Carrie

IMAGES 1...2...3...4

:: back to life...

Back to life.....back to reality.....

{lyrics by En Vogue}

can you hear me singing it.

Well, not only am I singing it...I'm living it.

I had a super awesome time this weekend

at the Country Living Fair in Atlanta.
So much to see & so many creative women,
I wish I could have a place like that to go everyday.

Of course coming home sends me crashing into reality,
laundry, cleaning & the like...you know what it's like ladies.
My family did pretty well and several things were done,
but you know they just don't have the Mama touch.
Needless to say, I spent all of yesterday cleaning...
and playing around with some of my great finds.

Here are some pics of my Country Living Fair experience.

You may want to grab a coffee or tea,
I have lots to share.

First....a few pics of me and my girls.

My sweet & talented Mama aka Nana

{from whom I get all of my artistic talent & creativity}

Love you Mama, you're the best.

Then we have my beautiful & equally talented younger sister Tiffany.

Isn't she adorable.....Love you sweet sis ; ).

We had another member too....

I'm not quite sure how she escaped my lens

but I cannot leave her out she's my mother's lifelong best friend 

& my surrogate mother, aunt & friend Debbie....love you too lady.

Now that you have the players...

I'm gonna share some of the goods...

First stop was the Earth Angels tent.

Oh My goodness, what an amazing amount of creative goodness.

This led us to the first purchase of the day,

these beautiful hand sewn corsages/fascinators.

This is the one my sister picked which I absolutely adored,

that's the only thing about shopping with people who love 

the same things you do....they can beat you to the good stuff {ha ha}

I love mine also, it was just a little more subtle & soft.

Too funny, I just realized that they also match our personalities.

She is way more bold than I am...and that's what I love & admire about her.

Okay...can you say sidetracked...

back to the show...

I loved this sheep print, sorry don't remember which booth.

I thought this manni updo was just fabulous.

I love the chicken wire skirt stuffed with book pages.

My Lola is so getting a facelift soon...she WILL be covered in book pages.

We loved these upcycled tin flowers at SASSYTRASH.

She used old mini bunt pans & pie tins...genious.

I managed to pick up a couple of goodies from this booth,

you'll have to stay tuned to see what I do with them.

I know I've told you how much I love snowmen & women...

well these two take the cake, aren't they just amazing.

I love them so much, I wish I could have brought them home with me.

Of course in true creative style...I'm thinking of making my own.

Probably won't ever happen, but a girl can dream.

Well, that's it for me, 

I spent way more time looking & touching than taking photos,

so believe it or not this is all I have to share from the Country Living Fair 2011.

I cannot wait to go back next year, hopefully to Ohio this time.

How amazing is this chair.

LOVE <3

{peace, love & hugs}

Carrie

P.S. come back to see what goodies I purchased & how I'm using them : )

:: my breakfast nook

Welcome to my new breakfast nook.

Well, I'm not quite sure if it really qualifies as a nook,

but that's what I'm calling it anyway.

This is my eat in kitchen which as you can see,

is directly beside of my keeping room.

Anyhoo, I've been nursing a nasty sore throat

all morning with Lemon Ginger tea & lots of honey.

Needless to say, cleaning and getting my house back together

isn't really what I want to be doing today {snuggling in bed would be more like it}.

Instead I'm forcing myself to get this house back together for my family.

I'm leaving Thursday for the Country Living Fair in Atlanta,

and I hate to leave them with a horrible house...no matter how bad I feel.

So anyway, I thought I would snap a photo of the rooms that are actually together.

Hope you are having a wonderful day where you are.

{peace, love & hugs}

Carrie

:: keeping room do-over

I'm so excited to share a sneak peek of my new keeping room with you.

Were you even wondering a little bit about what it might look like?

The changes around here are even bigger than I planned.

Who am I kidding, God made this happen for me...

I never could have made this happen so quickly on my own.

He knew exactly what I needed to lift me up.

It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.

Eph1:11-12 The Message test

The painters finished up around 5:30pm yesterday,

and since then I've been a busy bird getting my nest back together.

Things moved from this room to that to allow the painters to do their thing.

Which also meant a lot of moving back and replacing of said things...I still have piles.

The great thing though is that it gave me a chance to look at my rooms free of any decor,

 and this really helped my ideas flow & got my creaky ol' decorating wheels turning

I am so loving my new spaces...so light & bright...my mood has been instantly transformed.

I really never realized how much my home & color choices could affect my moods.

This new change is going to help me so much this winter, when I usually feel 

the rough affects of SAD {seasonal affective disorder} and depression.

I could just be high from all of the paint fumes, but I really believe

this change is just what I needed to give myself a little boost.

So much purging and organization going on around here.

 I am super motivated to get things back in order.

I feel like I'm living in a brand new home.

I can't wait to share more with you later.

I took the photo above very late this afternoon when the sun

was on the southern side of our house...I never could have done that before.

So a big WOO HOO for Moderate White walls....I love them.

I'll share more details later of how my room came together,

and share more pictures of the newly painted spaces.

Hope you've had a wonderful Saturday too.

{peace, love & hugs}

Carrie

:: flowers & painters

Woo Hoo, it's Friday.

Another quick week has gone by, I can't believe it.

I picked up the flowers above at my farmer's market last Saturday,

and they are still holding up all except the white dahlia's.

I love the green milkweed pods, I think they look so interesting.

I have painters here again today, 

so lots of changes happening around the wren's nest.

The kitchen has been painted...

the keeping room...

the laundry room...

the dining room,

and they are working on the foyer & the kids loft as I type.

That's a lot of painting that would have taken me days...

possibly weeks....thank goodness for professionals.

They finished up the kitchen & the keeping room yesterday,

and everything else they have done & are doing today.

It's so nice to have a freshly painted & cleaned space.

All of this moving things out of the way has gotten me excited

about ridding myself of a lot of clutter & things I no longer love.

My how we accumulate stuff we don't really need.

So, the rest of my day & weekend will be spent getting things

back in order around here. I so needed a fresh start,

and this has been the perfect catalyst.

I'm so excited about my new light & bright spaces.

I can't wait to share them with you.

Happy Weekend!

{peace, love & hugs}

Carrie

:: countertop vignettes

Happy Monday my sweets. Wow, how quickly and busily last week passed. 

I was too busy to get back here to post a thing. 

I spent my one free day {Thursday} cleaning my house, well at least my kitchen. 

I pulled everything off of my counters and piled it on the table & gave everything a good scrubbing.

That's alot of stuff huh. 

I really don't like my kitchen's backsplash, so I always try to hide as much of it as I can. 

Someday we'll invest in a new one I suppose, but there are always more important things to be done. 

I think I'll wait until I decide to do a whole kitchen renovation, 

like painting out the cabinets and I would love to have butcher block countertops. 

It just seems so wasteful when you already have granite....I should be happy with it I suppose.

We always seem to want what we don't have.

I'm in the process of choosing a paint color for the kitchen and adjoining keeping room. 

I've gotten the painting estimates and all I have left to do is decide on my color and give them a call.

Why is it so much easier to make these decisions for someone else's home? 

I have been mulling this over for months now.

I really want to keep my custom curtains,

so I'm trying to find a color that will work well with them.

I have my color choice narrowed down to Sherwin Williams Macadamia shown above, 

and it's lighter counterpart Softer Tan {which I recently used in my clients home & love}. 

I'm so ready for a change, but I'm also scared it will look all wrong when it's done.

I'm kind of afraid that I'll miss my warm bold red walls.

On the other hand....

I'm really looking forward to a lighter brighter space, 

and the illusion of more of it.

Anyhoo, that's what's going on around here, and here's what my countertops look like now.

I just love baskets, and you'll find them all over my kitchen....

anything natural and woven is good in my book. 

I also love vintage goodies too, so you'll see plenty of that as well. 

Most everything in this vignette was found at a Thrift store, minus the lampshade {Target}, 

and the vintage cookbook & wooden mortal & pestle which were both inexpensive antique store finds. 

I just adore my vintage brass lamp with it's cute candlestick look & pull chain switch.

On the left side of my sink & directly behind my island cooktop I have my vintage tool caddy. 

This was a local antique store find which I have had fun filling with vintage wooden utensils.
Will you just look at how clean and shiny my countertops are, wow,

that's a perfect reflection of my vintage look coffee grinder lamp.

So, what do you think about my red walls and new paint choice?

Do you redecorate your countertops very often?

What is your favorite kitchen accessory?

Hope you are having a wonderful Monday : )

{peace, love & hugs}
Carrie

:: master inspiration

I stumbled across this image on pinterest today,

and this is exactly the wall color I want for my master bedroom.

I'm absolutely dying over those walls and that color.

I love that the headboard is brown which mine is also,

and I've been thinking of painting our nightstands/chests

a pretty gray color to match the marble tops.

I never wanted my nightstand to match my bed,

but our bed is so high, and I was playing it so safe back then,

that I just ordered the same one my husband did.

The color of these pieces is perfect....and those lamps.

I adore EVERYTHING about this room,

and now I just need to find out the source for this image

so I can figure out what color that is on the walls.

Unfortunately this was pinned directly from Google,

and I can't find it through any of my searches.

I 've asked the original pinner if she knows,

but if you've seen this room, or know who it belongs to do tell.

I hate to use it without a credit, as this is poor web etiquette,

but I just had to share it today.

Oooh, and I will most certainly paint my vaulted/trey ceilings a lighter shade,

and find a beautiful chandelier to top it all off.

I'm so ready to finish our Master Bedroom.

So many projects, so little time & extra cash ; ).

What rooms are you daydreaming about making over?

Happy Monday!

{peace, love & hugs}

Carrie