Black Houses

Would you ever consider living in a black house?

Deco | Norway

There is a black barn that we pass on the way to board our dog and it is so striking. Whenever I see it I am caught off guard by how much I love it.

Apartment Therapy

Unfortunately I don't have a picture of it but these images have a similar feel.

JJ DeSouza

The Style Files

House and Home

Not just any house could handle black but in the right setting I think it is really beautiful. What do you think?

Turkish Bath Towels

When I was looking for images for this post, I kept coming across images of Turkish bath towels.

Domino

I have seen these popping up everywhere lately. They are supposedly super absorbent but also very light weight. Since they are usually oversized they are often used as a beach towel. I love the stripes and the fringe.

Bath Style 

Via Apartment Therapy

West Elm

I think I am going to order a few for the beach this summer and maybe a couple of the West Elm hand towels for our guest bathroom. Have you tried these before? What do you think?

Backlog

We travelled almost the entire month of March and a little bit in April too. I only pulled out my camera a few times but I finally downloaded my photos so I am just going to dump them all out in this post. On one of our trips, we had the opportunity to visit with our sweet nephews in Connecticut. Paul's brother and his wife are always the best hosts and we had such a great time making cookies, going to the museum and eating incredible meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Our nephews are both within a 6 month range of our girls so it is fun to get the kids together and watch their interactions. Riley and Baird are so sweet together.

However, I am not sure if Garrett thinks Hayes is very sweet after she tried to gouge his eyes out a couple of times. 

I am sure he will get her back one of these days.

After Connecticut we spent a weekend in North Carolina visiting with my family. We have a family friend who is a firewoman in Carborro and she offered to give Riley a tour of the fire station. 

It was actually really fun for the adults too. Thanks for the tour, Christina! 

Now that we are back in town for a while I will hopefully have time to start some new projects to share with y'all soon. Have a great Monday!

Gold Flatware

After posting the image below in a recent post,

I received a few questions about my gold flatware.

I found it at an antique mall and have become rather obsessed with it.

The set consists of 12 place settings plus a few serving pieces.

 If any of you are fellow thrifters, you know that most of the time if you snooze, you lose. In the past my indecisiveness has cost me a few good finds so most of the time if I see something I like, I go ahead and snatch it up. But in this case I actually showed some restraint and did not purchase the flatware the first time I saw it. Every time I went to the antique mall I would stroll by and visit the flatware and debate over whether or not to buy it.

Finally, after seeing images like these,

 Sitting in a Tree Events 

Christopher Baker | Real Simple Magazine

Sketch42 | Rue Magazine

Martha Angus

Adore Home Magazine

I knew I had to have it. I practically sprinted to the antique mall and couldn't believe my luck when I saw that it had been marked down an additional 30%!

I am not sure if the joy of scoring a great deal outweighs the potential pain of losing an item that I passed up the first time, but it felt pretty good! I guess sometimes patience really does pay off.

Would you rather

have clean and classic white towels 

Unknown

Nate Berkus

DecorPad

or bright and bold colorful towels in your bathroom? 

DecorPad

Via I Suwannee

Better Homes and Gardens

Mini-Makeover

I did a little mini-makeover on our living room recently. I had the room painted a crisp white and decided to go bright and bold with the fabrics while leaving all of the existing furniture.

I can not get over how painting the room white has actually made the space feel more colorful. I plan to eventually swap out the gallery wall photos for some sort of artwork but I haven't come across the right piece yet. Once I find it I think this room will actually feel finished - at least for a little while!

Retail Therapy

I have recently decided to try my hand at the retail side of things. 

I opened a booth at a little store downtown and officially moved everything in last Saturday.

I have no idea how this new adventure will go but I figure, if nothing else, it has been therapuetic to find a place to put all of the furniture I tend to collect in my house.

If you are local, stop by the Queen City Marketplace and let me know what you think! And buy something while your there!

Scenes from the Weekend

 

 Ours was great! How was yours?

CHANGES

For those of you that read this blog on my actual website you can see that there are some changes going on around here. (If you follow me through Google Reader things probably look the same but you can click through to my site if you are curious.)

I am working on rebranding my business and it is about to kill me! I don't know why I don't just hire someone to take over this sort of thing for me. But because I didn't, it is going to take a while for me to sort everything out so please ignore any formating/font/technical issues that you may see over the next few days! 

And because I hate pictureless posts, here is one of Hayes in the swing last week.

Whenever she pitches a fit I take her outside and swing her for a few minutes and her whole mood changes. I wish that worked for adults :)

Would you rather

go with a tufted 

Elle Decor

Sofa Liljevalch - Svenskt Tenn

Veranda

or not tufted sofa?

Ruthie Somers

Lilly Bunn Weekes

Lonny