House Tour: Den Update v2

A while back, when we first moved in, our den had wood paneling. It was 70s fabulous:

We painted it Koi Pond green by Sherwin Williams. It was quite the endeavor. Once finished, we were so pleased and posted it on our house tour.  

 Then, I learned a few things. 1) take pictures of your house in the day so it doesn't look as depressing. 2) those pillows were ugly, and 3) the place needed some re-arranging. So, after a fun Pier-One pillow trip with HIlly, I ended up with:

I blogged about the transformation, and was so pleased to bring in a (free) bench from the garage, left by previous owners, swapped the shelf from the den and office (the open shelves above), and put in place my new pillows. 


Well, obviously I couldn't let it set untouched for another year so when we renovated the kitchen, I made some changes to the den as well. First of all - the wall. If you look above, the wall that has the couch on it (with the pumpkin painting), that wall came down. In its place went a media center:

If you reference the photo above with the one directly above it, its the same angle - the wall is just gone now. When putting in our cabinets, our contractor built in a media center to the back of the kitchen cabinets. With a small den, this was a great space saver and built-ins are always favorable for resale purposes, I think.


In this pic you can also see our new chair, a TJ Maxx steal, blogged about here. We also got two of our prints from our session with Amy Dale printed on Canvas during a Living Social special. 


Another change is our sectional, purchased with CraigsList money, Manny:

Having a sectional has been quite wonderful. I recommend it. Even with our small den, this one fits quite well. 


So, as it stands now, our den that started like this:

from the same angle now looks like this:

And yet, alas, we are not done. That gross carpet? That paneling? That ceiling fan? That narrow door way? Those windows? I have plans for them all. The view from here should be quite different in a few months:

I have plans.


In never being done,

I.Love.Gelato.

We all know YoLo has awesome frozen yogurt. And we all know YoLo just opened in Midtown. Therefore, obvi, I have been going to YoLo a lot more frequently. I expected this would happen. 

What I didn't expect? That I would fall in love with a different frozen concoction. Gelato. Oh dear. It is quite amazing. On a recent trip I had the marscapone flavor and it was heavenly. 

YoLo, you've outdone yourself:

Peace, Love, and Ice Cream,

Get thee to Bojos.

I love antiquing. I love shopping. I love treasure hunting. BoJo's on Summer has (had?) all those things. I have fond memories of rummaging through that store when I was younger with my mom. I have, over the years, gotten quite a many thing from BoJos. And so when I heard they were shutting their doors on May 31st of this year, I was quite devastated. 

 

 Random table I thought was fun in Bojos this week.

So, of course, I had to pay my respects this past weekend. I dropped in for a walk-through, not really expecting to buy anything. But, of course, I did. Because that is how BoJos is. You find something you have to have. So I got these cute Pyrex dishes, which have already been put to use:

Bojos, we've had some good years. I will miss getting lost in your aisles of junk and treasure. I'll miss your giant bar for sale with a lifesize Dolly Parton cut out that has never sold, I'll miss your section of throwback toys like the Little People, I'll miss your birds...I'll miss those treasure hunts. Summer Avenue won't be the same. 
 

A Pet Post.

So I may be a little like a crazy pet lady, but since having my new iphone, I have taken crazy amounts of photos of my guys. I happen to think they are pretty durn cute and thought I'd share their antics:


Sebastian enjoying my new pillows - not exactly how I intended they be used:

Speaking of intended use, this is how Sebastian spends many an afternoon:

Tuesday night was spent with tornadoes and foul weather, so we ate dinner in the hallway with all the doors shut. Beamer practices very good restraint with the pizza right within his reach. What a good boy:

 While Beamer was eyeing the pizza lustfully, Tyson was seeking shelter of his own from the storm, in the form of his bed, which is also known as the sink. Yet, he still wanted to be able to see us, so this is how he decided to lounge:

We got Tyson because he was orange (priorities in life) and we have an orange futon in our office. This created some orange on orange action as Tyson napped on the futon:

Lastly, on Sunday I cooked mac and cheese and green beans for an Easter celebration. This guy was with me the whole time, watching carefully. My kitchen helper:

If loving your pets like children is wrong, I don't want to be right.

We are SO from Memphis.

Jake and I love a good sausage cheese plate. A multitude of restaurants in Memphis have one, the best being Huey's and the Rendezvous. The other night for dinner we were craving a S-C-Plate and decided to make our own:

 A great meal idea for a night worthy of lounging on the back patio. You know you want to try and make this!

Kitchen Renovation: The Reveal.

Well, minus one piece of stainless steel (I'll explain that later), it is done. 

We started with this:

And ended up with this:

 Took this:

 To this:

A few other shots:

 Above you can see the structural changes we did - there was a wall where the large island is now. Also you can see that we took the header between the two rooms of the kitchen and raised it about 6 inches and took the sides of the "doorway" between the two rooms completely away. 

 The view from the other side - this shows the contrast between what we've done (the kitchen) and what we are going to do (the den). Where the back door is now, there will be a window and corner banquette seating. The windows to the left will be french doors. The nasty paneling will be taken down, the den dry-walled and painted the same color as the kitchen, and the trim painted white to match the kitchen. 

 My pantry door, painted with chalkboard paint. We use it to make our "menu" for the week.

 Our contractor custom built an end bookshelf for all of our cooking magazines and books. The sideboard in the background is from an estate sale (a birthday gift) and the art above it is from etsy - seller Erin's Modern Art. 

I love my counters and sink - I love how it is "seamless" between the two. 

 Another angle of the room, standing at the current back door - you can see our new island, where the den wall was - you can see the contrast between the "old" (den) and "new" (kitchen). 

 Oh yes - that one piece of stainless that stands between us and a finished kitchen is right here, on the side of the stove. We bought a slide in for a different arrangement of the kitchen, so we had to improvise. I love the subway tile going to the ceiling here, love the range hood, love the brackets on the microwave shelf our contractor built for us. 

 I had a major trip to IKEA and got some accessories for the kitchen, including these bars and hanging dealies. I would like to grow herbs inside them but need to figure out the logistics. 

 Another IKEA purchase, spice jars on a magnetic strip. Also from IKEA, the baskets under the sideboard, which fit perfectly. 


And just for fun, one last look at the kitchen as it was when we moved in (with Jake walking through the night it became ours):

And now:

Want to know where we got some of the stuff for our kitchen? Go here.

And here, a step by step photographic experience through the process!

Exterior: Door Ideas

Along with dreaming about posts instead of wrought iron, I can't help by get ahead of myself and picture the house sans wrought iron front door. I mean if you're de-wrought ironing the front, the door has to go too, right?

I have been thinking about what style of door I'd replace it with. I am in love with colored front doors and also want something a little more classy. 

I gathered some pictures from the interwebs and put together this inspiration board:

 After a short amount of research (the unofficial, google image searching, couch sitting kind), I think I want a kiwi colored front door (like the two top ones) in the style of either the bottom left or top right. 

One thing I've been wondering about... I have always had a security door on my house. I have looked on my street and it is about 50/50 as to whether there is a security door or not. These cute doors just don't look as cute with a security door in front of them. What's a girl to do? Is it an essential?

Dreaming and Wishing and Hoping and Thinking,

The one where I admit East Memphis has something I like.

We all know I'm a Midtown gal through and through. Occasionally I do venture to East Memphis, though, and grocery trips are one of those times. See, Midtown just gets the shaft when it comes to grocery choices. Schnuck's on Union is small, crowded, usually picked over, overpriced, and has a parking lot that is panic attack inducing (like the time I had owned my car for less than two months and a woman ran into the front of it....). Kroger on Poplar and Cleveland leaves a lot to be desired, Piggly Wiggly is now Cash Saver and so as you can imagine, not too much high-end type things going on there, and there's no way I'm shelling out for Miss Cordelia's on the Island. 


So East Memphis groceries it is! I plan my trips well so we don't have to go often but when we do, we try to go out to the Kroger on Mendenhall because it is NICE. So off we went to Kroger. 


Well this was our first trip after their big renovation was completed and I just had to share something - Jake was in heaven:

 Way to go, Kroger. We've seen this at World Market and Fresh Market but never at plain ole' Kroger until now. Jake created himself a six-pack of obscure beer and was a happy guy. 


A win for East Memphis (now can Overton Square get a grocery store that is decent?!),

Art Watch.

There's a guy that blogs about urban art around Memphis called the Weeden Arts Watch. He works for the Urban Arts Commission and it is always cool to see what kind of art is going up around Memphis. 


So, in the spirit of things, I bring you my own arts watch. This one focuses on art going up around my house. 


First up - I finally got these four panels put up in the kitchen. I got them from etsy from Erin's Modern Art. I love them and how they incorporate the colors of my kitchen:

Next I have two wooden painted floral pieces I got super on sale at Pottery Barn Kids. I put them up in the front hallway:

I love that they incorporate the color of the hallway with the colors that I am going to use in the guest room (when I get to that). 


Lastly, I took the art piece that was in that spot and spruced it up a bit:

I got it at Cooper Young Fest last year and love it - but I didn't love the frame. The whitewashed look just didn't pop with my walls so I took some craft paint and painted the frame black. It looks much more to my liking now. Just gotta find a place to put it! My walls are very full these days. 


I love collecting unique art pieces here and there, building a collection a bit at a time. I may have reached my max on art for a while, as my walls are very full. This may be a good thing for my wallet!!


In art and all things cultured,