Be our Guest!

Today Kelly's Korner's real life home tours is all about guest rooms.  My parents live out of town and visit us about every 2 months.  So, a dedicated guest room was important to me when we built the house.  Of course, we would have given it up if we had a third child, but it turns out we were meant to be a family of four and have a guest room!

My theory of a guest room is to give guests just what they need.  For me that means extra toiletries, including soap, q-tips, cotton balls, and lots of back-up t.p. (who wants to ask for that?!).  I also feel like a phone, charging station, kleenex and a clock are a must.  Other than that, I don't like too much in there.  I say give them a blank space and empty drawers so they can unpack and stay awhile.

Here is our sparse, but comfy guest room.  This is the original Pottery Barn Upholstered Headboard, called "The Lewis." The bedding is all Pottery barn f the same era with pillows purchased ions ago. The art above the bed was made from toilet paper rolls!

The mid-century modern dresser and nightstand were my father in law's in the his mid-century childhood room.  We also have the matching desk and twin beds elsewhere in the house.

Working Women

I am once again linking up with Kelly's Korner and talking about our real house.  This post is about as real as it gets!  Our house stays pretty tidy, but the offices are always filled with projects and papers and, well, office stuff!  I am trying embrace that these things have their own sort of beauty.  I do love the way a stack of art supplies looks--so full of possibilities.

If you read this post yesterday, you saw our masculine, old world office that was meant to be for my husband alone.  In reality, Mamma and girls sort of took over in there too.  Today,  I'm showing you what is supposed to be the girls' work space and art room. In each and every one of those bins are art supplies from paint to sand to sewing notions and do-dads.  This room features a craft table, oodles of storage and tons of Pinterest-worthy clever solutions.........

It is legit always a mess.  I just close the doors and hope guests don't see the piles of unfinished projects on the floor!

I tried to keep all the furniture clear and white to decrease the visual clutter of all the supplies.  It takes a lot of supplies to make all those clever crafts and well-styled soirees!

You can see that the backwall is a chalkboard with a magnetic strip and that there are hooks for backpacks.  I hope one day we actually do homework in here, but we mostly do it at the kitchen table only steps away!

The side wall, featuring the computer and all my cutting supplies, is always the most chaotic.  Notice the photography equipment on the floor! #real

Below is a shot from a day it was actually a bit cleaner.  You can see more about that and how I made the charging station here

Thanks for stopping by to our (100 percent) real home!!!!!

Step into my (husband's) Office

I'm once again linking up with Kelly's Korner and talking about real house.  This is about as real as it gets!  Our house stays pretty tidy, but the offices are always filled with projects and papers and, well, office stuff!  I am trying embrace that these things have their own sort of beauty!

This office was meant for Mr. 31derful (the rest of us have another work space).  If you have been reading here long, you will know that we are both lawyers.  Mr. 31derful occasionally has clients come by at night, and we needed a nice place to sign a last minute document away from the constant crafting!  We also need a place for him to put in late nights.   I wanted an old world law office feel,a and I think I accomplished it.  Fast forward 8 years and the guy didn't stand a chance.  The three ladies have taken control in here despite the best laid plans!

Anyhoo, the office is on the main floor and I love this view every morning.  I wish I could photograph how the light hits those vintage legal-satire prints.

I purchased the rug in Nepal while living there in grad school, the silk pillows were picked up in Thailand, the couch is from my husband's mentor's law office, and the map is of dear husband's 40th birthday sailing trip through the BVI.  There are so many memories in this one spot!

   

The natural light is so strong in this room that we almost never use the lights.  In person it is absolutely lovely, but this is what happens when you photograph the room:

In close ups, you can see more of the desk:

Please excuse the mess on the left--we work here :).   The idea is that two people can work together in this room by pulling up the leather chair,.  Mostly we just quibble over who gets the desk chair.  Everyone wants it at all times!

The center shelves are the one thing that have truly have remained Mr. 31derful's.  We have his own Tommy Tippy baby Cup baby along with mementos from his family.  There is a tin cup earned on the sailingboat that inspired his life-long love of sailing (the ship that launched a 1000 ships!).  Inuit artwork given to hubby from my uncle in Alaska and oodles of artwork from our girls round out the collection.

On the back wall we are lucky to have a signed Norman Rockwell lithograph that was gifted to us .  It actually served as the inspiration for this manly room that was taken over by a gaggle of girls! I guess I made this space a little too warm and comfortable!  

Thanks for visiting our "manly" office!

Pretty in Pink and a Jill and Jill Bathroom

Many thanks to Kelly's Korner for hosting the real house tour; I am having an absolute blast!

Yesterday I showed you a purple room fit for a tween, and now we are moving into little sister's pink palace.  Side note: the actual Pink Palace Museum was my all-time favorite field trip.  If you are in Memphis, you should go there!

You can enter Annabelle's room through the Sister Space Landing or through the Jill and Jill Bathroom, where the pink and purple meet.  The pink and purple rooms have grown nicely with the girls, but I am beginning to wonder if the stripes are a wee bit juvenile.

Here was Annabelle's  room when we first decorated it and here it is today:

Her nightstand is messy, but she makes her bed everyday so I don't complain too much! Notice the under the bed "storage!"

 Her never-ever used chair that I re-painted years ago and had recovered in zoocat fabric.

Here is her dresser.  It is not Ikea, even though it looks like it.  Rather, it is actually some 

dated-but-good modular furniture from my in-laws. 

 I do want to do a hack and add some gold and acrylic handles to bring it up to date! 

I am not going to lie--this is what it looks like when it is "clean" :)

Other than a sweet roll-top desk that is WAY too messy for the internet, that's all folks!  Thanks for stopping by!

Sister Space!

Kelly's Korner (a blog that I have been reading for almost 8 years) is hosting a real house tour and I am playing along!  Today is all about kids' rooms.  The two doorways that you see lead to my kids' rooms and this is their Sister Space!  When you approach the top of the stairs, you have clearly entered their zone.

 A painting of two sweet sisters welcomes you at the top of the stairs!

 If you turn to the right you will see the girls sitting area.

The collage is made up of things that are special to each girl.  Each of them got a lovely at birth.  Naomi's was an elephant while Annabelle's was a hippo.  These have remained their "assigned" animals their whole lives--when I saw the ceramic animals heads, I knew they had to be ours.  There are fun quotes that mean something to each girl near her room,and then there  are Mickey Mouse heads that we each drew on a trip to the Disney Animation Studio.

Turning further to the right, you can see our book nook.  We love reading and move books down to the basement about once a year.  What is up here now are lots of mid-level chapter books that Naomi has already read, but wants to read again or that Annabelle hasn't gotten to yet.  

We finally wise up and started sending Naomi to the library for her voracious appetite for books; it was just getting too expensive!  You will notice that we still have a lot of picture books on our shelves too.  I know some people pride themselves on only reading chapter books after a certain age.  Our kids are both serious readers, but there is just still something about reading a good picture book together  at bedtime.  Some are actually quite challenging.  Some are downright funny to me at almost 40 and all of the ones still on our shelves have special meaning to us.    

You will notice we also have a little stand with some of our favorite literary characters hanging around.  To be fair, we are probably past using these and I could use the shelf space.  Somethings are just hard for the mom.....

Here is one more shot looking towards the stairs.  That is the guest room on the right, so most of the time the sisters rule the roost up here.  This area is the scene of lots of cartwheel practice and board games and I hope it stays that way a long, long time!

Fit for a Tween!

In conjunction with Kelly's Korner, I have been taking you on a tour of our home.  I love this blog hop for the inspiration, but also for so much more.....Like our changing waistlines and hairdos, the way our rooms look in the different eras of our lives explains who were in that moment.  When I look back at my childhood photos and glimpse our 1970's striped couch, it evokes such a strong memory of home.  Then there is the shocking photo from the Halloween I dressed as Tabitha the blue nosed witch; my parents' now-beige home was an exact match for my blue nose!     No room in my house represents this moment in our lives more than our sweet, tween daughter's room.

When we moved to our house, top priority was given to Naomi's room. Annabelle was still a baby, but  Naomi was aware of transitioning to a new house and moving from a crib to a bed shortly thereafter.  I wanted to be just right.  At only 2, she decided to have a purple butterfly room, and then she held fast to the vision the entire year it took to build our house.    8 years later, the purple butterfly room is still going strong ..... only now it has subtly transitioned to a room fit for a tween! Gone is the rocker and in is a reading chair.  My clean, decorator vision has been replaced by her well-curated collection of her own

Please come in.  Here is the door right off Sister Space (read more about that here):

The bed was my mother's when she was a child, and was an antique even then.  It has been every color of the rainbow.  I had it painted white and distressed it when we moved here. 

The bedding is Pottery Barn Teen Circa 2008.

The desk and nightstand were mine in law school-- I had them painted and distressed to match the bed and added the sweet "crystal" knobs.  Here is the tween part--these days that little butterfly dish holds eyeglass wipes, contact solution and an i-phone!  That piece of paper in the background is a nightly prayer she wrote out in Hebrew and English.  It melts my mommy heart! 

Panning around the room is Naomi's reading chair and a poster that the Elementary School made when they named her a distinguished reader.  It is hard to believe she is off to middle school!

Panning even further around, you can see her desk, which will also double as a vanity in the future. Now it is home to her monogrammed laptop (oh where is the time going??).   She earned the Missouri state honor certificate and made the dancing in the rain art herself ! 

She let me leave the old dress-up hook, 

but now it holds a Kate Spade knock-off and a real-deal Vera Bradley.  

Every ballerina needs a bar and mirror to check our her style!

 Here is one last view of the room from the closet.  Thanks for stopping by!

Mom-garitaville- (not-so-many scenes from a soiree)

After a month of having fun with my kiddos,  they have been off to camp for a few weeks.  I haven't exactly made the most of my empty-nest.  I planned to accomplish so, so much more.  I did have time to squeeze in a sweet little soiree.

I invited all my ladies out for "mom-garitas" on the patio.  It was meant to be a casual time to catch up with friends sans kids.  I actually thought maybe 5 people would come, but 22 RSVP'ed!  In one day's time I was able to throw together quite the little party.   It helps when you are a party supply hoarder--it looked like I had planned for weeks.  You will have to trust me because I have no pictures of the set-up.  Whump, whump.  I do have some blurry  pictures of some of my menu items.  They were so delicious and I thought I would share!

We started with these amazing kebabs:

The cute picks are from my Smarty Had a Party.  Thank goodness they are local to me and I could grab on a day's notice!  I simply cube a watermelon and some feta cheese and then skewered them.  I drizzled a vinaigrette that I  made with sriracha, maple syrup, apple cider vinegar and a little EVOO.  I topped it all off with a basil chiffonade  straight from my garden.

Speaking of my garden, I grabbed cucumbers to make these amazeballs Cucumber Margaritas from Tastes Lovey.  I also made Ina Garten's Pineapple Margs, which were sooo yummy.  The whole bar was set up in the most precious way (again, you'll have to trust me :))

We also had a Taco Cart (because it is Taco Tuesday somewhere).  In addition to the usual goodies, I made a huge vat of Shrimp and Avocado Ceviche (it uses cooked shrimp, so not really authentic ceviche).  The recipe can be found here.  Here it is as I was making it, just before adding the avocado:

Finally, I topped off the evening with trays of mini key lime pies:

Maybe one day I will remember to take a picture of all the cute stuff, but really the best part was just chilling with my friends!