"Carolina Reds"

courtesy of Garden & Gun magazine - yes this is a real magazine!

This is my brother. Holding a fish. Sticking his tongue out. He loves to fish. If you couldn't tell!

I've never completely understood his love for fishing. Me - I've always been more of a girly girl. (Which truthfully I think he's found annoying over the years.) I'm more about lounging on a float than I am reeling in the big one. But fishing is his thing!

My brother and his family have recently moved down to Charleston SC and they are loving the Lowcountry life! And what's not to love?? It's gorgeous countryside, amazing history, and lots of fun things to do!

But I think the #1 on my brother's list of "Why live in Charleston" would be the fishing. More specifically the red fishing. With his fishing has come an unlikely but super cool event... He has been featured in a documentary that follows three anglers across the marshes of the South Carolina Low Country. Check out the trailer!! After just seeing this little bit of the film - I'm beginning to understand this "love" my brother has! Check out the write up in Garden & Gun. (yes that is the name of a magazine published here in the South.)

I am super excited to go to see the full film along with 10 other fly fishing documentaries when it comes to town on March 17th. To see if they are Fly Fishing Film tour is making a stop near you - check this out. The films locale range from Alaska to Australia, but I have to say I'll be waiting for the one filmed in our neck of the woods.

So if you happen to attend the Charlotte screening and you hear some crazy woman squealing - that will be me! What?!?! It's my big brother - it's pretty cool!!

Winter Beach Weekend

photo from 2010 winter storm in Myrtle Beach

A group of us girls are heading to the beach this weekend! I love a girls getaway - a great time to re-charge with good friends! This is our 4th year going together in February. It's a really rigorous weekend! There's lots of eating, and then there's sleeping, and then you have to have a snack after you nap, and then maybe a little book reading, which leads to another nap, and the cycle continues.

We split up the meals so you only have to worry about cooking one meal each. I'm in charge of breakfast. I'm thinking of trying PW's Breakfast Casserole... Looks pretty good right?!?!

I hope y'all have a wonderful weekend!! Are you doing lots of projects or will you also be doing the lazy day option?? Either way - enjoy!!

A Valentine's Surprise

Friday I came home to a sweet surprise at my door! My friend Shannon had dropped off a Valentine's gift!

Check it out...

Uber cute, right!?! And there was CHOCOLATE! The gift combined all the things a good Valentine's present should... something home made, something to eat, something to wear and something to share.

She gave me "coupons" to cash in. Super cute idea!!

And how sweet of her to think of Joe as well - gum! You always need fresh breath @ Valentines!

And how sweet are these socks! It's been a long time that I've had a sweet surprise at my door. Thanks so much Shannon!

And Happy Valentine's to all of you as well!!

Date Night

Joe and I celebrated Valentine's last night with a fun date night out on the town. The snow was coming down but we didn't let that keep us from our date! A friend had brought the Charlotte Folk Society to my attention. On the second Friday of every month they have a free concert event. Last night was Master Piedmont Bluesman, John Dee Holeman.

For more info on Mr. Holeman, check this out.

The concert was at the Great Aunt Stella Center in uptown Charlotte. We have never been to this venue before but it was so cool! An awesome environment for a quaint evening of music! Here's Mr Holeman singin' the blues...

And some pictures of the venue... How cool would it be to see Dave Matthews or Sugarland in a small venue like this!! It reminds me of the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. I love finding new spots in our city!

After the concert, we headed out for some tapas and wine. We checked out a new spot called, Yn. That's pronounced -wine- We both did a flight of wines. That's where you have a small sampling (2.5 oz) of 3 different wines. They provide a info sheet with each flight so you know what you're trying and what characteristics each one has.

The interior of the restaurant was pretty cool. It's in a very small space with very few windows, and low ceiling. But they have totally run with that and have made it feel like you're in a basement pub. The colors are very warm and cozy. The lobby/lounge area has copper gas lanterns that adds a cozy touch. The bar top is a hammered brass as well. There are lots of timbers, and warm wood tones. The wall colors range from burnt oranges and mossy greens.

I didn't want to look like a total dork taking pictures while sipping on my vino... but I did happen to take my camera to the restroom. Don't you love checking out the bathrooms in the restaurants - or wait maybe that's just me. But I will say I found something cool in there!

Check out that sink! Funky right?!? I can't decide if I love it or not so much?? The concept is really cool but the stark white is throwing me off. And it also gives the look of a smiley face. Do you see if or did I have too much wine?

And I do have to say... check out the flooring. Yes that is very 50's right? My grandparent's put these floors in their home they built . So hey Aunt Mark - your floors are chic!

We had an awesome date night! The concert was fun, the food was yummy, the wine was tasty but the company was beyond compare!!

Love you babe!

Be our guest...

Sorry for the delay in our tour. Funny how life gets in the way of blogging!

So here's our guest room. I don't have a before on this one so we'll just be seeing the present.

I wanted the walls in this room to be the color of a Tiffany box. I think we hit the nail on the head!

The room consists of a good many "hand-me-downs." The iron bed has been in the family for years. One of the side tables is actually my sewing machine, you know the old school kind that's set-in a table. The dressing table was in my bedroom growing up. My mom surprised me a few years ago by having it re-finished. The dresser (which I neglected to photograph) is from Joe's room growing up. We've painted it and replace knobs, etc.

The artwork is done by moi. Yes such talent. I saw an ad in a magazines years ago that had a piece of artwork very similar. And once again, I thought I could do something similar myself!


I actually used the wall paint for the blue so it would go nicely. The brown paint was left over paint from the first color we painted the living room. The canvas was given to me by my mom. So Artwork = $0.00 Love it!!

Once I had decided on the wall color I wanted a punch of color and pattern so off we went to the fabric store. And this is what we found.

I wanted to do one long continuous pillow. So since the fabric was 54" wide, we used that for our width and then a half yard of fabric and we had a super cute accent pillow. We used an old white sheet (actually a hand me down sheet from my grandparents - it's so soft) for the back of the pillow and existing stuffing from old throw pillow and ta-da!! Accent pillow $15.00! And just so I give props where props are due - Joe did the sewing on this bessy! He's much better with the sewing machine than I am. Sad but true!

And there you have it. Our little guest suite for the very few over night guests we entertain.

So who wants to come spend the night??? Joe will make us a mean breakfast in the a.m.!!

Dining Room

I don't know if I could have eaten in this dining room like it was originally. This room was filled to the brim with STUFF! And check out that picture of Joe - he looks so young!! Sorry back to the room. This room had the pine paneling just like the kitchen, which I felt had to go.

And another view. (that's our real estate agent) Check out the dishwasher that had to be rolled over to the sink to be used. Wowzers!

Okay that's enough of that - now on to the present...

I love the corner cabinet, it was a hand me down from my Dad's side of the family. The bowed front adds a classic and clean lines. I am working on a new look for the table and chairs. Another hand me down from family. A project to come, we'll discuss that more later!

In this shot you can see how the dining room and kitchen connect.

We don't use this space as often as we should. Definitely for dinner parties and such but we end up eating dinner in front of the good ol' TV.

Here's what I want to work on in this room:

New light fixture - I've been eyeing some drum fixtures or maybe this cool one from West Elm?

New window treatments - just simple panels

Re-vamp chairs and table - the new chairs have a bamboo look to them straight out of the 70's

This is a real close example of what they look like:

I think they'll be totally retro cool with a fresh coat of paint. What color paint is still out for discussion... Any projects on the horizon for you? Isn't there always something on the list. What would we do without a list? (Probably make our husbands happier!)

The Den

Back to our previously scheduled program - the Tour of the House - before and after. We've moved into the den, which used to be the master bedroom. The previous owner used it as the master as well. It's a nice sized room with 2 closets. So I know you are wondering why on earth would I give up a his and hers closet for the den. Well we didn't exactly give up the closet. My clothes still live in the den and Joe has the closest in our room. We used the 2nd closet to actually house the TV. That way it doesn't take up any floor space in the actual room.

We are loving having the den in here. This is the room we spend most of our time in.

So moving on to the reveal, here's the previous owners' space:


And the now:



This is pretty much the same angle as the first picture. I LOVE the color in this room. It's called "Midnight Pool." It creates a very cozy feel and it really pulls the color out of the art work and the sofa.

Isn't the "8 ball" lamp fun! Another gift from a friend - hey what can I say - I have the best friends!! Speaking of, have you gotten any great gifts from friends you would like to brag about?? We would love to hear about them.

Old and Improved

You may be wondering how my little project is going... Well she's done!!

A little reminder of what she looked like before:

And for the grand reveal:

I know! She doesn't even look like the same chest, huh?!?! I love paint! And some sleek IKEA hardware goes a long way too!!

She's in her new home.


Pretty sweet!

Have you done a redo recently? Would love to hear about it!!

The heart of the home

We love to cook - as you can probably can tell by the name of our blog. Joe is a chef so he is used to being in the kitchen. Now our kitchen is not anywhere close to a professional restaurant kitchen, and of course if the budget were unlimited we would totally re-design, add a gas stove, etc. But all in all, we really enjoy cooking in this kitchen. For a small house we have a nice size space and it's great for 2 people to cook at the same time. Joe even mentioned the other day how he like that we use restaurant lingo - like "on your left," "behind," "knife in the sink." It makes us both chuckle.

But moving along to the lovely before:

Can you say "HELLO PINE" geez! That's a lot of orange stained wood! I know a lot of peeps out there cannot believe we painted over all that wood, but we had to! It was serious. You have to agree with that!

There were a good many "issues" with this space in the beginning. The avocado refrigerator was first to go. There were thoughts that maybe we could live a little while with it, but upon further inspection there was no way! It had lived a nice LONG life and I really didn't want to put my food in there. So we got super lucky and found an "over-under" in the scratch and dent area of a local appliance store. So for $600 we scored this super sweet fridge. And we love having the fridge up top!

Then the counter tops added to the "orange" theme that we just weren't feeling. It wasn't in the budget to replace them, so in comes our good friend: PAINT! We started with them being silver and then a few years later, we changed them to black. Needless to say I would love to change them out and eventually but for now it works!

So we lived with the wooden cabinets for a few years and then took the plunge on painting them white. I love white cabinets - something about a white kitchen with dark counter tops just floats my boat! I found the new pulls at Habitat Re-Store for $0.25 each and just gave the hinges a cleaning and a fresh coat of black paint.

Isn't so much more fresh and light!! We also installed a dishwasher on the left of the sink. That has been one of the most amazing additions! YEAH! No more dishpan hands

We also put new flooring in. We went with VCT (vinyl composite tile.) These were super easy to install and they had held up really well. And much less expensive than ceramic tile. The overhead fluorescent light fixture had to go as well. The replacement was from IKEA - a nice sleek halogen that has 5 direct lights that can focus on each work space.

For the back splash I wanted to add some different color and make it feel more like a true back splash instead of just more paneling. We took roof flashing that just happened to fit perfectly(don't you love it when a plan falls together) between the small counter top back splash and the bottom of the cabinets. We used roofing nails to attach the flashing to the walls.

Really happy how this came out!!

The kitchen is large that we were able to add another whole cabinet on the left side of the kitchen. This piece came out of my childhood home. It had the same hinges and knobs - once again another coat of paint and she's gorgeous! On this piece we were blessed to have a good friend install a lovely piece of granite for the counter top. This is our baking space.

Check out the awesome pot rack. This is also from my childhood home and even cooler - my grandfather made it for my mom and now we have it! This is an awesome solution for us - I know some people don't like pot racks but it opens up a lot of cabinet space!

So there you have the kitchen. What do you think? Would you have kept the pine? Anyone replace they're own counter tops?

El bano

Here's the most used room in the house. Our bathroom is a small space. Our hope is to do some changes in here this year. Oh the lovely to do list - it's never going to be done, is it?? We haven't made many changes in here other than cosmetic ones.

So the before...

And the after...

We changed out the lighting, painted and added some fluff. But that's about it. Amazing what a little paint can do, huh?

We did very inexpensive frames (like $3.99 each!) and displayed some photos I took in Charleston SC one year.

I love our monogram towels - that was a gift from my Aunt Mark. She made them on her sewing machine just using a thick stitch. Pretty easy breezy and super cute!

A little shelf from IKEA - the back piece was originally white and I painted it the same as the wall color so it would blend away. It's nice to have a small shelf to provide a home for a little lamp. Cool clock, huh? Gift again - from my friend Cindy. Lurve it!

So we are just in the planning stage of what the re-vamp plan will be for this space. I found some bargains the other day at Marshall's that may find a home in here.... decision decisions. I would love to do a major redo like Sherry and John did, but I don't know if we'll be that brave!

Any bathrooms that you just love? Would love any ideas, suggestions, etc. you may have!