Quiet Time

By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me-a prayer to the God of my life. Psalm 42:8

Wonderful Weekend For A Wedding

Excuse me, I will be away celebrating my brother's upcoming wedding this weekend. I hope your weekend is just as special.

Image Bobette & Belle as seen in House & Home

Vision In White

I need this dress.

If you need a white macrame dress too you can find it here.

Morning Snack

This image in House & Home grabbed me. Usually I like color but the structure of this setup is appealing...Kim Price Landscape Design

Classic Beauty

I love how interesting without being flashy this room is, especially the floor...So many great details- the ceiling, the rug, the sink, the book. Once again, all beautiful in a quiet way. I could live here.

Images Sheila Bridges, Elle Decor

The Nursery: Looking Up

Originally I wanted to wallpaper the whole nursery, which I have not completely ruled out, but most recently I have been pondering just doing the ceiling. The first samples are in and I am not sure what to think....There are several I really like but they all have their own problems: too large of scale (not that that would stop me), too dark on low ceilings (probably would not stop me either), big price tags for this purpose (okay this one might be a deal breaker). There are still some more on the way, I will let you know when those arrive. Here are some more that did not make the cut for this project but I do love them...

Especially this one. Beaded, metallic paper? Yes please, you need to be used in a client's home or my future home...

View from the floor looking up...

PS- Thank you for the birthday wishes, y'all are too sweet.

Quiet Time

How precious did that Grace appear, the hour I first believed. -Amazing Grace

Hello 30, I Have Been Expecting You

Tomorrow I turn the big 3-0 and that is just fine by me. I started this decade of my life as a junior in college and I end it in such a different place it is crazy to think about. Looking back: There was the last year of college and graduation which seems like a lifetime ago. Somewhere in there I called a lot of places home: Oxford, MS, New York, Destin, Vail and Memphis before landing here in the 'Ham for the last 5 years. I was lucky enough to start dating Patrick at 22 and we made it through a lot (very long distances at times) but we have had so much fun together through it all. There was a lot of travel, most to see friends around the country, some more exotic-Africa, Chile a few times including Patagonia and Peru. After moving to Birmingham and working for the best mentor, life brought me my next big adventure- starting my own company. Who would have thought something could be so hard and yet insanely rewarding at the same time. I don't think the past decade could have possibly been more fun or exciting. It has been a wild 10 years and one of the best parts has been the friends I have made along the way. (I had plans to post a series of pictures throughout the years but that would involve more scanning than this girl has time for at the moment)

But as my ole pal Tom Petty says, "It is time to move on, time to get going, what lies ahead I have no way of knowing". My 20's have ended with a very settled and happy exsistence and I look forward to continuing that into my 30's. I love our little house, our quaint neighborhood and our easy going ways and routines. I can't believe how far the business has come and I can't wait to see where it goes. I spent the majority of my 20's with Patrick and I can't wait to spend next decade (plus) with him. And last but not least I can't wait for the changes that are awaiting us come the end of August....

So come on 30, I have been ready for you for a while now. Thank you 20's, you leave me feeling so blessed and very grateful.

Love The One You're With- Velvet & Linen

If you have ever read Brooke Giannetti's blog Velvet & Linen, then you know it would be easy to love her whole house! I could spend hours on this blog. I am currently trying to figure out a way to make her weekend home below my permanent home!I'm so excited to be participating in Marianne's series "Love The One You're With"! Our kitchen in our weekend home in Oxnard is a great example of how we turned a room that we really didn't like into a room we love without completely pulling it apart.

This is what our kitchen looked like the first time we saw it (that's our realtor in the kitchen). Although I loved the fact that the kitchen was open to the main living space, I wasn't a big fan of the dark brown cabinets and counter tops.

Here is our kitchen after. We replaced a couple of the upper cabinet faces with inexpensive doors with chicken wire. We also added inexpensive Restoration Hardware knobs to give the cabinets a little more detail. The most dramatic change occurred when we painted the entire kitchen Farrow and Ball "Hardwick White".

In the second stage, we removed the stainless steel hood over the stove (I kept hitting my head on it!). A decorative grill now covers the vent and still does a great job in keeping my kitchen smoke free.

I usually like to use pendant lights over my kitchen island, but the ceilings were too low. Instead, we used table lamps on the island. We drilled holes through the counter for the wires and connected them to a switch on the side of the island.
Now that we have made these changes, I'm definitely loving the one I'm with :)

Thank you Marianne for letting me share my kitchen with all of your readers!

xo,

Brooke

Thank you Brooke, job well done as always! I love how you made the lamps work on the island!

Reader Nursery

I love when readers send me pictures of their rooms and recently I opened my mailbox to find a gem. Of course I am always looking for nursery inspiration these days but to have one this cute delivered right to me was such a treat! The owners did almost the whole thing by themselves with LOTS of paint and it really paid off. Thank you Angie, I know Evie is loving her new home!!!!

Memorial Day

I wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who is serving or has served our country so unselfishly, especially those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. I debated posting this video since it is not the typical content you come to a blog for, but I think it is a great reminder for today.

Quiet Time

As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. Ecclesiastes 11:5