Are You In?

Added myself to the directory for North Carolina style blogs over on Effortless Style. So excited to be meeting new readers!

Turkey Day

 

We had a lovely turkey day in western NC.  Now the countdown begins to Christmas and a much-anticipated trip to California.

We're also getting our first-ever REAL Christmas tree this year.  We've always lived in apartments and last year, the first year in our house, we went to Costa Rica in mid-December so it seemed a little silly to have the tree sit unappreciated in the house.  I don't do fake trees, not only do they lack the lovely smell but they are also terribly eco-unfriendly.  That said, I do love a white tree:

via bestparty-ideas.com

I'm a Magazine Junkie

I can't get enough of magazines. The small joy of opening the mailbox a few times a month and finding glossy, shiny pages makes the dreary days of fall and winter more bearable.

Here's what's currently in my rotation:

 I've always thought of BH & G as an "old lady" mag, kind of on par with FIRST: For Women (only slightly kidding).  But it has some cute stuff and ideas for decor that are a bit more down to earth (read: cheap.)

I love her recipes and she often has cute styling.

Esquire has some fun lifestyle pieces with a male slant, obviously. I think this comes to Jake, technically, but I read it too.

I never paid for this, in my defense, I think it was found online for free. Truly, it's a pretty sad excuse for a magazine.  They are the worst when it comes to misleading headlines.

The classic. The smell of this magazine takes me back to being a kid for some reason.

Sunset's a regional lifestyle mag for the western US. Makes me miss CA, too.

Again, not sure how I started getting this, but it's fun to see how the other half lives from time to time.

My favorite.  I will gladly pay for Vanity Fair every year.  A staple.

What do you folks read?  How many do you pay for vs. find online for cheap/free?

Coming Back to Life

I've had a hard week. A cold knocked me on my bum there for a few days and I'm finally coming back to life today.

What I am working on?  Finishing painting the quarter rounds!  Tape, caulk, paint, repeat.

It's such an improvement but a tedious job!

In other news, we finally finished the bath vanity. Jake hooked up the plumbing this morning and we have a working sink again!   He also attached the hardware last weekend while I was at camp.

I think the gray stripes are going to go. The white paint makes the tiles look yellow, which they are not.  I'm thinking a soft gray might be nicer.

A book to consider

This book of palms looks lovely. TASCHEN books, as a whole, are quite well-done and their price tag reflects that. At nearly $100, it's a little steep but the frameable art possibilities, if you can bring yourself to destroy the book, are endless.

Also, do enter the giveaway at The Long and Short of It.   It's a $35 CSN giveaway!

JCrew Brides

JCrew is hitting the bridal market hard. They have a wide selection of dresses now, although I find them pretty overpriced and blah, for the most part. They stick more glitter and sequins on t-shirts over there than the bridal wear. 

Though, this is lovely:

I also like this, though on my figure I'd look twice as wide:

And what's up with this pose?  This bride looks like she needs a good steak and a couple hours of sun.

Would you buy a JCrew dress? 

Stoned

Yay! Granite's here. The plumbing is just for show right now but we finally got the granite installed on the new hall bath vanity.

I still need to add the cabinet hardware (I'd show them, but they don't seem to be pictured online anywhere).
Hopefully we'll be up and running this weekend and I can add some finishing touches, paint touch up and the like.

I had to stand in the bathtub to take this shot. It's a small room!

Aminal Print

Finally ordered some of the Tazo print for the headboard re-upholstery project I have no business spending money on. After this, I'm calling the guest BR done. I swear. Really. If anyone needs an upholsterer rec for North Carolina, I'm happy to pass along who I use. They pick up/drop off which is a huge plus and the prices seem pretty fair.

Because I'm obsessed with printed pillows right now, here are three more Etsy finds that I love:

Be Still Shop

TrendyPillows

Turquoise Tumbleweed

Granite

Today, the granite people come to install the top for the hall bath. Yeah!  I chose Luna Pearl:

And this is the new faucet, Moen Caldwell in chrome:

After this, projects will need to be slowed a bit, with the holidays coming, the collective wallet of this household has taken a hit.  Boo :(

Friday Link Roundup

I've been making slow progress on painting baseboards so I don't have a lot to share this week.


Instead, let's talk awesome stuff on the internet:

• These are some of the coolest, neatest, most creative homemade Halloween costumes I've ever seen.
• Painting the inside/sides of dresser drawers is pretty zingy!
• Love these exterior paint colors from YoungHouseLove.

This Anthropologie chinoiserie bed, sadly no longer available, rocks my socks.  Though, those little extra legs are kinda weird, I guess you'd need a skirt to hide them.

Three Charming Things

 Loving this $10 sailor tee from Old Navy

Every item from Plum Cushion's Etsy store is great.

 

This soup from Trader Joes.  I add my own shrimp - the won tons included are just OK.

CraigsEasy

I've been searching for a visual tool to make searching on Craiglist easy. You'd think it would have been invented a million years ago, but every tool I found didn't work so well or seemed to be defunct.

My dining chairs are one of my favorite CL finds

In comes CraigsEasy, an app you add to your toolbar that lets you convert a Craigslist search into easy-to-see image searches!  Hooray, my prayers have been answered!  Now I can search to my little hearts content without having to guess what lies behind each poorly-written headline.


The app is a tiny bit tricky.  Install it on your browser, run a CL search as you normally would, then hit the "easy" button and it rearranges your search, photos first!

My CL sofa

Thanks to this post on Three Men and a Lady alerting me to this super-duper resource!