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Sunday, February 28, 2010

Back to Blue

Introducing LEE ANN THORNTON

Thank you Lee Ann for your email. Your work is stunning.

Pure Organization Project #8: Tupperware Storage

I have to be honest with you: I'm fading fast on the organization. I'm sorry I never got Mr.Linky up last week & especially sorry that I haven't been able to check out everyone's projects.

Last week was a crazy week for sure, but I'm having trouble seeing how it's going go get any less crazy now that I'm back at work with 2 little ones at home. SO, in the interest of sanity (my own of course ;) I'm taking a teensy chill pill about the Pure Organization. They won't be every week. (There I said it!) I just can't make it all happen right now. There may be 2 in a row and they may be every other week or I may have a good month and get them all in, but I just need to take some pressure off right now. I hope you can understand & since you're all usually extremely sweet, I'm pretty sure you will ;)

But, I do have one for you this week! Organize & purge the tupperware. This one came out of pure necessity. When all of our tupperware was clean & unused, it got to this:

Eeeeeek! No joke. We'd made a bunch of meals & frozen them for when the baby would be born, but when we ate the meals, we had way too much tupperware! (Add that to the inherited tupperware from family who'd dropped off meals.) Anyway, here was our drawer before: lots of the lids and bottoms had no mates...

And here it is now:

Ahhhhh so much better. I ditched all the mateless pieces (recycled them) and put the inherited stuff in a bag to return, and now it's feeling so much better. The key is this:

I kept one of the mateless containers and filled it with all of the lids for easy matching up. Makes it so much easier! Good luck on this one if you join in!!

xoxo,
lauren

weekend fun and more progress

this weekend my best friend stephanie and her boyfriend zach came into town for a visit. before they came into town though, billy and i were working hard to try to get our guest bedroom somewhat put back together. {working full-time doesn’t leave much time for getting my own personal projects completed. that’s why our guest room has taken over a month and a half to complete so far.} we started trying to install the crown moulding weekend before last but ran into a slight complication. it seemed like a pretty simple task. weekend before last i went out and bought the piece of crown moulding that we needed. i measured, marked and billy and i cut. i found out while trying to install it that i marked my angles and cut them while the crown was upside down. when we went to fit it up on the ceiling it was too long and too short in the wrong places. by the time we figured out that i had marked the wood wrong it was too late on sunday evening to start everything over. so, the project went unfinished for yet another week.

saturday morning was mine and billy’s last chance to get the crown moulding installed before steph and zach got into town. we made sure that i had the angles correct this time. we measured, marked and cut again. when it came time for the install all was going well…that is until the guest bed that i was standing on BROKE!!!!! i guess all of the moving we did to my grandmother’s antique bed wasn’t too good for the railing because it literally broke in to. having a functional guest bed in our bedroom for our guests was much more important than getting the crown moulding up. luckily we had an extra bed frame in our storage unit so we were able to disassemble the broken bed and assemble the new one. unfortunately the crown had to wait once again.

once stephanie and zach got here we had a fun day of running around atlanta. they had never toured the sweetwater brewery so we took them down there to taste some good beer and go on the tour. it was so great to visit and catch up with them. they had tickets to a concert last night so billy and i took it easy while they went to their concert. today we all had brunch, and then billy and i got back to work on the guest room.

i am happy to say that the after 2 long weeks of trying to get the crown moulding installed it is finally up!! now i have a little caulking to do to finish it up. well actually lots of caulking to do, but i’m just really happy that i’m one step closer to getting the guest room finished.

i promise that i’m going to post pictures as soon as it’s all complete. i’ll also give a girl’s tutorial on how to install crown moulding.

how was your weekend? anything exciting happen?

LiveJournal Tags: guest bedroom furniture,guest bedroom

Friday, February 26, 2010

Days 3, 4 & 5 of the Better Homes & Gardens Shoot

I thought I'd give you a play-by-play of the last 3 days of the BHG Christmas photo shoot at our house...

The photographer, Helen Norman (above), and her assisant Fj Hughes (below) shot the house on Wednesday and Thursday. They arrived both mornings around 8 AM or so. (Just having had a baby, it's really hard to get going in the mornings: getting a shower & getting dressed sometimes feel near-impossible. Justin was really spit-uppy and I made sure not to carry him over the camera equipment... eeek )

I had so much fun working with them! Helen has a great sense of humor (hysterical) and always made sure that we knew what the next meal would be. (A woman after my own heart! But she made a really good point that when you're on a job like this it's easy to forget about meals and then people get cranky & sloppy from being hungry.) Fj has a 3 yr-old daughter and a 3 month old baby girl, so we had a lot in common.

Below, Fj is holding the coco bead chandelier OUT of the shot. (how sad for my chandy! a bit too wild for BHG I think ;)

Jessica Thomas-the stylist- (below) was amazing. The detail that's put into each & every shot is incredible. Most shots took an hour plus to shoot (some less, some more.) You'd be so surprised at how much thought is put into each shot. And I'm talking about a photo of something as small as a Christmas ornament or a plate of cookies. They made sure everything was perfect. No unsightly tree lights or wires showing, etc. It was awesome to watch. A very precarious cookie kept falling over in one shot and we all had to stand perfectly still so as not to move the floor at all. The sunlight kept going in and out of the clouds and Helen had to shoot at just the right time as Fj watched the clouds and let her know what the sky was about to be doing. Craziness. Jessica (below) has such an eye. She made sure that each and every shot had a "story." It was different than it would have been had we been shooting for a 100% design magazine vs a lifestyle magazine. The shots weren't about the furniture or the room, they were more about what's going on in the room: the people, the activities, and Christmas of course. The room is more the backdrop for the story vs. the focus of the story. (But of course the rooms had to look perfect in order to help "tell" the story.)

Joanna Linberg (below) is writing the story. She also assisted Jessica in getting all of the props ready for the shoot and was AMAZING with Christian. (He will be SO sad when he learns that "Miss Joanna" and "Miss Jessica" / The "Homes & Gardens Ladies" are not coming back tomorrow. I've been using them to get Christian to do things: i.e. "Miss Joanna wants you to brush your teeth." hee hee hee) You know when you meet someone and they just exude goodness? That's Joanna. She's so young and has worked so hard to get to where she is.

We were in a few of the photos and Christian did such a great job. He was such a good little kid throughout the whole process & really followed directions well. ("Ok, now go on your knees and giggle." etc.. He had so much fun!)

Below is a picture of my kitchen shelves being emptied so Jessica could style them. I LOVE what she did and am sad to see the things go! She used a combination of my own things, some props from the Meredith prop room and some thigns we found at On a Whim and Lucketts.

On the last day, at the end, we started running out of daylight. Daylight is so important, because if you lose it, the photographers have to light the space and the look is totally different. (not as pretty at all either!) That crazy cookie kept falling over and then it was time for our family portrait. Justin was crying and we had to get the shot as quickly as possible before the sun went down. Definitely felt the pressure but it was so exciting! Ps- I think I TOTALLY scared Jessica before we met. We'd been doing a lot of the prep over the phone/ emails and I told her multiple times how excited I was about the shoot. (She does this ALL the time and so was not nearly there with me ;) When some extra Christmas ornaments arrived for the tree, I got teary (give me a break- I just had a baby!) because they were so perfect. I called Jessica and told her how much I loved them & how excited I was she was like, "Ok," (probably like "what is wrong with this girl?????!" hahah) Jessica is awesome at what she does& just so much fun and I'm honestly surprised everyone's not this nutty around her.

On Day 5 (Today) Jessica & Joanna packed up everything from the shoot & put our house back in order. (FedEx will pick all of the boxes up later this week to send them back to the Meredith Studio and back to the companies they came from.) Jessica & Joanna also (as they did all week long) helped take care of Christian & Justin, and Jessica even made Christian a peanut butter & jelly sandwich for lunch. Finally, we said our goodbyes and Christian waved at our new friends from the window.

Below, here we all are at the end of the shoot. Everyone was so good to Christian & Justin. (Helen below, with my little guy. He loved them all so much. )

I'm really going to miss them all. It was such a fun crazy week. ...Such an awesome experience and I just feel so lucky to have gotten the chance to work with such talented, sweet people. I wish we all lived closer.

And I can't wait to see the spread next November!!! (Feels like forever away!!!)

Have a great weekend!!

xoxo,

lauren

**update** I should clarify that they used a lot of our own things: my urns, cakestands, plates, stemware, silverware, pillows, blankets, ornaments, accessories, etc... but supplemented them all with some extras & of course more Christmas things (Our trees & garlands were long dead) and food. Jessica worked really hard to make sure that the items they brought in worked with my style & blended seamlessly with what we already had. :) so much fun!!

1,2,3,...

Source Stephen Shubel Design
Hope you are having a nice weekend.
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loving…

1. this ikat rug from william-sonoma home. so pretty.

2. this cool wood-grain tool. now you can i can faux bois whatever my little heart desires. i saw this tool here and you can purchase it here.

3. this blog called isabella & max rooms. i stumbled across it earlier this week and can’t get enough. there are wonderful pictures and plenty of great diy tips. i’m loving her ongoing tutorial on how to make window treatment panels. if only i had a sewing machine. in my guest room i’ve been making my own but i’ve been cheating and using the no sew method.

4. this mushroom wreath, new at crate and barrel.

5. this playful hopscotch rug from cb2. how cute would this be in a kid’s room.

i’ve been in houston all week installing a model home. it was a fun time but i’m ready to get home. i’m heading home this morning and looking forward to the weekend and seeing my best friend. she’s coming into town for a visit. i’ve got a lot to do before she comes though. hopefully my plane doesn’t get delayed.

have a great one!

LiveJournal Tags: loving...,william-sonoma home,faux bois,blogs,crate & barrel,cb2

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Bathroom Inspiration

Source Nancy Boszhardt Inc.

Cute and sweet( and still elegant) as bathroom can be.
Source Elaine Griffin Interiors

one kings lane and a special offer just for you

most of you who frequent the blog world have probably heard of one kings lane before. we’ve mentioned them quite a few times because they are pretty awesome. if you haven’t come across “okl” on a blog or found them some other way then you really should go and check them out. onekingslane.com is like a private shopping club and they sell some of the best home products on their site at amazingly discounted prices. here’s the trick though the quantities are limited and you only have a short window to buy them in, like say…72 hours. if you are a member of okl then you get an email each day notifying you of the great sales events that will be going on that day. their website also shows the current and future events going on so that you don’t have to wait for that email to come in.

one kings lane was founded by susan feldman and alison gelb pincus, two home enthusiasts that decided they wanted a to figure out a way to offer home decor and accents to the public at an affordable cost. at the atlanta market i was fortunate enough to meet susan. not only is she beautiful, but she was so sweet as well. after talking with her about my blog she connected me with alison. alison through out some ideas of how to bring a little piece of one kings lane to you guys. we decided that instead of having a giveaway with one gift we would have a giveaway for everyone!!!!

here’s the deal. anyone who signs up to be a member of one kings lane on the charmhome sign-up page will receive a $10 credit. as long as you sign up by march 10th on my sign-up page (click here to get to my sign-up page) you can use that credit to shop for any of the items on the okl site. the $10 credit will expire on march 31st so you have to use it up fast.

these are just a few of the great items out there on one kings lane right now.

archipelago candles