A Walk on the Wild Side: Past vrs Present.

As a self-proclaimed former "wild child" without a fear in the world, I find it extremely ironic that as a "practical adult" my fear levels have greatly escalated.  While I once lived my life with what others might call "reckless abandon,"  my present life is nothing short of a strategic military initiative.

THE EVOLUTION:

PAST

As a two-year old: Climbing to the top of the high dive at Army Navy Country Club and jumping. . .while no one was watching. A perfect 10.

As a teenager: Hoping on a train in the middle of the night to NYC and scoring the first train home in the morning. No biggie, I wasnt going to pass that test anyhoo...KRISTIN!

As a post college graduate: Get on a plane to Munich as an afterthought and fly to Germany without a map or any idea what or where a glockenspiel is to meet the only person in the whole country I know. . .

In Decorating: Painted an entire room lime green in my $500 a month Myers Park rental. . .How much could my landlord really care??

PRESENT

@ My Three Year Old: You are going to need a life preserver, a Life Guard, Daddy on the diving board AND Mommy AND Sadie in the pool, and a clean drop. All other children please exit the deep end.

@ Taking Sadie into NYC for the 1st Time: Suffered from nightmares, sleep deprivation and anxiety for weeks. Multiple tour books, printed out maps, cell phone, extra pull ups and hourly check in's with Daddy. Anxiety transferred to my Step Mother and this is her turf.

*Sadie Age 4 at Grand Central for the 1st time. No fear.

@Flying on a Plane: Requires two weeks worth of planning, packing, laundry, twelve trips to Target, 2 trips to church in deep prayer and a valium. *kidding on the valium, I couldnt find any if I tried.

@Decorating: Longing for grasscloth wallpaper to put in the sunroom. Suffering from wallpaper commitment issues. That stuff is NOT cheap and is a pain in the YOU-KNOW-WHAT to remove. I might have it forever.

So what do you think? Should I JUMP. . . 

I love the depth and texture of this grasscloth with the dark floors.

@KMK thinks my sun room needs to be lavender

Or

The Safest Option. . .

SORRY BUT I AM OBSESSED WITH THIS ROOM!

Collin and I decided this would be our model for the room.

AND

And then wrap the wall of windows in curtain panels. . . .

@my loveliest of lovely readers, what do you think?

I REALLY, REALLY WANT TO KNOW!

If only I had been this cautious when I . . .

Now that information is top-secret. . .

Cheers,

Tay

The Misadventures of Cate

Meet our furry family member,  7 year old Basset Hound, Cate Mills Presson. Poor little things has a hard life these days. From the South Carolina farm were she was born to the streets of Dilworth, this dog is manicured, pedicured and bathed more often than I am.

The first time Scotty laid eyes on her he declared her his little baby. Somehow in the midst of trying to establish boundaries, we taught Cate to only come inside when we closed the door, to pee on Scotty's man couch, to chew up everything in sight, to eat only my shoes, to suck the baby's socks clear off their feet, and to stalk my birds like a cat. A bit stubborn maybe, but a job well done we think.

One of my favorite children's books is The Diary of a Wombat. The funny little tale follows a rascally wombat, who only wants to be close to his humans. I picked up the book in South Australia, but as my luck would have it, it can be found here on Amazon.

Because I obviously had nothing better to do, I decided to give my children the day off, and followed our rascally  Basset Hound  around with my iPhone.

THE  MISADVENTURES OF CATE

Sometime around 7:30am.

Been here since breakfast and not even thinking about moving.

9:30am

Thought about it, but decided against it.

1:00 pm

What on earth did I do to deserve being caged in the back yard? This place is for the squirrels.

Sometime around 2:00 pm

Once again I protected my family from the neighbors. I am a super hero.

3:00 pm

The UPS guy  stalked me all the way to the bus stop.

Faced my fears and showed him whose boss.

*Not so tough when she's not standing on the chairs, but not a total wuss either. Score one for the UPS guy. He made it out alive.

The reason I got out of bed in the first place is finally home again!

Sometime around Dinner and back in the bed.

It's about time fool. . .feed me now or I will eat everything you own and leave a present for you in the morning.

9:00 pm

You didn't think this blockade would stop me from rubbing my fur and drool all over your silk curtains did you?

Somehow managed to make myself the size of a teacup poodle and make my way back to my side of the bed. Knocked over some of the baby's stuff and made a pillow. I am so smart.

7:30am This Morning

 Not to wot worry, I will keep this house safe and sound until the public schools uncage you. . .

 

8:00 am This Morning

Why am I out here again? Why is my bed out here? This is not good. Not good at all.

Cheers,

Tay

I've Been Busy: It's Springtime Y'all

Time has just been flying by, and as unfair as that usually seems, we have been having a great time over here. Easter was a smashing success at old Carolina Golf Club. Our "club in the hood" opened up the new outdoor patio and fire pit, hosted an amazing brunch and had so many kids at the Easter Egg Hunt that next year they are going to have to have a serious conversation with the Easter Bunny about Supply and Demand.

Scotty and I posed for a rare couples picture and it didn't turn out terrible.

Cooper and Sadie got super serious about the Bunny.

Sadie's luck shined when she found this 4 leaf clover outside of Kathy's neighbor's house!

The lamps finally arrived for our living room makeover  and they are so disco, I die! More to come on that later!

Tried my hand at gardening and landscaping last weekend and I think I might love my new hobby!

 . . . started the "Get Minty" project, so stay tuned for the final reveal this weekend!

Cheers to you all!!

Tay

SURPRISE!! Guest Blogger Eleanor Rodway ROCKS it DIY Style!

I am beyond excited to introduce my friend Eleanor Hains Rodway. Eleanor is an over all creative master mind and the writer/ blogger for TahTah makeup.

She is über wife  to handsome Jamie and loving Mama to sweet baby Max. Oh and yes, I enter into evidence, that indeed a girl can have it all. . . my girl E is the real PIMPIN deal!

Hi everyone!  It's so nice to be here!  Thanks to @sweethomecharlotte for inviting me over to play.  Blogging about make-up is an absolute blast but once in a while I like to break away from the norm and change things up. I must preface this with the disclaimer that I am in no way an expert designer.  I seek most of my designing advice from @sweethomecharlotte.  She tolerates my questions and always helps me make decisions.  I love a project though.  Big or small I'm always excited to tackle something new.  I don't always get the most desired result but every once in a while I pull out a winner.  This my friends was a winner.

It started with a lone fabric swatch from Tony's in Huntersville.  If you haven't been there you need to go - loads of fabric all on the cheap.

Anyways - fabric swatch inspiration



I decided  to use it to recover my dining room chairs.  My dining room and living room are a combo area.  I've been wanting to do a little upgrade to the space for a while now.

I didn't want to can't spend a ton of money for three reasons
(1) We've got some really nice leather chairs that we paid a premium for - I basically blew an entire room house budget on those things
(2) We have some nice family heirloom pieces in the room that are OFF LIMITS when it comes to moving, painting etc.
(3) My husband would kill me if I spent more money on furniture.

So trying to keep it simple and cheap I aim to put lipstick on the proverbial pig (totally kidding I LOVE my living room space)

But a little fabric and paint goes a long way.  So with my reuphosltery project on the to do list....progress shown below



Errr moving right along aren't we?

I'm a tornado when it comes to DIY I like to plan and then do it ALL at once so I needed more on my living room updo to do list (can you say that three times fast?)

I opted for a side table project.  I've been wanting a new side table to go in between the two leather chairs.  I was thinking old Hollywood glam, maybe a brass nailhead trim table or something like this

[caption id="attachment_1116" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Click for Photo Credit"][/caption]

Please refer to reason 3 from above as to why this never happened.

So I went to plan B.  I discovered this website on one of my design blogs not to long ago - www.myoverlays.com   Upon my discovery I realized that I could do a fancy side table at a fraction of the cost thanks to the overlays and thus a new project was born.

I started with the Ikea Rast side table

These things are super cheap at Ikea - $34.99.  They aren't solid oak or anything but I would say fairly sturdy.  I mean ultimately you get what you pay for at Ikea but again it wasn't being held together by glue.  A good solid accent piece in my opinion. So to begin with I primed both the drawers and the actual piece.



I covered the front and the inside of the drawers with newspaper and then primed them in a grey primer and spray painted them gold.  This way when you open them up the sides are gold and the inside is gold.  My plan is with the leftover fabric from the chairs to line the inside of the drawers with it. Choosing a color was the hard part.  I'd taken the fabric swatch to Lowe's to have them try and match it.  Then I tried to pick colors just eyeballing the fabric



The dark one in the dead center is what Lowe's pulled from the swatch.  I think it's pretty funny how my "eyeballing" didn't even come close to what Lowe's pulled.  Although in my defense the browns from the fabric pulled through on the custom color hence it being so dark.  It ended up working out perfectly because we have dark furniture. So we chose the custom color. Completed drawer with spray painted inside and front looks like so



Sorry the picture is a wee bit dark.  Mad Max rarely lets me get stuff accomplished in the daylight hours.

Next I painted the overlays that I purchased.  I spray painted them gold as well.  This part was super easy.  They are very light weight but not so light weight that they fly around when you're painting them.



Then came the worst part of all - making sure these suckers lined up EXACTLY.  I asked told my husband he needed to help me as it really was a two person job.



Once we'd gotten them lined up perfectly I marked the drawer while the husband held them in place.  Then smeared a little Liquid Nails on the back and stuck it on.

Adding the hardware was the last step.  I headed over to Blackhawk with the exact picture in mind of what I wanted.

I ended up with these



Pretty much what I wanted - the glass looking knobs.  These are acrylic so pretty close.  My only complaint - I wanted a brass or gold base but all they had was silver - or I should say all they had in my price range was silver.  They had crystal and glass knobs both with gold or brass bases but the crystal knobs at $23 a pop and the glass knobs at $16 a pop....

Well let's just say I made an executive decision and went with silver and acrylic for $4.

Truthfully I refused to spend $150 on hardware for an Ikea piece and if you once again reference Reason 3 from above it's totally applicable in hardware purchases as well.

And so alas my DIY project was done.  Wait for it......

Drumroll please!

TA-DA!



Not too shabby eh?

Breaking it down

Ikea Rast Chest →  $34.99
Paint Samples / Spray Paint  →   $18.00
Quart of custom Paint →  $21.00
6 Anne Overlays  → $58.60
Hardware  →  $28.89

That's a total of $161.48!  I would say I truly deserve a cookie on this one.  All the pieces I had my eye on were well over $500 and that was before shipping.

I mean I think it looks like a million bucks!

Here's a little before and after



Thanks for having me @sweethomecharlotte!

Now we must discuss a new lamp shade and throw pillow options - I need your opinion :)

Many, Many, Hats!

In my past life, when I was  (and I use this term loosely) a head hunter, we used to over use the term "many hats."  The "position will require that the candidate wear many hats" was used on almost every client call, job description and candidate interview that I worked on.  By this, it is implied that the person "will report to Accounting, Legal, Marketing, Customer Service and Janitorial."  And while it is generally understood that all of "Corporate America" must indeed be multi-talented monkeys, let me enlighten you to just some of "the hats" of mommy hood.

So far today I have been a:

*Stylish Mom and Put Together Lady of the House. Why yes, my shower demand was granted at 6:15am! I  even put on a dress because it required almost no thought. Major Score.

*Short Order Chef. Whipped up a not so healthy diet of frozen waffles and apples by 6:45am. (Is that all the butler could remember to get at the grocery store?)

*Gourmet Caterer. Prepared two well-balanced and tasty lunches. Packaged to perfection.Started and completed sometime between 9pm last night and 7:45am.

*Laundress. Washed  one set of sheets and two loads of children's clothing. The maid must have forgotten to run the dryer and iron the sheets. Will have to do something about her or uhmmm, me. Time frame same as above.

*Chaufer.  Drove  two kids to  two different locations and a husband to a Gastroenterologist by 8:30am. Was only late once.

*Assistant Art Teacher in elementary school classroom. Sadie's teacher is a saint, those children are crazy. No wonder they get a break during specials. Reported to duty from 11:20am to 12:20pm.

*Delivery Food Driver. Brought food to husband on the couch. Almost missed my window. Delivered by 12:40pm.

*Pre-School Heroine. Ok not really, but I did get to the Weekday School on time to pick up Cooper. 1pm arrival.

*Strict Dictator of Nap-Time.  Not quite. . .  left Cooper asleep on the couch with Daddy while I changed hats or umm, clothes. Transfered to crib after the fact. Down by 1:20pm

* House Keeper Extraordinaire. Vacuumed, windexed and furniture polished entire downstairs. Ran a load of dishes from last night. Darn, I thought I started that thing. Task Completed by 1:50pm.

*Nurse Taylor. Gave husband cough drops, yelled at him to sort through a HUGE MOUND of Sports Illustrated. Sent him into his clean bedroom to sleep. I have room for improvement under this job description. Charted at 1:55pm.

*Nail Technician. One coat of gold nail polish over old manicure, almost good as new. 1:57pm.

*Administrative Assistant. Coordinated sale of Citipass books, Sadie's tennis lessons, Stella and Dot jewelry party, weekend house painting and closet installation. Still racking my brain as I am sure I am forgetting the reason I sat down at the computer. Oh yeah. . . .

*Writer, Blogger, Stylist and Creative Living Master. Insert hysterical laughing here, I am not even close. 2:45pm

Thank God the bus doesn't come for 30 more minutes and my husband and baby are still napping.

All in a 1/2 day's work girls and yet I know I am not even close to winning first prize.

Cheers,

Tay