Archive for May, 2009
On The Road Again: Savannah Or Bust
John and I had a blast on our secret trip to Savannah, and the ride from Katie Bower’s lovely casa in Atlanta was somewhat uneventful except for this hysterical happening:
We try to eat fresh, local and organic for the most part when we’re at home, but sometimes on vacation we can get a little lax… and before we know it the dog’s head is in the french fries.
We stayed at the Comfort Suites hotel for three blissful days (great location, sweet deal on Expedia) and once we arrived we hit the ground running (although we must admit that we spent about 3 hours holed up in our hotel fixing the ZGallerie contest comment debacle since over 1000 entries in about an hour froze things up like you wouldn’t believe). But other than attending to some bloggy business here and there, we spent every moment seeing the sights and eating our way through Savannah for all three glorious days. The weather was perfect and the moss-draped oaks, cobblestone streets and picture perfect trolleys made for some pretty charming scenery. There was also an abundance of horse drawn carriages, which reminded us of New York’s Central Park minus the crowded streets and crazy taxis.
And speaking of Central Park, there’s actually a huge park in the middle of Savannah called Forsyth Park where people walk their dogs, lay out, and do other parky things.
Burger had a blast sniffing his way through the entire park, and we had fun walking around the perimeter to snap photos of some pretty amazing houses that overlooked the luscious lawn. We were especially inspired by the soft cloud-like gray paint on the exterior of this lovely abode. Doesn’t it look dreamy with the moss that drips off the towering oaks above?
We also loved this sage green house with black shutters and white porch and door trim (who knew black and white accents could come together so seamlessly with sage?):
Then we ventured over to Desposito’s Seafood, a famous dive known for bad lighting, peeling linoleum, newspaper covered tables and absolutely amazing fresh seafood. Here I am embracing the bad lighting and doing my best crab impression:
When it was John’s turn to take on the roll of the crab, and he was quick to remind me that crabs have claws and poky things, so my impression was more octopus-ish than anything else.
But enough terrible crustacean impressions. Here’s the grub. We ordered a heaping portion of shrimp, sausage, potatoes and corn (called the Low Country Basket) and also got an order of steamed snow crab legs and potato salad. And true to neighborhood lore, the peeling paint, duct-taped windows, and Little Shop Of Horrors-esque plants fell away and we were in heaven as soon as we took a bite.
Savannah also had it in the bag when it came to dessert. There were so many drool-inducing candy shops with amazingly diverse offerings like monstrous candied apples and gargantuan peanut butter cups (yes, they’re as big as the humongous apples). We also dropped in on LuLu’s- a famous little dessert spot with a lounge-y atmosphere, live music, and magical peanut butter chocolate cake. Yeah, that baby didn’t last long (but we did have to tip it over to eat it).
We also loved walking around the restaurants and shops in the Historic District at dusk. Savannah really is one of the most charming cities we’ve ever visited.
And on our last day there we took a quick twenty minute drive over to Tybee Island, a beachfront area just outside of Savannah where we perused these cute little shops at Tybee Oaks (stay tuned for more shopping photos to come).
Our favorite place in Tybee Island was a quirky outdoor junk market with tons of diamonds in the rough. We loved this sweet little aluminum boat (wouldn’t it make a cool sunroom coffee table topped with plexiglass or even wood?) and that awesome metal stool base (which would also make a killer accent table topped with a round of wood and painted black, white or anything in between).
Then it was back in the car for our drive back home. Burger didn’t fail to provide more entertainment along the way. In his defense, I would do this too if my head would fit.
Oh and you know we did a lot more window shopping, right? Savannah had a slew of amazing decor stores and we raided them all, camera in hand. Stay tuned for all of our favorite shops and finds coming soon…
Will Joust For Votes
The voting for BHG’s 48-Hour Challenge is in full swing and we’re back with our weekly remember-to-vote post. We’re currently in second place and we need your help! Of course you all recall that we gussied up our front porch as part of their 48-Hour Challenge, and now there’s a $5,000 bonus on the line for the blogger who earns the most votes for their project. Imagine how many home improvements we could take on with that wad of dough.
But how could we ask you fine people to spend a moment of your time voting each and every day until June 12th without going the extra mile for you in return? Betcha didn’t expect that we’d get oiled up and take to the American Gladiator arena for votes…
That’s right, we’ve been training day and night- check out my muscular thighs and John’s impressive moobs (man boobs). We’ve even brainstormed our very own decor-related gladiator names. From this point on John shall be known as Demo and I’ll go by Houndstooth. Grrr.
In short: just follow this link, click the arrow til you see our names/porch, register (just once and never again) and vote each and every day if you so desire. That’s right, everyone can vote once a day until June 12th. And since they update the voting tally each day, it’s safe to say that when we’re not firing foam balls at each other or knocking people off pedestals with giant pokers we can be found on the edge of our seats!
Slightly doctored first image courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.
Camouflage Rules
No we haven’t lost our marbles, and we’re not about to suggest that green camouflage is our new favorite pattern when it comes to pillows, curtains and duvet covers. We’re just taking this opportunity to point out how a little bit of curbside camouflaging can go a long way. Here’s what our house looked like after we did a little bush maintenance (aka: got perfect strangers to dig up our old bushes for free):
Yep, she was looking pretty naked thanks to all the overgrown and overcrowded hedges that we removed in favor of a less bulky and overpowering new landscape (more details on that project can be found here), but what’s that you see on the left near the chimney? Why it’s a huge unsightly propane tank that looked pretty darn terrible without all those overgrown hedges blocking the view.
You can see that we planted two dwarf alberta spruces (one in front of the the tank and one on the opposite side of the house for balance) that will fill in to be about 6 feet tall and 30″ wide (effectively blocking that ugly propane tank in the future). But we’re a bit impatient when it comes to these things… and paint is such an easy option…
Do you see where I’m going with this? We realized that if we could paint the propane tank a dark brick red tone, it would blend right in with the facade of the house. So first I called our propane company (we don’t actually own the tank, and since it’s theirs we wanted to ask if we could take some deep red paint to the old gray tank). It must have been our lucky day because we got the green light. The funniest quote from the company: “don’t paint it anything crazy like black, but red is ok.” Doesn’t red sound like the crazier color of the two? Anyway, we were beyond thrilled that we could get our paint on, so we snagged a quart of exterior red paint (we held paint chips right up to the brick for the closest match) and applied two coats with a brush. Here I am just getting started:
Here she is all purty and painted:
And here’s the full effect from the front of the house from the street, this time with the tank artfully camouflaged- all for about $14 worth of paint:
And I didn’t stop there (I’m kind of a crazy person once I have a paintbrush in my hand). I also called our power company to confirm that I could paint the annoying gray utility boxes on the back of our house (they confirmed that anything installed on our house is ours to paint). Here they are mid-project (I told you I’m a crazy person, I was so excited to get painting I forgot to take before pictures):
And here they are after a quick coat of brick red paint. They’re hardly invisible but they’re a lot less jarring, especially from afar.
So that’s the story of a quart of brick red paint (Sherwin Williams Red Barn to be exact) and an indescribable passion to camouflage the ugly gray eyesores that had our house surrounded. Do you guys have any quick painting projects on the agenda? And are you at all surprised that I’m still finding things to paint? It’s a sickness, people.
Green Home Alone
Ok, I’ll admit it: we’ve been shamelessly entering to the win the 2009 HGTV Green Home on a daily basis lately. As much as we love our own home, we can’t pass up the chance at winning a beautiful, eco-friendly abode in sunny Florida (and the shiny new hybrid car that comes with it). Plus, think of all the things we could blog about if it were our names that they announced on June 28th.
So it was with Green Homes on the brain that we took a little detour last week while on our secret trip to Georgia. Thanks to our Florida vacation last Spring, we remembered that the 2008 HGTV Green Home was just about 5 minutes off of I-95 in South Carolina. We didn’t tour it last year (it carried a hefty $25 admission fee!) so we figured we’d swing through Tradition, SC again this year and see if last year’s winner was home and might invite us in for a free tour (you know, all southern hospitality-like).
Well, that didn’t happen (surprise). There were no glasses of organic lemonade waiting for us on a recycled bamboo tray. In fact, it didn’t even look like anyone was home… (nor was the sky a permanent, perfect sunset color).
And our guess as to why no one was home? Because it did look like anyone had moved in yet. There was even a key-box on the door like a house that’s on the market…
…and why do we think no one has moved in? Because they’re just about the only house in the neighborhood so far.
I guess the little golf community of Tradition needs a bit more time to get off the ground. Then again, can we really be surprised in this real estate market? It did look like it was shaping up to be a beautiful place (the four or five other in-progress homes were in the same beachy cottage style that we love). But we can’t say our visit didn’t alter our utopian daydream a little bit.
So, moral of the story: don’t bother entering to win the 2009 Green Home (you’d just be hurting our chances anyway). Just kidding. Enter away. She’s a beaut this year. Just check out their virtual online tours for plenty of green eye candy. Update: check out the comments for some interesting revelations!
First image courtesy of HGTV.
House Crashing & Table Setting
Two weekends ago we stopped in Atlanta on our way to Savannah (sounds like the lyrics to a country song) to house crash Jeremy and Katie Bower’s lovely home. And while we were there we whipped up a little decorating movie for all you lemme-see-you-in-3D peeps. Hope you enjoy the tour (and that you check out our table-setting video at the end of this post)!
First we have this adorable mini mud room that Katie whipped up with an ottoman and a few coat hooks. And since we’re no stranger to this method, Burger felt right at home and made himself comfortable from the moment her scampered in the door.
Beyond the entryway is the posh and elegant dining room full of soft blue accents, white china, and beachy accessories. Katie is a blackbelt sale shopper so everything I swooned over ended up being “oh this old thing, it was $1 at Goodwill” or “TJ Maxx, three bucks.” Talk about having some serious decor envy.
I also fell hard for this chic little hutch next to the door that leads to the kitchen, but I couldn’t linger on it too long before the kitchen beyond beckoned me in…
… yeah, this kitch’ has some serious drawing power. The amazing thing is that Jeremy and Katie ripped down walls, learned how to run their own electrical, installed stock cabinetry, and even laid their own floors to turn this formerly closed off kitchen into an open and expansive masterpiece. Everything from the range hood (we actually have the same exact one!) to the backsplash was put in with their own four hands, and we must admit that we found ourselves gaping at their handiwork at every turn.
And no detail is too small for Katie. From the white china that she artfully arranged in her doorless hutch to the white dishtowel that she hand sewed (she added the pom poms!), not a smidge of style was sacrificed even though her accessories never broke the bank.
Thanks to tearing down a wall, the kitchen opens up to an inviting little den with a fireplace that they tiled themselves and a coffee table Katie found on Craigslist and completely reinvented (the power of white paint is a beautiful thing).
Katie also has a soft spot when it comes to clean white accessories, and everything from the Goodwill candlesticks to the DIY art made us feel right at home. And you know I was all over her adorable ceramic bird, right? I’m nothing if not consistent, and my penchant for white ceramic animals knows no bounds. The fact that this little guy was a cheep- er, cheap score (another Goodwill find) made me green with ceramic animal envy.
Katie and Jeremy also widened the passageway between the den and their living room so the entire first floor feels open and airy. And is that a white ceramic horse head that you see on the coffee table? The same one we have on our TV stand in the den? Yesireebob. Gotta love an equine bust from Tarjay.
We also love the fresh pops of green throughout the space (in fact, one of those lovely pillows on Katie’s couch was actually a Pottery Barn placemat that she ripped apart and stuffed with batting). She’s lucky enough to live near a Pottery Barn outlet, so everything from the couch to those awesome white ottomans was snagged on the cheap (yeah, the whole trip was punctuated by envious gasps).
And just in case it’s not painfully clear that Katie and Jeremy could easily flip houses for a living, here’s a bathroom that Katie recently renovated for under 500 beans (yup, she worked a wet saw and installed her own molding with only a wee bit of husbandly assistance).
You might have seen mention of Katie’s dressing room a few days ago when we crashed her closet. It turns out that while most people have a hanging bar and half a dresser of storage space, she has an entire third bedroom with a wall of wardrobes for clothing/jewelry/shoe storage- and the other side of the room serves as the most charming bonus space for settling down with a good book or sleeping an extra guest.
In another stroke of bathroom brilliance, Katie and Jeremy completely transformed their upstairs guest bath with some moody khaki paint and an amazing wood frame that they mounted around the room’s original mirror for an updated and customized effect that’s so ooh la la. They even distressed each piece of wood with nails, chains, and a hammer before staining and installing ‘em.
And last but not least is their peaceful master suite, which actually bears a bit of a resemblance to ours. In fact we featured Katie’s bedroom pics as a Reader Redesign last year after she sent pics our way to say that she modeled her curtained wall after our very own master bedroom.
And now we’ll leave you with our little table setting video extravaganza. At first we debated what to tape, but we both loved the idea of doing something in stages right in front of the camera in real time. Sure it took a while to sift through Katie’s extensive servingware and accessory collection to create five different table settings and put ‘em together on film (it took us about 20 takes total), but we’re oh so proud of our little film-fest and we hope you enjoy our step by step table sprucing tutorial.
It bears mentioning that some of the settings are a bit more robust than others (we didn’t add the leaf to Katie’s table, so feel free to adapt some of our ideas on a bigger surface or remove a few elements to create more space for platters of food). Oh and there are a few other things that you may notice. Here’s what to look out for:
- We’re both incredibly weird and nervous in the beginning.
- We get progressively loopier, as if we’re downing champagne off camera (we weren’t).
- I confuse apple trees with cherry trees.
- Katie squeezes in some of her signature potty humor.
- Lots of talking with our hands (our moms are Italian).
- I mispronounce faux-bois like foi-gras. Twice.
- Katie saying “pull” the southern way when she’s making ribbon curls.
Thanks so much for devoting eleven minutes of your life to viewing our little flick! Here’s a slightly lower quality one that might be easier to play on your computer if the one above is jumpy. I’d love to know which setting was your favorite. And if I’m louder/nerdier/shorter/scowlier/more awkward than you may have thought. Oh and a big thank you goes out to the Katie (and her main man Jeremy) for letting us take photos of their casa and helping us set the table a bunch of times. Be sure to check out her take on everything over on Bower Power- you know she’ll tell you if we showed up with bad breath…
Itching for more table setting ideas? Here are seven other festive options and a holiday table setting post for your viewing pleasure.
