On The Road Again
Hotel Decor Inspiration (Part One)
You may have seen glimpses of our fun with the Bowers in our little road trip video from last week, but we’re back to share a collection of fun decorating ideas courtesy of our stay at the quirky and memorable Hotel Preston in Nashville. Katie and I had been brainstorming another video that we could throw together ever since we started planning our little reunion (you can see our first joint video adventure right here). And once we checked in at our hotel it was obvious that it was full of amazing inspiration that triggered some hotel-chic ideas that anyone can implement at home. So without further ado, here are half of our favorite hotel-inspired decorating ideas…
…to see the other half, just head on over to All Bower Power.
But then don’t forget to come back and tell us what hotel touches you’ve drawn inspiration from in the past. Was it a paint color? A good friend of mine painted her half bath a rich navy hue after she saw it at a posh hotel. Maybe it was an amazing featherbed or even a bathrobe that you just had to introduce to your own home after spotting it at a hotel? How do you keep your guest room feeling luxe and oh so inviting for your friends and family? Do tell.
Note: Hotel Preston didn’t comp us, pay us, or otherwise reward us for mentioning them in this post. We found them via Travelocity & TripAdviser and paid to stay there because it looked fun. And it was.
Ride With Us To Texas, Won’t You?
After mentioning our near cross-country road trip last week, did you find yourself wondering how we entertained ourselves for over forty hours of driving? Well, we filmed a lot of it with our trusty Flip video camera. And we spent this past weekend not in the car (hootie hoo!), but trimming down all that footage into a little musical montage video of our road-trip-on-steroids.
For those curious enough to take the journey with us, we can promise you’ll see:
- Some less than healthy drive-thru decisions
- A bit of behind the wheel dancing
- Grade A nerd behavior in the form of a geographic-tastic driving game
- Sherry in bed with another woman
- Obligatory Burger footage
- Absolutely zero footage of Sherry driving (because it never happened)
- Fast-food inspired decorating ideas (we didn’t say they’re good)
- Sherry with her hair down (yes, for all you why-don’t-you-lose-the-ponytail peeps)
- Visiting cultural attractions – scratch that, visiting a Pottery Barn Outlet
- A preview of our adventures with the Bowers and my cousin’s wedding, which we’ll share more of soon.
So, without further ado, please enjoy the virtual road trip below (or watch it directly on Vimeo)…
And while we’re on the subject, tell us where we can get a sneak peek at some of your summer travels. Got any good road trip stories to share? Photos posted somewhere to view? If anyone else has iMovied a little road trip video, we’d love to see it. Long live long drives!
Another Whirlwind Weekend
It’s only been a week since we told you about our last whirlwind weekend and we’ve already topped it with an even crazier weekend adventure. In fact this one was so nutty that it actually lasted six days, took us through ten states and required forty hours of driving. Yep, you read that right. Four. Zero.
What possessed us to embark on such a trek? My cousin was getting married in Dallas, TX and I had some spare vacation days. And what can we say, we’re suckers for a good road trip. So last Thursday we set out westward from Richmond spending about 10 hours in the car on each of four legs of the trip. We took a day long break in Nashville to see the sights and eat some BBQ with two of our favorite home bloggers (where we were spotted and nearly outed on our secret romp across the southeast). We finally pulled into Dallas for a gorgeous Sunday wedding before jumping back in the car for two more days of driving back towards Richmond, this time via Birmingham.
Yes it was a lot of driving, but it was also a lot of fun. We got back to Richmond late Tuesday night just bursting at the seems with stories, pictures and videos to share with you guys. From the funky hotel we stayed in with the Bowers and a quick how-we-travel-with-Burger video to my cousin’s beautiful DIY wedding decor, we can barely decide where to start. And that’s not to mention the footage we captured of our four ten-hour driving days courtesy of our homemade dashboard camera (fashioned from a tripod and some classy white duct tape).
So as we like to say around here, stay tuned. There are a slew of home-related posts about our days on the road to be written. We promise to get started just as soon as we stop seeing road signs in our sleep…
A City Kitchen Goes From Small To Sleek
As we previously mentioned, we recently enjoyed a whirlwind trip to New York City and back, the highlight of which was meeting our new nephew:
And while we were bonding with him in his parents’ gorgeous uptown co-op, we finally got to see their new kitchen in the flesh, after months of makeover magic on their part. See, John’s older sister Katie and her husband Martin had been living with their tiny NYC kitch for too long, so they decided to move some things around and take their cramped space from wee to wow. Their former cooking area was just one short wall with a tiny old stove and a seen-better-days fridge. Here’s the before for ya (yup, that’s all the built-in storage they had- two bottom cabinets, one drawer, and a few more upper cabinets).
Of course there was no dishwasher (that’s the stuff of dreams in Manhattan), but Martin and Katie soon realized that they could make that dream a reality by utilizing the empty wall across from their tiny cramped kitchen and adding an entire L-shaped area of cabinets to their modest layout (thereby almost tripling their storage space and creating a functional work triangle to boot. Here’s the empty L-shaped wall (which used to include a now-relocated door to their bedroom) before the addition of some much needed cabinetry:
And here’s the old kitchen all gutted and ready for a retake:
After using Home Depot’s kitchen planning service (just like we did for our renovation last year) here’s their lovely new after of a kitchen:
New taller upper cabinets add even more storage space, and relocating the refrigerator across the room allowed for a mini dishwasher to be installed, which is seriously the most amazing perk in Manhattan. Of course the new stainless steel appliances and granite countertops have added endless value to Katie and Martin’s kitchen investment, and everything from the updated hardware to the gas stove keep the space feeling oh so sleek and current. We also love that Martin and Katie went for a few glass-fronted cabinet doors (two on each side of the room) to keep things open and to break up all that wood. We adore the glass door in our kitchen since it almost mimics a window and reflects tons of light, so we tell anyone who will listen that a few well placed glass fronted cabinets really can be the icing on the kitchen-makeover cake.
So there it is. A metropolitan kitchen that gained tons of storage space, function, and easy-on-the-eyes appeal. Do any of you guys have a tiny kitchen that you’re thinking of expanding? Anyone considering swapping out some solid cabinet doors for a few glass ones? Anyone else in the city jonesing for a tiny dishwasher like Katie and Martin’s? Let’s talk.
