Suffolk Cottage Tour

It's Friday, so let's take a quick trip to Suffolk, England for a house tour.  This sweet little rustic cottage was built in 1780 (and I thought my little lady was old at just 70 :)).

Probably the only room I don't really love is the living room - just a little too rustic for me, but certainly fits the house.

The kitchen is charming. Check out the arch design cut into the bottom cabinets - you can see it clearly in the cabinet next to the stove.  Love that light fixture too.

Nothing but love for the dining room with its natural linen slip covered chairs, simple linen window treatment and dark woods. 

The bathroom is perfect...love the shower curtain, the mirror, the little medicine cabinet and basket.  Anyone know what that little thing hanging from the shower curtain is?

The master bedroom is pure serenity.  Interesting how the sloped ceilings force the windows to just over a foot above the bed.

 And the children's room.

I saved the best for last, the conservatory...

Can you just imagine having your morning tea here?  And then a glass of wine at the end of the day?  Love, love, love this space.  Notice the arch design in the window again?  It looks like there might be a little daybed to the left and check out the design bordering the floor.

Hope your weekend includes a sweet spot to kick back and relax :)

A Home Office Goes Horizontal

I love a good home office makeover and this is my new favorite (for 5 minutes until another one catches my eye - I'm fickle that way). 

Stephen Saint-Onge, who does those monthly makeovers of rooms for Better Homes & Gardens did this one for a reader recently. 

I won't bore you with the before photos.  Just picture a plain room with crap scattered here and there.  We all have a space like that somewhere no?  Well, maybe it's just me.  Moving on, this is the finished room with...horizontal stripes.  Aren't they beautiful?  Loving how the crisp white wood stands out against the stripes.

 I had actually though of doing horizontal stripes in my home office until I found out what hell they are to execute after doing them in my dining room.  BTW, they referred to this as an "easy stripe treatment".   I'm guessing the author of the article has never actually tried to paint horizontal stripes in a 70 year old house.

This is my favorite part of the new room:

I'm not sure how much work actually gets done when you have a chaise in your office, but it sure looks good doesn't it?

I thought this was just decorative, but the article said the drawers were used as storage.  Not really practical given it's location in the room so more than likely she won't use it for storage of anything she needs quick and easy access to.

Love the little table cause it's green and I pretty much love any furniture painted green.  The lamp was a spray paint project that started out black.  Love :)

He also turned this empty closet...

Into this...

Honestly, as cute as this little work station is, I would think outfitting it with shelves for storage would have been a better use of the space.  I have two closets in my home office and I use every spare inch of space in them.  But hey, BHG hasn't hired me to makeover anything so I'll just shut up now and go away quietly.

Happy Thursday :)

Living Room Paint Job

Post painting, I took a few quick shots of the living room, but only one really comes close to showing the difference in color.  I guess because my before color was a softer yellow, the new ivory shade doesn't read as all that dramatic a change in pictures.  I do love it though.  And I realize now that I could have gone even lighter and still been happy, but this was a solid choice.

The BEFORE...

and the AFTER....

As you can see, I haven't done the switch to warm weather decorating (pulling up rugs, "warm" pillows and throws, etc.  Not sure it'll happen this year ... too much going on. 

Still on my to do list for this room: 
1. Paint the armoire
2. New pillow to replace the one with fraying fringe (possibly several new pillows)
3. Re-do mantle ( have some fun things in mind using my new thrift store purchases...stay tuned)
4. Bamboo (I would take matchstick too) shades to replace the linen sheers.  I haven't been able to find the size I need via my favorite source (overstock.com), but I'll keep looking.

Small changes = a little more bliss.