Guest Room work in progress

So the future Hubs and I have been working on our house. We are also working on a separate blog that may merge with this one soon! Stay tuned for that. Back to the house, upstairs we have 2 guests rooms. We had a friend come visit a few weeks ago and we finished painting both rooms and pulled some random stuff together to make it presentable. Here is What we had: 

   

I pulled all of the red items into one room since we had enough red velvet curtains for 3 windows and I didn't want red in my bedroom. So this is our "red room", get your mind out of the gutter. 

If you look at at the photo with the pegasus you will see the pattern of my grandmothers white spread. I LOVE the shabby chicness of it in contrast to the vintage masculinity of the Mobil oil pegasus. I am struggling to blend my things with P's. When all was pulled together this was our result, I didn't have any white pillow shams and we have yet to hang our sign. 

Excuse the blurriness of this photo. We are working on taking better pictures for all of you. I pulled brown pillow shams because thats all we had from P's house. I found a green pillow with a brown bird in with my things and the only matching lamps we had were two aqua blue ones of mine. I had to offer a clause to anyone who saw this room to assure them that I did in fact have taste. 

After some searching on the great big book of everything I found some inspiration that I think would suit our room and help us use what we have. 

From the top:

1. I love the grey washed look of this nightstand. The ones we have do not currently match the other furniture in this room which are both dark brown dressers. 

2. These are the curtains we currently have in the room but they look so clean with the white and black accents. 

3. I love the modern look of this unfinished wood lamp and think it would compliment the masculinity of this room. 

4. This headboard is very similar to the one we currently have and I didn't think it would go with grey but with the clean white it balances it out. 

5. I LOVE LOVE the patterned navy accents in this grey room. 

I will repost the outcome of this room in progress. I'm on the hunt now for my missing pieces. 

Decking the Unpainted Halls

So we have yet to paint the actual hallways but I needed to get in the spirit so it was time to pick out a Christmas tree. This year I found a tree farm where we could go and cut down our own tree. Since it will not be up a full month I could not justify spending close to $100 on a 10' frasier fir that may be diseased. This year we bought our first "Southern" Christmas Tree. It's a Leland Cyprus and its locally grown and cultivated for our tropical climate. I feel very eco friendly and the best part, we can plant it in the yard and hope it takes root! Then I don't have to take the lights off. It will be ready to plug in next year in the front yard. BOOM planning ahead!

Here is our lit and ornamented tree. It still needs a garland of some sort. It was fun to go through the ornaments we have collected since we met 3 years ago. I bought the C and the P at Pottery Barn last year as well as the "Merry Christmas" glitter banner. I LOVE a sparkly tree. 

I had a pinterest success last month. I saw this idea of printing a great design of a quote and frame it. So I printed my favorite quote from ELF and pulled out an extra 8x10 frame and POW, Christmas explosion.

I found these trees and church at Homegoods this year. We have 8 mantles and I wanted to decorate as many as possible. I have a ton of nutcrackers to fill lots of them and got creative with the other 3. The reindeer lanterns are old paint cans covered in burlap and stamped with reindeer, I bought them last year at a little boutique in South Carolina. Here are my mantles.

So thats it! Now we need to paint the hall.

DIY SUCCESS

Back in my bloggin hay day I spent a lot of time learning and editing HTML. I had all kinds of fun widgets and a great line up of blogs I followed. Since my hiatus I've found that most of blogging friends have stopped writing so I've had to clean those up. I have lots about 200 followers that I need to build back up and I forgot how to edit HTML. I've spent the better part of the last day reading new blogs suggested by friends and working on my layout. Please bear with me as this will be a work in progress. I did manage to make a new banner! I am now a card carrying member of Bloglovin to increase my readership. Please spread that word that the B is back!

My favorite blog that I've been reading since working on our new house is Young House Love. If you have yet to check this site out and you love a good DIY done right, you should check them out. They are currently renovating their 3rd home and expecting their second child. They are witty and blog full time so there space looks a lot better than mine. 

Speaking of DIY here are some recent pinterest successes! 

You may have seen these great glitter balls. You use mop and glo inside and then pour the glitter in. I didn't make a step by step tutorial because you find that HERE.  It was very easy and a lot of fun. I did them with my mom and have ordered some monogrammed decals to go on them to give as Christmas gifts. If I can do this you can too! 

Going back a few holidays, I made this halloween wreath for our door. I used a wire frame and bought some taffeta ribbon that I cut into 6 inch strips and tied them to the wreath. I bought the skulls on sale at Homegoods last year, they are on sticks so I stuck them in and put a few beads of hot glue. I also had the spiders (they are actually covered in black glitter for extra sass), I glued those on as well. The ribbon was left over from Christmas last year. In fact the only things I bought were the wire frame, Taffeta and the Trick of treat sign which was $2 at walmart. SUCCESS!!

Lastly, I was gifted this red chandelier that did not go with my color scheme of blue and gray. So I bought some high pigment spray paint from Blick Art Supply. If you have one of these near you it will become your spray paint heaven. They have about 75 colors to choose from so choosing just the right aqua blue was hard. After an hour of texting everyone I knew to ask their opinion I settled on one and I LOVE my finished product. 

Stay tuned for more DIY projects from my new house and maybe some recipes if I can ever take pretty photos of food. 

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The Belle is BACK!

Do I still have readers out there? Maybe not, its been a long time. First let me tell you why I stopped writing. Not everyone in this life is a happy person who wishes you the best and I know one of these people. They started reading my blog and taking some of the things I said and twisting them and starting rumors and trying to turn me against people. I consider myself a "lady" most days and decided it was in my best interest to just stop writing and let it blow over. For the most part it blew over and for the other part I stopped caring so much. I know who I am and the people who love me do to and if they want the truth they can come read it for themselves......dismount from soapbox with a double back flip.

So what have I been up to in 2013? Well, my boyfriend and I bought a house back in March. Its a Victorian home in downtown Savannah and we have been renovating it and moved in August. We have a mess of boxes and no art on the walls but I will post photos and show you our progress that we are proud of! I also got engaged in June! If you have been a reader of mine for a while you will recall my posts about finding the perfect man and I finally did.

I never told the story of how P and I met because I didn't want to curse anything. So here goes my version and (his version).

In October of 2010 I went to the South Magazine Dine South event. Its like a Taste of Savannah with restaurants setting up tables of food and an open bar! I went with a girlfriend and I got a Jack and coke and some baby back ribs and needed a place to sit it all down and chow down. There was a guy standing all by himself at a table (I was waiting on my friends to come back, I wasn't all alone). 

I asked if I could join him and thought he was cute (she was wearing a short dress and her legs looked awesome). I started talking to him and eating my ribs (I thought it was cool that a girl was brave enough to eat ribs in front of me and she was drinking JACK so she was cool). 

I asked who he was at the party with and he pointed to two girls and they were waiving at me like crazy. On closer inspection they were two acquaintances of mine. They came over and we all started talking and I figured this must be a good guy if he is friends with them (She must be cool if she knows my friends but i hope they don't say anything bad about me). 

We all continue hanging out and by the end of the night we have taken a silly photo together, he has my number, we are Facebook friends, following each other on twitter and he has already texted. (Thats a bit dramatic).  We went to the rail and sang karaoke and I never thought I'd see him again until he texted the next day (I totally waited 3). 2 days later we went to watch football and hung out pretty much every day since (it wasn't 2 days, it was at least a week and I'm sure you probably called me first). 

Here is our first photo. These goofballs are perfect for each other

They always say there is someone for everyone and with P I can truly be myself. I can be a little nerdy, board the train to crazy town every now and then and I don't have to hide my smarts. I used to be a construction manager so as we renovate our home he is not intimidated by my knowledge or emasculated that I talk to the contractors and handle the scope of work, he thinks its amazing how smart I am.

Look forward to wedding details, home renovation stories, stories on learning how to make a home and buying and selling homes. Oh yea, I also switched jobs and am now a Realtor. No more property management for me.

Men Playing Angry Birds

Growing up in a household with 2 men I learned that they spent a lot more time "using the bathroom" than I did. My mom would say my Dad was in the library and he usually did have a book in there. But I've always wondered WHY? Why do men take so much longer to do their business than women.

I believe I have found my answer ladies. I work in an office with 7 women and 3 men. I notice the women coming and going pretty quickly from the bathroom but the men seem to linger. My beau also seems to stay a long time. I have found one common link with all of the men I have observed. CELL PHONES!

Where women will sit around and chit chat to take a break or relax, men prefer to go in the privacy of the bathroom and play with their phones. I know this because sometimes at my house I can hear the little words with friends noise going off in the bathroom. They check their stocks, check their emails, watch youtube videos, and yes they play Angry Birds.

I feel Angry Birds is what keeps them in their so long. Those elusive levels that you just cant pass will have them sitting for entirely too much time. So if you are on a time crunch dont let your fella take his phone to the bathroom with him.I promise I've tried it and they are in and out in a much more reasonable amount of time.

South VS North WEDDINGS

I'm back! Seriously this is the year you will hear more from me and I will catch up on my blogging. I've been thinking a lot about weddings.

I remember the first wedding I went to, I was about 7 years old and it was a distant cousin. There was a buffet with amazing food, ice sculptures and lots of dancing and beach music. I remember having so much fun that I fell asleep at the table after my sugar rush crash.

Through the years I've been to dozens of weddings, maybe even a 100 at this point. Most all of the them were southern weddings with the same typical traditions. Short and sweet ceremony, huge buffet dinner, lots of dancing, a bridal party consisting of family and lifelong friends.

Besides the people in and at the weddings I've attended, the only real difference is the food. I've only been to a handful of sit down dinners. Most were where the bride was from the north. In the past year however I have attended 3 and about to go to my third sit down dinner southern style wedding.

I've always been against a sit down dinner.
1. It seems like a lot of work to make a seating chart and people are never happy
2. As a guest I dont like to feel I have to sit down the whole time, it makes me anxious
3. Dancing can not start until everyone has finished dinner, this takes way to long.
4. extra money spent on seating charts and place cards that could be spent on booze and food.
5. you cant snack when you are starving from all of the dancing. Those calories are quickly burned off

Those are my thoughts. I want my wedding to be FUN! I want my guests to walk into the reception and be greeted by a room of food that they can eat at their leisure. I want good food too. Fried Oysters, a very large selection of cheeses, a meat carving station, mashed potato bar, boiled peanuts, meatballs, mac and cheese, collards, and ribs

Operation renovation

You know those moments when you think, "Damn life is crazy right now"? That's how I've felt this last month. I moved a few weeks ago....Again! For the first time in my entire life I have my own place. No roommates. This means I cant accuse anyone of eating my ice cream. I have to own my Ben and Jerry's obsession. I finally get to see exactly how much toilet paper and paper towels I consume. (I've always assumed my roommates used too much of each). That mess in my living room is now my mess and I must own it. If my house is dirty its my own fault, cant blame my roommate.

I started out in college with bad roommate experiences until I moved to the ZTA house my junior year. I met Elizabeth and Jeannie who are my best friends today. The next summer we lived together and then when Jeannie left we found a less than par replacement.

When I left Winthrop and moved to Savannah my childhood best friend Katie moved in with me. We had a great apartment on a cobblestone street for 3.5 years. We decided we wanted more space so moved in with our friend Lauren. We all got along great and Katie and I got our own place when Lauren moved in with her beau.

Living with my best friends was always great. Katie and I joked we would have a common law marriage if we stayed together a few more years. We could share groceries, bills, and blame each other for our mess. There was always someone to get sucked into a tv show with and always someone to go out with you or to the chinese super buffet.

The only downside to living with your besties is that sometimes you get sick of seeing that person all the time. I guess this is good preparation for marriage. When Katie left I decided I wanted to live with strangers. I found 2 girls and decided to live with strangers so that I didnt have to be friends with them. All of my friends were married, living with significant others, or enjoyed living alone. It wasnt the worst idea I ever had. We didnt all get along though so we decided to go our separate ways.

Living in a great area of downtown Savannah is expensive. Luckily, I'm a property manager and have access to lots of houses. I manage properties for someone who had a carriage house unit that was in desperate need of a rehab. I worked out a deal and agreed to do all of the work. Here is the before of the living room/kitchen. There was no fridge, the stove was disgusting and a kitchen counter was pretty much non existent.

This is the bedroom before. The little room with white walls would later be my closet. the bathroom was caution cone orange!

Here is the bathroom floor before. We had already removed the sink and paneling at this point and painted the brick white.

Bathroom floor after, my sink is going in today.

We put laminate hardwood over the old parquet peel and stick vinyl. It was a lot of work and my boyfriend and I tested our relationship but in the end we were both very proud of what we accomplished.

The living room after. All new lights, it was just bulbs before. I got rid of the heinous shelving, yellow walls, and finally had counter space.

Thanks to pinterest I had some great ideas for little things. Every house needs a chalkboard wall. My kitchen now has one.

Every girl also needs a chic pink chandelier in her closet also!

And every good little dog needs his own little corner

So thats my new place. I couldnt have done it without the help of my boyfriend. I never knew he was handy. I am very impressed with his skills. We learned so much about each other through this process. I know to keep my mouth shut and let him figure out a problem before I offer my advice. He learned to keep his mouth shut when I get frustrated and just give me space. We are a stronger team thanks to this project. He is so proud of what we have accomplished as am I. He tells everyone we see and wants to show the photos of the rehab. There are still a few things to be done and I will post more photos of the living room and bedroom when they are finished.