Sharing the Joy

I mentioned in my first entry that I was really inspired by other blogs to begin my own. I really wanted to share one of my favorite blog discoveries. I check this blog regularly. It has guest bloggers, do it yourself (diy) projects, before and after shots, textiles, all sorts of wonderful resources and things (Only if your into design and homes). It always gets my creative juices flowing. I hope you love it as much as I do. If you ever decide to travel to any major cities, this blogger has lists of unique shops in each major city. YUP, even a list for little ol' Atlanta. So make sure you check it before you go traveling next.

A Superbly Featured Fire Place

One thing I love about our old home is it's fireplace. If only it were still up to today's codes, we would be sitting by that fire every night come winter. But unfortunately it is not up to code, and if we did burn a fire we would probably burn the house down, or fill it with smoke.

I have seen people do a lot of different and creative things with their old/non functioning fireplaces. I think it is a really interesting way to add character to your room. I figured we would throw a few candles in our fireplace like most people do and be done with it. I have been online checking out different ideas. One in particular that I LOVED, that I can't seem to find a picture anywhere, but it was a fireplace filled with old magazines stacked in columns. At added lots of color. Here were a few others I found online that were cool:




Our fireplace was sitting empty for a while and in desperate need of decorating. I was trying to brainstorm as to what we could do, and I really did like the candle idea, but it felt overdone. Us here at 1114 are not about doing things the normal way. Anyway, All of a sudden it dawned on me. And thanks to a wonderful gift card from Christmas to Pottery Barn, I was able to execute my idea. It is not every day that I have new and creative ideas, so I must say that I am really proud. Check out my superbly featured fireplace.

I love the cute little lanterns!

Being Green

There is so much hype around 'going green', sometimes I find it quite irritating honestly. But recently I have realized just how rewarding it can be. It can be a lot of work sometimes, but I've been appreciating how everyone seems to be working together to make it easier. Joe and I garden green. We have a push mower, which some may say is too much work and maintenance, but really it is not. The blades are self sharpening, how cool is that? Joe snagged it for $20 at the same salvage yard he got our hardware.
When we started gardening it didn't take long for us to realize we would also need a weed waker for all of our overgrown hedges...so of course we went for the electrical one which is superb. Why are people so opposed to having a chord to plug in? It is not really an inconvenience.
I know that you find this picture of our weed waker most riveting! And finally, our compost pile. This is the one I struggle with the most. I'm use to throwing everything in the trash. I also hate having a separate container under our sink full of rotting food waiting to get taken out. Yuk! But, it is fun to watch our pile grow and develop and I'm looking forward to getting to use it in our garden. Seems silly to pay for dirt.
That is how we do it. Some times it is inconvenient, and it takes patience, but this is what makes it most rewarding.

Gardening

My mother is an incredible gardener as is her mother. I've really been hoping that I have inherited their green thumb. It is still too soon to tell, but so far it has been pretty good. Not to long ago I noticed these little guys popping up in random places all over our yard. I've since then learned it is called liriope or "monkey grass". How exciting! We have pretty plants in our yard and they are free!!
So I have mentioned before just how resourceful my husband is, right? What I mean by that is, he hates throwing stuff away. Since he has started his job as a project manager for a building construction company he has been coming home all excited about the materials that he can bring home because it would otherwise be thrown away. We have a huge pile of granite rock in our back yard just waiting to be put to use thanks to demolition at his latest project. So, with our free rock, our free plants and a landscape completely free of design, we went to work. What seemed like a simple project turned out to be quite a struggle. Man verses wild. All we wanted to do is dig up a little garden bed around our mail box. We didn't expect to battle against worlds most stubborn bush stump. We should have known though, most plants that were "removed" from our yard, prior to our ownership, were just beheaded, all of the roots, stumps and strange sprouts are still popping up everywhere. No gardening project is going to be easy for a very long time because we have a lot of hidden plants below the ground, a lot of inexperience, and a LOT of Georgia red clay. So, needless to say I feel pretty accomplished that we have the liriope planted where the stump once was and none of it has died yet. We are now eagerly awaiting to see if it will thrive and spread throughout our garden bed.

Wonderful Wedding Gifts!

I must say, my kitchen is made up of ENTIRELY wedding gifts. It's INCREDIBLE! I might have purchased an item here or there, but it's mostly gifts from loved ones. Confession: I'm still learning how to cook, so I have not even gotten the opportunity to use a lot of them. I have at least three really cool kitchen items that have gone untouched. Maybe it's time I break in all the cookware.

Tonight Joe and I broke in the blender. Yum!
It was such a good idea. Our Oreo milkshakes were worthy of Chick-fil-A, if I say so myself. I will refuse to say who, but someone, who will remain nameless is still learning what their doing in the kitchen. (Only kidding!) We had a little leak, but we recovered OK.
By the way, the next time you see Joe, let him know his hair cut looks great, I cut it myself....yikes!

Color,

there are so many to choose from! Looking through a paint sample wheel is fun, but choosing one color is an anxiety attack. You may think you find one you like, but then you find another, compare them, and they look NOTHING alike. I was seriously tempted to call up some friends who have had experience in the interior decorating business when Joe put his foot down about a month ago and said, "We ARE painting THIS weekend." But I found myself too stubborn, I wanted to do this myself and learn from my mistakes. Everyone was saying "It's just paint, try something and if you don't like it paint over it!" So I went for it. I wont share all of the tedious debates I had in my head over the different colors or the reason why I did not choose so many other colors, but I will show you the end results (which you have previously seen in my other post). It's nice to have color on the wall finally. Although, I've decided on another brown. It's not a very good picture of the two browns, but the new one is flat and the other was eggshell, and it was so shiny. Whenever you take a picture in the room there is always a glare coming off the wall. Our house is old and our walls have a lot of imperfections and the glossy finish really accentuates the imperfections. I'm looking forward to having the new color on. I think once we add some lighting, and break up the walls a bit with art, it will really lighten up the room.
I need your opinion on painting ceilings. If I paint the ceiling of this room a warm bright neutral, will it make it feel smaller?

See the big glare on the left of this shot?? This picture was taken towards the beginning of the summer. When I tell you that we had the most amazing relater I mean we REALLY did. From left to right, Jeff and Andrea (Joe's sister and her new husband), Joe and I, Justin and Ameris (Justin sold us the house), Rich (our Realtor) and Heather and Ryan with their sweet baby James. When we finally settled, Rich and his team came over and brought dinner. We all got to hang out, catch up, play games, it was such a good time. If you need a relater in the Atlanta area let me know and I will give you their information. They're awesome!

I'll make sure to keep you updated on the next time we feel motivated to paint our living room.

Welcome...

to 1114! Our house was built in the 50's, or so the tax records say. We bought the home from a renovation group associated with "We Buy Ugly Houses." The man in charge of all of the renovations was a young guy by the name of Ben Foltz who lived in the neighborhood and owns his own renovation company. He did an incredible job, in my opinion. Lets take a tour.




Our door hardware. I believe this was our first real home project which happened before we even bought the house. Joe had the fun of picking out all the antique door hardware because all of the original pieces were stolen. (The neighborhood was in transition for quite some time. hah!) Joe did an excellent job, all of our handles, knobs, and locks work beautifully. We even have cool skeleton keys for all the house locks.

When you walk in the door you are immediately in our living room. All of the floors are the original hardwood. The mantel was completely redone and the shelf and cabinet to the right were built in as well. The door way that you see to the left is the library/office.


This picture below is the living room view from the office doorway. The couch was a fortunate purchase. We are working with a pretty small space and we needed a pretty specific item. It's nice to have somewhere for our guests to sit finally. We went Joe's mother's recommendation and got ourselves a good deal at American Signature Furniture.

There is a shot of the office. There isn't a whole lot going on there yet.



That dark and blurry shot below (left), you can see our dining area. The dining room table was a steal, we found it on Craigs List, which is a favorite of Joe's.




This next picture to our right is a picture of the kitchen. Joe and I got to pick out most of the appliances ourselves. The walls color is my favorite, and it was picked out by an interior designer who lives in our neighborhood. Lucky for me I like her taste because...

she also had picked out this color in our bathroom. It's a bit tiny but what can you expect, it's an old house?

The picture to our right here is the guest room. The dresser to your right was the first piece of furniture EVER bought by Joe and I as a married couple. Yay for Ikea! This picture below and to the left is also of the guest bedroom.


The picture to your right here is our "master" bedroom. It's the exact same size as the guest bedroom. Although when they renovated the house they managed to get us more closet space. This is another room with a whole lot of nothing going on. Unfortunately today wasn't a very good day to take you on a tour of the house. It is a little dark, but oh well!



Here is our deck. It's all new! We are lucky to have a decently sized back yard. If we manage to level it out a bit, it'll be great for future kiddies. We only recently painted those barn doors. It's amazing what a difference it's made. I wish I had a before picture.









The last thing I want to show you is part of our basement. Joe did a beautiful job organizing his workshop. Across from his workshop is the washer and dryer. We have storage space behind that drywall to the left of the picture and a whole lot of dirt that they built the house on top of. I guess one day we could dig it all out and do something with all that space.


Aside from the attic and a bunch of other nooks and crannies, this is 1114 in a nutshell. I hope you loved the tour as much as I loved giving it!