framebridge

I was so excited to drive up to the house and see a big cardboard box on our front porch recently. Apparently my little squeals of delight were contagious, because after a few minutes the kids caught onto the excitement, though not exactly sure why…

I received my very first order from Framebridge! I've been wanting to try them out and for Christmas got a gift certificate.

I went with four Instagram minis and did all white mats but with different frames. The process is so easy. Framebridge gets the images from my Instagram account. I choose which photo I want, then choose between a white or off-white mat, and pick one of their 25+ frames. Their frame collection is awesome; I did have some trouble deciding.



They come ready to hang and include a pouch with a nail and care instructions. I really like how they put felt dots on the backs of the frames to prevent scratches on walls.

I absolutely love the way they turned out!

That one is now hanging on a wall in the children's bathroom.

This one of Joseph running through a field is currently on the door to the hallway from the breakfast room where framed family photos cover the walls. I'm crazy about the burl wood.

The ones below (from Joe's 20th Naval Academy reunion) are stacked just inside the dining room if you're coming from the breakfast room. I love how the gold bamboo and the fluted antique gold complement each other.

Looking forward to using this company again. If you know me, you know I love framed art and photography. And I really love the affordability of going this route. I recommend!

land of the living

And all I can say is....whew! This week did me in. Hannah was out from school the whole week and Joseph went only one day. It was bad here in the Buck house.

I saw more high fevers in Hannah, as (we suspect) she had some nasty virus on top of (or that turned into) a sinus infection. With around-the-clock ibuprofen doses, her temp stayed above 101, usually in the 102s. Three times her fever was 104 or greater. Yes, that kind of high. The kind that makes a mom nervous. Several times I did everything I could think of to cool her down...and when it happens in the middle of the night, it seems even more scary. I slept on her trundle quite a bit this week. On Wednesday I took her to the pediatrician and she started antibiotics...which she threw up...twice. Thursday we switched antibiotics. And started Joseph on one. He never was as bad as Hannah and his fever was low-grade at the highest, but the cold-like symptoms worsened and I was afraid we were headed down the same path as Honey.

Yesterday, fevers finally broke and I started to see a ray of sunshine in our gloomy week. We were getting better. Today has been great. Thank God. Through all this, Joe and I were also not well. As I said to a friend: being home with two sick, clingy, pathetic children is not fun. Being sick yourself, at the same time, is just plain rough.

We got out just a couple times all week. Once was to see the demolition that was going on on the church property.

Hannah had to get out and get close as soon as I stopped the car...

Joseph had to warm up a little to all the noise. Both didn't want to leave.

Before all that happened here at Evergreen Drive, last Saturday Hannah and I had a really productive and fun momma/daughter day in Augusta. The main purpose for our trip (just over an hour drive) was to attend a friend's birthday party. Hannah enjoyed herself in the bouncy house.

I finally had birth announcements framed.

...something I've wanted to have done for a long time. I haven't picked them up yet, but I am so excited to see the finished product and get these things up on the wall. {I went with the upper left frame for Joseph's. Both are two-opening, double-matted frames.}

I bought this cute little succulent arrangement for my desk.

We visited The Savvy Shopper, a cute furniture and home decor place that has everything from new, to vintage, to antique stuff. I bought one of these baskets, in yellow, and plan to buy another one or two on my next visit.

I put mine on the shelf in the laundry room and it keeps that big mess of bottles and boxes contained.

...And on my way out, this stopped me dead in my tracks:

I love that blue dresser, with the distressed edges and brass hardware. I would put it in my house.

We also went home with these artichokes:

I put them in my grandmother's antique silver bowl on my living room coffee table.

We had a great day together. I love time with my little girl and momma/daughter adventures.

Well, Uncle Ben is in town visiting from Cincinnati and Meme just got here a little bit ago, so I'm going to go play. Have a great weekend!



PS: Speaking of silver, one of the toddler forks landed in the garbage disposal this week. Not good...

It was likely my fault. Oops.

i dream of chairs

No really, I do. All kinds of chairs.

I love the little white chair in Hannah's room. {I can't believe I never posted about it, but I just went back through the archives and could not find a single picture, except the time she somehow got it into her crib. This is an old picture from my phone from when I found it at Nadeau in Savannah. I bought her two...you know for tea parties, or whatever. I also bought one for my sweet goddaughter last Christmas.}

I love the vintage children's lounge chair I found for Joseph's room when he was itty bitty. {I used it for both his three- and 15-month pictures, too.} I love the white table and chairs my siblings gave Hannah for her second birthday. It is used everyday in the playroom. I love the time-out bench I bought at Scott's in August. I always have my eyes out for chairs for some use or another...

So, today I saw this chair for sale for $149 on One Kings Lane:

My heart skipped a beat. It is not technically the Philippe Starck Louis Ghost Chair (that retails for around $400 a piece), but it is pretty darn close. Probably a good thing they were sold out of the translucent. I might have bought one (or two) without a second thought. I have wanted a Ghost chair since I started art school years ago. The fact that I don't have any place in mind where I would put it has not stopped me from keeping it on my wish list. It doesn't exactly go with most of our furniture, but that hasn't stopped me either. When it comes to home decor, my thought is: if you love it, get it. You will find a place for it.


While we are on the subject of chairs, let me introduce you to Constance:

I love her. And think that she and three of her friends would belong nicely around our kitchen table.

Very similar. I saw these at Scott's in October. I was drawn to them like a magnet and I haven't found anything I like more.

The kitchen table I speak of is the same natural wood one with white legs I had in college. Came with four chairs. Y'all know the one. Chances are you've owned one or know somebody that does. It was classic first-apartment material and it worked. It has been moved 8 times at least. It has paid its dues. And the top is now distressed. The kind of "distressed" that only small children can do...little dibbits from tiny silverware. It's got the sentimental quality, and lots of memories to go along with it, but that does not mean it needs to stay!

We've thought about buying new but we haven't stayed in one place long enough to justify a space-specific purchase. I want round. I would like 6 chairs to fit around it. I want it to be perfect. We live in the breakfast room. We walk through it every time we come and go. It's where we eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner almost every day. It's where we do projects, paint nails, dye Easter eggs, and sing Happy Birthday. It is where I've hung tons of pictures. The walls are filled with framed family photos and art. Just looking around stirs so many wonderful memories. It is my favorite room.

Finding the perfect table and chairs is on my "one day when we..." list. I'm just thinking - or my husband is just saying rather - perhaps we should wait until the kids get a little older. If you could only see the things I find under the tabletop and on the chairs with the boosters attached. I don't have to worry about that now with my good ole college friend...

So two chairs, very different but love them both.

two short trips

While we aren't back in school yet at our house, everyone around us is, and therefore I feel like summer has left us without even saying goodbye. Until the last few days it's been blazing hot outside and the afternoon rainstorms typical this time of year are a reminder that - uh, yes, it is still technically summer. But the weather seems the only thing still holding on to summer. Football hype has started and Halloween costumes and cool-weather clothes fill the dozens of catalogs I get every week. I love the fall, but it's August. So we've still been acting like it's summer around here, if only for just a little bit longer. What we've been up to... {A little out of order here with previous posts, but I'm sure you can forgive me.}

We went to Savannah for about 22 hours to take care of some things. We also had dinner with good friends sans kids (which means we actually got to have a conversation!) and we stayed with Gran Gran and Poppy.

Lunch at Bonna Bella Yacht Club

Hannah and Gran Gran played with Goldfish, throwing a fish to the fish below.

Joseph could neither stand eating the lemon, or leaving it alone. 


Hannah and I took a girls trip to Atlanta. On the way up it looked like this:

A lot of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and sugar.

 
We met Babycakes and Leah at Scott's. (Yes, where I got that children's pew. I looked at this "time-out bench" first.

Hannah fell asleep driving from one side of the interstate to the other. She was completely out of it for this diaper change. Later, she was wide-awake - and very fascinated by the escalator while shopping at Atlantic Station. Small town girl...

We visited my old Starbucks with Uncle Ben and Aunt Katie. I worked here to pay the bills while in art school.

I went to a baby shower for a girl friend (the one holding the little ADPi shirt up to her belly). There are five preggos in this picture. One of them is not me.

And on the way home, someone crashed before we even got out of Atlanta.

When we got home we showed Daddy and Joseph our goods. Joseph liked the Hungarian dough bowl...

...he just didn't want to be in it.

the nursery: part 6

{In case you missed the previous nursery posts, they are here: one, two, three, four, and five.}

Well, this is way overdue. The last nursery post was two and a half months ago. I haven't done much of anything since then, but it has taken a while for me to take pictures and blog about it. I kept putting it on the back burner so I could blog about more current events {when I actually had the time to blog}.

Since Joseph has officially moved in to his room, I thought I should get my act together. After all, I know you can't wait to see how it all came together. Right...? So, without further ado.

I did not want an over-planned space. I was hesitant over any "theme". I really wanted the room to be a collection of things we like, appropriate for a baby, but having the ability to morph into a boy's room when Joseph is a little older. This nursery took almost a year to come together (ideas swimming around in my head for quite a while), but we did move in the middle of it so I'm not going to be too hard on myself. You could say the room has a something-old-something-new-something-borrowed-something-blue theme. I used a mix of old and new, rustic and refined elements, and nautical accents. I like natural textures and a neutral color palette. I found the bedding and worked around it.

Upon walking into the room, this is your view. The door on the right wall is the jack-and-jill bath that connects Hannah's room. The window is on the front side of the house.

The rug is one of my favorite things about the room. It is a Moorish tile rug from Pottery Barn. I don't think they sell it anymore. I fell in love with it years ago. It was in our living room in the last house, but matched the trim on the crib bedding perfectly.

There you see where the oars made their landing. My handy husband hung those up. I wrote about the glider in a previous post. Both that - with new cushions - and the changing table came from Hannah's nursery. I switched the white rattan baskets for natural sea grass ones instead.

The window treatments were done by a church member here who is a seamstress. {Though Ann insists that she is not a professional, I think she did a great job.} I went with a casual, but tailored, pinch-pleat design with a standard rod-and-ring system. Ann tucked drapery pins in the pleats for easy hanging. As for fabric, I chose a natural linen for the body and a slate seersucker for the trim. I asked for the three-inch band of seersucker to be run on the bias (diagonal) along the leading edges.

Due to the bright and hot afternoon sun, I had the panels made with black-out lining. The obvious benefit to that is that the room gets completely dark, unlike Hannah's room which is so bright. Dark room = more sleeping. Theoretically...

That is the mirror I found while at Scott's a couple months ago. It is solid wood, heavy, and I love it. I took my time looking for the right mirror so it was the last thing added to the room. It is exactly what I had envisioned. The two lamps in the room were made by Joe's grandfather, Joseph Alexander Buck, Jr., who also made several other things in our house. Each square on the shaft rotates. I love having original pieces mixed in with store-bought ones. And while we are on that subject, there is the dresser that I gave new life to. I found the little giraffe and cat while traveling years ago. I can't recall where at the moment. My mom might remember. The cross-stitch was a gift and has Joseph's name along with "God will increase" and the Bible verse, "From the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded." {Luke 12:48} Such a good verse... The ship came from my dad's model collection.

There, above the closet doors, is the first oar I found at a yard sale. I intended to paint it so Joseph would have something in his room that I did like Hannah does, but for now it's just a plain old weathered oar. The frame to the right of the closet is a cross-stitch of the Georgia coastline that was done for us as a wedding gift. You can see where the vintage rolling crate ended up. A nursery must also be practical, hence the camera.

I love the bedding.

I found this chair at an antique store in a small town right near us. I knew it was meant to be Joseph's the second I saw it.

As my Dad was downsizing to move out to the Pacific Northwest, he gave a lot of stuff away. I took this framed historic map of the Jamestown/Williamsburg area of Virginia.

And there are those hampers I found at Target. Whites go in one, colors in the other. When they are full, I pick them up by the rope handles and dump the clothes in the washer. Makes doing laundry relatively simple.

The shelf to the right of the crib has some toys and gifts we have received. Finally, I wanted some photographs of Joseph on the wall. I decided to hang the frames directly next to each other so I would have room to add more as time goes by. I also like the aesthetic. The frames are both dark-stained and black-painted wood.

Besides the monitor and necessary pieces of furniture, the most important thing in the room is sitting there on the side table: the iHome. Joseph and Hannah both listen to the ocean as they sleep. Joe and I are strong believers in the benefits of white noise we read about in Happiest Baby on the Block. Since their births, not a day has gone by when we have not used it.

And that's Joseph's room. The photos are darker than I anticipated, but you get the idea. Now...on to the next room. {And it will not be a nursery!}

the nursery: part 5

The last project to be completed was Joseph's dresser. This is the dresser that has been passed down (and passed down again) and now is making it's appearance for the second time in a nursery. When Joe and I first got it, we painted it as you see it below. We had some spare paint and this is what we came up with. It's home was our guest room. It's contents, Joe's winter apparel.

I chose paint to match the slate blue in the seersucker fabric. After lots of sanding and two coats of paint, I still had problems with the uneven paint surface due to the knobs (which in all previous occasions, had been left on) peeling the paint in large spider-like pieces. So, with advice from a friend who is an expert in painted furniture and a nice man at Ace Hardware, I ended up fixing the patches with paint filler...and more sanding.

After more paint and new knobs, this is the finished product:

It is not the highest quality piece of furniture, but it is old. And I like the story of it's life. It is definitely a sentimental piece. I like the imperfections and naturally-distressed look. Wonder what my great-grandmother would think about her dresser now...
 
Joseph's room is finally complete. Everything came together last week as we prepared to have guests in town for Joseph's baptism. Nothing like planning a party to get your rear in gear. My mom came during the week to help both with the work and with the kids. {Mom, you have no idea how much we appreciate your help. Thank you!} And so, I finally had time to finish nursery #2. I'll take some pictures and post soon. 

the nursery: part 4

Yes, Joseph is here - has been for almost three months - and his nursery is still not complete, or even close. But I've got an excuse in that we recently moved and he just now got a room! He is still sleeping in our room in his bassinet and perfectly content to stay there. In the mornings, I'll pull him into bed next to me and that is my favorite time of the day. We lay there and snuggle. I nurse him, and then we snuggle some more. But, I know, he needs to move to his own room and so I am trying to pull it together.

Since I wanted to have an idea where we were going to put things (and because I was getting antsy to start Joseph's room) I drew up some layouts before we moved.

Prior to move-in, the church in Sandersville agreed to paint some rooms in the parsonage. {In case you do not know, we live in a church-owned home. There are benefits and drawbacks to this arrangement, but if you are fortunate enough to have a church that is able and willing to meet your needs and wants, it's not so bad.} Anyway, I chose Glidden's Vase Blue, a chambray color, for Joseph's room. I'm in love with it.

I have a few updates since my nursery posts, part 2 and part 3. The crib we picked out was discontinued. A different, but similar, one was ordered last week and will arrive any day.

The new glider cushions arrived and they are on. I took the rug from our living room in the old house and put it in the nursery - it is the same color as the yellow in Joseph's bedding. Yay!

Still need to do something with that dresser...

The side table I am using is the one that was in Hannah's room, a simple white-painted wooden table Joe's grandfather (Joe Buck Jr.) made. During the move, it got beat up a little and the paint was peeling in several places. I pulled off the little bit that was loose in order to sand it down and touch up the paint and it came right off. So now I have this look:

As both my mom and mother-in-law commented, if I had a cow theme going on, this would be great. But I don't. Still, I like the natural wood look better, so when I have some spare time I intend to peel the rest of the paint off. It'll be a long, therapeutic experience I am sure.

For the last several months I've had my eye out for fun additions to the nursery. I've collected as I go, not really having a specific theme in mind just finding things that I like. I'll pull it all together once we have everything in the room.

Back in April, I went to a garage sale on my girl trip to Brunswick/St. Simons and found an old oar. It wasn't exactly for sale (I spotted it in a junk pile in the backyard), but the nice lady sold it to me for a dollar.

A week or so later, I found a pair of handcrafted wooden oars (and met the nice old man who made them) while out exploring with Hannah in Jesup.

I don't know what I'm going to do with this oar collection yet, but I have a couple ideas.

I love this rolling storage crate from Serena and Lily. Mentioned it to my mom, and all of a sudden it's in the mail being delivered to the new house. Backordered for over a month, it arrived this week.

My little assistant.

Update: since starting this post a couple days ago, the crib arrived. Yay for progress!