Our Home Tour 2017

Our Home Tour 
I recently updated the photos to show how our home looks now.
My rooms are always being redecorated for one season or occasion,
or simply because I am rearranging my furniture!  
Can you relate? 
I hope you enjoy the tour of our home~
From the courtyard and garden shed, to our small front yard,
take a walk around and come on in!

 French Courtyard

Garden tool shed 

Rose arbor and wire bench

White picket fence for the dogs

Our new addition,  little Piper, an English Cream Golden Retriever

Living room image via Romantic Country Magazine Spring 2017

A piano, painted white, is played by our son.

French chair in living room in my favorite toile!

Antique and rare, our blue opaline chandelier drops and goblets.

We use these goblets on Easter to celebrate.

Dining room, french romantic style. 

Purple transferware is my obsession,
as is antique lighting.

 One of many sets of curtains for the dining room, these in pink linen

Our two year old boy, Colby

Purple transferware on the hutch, decked out for Christmas with greens

 French settee I purchased from Designer Matthew Mead, 
which led to our friendship and many adventures

It sits underneath cabinet doors removed from an old built in.

Hallway in the kitchen with an old green bench.

Our cottage kitchen, accents of green

Green and purple do so well together

Piper in the tv room, underneath a landscape mural I painted

A sisal runner in grey for our busy household 

 Our master bed with pretty Belgian spread,
aquamarine is the order of the day.

My favorite antique~this painted table

A restful escape at the end of long days.

Master bathroom countertop has touches of aquamarine as well.

The painted cabinets are a pale Duck Egg blue with gold hardware

His and hers, sinks and chandeliers!

Thanks for visiting! 

Photographs by Matthew Mead and Amy Chalmers. Please do not use without permission.

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Luscious Linen Balloon Curtains for Master Bedroom

 Romantic and luscious, these Linen Balloon Drapery Panels are gorgeous!

They add more of the European relaxed glamourous look that I was going for in the

master bedroom redecorating project.   Soft Surroundings is so

wonderful for their European and French home decor offerings.
I was delighted to partner up with them again on these beautiful window treatments.
  They have a large selection to choose from,

 but I really had my heart set on these linen panels for our bedroom. 

The panels are lined in white cotton which gives it extra weight and fullness.  

The bottoms of the panels are sewn back onto the lining and it creates a balloon effect. 

 These are not puddled and turned under at the floor, but instead are sewn with a balloon

bottom which is effortless to create a perfect cloud-like bottom that sits 

elegantly on the floor.  The top of the panel is a tie top created from a ruched and ruffled header, 

which feels like the essence of European glamour.  The color of my panels is ivory.  

The ivory is very soft, off white, not yellowy, and it looks nice with the white bedding.

The panels do come in white, but I was afraid it may be too white, so I opted for ivory.

Can I say......I am in LOVE!

The gauzy ivory linen with the white cotton lining sits elegantly on the floor.

I pull the curtains closed at night with a simple tug, and they don't get

 messed up on the bottom like puddled curtains do.  I couldn't recommend

these curtains more highly~they are beautifully made and look incredible!

My husband got in bed the first night they were hanging, 

looked up at the window and said, "Wow, these look very grand!"

Grand, indeed!

Another tiny thing we did to the bedroom was to add these simple wall

sconces.  They are not hardwired, and they have a pull chain to 

turn them off and on.  The cord is tucked behind the headboard, and it is

one of my favorite improvements in adding to the overall ambience of the room.

Since I love to read at night, and hubs falls asleep before me, they also are 

good at directing the light in a small pool towards my book.  I am reading 

Empty Mansions right now, and its fascinating!  True story about a rich eccentric 

heiress, with many mansions that she kept up, but never visited.  Bizarre! 

I lie in bed and look at my grand curtains and think maybe the heiress had 

something similar in her bedrooms~she was born in France, after all.  

The master bedroom is a wonderful respite at the end of a long day in the garden (me), 

or out in the excavation pit (hubs).  We love everything we selected, the mattress, 

the bedding (which is the Regency Tapestry Coverlet from Soft Surroundings), 

the tufted blue headboard, and last but not least, the Linen Balloon Panels!! 

Note that I ordered the curved bronze rod from Soft Surroundings

to hang the panels as they show in their online shop.  It is not the easiest

rod to install, and although I was able to do it myself, it really is a two 

person job.  Lets just say my 25 years of custom window treatment installations

came in handy on this pesky but alluring rod.  I like how the rod curves out

into the space of the room, and that is why I think hubby thought they looked grand.

Its an understated wow kind of look!  

Simply put, these panels are wonderful!  

I read a lot of the reviews on the Soft Surrounding site

and some were concerned about the wrinkles in the panels when they

unpacked them.  I had a simple solution to handle this issue:  give the 

panel a spritz with Downy wrinkle releaser and smooth the panel with your hands

after you have hung them up. The wrinkles came out right away, 

and it only took ten minutes for me to do both panels.  

Soft Surroundings Linen Balloon Panels 

Soft Surroundings Curved Drapery Rod

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Master Bedroom:Dreamy Bedding and Headboard Installation

The master bedroom makeover is well on its way to being a success story.

Bedding plays a huge role in the style you want, so its a natural place to start your 

bedroom decorating. Our bedroom is small, and has slanted ceilings, and 

when we decided to go from a Queen to a King bed, I thought the bed would have to

go in front of the window.  Well, it looked terrible in front of the window,

so we turned it around, and tucked it under the slanted roof line, and it 

fit like a glove.  The bedspread/coverlet was the inspiration for the European style I wanted,

and since we were keeping all the dark wood furniture but eliminating 

the bed itself, we opted for a tufted fabric headboard. 

 The color of the headboard was the one thing I was nervous about.

The walls of the room are a pale aquamarine, and I took a chance on this deeper 

colored blue headboard.   All of the bedding and bed parts were ordered online, sight unseen.

That is pretty nerve wracking, and I had to wait for them to arrive, one by one. 

I wouldn't be able to tell if my choices would work, until it all arrived.

 Yesterday the last pieces came and hubs and I were able to set up the bed, 

with the new bedding, and we ended up being pretty thrilled with the way it turned out. 

(All sources will be listed at bottom of the post)

.

 When I redecorate, I don't start from scratch.  Many of my things will be

repurposed or given a new role.  Some items, like the carpet, are taken from

another room to achieve the look I am trying to create.  Of course getting a bigger

bed, meant getting all new linens, and that was the fun part!

Some items would be a splurge, some would be on sale.

The bedspread was the inspiration for the style of the room, and it came from the idea

that I thought it looked like a family relative to the painted antique table.  And that is where I 

got brave enough to order the darker blue headboard, hoping it would look nice with

the blue on the painted table.  The bed is a little bit greener, in the range of blue/green

 but I think it looks fine.  The overall palette is monochromatic aquamarine.

 Since the new foam mattress is up on a pedestal and a riser to give it

some height (18") from the floor, I searched high and low to find a bedskirt

that would work.  And what a delight it was to see it in person!  It is a cotton voile

in a pretty "sea glass" color.  I ordered two euroshams from the same line to 

coordinate the bedding, as the spread is from a different company.  While it 

may be easy to order everything you see on one website, I like to hunt down my own

vision of how the bed should look.  While the bedspread was shown with offwhite bedding,

I wanted to pull out the blue in the bedding, and that is why I looked for blue components.

If you had this spread, and you liked the color green, you could easily do the same thing,

to have your room be "your style" with your favorite color, green.

Mind you, I am still in the fun and early stages of styling the room,

which means I am hanging things up, looking for lamps, and moving

things around.  The next big part of this bedroom makeover is to 

switch out the silk draperies.  While the color is spot on, they are 12 years

old, and showing fading and wear.  I guess that is the tattered elegance that 

I favor, but I saw some unbelievably gorgeous draperies that I think will 

look amazing with this bedding.  

For those of you who are interested in where I got the bed parts, mattress, and 

the bedding, my source list is as follows.  Click on the item to go to the link.

12" Memory Foam Mattress by Zinus

14" Metal Platform Base for Mattress by Zinus

4" Wooden Riser to elevate the mattress to an 18" height

Seafoam Blue Tufted Headboard 

Regency Tapestry Coverlet by Soft Surroundings

Horchow European Vanya Sham in Seaglass 

Horchow Seaglass Dustskirt

Perhaps my last post on the King sized dust ruffle from Horchow spurred some buying, 

as now it seems the King may be out of stock. 

 It was a smokin' deal at $79, and they do have the twin size for sale at $56. 

 I love this bedskirt!  

It is a cotton voile, a bit of a crinkle texture, and it

is lined.  I didn't do a thing but open it up and put it under the mattress.  Two twins would give

you a king size if you wanted to alter them.  But the point is, keep shopping and looking and 

you will find bedding that is well priced and lovely.  I splurged on the Coverlet from Soft Surroundings, as I felt that was the one thing that would make the room, style wise. 

So spend where you must, and save where you can.

We have only spent one night on the new foam mattress, but it seems fantastic.  

The platform and the riser were both so well made, we were very pleased with everything.

This is not a sponsored post, and even if it was sponsored, these opinions are honest

and hopefully helpful to you, if you are also redoing your bedroom.

++++++

Note: Update on the mattress~we love it and are enjoying our best sleep in years!

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Aquamarine bedding steals from a luxe online shop

 The master bedroom makeover from a Queen size bed to a King size bed started

with hubs and I moving the Queen bed into another bedroom.  You might recognize it as 

the room I had just turned into my home office space.  It is being turned into a guest room now,

and our old Queen bed looked quite lovely in its new setting.  Our foam mattress arrived quickly,

as we purchased it online after reading many reviews.  

They recommend setting it up and letting it get rid of the toxic fumes in a process

called "off-gassing".  Basically open the windows and turn on the fan and let the odors

from the foam dissipate for 3-7 days to avoid any reactions to the VOCs the foam emits.
When we got it, the mattress was rolled up in a vacuum sealed bag, and it was very thin. When we cut it loose, it hissed and blew up and grew to the 12" size it is now!!! Totally freaky!

Mr. Maison Decor ordered a platform and a riser that is put together and placed on top of the 

metal platform to give the bed extra height for an appealing look when covered with bed dressings.

The mattress is in front of the window, and until the headboard arrives, we will let it continue to 

off-gas until we put it together and move it into position.  But until then, I have been hunting for 

bedding for the King size bed.  Which may turn out to be more expensive than the bed and mattress!

 My first purchase was this Belgian tapestry bedspread.  I fell in love with the look of it in a Soft Surroundings catalogue, and that is usually all I need to feel confident that I am going to love something in real life. But one never knows until it arrives...so when it came I ran right upstairs and opened it up and laid it out on the old bed.  Colby, never to miss a big moment, wanted all in on the decision making too.

We both loved it, and he was careful not to lay on it right away.  These pics are all from my iPhone, and so they aren't quite as true to color as real life, but it looks just like the catalogue pic.  My goal was to have the bedding look complementary to the painted table, and to work with the blue walls in my room.  Both seem to be perfect.  The rug will not be staying, as we are going with sisal.
We need a bedskirt to cover the platform and the riser, so its a necessity for a well dressed bed.

The catalogue pic above shows it with an ecru bedskirt, and I was thinking I would do white. But in person white didn't seem like it would look right.  So I searched online for bedskirts at Country Curtains, Overstock, Pottery Barn, Target....and then I thought why not check Horchow?
 Horchow is a very pricey catalogue company that has beautiful things at staggering prices.  
But one never knows what one will find, unless they look, right?

 And what to my wondering eyes should appear on the sale page, 
but this King sized Cotton Voile dust ruffle in a color called Sea glass, marked down to $78. 
 SCORE!! 
And wouldn't this color look beautiful?  YES IT WOULD AMY!!
 (*Putting item in cart and processing sale)  

Now the bedding set it was shown with didn't catch my eye, but the color of the skirt did.  
That is a terrific deal on a bedskirt, and its not polyester or rayon, it is cotton, another big plus!

 As a matter of fact they had some gorgeous bedding on sale. I particularly love these bedspreads that have built in ruffle from the top of the bed's edge to the floor.  They are called skirted coverlets, and I think they are wonderful.  You wouldn't need a bedskirt, but I can see they have one on this bed.
How pretty is this set in that aquamarine blue?  Now the coverlet is kind of pricey, even on sale, but the shams are all on sale and sometimes you may want to add a few pillows to an existing set to give it a fresh new look.

 Another pretty coverlet in periwinkle...

A lovely pink ensemble with gorgeous trimmings, also on sale.  So I advise hunting around in all the shops, from Target to Horchow to see what you come up with.  Soft Surroundings also had bedskirts but I didn't see anything that spoke to me.  I also needed an 18" or 19" drop, 
and most shops will have choices, from the classic 14" drop to elevated drops of 20" or more.  All this online shopping occurred mostly because I have a cold, and was home bound this weekend.  Since all the bed parts were arriving I was desperate to get the extra things I needed to finish off the bed.  I still need to get a new down duvet and that might be it.  A HUGE snow storm is upon us for Tuesday, the day the upholstered headboard is set to arrive.  Here is to hoping it arrives on schedule!

And the good news is, that after only two days there seems to be no smell in our bedroom at all. YAY!

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