Happy Halloween!

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Happy Halloween everyone!

I hope everyone has a great day.  I'm excited to see all of the trick-or-treaters from our neighborhood tonight. There are always a lot of cute costumes, I just hope we have enough candy!  Darcy is being a skunk tonight ;) This is the picture from the package, hopefully he will cooperate and end up looking something like this too!

Weekend Recap

This weekend was really fun. Friday night we decided to go see a movie and saw Pitch Perfect.  It has been out for a while, but it was really cute and funny!

On Saturday, we woke up early to go on a drive to visit some puppies from a litter of goldendoodles. Yes, that's right, we are getting a new puppy this December!!!  We have been talking about getting a goldendoodle for years, and we finally found the right breeder locally that has some medium sized goldendoodles and decided that it was the right time.  These puppies will be ready right after Thanksgiving, so we'll probably get ours sometime between then and early December. This weekend, we decided to go visit them and meet their parents.

We don't know which puppy we are going to get yet, we won't pick for a couple more weeks, but they are so cute! Here are some pictures of the puppies we met on Saturday.

After we left the breeder, we stopped by Fearrington Village for lunch.  We ate at The Granary and it was the perfect little lunch spot.  We walked around afterwards in the gardens and talked to the cows ;)

On the way home, passing over Jordan Lake. 

We had a great rest of the weekend, watching lots of football and spending time with family. Hope you had a great weekend too!

Kitchen Nook Update

I finally hung some curtains in the bay window of our eat-in kitchen! I got a bay window curtain rod set from Lowes, I was so excited that they had it so that I didn't have to recreate something similar from scratch.

I originally wanted plain white curtains here, but I decided that a little pattern would be better. I got these curtains with an organic vine pattern in silver.  I think it really adds a lot to the space. Here are some pictures. 

In the last two pictures, you can even see the new coat hooks that we hung up. Since we mostly use the garage door as our entry, I'm always looking for a place to put my coat and it usually ends up on the chair at the desk. These letters from Anthropologie were so cute, so I got them and they work perfect in this small space and for hanging coats. They would also be really great in a bathroom for towels. 

Media Room Inspiration

With the recent purchase of a sectional for our media room, I've been thinking more and more about how I want the room to be decorated. We're hoping to get this room finished by next February, around Super Bowl time, but we'll see! Here are two pictures that I've drawn a lot of inspiration from for this room:

I decided that I want to make this room have a travel and/or map theme. I don't want this to be over done or too in-your-face, but I think it would be fun to design.  Here's an inspiration board with some of my most recent thoughts for the room:

Sources/ideas:

Red roman shades with gray ribbon trim

Map of the world

Charcoal paint on the walls

Sectional from Macy's

Mix of wood and metals, like these nesting tables from West Elm

Lots of pillows and fabrics in red, gray and cream

Interesting media cabinet, like this black console from Ballard Designs

Clock

Lamp

So, that's what we're thinking for the room. It will be a while before we can collect all of the pieces, but I'm excited to start to see it come together in the near future!

Fall Front Porch

I hope everyone is enjoying the cooler weather. I still wish it was warm like the summer, but it is nice to be able to snuggle up under a blanket on the couch in the evenings.   

I wanted to share my front porch and what I've done with it this season.  I love mums and pumpkins, so that is what I used, I don't think you can ever have too many!  I also started collecting some of the more interesting pumpkins and gourds, we have quite a few. I think the different colors and textures make it more interesting.

If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you also saw that I did a mini photo shoot with Darcy when I put out all of the pumpkins and flowers. He was a little skeptical about what we were doing on the front steps, but it was cute. I used treats to bribe him to sit still ;)

Hope you're having a great start of the fall season! 

Shopping for a Sectional

For the past few months, I've been casually searching for a sectional for our media room.  Right now, this room is sitting empty, waiting for us to get around to filling it. We decided to wait to finish this room so we could really make it something that we would enjoy.  Right now, the plans for this room are to make it a comfy media room, great for relaxing while watching a movie or hanging out watching football with friends.

The room will most likely be dominated by the furniture for seating, so we knew that we wanted to get a big sectional that would be comfortable and seat a lot of family or friends. So, I set out researching sectionals and figuring out what our preferences were.

First I found that I really wanted a sectional that had a chaise, I love lounging and being able to prop up on the couch with a chaise would be perfect. I also wanted a soft fabric like suede or velvet in a gray color. I also wanted the couch to be big, but not completely overwhelm the room. Oh and affordable, please! That's a lot of demands for a sectional to have to meet, here are some options that I came up with.

West Elm - Henry Sectional - $2247 

I loved the Henry Sectional by West Elm. But, it doesn't have a chaise option... It's really pretty and I love that it's modern, but after going back and for so many times, I decided that we really wanted that chaise.

ZGallerie - Phoenix Sectional - $2496

I found the Phoenix Sectional at ZGallerie, it's pretty and has the shape that we want, including the chaise.  I never got to visit it in store though, so I can't tell you how comfortable it is. I did read online that some of the pillows and cushions wore out pretty easily and started to sink where they were used a lot.

Macy's - Joyce 3 Piece Sectional - $2499

I found a sectional online at Macy's a few months ago, that seems to have a good mix of traditional and more modern shape, and included the chaise! I like that it's made in the USA, by Jonathan Louis Furniture, and it comes in a lot of colors I like, especially the gray. 

Pottery Barn - Square Sectional with Chaise - $5799

In my initial search for a sectional, I looked through the pages and pages of sectionals and options in the Pottery Barn catalog. There are so many to choose from, they definitely can make whatever sectional you want.  However, most of them are super, super expensive. More than double the other sectionals that I considered. We decided that another of the options are more reasonable and wouldn't take up the entire budget for the room ;)

Pottery Barn - Buchanan 3 Piece - $2849

This PB sectional was an option, but it still doesn't have the chaise that I love and we really wanted that! 

So, what did we choose? I forgot to tell you that part... we actually already made a purchase this weekend!!  The sectional at Macy's was on super sale, so we went for it.  I was originally afraid that I wasn't going to be able to find it in store, because it looked like it was online only in our area. Then, I was surprised when I walked into the mall last week, only to find it sitting there... in the exact color and configuration that we wanted!  There are spotlights on the ceiling shining down on the sectional in these pictures, so it actually looks a little lighter in these pictures than it appears in person. 

Kevin and I went back to the mall yesterday to sit on it and make sure the color was right, and finally order it! It should be delivered sometime in November, can't wait! 

October, already!?

Sorry for the nearly month long blog hiatus! Things have been super busy recently and I haven't had a chance to blog! I'm hoping to get back to usual posting again very soon, we have some new projects at home that we're working on... I can't wait to share them with you!

So, I figured I would share some random pictures from this past month!

I added an M to our fall wreath on the front door

Using my mom's old sewing machine to make pillows

New pillows for the living room

Playing with Kevin's new UNC corn hole set in our back yard

Toilet fiasco in our upstairs guest bathroom... leaky toilet tank
means we will be redoing this bathroom sooner rather than later 

First NCSU home game of the season!

Super smiley after passing my Preliminary Exam for my PhD
and ordering 2 huge boats of sushi with my coworkers!

Samples of marble tile that we are considering as
backsplash options for the kitchen

Finishing the long process of constructing a pumpkin
cheesecake cake and a red velvet cheesecake cake

Finished cakes for the church auction

Darcy got a haircut, finally! 

So, how was your month? Can you believe it is October!?  I'm glad to be back, I'll post about our upcoming projects really soon!