Wedding Details

I just purchased this from Etsy today!  I love the personalization it will add to the wedding day and is something I can use again! 


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My fiance and I have been going back and forth between paint colors ever since we bought our house back in February.  We have been through 2 seasons of Parade of Homes, sneaking into the storage rooms of the model homes to jot down the colors on the paint cans stored there, but still can't decide on a color palette.  Then we came across this special for half off a color consultation at Hirshfields.  We knew this may result in more work for us since we had already painted a majority of our main floor in Stonington Gray by Benjamin Moore but we were up for the challenge.  I was a little wary about someone coming into our house and having a completely different style than what we had in mind.  I am going for a Nantuckett/Pottery Barn style and didn't want someone who liked animal prints all over their walls to be giving us advice.  I had also told my fiance that I wanted someone who could make our home feel like a 'Parade' home.  I wasn't really sure what to expect but for half off, I figured we might as well try it. On Halloween morning, our consultant, Lisa, came to our house. 

We both liked her right away!  For starters she told me she had worked on many of the Parade homes and based on a few comments from me, told me that she thought my style was leaning towards Pottery Barn! Bingo!  I knew this was my gal.  She told us she loved the gray we had chosen and that we should definitely stick with it.  She then proceeded to go into our sun room and after a few trials of a deep brown, told us we should match the paint with the chair cushions we just recently purchased from Pier One.  She said once we pull together the room with window panels, a large shaggy cream colored rug and some other pieces of furniture, that it would really be a focal point of our home. 



Green on kitchen walls

 Next she went into our mudroom and picked out a bright and cheery yellow that would go well with our checkered black and white floors and be a warm welcome to all that entered.  We have a green on our kitchen walls that she said blended in too much with the gray and recommended we go with a beige/neutral color and said that our white cabinets would really stand out. 

In our dining room we want to do wainscotting on the walls. Lisa recommended adding a deep navy blue paint on the walls to make the white of the wood on the wainscotting pop. She suggested adding the blue color to our main floor bathroom.



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We had only made it through the main floor of our house by the time our hour appointment was up. I was disappointed because we still had the second floor to do but Lisa assured us that we could check out the upstairs.  We went to our master bedroom and after telling her what we wanted in there for furniture and bedding, she suggested a dark gray on the walls.  In our bathroom she suggested carrying the gray in or adding an eggplant.  She suggested adding white paint to for our claw foot tub and getting rid of the green that is currently on it.

When she was done, I couldn't think of much else besides painting our walls.  We wrote out our check for $75 and Lisa was on her way.  She assured us that she would write up a full design plan with all the paint colors and types of paint she recommended for each room and send it in the mail along with a $20 gift card to use at the store.

Now if I can only convince the fiance to let me get the window covering consultant to come in....



Wedzu

I have been using Etsy for a lot of my wedding planning. A friend recently told me about a new site devoted to weddings. http://wedzu.com/

It's similar to Etsy in that a most of the items are handmade.

I particularly like these ring bearer pillows

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This clutch is nice too

 Hopefully I will be able to find accessories for the bridal party!

In search of...

I would love to do something like this for half the tables at our reception!  Anyone know where I can get the branches to hang the tea lights on?  I am hoping to find fake branches with wires in them so I can form the shape and hang the lights on them.  Has anyone ever seen this?

A vintage touch

I plan on having a locket attached to my bouquet with pictures of my grandparents in it for my 'something old'. I am in search of a vintage looking locket and have found a few I like here:

So, what do you think? Should I purchase one of these?

Wedding Palette

Having a wedding in March makes it difficult to pick a color palette since winter is almost over and it's not quite spring yet.  For my wedding I am leaning towards gray bridesmaid dresses with a couple brighter colors as my accents.

The first color palette I love is gray, blue and plum.

Ring from Etsy

Dress from JCrew

Boxes from something blue gift box

Invitations from Etsy

I also love slate gray with pink

Dress from Dressy.com

Clip from Etsy

Etsy has a lot of options for adding small bits of color to things like invitations, jewerly and cake toppers.

Baby Shower Part 2

For those of you that were awaiting pictures from the baby shower from this weekend, the baby arrived Friday night much to everyone's suprise! Although he arrived early, both him and mama are doing well! We are going to wait until everything is settled down with the the baby's arrival and throw a shower later this summer.

I do have pictures of the adorable baby cake that my friend who was co hosting the shower with me made! Instead of using just diapers, like I have seen many cakes made entirely out of, she mixed diapers, onsies and blankets to create the layers! How cute is that? Then she used green ribbon (the color of the shower) to wrap around each layer to secure it. She added clothespins to attach other little goodies for baby Theodore.

Baby Shower

My friend and I are throwing a baby shower this weekend. I went to Michael's for easy to make favors and having absolutely no idea what I was looking for came across candy trays to make chocolate covered pretzels. I picked up cellophane bags which I am pretty sure are made specifically for pretzels, ribbon that matched the green theme and little "It's a boy" charms. I also bought the baby candy tray, a paintbrush designed for candy, white and milk chocolate and other chocolate to add color. After my stop at Michael's, I went over to the grocery store to pick up pretzel sticks. It was all really easy to make and something that you really can't mess up. Plus I love that once you get the tray ($1.99), you can just buy different colored chocolate, ribbon and charms to change the theme for any baby event!

Of course I couldn't just buy the supplies for the pretzel sticks so more baby shower DIY pictures to come following the shower!

Pottery Barn Paint

I've always liked the paint colors from Pottery Barn catalogs so of course was excited when I realized that Benjamin Moore has PB inspired paint colors!

Wedding Party

I recently attended Crate & Barrel's Wedding Party event with my MOH and another friend who is getting married this summer. I wasn't sure what to expect but it ended up being a nice, relaxing time! The store was only open to those that had registered for the event and we had two full hours to register. Brides were there with their moms, friends and fiance's.


The store provided breakfast pastries, mimosas, coffee and breakfast Sushi from nearby Crave! Yum!


I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is thinking of registering at Crate & Barrel!

Cupcakes

I had my friends over this past weekend to try out the Martha Stewart Cupcakes book that I borrowed from my local library. We made yellow buttermilk and red velvet cupcakes, although it was hard not to try all the crazy ones like peanut butter and jelly! This book has over 175 ideas for creating cupcakes and colorful pictures to make anyone's mouth water. While probably not as beautifully decorated as Martha's, I think ours tasted just as good! I am planning on purchasing this book and can't wait to try out some of the other cupcakes.

Oh baby!

I was looking around at Etsy today and ran across these really cute beanie hats and leg warmers for toddlers! For $13 a hat and in many colors, you can't find a better deal! Now if only I could learn how to make these myself!

Life in a saltbox

In a nutshell this blog is all about design. Home design, garden design, wedding design, you name it! Having somewhat of a background in design/architecture (and a very minimum one at that), I initially wanted to start a blog for the first time homeowner. Thinking of the many topics that I wanted to include in the blog, it evolved to include all things design related. We purchased our "saltbox" home in February 2010 and are busy both designing our home and planning a wedding.

The idea for the name of this blog came from my mom. My mom noted that our home looked like a saltbox house and not knowing what that meant, I decided to do a little architectural research.

The name saltbox refers to the original container that salt was housed in and is a colonial style of architecture that originated around 1650. The flat front, central chimney and simplicity of this home are prominent features of the traditional saltbox. Our house has definitely evolved from the core concept of a saltbox home but I can see the similarities.

Hopefully our ideas will inspire! Enjoy!

-Lindsay