A girl can dream…

I’ve always dreamed of having a dressing room and figured it would stay exactly that - a dream. Well with our new house, it’s becoming a reality and I still can’t believe it.

We decided, “Who needs a fourth bedroom?” and are now turning it into our very own, custom built dressing room. Complete with track lighting, his and hers 90-degree angle closets and my very own vanity (I’ve seriously been obsessed with having one since I was a teen).

So I will keep you posted on the progress as my dream comes true. Here are the before shots:

(my closet will be on the left & hubby's will be to the right of the fire place)

Here is the current status:

Yay! I will finally be able to see and easily access my clothes - no more fighting with closet to the point of breaking a sweat!

Stay tuned for more!

How many shades of taupe are there?

Ok, so I actually did solve my tile dilemma in the kitchen – just went with an easy (yet slightly boring) and cost effective porcelain tile. It got to a point where I just had to pick something.

So now I am at a loss for paint colors to tie in the granite, cabinets and tile floor. The granite is dark but with some blues and greens that pop out, but mostly grays work with all three components.

So a warm (yet gray) taupe was rocking my world, but then I feared it was a lot of that same color tone going on. So there is this smoky green-gray that I adore, but I’m afraid it’ll be too dark once it is everywhere. (And just ignore the lighter, third shade in the photos – that one got vetoed already).

Ok, so here is the current status of the kitchen:

Here are paint color options in one location:

Here's is that same shot, just zoomed in:

Paint color options in another location:

Please weight in with your opinions, we seriously can’t decide.

Ain't Dere No More

Once upon a time, our kitchen had a chimney in the middle of it:

Then it got knocked down:

Now, it ain't dere no mo (and neither are the side cabinets):

And the winner is...

The winning tile for the guest bathroom is:Emperador Light Marble!

Thanks to all who voted.

Whose idea was this anyway?

For those of you that don't know, my husband and I moved back to New Orleans a little over a month ago and have bought a little "fixer-upper" uptown.

It is a sweet, 100-year-old, shotgun, double that was converted to a single. It was love at first sight!

• Three fireplaces (not functional) down the middle of the house through the first three rooms - free-standing in the front room
• 12-foot ceilings
• Beautiful, original wood floors
• Claw foot tubs
• Big doorways with transoms above
• Crystal & brass door knobs

The kitchen needed some updating, but besides that, it was heaven!

AND, it was before the inspection. BUT, since it was such a steal, we decided to take the plunge.

So, stay tuned for many of our trials and tribulations as we attempt to renovate our new and first home in New Orleans.

Last Night's Adventure

We ripped out the tile floor in our master bath and what did we find? Nothing but rotten wood and missing support joists. So that means we pop off weather board and crawl under the house and install new supports and drop in a new floor on top of it. Piece of cake, right?

Here is the before:

Here is the after shot from when the floor was ripped out:

And here is a shot from last night's repair job:

The final product of that evening - new support beams!! (It's sad when you get really excited about this kind of stuff):

I learned a lot from my carpenter-by-trade father. We seriously would be in bad shape without his guidance and talent.

Now, to make it into a tiled, walk-in shower!

The Tile Dilemma

So we already know that we want to do the master bath in white marble (Carrara Gioia – to be exact), but I haven’t picked a stone for the guest bath or for the kitchen. I had travertine picked out for the kitchen until my dreams were crushed by practicality.

So, that brings me to my dilemma = what tile for pick for these two rooms? I need your help so please feel free to offer you opinions.

Here is the current state of the guest bath:

Here are some tile options for the guest bath:

*Hint: we are going with antiqued brass fixtures.

Rainforest Brown Marble

Crema Marfil Marble

Emperador Light Marble

Let me know what your vote is for the guest bath! I'll present options in a separate post for the kitchen.