chair for chair

i was looking back through old photos (well, “old” means from may/june 09) and was promptly reminded that anton and i purchased a chair well before our most recent arm chair purchase from consignment 1st.

we found this apple green chair at home goods one day and thought that it would be the perfect punch of color in our beige-ish home. we even went so far as to buy striped lumbar pillows that accented the chair perfectly. we pushed this chair head first into the back of our corolla and hoped for the best as we traveled 2 miles to our home.

when we got the chair home, i wasn’t completely sold. we realized that we probably bought it because a 50-something woman with dyed red hair, sweater vest, and dooney & bourke purse was eyeing it up and stalking us as we were trying to decide on the deal. anton felt completely intimidated and wasn’t going to allow a woman who probably had 205739 arm chairs shuffle through her house win this gem. so we snatched it up quicker than a brad & angelina adoption.

and just as quickly, we were shoving it back into the corolla, saying goodbye to our passport into the world of colored furniture.

we’re curious as to what you think. did we make the right choice? do you prefer the apple green high back chair with brown sunbursts that screams modern and contemporary and is fully appropriate in a 20-something home? or do you side with the upholstered patterned, more traditional chair that we chose?

holy cuteness, batWOman!

possibly the cutest halloweeners EVER:

we present two of our six nieces, clad in pink, sparkles, and plenty of superwoman-ness head to toe:

what was your best halloween costume?

i remember wanting to be cinderella when i was in 1st grade. grandma made the perfect cinderella ball gown (you know, the white and blue one where she dances with prince charming before midnight) and i was adament about having “glass slippers.” so mom bought some white slip-on shoes (from hills, i think – remember hills????) and we poured elmer’s glue on them, and sprinkled silver glitter all over to make them sparkly and glass-like. i kept them in my closet for the longest time. if only i could have put my hair up into a lovely bun; but wait, i had mushroom head at age 6. and 5. and 7. yikes.

house guests

we’ve been rearranging and shuffling our furniture to make our home comfy cozy for our weekend guests pictured below (except lauren who was in philly cheering on her boys).

i’ve searched high and low for the perfect chair to bridge together the living room. i knew i wanted an upholstered, comfortable, streamlined, and semi-traditional/semi-chic chair that i didn’t have to fork out 600 plus dollars….
enter: consignment 1st. we found this jewel, which had been dropped off the day before from a furniture show room. brand new.

notice the pier 1/goodwill candle stand in the corner? it loves its new home.

we turned our 15 dollar target bookshelf found at goodwill into a tv stand for the living room. the seagrass baskets from ikea fit beautifully on the bottom shelf, which hides magazines and cookbooks.

we injected some shiny sparkle into the powder room bathroom with some steel-esqe picture frames from ikea:

’tis the season for mums. i fell in love with this rust-colored plant, which perfectly accented the pillows.

the piano now lives downstairs. great for entertaining toddlers, teenagers, and adults alike (all of whom press the “demo” button and pretend like they’re mozart. is this a requirement for all human beings?)

we switched up some of the dishes on the shelves and added our brown iced tea glasses, which brings in some contrast to the white and tan color scheme. old wine bottles are also repurposed here for an added punch of green.

remember the goodwill lamp? it found its home here in the guest bedroom. a shade from bb&b topped this off nicely (no pun intended).

remember the goodwill table we snagged for 8.99? it fits snugly between the furniture in the man cave to hold a surround sound speaker, a light given to us from doug & virginia (when she was nesting for lily), and a wedding picture.

for those of you who have any knowledge about the following home projects, please send all ideas, dos and don’ts to us immediately:
1. kitchen backsplash
2. crown molding
3. chair rail in dining room
can’t wait to for winter break to have a few days to dig in and get started on one of these doozies…….

goodwill hunting

my apologies for the hiatus.
anton and i have been playing freeze out for the past couple of weeks and my fingers are just now beginning to thaw.
whoever said moving to charlotte would guarantee mild weather until december/january was w.r.o.n.g.

in the mean time, i had a particularly successful trip to the university goodwill store on wt harris blvd. love love love this organization.

allow me to share the following treasures, which will later be featured in an updated house tour. (we’ve been busy hanging, moving, rearranging, and organizing).

i spotted this lantern-esque lamp that oh-so-gently whispers “nautical beach house” for a whopping 5.00:

goodwill (for your shopping information), guarantees a 3-day return policy on all lamps if you take it home and does not work to your liking.

this striking candle holder makes a bold statement and has my favorite earthy accent (sea grass) wrapped around the center. it originally hailed from pier 1 – it still had the 30 dollar sticker on the underside. goodwill was selling it for 5.99. i took it home with a firm quickness:

this table put us back 8.99 and is in remarkably good condition. i couldn’t let this piece go; it’s the perfect height for saturday morning coffee mugs, anton’s xbox controllers to rest upon, and the occasional wednesday evening dinner in front of the tv to watch our new favorite show.

as i was perusing the aisles, i saw a box that appeared unopened but had a really weird and gross oily substance spilled over it. as i looked closer, i discovered that it was the exact.same.bookcase that i had been eyeing on target.com:

only it wasn’t priced at 69.99.
it
was
14.99.

although it wasn’t my first choice of espresso, this chestnut bookcase will suit my fancy any day of the week, given it’s steal of a price tag.

stay tuned for where these goodies ended up in la casa de la banks…………

me, my shelf, and i

in between february and august of 2007, anton and i chose a wedding venue, dresses, tuxes, music, vows, rings, and; of course, dishes. i find it interesting how important choosing dishes can be for couples (women). some choose formal china to accompany a nice set of everyday. some choose a practical basic white 16-piece dinnerware set, and others choose a traditional pattern with matching butter dish, salt & pepper shaker, vase, and drinking glasses.

the possibilities are endless. and somehow, in the midst of choosing between the green apple or robin’s egg blue as a wedding accent color, we decided to nix the china (we were sure we could find a gently used set at a consignment store someday if we’d eventually morph into “forming dining room” people), and move full-steam ahead with these everyday dishes in brown and cream.

when we moved into our townhouse, we were super excited to have a dining room space. we knew that the traditional attire for a dining room consisted of some sort of buffet or china cabinet. both of those sound terribly grown-up and like really important and expensive things needed to be store into them only to be exposed on really important occasions when “company comes calling.”

we opted for a more modern, cheaper, and small-space-friendly option, using these shelves from ikea. scroll down for the before and after goodness.

remember the dining room back in may?

sunday afternoon: the dining room wall was looking terribly lonely.

anton, in an effort to quicken our trip to ikea and to streamline my brain, encouraged me to create my shelf vision on the computer (um…don’t laugh.)

power drill. enough said.

we were trucking along quite nicely, having installed the top shelf. as we attempted to attach the second shelf onto the wall, we realized that the wall was bowed ever so slightly. we were trying to brainstorm ways to remedy the problem, including a more contemporary design:

boo. i was not a fan.
onto lowe’s to visit monty.
monty suggested screw-in anchors and a washer to even out the playing field. worked like a charm.

anton surprised me with all of the shelves installed when i came home from work tuesday. i love my live-in bob villa.

after several revisions within a 24-hour period, i’ve forced myself to stop rearranging. with the final addition of injecting some serious green from my wedding flower photos into white frames, i’m ready to leave it be for awhile (at least until christmas……)

where’d all this stuff come from?
1. white picture ledge shelves – ikea – 19.99
2. white matted picture frames – lillian vernan by way of consignment 1 – 9.99
3. bamboo plates – ikea – 3.99 and 6.99
4. white plates – pier 1 summer clearance – 1.99 (salad) and 2.99 (dinner)
5. platter – calvin klein khaki collection – wedding gift
6. tropical plant – ikea – 1.99

i’m going back upstairs to rearrange.

great grapes

we were ready to channel our inner lucille ball:

although she was probably stomping and later indulging on some sweet californian grapes, north carolinians are accustomed to muscadines. it’s a taste that we have had to “get used” to, and by year 3….i think we’re finally okay with swallowing the musky aromatic nc wine.

anton and i spent the day in south charlotte at the great grapes wine festival, which hosted various north carolina vineyards, artisans, fried food, and culinary demonstrations. this year, we invited our friends autumn (fellow school psych’er) and john.

three photos were taken during the day. it’s quite the story.

autumn and i were partaking in one of our final tastings at stonefield cellars, when we glance back at our husbands, who were BOTH taking a picture (at what we thought was us….). at first, we were thinking, “oh, how sweet. they must think we are so cute standing here in line tasting wine.”

what a face…

being the females that we are, we insisted on taking a picture while smiling:

only until we discover that they were not trying to take a picture of us, but the guy behind us who looked eerily similar to the ladies man from saturday night live. the boys were so stricken by the resemblance that they were sure they had a celebrity sighting that they digi-camera stalked the guy while we were in line. unfortunately, the only shot we got was a glimpse of his hair (behind autumn’s head).

the ladies’ man is right behind us?????? where’s a pen?????

of course, we ended up with some faves du jour:

“best cheesecake accompaniment” wine: white strawberry merlot by amber crest

“best christmas” wine: holly berry red by cypress bend vineyards

“best white blend” wine: autumn leaf gold by old north state winery

“best new white: white syrah by uwharrie

“cutest labels” rag apple lassie

“best names” round peak skull camp series

have any of you tried north carolina wine? are you a fan of the musky muscadine grape? do share….

garage vs. garbage

may 22, 2009: barren garage on move-in day

june 2009: dad wilt traveled down to carolina to work his painting magic on all four garage walls AND the ceiling. he painted it my favorite color: white. so fresh and so clean, clean.

summer 2009: garage was home to several home projects, including (but not limited to) spray painting, sanding, priming, scraping, antiquing, and cutting. ultimately, the garage had turned into a lovely dumping ground for all things not wanted in our house (refer to figure 1).

figure 1. a hot garage mess.

the past weekend, we worked on clearing out, throwing away, and organizing the garage. we’re quite pleased. although we’d like to wow you with this after:

we’re not quite there yet. give us a few more years to accumulate garage-worthy materials and we’ll upgrade into this mac-daddy of a garage storing system.

during the overhaul, we both claim the brain child of a modified, utalitarian, cheap mudroom to house our piles of shoes (especially less-than-fresh sneakers), hats, and coats that we use on a regular basis. all of those things usually pile up incredibly quickly in the basement and for some reason the shoe clutter quickly transfers into mail clutter, unfolded laundry clutter, and magazine clutter. we needed to stop the clutter problem BEFORE it entered the house.

we thought this blank slate may do the trick:

$25.00 and 10 minutes later, we have a place to hang our hats, jackets, and store our shoes:

my parents have an old remnant of carpet that we’re going to snatch on our next trip to wv to put down to “designate” the mudroom area to to help keep the dirt in the garage. updated pics to come.

lowe’s was having a sale on these storage shelves, which we snagged for $35.00 and is a perfect spot for almost everything in the garage, plus some pantry-worthy paper goods.

we tried to utilize the corners of the garage “nook” so there would be plenty of space to “drive & park” our bikes in between. it worked out nicely.

this shelving system only put us back $9.99 and came with 12 hooks that are remarkably strong enough to hold a tiller (far right). note: snow shovel is placed at the far left to channel the winter fairies to bring lots of snow to charlotte (snow days = no school).

so there you have it. we’d still like to install some shelving to get the christmas decorations off of the floor, but it’s not a priority at this moment. we feel like we have so much more space in the garage, which will hopefully allow us to dabble in our adulthood hobbies, including:

anton answering his life-long calling of a wood whisperer and whittling all sorts of goodies from his workbench

or

erin answering her life-long calling as mrs. green-thumb and dedicating an entire space that will hopefully look this this:

project breakdown:
5-tier shelf from lowe’s = 34.99
stainless steel coat rack from lowe’s = 7.99
4-tier shoe rack from walmart = 17.99
wall hooks from lowe’s = 9.99
knowing where things are without digging through endless piles of random crap: priceless

jockey’s ridge

as a kid, i remember going to the outer banks every summer. unfortunately, most of my memories consist of being “that kid” who had to wear a t-shirt in the pool, ocean, & outside by day 3 because my skin turned to lobster-red extremely quickly.

a more positive memory is visiting jockey’s ridge each summer to climb the sand dunes. each year we try to time our hike so that we reach the peak when the sun sets. and every year, we find ourselves sprinting to the top as the sun quickly sinks away. it’s still a worthwhile visit, sun or no sun.

last weekend, anton and i were there:

and, this sad scene is where a 60-something year old grandma named “pat” took a fierce nose dive into the sand as she attempted hang gliding. (she’s okay….you can giggle now….)

and, of course, this bushy tree reminded us of lost, so we secretly pretended we were stranded (yes, we’re obsessed.)

this pic will probably make the cut for a spot on our wall somewhere….

have any of you been to the obx? any favorite memories/landmarks? been to the dunes? do share….

wedding crashers: obx

two years ago, ben stood beside anton when we were married, as one of his most true and loyal friends:

two years later, ben married maclyn on the beach of corolla in the outer banks.

with the intention of keeping their wedding a reflection of their personalities and relationship together, they chose to celebrate their marriage by hosting their closest friends & family for a week-long beach vacation. it was an awesome idea and allowed everyone to have a worry-free, no-tux-required good time.

enjoy the wedding crash through the following pics:

they didn’t worry about pew bows, candles, chairs, or taffeta. two earthy, organic structures flanked the ceremony’s focal point:

ummm…….so ben has lots of good friends.

and those same good friends went all “harlem globetrotters” as they passed the ring to ben:

it’s official, folks.

wedding party:

back at the house, we feasted on pizza & beer, scooted the couches in the corner, and hooked up the ipod for some serious dance fever into the wee hours of the night.

somehow, maclyn & ben got their dirty hands on this photo from 1988 (so embarrassing). obviously, someone likes to dabble in some photoshopping fun……

acrylics & kool-aid

part of my job this year is to administer reading fluency screenings to ALL children 1st through 5th grade in 5 elementary schools. some of the highlights thus far have included:

1. hiccups in between reading each word
2. a 9 year old named shirley who looked exactly like the curly-haired pepsi commercial girl
3. a 2nd grade girl with hot pink cat eye glasses whispering in my ear, “um, i think i should warn you that jonny was particularly grumpy this morning and you should be very very careful.”
4. seeing kid faces illuminate when you give them a compliment (which makes you wonder how many times they hear positive feedback)

and then today,

a 3rd grade girl came bouncing into the room and plopped her hannah montana t-shirt wearing self into the chair next to me. i saw a flash of something white out of the corner of my eye. i immediately told myself, “erin, NO. she cannot have fingernails THAT long.” as she read the first passage, i examined this little beauty queen wanna-be. sure enough, she had glitter pasted onto her eyelids and as she turned the reading page, she had a FULL SET of professionally-adhered acrylic nails. i was so flabbergasted that i forgot to set my timer (don’t tell – her score on that particular screening was probably skewed due to post-traumatic shock).
the
best
part
is……
this disney-princess-in-training, in all of her grown-up glory of acrylic nails and glitter eyeshadow had a
bright
red
kool-aid
moustache.

it brought a smile to my face to see such a paradox on a 9 year old. and made me sad for all of the little girls who try to grow up much too fast.

so here’s to all of the “real” grown-ups who still love a good ole temporary kool-aid mouth tattoo…..
there are so many of them, there’s a facebookgroup. shocker.

**in more exciting news….working on uploading pics from this past weekend’s wedding in obx…stay tuned**