Dining Room!

Next up is the dining room!  We didn't want anything really formal and it still opens up to the kitchen and living room so very open.  The main light is a globe made of driftwood, when it's dark and the light is on it casts a really cool shadow on the ceiling and walls.  My favorite piece in this room is the china cabinet.  I love it because it's that shabby chic white with glass doors and the 2 knobs on the bottom are different glass knobs so it has lots of character.  The dishes inside are also very special!  I don't have really anything else from my family that is a family heirloom but the story behind this china is that my grandparents gave it to my mom as a wedding gift, they had purchased it at an antique auction.  It's Homer Laughlin Georgian china, which was made somewhere between 1930-1950 actually in Ohio where we're from.  It's so pretty and the colors match perfectly.  The shelf in the corner I got from a consignment shop in Amelia Island in North Florida, it's made out of old white shutters.  The table and chairs I purchased separately but all from the Missing Piece in South Tampa. I couldn't find gray chairs anywhere so I actually painted them myself, I'm not a crafty person so that's an accomplishment for me.  Just next to the dining room is a little space before you go out the back door and I also found this huge coat rack with door knobs for hooks at a consignment shop in north Florida.  It use to be in an old plantation house on Amelia Plantation.  I also painted the bench underneath to match the chairs.  That's just a little find from Home Goods:-) 

Kitchen!

The kitchen is one of my favorite places and usually a nice gathering place as well.  I like cooking and just having a nice space to hang out.  We did gray quartz countertops with white shaker style cabinets because they are timeless and go with the clean style and straight lines.  The island in the middle ended up being much bigger than I thought it would be, but it's actually the perfect size for the room and has lots of storage underneath.  To change it up a bit we did a white countertop and gray cabinets with beadboard to match the beadboard in the room.  A few little unique touches we did are a wine rack underneath the stairs and a plate rack, I feel like you never see those anymore and they are so nice to have.  I wanted unique lighting in each room as well so the pendants are capiz shell, a little bit coastal but still chic.  The glass tile backsplash of color brings it all together and voila you have a kitchen!

Living Room!

It's been a while since I posted the empty finished pics of the new house we built! I think I finally have the rooms to where I want them enough to photograph:-)  This house really was a labor of love and a lot of work, it kind of turned into an art piece in itself.  My husband David is from Florida originally and wanted our home to look like it fit in the south, Florida especially.  So, that started our inspiration!  Since I'm from the midwest, I could quickly see that heading towards seashells and fish which is not what I wanted!  When I started looking around at design inspiration I loved the coastal shabby chic look so that kind of started my kick and it just took off from there!!  My photography studio is here too, but since I don't do your standard studio and mostly location work, I still wanted the option of shooting at home though if I needed to.  You don't see much wall space, there's lots of windows and natural light.  I also tried to buy all the decor and furniture from location Tampa Bay area stores, since I'm a small business myself, I'm all about that.  So, I'll be blogging each space and I'll even tell you where I got everything:-)  We did work with Studio M Interior Design for the fixed design elements like the build in designs, bead board, hard wood, tile designs etc, but the soft elements I actually did myself and I can't believe it all came togeher so nicely.  The initial color scheme I wanted was in the cool pallette of gray, blues, and light greens.  Cool, calming, and a sense of home is what it created.  Clean, simple lines are also what we were going for and in the living room a build in with cabinets for storage and the tv.  I love that you can close it and hide the tv right in the wall.  The anchor of the room is a gray soft, which was actually really hard to find!  I couldn't find any accent chairs I liked either, so I started my search at antique shops and some of the more creative vintage furniture stores.  The first place I went to was Wisteria over on McDill and seriously, they were the nicest most helpful ladies.  The 2 accent chairs you see use to be dark wood with an ivory fabric with pink and green flowers.  But, they were comfortable and with some re-upolstering and wood re-finishing they turned into these really awesome blue and paisley patterned chairs!  Since it is an open space I added a couple end tables and a trunk that all have that shabby chic look in a white/ivory tone.  I love the one on the end, it has to pockets that hold books and magazines.  The coffee table is just an old truck, so again great place for storage.  There's just a few subtle patterns in there that in the chairs, persian rug, and the blanket on the sofa.  The sheer curtains are actually believe it or not from Ikea, they have a see through pattern on them that makes for soft light to come through and when the sun comes through the patten projects onto the walls too which is really cool. I couldn't keep Dixie and Abita out of the pics so had to include one of the too:-)  Next up will be the kitchen!  Here's where I got all these awesome finds:

Sofa: Macy's, Accent Chairs: Wisteria, Trunk and End Table: Blue Moon Trading Company, Corner End Table: The Missing Piece, Persian Rug: Shiraz Rug Gallery