Go into the White..Awesome White Kitchens

Oh man..August was just a mess! And now here we are more than half into September and I'm just regaining my focus. We sold our house in July and moved out on August 20th - so there was nothing but packing and paperwork in our lives pretty much all of August. The good news is we finally closed on the old house on the 30th and we made all of our design decisions for the new house. Unfortunately the new house only looks like this:

But I wanted to share some of our inspiration for the decisions that we made on the new house. There are a ton of ways the money can get away from you and the Kitchen is where you seem to spend the VAST majority of the fundage...and that is indeed what we did as well. We are going all white..with a little bit of gray. It's going to be bright and clean and AWESOME...I can't wait!!

This is one of my favorites because the hood and backsplash situation are very similar to what we are going to have. We are bringing a little bit of contrast in between our whitish counter tops and white cabinets.

Decor Pad
An alternative to the gray subway that we are doing on our kitchen backsplash is picking up some contrast using gray grout. It really makes these tiles stand out. I will always love the classic subway look, but the quatrefoil tile in the next kitchen is definitely a cool look

House and Home

HGTV

The character in this next one is great. I love the striped island bench and the grey island (ahem - stay tuned...way tuned in...we are planning a trim-wrapped, painted island in the new house, but it might be a minute so bear with me). The schoolhouse pendants are my new favorite thing, I will find somewhere in the new house to hang them...just wait! 

Impressive Interior Design. 

What I really like about this one is the simplicity and the stark contrasts. The dark furnishings and counter tops make the clean lines of the cabinetry look more dramatic.

House and Home

These next few prove to me that an all white kitchen can still be cozy and warm. 

Southern Living

HGTV

House and Home

And then there are always those that you see and know that your set up will never be THAT nice, all there is to do is have a mini pity party (first world problems, I know!) and then say…”How do I do this with a 10th of the budget?” and move forward. These next three are those to me. I mean seriously with the Carrera marble and the coffered ceilings, the REALLY nice cabinets and light fixtures AND those windows…they’re just crazy awesome!

Houzz

HGTV

Houzz

I think this is a nice marriage of casual and classy. Not quite as over-the-top-awesome as the previous pictures that make me drool like a Saint Bernard, but it is still elegant. This is pretty much what we are going for in the new kitchen: casual elegance. 

Architectural Digest

While I realize the practicality of all white is lacking, I figure if I'm going to do any room in white, it should be the kitchen. It's all washable surfaces...we are staying away from white fabric for the time being. What are your thoughts, feelings, opinions on the all white kitchen? Does it leave you craving color, or are you with me, leave the color to the accessories? 

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July Playlist

Hey all! Music is a big part of what inspires me and keeps me focused and motivated. I listen to Spotify all day at work to keep focused and then come home and listen more to get pumped. For those of you that are familiar with Spotify, move on and follow my playlist!! For those of you who are newbies, here is a quick idea of how it works:

Spotify is like Pandora in the sense that it has radio stations that are generated based on albums, artists, genres, etc, but Spotify gives you the ability to make playlists and other people can follow. WARNING: This feature is only free on your desktop/laptop. You have to pay $10 a month in order to have this feature on your mobile devices. You can also find your friends on Spotify to check out what they are listening to in real time (if you have friends that listen to the same type of music it really comes in handy because you can listen to what they are listening to, as they are listening to it...spooky and stalkerific...but neat). The playlists I compile will all be on Spotify. 

I listen to an eclectic mix that contains a mostly recent Indie and 80's New Wave, but also incorporates some folk, jazz, oldies. There are really only a couple of genres that aren't my bag. I think music is a great, SUBJECTIVE tool to evoke, or even get out of, a particular mood. My July playlist is filled with light, upbeat, summery tunes with a slight American undertone in honor of the 4th. It's perfect background noise for a summer barbecue or for summer crafting!! All you have to do is click the link above or picture below to follow my wacky playlist. I will continue to add on to it throughout the month so it will have more tracks....Happy July!!

Also, I'm always looking for new, funky bands to check out, so if you know of any that have a similar vibe that I just HAVE to check out, let me know and maybe you will see it on the list soon!! 

Cooking Class: Seafood 101

In an effort to both further our attempts at a healthy lifestyle and find something new to do as a couple, Tony and I signed up for a one night cooking class: Seafood 101. The class was held at one of our local markets called Central Market. If you're in Texas I recommend that you find your local location. We don't eat a lot of fish in the Musick house, not because we don't like it, but because I'm not super confident in my ability to select and cook GOOD seafood, especially where we live. We are pretty much land locked and only have close access to gulf seafood, so much of what is purchased here has to be frozen and flown in, but there are places that you can buy really great seafood, such as Central Market. So we figured if there was a place to learn about and find the good stuff, it was here. So let's dig right in...

The first thing that we did was take a tour of their seafood market to learn more about selecting appropriate seafood for a particular season or recipe. All of the fish in their market is labeled with the location it was caught, so we also learned which fish were best from particular regions of the world. We also got some insider tips on how their particular market worked in regards to the safety and maintenance of their fish.

There were a couple of things that I really loved about this class in particular: (1) We used a couple of kinds of fish that I never even eaten, let alone prepared. (2) We used a different preparation method for 5 different dishes, so there was really got a broad spectrum of ways that fish can be cooked.

When you select a class, you can elect a hands on approach or just a demonstration. We went hands on so we could get up close and personal with the fish. They have you chop, taste, mix, even handle the cooking.

Inspiration from the Antique Store

On a few of our recent (failed) thrift store adventures, we have had a certain antique mall recommended to us. This past weekend, we finally made our way there and were really happy that we did. Some of these things I just thought were really cool or unique, but a lot will serve as inspiration for the new home office!

Lovely Glass:

On this field trip I discovered a couple...no a few new obsessions. Two of my newly found obsessions are hobnail glass and salt and pepper shakers. To spare you all some redundancies, I did not post the 4 other pictures of various salt and pepper shakers that I took and instead went with a combo of two of my new favorite things. 

Incorporating Pink In Your Decor

With all of the Valentine’s decoration on the shelves in the stores it kind of got me thinking of pink as actually being a relevant color. My husband and I have lived together for 8 years, so I stopped thinking about pink as a color option many moons ago. Every now and again I will find the inspiration to say the words: “What about pink?” to him and it’s always followed by: “What about what?!” So until I have a space that is for me and ONLY me, I will have to live vicariously through those that have been bold enough to not only rock some pink, but seriously pull it off. 

To me, choosing how you incorporate pink is all about your level of commitment to the color. So we'll start this relationship off slow and work up to a serious commitment.

1. Pillows and Linens

You've flirted with the idea of pink for a while now and you've finally worked up the courage to go on your first date. So you buy throw pillows and maybe a blanket or some other relatively inexpensive accent to see how you feel about pink.

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Mackle Construction

Inspiration from Crate & Barrel

One of my new favorite things is CrateandBarrel.com! I'm not just talking about the ease of online shopping, that's REALLY old news. Crate and Barrel has a ton of online freebies on the website.....and who isn't a sucker for free stuff?? In their Inspiration menu on their website, you will find some really cool tools that you can use for decorating and entertaining in your home.  In particular I love their Get the Download section. If you have an Apple product of any sort then you will love this! Check out what they have to download for FREE:

An ENTIRE playlist of 10 songs:

The songs are primarily Indie Rock or Pop-Rock, which for the most part is my kind of thing, so I really liked most of these songs, but even if you like one....it's freaking FREE!

An ENTIRE book (not just the sample):

I'm really excited to read this book. The author is the lead singer of the Decemberists, a really great folksy Rock band. I'm curious to see how the lyrics he writes translate to story. Crate and Barrel also has a list of additional recommended reads that are available for purchase that look great. 

Several Free Apps:

Between mixing drinks (with a little bit of a history lesson thrown in) and playing a game of Scrabble they have you hooked up!

Yummy Recipes:

Pomegranate Yogurt Dip

Grapefruit-Rosemary Martini 

If you like free downloads and entertaining inspiration, you should definitely check it out! Do you know of any awesome freebies that I am missing out on??

Christmas Decor Inspiration: 2012

It's officially Christmas decorating time!! I usually start heavily decorating the day after Thanksgiving, but we had some lighting issues that held us back (a problem that requires far more patience than I am equipped with - by the way) which is giving me more time to organize and get some inspiration for this year's decorations.

I don't know if I mentioned this, but I am CRAZY fickle, specifically when it comes to color. I change my holiday decorations every year and it gets more and more expensive. So this year I have decided we will be getting pretty much new EVERYTHING (except the tree...we got my ginormous tree last year!). Really, this is a practical decision...or at least that is what I have convinced myself. I want to go with all neutral essentials: stockings, tree skirt, bigger home decor items, etc. Then I can change out the small details with a new color or two every year. The problem then became finding the right style of neutrals that would be lasting for at least the next decade and easy to build on with an array of colors.



                             

I love the simplicity of this mantel arrangement.  Mixing soft, comfortable textures with shiny,    more glamorous textures is the direction I would like to go in. It won't limit what I can change out or add to over the years if I build a cohesive mixture of textures now. The boxwood topiaries add an organic touch and the punch of color up high draws your eye up  and creates a nice frame for the overall scene. 

These mercury glass hurricanes are trendy, but are neutral and versatile enough that they can be timeless too. I would love to figure out a way to successfully create the mercury glass look. I've seen a ton of how-to's, but none of them really look like mercury glass....probably why it so expensive!