Southern Comfort: January 2011

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Devine Color Paint

eWhat a whirlwind of a week! I can't believe how fast it went by, and to be honest, I haven't gotten near what I wanted to get done, done. Some weeks are slow, mundane and feel like you'll never get to the weekend, but for some reason this past week just slapped me silly. Here it is Sunday, getting geared up for another week...
First, I want to congratulate my sister. She just moved with her handsome hubby to a new town, bought a gorgeous house (stay tuned for pics!) and she's finally landed a (full time) job. Annie is a teacher, and had to give up her dream job just before Christmas to follow her husbands dreams. Since the job market has been slow to recover, she was awarded a less-than part-time job as a reading tutor for a mere 6 hours a week. Luckily, last week she got word of a position available as a high-school science teacher! Wednesday was her first day and I'm thrilled to report she loves her school, her students and her curriculum! It has been such a blessing for our family to see Annie so excited and engaged in her career. She's an amazing teacher and her kids are so lucky to have her. Congratulations Annie!!!

Now, onto the bloggy stuff:

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a design company called Devine Color (http://www.devinecolor.com/ for more information). They are launching a new line of paint and offered for me to give it a test-run. Of course I'm happy to oblige as you all know my love for paint. So when my package appeared on my door step, I couldn't help but tear into it immediately.

I couldn't believe it, but they sent me not just one but 3 paint samples! John and I have been itching to get started on projects above the stairs in our house. Of course when we moved in, we thought we'd have the whole house painted within a year.. ha! Here it is a year and a half later and we're just now getting around to thinking about it. Silly newlyweds ;)

Anyways, I got my stuff together to try out the new paint. I love how their samples come in re-seal-able (is that a word?) packets with a little color window so you can see the paint inside.

Yes, that's a mason jar. I was too impatient to find a suitable cup for the paint. Hey, it worked! Just don't tell John I poured out all his screws to use it. Ha! Ok, Ok, I promise to put them away when I'm done.

Divine Color claims that their paint "goes on like rich yogurt" and I was curious about this statement. I wanted to know if it really covered as well as I imagined.

Here we go!

Yes! Yes it does. It's a very thick paint, but it covers beautifully and slides on the wall like silk. I was very impressed. I purposely "feathered" my edges so when I repaint or put another coat on, it won't be noticeable there was a swatch there. In the package the paint looked a lot more "buttery" in color (as you can see in the above pictures) and it dried a much deeper color.

I wish we had better lighting in our upstairs hall (one day.. another project). Our current fixture is just horrible and when I used the flash it was worse, so please bear with me.

Devine Color has several tools on their website for choosing a "trend proof" color to withstand time as well as design services and much more. Now, to choose a paint color for the office...

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Southern Comfort and Overstock

Hiya Peeps!

I hope everyone is getting their week off to a great start. Since we re-arranged the living room back in this post I've been contemplating some new items to help bring our look together. Since right now we have a modge-podge of sorts I'd like to try and streamline a few details to really get the look I want.

Luckily, I was contacted by the wonderful staff at Overstock.com and they've offered a great promotion for all Southern Comfort readers. If you use promotion code 121745 you'll recieve 10% off your entire order! Pretty sweet huh? The promotion code never expires, but you can only use it once per email address.

If you've never heard of Overstock, they're an online company that sells everything from fabulous jewelry to camping gear. They always have great deals and are a pretty sweet way to get awesome stuff for less. Best part, all their shipping is only $2.95.. no matter the size or weight of your order. Sahweeeeet! So no more contamplating a purchase because of shipping costs.

So what have I been considering buying this week? Take a look:

These lamps are just perfect to flank each side of our fireplace. I've been searching for a taller lamp to set on each table to balance out the height of the fireplace. Right now I have our current (stumpier) lamps sitting on stacks of books to boost their height. These babies will do just the trick for us! Can we say, I love lamp? I think so.

http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Steel-Kiss-1-light-Steel-Lamps-Set-of-2/5633109/product.html

From the second I saw this rug, I wanted it. I love the geometric shape, but it's not so modern that it wouldn't fit in with our other decor. I have plans to get it as a runner and put it in our master bath (after we renovate it). Wouldn't it look pretty sweet in a all white bathroom? (hint: we're thinking marble floors and subway tiles) Swooooon.

http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Hand-tufted-World-Classic-Bluish-grey-Wool-Rug-5-x-8/4817426/product.html

And to get a little more inspiration for the bathroom, how about this faucet? Curvy, cottage-y (yes, I'm making up words now) and sleek. I think it will work perfectly.

http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Vintage-Widespread-Bathroom-Faucet/5473652/product.html

And since blogging requires taking pictures, I'd loooove to have one of these bad boys one day. I'm no professional photographer (as you can tell from previous posts) but I'm more than excited to learn. Of course it would be more exciting to learn and play with a good camera. And Overstock offers free shipping on all electronics by using this code 202234.

http://www.overstock.com/Electronics/Nikon-D5000-Digital-SLR-Camera-Refurbished/4584346/product.html

I hope I've encouraged all of you to get out on Overstock and use our brand new code. I'm so excited to get started on new projects for 2011 and share them all with you as we go!

**All the ideas and opinions expressed are my own. No monetary compensation was received for doing this post, however, I was provided with a discount code**

Thursday, January 13, 2011

living room switch up

Hi everyone! I do hope everyone is staying warm with all this winter weather we've been getting. The east coast has really been getting hammered this winter. With the latest snow/ice storm coming through on Monday night, John and I were both iced in on Tuesday. We played with Maggie for a while in the yard, but the ice was so slick she kept falling and slipping every-which-a-way. Poor dear. After a few minutes of trying to learn to ice-skate to her frisbee she'd decided enough was enough and just laid down. I can't say I blame her.

So without being able to actually play outside, John and I decided to play inside and re-arrange a few things. Now, let me disclose this post by saying I'm a horrible blogger. I completely forgot to take pictures of the before or the during, so you'll just have to bear with me and our after shots (I was in one of my gotta-get-it-done-now. I have to see what it looks like. John come help me push the desk this way moments). Hopefully you won't find our older pictures of the living room to be too unbearable. :)

After I *finally* put away the stocking stuffers that have been laying on our mantle since, oh, Christmas day, vacuumed up the rest of the tree needles (oh my gosh, I think the house is actually making them!), and found a home for the rest of the mini Reese Cups the cats have apparently found and have been enjoying knocking around the floor and under furniture, I was able to see what we were working with. Boy it feels good to see the furniture again.

I haven't been 100% happy with our living room colors or arrangement. Sure it's fine, John certainly thinks so. But I want a room I'm excited to be in. It doesn't call to me. I feel like it's just a bunch of brown colors smooshed in there and I'm left trying to find a way to make them all work together. And we spend so much time in our living room I really want to make it feel like us. I've had decorators block with this particular room for a while now. I even tried to do a makeover last Spring, remember? Which I really liked, until Fall came and the blues/ creams had to go for the season.

So yesterday, since we had some time on our hands, we moved some things around. Here's where you get to play "where's Waldo" with the pictures to find everything I changed ;) Just kidding. I'll give you the run down below the picture.

I replaced the valance with a red one (I did this around Christmas to be more, well Christmas-y and for right now I like it. It may change again once Spring gets here, but for Winter it's fine)
We removed the tall black lamp in the right corner. It really belonged in the bedroom, but we needed another lamp and it happened to find it's way there last year and hadn't moved.
We moved the desk that was by the front door over by the fireplace. I wanted to create some balance in that corner and I'm really liking the way it looks.
To replace where the desk was, we pulled out a side table we had stored upstairs.

I'd like to find a pair of lamps to flank each side of the mantle. The lamp on the right is from Goodwill and the lamp on the left is a hodge podge of Target base/ Walmart shade. I'd like to find a pair that's chunky, metallic and modern. I have some searching to do because we all know lamps aren't cheap.

And as a little crafty project, I changed up our coffee table tray. I was getting a little tired of the pictures, so I took them out and replaced them with some left over fabric from a past project.

before:

after:

Here's where all the bloggy magic happens:

It's my little comfy corner.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Stylish Blogger Award

Hey everyone! I have some fun news to share with you. Yesterday I recieved an email from Lori over at Thrifty Decor Mom and she was so kind to pass along the Stylish Blog award to Southern Comfort! I am so honored! Lori is a wonderful inspiration for all kinds of projects, so you must pay her a visit soon. In order to recieve the award, I have to list some unknown facts about me, and then pass the award on to other wonderful blogs who deserve the award as well. So without further ado, here we go.

Little Known Facts:
1. I love ketchup. I mean, love, love ketchup. I will put it on most anything. If you want a list of weird things I put it on, let me know. Otherwise, I'll keep the gross factor wrapped up to only my dear husband.

2. Each evening John and I eat dinner on the couch watching episodes of Friends. We have them DVR'd during the day and unwind at night with a little Friends banter. Yes, eventually we'll eat at the table like normal people, but since we don't have kids yet, we'll stick to the couch.

3. When I get home from work each day the first thing I do is put on my pj's. Seriously. When I'm home, I'm in my sweats. If I take a few minutes to answer the door, it's because I'm trying to change clothes really fast so you think I'm normal.

4. Most of our projects are done on a whim. We really don't plan much out other than to say "one day we'll do that". It normally happens on a Friday or Saturday night at 9pm that we'll get busy tearing something out. What can I say? We live on the edge ;)

5. I am the hardest person to get out of bed each morning. I've been known to scratch, scream and even bite. Over the years I've dropped the scratching and the biting, but it's still pretty bad. It's John's least favorite time of day. Sometimes he'll send the dog in to do the dirty work so he doesn't have to.

6. I cannot sleep if my nose is cold or if my feet are hot. I will stick my feet in cold water before bed just so they're the right temperature.

7. After reading all these, I'm sure by now you're thinking I'm some sort of crazy person. Don't worry.. I'm wondering the same thing. Oh, and I don't like to drink milk.