Take a peek...

There's a new magazine on stands near you 

and you have probably already heard some of the buzz about it...

In this magazine, among the many stunningly beautiful homes from around the U.S. and Canada,

and features about artisans, craftspeople, and farmers,

and tantalizing recipes,

and original project tutorials, and tips and info on collectibles, and so much more...

there's a log farmhouse in those pages that you might recognize if you read this blog.

 Yes, that's my house! Please, pinch me!  

Kimberly McCole wrote a most lovely article to complement Fifi O'Neill's styling and Mark Lohman's photography from last September, which appears in the premiere issue of Romantic Prairie Style magazine!  Wow, I still can't fully comprehend that this has really happened! My thanks to all three of you!

I'd also like to thank two friends: 

Karan Sjoberg of Fetch Antiques and Interiors, who whipped my house into shape for the photo shoot.  She has a wonderful eye for arrangements and vignettes and brought together the rooms so beautifully.  She also has an amazing shop in Hillsborough, NC, filled with gorgeous architectural salvage pieces, and lots of one-of-a-kind vintage furniture. 

Cindy Austin--also featured in Romantic Prairie Style magazine (she's the adorable lady wearing the straw hat in the photos above!)--who so kindly and generously lent several of her original oil paintings for the photo shoot to help fill my bare walls.  Fifi loved her work and so will you!

And as if all of this isn't totally overwhelming, check out the "Made in America" section of Romantic Prairie Style for a mention and photo of Harmony Farm Candles! 

So, please check out the premiere issue of Fifi's sumptuous quarterly magazine, Romantic Prairie Style.   The pages are simply overflowing with eye candy aplenty, terrific articles, and inspiration galore!

On cloud nine,

Erin

P.S.--I found the copy of Romantic Prairie Style previewed here at Target on Friday. The local Barnes & Noble said they will have copies on the shelf starting Tuesday, May 1st. Interested in subscribing?  Annual U.S. subscriptions are available for $24.97 for 4 quarterly issues via Harris Publications, 1115 Broadway, New York, NY  10160-0397.

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House Tour: The Guest Room

Good evening, everyone!

I just finished watching the latest episode of Downton Abbey on PBS tonight...ah, SO GOOD. (Season One is available on Netflix and Season Two episodes are viewable on PBS's Web site.) I've been completely sucked in by this beautiful-looking and drama-filled series. I cannot recommend it enough!

Anyway, hope you've all been better than I was this past week. Monday night the flu descended on me and I spent the next 4 days in bed with chills, aches, and fever.

Blurgh.

Needless to say, I haven't been up to much! I'd had high hopes of making a pair of flannel pajama bottoms but perhaps I can give them a go this week.

Anyway, when wondering what to blog about after a week of doing nearly nothing, I realized I never posted photos of our guest room for the house tour I kicked off in the fall.

So, let me get back into the blogging groove with a few shots of the guest room, which is furnished in a simple farmhouse style. 

So, have you been lucky enough to escape the flu, or other sick bugs so far this winter?

-Erin

House Tour: The Kitchen

Don't forget about the Harmony Farms Candle giveaway now through Sunday, November 20th!  Click here for your chance to win three holiday soy candles, handmade by yours truly.

Everybody ready for the weekend?

Mine started early with a midnight showing of the latest Twilight Saga movie, Breaking Dawn, last night.  I'm by no means a Twi-hard, but I read and enjoyed the books well enough.  It was my middle sister's 30th birthday, so she wanted to see it, plus it's become a thing for me, my sisters, and my friend Sara to watch the Twilight movies to laugh at the bad dialogue and at how constipated Robert Pattinson, an otherwise very handsome man, looks when playing Edward Cullen.  Anybody else know what I'm talking about?  :)

As far as the Twilight movies go (and mind you, they have fairly low production value with the bad wigs, white pancake make-up, and cheesy CGI, so this comparison is very relative), Breaking Dawn wasn't half bad. Probably my favorite of the series so far, particularly due the advancements in the storyline and lack of teenage emo-ness.  Kristen Stewart (Bella) showed genuine emotion in this installment and didn't mumble too much. (And she is stunningly gorgeous in the wedding scenes!)  And Taylor Lautner (Jacob) wore his shirt for most of the movie, which is a departure from the previous movies. Now I'm ready for the final movie next summer where (SPOILER ALERT!) Bella kicks booty and takes names as a vampire.  I think that'll be the best Twilight movie yet!

Okay, I know you're not here to read about teenage vampires and werewolves--I blame the above rambling on the major lack of sleep last night--so let's get on with the next room in the house tour: the kitchen.

Our house has a galley kitchen, not my first preference in kitchen layouts, but it is--as gallery kitchens are--a very efficient space.  Since we do a lot of cooking and baking around here, that's a good thing from an ergonomic perspective.  But I do dream of having a spacious country kitchen one day, where a farm table sits in the middle of an L- or U-shaped space.  'Til then, I'll make the best of what I have.

A local cabinet maker built all the cabinets for an exceedingly reasonable price.  He delivered them to the house while we were building, I painted them, then he installed them.

Now, these cabinets have been painted twice.  The first time, I painted them in Sherwin Williams Alabaster, freaked out at the starkness of the white, then glazed them to tone down the brightness.  That worked for awhile but then the glazed finish just looked dingy.

When we installed beadboard in a few places in 2010, and painted it a barn red, that ultimately exacerbated the dinginess.

Icky, yellowy cabinets right before getting a new coat of paint

The barn red beadboard before the update--oh so dark.

So, this summer, I repainted the beadboard a light gray and the cabinets in Benjamin Moore White Cloud. 

Laying on the first of two coats of  white paint to hide my glazing mistake--the glazing in the grooves of the beadboard made the doors look particularly dirty...bleck!

The change in cabinet color is subtle but it truly did brighten up this space--which has a tendency towards being dark as the only two windows open to a screened-in porch...which backs into woods.  Yeah, not a lot of natural light happening in this space much of the time.  White cabinets and light-colored walls were definitely needed.

The countertop is soapstone--not something you see very often in homes in the South.  We liked the farmhouse feel of it and the fact you can sit hot pots and pans directly on the counter surface.  It's what chemistry lab counter tops were/are made of (it's been awhile since I was last in a chemistry lab!) Soapstone does require routine wipe-downs with mineral oil to maintain the even, dark color you see here.

To further the farmhouse look, we mixed in open shelving...

These shelves are between the wall oven and refrigerator

Curtains in lieu of cabinet doors in some places...

Beige and cream ticking fabric skirts the farmhouse sink while drop cloth curtains disguise the contents of the peninsula

And bins and baskets provide more texture and storage...

This cabinet, which we use to store spice jars, is one of my favorite pieces in the kitchen.  We bought it at the Liberty Antiques Festival while building the house in 2007.  The panel in the door is a reproduction but the cabinet is made of salvaged beadboard.

Karan at Spruce Antiques and Interiors in Hillsborough, NC, gave me this idea to use rusted vintage wire baskets mounted on the wall above the cooktop for storage. I like the juxtaposition of the logs next to the lines of the metal.

So, there you have it...my narrow but functional farmhouse kitchen. :)

Have a great weekend!
Erin

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Back Home Again...and the Next Stop on the Home Tour

Handmade soy candle GIVEAWAY 
now through November 20th! 
Click here to read about my new Etsy shop and enter for up to five chances to win a set of holiday soy candles!

.................................................

Well, hello there!  I slipped out of town last week for a trip to Kentucky with a couple friends to attend the Breeders' Cup at Churchill Downs in Louisville, and to spend some time in the Lexington area visiting horse farms.

When I returned home earlier this week, I was greeted by two surprises...

 
My husband and brother-in-law bought this tom turkey while I was away...and, yes...he's going to be Thanksgiving dinner. :(

The second surprise came later when I checked my blog email account: I was stunned to learn that I won The DIY Club's 31 Days of Painting Contest!  With nearly 100 seriously outstanding entries, I figured there was no chance I'd make it to the top 10, much less win the grand prize of two free gallons of paint from Dutch Boy.  Thank you DIY Club and Dutch Boy!

My winning entry was the cane back living room set I painted and then had reupholstered in drop cloths for my English-inspired reading nook.  I shared with you guys the before and after photos earlier this year, but here's a quick refresher.

And with fresh paint:

However, when I posted the after pics, I still had many more plans for this space.  Since this room is now finished, it's the next stop on the Carolina Country Living home tour!

This loft is just 8 feet wide and runs 15 feet long, and it overlooks the living room and dining room below.

I imagine when my son gets older, this will be his space as it's adjacent to his bedroom. But for now, I've co-opted it and have tried to inject a bit of vintage English country flair, inspired mostly by Cath Kidston fabrics.

Since finishing the furniture set, which was an auction find, I polished the room by white-washing the horizontal tongue-and-groove boards on the back wall with Minwax's Pickling Stain.

Envelope-style pillow covers made with Cath Kidston fabrics found on Etsy adorn the sofa and side chairs.  The larger pillow is covered in Provence Rose in Light Blue.  The smaller pillow is covered in Summer Blossom in Light Blue.

For an easy-peasy tutorial on how to make the pillow covers, visit Restoration House. 

This tutorial changed my sewing life!

This darling little pillow is a new arrival courtesy of Etsy shop Cornflower Creations.  The aqua ticking, hint of red gingham and the ditsy floral spiced up with the polka dots made me melt!  After seeing this pillow, I think I need to work more polka-dotted fabrics into this space. :)

In addition to all the floral pillows, there are three linen pillows on the sofa.  Two round ones with a button detail hide behind the blue floral Cath Kidston pillows below.  And a bolster that was recovered in linen by my upholsterer sits in between.

A pair of gorgeous yellow French Provincial tables from Spruce Antiques are a fun, colorful counterpart to the subtle hues of the cream and grey-painted furniture and drop cloth cushions.  They pick up the hints of yellow in the Cath Kidston pillows and further brighten the space.  The vintage hooked rug is a neutral backdrop to this sassy table.

Simple curtains sewn from fabric found at Hancock Fabrics dress the four windows.  I have no idea the manufacturer of this semi-sheer, quilting fabric, but it reminded me a little bit of the linen and faded floral fabrics made famous by Cabbages & Roses, another iconic English company.

For a romantic but frugal touch, the fabric panels were hung on $2 tension rods, then gathered, balloon style, and tied up with ivory grosgrain ribbon.

In between the windows, over the sofa, hangs a scrap of Cath Kidston stationery in an IKEA frame repainted with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Duck Egg.

The floor lamp was a purchase made by my husband in his bachelor days.  A quick coat of white spray paint on the base, and white pom-pom fringe hot glued to the beige shade, spiffed it up in a whimsical kind of way.

Milk glass adds to the vintage feel of the room. Here I cut a circle of fabric from Lecien's Flower Sugar line to provide a little more contrast between the white glass and the tinned candle, while adding another dose of this happy shade of yellow.

This wood tray was a thrift store find that I spray painted in Krylon's Cornflower. I like to keep my British home magazines here, since it only seems fitting!

The non-matching chair in the room is a slipper chair that came from my childhood bedroom.  Reupholstered in Waverly's Rose Sonata in Robin's Egg, and a coat of paint added to it's turned wooden legs (capped in casters!), I think it adds an element of older English style.   

Bright flowers--in this case, dried strawflowers--look sharp on a yellow table.

The only thing missing from this picture is me, stretched out on the sofa with a book in hand! :)

Thanks for coming along for the latest stop of the house tour.  We'll continue with the kitchen next week!

Hope you're having a great weekend,
Erin

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