New Additions to Our Home

Howdy Everyone! I hope you all had a fabulous weekend! Saturday was an awesome day for me, I got to go thrifting at a German Floh Markt and went to a fabulous wine festival, in a vineyard, with our wonderful new friends! Our furniture has been in-country for over two weeks and should hopefully be delivered later this week. I am praying this happens...

I made a few design concept boards for our kitchen and hall and have been trying to get as much done as possible before the movers bring all of our decorations and furniture over. As you know, I am trying to make our very contemporary kitchen (which is a rental) a little more rustic and cozy. Our home is not decorated yet, this is just what we have acquired since we have been here and on a very tight budget. 

Click here to see the kitchen before.

I got these wine crates from a vineyard (see first picture on this post). They happen to fit perfectly onto the bottom shelf of our island and work wonderfully as drawers for fruits, vegetables and wine. I adore the German print on the sides of them.

 This gorgeous rug was discovered at a thrift shop and it has very similar colors in it to the rug on my design concept board. I think it's stinkin' awesome and way cooler than the one on the board since authentic, handmade and antique! I got it for a grand total of $76! What a steal!

 I love that the colors are so unique. It has pink, orange, lime green, aqua blue, citron, red, and chocolate brown! This is the perfect rug for us since I love changing out our color scheme about once a month. It really warmed up the kitchen.

My lovely neighbor and dear friend was cleaning out her basement and gave me these antique European wine jugs. They go for a few hundred bucks a pop at Pottery Barn.

Click here to see before pics of my hall.

I knew I wanted a gorgeous and vintage light fixture and the size, height and price had to be just right....

I stumbled upon this vintage European crystal chandelier at a flea market and fell in love. It was only $75 and was already wired and ready to go! All it needed was a little bit of Windex and elbow grease. I love that it adds some vintage charm and bling to our very contemporary home!

 The darling pink bistro chair below was also a gift from my neighbor and I just love the chippy pink paint!! 

I am not sure what I will do with this chair yet however, I like it here until we receive our things from the states.

I will keep you posted on the progress of our new place. I am so pleased that it's all coming together and is really starting to feel like home.

A Fairytale City Out of a Dream...

The above picture is of the town hall 

Hello, hello, dear friends! It has been a while since I have blogged because, my crummy Internet has been out for over a week! I have been on several trips and have experienced wonderful things that I am dying to share with you!

As many of you know, I recently came back from a spectacular weekend in Brugge, Belgium. This city is by far one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been to. The food is astronomically amazing and the people of Brugge, are some of the friendliest and most helpful folks that I have ever met....seriously!
Brugge is similar to Venice, Italy in that it used to be a rich and bustling trading port with tons of canals. This ancient city started trade with Scandinavia around 750 A.D. and became a commercial center for Europe. Once its ports silted with mud around 1100, the city slowed down it's trading for hundreds of years. Because of this, this gorgeous place has been preserved beautifully! The design and architecture is unlike anything I have ever seen. 

After a four hour drive we arrived at our hotel around 9:30pm. We strolled through the rain desperately looking for a warm and cozy place to eat. We stumbled upon this enchanting entrance to a restaurant. The nest looking awning above the door and twinkle lights drew us in. 

We were warmly greeted by a friendly server who later we found out owns the restaurant with her husband Sam the chef. Also unknown to us, this place had received a Michelin Star. This became very apparent to us with our first taste of this phenomenal food. It was incredible and is most definitely worth the splurge.  The cured venison is a fabulous choice for an appetizer and you CANNOT leave without trying the home-made mousse crafted with Belgium's finest chocolate. The chef told us the chocolate was from a shop called Prailinette (most chocolate shops say prailines on the front but this is called Prailinette and has a brown sign). Visit the kind folks at Restaurant Spinola and they will tell you exactly where to go to get this rich and decadent chocolate! They gave me a tour of the kitchen, which they built themselves and looked like it was out of a Julia Child cookbook. 

Chef Sam has an herb garden and creates his own herb blends. I had the privilege of smelling the aroma of many of the blends. They also make wine. Thanks to this kind power-couple, this evening was one of the greatest experiences!

We learned from our friends at Restaurant Spinola that in order to work in the gorgeous city of Brugge, you must be able to speak at least three languages. They speak eight. This is helpful when traveling to this magical place. 

Burg

The rest of the pictures look like I've added a glow or soft effect to them, but I haven't. It is the moisture from the  rain on my lens. I like how dreamy it ended up looking, because that's exactly how the evening felt.

We had the most lovely time walking through the silent, sleepy streets, soaking up this city's beauty and having it all to ourselves. 

 We walked through the city center and admired this old church, The Basilica Of the Holy Blood, that is believed to hold a vial of Christ's blood that was stolen from another site during the crusades.

 The buildings were lit up beautifully as if it was just for our viewing.

 The architecture of these enormous masterpieces were inspiring to say the least.

 

Check out this Belfry clock tower!

 The next day I woke up to bells ringing and this spectacular view of a church across the street! Off to another adventure-filled day!

To be honest with you, this undeniably, gorgeous city made me completely awestruck. I don't have much to say but, "WOW". 

The design shops are spectacular! I felt so very inspired wandering though the beautiful stores in Brugge. Design and clothing shops have such a fresh and different take on things than the stores in The States. It is so much fun seeing such completely unique ideas. 

The three pictures below are of the the Basilica Of the Holy Blood, that is believed to hold a vial of Christ's blood that was stolen from another site during the crusades.

It is simply delightful watching the horse and carriages glide through the town. We decided not to do the carriage ride because it's about 50 Euro for a half an hour, and it was only 10 Euro to go on an incredible ride through the canals. 

 I recommend doing the boat tour of Brugge so you can get a fantastic and unique view of the city at a very low cost!

While in Brugge, be sure to try:

- Belgian chocolates (that's a given)

- Pommes frites (Also known as french fries. This is the place that fabulous food was created!)

- Belgian waffles and crepes (yes please...)

- The beer, including the fruit beers

- Croque Madame (We stumbled upon a place packed with locals called Punta Est. It was along the canals and the food, ambiance, and staff were rad!)

- The Coffee

-Oysters (only in the summer when they are fresh)

The wrought Iron metalwork on the tops of the buildings signifies the architect who designed them.

I love all the tiny details in this amazing city!

This chocolate shop is so miniature. I had to get a photo of how precious it is!

What I would give to live in one of these homes on the canal. I like that our monogram is all over this city as well.

My husband and I picked up this gorgeous (and not yet framed) drawing from a street vendor. We like to buy lovely, yet inexpensive things from the places we've explored to display in our home. Try purchasing a piece of art (or anything other than a shot glass, really) to remind you of places you've been that will only add beauty, not clutter to your home.  

Society 6 Art Love

Hello Everyone! I just returned from a fabulous trip in Brugge, Belgium. The city was overwhelmingly beautiful and I can't wait to share pictures and stories with you...another time.

As some of you may know, I am anxiously waiting for our things to arrive to Germany from the states so, I can finally get to decorating our cold, empty house. I have been scouring places for ideas and quirky things to use in our home. I came across this incredible website with awesome and very unique pieces of art and, I had to share this site with you! Society6 is loaded with pieces that can add a bit of charm to your space! It's definitely for the person who wants to add a unique and humorous piece to their collection. There really is something for everyone at Society6. There are so many prints that I want, I don't know where to even begin! Here are some of the many that I love!

If you couldn't tell, I love hot air balloons!

All these pieces excite and inspire me in some weird way. I think they would look awesome mixed in a group of really classic art pieces, to add a bit of (yes, I am going to whip out the most over used designer word ever) "whimsey".

Do you share my love of unique and bizarre art?

I can't wait to show you some other great design sources I have found! 

Kitchen Updates (not decorated and before my things arrive)

Hey ya'll! How are you doing today?? I am trying to re-paint our house before all of our furniture arrives from the states. I have created an inspiration board to give you all an idea of the future "feel" of our kitchen when we finally complete  it.  Below is the picture of our home that we saw on the housing site. The quality of the next few pictures isn't great, but you get the idea.

This next picture is of my home right when we moved in. The walls were painted a purple/grey color with stenciling and, the other walls in the room were a bright buttery yellow. I do love the beam lights (that is a custom creation by my landlord) and the wooden counter tops which add a nice bit of rustic-ness to the ultra contemporary cabinets and floors. I typically go for more classic looking kitchens but am really enjoying the sleek contemporary look while I am in Germany. I will be adding vintage touches to soften things up a bit.

We removed the glass back-splash above the sink and will hopefully be installing a real tile back-splash soon. 

Like I mentioned before, I have none of my decorative things from home, no real furniture, nothing, so the picture below is by no means my "after"....just an "In the design process" picture. We painted the accent walls a deep greige (grey-beige) color and the same lighter greige we used for our stripes in the hall. 

*The darker greige is from Hornbach and the color number is:

F6.05.50

In the states this color is most similar to Kelly Moore "Granite Cliff" KM3933-2

*The lighter color is also from Hornbach and is:

F6.05.70

In the states this color is most similar to Kelly Moore "Jute" KM3940-1

Once again, I chose to paint neutral colors so I can decorate with warm deep colors in the Fall and Winter, and fresh light colors in the Spring and Summer.

Here is our un-decorated and Incomplete kitchen! I can't wait to add some special touches to warm the place up!

The plant balls above my oven are all over the place here in Europe...I love them! These can be found at most design shops but were purchased at Mobel Martin.

You can't tell a huge difference in the colors of grey unless you are standing in the room. This color has brown undertones instead of purple undertones so, it feels much warmer in here. As you can see, in the first few pictures, there isn't a ton of storage or prep space. We decided to get an island from Ikea. It actually matched our kitchen beautifully even though our kitchen is from Mobel Martin. We added some high gloss shelves to the corner near the stove because, if it's done right,  I just love the look of open shelving. We needed some temporary dishes (since my nice ones are on a boat somewhere in the Atlantic) so I got these at Mobel Martin for less than 1 Euro a piece. I found the gorgeous goblets below at Ikea for just a couple Euro each. The best part is, they look similar to a set I wanted from Barney's that cost over $125!! These give close to the same amount of bang, for a lot less buck. See the originals here.

The awesome Persian style horse was from my wonderful neighbors as a gift.

The metal espresso set was also a steal from Ikea and remind me of something from a swanky Italian coffee bar in Milano. 

I love my new wooden chippy crate, it was a gift from my aunt Pat. It was purchased from a gorgeous design shop in the town of Leigh "by the sea" in England. I adore it and think it would look great full of fruits and veggies. Below is a picture standing in the kitchen looking into our empty (newly painted hall).

I found the roman shade lying on the floor in our loft from the previous tenant....I dusted it off and hung it up. I plan on adding some kind of trim to make it look custom. I found out you can get this shade at Hornbach for 19 Euro. In the states, Target has a similar looking one that ties up and has a very classic and clean look for under $20.

I would like to find an antique metal tray to hang above my stove-top and magnet recipes on it. I was also considering getting an old wooden tray to put spices and recipes on. I guess I will get whatever I happen to stumble on first. I am thinking I may fill the shelves on my island with vintage crates and baskets or, maybe I'll do cake pedestals or my copper collection. I can hardly wait for all of our decorative things to come. I am dying to get this place feeling like home. 

Are you working on any major projects this weekend??