Friday Update ~ 08/07/2015

Hey, hey.  Another week has flew by and somehow it is August already.  AHH!  Blittle and I both have been dealing with major sinus headaches since we got back from the trip.  It has killed my productivity.  Apparently, I am now allergic to Texas and need to live in the Caribbean full time.  HA!

Read about our Antigua vacation adventure:  Part 1 is about our time on a sailboat and Part 2 is all about the resort.

Antigua ~ Part 2

Click here to read Antigua ~ Part 1.

In Antigua, we had our five day adventure on the sailboat then went to Blue Waters Resort for a few days.  The reason for this was we weren't sure how well we were going to sleep on the boat and it gave us some time to do nothing.  Sailing can be hard on the body.  In part 1, I included a map of where we ventured so you can see how busy we were.  The resort was to give us a few days to recover and actually vacation.  :)

Antigua ~ Part 1

Antigua is not an island we have ever discussed visiting.  We tend to go to islands that most people haven't heard of and where there is lots of shallow water fishing.  After the Europe trip didn't happen, we talked about trying to get away when Blittle felt better but traveling in the summer is tricky due to hurricane season.

A guy Blittle knows through the fishing and boat community mentioned that we visit him and his wife in Antigua.  They live on their sailboat and have many of the same interests as us.  Blittle told him we might take him up on his offer since we didn't make Europe, I am learning to sail, and we are always open to new adventures in the Caribbean.

The name on Brian's Coke on the plane was perfect.

Back from Vacation

Hey y'all.  Sorry for the lack of posts last week.  We were in Antigua!

Friday Update ~ 04/24/2015

Y'all.  Its Friday!

I know I missed last week.  The post was even typed up and ready, I just forgot to take pictures and get it finished.  Sorry.


FURNITURE

Right now I am working on a dining set.  It was painted by the client's friend.  She wasn't loving the result so she tried to fix it.  Now I am doing damage control times two.  The final look will be stained so I have been stripping and sanding off all the paint and furniture wax that was put on it.  It has stained beautifully and should be done this weekend.

Here is what they looked like before.

Destinations & Directions Sign

Hi all.  Long time, no post.  I know.  Annoying.  I have consistently been waking up an 1 1/2 later than I usual.  This is not a bad thing because I do need the sleep and I am now waking up at an acceptable time.  Having said that, the 1 1/2 hours I am sleeping through used to be when I would blog and edit photos.  Normally, I wake up between 5 & 5:30, make my coffee, then sit on the couch with the dogs and edit photos and type blog posts.  Now, I don't have that much time in the morning so blogging, once again, has been neglected and put on the back burner.  One day I will figure out how to do it all...or at least that's what I tell myself to stay hopeful.  :)

We have had several home projects going on the past few weeks plus tons of furniture I haven't shared.  Today, I want to show you the destinations and directions signs we made for our yard.

Charleston Food

And it's Thursday already!  This time last week we were flying to Charleston for our last minute extended weekend vacation.  Read about the tours we did and where we stayed here.

This post is all about the food.  Yes, an entire post for the food.  I would call Blittle and myself, amateur foodies.  My family did everything around food and I tried to absorb as much information from my grandparents and parents as I could about cooking.  I am not afraid to try new recipes at home and neither of us are picky eaters.  When we moved to New Orleans, we both started trying new foods and looking for places that offered different dishes.  I have eaten things that I NEVER thought I would.  Some things are delicious, others not so much but I tried them and that's what counts.

Falling For Charleston

Hi!  I hope everyone is having a great week!  Blittle and I are trying to get back into the swing of things after being gone for an extended weekend, mini vacation in Charleston.  I think I fell in love while I was there.

We have been talking about getting away for a while now.  Both of us have been super busy with work and have been feeling very overwhelmed.  A few weeks ago, I finally got fed up with talking about leaving and bought plane tickets.  I was ready to get away and it needed to happen ASAP.

Charleston, South Carolina isn't a place we had on our travel list, but it is a place that has come up in conversation quite a bit in the past few months.  We were told it is like a clean and safe New Orleans.  That the food is great and the scenery and homes are beautiful.  There is also good fishing and beaches there (this was supposed to be a non beach, non fishing vacation but we ended up doing both).

So when I was checking for flights, I just happened to check Charleston, along with Cancun, Key West, and a few other islands.  Blittle kept saying he wants to do something "America" and see more of our country before we go back to the Caribbean.  So that's what we did.

I found a great, super cute rental through VRBO.com on Market Street.  This is a great location to walk to everything!  You could get away with not renting a car if you plan on staying just in the downtown area.  Here are the pictures of our rental and the link to it's page that has more info about it.

Updates on Furniture & My Parents Moving

Woah, it's Thursday already!   Wow.  I have been busy with many exciting makeovers but today is a post about something personal.

Yesterday, on Facebook, I posted this.

The New Orleans Trip & Flip

I finally get to tell y'all about the New Orleans trip I took back in June.  It was so good to go back.  As much as I was ready to move back to Texas, New Orleans  has a special place in my heart and will always be one of my favorite places to visit.

Do y'all remember the story of my first customer?  If not, read about it here.  Nothing better than meeting friends on Craigslist!  Well, Regan is having a baby and asked me to help with the dresser for the nursery!  Of course I wanted to help!  The paint sprayer and sanders took their first flight.

FWF's Year Review - 2013

What a difference a year makes.  This has been a huge year for Fisherman's Wife Furniture and for me personally.  This marks one full year out of the classroom and being a full time business owner.  Somedays I still can't believe it and I am waiting for someone to come take it all away.

Over the past few months, many new followers and readers have come along so I want to do a quick review of my favorite and/or most popular posts from 2013.

A Day at "The Place"

Happy Monday.  How was your weekend?  To be honest, I am not sure where mine went!  I do know that it was gloomy all weekend. Here is what it looked like yesterday.

Great Sunday afternoon nap weather.

A Weekend on the Coast

Brian and I flew to south Texas last Friday to spend an extended weekend on the coast.  We got to see family, friends and some pretty water.  Rockport, Texas is a quiet coastal town that is mostly made up of retirees and winter Texans.  Coastal Living Magazine had a great article about Rockport a few years ago.  Check it out here.

Brian and I are going to retire here  :)  It's never too early to start planning right?!  For us, it is in Texas, close to family and on the water....Perfection.  Rockport has a super cute road named Austin Street that has all kinds of shops on it.  Of course we checked out the furniture scene as well as ate some great food.  And I might have drove past/stalked George Strait's house hoping that maybe he would be outside and I would catch a glimpse of him.  He wasn't home.  Just devastated me more since I didn't get to see him in concert either.  Sigh.  Overall it was a great little coastal getaway.

Here are some photos from the trip.

This was our morning view.  Isn't it great?!  We stayed in a downstairs studio apt to a larger canal home. It was so quiet and peaceful in the mornings.  Rockport is known for its bird watching and they were all over the place.  Other than them and a few boats going through the canal to go fish, it was very quiet in the mornings.

Blue Heron in the neighbors yard.

White Heron

This pelican let me get so close to him.  I love watching them fly just a few inches over the water.

Something about them fascinate me.

Rockport is one of the windiest places in Texas.  There are several wind farms in the area...where they have fields of huge windmills.  Due to all the wind, the Oak trees along the water grow to the side.  It looks like someone used a trimmer to shape them with curved tops but its just how they grow in the wind.

The birds were all in the tops of the trees.

On Sunday, we decided to drive down to Port Aransas to check out the beach and how much the town 

has grown.  We haven't been down there in 4 or 5 years so there were a lot of changes.  Even on the

bridge you can tell the water is probably going to be clear at the beach.

I know its not Florida or the Caribbean, but for Texas, this is fairly clear and pretty water.  We were afraid the cold front was going to have the water murky and brown but it was very pretty that day.

Hopefully I will have some furniture pictures in the next few days.  I am finishing up a few pieces today and have some more custom pieces to follow but the weather forecast is rain all week!  YUCK!  

Coastal Love

I will start off by saying there is not a furniture transformation in this post.  This yucky weather has slowed my productivity and is depressing which makes me want to run away to the beach.  I LOVE the beach and the coast.  Love doesn't even really describe what it is...maybe an obsession?   I will live on the water one day, hopefully soon.  My husband isn't as obsessed with the beach as much as I am but he is obsessed with fly fishing and being on the water. Lucky for me, where there is pretty beach, there is fly fishing for bonefish so getting him to take me to the Caribbean isn't that hard. :)  Here are a few pictures from some of our trips.

Tropic of Cancer Beach,  Little Exuma, The Bahamas

Us on some beach in Little Exuma, The Bahamas

Long Island, The Bahamas 

Shallow flats for as far as the eye can see.  Amazing.
Somewhere off of Long Island, The Bahamas

5-prong and 6-prong starfish

Great Guana Cay, The Bahamas

Great Guana Cay, The Bahamas

Treasure Cay, The Bahamas

Grace Bay Beach, Turks & Caicos

The Caribbean really is one of the most beautiful places ever. From all of our trips, I have had tons of inspiration for decor in our home.  In the past few months I have had several clients and customers comment and ask about some of our decorations so I thought I would let y'all know more about them.   I have collected and inherited several items over the years.  For us, we want our home to reflect things that we love, be filled with memories of our trips, and reminders of our family.

Lets start with the entry.

I have my grandparent's dresser that I refinished as the main focal point.  

The "Wind", "Water", "Waves" signs I found a long time ago.  I have only seen them at that one store, which is now closed, and I instantly fell in love.  My mother bought them for me as a wedding shower present and I was so excited.  

The latern and vase are Pottery Barn.

The metal bonefish was made by a local New Orleans artist.  I can not find his info right now but when I do, I will add it.  He has a booth at the Art Market and does some amazing work.

The canvas on the left has cocktail napkins purchased in Great Exuma that I glued to a white canvas I bought at Michael's.  I stained the bright white canvas with coffee to give it a little bit of an aged look.  The map is a map of the Caribbean I bought on one of our trips and I modge podged it to a blank canvas.  The picture in the middle is a picture I took and had it put on canvas through Canvas on Demand.  I have another picture in my bathroom over my tub that was put on canvas by them.  It is a lot bigger as you can see!

We have a strange niche in our entry so I decided to make a subway art with our trip destinations on it.  Now I need to update it since our last trip but this is an easy and inexpensive project.  I got the idea and followed the instructions from this blog post.  

Our living room has a lot of art and pictures.

  All the beach photos were taken by the same photographer, Gwynemark Photography, during our Destin vacation a few years ago.

We bought this redfish painting at Winnie Trade Days (a once a month market in Winnie, TX) from an artist named Brooksie.  He is not there all the time but we lucked out one weekend and saw him there and loved his work.  This painting is on an old piece of paneling.

This sailboat was a model my paternal grandfather had.  He loved model boats and trains.  It is discolored but I don't care.  I love it and it fits perfectly in our home.

Mr. Pelican was bought at Molly's across from Central Mall in Nederland, Texas.

The huge tarpon over our double set of french doors was custom made for us by an artist that works here in New Orleans.  We originally saw his work at Avenue Art and Framing in Lakeview.  The owner of the shop called the artist to give our preferred measurements and a week later, we had our fish.

These shutters were in my parents home but they had to tear down the house after Hurricane Rita. I took the shutters to use as decoration. They are a great backdrop for another vacation photo.  

I am hoping to post a furniture before and after tomorrow but it really depends on the yucky humid weather.  It is making dry times super slow.  On a positive note, Brian and I are headed to south Texas this weekend for a little getaway for his birthday.  I am super excited!  

Quick Trip & Quick Flips

I don't usually put personal stuff on here but I only got a few pieces done last week and the trip is why. A few weeks ago my husband had to go out of town for work so I decided to go out of town for play ;)   My best friend lives in Houston and I only get to see her a few times a year but we talk on the phone 4-5 times a week.  My Sprint bill can get out of control if I am not careful.  We have known each other since 1st grade and I honestly don't know what I would do with out her.  I flew to Houston for several days to spend time with her and her family.  She has 3 kids and 1 on the way so that is a lot of spoiling I get to do!  Here are a few photos:

Rylee and me playing with the Easter stuff.

Rylee driving me around the cup-de-sac in her Caddie she got for Christmas

We went to Kaily's school to watch their Easter egg hunt.
 L to R (Rylee, Bretton, & Kaily)

Jessica & Kris took me to the Cheesecake Factory in The Woodlands for dinner because
it is one of my favorites and we don't have one in NOLA.

Jessica and me.  This is the only decent picture we got together.  

Heaven on earth.  That Oreo Extreme Cheesecake will change your life.
It is my new favorite.

When I got back from Houston I had a few quick flips to do for a friend.  She had a few old blah brown pieces that were in great shape but needed a facelift.  I do not have a before picture of the bed but I do have a before of the little dresser.  The bed matched it so just use you imagination for the bed before:

The client wanted a soft white/cream with a little distressing on the bed and an ombre look on the dresser.  I love how they turned out and I have never done an ombre dresser before so I was super excited she decided on that.  Here are the afters:

I love the final result.  So much so that I think I need to paint an ombre dresser for myself :)