Things as of late...

Hello, reader friends! I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving and is starting to come out of the turkey coma. :) We spent the holidays with my family, which is always fun - lots of food, wine, and sarcasm. This year, I made mashed sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie cheescake. I am still trying to find the perfect cheesecake recipe, and honestly, this one was not my best, but I thought it looked pretty at least! If you have a good one, please share!

The mashed sweet potatoes turned out better and the recipe is super-duper easy.

I know it has been a while since I have posted, but Brian and I have been keeping busy these last few weeks! I still can't believe we have been in our new house a whole month. I posted a picture of the house  right ater we closed - I believe I called it the "before" photo. Sadly, the only thing we have done to the exterior is cut the grass (and only once!). I am thinking landscaping will have to wait until the spring. Luckily, our new neighbor used to own a nursery so I will definitely be bribing him with cookies in exchange for landscaping help!

While the outside is still lack luster, we have been busting our buns on the inside! I am very excited to post all of the projects we have worked on - and actually completed! Lots, and LOTS of painting. In fact, we have painted every wall in the house. To start, I will share my favorite pieces from the house - our freshly-painted furniture!

Ok, this one I need your help on. Typically, my color choices are grays, blues, and white. I wanted to punch it up a notch, but I think I sucker-punched this poor piece... We got this dresser from Craigslist (my co-worker has it's counterpart!) and it was the perfect size to be Brian's dresser. It has amazing trim and fretwork and I deinitely wanted this to be a statement piece. On a whim, we came to the conclusion the dresser should be red. After many, many cans of spray paint, this is what we ended up with:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

I am considering re-painting it white and painting the trim gold. The red just doesn't do it for me and I feel like the details get lost. Any ideas?? 

Luckily, this next piece turned out exactly as I had hoped! This campaign dresser was a pricier piece (I know, I jumped on the Campaign wagon a little late), but the size was perfect.

Before:



After:

This thing was a beast to paint - the bracket-like hardware did not come off so it all had to be taped. AND, this monstrosity was made out of about four different surfaces so it was tricky to get the paint to stick. The hardware had a slight patina to it, which I love, so I left those as is. Same with the mirror - this was a $6 Goodwill find and I just adore the aged look of it.

The last item I would like to share is the newest addition to the Burns family - our puppy, Lola! She is a sweet girl with lots of energy and love to share! Lola likes to wake up earlier than we are used to, so I am excited to start using those wee morning hours to start blogging again daily.