Happy + Thankful

Below {at bottom} is the first and only professional photo I've shared of a kitchen I designed and personally oversaw with Pickwick House {my business} as the established renovation company.  I saw this project thru a complete whole home renovation that took the better part of a year.  For those of you who know and follow my work, you know that this was also 'my baby' along with the 'babies' {kids}.

I could recount in my sleep every decision, 3 hour meeting, measurement, source, appliance selection, vendor, color, finish, style, glider weight, lighting source, redo, complication, regret I had {and still had up until as of last week} over the work put into this as well as the rest of the house.  I have a design binder for the number of countless options and sketches I drew up for what was to be our family's 'forever' home.  It was a house I lived in with my five children for close to five months until as of recent.  

The 'forever' part didn't happen there, but I am counting my blessings here on the blog anyway.   Especially my children and that I didn't sell our long time Rountree home.   That is a truly happy thing.

I can tell you I am now doing really well...and YET, God is not done with me yet.   

I'm so excited for where my work will take me next and am happy to report that the following ad is taking on!  Thank you, Thank you!

I will leave you with what mom instilled in us.  She lived and breathed most all of these values {and plenty more} in her tightly run household of nine kids {my siblings who are a continual source of creative and entrepreneurial inspiration}.  I currently have this phrase written on our home's wall and hope that my kids will see these words as a call to daily action.  Everything except the 'LOUD part'.    Yelling is for house fires, in my opinion.

{Disclaimer for the rights to this image below:  Photos I share of my design work are copyrighted to Sharon Taylor Designs/Pickwick House. LLC.  The photography is by Heather Cherie Photography a and ownership was granted for printing and advertising purposes in spring of 2013}

I still have a special announcement to come for small business Saturday and Pickwick House.  Check in soon.

Happy Thanksgiving Prepping and Nesting in your kitchens!

xx

sharon

Thankful

Hello again.  It's Thanksgiving week.  What are you thankful for?    

I am so grateful for you, my clients, who have entrusted me with your homes this past year.  I feel you are an extension of family.  Thank you for allowing me the privilege of being in your home.  Thank you for also sharing with me that you enjoyed the process of making your house a home.  I know the process isn't always easy so when you can say that you find it to be enjoyable, that means I've accomplished my goal.

For whatever reason, God has allowed me to continue sailing my little boat into it's third year in my brick and mortar on Pickwick St.  That doesn't mean the sails haven't needed adjusting here and there.  "a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor."  

I definitely owe a lot of thanks to my family, neighbors, The Rountree community, and my neighboring merchants on Pickwick Street.  Your support means a lot.  I love being a part of this amazing and unique neighborhood.  I would not be here if it wasn't for you.  THANK YOU!

Here are a few more things I am thankful for.  'Words of Good' that I love from pinterest page.  These words remind me to be thankful for journeys, challenging choices, creativity, art, life AND music.  Life is beautiful, is it not?

I'll leave you with some Coeur De Pirate. She's a good reason to learn french.  Eleanor, Sylvia, and I love her. Also, this sweet video made me realize that beautiful music is sometimes all you need to beautify an empty room.

Happy Thanksgiving week to all of you and yours.  I have a special announcement for Pickwick House coming up this week...

Love and Joy to you!

xx
sharon

HOUSE UPDATES: Wainscoting, Stairs, Hallway

Hi All!  I hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend.  We sure did!  Will's mom made an incredible meal as always and we had good times with both sides of the family.  Here's an update on the house.  A before and after.  I'll start with the 'after' first, because it just feels SO good:)

80's style brass fixtures before.  This picture comes nowhere close to letting you see the muck that was on the walls and floors.  Dark, dark, nicotine stained walls and ceilings.

Notice the cut out in the left wall.  That was for the door bell system and gongs.  We took that system out and drywalled over the cut out.  

This is right after Will ripped out the nasty hunter green carpet that ran the length of the hallway and stairs.  I'm sure Will has a nastier 'before' pic somewhere.  I'll have to dig for more of those yucky befores.  Anway, I'm laughing at the tensed hands in this pic, {those are Will's hands}.  I'm sure he was giving a house tour to someone, here, and he's explaining the severity of the grossness of the house.  Haha!  See those dark spots on the floor in the background and also the one in the foreground.  Those are just some of the dog pee stains.  The dogs were mostly holed up in the background hallway.  The owner had the dogs mostly barricaded back there, which is one of the main reasons we chose to go with darker floors. 

Justin getting started on the wainscoting.  

This pic was taken from the back hallway looking toward the front door.  

All the baseboards were ripped off, but we saved them and re-used them.  

First coat of paint on the risers and the wainscoting.  

After the floors were stained and the most of the paint touch ups are done!

Sorry this pic is so blurry.  It was evening time.  Notice the baby waterfall chandeliers.  Will found those.  I think they are perfect!  Also notice we painted the front french door black.  We have a matching baby chandelier in the little foyer just beyond that door that didn't turn on.  That's why it looks so dark.  

Anyway, I hope to have pics up soon on the blog.  I hope you enjoy seeing the progress we're making.  

Have a wonderful springy week!

xx

sharon

IT'S TIME?

Hi everybody.  In trying to update my blog with new buttons and gadgets and bells and whistles last week...I took it upon myself to make some changes to the blog template on my own.  AND I've messed it up, of course.  haha.  So, if you see text running over pics, that's me being a dumb-thumb once again.    I've put a call into my graphic designer, so expect some fun changes for sure by next week.

It's spring break and while I'm still working on client projects for the week, we all took took some time out as a family yesterday to wipe away the renovation dust and take our first batch of things to the new house.  It's starting to feel real, now.  Sylvia brought us over some home made cookies from Mimi's house while we were cleaning.  It sort of felt like a welcoming kiss yesterday.  I've been saying for a while that it doesn't really seem like it's our house, or that it really COULD be our house.  For the first time, it sort of did.

The upstairs floors won't be done for a while, but the basement is done.  One half of the basement will be the teen boys pad, the other half will be my office.   Will built their beds out of fence post lumber we bought at Lowes over the weekend.  

Here's Charlie and I testing out our vintage old-school USA map between their twin beds.  I LOVE old maps and globes.  Decorating with old maps is not a new thing, and it's certainly not a dying thing.  I think it will always be in style.  For any room in the house, really.  What about you?  Do you have old maps that you use in decorating? 

Here are some inspirations from pinterest that I thought you might enjoy...  

Sleekly framed and lit.  Classy.

South America old-school style.  Love the roll down maps.

 Do you recognize this one?  It's a map mural I had commissioned for jellybeans.

Decoupaged.  So cute.

French door framed.  Love the clever usages of maps.

Happy Hump Day!

xx
sharon

Kitchen Update On The Home Front

Our kitchen is finally coming together.  I've shared with you in a previous post about the AGA appliances we ordered.  Well, it seems as though every appliance and gadget we've ordered has taken twice as long to ship out as predicted.  And as of yesterday, our range had arrived after having ordered it back in October. But the fridge and dishwasher did not arrive on the same shipment and they are just now telling us that it's on back order and don't know when it will arrive.  Ugh.  It's hard to contain the anticipation.  Our floors are still unfinished, and chalky, and dirty, and the house is still a mess.  Mostly, I'm in anticipation mode for the appliances and this kitchen.  I've not ever had a 'nicer than average' appliance in my whole life. For the last two decades, I've been cooking on Lowe's brand stoves and the dishwashing is what I've always done manually...or had my kids do.  So, it really will be like Christmas ten-fold when that truck unloads!

We wanted to do right by the kitchen on this house and every house we do for that matter.  We knew we needed to invest more than average $$ into the appliances.  And, boy, does it add up quick!  

via VOGUE on pinterest

Here's an image of one of my dream kitchens that I refer to over and over and over.  {I wouldn't mind looking like the pretty girl.  Not sure who she is?  Anybody know??}  But, anyway, like I said, I don't know if I could ever get tired of looking at this kitchen, could you?  Classic white, inset doors/drawers, marble counters, brass hardware, nicely finished and detailed kick-legs, glass-uppers, hardwood floors.    

Even though Will and I had the jist of what we knew we wanted the overall look and feel of the kitchen to be, there were still many, many details that we knew we had to oversee and be 100% accurate with.   I've poured over many, many kitchens on pinterest and magazines for months and months now to make sure I haven't left a detail unnoticed.  

One of the things that I'm loving is antique brass for pulls and fixtures.  I sourced a faucet online that I fell in love with; a bridged, antique brass, farm style faucet.  British Made, and only $895!  Well, that's a little much out of our price range,  so I did some more searching and found a faucet I absolutely fell in love with that was less than half that price.  It's a two handled, Phylrich International faucet, in satin brass, with darling cross pulls that depict the perfect amount of antique that I'm aiming for, all while being a one hole faucet {which is a nice modern feature}.  One holed faucets are less maintenance in my mind.  Less grime and muck to clean.  It also gives a cleaner look.    

Here's a birds eye view of the kitchen layout.  Pardon my chicken scratches, and x's.  We have made some minor adjustments to this.  It's virtually the same as the original layout, but with a few configuration manipulations and additions.   As you see, the appliance layout almost hits a 'perfect triangle recommendation' up above {Sink at top, fridge on right, and range on left}.   The initial layout of the kitchen didn't work that way.  It had the stove and fridge just floating on their own on the left wall.  No cabinetry with them at all.  NOT pretty.  I should note that the nook and pantry aren't pictured here on this layout. Picture if you can, the Breakfast off the lower right hand side, and a butler's pantry off the upper right hand side. 

 The butler's pantry is a about a 12 foot long, narrow breezeway that attaches our house/kitchen to the garage.  Originally, the butler's pantry had a wall of floor to ceiling cupboards in hunter green:-)  Then three exits at the end.  As pictured here below.  Not too bad.  

We tore those cupboards out to make way for upper and lower cabintery, and to add more countertop workspace for kitchen usage.  My 18 year old daughter is a really accomplished pastry maker and she is more than excited to have all this marble countertop workspace.  {Okay, I hope my explanation and pictures make sense.  Sometimes I backtrack when explaining here, but hopefully you can tie some of my nonsense all together:)  The doorways and wall above show the exit to pantry {on left} and nook {on right].  We tore a portion of that small in-between wall out too.  So it would look like this:}   

Now, do you see where I'm going with this?  We decided to build a fridge cubby there instead, as pictured below.    

That way the fridge won't be crammed over on the other wall with the range. With the fridge in it's cubby, we'll now have the 'near perfect' triangle, and the flow of the kitchen will be {I really hope, and fingers double crossed} REALLY nice.  The left door pictured here is going to be arched just as the nook is, which was at Will's insistence.    

The pantry will be housing all the extras little things like the food in upper glass paned cabinets.  Microwave, kitchen aid, toaster, blenders, etc all in the lower drawers.  As well as an under counter fridge for storing Will's specialty beers that he loves.  

  Figuring out where the fridge would go was Will's idea.  And I think it's the best idea.  He's so cute sometimes!  I really, really didn't want it smashed together next to the range.  I really wanted one wall devoted to the range itself.  I LOVE kitchens that have the range as the center focal point with a clear line of symmetry on either side of the range.  

So, all in all the bright side of our home progress is what I have to keep reminding myself of.  I know I complain about how slow everything is, but it really has been clipping together pretty nicely, and will and I have had so much fun doing this as a team, along with a fantastic crew!  

The breakfast nook will have a pair of upholstered and tacked banquettes, a long table, and a tv mounted to the corner wall of the room, so it won't be visible from anywhere in the kitchen, except if  you actually sit down at the table.  

For the sink wall, we left the sink wall configuration virtually the same, only we are making the counter depth deeper than the original.  I'm excited to put some potted plants directly behind the faucet.  We tore all of the existing cabinetry and old tile out.  I admit, it pained me a bit, because I have admiration for the old cabinetry and it's lines.  I loved the old subway tile too. But we found an identical match to the tile and our carpenter is beyond wonderful.

We will have an under counter trash can pull to the right of the sink, as well as a cutting board pull out.  {I took some advice from Will's mom on what features were most important to her as she is just a really really good cook who likes a well functioning method of placement for things in her kitchen.  I hope to be a real cook someday.  ha.  We'll see.  {Btw, I'm already trying to warm up to cooking by making myself try one new pinterest recipe a week.  My daughter is rating how well she likes them on instagram.  Please feel free to follow along and hashtag your own recipes on Wednesday with me.  I'd love to know what recipes you are cooking up!}

Okay, so my mother in law uses the heck out of her cutting board pull outs.  I think it's a great idea.  Not only for chopping, but for buffet style service when dinner is plated in the kitchen and more counter space is needed.}  So, all in all, we will have 3 pull out cutting boards.  Two of them will flank the stove.  

Another thing she advised us on was to use drawers.  We decided to go ahead and give all the lower cabinets drawers only.  Except for under the apron front sink.   Drawers are just so much easier for accessing things. Especially since our drawer glides will be full extensions for reaching to the very back, to those normally unaccessible areas.  

 Here's a view of the butler's pantry looking into the kitchen area.  {The back side of fridge cubby}.

Some of the base cabinetry has arrived!  {Sink and dishwasher wall.}

And, we now have our Kohler apron front farmhouse sink installed!  It's a 36" porcelain over cast iron.  And it is so beautiful!  Boy, am I feeling really lucky and excited.  

Thanks so much for reading this REALLY long post.  Hope I haven't bored you and hopefully you might visit here again soon.  Please follow me on instagram and join me with cooking ideas, and share your recipes too.  I love hearing from you.  I will post my favorites here in a bit! :) 

xx

sharon

House Update

Well, it's the end of a productive week on the home 'front'.  Still a mess on the inside of the house, but I feel like it's time for a celebration because we finished the exterior front door!  Haha!  For those who live in the hood,  they will tell you that we've had a camping tent pitched outside for a while now.  We tell people that we live in the tent, not the house, which is sort of a running joke for those who like to tease us that we've been working more on the outside than the inside.  

I have been combing through my 2000 pictures on my iphone to try to find the original picture of the entrance to try to share it with you here, but I came up empty handed.  So, try to visualize that this paneled door was hiding behind a horribly flimsy, hunter green metal storm door {with a sliding screen attachment}.  Yes, very 80's and very ugly!  It was the first thing Will ripped off.  We wanted to  'let the inside door' SHINE, so to speak.  I just love the old paneled door, and original brass hardware and door knocker were worth keeping as well.   The outdoor lights that were on the house were a very small and bad 80's version of brass too.  Those are gone and we replaced every outdoor light with Robert Allen fixtures that were discontinued from Lowes.  Because they were discontinued, there were less than a handful of matching fixtures left at Lowes.  Not good, hence many trips to surrounding towns, {including into Arkansas} to pick up one and two here and there until we finally had enough to cover all the exterior lights.   

This door was a complete son of gun to strip.  I think I bought like 5 things of all natural stripper.  Bless Will's heart!

Stripped finally!

House painted in Benjamin Moore's "Dragonbreath"

Layers and Layers of thick lead paint.

Door Completed yesterday!  Benjamin Moore's "Fields of Gold" in oil-base high gloss

Once the door was done yesterday, I drove the kids over to see it because I couldnt stop thinking about it.  Funny thing is, Sylvia checked the mail slot first thing, and pulled out our first 'real mail'....A Christmas card from our family in Boise, Idaho.  That it made this day so special!

We had a fancy sign made to promote the business.

Sweet old mail slot.  And it's at just the right height for Sylvie's reach.

This is our current kitchen state.  As you can see, no Christmas tree or any decorations to this point this year but I'm not complaining.  Just so excited and grateful!

So, what do you think and what are you up to for the holidays?  I hope you have a wonderful and happy weekend with lots of holiday merriment!

Thanks for stopping in!

xx

sharon

Today is trash talk: "Our American Colonial House Progress"

House progress:  Here's a snapshot of one corner of the kitchen before we got possession.  I've contemplated sharing it with you because it's a grossly descriptive glimpse into some of the living conditions of the home.  I'm not here to make judgements about it or the homeowner, but really just showing you for the sake of letting you get a grasp for what Will and his friend Creighton have gone through to get the house to where it is today.  It's still a long way from being done.

Will brought this chandelier over from the kitchen at the old house.  Which reminds me, a lot of locals have been asking me where we are living right now and if we are selling our current house.  We are still living in the old house while  renovations are going on and haven't decided whether we want to let go of the old house yet.  Between two houses, a storefront, kids, and business as usual, COMMUNICATION about the house renovations{between Will and I} can be very challenging, let alone agreeing on design decisions and things.  We've agreed for the most part though.  I will say that balancing our normal life before this, was challenging enough, but this is a whole new world I had no idea about until now!  I am grateful that we are not living in the house thru the process.  I think that would be really difficult.  I DO so look forward to the day we can simplify our lives.

Will has been manning the renovations full time and wants my design input, but it's really hard for me to find the time to focus on it outside of work.  It's definitely in my head and all I want to do is dream up plans about it.  I just need to get it down on paper and, Oh, find the time to source materials!   I hope to go check out marble this weekend, and choose a picket for the front yard.  Of course, the picket I want is not milled anymore.

This week, we had the lower cabinets gutted.  I wanted to keep them, but they were just beyond trying to keep. They had been infested with mice for a long, long time.  So you can imagine the smell that would waft out of them, when you opened the doors.

A wonderful mudroom and pantry right off the kitchen.   I'm in love with this part of the house.  We will have a really nice kitchen for the first time in our lives.

Will and Creighton and his mom finished painting the house.  I think it turned out great.  For now, we've chosen to leave the shutters off. The spindly hedges are now gone and we want to add a picket fence around the perimeter of the house for safety and for added curb appeal.  My pinterest board titled 'Our American Colonial Home Inspirations' has been blowing up with ideas I love.  Also, watch for uploads on 'Our American Colonial House Progress' board as well.
Here's a direct link to that page...Sharon Taylor Designs.

This is a shot of the boys  {Creighton, Will and bubs-ers} on the cherry picker that we rented for 24 hours to get the paint on all the up-high spots.  They took advantage of every minute of daylight in those 24 hours.  {Obviously, the light is waning in the pic.}

Hope I haven't bored you here.  I've been trying to figure out what you'd like to see more of here on the blog.. If it's more house updates on the blog, please let me know.  As always, I LOVE hearing from you.

Happy Friday!

xx
sharon