New updates + summer fun!

Whew, we have a lot to catch up on from the last five weeks!

After the studio reveal, I took a break from house projects to enjoy the summer. First up was our 4 year anniversary trip to Raleigh...

We were able to catch up with some old friends, check out the downtown area (the Trolley Pub tour was the highlight of our trip!), and see the all the beautiful homes in the amazing neighborhoods. It was all very "white picket fence" perfect—loved it there.

Next was a trip to Brad's hometown in Mississippi to visit his family and attend his high school reunion.

Here we also had the opportunity to visit with friends & family and take in the calm country scenery. We always have the best time visiting his family.

And finally, my favorite of all... a surprise flight to California to surprise my dad for Father's Day!

Follow me on instagram to keep up! @jennasuedesign

My sister and I had secretly planned this months ago and we pulled it off without a hitch (even after major flight delays!). My parents were completely shocked, and my dad said it was the best Father's day he's ever had. That made all the travel pains so worth it :)

Speaking of my little sister...

She's moving in with us! She's on her way to Florida right now, somewhere in the middle of Texas... I can't even tell you how excited I am.

She'll be staying in the "man cave", which I suppose we should now call the woman cave. It's only temporary until she finds a job and a place to live, but I can't believe my sister will be living in the same city as me! This will be the first time living near any family in eight years. We're going to have the best time ever.

Okay, moving right along... as you probably know, we're still in the middle of our new master bedroom remodel. I haven't made much progress on that end, but I have decided that our living room needs a little facelift.

It all started with a new slipcover for the couch. I decided to switch things up a bit with a pattern:

It feels very casual beach house to me, and I think it will really liven up all of the neutral decor. I have the slipcover ready to go but I'm waiting until all the other pieces are in to put it on.

We were also way overdue for a new area rug...

(ignore the super oldness of this photo—but it's the only shot I could find of the whole rug):

Not only was it past its' prime, but it was wayyyyy too small for this space. We brought it with us from our old house where it fit perfect in the living room, but this room is about 4x larger than our old one so it was all wrong.

But I'm glad I waited, because I found The One.

I had spotted it on Rugs USA for 50% off about a month ago, and didn't even bother continuing my search. It was perfect. And cheap. A week later I went to buy it and just my luck—it was now 65% off!

An 8x10 100% jute rug for $152 shipped.... yes, please!

It completely transforms the room.

And those tassels are just the icing on the cake. I want to buy ten for every room in my house. I can't get enough.

And I love the way it looks with my new couch fabric:

I also have a new coffee table in the works along with a couple accessories, so I'm excited for this room transformation!


On to some not so good news...

Remember these salt dough decorations I made and proudly hung in our new bedroom?

Well, sadly, they are no more.

I was in a deep slumber one night, and heard a giant thud. I woke up to find the anchor missing... it had split in two and fallen behind the TV. Yikes...

So I put it off for a while, trying to figure out what I was going to do. I still loved the idea of an anchor there and wanted to salvage it somehow, so I hot glued it back together...

There were a few more cracks towards the bottom, so I decided to break the bottom part off and fill all the cracks with glue to reinforce it:

The hot glue is a lot sturdier than the actual dough itself, so I felt confident that now that the stuff had finally dried through and worked out its air pockets, it had all the cracks out of its system and wouldn't be giving me any more major trouble. At least I hope not. Lesson learned... if you're working with salt dough—keep it on a smaller scale. And/or don't hang your heavy objects... gravity always wins.

Even my plaque was letting gravity get the best of it...

I couldn't come up with a good way to salvage that so I decided to scrap it all together and come up with a plan B.

My Plan B was walking through the aisles of Hobby Lobby, hoping to find some inspiration. A 10" round piece of wood and some rope caught my eye:

It was a $4 investment, so I figured it was worth a shot.

After considering a few options, I decided on printing my "Come Sail Away" phrase on thick paper, gluing it to the face of the wood, and using the rope as trim.

Step 1: Printing out my design.

Step 2: Gluing it to the wood (I used Krylon Spray Adhesive, love this stuff), then trimming off the excess:

Yay:

Then it was time for the finishing touches.

I used a line of hot glue, and slowly worked my way around the edge:

Easy Peasy.

Finally, I drilled a hole at the top and fed my twine through.

Boo-ya.

I kinda like this one better anyway. So I'm glad you cracked, stupid salt dough.

Then I turned my attention to my poor anchor. I figured the best thing to do was to simply cover it up with something interesting. I thought about paper mache, then newspaper... then I dug through my spare fabric drawer and pulled out a stash of scrap linen:

I thought it had a cool natural look and would be interesting layered and wrapped over my anchor, so it was settled.

I cut my scraps into thin pieces and gathered my materials:

I really didn't have a specific game plan in mind, so I just started covering it with modge podge and strips of fabric.

Then I started wrapping it until all the blue was covered:

After trimming off the scraggly threads, I had myself a linen anchor:

What do you think? Brad says it looks like a mummy. That's cool with me. It's still an anchor.

So, there's my project re-do update. I hate doing things over, but it was a lesson learned... and now I know for the future!


Something else did come of this project though... I loved the "Come Sail Away" quote so much that I decided to make a print out of it:

I made a couple other new prints as well, and released them as part of my Fresh New Summer Prints promo:

And while I'm on the topic... I wasn't going to roll this out for a few more days, but I'll give you guys first dibs since you patiently waited five weeks for a new post :)

I'm feelin' a little generous on this fine Sunday evening, so I'm giving away a limited number of 5x7" NYC City Map postcards (in black, as shown in the photo above) plus 10% off any order!

Here's how:

1. Visit jennasuedesign.com and start shopping!
2. Add your print(s) of choice to your cart (you don't need to add the NYC map)
3. At the end of the checkout process, enter the code FREEPOSTCARD to receive your 10% discount
4. The postcard will be added to your order and shipped to your door right away!
(The code will be deactivated once the postcards are sold out). 

That's it for now! I've got some crab cakes to bake and a hungry man to feed, so I'm off...

Susie says "Happy Summer!"

Unique Things and Bathroom Sneak Peak

I'm a sucker for unique one-of-a-kind things.

Add hand-carved and with a crown, and it's as good as sold.

My first name means "crown" so  I've always considered it kind of a personal logo.

Doesn't everyone have a personal logo?

But what the heck is it?

At first I thought it was some kind of a game board.  The outer ring

has the numbers 1 through 31 but once I saw the middle ring with the

labels, J31, F28, M31, A30, M31, J30, J31, A31, S30, O31, N30, D31,

it was clear these represented months and the number of days in each month.

January 31, February 28, March 31, April 30, etc.

But when I got the inner ring, I was stumped.

L, M, M,  J. V, S, and D.

Any ideas?

The back says in pencil "Made by Elliot Rogers, Oct 1841."

This inscription isn't a good clue; in fact, it's misleading.

There's another notation that says "Made for..." but it's illegible.

If you haven't figured it out, I'll give the answer at the end.

Let's take a sneak peek at the new bathroom.

I finally got my marble on Friday and I couldn't wait to dry fit

everything together to see what it looked like.  I painted all day

yesterday so hopefully everything is looking quite pulled together.

Here you can see the corner of the Swedish console vanity,

the new honed cararra marble top and the basin sink.  The horizontal

planking and chair rail are in the background.  I have to say I'm

pleased with the overall vibe referencing the age of the house.

I also have to say I'm in love with cararra.  I can't stop looking at it.

I'm really pleased with the corner detail and ogee edge I used on the marble.

You can see the top of the table's leg has this clipped corner and you may

recall that clipped-corner detail is repeated in the toilet base and tank.  The

ogee edge is also quite similar to the original top that is now the lower shelf.

You can also see a little bit of the floor tile.  The tiles are 6 inches

by 24 inches and after a lot of thought and discussion, I decided

to place the tiles with a 1/3 stagger.  I originally wanted to place them 

in a grid pattern but thought it might be too modern.  The 1/3 alternation

makes it feel more like hardwood would be placed.  So I think it's perfect.

The colors were a challenge because the Swedish console was a much different

gray than the Greek key mosiac and floor tile.   I find grays really difficult.

In the end, I chose Benjamin Moore Icicle--one of my favorite go-to whites-- for

the walls because it related to the greenish-gray of the console table and Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray for the chair rail and trim.  This is the first time I've used Stonington Gray

and I love it.  It looks great with the mosiac chair rail and cararra mable vanity top.

Today I'm sealing grout (after mowing my keep deep grass before it rains again) and

then hopefully the plumbing and electrical will get finished up this week.

So back to the calendar.  Did you guess?

It's French.

The L, M, M, J, V, S and D are the days of the week,

Lundi = Monday

Mardi = Tuesday

Mercredi = Wednesday

Jeudi = Thursday

Vendredi = Friday

Samedi = Saturday

Dimanche = Sunday

Even though I took French in high school, I never realized the 

French months all started with the same letters as they do in English.

January = Janvier

February = Février

March = Mars

April = Avril

May = Mai

June = Juin

July = Juillet

August = Août

September = Septembre

October = Octobre

November = Novembre

December = Décembre

As to why the notation on the back in English will probably remain a mystery.

I'd love to find something to use for pegs since it would make it a piece

that's interactive.  It might be fun to put in the guest room marking

the day of the guest's arrival.

Have a great week!  I hope you don't have any Google Reader nightmares to report.

See you on the other side.

Easy Grilled Fingerling Potatoes

I don't know how I hadn't thought of this before... grilled potatoes!  They take just a couple of minutes on each side and have a great smoky flavor.  We topped ours simply with sour cream and chives, but you can do anything you'd like.  I think we'll try blue cheese and bacon next time...

Grilled
Fingerling Potatoes
4 servings

12 fingerling potatoes*
2 tablespoons of olive oil
sea salt & cracked pepper
 ....
sour cream
chives
sea salt & pepper

Heat grill.

Toss potatoes in olive oil, salt and pepper before grilling.  Grill for 3 minutes on each side until tender. 

Top with sour cream, chives and salt & pepper before serve.

*You can also use baby red potatoes.

See all of the details and recipes (including those kebabs) of my Outdoor Dinner Party, here.

Summer Brew | Orange & Blueberry Wheat Beer

Summer Brews are the best - refreshing, flavorful, citrus-y and light.  The original Summer Brew is beer mixed with vodka lemonade.  Delicious.  However, I'm a huge fan of wheat beers (Boulevard, Blue Moon, etc.) topped with an orange... so, I created my own version of a summer brew with fresh squeezed orange juice, vodka and wheat beer.  I garnished it with fresh blue berries and an orange slice to make it colorful and fun... it is, after all, a cocktail.

Orange & Blueberry
Summer Brew
4 cocktails


3 oranges, 2 juiced, 1 sliced
1/2 cup of water
1 tablespoon of sugar
1/4 cup of vodka
4 wheat beers (ex. Boulevard, Blue Moon)
Fresh Blue Berries

Mix together the fresh orange juice, water, sugar and vodka just before the party - keep it cold in the refrigerator, then add the beer and garnishes when served.

Summer Brews are great for outdoor parties - more refreshing than wine on these hot summer evenings.

Get the Marinated Steak Kebabs recipe, here.

See all of the details of my Outdoor Dinner Party, here.