The Tale of Two Paintings.

So I don't usually play favorites. I love my parents equally. I have two brothers and two sister-in-laws and I love them all the same. The same goes with my nieces and nephews.  I like to kid myself and say that the same rule applies to my animals....but we all know how that goes. If you have a herd like we do, then you know you have one animal that holds a special place in your heart. Conner is that animal for me.

I had gone back and forth about whether I wanted to have a portrait painted of any one of our animals because I didn't know if I really wanted a pet portrait in our home. I didn't know if I wanted to be one of "those people." You know, the ones that are crazy animal people. But let's be honest, with six animals, we are already "those people!" ;) 

So when deciding who gets their portrait painted, it was really between the two dogs we have the longest. Well, at the time we only had two dogs. It was before we adopted Lady. So I decided to have Conner's portrait painted first since he is the oldest and we adopted him before Scooter. 

The portrait of the left is the one I had a friend paint for me. I picked out the picture, told her what I wanted and paid for her services, and I could not be more thrilled with the results. 

The portrait on the right was a total surprise to me. Little did I know that at the same time the portrait on the left, was being painted, my cousin Lauren was having another Conner portrait painted for my birthday! I love it so much! 

Here are the two paintings of Conner::

 Both portraits are special to me and are completely unique. The first one is a more realistic image and it captures his happy personality. The second one is more abstract but yet still looks like him. I think he looks more like a puppy in the second one, innocent and sweet.

They both are amazing pieces of art. Completely different in style, both paintings still capture Conner's happy, loyal, loving (and sometime mischievous) personality. I will cherish them for years to come.

Guest Room/ Guest Bathroom:: Before Pictures

I'm almost embarrassed to show you these pictures. Almost. I would be embarrassed if I would have chosen this paint color or put this wallpaper on the walls. Sorry was that harsh? I have to keep reminding myself that this house and this decor and paint colors were all chosen over two decades ago. Maybe they were like the cool kids back in the day. Is that possible?

The guest room is painted a purplish gray. At first glance you think "Oh that's not so bad" but then you realize it's not so much gray as it is purple. And yes I still have boxes from our move in our guest room. Don't judge. 

Now, moving on to the guest bathroom...Well, it just needs a total transformation: rip down the wallpaper, new flooring, new cabinets, new faucets, new lighting, the works!
But for now we're just starting with fresh paint and oh what a difference it makes. I can't wait to show y'all the after painting pics.

Buie's Office: Before Pics

Check out this wallpaper, y'all! I was NOT at all sad to see this room go. This room was a sad mix of nautical print, sad lighting and beige trim. My husband said he could "deal with it" but I, however, could not. 

This room needed an intervention and we gave it one. Stay tuned for the AFTER pics. :)

Dining Room: Before Pics

I went back and forth on whether to use the dining room as an actual dining room. In our old home in Arkansas we probably used our dining room a total of 5 times in the 4 years we lived there. We have a breakfast table that seats 8 so most of the time when we had company over, we would just sit at the breakfast table. If you'll remember I had plans to convert our dining room into a studio in our old home. I hate having a room that we don't utilize so we put some serious thought into making this into something else: a studio, a sitting room (which sounds silly and less useful than a dining room), my office... But when it came down to it, we thought with family living so close we will probably get more use out of our dining room. So our dining room is going to be a dining room but a much prettier one than the pictures you see below. 

Once again, I just wanted to document our home with BEFORE pictures so we could see the transformation that took place over the next few weeks, months and even years! We wanted to remember how our house looked when we moved in. So here it is. The dining room is painted a dark red, almost a burgundy color, but what makes it so unappealing is the WAY it was painted. Like our living room area, it was painted with some sort of sponge paint technique. It almost makes the walls look dirty. So we knew the red paint must go and soon. Like the yellow paint in the living room, breakfast room and kitchen, this red color was driving me mad. 

This room did come with some great built-ins which holds extra dishes, serving pieces and pitchers. These will be painted white and the rest of the room gray. The painters are finishing up things in this room today so stay tuned for the AFTER pictures! It's amazing what a couple coats of paint can do for a room!

Living Room Pictures: Before

Right now the painters are here and the house is CA-RAZY! I debated for weeks whether or not we should do our own painting. I really do love painting but after a few days my back starts hating me and I really start regretting my decision to be the DIY Queen. So yes, we are hiring out any and all painting and I'm trying not to regret this decision. I really do love painting. I like picking out colors, even though I am the most indecisive person I know.

I know I will be SO thankful when it is all said and done but for now I am a little jealous of the painters. I secretly want to paint...just a little bit. I don't think they would mind if I stole their paint rollers on their lunch break do you? ;) They might just look at me like I'm a total weirdo. 

So this is what our living room looks like these days: mismatched pillows, yellow walls, no rug and one really small looking DVD case on a huge ugly yellow wall. Did I mention the walls are ugly yellow? Blotchy. Yellow and blotchy are a deadly combination. It sounds like the symptoms of a bad rash and this is one rash I can't WAIT to get rid of!

After buying about a dozen color samples, I think we finally settled on a grey paint color we like. But you never know. I could change my mind again before tomorrow. 

I'll be back soon with more BEFORE pics of the house! Happy Wednesday!

Project Studio

This is a shot I took of our dining room a couple of years ago. I've never been too found of the color but it wasn't ever high on my priority list to change it. This room has kind of been a collection of random pieces of furniture. The table I've had for a few years. My parents bought it for me when I got my first place on my own. That green trunk was my grandmothers. The long buffet piece is one Buie and I purchased from Pottery Barn after we were married. The other smaller piece was a hand me down from my parents. I love all the pieces separately but collectively this room never really flowed well. My table is set for Christmas in these pictures with my grandmother's vintage linens. 

This was actually one of the few times our dining rooms was actually used for company. I can probably think of 5 or 6 other times in the last 3 years. We just don't use this room. Maybe it's the color. Who knows? Do any of you have a room in your home you just don't utilize? One day it just sort of hit me. There's all of this space being unused and now it kind of annoys me every time I walk by it. Would it make me feel better if I painted it a different color and held fabulous dinner parties once a month? Probably not. So I decided to make the room work for me. 

So I know it doesn't look like it now, but pretty soon this room will be my home studio. I've actually been talking about it for months and planning it in my head even longer probably. I've been pinning ideas on Pinterest and getting super excited about all of the possibilities. This will definitely be a project that will take patience, time, money and a little creativity but I'm looking forward to having a studio in our home. 

Right now it looks a bit like a tornado went through our dining room but with paint samples on the wall I'm starting to see slight possibility. Our dinning room which from this point on, I'll refer to as my STUDIO (yay!) is in an excellent location in our home. 

 It's in the very front so clients won't have to walk through our home to get to it. It's directly when you walk in the front door. It's also right next to our half bathroom, in case our clients need to use the potty during our session. Those newborn sessions can get pretty long! There is excellent lighting in this room which is probably the number one reason I'm using this room.

And it's a great size - plenty of room for a newborn set up or a couple of kiddos or a cakesmash session. :) Oh the possibilities!   

Hopefully I'll get some paint on the walls this weekend. I think my parents are coming up this weekend. Maybe I can talk them into helping me paint a wall or two. :)

Interested in seeing some of my photography, check out my website!

Restore & After

I am participating in the second annual Habitat for Humanity Restore & After event in downtown Little Rock. Last year, my good friend Eric who is on the board of Habitat for Humanity asked me to take pictures for the event. Of course I jumped at the opportunity to support such a cause. Also, I was thrilled to be a part of the very first Restore and After event. I know that the second annual will be better than ever! I will be entering a small restore project and I must emphasize just how small it is because my life has been nuts! I will have a table displaying some of my photography and raffling off a photo shoot. Be sure to stop by and put your name in for the drawing.

All of the restore items will be up for bid in a silent auction to benefit Habitat for Humanity including mine. Here's a sneak peek:

Stop by the second annual Restore and After TOMORROW NIGHT Thursday 6 pm at The Lafayette Building, Downtown Little Rock. See you there! I'll be the one with the camera in your face. :)

Check out my Restore and After project from last year.

A Busy Week & a Makeover

The Buies have had a BUSY week! We have been preparing for today's event::Habitat for Humanity's "Restore & After." I won't go into all the details again, but if you would like to read about it simply go to my photography blog and see what we've been up to this week to prepare for this event! It involves a fabulous DIY stool makeover! Stay tuned for step by step details of how to rehabilitate your OWN stool!

I was featured!

My good friend Cara Wilkerson featured me on her blog Live the Home Life. She has this fabulous feature where she take a piece of drab furniture and uses her creative juices to turn into something spectacular. Take a look to see what plans she has for our piece. I can't wait to get to work on this!

Weekend Review: Father's Day weekend

Whew! What a packed weekend! My parents came in town Friday night to celebrate Father's Day. I went to dinner with mom, dad, my two brothers, my sister-in-law and my nephew (in utero). I was disappointed that Buie had to work most of the weekend, but he did manage to sneak in some golf time with dad and his two brother-in-laws. It was a little hot to enjoy it thoroughly but they were happy for the memories made! I was only sad that I didn't get a picture of the four of them in their golf gear. While the guys were golfing, the ladies (my mom, me and Nicole, my sister-in-law) went last minute shopping for Landon. He'll be here in ONE WEEK and my mom, being a first time grandmother, needed some baby things for their house in Louisiana for when they come down to visit.

Everyone (except Buie and Amanda and me because I'm taking the pic), hanging out at Craig and Nicole's house.

This is my oldest brother, Chris. I just thought this was a cute pic, and it was the only one he was in all weekend.

Saturday night, we went to dinner and gave dad a few Father's Day presents. I bought him a green golf shirt. He loved it so much he wore it to dinner that night. :)

Sunday morning we all went to church together and ate at Panera Bread. By the way, let me just recommend the new salad they have. I'm not sure the name of it but it has strawberries, mandarin oranges, pecans and poppyseed dressing. So good! After lunch, mom came back to my house and helped me do a little painting in my home office. I started painting it about a month ago and just haven't had a chance to finish it yet. We got another wall done...sigh, but it's not done yet. Hopefully soon though!

All in all, it was a great weekend! I'm blessed to have such a great family! Hope you had a great weekend!

Dog Arteest

So I just had a brief conversation via email with an amazing artist! Seriously, she is amazing! Let me introduce you to Aimee Hover. (She actually has a little asterick over the first "e" but for the life of me I can't figure out how to type it - So sorry, Aimee! Her name is pronounced like A-may.)Anyway, Aimee paints custom pet portraits for your four-legged family members! Take a look at some of my favorites that I found while browsing her website. Aren't they amazing? She is certain to concentrate on every single detail that makes your pooch so special. She specializes in doggies but also does cats and I even found a horse portrait on her website! :)
Check out her blog for her latest work! And while you're at it, go ahead and follow her on Twitter @dogarteest. On her blog she even gives step-by-step pictures of some of her work. It's really neat to see her work go from something like this... ...to something like THIS! Amazing!
It was nice "meeting" you, Aimee. I am putting you at the top of my "wish list." I could totally see these boys in a custom portrait by Aimee.