In Living Color

To lighten up the space and make it feel more modern, The Hanna House is going to paint our retro 1970s wood-paneled family room. We want to paint the room a neutral tone but would love to incorporate a punch of color....perhaps painting the back of our built-in bookshelves a contrasting hue would do the trick....

Fun Apple Green - from Peacock Feathers

A cool ink blue - from Young House Love (love their blog - and they live here in Richmond!)

Subtle and soothing pale blue - House Beautiful

Light and breezy blue-sh/grey - Little Green Notebook (love the mirror placement)

Dark Blue - Southern Living...note the "style secret"

Thinking a deep plum or a navy similar to the Young House Love picture above - thoughts?  Will keep you posted on our progress!

Tree Hugger

It may be getting warm outside - but trees in your hood could be sporting sweaters this spring...

Pop Culture alert - who knew this would be a trend....but last week I saw a few guerrilla knitting images of tree sweaters across the web...

 Both of these are from Austin TX (poppytalk blog post)

And this one from a Baltimore on Apartment Therapy....

I had jotted these images down on my Spaaze board because I thought they were interesting and may serve as inspiration down the road...but I was shocked to see this little baby on my commute to work this AM....

 Richmond is now in on the fashionable tree trend...love the colors....perhaps the Knit Graffiti artist's next project should be a black and yellow homage to the VCU Rams first trip to the Final Four....

Yeah ah ha

you know what it is

Black and yellow, black and yellow

Black and yellow, black and yellow

Pop of Color (take 2)....Pop Pop

In February I posted about adding a pop of color in our guest room with original art.  See below for the image I plan on using for inspiration -

Recently I came across a similar piece from the Lilly Pulitzer Furniture Showcase (see below) collection available from HFI this summer.  Love that Palm Beach Princess style -as mentioned here...

sorry for the grainy pic - this is the only one I could find

Looks like a similar effect to the Highgloss image  - large canvas with colorful stripes.  I am in no way an artist, but this seems like a DIY project waiting to happen, especially with help from my super artistic sister-in-law Laura.

One of the accents that is subtle but caught my eye in this image were the white plates on either side of the painting.  It reminds me of an article from last March's Dwell called "Search and Display" about a collectors passion for random plates.....she displays her beautiful plates in a kitchen mosaic...see below -

I love this idea and what a fun collection.  My favorite is the beautiful blue peacock and that cute lime green fish.  Both of these ideas (or a combination of both) are low costs and add a punch of color to otherwise bland white walls.

George The Eskimo

Come on without

Come on within

You'll not see nothing like the mighty George

Lyrics (modified) by Bob Dylan capture the latest addition to Home Sweet Hanna - The Dogloo.

We looked around for the best price on a dog house and ended up ordering a Petmate model from The O (say it with a Maryland Accent - haha).... you know I'm a fan of that $2.95 or cheaper shipping especially for cumbersome or heavy items like the rugs we ordered or in this case...a 32 lb doghouse....

Our doggie igloo arrived yesterday and the jolly new owner helped me with assembly....well sort of....George took it upon himself to steal the screws and take a little lap around the yard....gotta love that irresistible guilty face in the assembly timeline pictures below...

It's here!

Screw Thief!

Catch Me If You Can

Guilty George...good thing those puppy dog eyes get you out of anything!

Back to the snap and screw assembly...

Time to explore my new hangout

Success!

Green with Envy

Happy St. Patrick's Day - after expressing my love for Kate and Andy Spade's bathroom last week - figured I would be inspired by their gorgeous kitchen - full of Kelly Green accents.....pics are from Habitually Chic...

Love everything about this kitchen - especially the black and white tiled floor, eat in area with bench, and glass cabinets to display china ....a few additional green accents I would consider for The Hanna House green dream kitchen...

Monogrammed Elephant Love plates - from iomi

Le Cruset - Green Dutch Oven for the stovetop

Dwell for Target - emerald green pillow

An adorable seagreen turtle bottle opener from Anthro

Jonathan Alder lime green striped tea cups

A green apple flower arrangement

kelly green striped coasters - iomi

Lemongrass placemats from Crate and Barrel (we have these and the color is beautiful)

Embroidered Tea Towels - Etsy

The Rug Beneath My Feet

Since moving to The Hanna House I have become obsessed with Rugs - they really ground a room, protect hard wood floors, and add some nice cushion to the tootsies...

One of my favorite affordable rug sources is Overstock - we have had great luck with two gorgeous thick hand-tufted wool rugs...and you can't beat their shipping deal (max is $2.95 for your order -many days its free!)...

Bedroom - the blue-sh gray abstract geometric 8'x10':

 

 

 

Note the lovely bench -one of the pieces I picked up with Claire at the flea market LGN sale.

Dining Room - And our whimsical powder blue floral compliment to the wonderland fabric - 8'x10'

Even George is a fan - he enjoys the cushion of a nice rug when breaking through the kitchen baby gate

Ready...Set...Crock

Last week I was looking for an easy limited ingredient crock pot recipe for a frozen pork tenderloin that has been chilling in our freezer for a few weeks - after browsing the web I came across a few recipes for root beer pulled pork BBQ...

Not sure cooking can get any easier than this - three ingredients:

- Piece of pork tenderloin (ours was around 2 LBs)

- Can of root beer (bottle in our case - that is all our 7-11 stocks)

- Bottle of BBQ Sauce (we like Sweet Baby Ray's)

Steps - put pork tenderloin in base of slow cooker (mine went in frozen), pour root beer over tenderloin, cover and cook on low for at least 7 hours (ours cooked for 12), remove pork from slow cooker, shred w/ forks, add sauce...and pat yourself on the back for a dinner that taste like you have been slaving away all day!

can it get any easier?

The BBQ was extra tender, delicious, and provided three meals for The Hanna House.  If making this dish for a larger group I would probably use a less expensive piece of meat....but the tenderloin is super lean and NO it did not taste like root beer....just very tender and yummy!