In Living Color

For our 2nd Anniversary we purchased a custom illustration of our home by an amazing artist on Etsy Rebekka Seale - check out her shop here.  Could not be more thrilled with the beautiful whimsical illustration of Home Sweet Hanna - complete with our first baby George in front... 

Originally I planned on putting it in the nursery - but loving seeing it everyday so it has found a home in our family room.  

One of the coolest parts (super added value) is that Rebekka sends you not only your custom illustration but a disc with the file and instructions for creating adorable correspondence cards.  Love that we can have such a personalized image to share with friends and family - be on the lookout - will be coming to a mailbox near you soon...

Richmond Green

The bathroom renovation is complete!  As mentioned here - our previous bathroom left much to be desired.  It all started with my "I hate the fake legs on this sink" obsession and ended with a new and improved downstairs bathroom....

The renovation cork board:

Our color inspiration came from my love of Kate/Andy Spade's bathroom.   I love the retro black and white with the pop of kelly green zebra wallpaper.  We tried to find a similar shade of green suitable for a bathroom and stumbled across the perfect shade - Benjamin Moore's Richmond Green.

It is so grassy and cheerful and although I had a minor heart palpitation when I first saw how bright it turned out- we really love the way it enhances our old school 1950s black and white vintage tile.

So here we go - the big reveal -

So much better

New light fixture and faucet - chrome baby!

Goodbye fake legs - hello beautiful pedestal sink and Grecian white marble floor

We have an Eliza B Askin pen drawing on our wall - but hope to add more B&W art as our collection grows

The before pic - see more here:

ugh - so yucks

We are so excited and love visitors!

Irene Gives Home Sweet Hanna a Mighty Right Hook...

Hurricane Irene hit Richmond this weekend - and unfortunately....Home Sweet Hanna.  The storm started Saturday morning, we lost power around 1PM - my parents were one of the lucky few in our neighborhood to keep their power so we headed over to Pinetree for Dad's pasta, wine and a viewing of The Town while we waited for the crazy winds to stop blowing.  When we returned home at about 10PM we were shocked to find the giant oak tree in our front yard had been uprooted and fell into the right side of our house (office)....

Although this is NOT AWESOME - we are extremely lucky...a few feet to the left and the tree would have taken out a room or two of Home Sweet Hanna.  There is not any damage to the inside - but it appears that there is major structural damage to the side - see below

While the front was pretty shocking...there was also hurricane damage in the backyard.  Our neighbors had a tree fall that pushed another tree  - breaking poor George's fence (but not his spirit!)....

totally adding George's Pool to our insurance claim!

Things are pretty messy and there are several power lines on the ground - so we have sent George to Summer Camp at Break of Dawn for the week while we get his back yard cleaned up.

Not to worry - Home Sweet Hanna is fully insured and the trees will be removed tomorrow.  The insurance adjuster will be coming this week to survey the damage to our home and we hope to have a contractor working on it in the coming weeks.  We feel so lucky to be safe and that the tree did not ruin the home that we have grown to love.  One good outcome is we got to know more of our neighbors and have felt an outpouring of love and support from everyone - we are certainly not the only ones dealing with damages from the hurricane.  We will be sure to keep the blog updated with progress pictures and of course our future tree planting ceremonies as our front yard will be a little bare once the repairs are complete.  As the firemen told us yesterday - "Old Established Neighborhoods come with old established trees" - this is just part of living in such a beautiful tree filled neighborhood I suppose.


Stay safe everyone and Dominion Power - we would love to host you for milk/cookies and a clean up our power lines party - really anytime day or night you are welcome at Home Sweet Hanna!!!

Tic Tac Tile

I really wanted a picture of the Ronnie Miller Express from Can't Buy Me Love...that says "Tic Tac Tile" on the side...but alas, Google images has let me down....

In it's place lets check out Patrick Dempsey's Ronnie Miller transformation....

From Totally Geek

Source: google.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

To Totally Chic

Source: google.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

Funny how I feel the same way about our bathroom and kitchen...
After some heavy lifting (the oven and fridge had to go - pics here) check out our Totally Chic Tic Tac Tile below...

Bathroom - White Marble (Home Depot) will be filled in with Snow White Grout

Kitchen - Topaz Cypress Porcelain Tile (Home Depot) - will be filled in with a dark grey grout

So pretty!  And the kitchen floor is George hair proof...or at least it camouflages it more than the lovely vanilla laminate?  More pictures to share in an upcoming post - hint hint....the grout and new appliances have been installed.....ohh la la!

Green Means GO

We are moving ahead with the downstairs bathroom project - see before pics and the post here.   We are keeping the original 1950s black and white tile and decided as an accent to go big and go GREEN!  The exact color is Benjamin Moore Richmond Green.

I started to get a little nervous but have been regaining my Go Green confidence with these lovely lavatories below....

Source: kellywearstler.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

Source: google.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

Source: younghouselove.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

Source: countryliving.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

Source: livingetc.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

And of my original inspiration Jack and Kate Spade Zebra Bathroom - more on the zebras here....

Source: homesweethanna.blogspot.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

Stay tuned for an update on the our progress!

Sleek and Simple

“Life is not complex. 

We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.” 

— Oscar Wilde

More thoughts on the bathroom renovation....
Since it is such a small space and we are keeping the retro back and white tile we should stick to simple and serene styling - like these beauties below....

Serene and Spa Like - House Beautiful

HGTV - love the ink blue walls,  tiled floor, and white mirrors

House Beautiful - pedestal sink - sconces are a nice touch

Ina Garten's NYC a pied a terre - House Beautiful  (notice the marble and pedestal sink)

Of course part of me is dieing to try some wallpaper, crazy colors, and funky accents - think Andy/Kate Spade's stripes I mentioned here.  It is the bathroom....and I do not wan to take it too seriously - Oscar Wilde right and the simple thing is the right thing in this case?  thoughts?

Bathing Beauty

Well not yet - but we have met with a contractor and have plans to give our downstairs full (but tiny) bathroom a face lift...

Current bathroom pics -

Ugh - yucky floor, 1970s toilet, and that gorgeous orange caulk

My personal pet peeve - these faux legs the previous owners added to the sink

The 1950s black and white tile and tub

Due to the way homes were built in the 50s - to tear out the tile (attached to the sheet rock) and gut the bathroom would be a huge undertaking and boohoo bucks...so we have decided to keep the retro feel but add a few modern touches while staying within our budget...

The Plan:
1) Tile the floor (we are leaning towards white marble - it's a small space so we can splurge a little)

White Grecian Marble

2) New Toilet

The Kohler Wellworth - sure to be more efficient that the current groovy 70s model

3) Pedestal Sink (needs to be under 18" - yes this bathroom is tiny)

St Thomas Junior Pedestal Sink

Delta Faucet - Lahara Chrome

4) New Lighting and Mirror - still looking but thinking Black finishes to complement the black and white retro wall/bathtub tiling

These are the fundamental changes that Briguy has agreed to - of course I'm going to want to schnaze up the space with wallpaper, paint, window treatments, bathmats, etc

Details/Inspiration Images to come...

Nice Knockers.

Home Sweet Hanna is in need of a whimsical door knocker -a few I'm considering...

Sly Fox - Anthro

A Regal Looking Animal's Head - ebay

Two Snuggly Owls - ebay

Watering Can - ebay

Greetings Grizzley - Restoration Hardware

Dragonfly - Restoration Hardware

A lab dogknocker in honor of George? - Michael Healy

Of course gotta end this with a knock knock joke...MiyaTB this one is for you...

Knock, Knock! 

Who's there? 

Honey bee. 

Honey bee who? 

Honey bee a dear and get me a beer.