8 Surprises

During my time in Nashville, I've been pleasantly, and not so pleasantly, surprised:

1. There are LOTS of Alabama fans!!  I can wear my crimson with pride :)

2. There are not many north carolinians, I do wish there were more.  We met a couple who went to State and we were both so excited.  Since TN borders 7 states, there are people from everywhere.

3. Central time rocks!!  It's like your body still operates on Eastern time, just an hour later.  Getting up feels like sleeping in and you go to bed when you get tired.  The only problem would be TV, but the no cable solves that!

4. Either people here smoke more, or they are allowed to smoke in more public places... either way smokers are everywhere!  I try to dodge the smoke and steer clear. 

5.  Nashville is a typically safe place to live.  Again, this is in my short experience here, yet, overall I feel safer than I did in Charlotte...

6. It is not as humid! Nothing like NC, or alabama for that matter.  Even on its hottest days, Nashville has a breeze in the air.

7. My grad program is a perfect fit for me. I had this concern that it would either be completely over my head or I would be the only nerd who was very passionate about education.  Surprisingly, neither are true.  I am in class right now for 7 hours a day with a group who love people and have a true passion for education in urban schools.  We talk about topics and ideas that I have never known existed before.  I feel incredibly empowered and ready to start this next teaching experience with what I can tell will be lifelong friends. 

8. Everyone said it and it is true- we are in LOVE with this city! There are so many things to see and people to meet. (and GOOD food to eat!) We finding our niche slowly and enjoying every moment.

home sweet home

I've finally given in to the high demand for pictures of our cute home in Nashville!

I tried reeeeaaally hard to stick to a budget during this move, it's so hard when you have a cute house to decorate!  So, we only bought 4 things to add to what we already had to decorate our home. I'll label them below.

Enjoy :)

We love Sylvan Park!

Mom's idea to add the teal pillows turned out great, so I started pulling in lots of colors to add with the earth tones in our living room.

We used the blanket chest as a TV stand. 

Purchase #1: big bookshelf, thanks Dad for putting them together :) We needed the storage and it added some height to the room.

View of the front door, stairs to finished half bedroom.

I love this buffet table to fill some space on this stairwell wall.

Purchase #2: the table/chairs I blogged about before.

Kitchen- trying to brighten it up with my red!

Master BR, I used the sheer curtains I had in Charlotte and pulled them in a relaxed bow with brown ribbon.

Other side of our bedroom.

Purchase #3: smaller bookshelf.  The baskets help with the lack of storage space in the teeny closets and the shelves give us a place for more books and albums.

Guest room- this is room is very bland and simple for now.  I'd like to add some curtains with a fun print... I'll work on that in my spare time :)

Guest room 2- only a third of Sam's hat collection

Our 1 bathroom. Even though the bathroom is small, I really like the way it turned out!  Beware visitors, we have to share this space!

Purchase #4: Marshall's medium sized area rug, $20.  I spotted this a few weeks ago and thought it pulls some of those colors together.  I love the print.

Bogey's back yard.  I think she loves it even more than we do!  We absolutely love having a fenced in yard and appreciate the space coming from a townhome.

That's the grand tour!  We are moved in and ready for visitors! :)

one woman's trash is another's treasure

This weekend, my sweet parents came to visit us in Nashville!!  We had such a great time visiting with them.  We stayed busy around the city going to the farmer's market Saturday morning, trying out our new favorite local restaurants, hitting up Starbucks a few times, and getting some much needed projects done around our new home.  I'm lucky to have a very handy dad and crafty, creative mom! 

Our biggest project came unexpectedly! We decided to leave an older table in Charlotte and attempt to find an inexpensive used one on craigslist. I found someone who had posted a list of furniture that lived literally 3 blocks down. We checked it out, and ultimately bought, a solid cherry wood table with a leaf and 6 chairs. Of course it was loved and had minor scratches, but overall the table was a great find! The only problem was the upholstery, of course. This is what I brought home:

Just in case the picture does not do it justice: a teal/purple hued aztec striped upholstery... gag! 

We had 2 days to reuphoster 6 chairs.... Mom and I were up for the challenge.

Tools used:

Scotch guard

staple remover

staple gun

screw driver

 Step 1: Select new upholstery. I chose a textured striped beige upholstery from a local shop in Nashville Textile Fabric Store that just so happened to be 50% off this weekend- Score! I considered a more trendy stripe or print, but decided this would outlast my taste of colors and decorating for years to come.

Step 2: Spray the fabric with Scotch guard. Twice, we were advised to spray with scotch guard before the fabric is cut and fit and then repeat after.  I'm very glad we did this first.

Step 3: Unscrew each seat from the frame- a few spiders escaped!

Step 4: Remove the staples and the old fabric.  You can see the original upholstery- a gold floral... (which I might like better than the aztec teal!)

Step 5: Keep removing staples!  This was the longest part of the process since we faced 2 layers and a cushion underneath that was stuck to the wood. 

Step 6: Remove the wood seat from the previous fabric.  Thanks Mom for doing this part! Yuck!

Step 7: Cut the layers to fit each seat.  We used 2 layers of foam cushion, added a layer of muslin, then cut to fit each piece of upholstery.  We stapled all 4 sides first, then carefully placed the 4 corners.

The finished product!  Of corse it's not perfect or custom made, but it feels good to say I had a part in finishing our chairs!  I think we did a pretty good job at that.  I would have never attempted this on my own without my Mom's guidance, she is able to see a project and make it happen in a short amount of time. Would I do it again? Sure!  Only if Mom helps again! :)