Hotel Rooms: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Mr. House Obsession and I have been looking for places to spend our honeymoon for the past month, and looking at endless possibilities when it comes to hotels.  Now, both of us travel a decent amount for work and and therefore have a lot of experience with hotels.  In fact, Mr. House Obsession’s parents owned a hotel for many years and he grew up living there.  So as you can imagine, we’re both pretty picky when it comes to the place we’re going to stay for what is supposed to be one of the most romantic events of our relationship.   (P.S. as it turns out, I’m actually WAY pickier about the aesthetics of the hotel room…but that’s beside the point.)

Even though I know that the hotel interior shouldn’t matter to me that much, it does this time way more than usual.  I didn’t want this room in Barbados.

I wanted this room in St Barth.

Rather than a big “fancy” hotel like this in the Dominican Republic…

We wanted a quiet lodge-like place similar to this hotel in Belize.

I don’t care that this place is in beautiful St. Croix if the room looks like the Golden Girls decorated it…

It’s clear that beach chic can be done well, as exemplified here by this lovely place on Tortola, BVI.

Oh, I’m sorry Antigua…you must have known I have a thing for hammocks!!

Unfortunately Antigua, I read the fine print and your hotel has no air conditioning here.  In June, that will be a big problem for me.   I just know it.  So I’ll keep looking…

At any rate, as you can tell…I’ve had a lot of fun digging through travel websites looking for places to go and vacation.  I could literally spend all day just thinking about visiting each and every one of these fabulous spots.  Even the ones with not-so-pretty hotel rooms, still have beautiful locales.  My new favorite websites for all this digging are LuxuryLink.com and MrandMrsSmith.com Check them out and begin ogling all the beautiful vacation spots for yourself.   Considering how much it’s snowing outside in Philadelphia at the moment, I definitely want to think about beautiful beaches…for sure!

My current favorites

Iron (Antique) Bed Love, Part 2

Well, I guess by the title you know which choice we made for our master bedroom!  Although we liked the quality of Charles Rogers’ beds, we didn’t really like any of their king size styles.  (Definitely have to give them props for making quality beds with iron & real brass versus aluminum and painted brass finish like the competition though!)  So that just left one last option — hunting for an antique bed frame that we could convert to a king size…and someone to do it.  After a lot of digging I discovered that there aren’t that many people who are willing to take on the trouble to convert an antique bed.  Who knew?!  My search only turned up just a couple of people across the nation!  The perfect choice for us was Hobnail Antique Beds in Pawling, NY.

Look at all those gorgeous antique beds!  I had a wonderful afternoon with the owner, Jerry.  In the two hours I was there chatting with him and choosing the perfect bed for us, I was extremely impressed with the quality of the finished product and thrilled to meet someone who took so much pride in his craftsmanship.  Jerry strips, cuts, welds, and paints the beds himself.  I got to look at some of the beds he was currently working on and as well as a few he’d just finished and his craftsmanship was beautiful.  You couldn’t even tell these beds hadn’t always been a queen/king size.  Also, he made some beds for a few famous folk, including Cyndi Lauper and Kevin Bacon.

Anyways, without further ado, here’s the bed that we chose.  It’s actually two twin beds that are going to be put together to become a king! ( Sorry about the terrible quality of the photos.  I forgot my normal camera and was using the iphone.)

Here’s a closer up version of what the bed looks like.  There is a brass bar on the headboard and footboard.  One of the big reasons we liked it, was the simple style of the castings…and how close together the bars are — which is good for making sure your pillows don’t fall back behind the headboard!  (Some people like to read in bed, y’know!)

Jerry was kind enough to pose with my new beds…and in about a month they’ll be done!  I can’t wait!!!!

So if you’re looking for a quality iron bed that’s converted to your modern-day queen or king size, I can’t recommend Hobnail Antique Beds enough.  (Oh, and his prices are competitive with new beds…what more info do you need?!)

Iron Bed Love, Part 1

Okay…a little back story:  N’s family just gave us a set of king size mattresses.  Woohoo!  Big upgrade, right?!  We were certainly excited, and after years without an actual bed frame we decided this might be a good impetus to get us to focus our decorating attentions on the master bedroom.  (You’ve noticed I’ve never even hinted at it on this blog, right?  Well, there’s a reason for that.  Ha!)  So the hunt began for the perfect bed, and the thing is…I’m picky…

We looked at Restoration Hardware (too expensive), Pottery Barn (too bland), Ikea (too low-quality), “regular furniture store” (just plain yucky), Room and Board (not our style), and a host of other ones (all ruled out for various reasons).  The more we looked, the more we realized that I wasn’t going to be happy with anything that wasn’t a classically made iron bed.   This seemed to leave only two options:  1) Charles P. Rogers – still making beds the old fashioned way or 2) just buy an antique and have it converted to a king size.  Check back soon to see what we did!

I have to admit that Pottery Barn’s newest catalog sucked me in!

Ever since Country Home came to shoot at my house, I’ve been considering my style more closely.  Often I’m bad about lusting after something that I am bound to get sick of in a month’s time.  Usually I don’t buy these things, but occasionally I end up with random stuff that was “cheap and cheerful”…however they begin to slowly transform the overall look in my home in a way that I never intended.  Sample sales, flea markets and thrift shops will do that to you.

Meanwhile, I grew up in Georgia where decorating your house “country” still reigns supreme.  As a kid that meant duck figurines, cornflower blue, dried flower arrangements, and 1980’s Home Interior parties (remember those?).  Needless to say I wasn’t a fan.  But as I grew up, I began to learn the difference between good country and bad country.  I like to refer to good country as “Farmhouse Chic” now.  (Think painted pine floors, antique iron beds, pickstitched quilts.)  And although I’ve not been a fan of Pottery Barn for several years now because I felt like they lost any point of view and personality whatsoever, they have now captivated me with their newest catalog called “Farmhouse Style.” The mix of old and new looks reminds me of what’s good about “country.”  I love the homey-ness of it and the layering.  Of course, I always like mixing a little modern into it so that it’s not completely “one-note”, but overall I’m thrilled that PB has taken branched out into something interesting and it makes me go back to them to look for newness again…

Meanwhile, I’m on the search for a new bedframe for the master bedroom.  I’ll fill you in on that later in a separate post.  (Oh, and p.s. Sorry I’ve been gone so long.)  Head HERE to check out Pottery Barn’s newest look.

We had some snow here

You may have heard…

Behind the scenes of the kitchen photo shoot!

So today was a lot of fun!  The stylists showed up at 9am on the dot, and the photographers were right behind.  I’d stayed up most of the two nights previous cleaning, tweaking, and editing [primarily the spices in] my kitchen so that it was putting it’s best foot forward.   For about a week, I’ve been nervous that once “outsiders” got inside our house they’d totally hate it.  Thankfully that was not the case, and we got down to business immediately!

Here’s the photographer working in the kitchen.  The Mac is all hooked up in the dining room.

Here’s a pic of the edits from my own kitchen that didn’t make the cut along with some props the stylist brought.

No explanation needed!  I had to keep out of the way while everyone did their magic.   In fact, everything and everyone was absolutely fabulous!  The only part of today that surprised me was when the photographers said, “Okay we’re ready for your photo.”

*Pause*

“What?!  No one said that I was getting my photo taken today too!”

Yikes!  I was kind of freaking out.  Thank god I’d managed to get up early to enough to manage makeup.  My hair was a wreck though, and I wasn’t wearing clothes that were what I’d want to represent myself in a national magazine…so I had to run upstairs and change quickly.  (No pressure or anything!)

Meanwhile, when I walked into my bedroom…what do you think I found?  Dog vomit on the rug.

But anyways…at the end of it all, we managed a photo that wasn’t completely embarrassing…and everything’s all done.  I can’t wait to see it when it comes out!

A $5 million sneak peak

Ever wanted to see inside a $5 million mansion?  Me too!  Well, today I got the chance, and thought I’d share it with you.  Enjoy!  (Oh, and if you happen to have that much laying around, then email me and I’ll send you the listing! Hah.)

I mean…pocket change, right?!

Country Living Magazine is coming tomorrow…

Okay, I haven’t mentioned it yet because I was afraid of jinxing it.  And then when I found out, I’ve been rushing around cleaning and doing some last minute projects (in between traveling and all the other things going on in my life).  But anyways…tomorrow Country Living magazine will be here taking pictures of my kitchen!!  I’m so excited and promise to try and post some pics of the action!

 

New candle love!!

Just got the most amazing new candle today!  It’s Royal Apothic brand, Edwardian Fireplace scent.  When I pulled it out of the package, I let my co-workers smell it and they [also] loved it so much that they asked me to light it right then.  So I took this picture of my new candle burning on my desk at work for everyone to enjoy!  Haha.   (The scent is hard to describe, but I’d say it’s very slightly masculine…but clean at the same time.  Nothing like an old chimney or ashes, like you would think with a name like “Edwardian Fireplace.”)  You can go purchase it HERE.

It doesn’t hurt that the packaging is also really cute.  Definitely a good gift.  Maybe I’ll get some family members this for Christmas…  Hmmm…