ready and waiting

BOY how life has changed!! Literally.... we are having a baby boy here any day now and we are anxiously awaiting his arrival!!! I just wanted to post a few pictures of his nursery before I go into labor, because who knows when I'll be back to my computer after that!! I'll admit that I'm nuts. Ryan and I are moving to Ft. Worth here in a month and I still thought it was imperative to paint & decorate the nursery. I admit I've got a problem, but let's face it.... I'm experiencing what they call "nesting".  It's a new mom-to-be's biological right of passage. Pregnant women out there everywhere, please back me up when I say that if we could bottle up this energy and sell it, we would be rich! I caught myself cleaning out underneath my bathroom sink the other night until 2:00 in the morning, just to wake up at 8:00 the next day to continue the insanity. I can't help it- between washing the baby's clothes in Dreft to decorating a room which will be dismantled within the month, I've truly gone "prazy".  (that's pregnant + crazy). I've got to thank my incredible mom for helping me so much in the nursery and putting up with my antics! She and I have had the best time brainstorming each angle of the room. The crib was a gift from both of my parents and my amazing mom made the curtains and some of the baby bedding herself!! My grandmother also hand-stitched some love into the baby bumper giving the bedding a totally custom look. The bookshelf was first in my mom's room when she was a kid and  I've since robbed it from my brother's room and repainted it to match our little man's stuff. The ABC wall and his initials posted over the bed were custom drawn on my CAD program and cut out of wood & then painted to match. All we lack at this point is our sweet baby, and possibly a rug, and a chandelier, and a.... oh no, will I ever be finished?!?! haha. I plan on sharing many more images from our pregnancy, including our gender reveal, baby showers, maternity pictures & much more... but for now, enjoy this sweet nursery, because in five  years it will be all sports posters and sweaty boy stuff....right now though, it's mommy's way or the highway!

Life's a flash, capture accordingly.

The Rogers

David & Jenni Rogers called me a while back to help them with their new home. I consider myself more of a draftsman, working mainly on line drawings for remodels & new construction; however, David & Jenni's decorating job was too great to pass up! Jenni & I have very similar taste, with the main difference being I'm beige and predicatable and that girl loves her some color!  She has actually rubbed off on me somewhat and now has me thinking about adding a splash of color to my own house! Ryan of course has vetoed that based on practicality purposes.... My design projects are so much fun, however, as all interior designers know, it can be like watching molasses dry. No matter how prepared you are, things will come up, items will be backordered, and the thing you love most may simply be out of budget.... I think one reason I love photography so much is that it is instantly gratifying and very fast paced.  It's a great balance with my design work, as it keeps my impulsive side sane. David & Jenni's house is still in progress & turning out just how I had hoped! I'll show you the full home as soon as everything is complete, as I've mentioned before I rarely show design projects before they are finished. However, I have one part of the house that is too great to wait, the new baby's nursery! David & Jenni have been expecting their new baby for as long as I've been working with them. They wanted the baby to be a surprise, but they wanted the nursery to be super cute. I was thrilled beyond belief when they hired me to take on the job of the surprise nursery. This would mean I would be the only person besides the doctor who would know the sex of the baby! I worked up two schemes for the nursery based on Jenni's favorite bedding options, one for a boy & one for a girl:

We met to discuss the pros & cons for each, and the next week Jenni gave me a sealed envelope containing the sex of the baby! You have NO idea how pumped I was for this project (especially since my sister is having a surprise baby in a month and wouldn't let me do this for her)! I felt like I was on HGTV's, "While You Were Out". I had literally three weeks to order all the bedding & accessories...thank goodness it was all in stock!! I got the call that they had gone to the hospital on Tuesday, and by Thursday afternoon the walls were painted, bedding installed, & all accessories were placed. It was one of the most exciting projects I've worked on yet! I made the owls to go over the crib on CAD (my architectural drafting program) and had them cut out of a laser cutter. I painted them to match the bedding & hung the baby's name below! It was a very budget cognizant way to go about wall art!

James David Rogers III, aka Tripp's nursery before

I was able to re-paint these fun frames from Etsy to coordinate with the colors of the pictures I had taken the week before

custom line drawings of owls to match bedding for behind crib

Custom owls designed & painted special for Tripp

Framed fabric behind the rocker is an affordable way to introduce geometric patterns for wall art! Oh and my amazing mom made that custom owl pillow on the rocker.

This is a sneak peek of what's to come for the Rogers' fabulous entry!!

We had left over wallpaper and put it to good use in the hallway off of the dining room

* * *

We took their family pictures before baby Tripp was born but after I knew what "he" was to be! It was the hardest thing to not drop any clues! Luckily I was able to pick the locations based on the colors we were to use in the nursery...bright bright bright (which both schemes were to be full of color, so I felt safe choosing fun walls downtown)! However, Jenni just happened to show up in bright orange & green, she must have had that mother's intuition that it was going to be a boy! Here are the images we got of Peyton's 2 year pictures, Jenni's maternity, & the whole Rogers' family! I've truly loved working with them and feel blessed I've gotten to capture these milestones in their life!

life's a flash, capture accordingly.

it's not just about photography.

Lately it seems I've been so busy with photography that I've neglected my inner designer.... Well, truth is I do just as much interior design work as photography, however each design project takes so much time and labor, that there are less opportunities to blog those topics. Also, with design, each part of the project goes through certain phases that aren't ready for public critique. I've learned with photography and especially design, that even though you have an image in your head, it doesn't mean anyone else understands the same projected outcome until it's complete. THAT my friends is why, I will always wait until a project is completed before I blog it. Design is like art.... it goes through a lot of messy phases, before it becomes a piece of distinction. With that being said, here is one of my most recent custom furniture pieces. The client wanted something custom because of certain size requirements that the space demanded in her bedroom. The piece is to have a flat screen TV mounted above it, and each of the upper "drawers" (which are really hinged panels that allow easy access to the TV's components) have wiring capabilities  for the digital technology required for the television. Also, the components to the TV are nicely screened behind poultry wire, which still allows a signal to pass, but camouflages the not-so-attractive cable boxes within the piece.

I designed this piece using my autoCAD program and had it built locally. Then when the construction was complete, I custom painted it to work with the client's new bedding, which was designed by All About Looks here in Lubbock.

Design is such a fun and innovative way to explore new possibilities for every aspect of our homes. Most say that form follows function, but I think it is imperative that they remain equal in mind when designing a custom piece. Without proper form, what good is function? Think about it.

Completed Custom Piece

Custom Piece Under Construction

Drawing of Custom Piece

Dimension Plan of Custom Piece

Life is in the details, design accordingly.

Vacationers

Call it fast friends or call it fate, but my family fell in love with the Miller family on our last Cruise to the Bahamas. We met randomly at lunch one afternoon when my brother, husband and I all found ourselves hungry for the Royal Caribbean lunch buffet at the same time as everyone else on the ship.... with no luck finding a table of our own, we were invited to sit with a sweet couple (hibachi style) at their table thinking, "ok we will make this quick and painless, let's just eat and run"... An hour later we discovered we were fellow Texans and that we had much more in common than we thought. They invited us to watch the water show from their private suite that evening, and in true Thames family style, we didn't decline. The rest was history, and I mean that.... the cruise was a blur from then on! We were sad for the trip to end, but they invited us to join them in Las Vegas for Kim's 40th birthday the following October... and once again, the Thames family didn't pass up a good time and we graciously accepted.

Vegas came and went as fast & furious as the cruise, and it just confirmed our friendship even more. I know for most of you this sounds very Dateline meets eHarmony, but if you knew this family (and ours) you would know that it was just a perfect act of fate and new friendships.

Mark is the CEO of an amazing company, Miller & Associates , and dreams up the kind of stuff you see in the movies.... he's basically a genius and Kevin James all rolled into one. On the cruise we were discussing his business and what programs they use and Auto CAD came up! (to those of you that don't know, this is the program that I spent 2 years of my college career learning- it's a very love/hate relationship, but it's the program I use for my design drafting). Mark's company of course uses the program to design things like you'd see in Avatar or CSI where as I make kitchens look real pretty.

Kim is a major work out girl and health guru. She is the author of a fabulous new blog: http://kimsfitandfab40s.wordpress.com/ check it out and show her some love.

After the cruise, Mark & Kim called to hire me to design their new kitchen in Dallas! It has been such a fun project, partly because it gives me an excuse to go to Dallas and see Kim, and also because they have amazing taste and I'm getting to think outside the box! The project is in the works, and I will of course be sharing it with everyone once construction roles around. As for now I'm posting pictures from our last visit before Christmas. Kim asked me to take some fun pictures of her family, as well as some senior shots of their daughter, Angela. Enjoy!

Life's a flash, capture accordingly