The One Room Challenge, started by Linda Weinstien of Calling it Home , is in its 20th season!  The ORC is a biannual event where twenty design influencers are selected as Featured Designers and challenged to transform a room of their choice.  Hundreds of additional decorators participate as Guest Participants.  This post kicks off my official participation as a Guest Participant in The One Room Challenge!  Anyone can be a Guest Participant.  All you need is a room to transform and a blog or Instagram account through which to document and share your project. 

Past ORC Projects

My first ORC was in Spring of 2020 and my project was My Tuscan Inspired Kitchen. 

I also participated in the Fall 2020 challenge with Reclaiming My Dining Room. 

So this Master Bedroom Makeover is my 3rd challenge.  Over the course of 8 weeks, each participant works through the process of transforming their room.  Some rooms see extensive constructive overhauls and some see more budget conscious and more minimal changes.  While my kitchen project had a large budget, this project does not.  I specialize in affordable and low cost DIY transformations.  Consequently, my budget for this room is to keep the costs under $500. 

My Master Bedroom

 When we moved into our home almost 20 years ago, all of the walls were pale pink.  Funny how millennial pink has resurfaced recently.  I had painted the walls to our MBR a King’s Gold.  It was a nice stately color.  My plan was to faux finish with an antiqued look.  

While I did succeed in painting the entire room a pale gold, I completed only about 20% of the antiquing on the walls of the room. 

At the writing of this post, I am still undecided as to whether I will change the color completely or simply finish the walls with the antiquing process.  I suppose it will depend on how complicated I make the design for the rest of the room.  

And, there is it.  My projects usually start out with a preliminary vision and may or may not take a hard curve right in the middle of the process.  I tend to let the “vibe” of the projects direct me when I am creating in my own space.  So, perhaps we should call this the Chameleon MBR Project.  Because I really don’t yet have a complete end goal.  Let’s call my plan fluid.  And here it is…

Create a headboard from an antique mantle

Remove king sleigh bed and replace with this antique mantle headboard. 

The mantle must be restored as it currently sports several coats of black , yellow and white paint.  Our current headboard consists of the headboard only from a massive king sleigh bed.  The piece showed up at my store, The Blue Building Antiques, about 2 years before we closed (which was March 2019).  I love the curves and the detail on the headboard.  The footboard was missing and that was ok because the scale of this bed would have been magnified by a footboard.  We decided to just use the headboard with the intention of painting it at some point to refresh the look.  That never happened.  And it’s time for a change. 

The mantle will be completely stripped, widened to accommodate a king sized mattress, and sealed.  The fun part will be selecting embellishments.  

Select and Paint Side Tables/Nightstands

Once the headboard is restored, redesigned and in place, side tables or night stands will be added.  I expect to use one of these two sets and will need to decide if they should be painted. 

I am hoping to have several antiques with complimentary wood tones as the anchors for this room.  As I am an experienced furniture painter, this is an option for all of the furniture pieces for the room.  Note, we have mismatched furniture and my goal is to unify the look of the room with stain, paint, and other magic tricks.

Wall Color

I’m having a hard time deciding if I want to repaint the walls.  Over the last 18 months, we have whitened and lightened up most of the rooms in our house.  The MBR has not had the whitened effect so I am considering painting the walls with a very light color, perhaps a very pale blue or greige.  I do, however, love the Old World feel of the antiqued gold walls.  And with the restored mantle, I believe the gold would be a nice compliment.  Mr. Blu is quite tired, like most of the design world, by the farmhouse white trends and would love some bolder color.  HOWEVER, my style severely leans toward the woods and whites of a classic traditional french country home with a mixture of rich wood furniture against the crisp whites of neutral walls.  As I’ve obviously not made a decision, the final color should be a nice surprise for us all.  So you will be as surprised as I am by the final selection.

Furniture Switch-A-Roo

Having owned an antique store for 10 years, I have accumulated many incredible furniture pieces but nothing matches and consequently the furniture does not always appear complimentary.  Life is too short to not use your favorite things.  So I am going to move out some older furniture pieces and bring in some favorites.  Here are some of the players who will be undergoing transformation.  Some will stay and some will go.

What do you think?  Can you imagine any of these in the same room with this…

These are the main elements of this makeover.  As my budget is quite low, there are other bucket list items such as:

• Buy a new rug and runner
• Create a comfy sitting area 
• Replace curtains
• Make a cushion for the lane hope chest 

Who knows??!  Maybe I will be able to complete a few more of these items on my wish list.

Check back next week for updates.  I hope to be well into the mantle project.

Here is the ORC Blog .   You can check here to see all of the project from the Featured Designers and from the Guest Participants.  

The post Master Bedroom Makeover : ORC Fall 2021 appeared first on Shop at Blu.

Are you ready for this week’s project in My Tuscan Inspired Kitchen? We tackled the floors!

Welcome friends! It is Week 3 of the One Room Challenge, Spring 2020 Edition! You can follow this LINK to see all of the projects of the guest participants like me. Click HERE to see the progress of the talented featured designers. Prepare to be amazed!

Last week I shared our appliance choices. If you missed that post, you can read about it HERE.

Selecting Floors for My Tuscan Inspired Kitchen

I’m one of those who has to see every option and check every detail before they can make a choice on just about anything. I wanted our floors to be light because our old floors were light. We agreed that vinyl planking would be our best choice of product since this is a kitchen floor. Water from leaky ice maker lines or dishwashers can wreak havoc on a laminate or even a true hardwood floor.

The very first sample we spotted was the floor display at Home Depot of Lifeproof Sterling Oak. Our back splash is mix of grey so I wanted my floors to have both grey and beige tones to unify the appliances and backsplash and all of the elements of my Tuscan Inspired Kitchen.

While I liked the Sterling Oak, it seemed a little dark. I also considered Chiffon Lace Oak, which was very light and Lighthouse Oak, which had more brown tones. Can you believe Lifeproof has 79 choices in their vinyl planking? It is 100% waterproof and guaranteed for life. Talk about overwhelming.

I was very conscious to make sure we had a complementary and consistent color flow running between all of the newly selected kitchen elements. So I took all of my samples home to the kitchen and observed them together in my kitchen. I lined up the sink, the Tuscan Stainless sample chip, and the floor samples to see which one best unified my kitchen.

Again Rebecca, the Pelham Home Depot appliance specialist came to the rescue. She recommended viewing the samples online to see the bigger picture. This last tip was critical as I found the Chiffon Lace to be more “splotchy”, if you will. I know this probably shocks those of you who know me because I am indeed an uber distressor…the chippier or the more worn then the better for me! But in this case, I felt the variations of color made the floors look less authentic. I really want the Copper Hammered Farmhouse Sink to stand out. So a more uniform flooring would ensure this.

Sterling Oak was our choice.

Installation: Floors!

I had requested install estimates from three contractors. One was a friend of a friend. One was a local kitchen reno company. And one was a no show. So two choices. We went with the friend of the friend because I’ve seen his work and his work is incredible. He would schedule us for some time in April. Then the pandemic hit. And essential stores limited the number of shoppers permitted inside. And our guy’s productivity dropped by 50% because a good portion of his day was now spent waiting in line to gain access to supplies. So we sheltered at home. And we waited, expecting a call in May or even later. But the day after I posted my Week 2 update, my guy called and said he would be here on Saturday! Whoohoo!

Saturday came and the floor was quickly and efficiently installed!

I left the kitchen completely empty for days. I just love the floor so much! The transformation is incredible and I love the open roomy look. We’ve lived with clutter for so long that this was incredibly satisfying. How long do you think it took before I moved the table back in??

Let me just say that this floor installation and the resulting effect led to formulating another change for our kitchen! Can you guess what that change might be? It is an addition to the original plan. Stay tuned once the cabinets are painted to see what else we are adding to our kitchen!

Next week…my hammered copper sink gets installed!

The post ORC Spring 2020: Let’s Talk Kitchen FLOORS! appeared first on Shop at Blu.

The Amazing One Room Challenge

This is Week 2 of my very first One Room Challenge! You can read about this fabulous decorating event HERE. Be sure to follow each week and see the incredible progress on these amazing room rennovations!

The Appliance Package

Mr. Blu has always selected our appliances. As a former store manager for Lowe’s, he was always able to secure nice appliances at a good price. So this was very exciting for me to actually shop the appliance section. We knew we would be entitled to a package discount since we were buying 4 major appliances. Back in January we saw this package:

We selected this package primarily for the color option of Tuscan Stainless, which is available at additional cost.

But this deal was active back in February. When we started getting serious in April, the listed prices were high and we couldn’t find anything on sale! The refrigerator alone was $4200.

I shopped Lowes, Home Depot, Wayfair, and several local appliance stores. Finally, we spoke with the appliance expert at our local Home Depot. We were able to apply several package discounts to our purchase and ended up getting the appliance package for 55% off of the listed online price! I have to give a shout out to Rebecca, the appliance specialist at Home Depot in Pelham, AL. Rebecca was able to track down the appliances in the desired Tuscan Stainless Steel finish, and we had delivery the following week!

As I write this post, I have just cooked my first dinner in my new convection oven. Mr. Blu, who is not a big fan of pork, said these were the best pork chops he’s ever had!

I have run my first full cycle on the dishwasher! More to follow on this appliance.

And #V has cooked several batches of both corn dogs and ramen noodles in our roomy microwave.

There was a small mix up with the refrigerator so unfortunately, we are still waiting on that.

I will include updated pictures once it arrives. But I am glad to say that we are beyond happy with our appliance selections for this Tuscan Inspired Kitchen!

So far we are thrilled with the sleek upgraded look of our appliances. The microwave is very large. We’ve never had a stainless interior on a microwave. Same with the oven. And it is convection so the last few home cooked meals have been phenomenal!

I will say that upgrading this dishwasher was quite the emotional ordeal! My children and parents, spearheaded by my oldest Daughter (II), presented us with this dishwasher as an anniversary gift back in 2012. Times were a little rough back then and our dishwasher had been non functional for many months. I will never forget the feeling of pride and how happy my heart was when I opened the card that was signed with the message…”one less thing to worry about!” TWO had even arranged for the dishwasher to be installed! We were so very surprised and so happy! Somewhere I have that card!! When I find it, I will post it!

I was tempted to build a flower bed in the garden using this old dishwasher…stranger things have been the foundations of wonderful garden displays. But, I think a picture will suffice. What’s the point of upgrading the inside of the house if the outside looks like an episode of Sanford and Son, right?

Guess what!! Next week’s post will have pictures of my new floors!

And hopefully the new refrigerator!

See you then!

The post ORC: My Tuscan Inspired Kitchen, Week 2 appeared first on Shop at Blu.

A year ago this time, we were planning to complete numerous overdue projects on our house with the intention of moving back to Philadelphia within 2 years. My dad was 85 at the time and all of our family, including 4 of his siblings (two older and two younger), all still lived in Philly. With our last child graduating from high school in June of 2020 and all of our other children settled into careers, we thought we would like to head home. And then Pop decided he was ready to be with Mom in heaven and everything stopped. Suddenly, there was no rush to move home. What if I actually took my time and molded this house into OUR home? After all, most of our kids are still in Alabama.

Alot changed on June 21, 2019 when Pop left us. Finally I am feeling the resurgence of that love for DIY that he instilled in me many many years ago.

The One Room Challenge

This post kicks off my official participation as a Guest Participant in The One Room Challenge! The One Room Challenge, started by Linda Weinstien of Calling it Home blog, is in its 17th season! The ORC is a biannual event where twenty design influencers are challenged to design a room. While this is my very first ORC. my friend Leslie from Deeply Southern Home is actually one of this season’s featured designers! You can follow along at the ORC blog for this season’s phenomenal designs HERE!

Kitchen Inspiration

When I won a Sinkology sink at The Haven Conference last July, I took that as a sign…let’s start with the kitchen! You can read about the Haven contest and a little about why I selected the kitchen project here.

I had to select between three farmhouse sinks. Something kept telling me…don’t be safe…do something crazy…get the copper sink! So I did!

I chose the Hammered Copper Farmhouse Sink! She came with the All In One Package which included a faucet of my choice, a care kit, and some accessories. Isn’t she lovely?

This beauty is the inspiration for my One Room Challenge Tuscan Inspired Kitchen Upgrade. We started searching for appliances with this copper theme in mind.

Appliances

Initially, I hesitated with the copper decision because I was concerned with a mixed metals conflict. Would stainless appliances match a copper sink? How would black applicances work? Would either of these compliment my fabulous hammered copper farmhouse sink? I’ve seen tons of kitchens with copper sinks and stainless steel appliances. Our current appliances have both stainless steel and black so I did not find either of those choices very exciting. Stainless seemed like the logical choice. While I don’t really think I would mind a mixed metal kitchen, my “be consistent” philosophy kept screaming at me…”those appliances should match that sink”. So I started to look around. Mr. Blu and I visited Home Depot and guess what we found? A stainless option called Tuscan Steel on a limited selection of appliance by Samsung. Tuscan Stainless is a fingerprint resistant brown metallic finish. I took a sample, dragged the sink into the kitchen, and voila! It was very complimentary to my sink…a great match!

We were able to find a full appliance package with options that we loved in Tuscan Stainless Steel! We were the proud owners of new appliances.

I fell in love and things began to take off.

Vision Board

With our new sink and new appliances selected, I was able to continue down the list of items for the kitchen.

Cabinets

When Mr. Blu asked me to paint the kitchen cabinets white several years ago, I thought he was crazy. White? Really? With 5 kids? And pets? It just didn’t seem logical. But it was fabulous. Our kitchen seemed so much larger. But the paint I used just was not durable enough for a kitchen as busy as ours. The doors were scratched and dinged and chipped and in need of a facelift. It would be necessary to repaint the cabinets and I would keep the white.

As I had I had painted the cabinets three years ago, I didn’t want to have to paint them again in another few years, so I decided to up my game and use a more resilient paint. I selected Sherwin Williams Industrial Enamel Protective and Marine Coatings and in pure white.

Flooring

As lovely and high grade as our current basic builder grade vinyl floor is, (I am being totally sarcastic here), my head filled with visions of hardwoods and rustic floors! However, we had to be smart as we’ve had several water leaks over the past years with the garbage disposal, the water line to the refrigerator and the dishwasher all failing at some point causing puddling and settled water on the kitchen floor. Any recurrence would be deathly to a laminate or even hardwood floor. So we selected vinyl planking! Home Depot had a wonderful selection.

And amazingly enough, with our very different design and decor tastes, Mr. Blu and I agreed on a floor!

Countertops

Every woman dreams of expensive beautiful kitchen countertops. I’ve only ever had laminate. With a large family, I just couldn’t justify dumping thousands of dollars into a countertop. I wasn’t convinced that we wouldn’t ding them and stain them so we never indulged. Until now. We found a higher grade beautiful design Corian sample at Home Depot that was on sale for $20 off per square foot! So we jumped on that deal.

Lighting

To be honest, I’ve been so caught up in the sink, the counters, the floors and the appliances that we haven’t actually selected our lighting yet. Our current lighting is outdated. My instinct is to install some sort of can or pendant lighting in front of the stove to replace the flourescent eyesore. This will probably be the last project completed. So it will be the surprise element. Maybe you can help me select the fixtures! I’m thinking copper…of course!

And there you have all of the main elements of my new kitchen!

Below are a few before photos.

We will start with the appliances installation. Tune in next week to see how that goes!

The post ORC Spring 2020: My Tuscan Inspired Kitchen appeared first on Shop at Blu.

Hello! How are you? It’s been a while! So much has happened in one year. I’ll be posting soon about all of that. In the meantime, I am rested, revived, and ready for some DIY! Why not jump right in??!! I’ve signed up for the One Room Challenge, Spring 2020 edition. I am upgrading my kitchen!

The Ongoing Kitchen Project

It seems that my kitchen update has been in progress forever. I’ve always had visions of a gorgeous kitchen but as a small business owner, I never had the funds for this budget. I suppose this renovation actually started three years ago when Mr. Blu took a one week staycation and we started to remove some of the popcorn ceilings in the house.

Over the course of the week, we scraped and painted three ceilings: the kitchen, the master bathroom, and the downstairs bathroom.

After that I eventually painted the cabinets white and the walls a very very pale (almost white) teal.

The dramatic change from the darker walls and cabinets to white and pale colors was striking. And with literally no budget, that sufficed for several years.

Why now?

Recently, our appliances began to show the effects of a serving a large family. The dishwasher became less and less powerful and more and more ineffective. The microwave handle became loose and wobbly.

The shelves in the refrigerator sagged and one was cracked. Mr. Blu insisted that if we were finally and legitimately going to upgrade this kitchen, then NEW appliances were in order. I fussed and told him that they were still functional and hadn’t we just bought these? They weren’t very old! Well, time flies and he promptly reminded me that they were, in fact, ten years old. Y’all! It hit me…I’m getting new appliances!!

Inspiration

The inspiration piece for this kitchen upgrade revealed itself by chance last summer. In June 2019, I attended my favorite DIY conference, The Haven Conference, which is held annually in Atlanta. I had missed the previous year for the first time in 7 years and it was so painful. I vowed never to miss another Haven. And I’m particularly glad I went this time because I won a farmhouse sink in a giveaway sponsored by Sinkology! I could select from three beauties and the package also included the hardware and faucet as well!

I had to choose among a beautiful timeless clay baked white farmhouse sink, a stunning copper hammered farmhouse sink, and a unique hammered steel farmhouse sink.

How to decide!! I dreamed of the beautifully timeless farmhouse sink in white baked clay. But my heart really wanted a copper farmhouse sink as my love of French Country and things vintage tried to take over. Sinkology also had a gorgeous hammered stainless farmhouse sink that would look great with stainless steel appliances. Lordy…what to choose!!

Mr. Blu is pretty traditional so I was certain he would approve of the white farmhouse sink. And I loved the oddity of a hammered steel sink…so artsy and contemporary. But that copper…Lawdy it screamed ANTIQUE! FRENCH COUNTRY! VINTAGE! And it spoke to my soul…honestly it did. I felt like a small Haven celebrity as my seasoned Haven friends heard of my luck. “You lucky duck!” “Which one will you choose?” “I’m so jealous!” And my very favorite, accompanied by a giant heartfelt hug (which, right now as we are all sheltered at home, might be my favorite memory of the win) “Congratulations!!”

Initial Plan

So, to recap, I knew I had a beautiful farmhouse sink. I was getting brand spanking new appliances. Commence the design phase by creating a basic check list of items for my new kitchen:

• New appliance package including refrigerator, stove, microwave and dishwasher
• Install Farmhouse sink
• Select and install new countertops
• Select and install new flooring
• Repaint cabinets and replace existing hardware
• Upgrade lighting

To pull this entire project together and, more importantly, to ensure it finished in a timely manner I decided to use this project as the subject of a blog post to kickstart my neglected blog. So it is official…I am a guest participant in The One Room Challenge, Spring Edition 2020.

I will be posting updated weekly on our kitchen project! Keep in mind that this is my first ORC and my first real kitchen update. I’m a bit nervous but what the heck…things can be changed, right?

Stay tuned for my first official post on Thursday, May 8, 2020 where I reveal my plan for my kitchen!

WHICH SINK DO YOU THINK I CHOSE?

The post One Room Challenge, Spring 2020 appeared first on Shop at Blu.

First, a little bit about Vintage Market Days.  This is  franchised market that it popping up all over the country!  If you love vintage markets, you need to check out the website Vintage Market Days for a venue near you. We are in central Alabama.  There are now THREE VMD events near us. The next show is in Decatur AL.  “Southern Picnic” is April 21-23 at Celebration Arena.  Mobile will host another August.  And Birmingham’s first venue is November.

Admission is generally $10 and covers all three days!  Birmingham has not had many vintage markets so I was simply elated to browse through all of the glorious vendors.  Vendors must submit an application with photos, as “Vintage Market Days® is an upscale vintage-inspired indoor/outdoor market.  featuring original art, antiques, clothing, jewelry, handmade treasures, home décor, outdoor furnishings, consumable yummies, seasonal plantings and a little more. Vintage Market Days® events are so much more than a flea market. Each Vintage Market Days® event is a unique opportunity for vendors to display their talents and passions in creative venues.”  (quote from website).  

Here are some photos of The Blue Building Antiques and Consignment Vintage Market Days® space from Vintage Market Days® of Mobile:

If you’ve been to my store, you know I like to cram alot of happiness into one space.  The more to see, the more to buy!  Right?

My friend Dennis, formerly from The Yellow Building (I miss that store) hand paints incredible signs.  Call me to order ANY sign.  Dennis is also a super talented portrait artist!  How bout that chippy door?  I did a post on how to get this chippy look!

We had a nice mix of vintage, antique, and collectibles as well as our usual JUST FUN STUFF!

My friend Nancy is the Upholstery Queen!  Her chairs were a big hit!

One lucky lady went home with the beautiful antique rocker that was reupholstered with a 1942 Australian army blanket.  Simply lovely!

This show was a great success for us!  And so many folks promised to visit us on their next trip to Birmingham!

Speaking of Birmingham, we are planning on doing the VMD of Birmingham this winter…it’s the weekend BEFORE the Iron Bowl (if you aren’t from Alabama where all scheduling of life activities revolves around college football, it’s the weekend before Thanksgiving)!  Stay tuned as I will be posting some of the goodies we will be bringing to this market.

The post Our First Vintage Market Days of Mobile appeared first on Shop at Blu.

You might remember that last October was our first huge vintage show when we participated in The Market on Chapel Hill.  You can read about the show HERE.  This was so much fun!  We met so many wonderful folks.  Since that market was in Montgomery Alabama, many of our shopping friends stop by to visit us at The Blue Building Antiques in Alabaster, AL.  We enjoyed the event so much that we will be doing several other shows this year starting with Vintage Market Days in Mobile AL over St. Patrick’s Day weekend.  I will tell you more about that event later.

The Philly Home and Garden Show was Friday, February 17  through Sunday,  February 19, 217 .  We made these 24 inch Farmhouse Decor Clocks at the Make It Take It station.  We did 3 classes of 15, one each day.

We were super excited to have two fabulous sponsors.  HomeRight sent us Finish Max Paint Sprayers to demo and give away.  We had four participants go home with new paint sprayers!  Everyone had the chance to try using this lightweight and easy to use paint sprayer!  Folks were absolutely loving the spray shelters as well!  The HomeRight spray shelter comes in two sizes to accomodate large or small projects!

Thanks to HomeRight we will also be giving away a new HomeRight Finish Max paint sprayer at the end of this post!  See the Rafflecopter to enter.

Our second sponsor was Plaid Enterprises, you might know their products…Folk Art and Apple Barrel paint!  Plaid graciously supplied us with stencils, paint, brushes, and stencil glue for all of the classes!  They have a seemingly endless supply of craft items to fill your needs.  Let me just say that their stencil glue was the bomb!

Our first class was Friday Feb 17 at 4:00 PM.  I have to admit that I was a little nervous.  I’ve never done a class at a big event.  I had some wonderful helpers in 3 of my best buds from high school.  Meet Lisa, Mickey and Susan!

Here are some of our wonderful class participants hard at work:

Saturday brought a whole new crew of helpers.  Here are Shelly, Germaine and Lisa, more of my wonderful friends from grade school and high school.

Some candid shots from Saturdays class (photo credit to Shelly):

And lastly, here are pictures from our Sunday class.  Special thanks to my grade school friend, Dana, and my 3 cousins Maureen, Kathleen,  and Michele who were incredibly wonderful helpers!

And of course, my number one helper was in rare form.  He kept the funnel cake booth in business for 3 days!

I kept him very busy!  Pop picked all of the winners for the HomeRight giveaways!

The absolute highlight of the show for me was meeting Jeff Lewis from BRAVO’s Flippin’ Out!  

Gage must have sensed how horrible I am at selfies so he took charge! Thank God!

What a phenomenal event this was!  Once again, a huge thank you to HomeRight and Plaid Enterprises for providing the wonderful tools and giveaways for this show.  Please take a minute to check out their websites and their wonderful products!  If you are a DIY addict like me, these two companies have the products to make you happy and your life easier!

And for our grand finale, we are giving away a HomeRight Finish Max Paint Sprayer!  Enter starting March 4 through March 20, 2017 via the Rafflecopter below. Winner will be announced on March 21st.

We extended the giveaway through April 8.  And the winner was Kelly W!  She had claimed her prize and promises to post some picks of her projects!

Thank you to everyone who participated!

Here is a link (affiliate) should you wish to purchase your own Finish Max!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The post Philly Home and Garden Show Farmhouse Decor Clock appeared first on Shop at Blu.

Wow!  What a crazy few weeks!  The Market on Chapel Hill 2016 was on Saturday, October 1.  It was a crazy exciting week before the market.  Pop and I had planned to fly to Philadelphia for a wedding.  Just 2 days before we left, my godmother passed away.  As fate would have it, her funeral was the day before the wedding and at the same church.  We are so very grateful that we could attend this beautiful celebration of a wonderful life.  And we are immeasurably grateful for my cousins for inviting us!  Had we not received the wedding invitation, we most likely would not have been able to attend the funeral.  I am always amazed at how The Big Guy takes care of our hearts!

This market was my first in 15 years so I was excited and nervous!  And it was a big one-by invite only!  How exciting is that!!!!  Right??!!  You can read about the history of this vintage market in this article I wrote for a local paper.  I had done shows when we lived in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia.  But those shows were on a small scale and more like local neighborhood festivals.  The Market on Chapel Hill is an upscale vintage market.  Don’t get me wrong, we have lots of beautiful antiques and vintage items at The Blue Building.  But, to be participating in a vintage market with the likes of Olde Tyme Marketplace, Savy City Farmer, Thistlewood Farms, Farmhouse Frocks, Coastal Charm, The Little Golden Fox, Susie Harris, just to name a few…well, that is rather intimidating so my heart was aflutter!

Getting Ready

One of The Blue Building Antiques and Consignment dealers, Kelly, agreed to do the market with me.  So for the 2 months prior to the market, we were tucking away treasures for this show.  I did a little preview post on items we put aside for the market.  You can read about them HERE.  My store is 8,000 square feet of what we call “Elegant Clutter”.  But if you stop by, on any given day, you will find tons of items waiting to be processed for sale and logged for consignment.  Every nook and cranny is filled with items.  There just isn’t alot of space for storage.  So about a week before the market, I started staging items for the show in one area of the store.  Well, darn if those items didn’t start selling!  Yes, it’s a good thing, but we had to continue picking for the show right up until the day before!

Vendors set up on the Friday before the market.  On Thursday, I picked up a rental truck.  Originally I reserved a 16 foot truck with a small lift gate.  My experience in moving large furniture, but mostly MY AGE, told me a lift gate is critical!  I upgraded to a 26 foot truck after my friends KariAnne of Thistlewood Farms and Lucy from Lucy Inspired asked me to bring them some tables and display pieces for the space they would be sharing at the market.  

Kelly and I started loading our large pieces of furniture.  We started at 10 AM and continued until about 6:30 PM.  One piece and one box at a time were loaded.  We alternated waiting on customers and we chatted about our set up plan for the next day.  By 6:30 PM we were exhausted.  So we went home to rest!  Our plan was to meet at 7:30 AM the next morning.  We would finish loading and depart for Montgomery AL by 8:30 AM.

On Our Way!

Well, we pulled out at 10:15 AM and arrived at The Waters at 11:15 AM.  It took a little maneuvering and some waiting our turn to unload but by 1:30 PM, Kelly and I were filling our sweet space at The Market on Chapel Hill!

Help Arrives!

Around 2:00, my friend Nancy, who blogs at Cobani Bleu, arrived from Nashville to help.  Nancy shops The Market on Chapel Hill every year so she was excited to help us in our debut!  By 3:30, fellow Blu dealer Tammy had arrived, our final team member!

We hustled and arranged and coordinated and primped and by 6:30 PM, the space was ready!  We headed out to dinner to relax and chat about the plan for market day!

We were up early and back at our space by 7:30 AM to finalize pricing.  We each grabbed some coffee and enjoyed a few minutes of shopping just before the market opened at 9 AM.

Here are some pictures of our space:

Shopping Highlights

And here are some photos of the some of the other vendors including Old Tyme Marketplace, Coastal Charm, Savy City Farmer and Little Golden Fox.  

Special Guests and Special Customers

What an exciting adventure this was!  Thanks to everyone who came down to see us including Gina Luker from The Shabby Creek Cottage and our loyal customers Katie and Sabrina who stop by every year!  

A great big thank you to the community at The Waters for hosting another top notch show!  To all of the new and old friends of The Blue Building who made the market such an incredible experience for us…we can’t wait ’til next year! 

In the meantime, come visit us in Alabaster!  We are open everyday but Monday!  Stop in any time!

My ANGELS in Blu!

DEDICATION

This post is dedicated to the memory of my wonderful aunt and godmother, Kathleen M. McCloskey.  I love you Aunt Kath!  Behave yourself up there with Mom and the crew!  Until we meet again…Go Lassie Go!

The post The Market on Chapel Hill 2016-Our first vintage Market appeared first on Shop at Blu.

I have helped at each of the previous markets.  You can read about two of them here:

2015 The Market on Chapel Hill

2014 Chapel Hill Market

Two of my wonderful friends and dealers, Kelly and Tammy, at The Blue Building Antiques and Consignment will be helping at the show.  I’ve also recruited a fellow Haven Maven and blogger, Nancy, from Cobani Bleu, to help for the day.   We are busy gathering only the best items for this sale.  Here are some items that we have ear marked for The Market On Chapel Hill:

How about those zinc drawers in this beautiful unit??!!  And yes, I will be parting with some of those scales…sad face inserted here.

There will be plenty of glass and bottles and a few clocks.

We are planning on bringing lots of Farmhouse goodness along with some great selling vintage items and antiques.  I have a few special furniture pieces ready to make the trip.  And I have been working on our trademark shabby and chippy vintage doors.  There will be no shortage of chippy in our space!

I hope you have enjoyed the brief intro to this fabulous market.  Stay tuned for more updates.

And most importantly…pencil in the date and get your trip planned for The Market on Chapel Hill!  Hope to see you there!

The post Going to Market! The Market on Chapel Hill 2016 appeared first on Shop at Blu.

I headed south to Pike Road AL on Friday for my annual work day (I say that jokingly cause this was anything but work) in helping the bloggers and vendors set up their spaces for The Market on Chapel Hill.  For the past 2 years, my first stop was at Miss Mustard Seed.  And I was so tickled to be able to help Marian and her assistant, Kriste, again this year.  Since there was less ironstone to unpack, I arranged the MMSMP display!  Yes, my friends, it DID look particularly splendid on Saturday!  Thank you!  All of that milk paint, bonding agent, hemp oil (in 3 fabulous sizes), tough coat, and wax was strategically and lovingly place into position by ME!  Can you believe I neglected to take a photo of such beauty??  Marian to the rescue…she certainly thinks of everything!

It is always a treat to watch Marian via her blog Miss Mustardseed start to piece together her displays several months in advance.  A piece here, some ironstone there, a vintage scale newly acquired…And it really is quite magical watching it all fall into place on the Friday before The Market on Chapel Hill.

Here are a few of my favs from the weekend:

I was particularly excited to see this vintage cubby!  If only I had a place for it!

And, as always, Ironstone!

Well, for a great portion of Friday and all of Saturday, I was an Urban Farmgirl!  Mary has such wonderful merchandise…a perfect mix of antiques, vintage, and handcrafted.  It was a treat to spend some time with a truly gifted entrepenuer.  Mary carries quite a few lines of items handcrafted by local artisans from her native Chicago area…handmade purses, signs, pillows and these wonderful pumpkins:

How about this antique printer’s cabinet??   Swoon!  This was the very first piece that sold!

Many of my favorites bloggers returned this year.  Here are some shots of Lucy’s Inspired.

Lucy has started bringing some architectural pieces to her shows.  These are in high demand!  How great are these??!!!

And of course, you know who loves Lucy…right?  Here’s the pic that we submitted to Lucy for her contest “What would you wear with your Lucy’s Locket?”

Pop won!  So now he sports his very own Lucy’s Locket!

Another favorite of mine is Coastal Charm spearheaded by the lovely Linda Sikes.  Linda looked particularly proud this weekend as she was accompanied by her beautiful daughter Mary Clare and her wonderful husband.  Linda has several spaces at Antiques at the Loop in Mobile, AL.   What a talent for throwing vignettes together!

Several of the ladies who live in The Waters, the wonderful community that hosts this fabulous market, returned with wonderful furniture and accessories.  Here are a few pictures of their fabulous items:

The Waters resident Robin and her hubby had a fabulous supply of original watercolors on hand.  But this little guy was the show stopper!

Returning for her third year was Cara of Little Golden Fox.  Every year, her inventory just gets better.  Here are some of my favs:

Of all people, I know that if you snooze you lose at these shows.  I fell in love with this primitive bust and the beautiful tall wrought iron piece in the picture below.  But I hesitated and those babies were gone!

Here’s Cara and her beautiful daughter with a lucky customer!

And another of her small but wonderful treasures:

New to The Market on Chapel Hill this year is Olde Tyme Marketplace.  Beth and Rusty were an absolute joy to chat with and their space was filled with spectacular items.

I was overwhelmed!  Such wonderful vintage finds!  Authentic huge farmhouse signs, old metal drawers, windows, beautiful farm tables…and then I was stopped in my tracks!  There it was!  It called my name!  Over and over and over!  Do you see it???

On the right front corner of the table???   Seven years ago when I took over my store, The Blue Building, there was a beautiful antique trophy on consignment.  It was only about 10 inches tall but it was the bomb!  I sold it and have been kicking myself ever since!  Everywhere I go I have search for vintage trophies.  They are soooo hard to find!  And there it was!  Right in front of me!  The piece-de-resistance!  A gorgeous loving cup!  19 inches tall!  With “Paris” engraved on the front!  I screamed!  Right there under the tent!  I hugged Beth!  It was meant to be!  But could I bring my thrifty little self to pay actual RETAIL price for something????  4 hours (probably more) I debated!  I couldn’t stop thinking about it!  She was just sitting there, waiting for me!  And then it hit me…when would I EVER find another????   And just like that…she was mine!  Worth every single penny!

Have I mentioned how much I love The Market on Chapel Hill???   Imagine what YOU could find!  See you next year…put it on your list of musts!  You most certainly will NOT be disappointed!

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