New Photos up on the Walls

Now that we are through all the Ireland posts, I can show you some new photos I have up on the walls.

First I had two macro photos printed to hang in the entryway.  

Then I had an Ireland photo (Kylemore Abbey) printed to replace one in the display above the TV.

I also had one printed on a canvas, this was the Cliffs of Moher, to hang in the master bedroom with my Oak Alley canvas. 

And finally my favorite photo, of the waterfall from Killarney National Park I had printed as a large metal print to hang in the half bath.  It is really hard to capture the beauty of the metal print in a photo. 

On the walls

Even though we have been in our house for three and a half years and I am a photographer, there isn't a lot up on our walls. I hate hanging things, and I especially don't like doing it without all the furniture in place. However I finally hung up a few things this fall.

One of the things I wanted to do was a small gallery above the TV in the living room, so I took a photo of the blank space and then mocked up a couple of ideas in photoshop.

One option was all Thailand photos:


Another was all photos from shooting the Tribute in Light:


We actually ended up going with a mix of Thailand, NYC and a local photo.


Another item we finally hung up was an old mirror that Mike's Grandma Claire gave us.  She recently moved out of the house she shared with one of her sisters into a smaller place and no longer had room for it.  We were lucky enough to end up with it, and it looks perfect in our entry in place of the smaller round mirror we had bought at Target.  Do you see our new IKEA stools as well?  I am still debating painting them, or maybe they just need cushions?



Last but not least, my first canvas.  A 10"x30" of my favorite photo from New Orleans.  I kind of wish we had gone bigger with this.  It was hard to judge with the odd aspect ratio. It's in our bedroom over Mike's dresser.

Holiday Decorations

It's amazing how hard it can be to get back into the habit of blogging after you get out of it. I usually fight really hard to keep in the habit, but at some point, work always seems to break me down and win. Now I am free from work until January so it seems like a good time to try to get back into blogging. I have a lot of catching up to do but I wanted to start with something holiday related before those are over altogether. Photos of how we decorated our house for the holidays this year.

Our tree at night


And during the day


And the house at night during Luminiara Night in Bethlehem




The mantel

I made the garland based on a pin I found on Pinterest linking to this article.

And how I used our old ornament wreaths, ignore the mess in the office.


The entry, I clothespin our holiday cards to the garland going up the stairs


The dining room buffet

House Tour Summer 2012

It's July again and that means it is time for another photo tour of the house! Here are links to each of the previous years, starting with one from before we even finished unpacking.
2009 Tour
2010 Tour
2011 Tour







































You might have noticed that we only really made minor progress on the inside this past year. Small changes. Partly this is because the house is getting closer to done, but it is more because our effort (and more importantly our money) has been going into the outside of the house. Redone front steps, whole house painted, first floor porch rebuilt, second floor porch being rebuilt, etc. So I decided to add outside photos to the tour staring this year.

Porch Progress

Our other big project this summer was the porch. Though that was supposed to be a small one remember? It was supposed to be just a repainting project, instead it turned into a rebuild.

At this point the porch is still far from being done, but at least the major demo is complete and the new floor is in, and painted! I didn't do a good job of taking photos of the progress with the real camera, but I did at least take iphone ones.

Fully Demo'd




And the resulting pile of debris


Putting the floor in:






All the floor boards are in, and the new lattice is up:




And painted:


Doesn't it look so much better? We do plan to put railings back up, in the spring. We ran out of time and energy. The second floor didn't see any progress however beyond the demo, again a project for next year. I guess we have our work cut out for us.