many of us have some ties to the beloved and belated preppy cafe, so i thought you would appreciate this.  on saturday, i am hosting some neighbors for my first annual preppy ping-pong party!  the invitation stated they must come in their "preppiest" attire and we are having a ping-pong tournament round robin style.  i have been trying to prep it up around here and thankfully target seems to be in the preppy entertainment mood, too!  i have found some fun accessories there this week.  i am hoping to get some great pictures of the event.  stay tuned :)

my sweet husband is out on a bike ride with the kids.
i love when he entertains them with exercise. so in this brief moment to myself, i thought i would tell you what i am doing on this beautiful saturday...

nice start, eh?

and i am wearing this:


which i thought i would show you because the last time i wore this very outfit someone said to me, "you don't dress anything like your house." i thought that was so funny.

and i am listening to this:

yes, indeed! part of our fixing up around here included adding surround sound with an ipod dock :) boy, do we enjoy it!

you want to know who i am listening to? my dear, mr. alan jackson. oh, i just adore him. and let me tell you there is nothing like a little alan blaring through a farmhouse. :)

have a happy saturday!

maybe you heard that a few weeks ago i got to meet my blog buddy, meg?  we had so much fun together.  don't we look like old friends?  i think so. 

1. is the chandelier and hardware on your sconces silver?
yes, it is all from restoration hardware.
2. are the wood floors the same? the floors are now provincial stain in matte finish. (they used to be more golden oak.)
3. what color paint did you use and brand? restoration hardware, silver sage.
4. did you have an actual picture to show someone for the room and mantel design or was it all in your mind? i drew the fireplace design. the builder discussed how it would be wise to mimic the mantel below on to the top design. i did not have a picture, but we chose the builder because they do this type of trim work around here and we like what they do.

and for sue..

we did not need new windows! they were in the right place for this new design.

and for all you sweet people...

thank you for the comments! i am so happy to be done with the big stuff. we are enjoying it so much. :)

here is what our house used to look like. i thought it would help explain what we have been doing the past several months. the picture above is taken from my kitchen sink. the room i am looking into is our family room. it had a two-story ceiling, but only over about 3/4ths of the room. the asymmetry always bugged us, as did the noise, the lack of coziness and the misuse of potential space. so we floored it over. we also added some trim work and reconfigured the kitchen a bit. i am still busy tweaking some things, especially in the kitchen, you know the small details are very important :) but i can show you the new family room even though it hasn't been properly adorned yet...

and maybe you noticed, but that light fixture is hanging from the ceiling, yes a ceiling! whoop whoop!! we love having a ceiling!