Long Time, No See!

Are you guys still out there? My goodness - I never meant to take this long of a break from blogging. See, the thing is - I haven't been doing much in terms of DIY or decorating of our flat here in South Africa (or at least not enough to make a decent blog post).  But over the last few months, I have been working behind the scenes on some of our biggest projects to date!

I mentioned earlier this year that David and I have been dreaming of big renovations for our home back in Texas. We have been busy drawing up plans, talking with contractors and playing with colors and finishes. I'm getting excited, y'all!!

Here is what our house looks like currently....

And here is how we would like it to look after renovations.

Some pretty big renovations are heading our way, and I'm looking forward to blogging about the progress as we get started on our home! In the meantime, I plan to share some of our mood boards and get your opinion on a few choices I'm stuck on!

My other big project is starting my own interior design business back home in Texarkana early next year.

I will be offering local full service design and also e-design services to anyone not living in the Texarkana area. I'm also working on a website and have had fun playing around a bit with my blog design. Markham Street Design is now part of Laura Orr Interiors.

Thanks for sticking with me as I took a little time off and check back for mood boards and design questions here soon!

{Daydreaming} Turning Our First Home into Our Forever Home

There is something charming about a couple's first home together. When David and I got married, we moved in and rented a nice home from family back in our hometown. At first I couldn't wait to get "our first place". A place that was all ours- sign our names, write a check and are handed the keys to our first home. Then my grandparents told us their home story-

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This past July my grandparents, Nonna and Pops, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. When they first married, they didn't have much. Nonna's dad had a small house "in town" that he basically gave them. She said it needed a lot of work but they moved in and cleaned it up. A few years later, they moved that small house out to "the country" close to her family. Over the years they have added on- a couple of bedrooms here, larger kitchen there, a carport which then turned into a sun room- which is now the house that they still live in today. It was where they raised their kids and all 13 grandkids loved to come for fort-building, swimming and sleepovers all piled up on pallets in the living room.

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That got me thinking- what if we turned our first home into our forever home! Now that David and I have moved away from the house for this year, we have really come to appreciate what all that house has to offer! We have fun sketching out our ideas on how we will renovate it- top to bottom, inside and out! We know it's not something we can do all at once, but that over time, we can make this the house of our dreams!

Stay tuned for our ideas! We hope to get started when we get back home next year!