Shopping at Hanna's Antiques in Birmingham

One of my greatest pleasures as you might have guessed is antique shopping.  The actual trip is almost as exhilarating as the potential purchase of antiques.  For me just to see pretty things is sometimes enough.  I love the history that pieces tell.  Recently, along with my antique buddy we headed to Birmingham, to Hanna's Antiques for their January sale event.  I wouldn't dare make a trip with out sharing it with you all!

This tole tray coffee table could have easily fit right into the car and made the trip back to Auburn....but it didn't.

The above dealer visits England often and brings lots of smalls back with her.  She has a booth filled with lots of pretties!

From across the room the plate rack had my heart, but not my checkbook.  Leaving it behind was the only option I had but it goes down as the most fab piece in the store for me!

Hello, my name is Tamyra and I am a lampaholic.  The only New Year's Resolution I made this year was to not buy another single lamp.  I'd never pay that for a lamp but I don't doubt it's worth!

I do love a barley twist anything and this chair was gorgeous!

Out of the entire store this booth was my fav.  If you squint real hard you can see the toile pillows on the Chippendale sofa I left behind, the pair was only $25 which is a steal!  But the real story in this pic is the pair of chairs in the front view.  I'm telling you I could have loaded those up, brought them home and put the club chairs on the curb and never looked back!  It pained me to walk away those chairs!

 

 I did pick up a couple things from this booth, I'll share those another day! Don't let the price tags of the items I've shared make you thing that they only have super high end pieces, there are prices for everyone's budget!  If you ever find yourself in Birmingham, AL be sure and stop by, Hanna's won't disappoint!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

I'm sending the Happiest of Birthday wishes to my Daddy!   My parents don't make too much of an appearance on the blog(per their request) but I didn't want to let the day go without sending those wishes!  He is just the best Daddy a girl could ever have.  He has shown Sister and me the example of true love and what we deserve in a husband.  His love and devotion to our Mother is nothing short of incredible!

He loves those Auburn Tigers!

Here he is with the only Great Grandbaby, Ethan!

To my boys he is Papa, they called him this morning before they left the house and sang to him!  Ya'll precious doesn't describe!

For me this man can fix anything, diagnose any kinda of car problem over the phone with 99% accuracy, put up blinds in almost every house we've owned, bestowed his love of WW2 movies on me, as well as all animals large and small and I get my love of Mexican food...aka tacos from him!!!

Happy #82 Daddy!!!

A Glimpse to the Past

The first of  December I was invited to a small gathering at the home of a friend.  It was a delightful invitation and I knew upon receiving the invite that I "had" to go.  The home dates back to the 1840's and is a Vernacular Greek Revival style.  As soon as we drove up I knew I'd be snapping pics all over the place and that hopefully she would say yes when I asked if I could wrote a blog post about it. These pics were taken with my cell phone and it was at night so please don't over expect or judge the quality of the photos.

The is the front entry that faces the road she lives on.  The pine cone garland was spectacular!

The side entry was is her most used entry point.  The glass work around the door appeared to be original to the home.

This photo includes views of two separate buildings on the property.   This is what we saw as we parked and walked up to the home.  The darker building on the left is her potting shed.  I'll talk about the other building in a moment.

Inside the potting shed, ya'll who doesn't want this?!  I do believe you could hear our squeals of delight through the neighborhood!  Most of the terra cota pieces were typical of what you might find but there were many that I'd never seen their design or make before.  We didn't stay outside as long as we would have liked as it was freezing!

In this photo you can clearly see she her garden is styled as and English garden would be.  This is where I hope to go back and take more pics when it isn't 35 degrees or at night!  Mostly what I'd like to point out in this photo is the building directly center.

 The summer house as she refers to it, was my fav part of the whole estate.  Let me take you inside.

Her selection of pieces through this building is nothing short of exquisite.

 Everywhere I turned I saw something more fantastic than the last. Ya'll know I love a Staffordshire piece and the pair of lamps took my breath away!

Inside it was warm and cozy!  There were three fireplaces in the home and all had a roaring fire. Shortly after she moved into the home she installed central heat and air, gotta have those modern conveniences!

This wall vignette, nothing short of perfection!  Be sure and notice the stack of blue and white platters below.

It is such a simple yet fabulous way to display the many blue and white platters that any of us might have.  This might need to be recreated here at Positively Southern!

My best guess is this might have been a sleeping porch back in the day.

Since I mentioned the walls, let me mention that this home had wall paper in every room.  The owner removed all of it...all of it... to reveal these heart pine walls.

This view is of the dining room, where she put out an impressive spread of scrumptious food for us!

The main bath had this claw foot tub, the  embroidered stool fit perfectly into the space.

This cabinet hung over the tub was filled with lots of interesting things.

We(me and my antique buddy) asked if we could come in the spring and see the grounds and she said we could!  It is my hope to bring back many more photos to share!


Sharing at: Savvy Southern Style

A Fresh Design for the Dining Room

It is entirely possible that I finally have the dining room the way I want it.  After 10 years of living here one would hope at any rate.  The dining room has seen more changes in paint than any other room in this house.  I refer to it as an identity crisis.  The Paladian Blue was beyond gorgeous, only I felt a bit constrained when it came to decorating for any holiday but especially Christmas.  Speaking of Christmas, I painted the dining room just before I put up the Christmas decor.  All through the holidays I shared the dining room over and over, not one of ya'll commented on the new rug or the new paint color on the walls.  Surely not everyone missed it?!

The new paint is called Creamy by Sherwin Williams.  I wanted something light and very neutral....mission accomplished!

We won't even mention the fact that I need a fern on the antique plant stand in the corner, I killed the one from last year.

See that little oil painting just above the table now serving as a bar car?  It is a darling little painting, everyone oohhs and ahhs over it....ya'll it was seriously only $1.  Yep you read that right.....a buck!  It was at a junk store in a pile of paintings, I should have gotten more!

The above are gorgeous watercolors that are very old, yet again a junk store find.

The paint is such a pretty color but I've had to work hard to make it not look stark, finding the right pieces have been a challenge!

This past weekend, before the weather came swooping in I made a quick trip to one of my fav antique stores.  The bird prints were just waiting right there for me!  They work very well with the gold sconce.  The plates around the print are Butler's Pantry by Lenox.

The tiered server is one of my all time fav pieces I've styled here at Positively Southern.  When I was a little girl my Mother let me play house with her Blue Willow wedding dishes.  Mother never EVER liked them, they were a gift which is meant to say she didn't select them.  Ya'll I played in the dirt with those dishes!!!  Most were lost over time and the rest Sister and I divided them as she loves them as well.  All of the pieces on the server were collected over many years.

Should I ever find curtains to put in the dining room just know these are coming down and being relocated. Having custom window treatments are not in the budget (remember we have a kid in college)so for now I just suffer with these!  They came from Tuesday Morning and they are great curtains they just don't really work in the dining room now.  Can I take this moment to say how much I loathe curtains with a grommet?!  That is all I see anymore and it is frustrating!

Cody approves of the new rug!  Did you see it on the blog yesterday?  In case you missed it take a look here.

The lighting in the dining room makes it impossible to get a really good, true photo of how the paint color looks in here.  It is a warm shade of cream but in most of the shots it looks white.  The vibrant colors in the rug warm the space of visually.

I'm positively delighted that you dropped by to take a look at the updated look of the dining room!

A Persian Rug for the Dining Room

For ages now I've wanted to upgrade the dining room rug to something a bit more formal with a variety of colors.  Each time I went online or to Scott's Antiques to look for one I was completely overwhelmed with the choices, not to mention the prices!

A friend mentioned she was gonna sell one of hers.  The colors and the size were ideal for our dining room so I bought it from her!  Obviously, I think it is gorgeous!

Tomorrow I will be sharing the mini-makeover that the dining room has undergone!  Be sure and stop back by!