Shades of Gray

Bear with me while I change my blog a bit, I'm going to be experimenting.

Now, let's talk about paint.

This is what our bedroom looks like currently.

It's very yellowish. Luckily all the walls in the house are neutral, but they all have a yellowish tinge and I'm not a fan.

As you can see from my paint swatches all over the walls (which may or may not have been there for the last 3 weeks) I'm thinking a shade of gray for the walls.

With white furniture.

Not ugly Ikea white, but antique white.

I have these nightstands from Pottery Barn in white.

Source

(Oh how I love Pottery Barn if only it weren't so expensive!)

And I'm going to paint my dresser to look like this.

Source

Granted that dresser is apparently a blue gray, but it looks white and I'm more inspired by the light furniture with colored walls rather than the actual color of the dresser.

This all sprung from the bedspread. We bought a white bedspread, something I've never owned before, and my new love of white had begun. WHO KNEW?

I think I'll keep the dark mirror, maybe buy a dark platform bed, something like this:

Source

Just the bed mind you, not the headboard.

Or should I buy a bed like this, white metal?

Source

Anyone have any other great design ideas to go with my white and gray bedroom?

The Great Ocean Road Part 4

I am one box away from unpacked.

This is my 101st blog post, that means I missed making my 100th blog post a post about it being my 100th blog post, oops!

I still haven't come up with a new name for my blog.

I still have a bit of Australia to finish up before this blog is no longer relevant to Australia thus making a name change very necessary.

I'm one month into Oregon and still have 2 months left.

Aside from being able to spend time with the fam I was ready to leave Oregon 2 weeks ago.

Back to Oz.

Let's finish the Great Ocean Road, shall we?

Here we go.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

We woke up refreshed and ready to face our last day of driving.

First stop. Shipwreck Beach.

I'm sure you can guess what we saw there.

Shipwrecks!

That was obvious right?

So, Shipwreck Beach is so named not only because apparently hundreds of ships have wrecked along this little stretch of coastline but because two of those fateful ships had their anchors wash up onshore and are now a permanent reminder of this tumultuous stretch of sea.

This beach was accessible by these stairs only. It was roughly 900 steps in total. Not too bad going down, but going back up was ROUGH.

Pretty shell inside another pretty shell.

That is a ship's mast buried in the beach.

And that, my friends, is an anchor.

This was one of the coolest parts of the road trip. I've never seen wreckage from a shipwreck before, it was quite amazing.

The other highlights of our road trip were:

The arch.

Not to be confused with London Bridge. Yes, it's London Bridge because part of it fell down.

And The Big Lobster.

By the time we reached Adelaide it was HOT! Like 40 degrees C hot, that's over 100 degrees F!

Despite the heat (or maybe because of the heat) we finished off our Melbourne to Adelaide with a little wine tasting in the vineyards around Adelaide.

My only regret for this trip was that we didn't plan in 1 extra day to hang out in Adelaide a bit more. It was so swelteringly hot that we stayed in our hotel for the hottest part of the day and by the time we emerged most of the shops had closed =(

Nevertheless I crossed both Adelaide and Melbourne as well as the states of Victoria and South Australia off the Oz list. That means we managed to visit 5 out of the 6 Australian States in our 7 month stay. Not Bad!

Nothing Says Valentine's Day Like Magnolia

Believe it or not I did this by accident.

I made cupcakes for our neighbors because Dom insisted it was the "neighborly" thing to do and just because they're my favorite I made Magnolia Red Velvet Cupcakes.

Coincidentally the lovely little red and white beauties were also perfect for Valentine's Day.

Magnolia Red Velvet Cupcakes w/Cream Cheese Frosting

The only thing I change is that I only put in 4 cups of powdered sugar in the frosting because 5 cups is just a bit too sweet for me.

Sorry this is a crap photo, but these are obviously beautiful little red treats of deliciousness.

If you've never been to Magnolia in NYC (specifically the one in the village) I highly recommend it. Make sure to get a Red Velvet Cupcake and Banana Pudding, YUM!!!

I miss NYC =(