anniversary antiquing

Yesterday, Nathan and I finally made our third annual wedding celebration trip to our favorite little antique store on the square in Fayetteville, Tennessee - His and Hers Antiques. We stopped there on our honeymoon in 2007, visited for our anniversary last year, and hit it up yet again for a new sign and some other goodies to celebrate. The owners, Sandie and Steve, have been friends of ours since our first visit after our wedding, and they are always so good to us when we get ready to make our big purchases. We love their shop because they and their vendors carry all of our favorite things - great vintage soda signs, wooden boxes, vintage household accoutrements, etcetera; we always find plenty we have to have, no matter when we visit.

This time around, we had plans to spend a little money and get a new big soda sign - hopefully something that would fill the wall space above our television:



...and we definitely did the trick. Not only did we purchase a great late 1950's Coca-Cola fishtail sign we've had our eye on for quite awhile, we picked up some other goodies as well that we both love.



Obviously, the sign was our biggest and best purchase; but we also snagged an old SunDrop soda crate, a working vintage Zero fan, a working vintage dial telephone (although we don't have a landline) and a couple sweet hankies. I'd like to start collecting the vintage hankies when I see them in the colors that I've really started to enjoy decorating with - turquoise, red and white; I can use them around the house for now, and maybe in a bigger project down the line. Who knows, but they're so pretty and inexpensive, it's worth it to me for the fun of it, if nothing else.



When we got home and started contemplating hanging the big CocaCola sign, we realized it would look best on the wall over our couch; so we moved the sleigh Coke sign we had on that wall to over the television, and my dad helped us orchestrate hanging the new big sign over the couch.





(You can also see where my "new" phone found its home on the side table next to the couch.) I'm so excited about finally having something hung over the television, and especially for our biggest vintage soda sign yet. It's fabulous, I think.

Next up: making over the bedroom. I had bought temporary bedding when we moved into our new house, because our old comforter was so worn out I couldn't stand it; and I just recently hung some things on the walls. But I've gotten tired of the blah decorating in there very quickly, and now I have a whole new vision in mind. I'd really like to tie our bedroom decor in with the rest of the house in a way that we can pull some our vintage tastes into that room, so I'm switching the color scheme from the light yellow walls and off-white bedding to a crisp turquoise, white and red -- surprise, surprise! My favorite combination.



I already have the bedding, since I saw the comfortor and sheet sets at TJMaxx and was worried someone else would snatch them up before I did. I also already had the red and white decorator fabric, which I got at RichTex Fabrics in Mobile when visiting my sister, way on sale for an incredible deal - about $16.00 for 3.5 yards. I also picked out my paint color; it's called "Frosted Juniper" and it's a cool white that has the slightest hint of blue in it. It's gorgeous! For now, paint color and new curtains are all I can handle; but in the future, I'd love to paint our bedroom furniture. The whole set was gifted to us, and even though it's solid and nice, it's not the highest quality ever; so I won't feel like I'm ruining an heirloom by switching up the color. But then again, we'll see what it looks like after these first few changes.