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At The Picket Fence with Vanessa Hunt

Where Ideas for your Home Meet Inspiration for your Heart

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November 9, 2013

Cottage In The Oaks ~At The Picket Fence Parade of Homes

 

Happy Saturday! We are so excited and honored to have our friend Daune from Cottage In The Oaks here with us today for another At The Picket Fence Parade of Homes, sharing her beautiful…well….cottage in the oaks! 

at the picket fence parade of homes
Welcome to Cottage in the Oaks! Handsome and I discovered Oak Cottage when we were engaged, and we fell for it immediately.  We knew it needed a lot of TLC, but that didn’t deter us at all.

We live in an Acadian cottage……{a French cottage} in Eastern NC. We love all of the character that goes into the design and architecture of these cottages.

The brick and the heart pine floors in our home were all reclaimed from antebellum plantation homes here in the South. If they could talk….I’m sure they have some great stories to tell!  We love items that tell a story, and are especially drawn to European vintage and anything that has history.

We love having visitors……so, come on inside!

//HOME TOUR//

Our front porch is our favorite ‘room’ in the cottage! {We call it our Therapy Room.} It’s large enough to have a dining room table on it….and we eat there whenever possible.

//FRONT PORCH//

Cottage In The Oaks Front Porch

Our home is often full of teens and friends…….so, the living room is the spot for movie nights and great fellowship………..

//LIVING ROOM//

Cottage In The Oaks Living Room

In the summer and early autumn we don’t like having just a big, black hole when the fireplace isn’t being used…..so we fill it with stacks of bundled vintage books. When the cold weather arrives we take them out and enjoy toasty fires.

Cottage In The Oaks Autumn Mantel

Cottage In The Oaks Living Room

Cottage In the Oaks Vignette

Just as most European kitchens, our kitchen is tiny! So, we have had to be very creative with using every bit of space. It’s a hard-working room……

//KITCHEN//

Cottage In The Oaks Kitchen

Cottage In The Oaks Kitchen Vignette

Cottage In The Oaks Farmhous Sink

We have several vignettes that serve different purposes….and are loving the Autumn Beverage Station right now! All the fixings for our favorite warm beverages in one place.

Cottage In The Oaks Beverage Station

Handsome built a wonderful wall-to-wall sideboard with tons of storage in our dining room…….it has not only added great character in the room, but provides much needed storage for serve ware, etc.

//DINING ROOM//

Cottage In The Oaks Dining Room

Cottage In the Oaks Dining Room

Cottage In The Oaks Dining Room

Cottage In the Oaks Number Chair Covers

Cottage In The Oaks White Centerpiece

The kitchen may be tiny, but the master bath is wonderfully large…..we enjoy that! The sink is from the late 1800’s, and was a part of the cottage when we purchased it. Score!

//MASTER BATH//

Cottage In The Oaks Master Bath

Can you have too many vintage, French apothecary jars? I think not!

Cottage In The Oaks apothecary jars in cottage bathroom

We wanted a home office that was efficient and hard-working, but we didn’t want to see wires, cords, etc. all over the place. {It is also a ‘through space’ in our home…you have to walk through it to get to the bathroom, etc.} Handsome built an L-shaped desk that we could hide all of the wires and cords……and we used vintage items to store office supplies. So, it also ends up being a nice sitting room…not just an office.

//HOME OFFICE~SITTING ROOM//

Cottage In The Oaks office

All of these fun, vintage cigar boxes and cubbies hide things like paper clips, extra cords and cables, etc.

Cottage In the Oaks office

We love our garden…and have worked to create an English cottage garden from the time we have moved in 18  years ago.

//ENGLISH COTTAGE GARDEN//

Cottage In The Oaks Garden

It’s a joy having celebrations in the garden……it’s a special place to be and we’ve created so many wonderful memories there.

Cottage In The Oaks Party in the Garden 18

Wow! We could sit in that garden all day long! Thank you Daune for sharing your beautiful home with us today.  Be sure to visit Daune at Cottage In The Oaks and follow along with her on Facebook! You can also visit her wonderful Year of Porches and Year of Mantels, so many inspiring ideas! 

 

You can see more of our Picket Fence Home Tours! Stay tuned next week for another fabulous blogger home tour!

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9 Comments Filed Under: Home Tour, Parade of Homes Tagged With: decor, decorating, home tours, parade of homes

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Comments

  1. Michele/Finch Rest says

    November 9, 2013 at 6:09 AM

    Oh what a perfect cottage/blogger to feature – what a nice way to start my day! Thank you – it was such a delightful read – and now I am heading over to oogle and ahhhhhhgle more there now.

    Have a truly wonderful weekend!

    Reply
  2. Claire @ A Little Claireification says

    November 9, 2013 at 7:41 AM

    What a gorgeous cottage and wonderful tour. Just packed with personality and so many things to see in every picture – I love it! Thanks for sharing Daune and her lovely home with us!! xo

    Reply
  3. Mimi says

    November 9, 2013 at 10:32 AM

    I absolutely love this home. I feel like I can move in as is. Love the comfortable, modern, rustic, elegance about it all. Quite lovely!

    Reply
  4. Martina says

    November 9, 2013 at 12:09 PM

    BEAUTIFUL home inside and out!!

    Reply
  5. Yvonne @ StoneGable says

    November 9, 2013 at 5:48 PM

    Amazing! I could look at this home for hours and still need to come back. So much inspiration! Thanks for a delghtful parade of homes!

    Reply
  6. Carol Reddin says

    November 10, 2013 at 4:58 AM

    What a great home! Would love to experience sitting in the garden – taking in the sights and smells!

    Reply
  7. Daune | Cottage in the Oaks says

    November 10, 2013 at 7:53 AM

    You all are the sweetest! Wish you all could come on over and have some tea on the porch with me! 😉 Thank you Vanessa and Heather for featuring our cottage….wished we lived closer. Hope you’ve had a wonderful weekend!

    Reply
  8. Cindy says

    November 10, 2013 at 12:41 PM

    Beautiful home full of vintage touches…charming!!!
    Blessings,
    Cindy

    Reply
  9. Ranell says

    January 30, 2014 at 10:57 AM

    Thanks for sharing your beautiful home. I love your back yard space!

    Reply

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The month of June is coming to a close and it has The month of June is coming to a close and it has been JAM packed! The highlight by far though was my son's graduation from high school. When I started blogging, he was only 6 years old and some of you have been apart of my community here for that entire time. Now, he's 19 and there is a reason parents are told not to blink because the years truly do go faster than I ever could have imagined. He has become such an incredible young man we are so excited to see how God is going to unfold the next chapter of his life. We celebrated with parties galore (SO many open houses to attend!) and made memories we'll forever cherish. My mama heart was filled to bursting with the joy of it all! Now we're taking some time to just enjoy these warm, summer days making even more memories because, when you’re at this stage of parenting, you know all too well how much you need to grasp every opportunity to spend time together.

I hope your summer is off to a great start too dear friends! 🪴
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts o “And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Happy first day of summer dear friends!! I can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted something new here but life has been crazy. I’ll have some new photos of house projects and life events to share with you soon but, got now, I’m just going to enjoy this gorgeous first day of summer after our ridiculously long, wet spring. ☀️
“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. Th “It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.” (Maud Hart Lovelace) 

Welcome June!
“No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom “No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.”
General Douglas MacArthur

Grateful today and every day for those who were vigilant to the point of death in the preservation of our freedom. May we honor their sacrifice by being vigilant too. #memorialday
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I think that somewhere along the way the verse in the Bible that said, ‘heaven will smell like lilacs’ just got lost in translation. But it HAD to have been in there at some point, right?

When I bury my head in the blossoms (which I absolutely MUST do every single time I walk past them), I immediately feel a stirring in my soul.

It seems like I wait forever for my lilac tree to bloom. Every year I anxiously watch as the buds begin to form on the branches and then when the blossoms finally burst forth I begin that agonizing process of deciding the absolute perfect moment to snip them and bring them inside.

And then, after all of that waiting and watching it’s just over…done. Because, unlike heaven, lilacs don’t last for an eternity. So, making my own lilac room spray seemed like the perfect way to enjoy their fragrance long after the blossoms have faded.

Here’s how to make it! Ingredients: Water, Vodka, Lilac fragrance oil. Directions: Fill spray bottle with 50/50 ratio of water to vodka. Add 12 drops of lilac oil. Give it a shake, spray and if the scent isn’t strong enough, simply add a few more drops of lilac oil.

Once you’ve made this lilac scented room spray you will be very tempted to spray it in every room in your house. And someone may want to use it in the bathroom to cover up other less…ummmm….pleasing aromas.

But, do not, I repeat do NOT, let them.

You’ve captured the fragrance of heaven in a bottle and you wouldn’t want to go and tarnish it now would you? 😉
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I’m a MUCH better version of myself when the sun is shining! 🤪 So I’ll just be over here today plotting and planning how my husband and I can be snowbirds someday when the kids are out of the house.

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Two of our bathrooms are also in need of major makeovers. And we’ve saved up enough money over the years to tackle those projects. But, for the most part, we made the decision to use the bulk of that money in another way. While we knew that it was financially wise to invest in our house, we also knew that the greatest investment we could make was in our children. 

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We have many years left to remodel our home but only so much time left to make memories with our children.

And, while I’m always happy to look around my home and see rooms that are updated and more reflecting of our style, it doesn’t compare to the joy I feel when I look around my home and see the people I love the most who have been shaped by the many adventures we’ve experienced together.
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What’s the weather like where you are?
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