The Kitchen Photoshoot is in the Can!

Woohoo!  It’s done–except for waiting for the issue to come out.  The team from Better Homes & Gardens Real-Life Kitchens & Baths Magazine (say that five times, fast!) descended on Nashville last week and, after shooting some fabulous, high-end spaces, they came to my humble abode.  So what did I do?  Headed to Disney World, of course, with my family!

Real-Life Kitchens & Baths features kitchen redos done on a budget

Seriously.  I wasn’t here for what will probably be the one-and-only photo shoot of my entire lifetime.  Because as luck would have it, they decided to come to town during the ONLY week in the first half of 2012 when we had plans…plans we’d made last November, and paid for last December.  The hubby will be gone for work all summer, and next summer we’ll be moving again, which always means no vacation, so we didn’t have many options but just to go to Florida!

I called in reinforcements–two of my bestest friends, Carolyn and Andrea–and asked them if they could “be me” for the day.  Here they are:

Carolyn, Andrea, and me, at one of our military formals

We’re not normally dressed like aging prom queens…here’s a real-life snap:

Carolyn, me, and Andrea

Yes, we’re in a ladies’ rest room in the above picture.  Where do you hang out with your girlfriends?!

So, these two dear friends drove to my house early in the morning to meet Bonnie Broten, the editor who “discovered” my shoestring-redo of a kitchen here at 11 Magnolia Lane (read the redo posts HERE and HERE, or check out our truly magazine-worthy old kitchen HERE).  She was accompanied by the photographer and the photographer’s assistant.  I had left them a sparkling clean kitchen and cleared the counters of everything that made it look like people actually USED the kitchen!

Prior to the shoot, I sent Bonnie lots of pictures of “props,” also known as “stuff I have collecting dust in my cupboards.”

She and the editors had decided on pink as the accent color to make my beige and white kitchen “pop.”

I left all the props on the dining room table, and left the crew and my girls some snacks and a fridge stocked full of water and soda.  Then I snuck out of town!

While the pantry wasn’t included in the shoot, I still feel like a new woman after tackling that dreadful space and making it awesome!

I can’t show any of their photos, of course, because that would spoil the surprise, but the girls did shoot a few behind the scenes snaps for me.

Carolyn and Andrea report that much of the work of a photo shoot involves lighting the shot, checking it again and again on the computer and having it approved via internet before snapping the final pic.  They texted me to get the password for our wireless network, but other than that, I didn’t hear a peep.

I love how the area that’s being photographed is *perfect* and there’s a perfect mess everywhere else!  That’s exactly what I do when I’m taking pictures!

Those gorgeous peonies were on their last legs when we made it home from Florida, but they sure were pretty in the shoot!

The pink cushions were just for the shoot…this is what I usually have on my chairs:

There were a few minor hitches, of course.  The valance over the kitchen sink took about an hour to get draped and folded just the way they wanted, and the seagrass pendant shade over my kitchen table was hanging just a little crooked.  Andrea weighed one side with a metal clamp from my husband’s workbench and all was well…

Not everybody was happy with the fact that our kitchen was going to be in Better Homes & Gardens.  The cat was most definitely pissed (there’s really no other word for it).  He wanted to sleep under my bed and access was DENIED all day long!

Angry Kitty!

In the end, the girls and I decided that it was probably God’s plan that I be out of town for the shoot because they’re not sure I would have handled it well (as if!).  I promised them that when their kitchens are photographed for BH&G, I will help out while they go to Florida to relax!

They’re not sure exactly which issue we’ll be in, but chances are that it will be Spring of 2013.  That timeline is typical–you always hear about magazines shooting Christmas spreads in May and June–but of course it’s hard to wait.

I can’t thank Bonnie and her team enough (and of course Carolyn and Andrea, too!) for all their efforts.

Thanks for stopping by!

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