Vesta Home Show

I love going to the Vesta Home Show. This is where developers build a number of houses right next to each other and decorators come in and do their thing and then you pay to walk through these beautiful houses that are impeccably decorated. I love it!

Last weekend Scott and I decided nothing says FUN quite like walking through overly crowded houses with non-functioning A/Cs in 100°F + temperatures with two very uninterested kids.  And just to add the cherry on top, we invited my parents to go along. Yes, my disabled father joined in the chaos fun (more about that later).

In all honestly, I can sum up my opinion of this year's Vesta Home Show in one word:

UNDERWHELMING! 

There's not much I can do about the architecture of our house without spending a bundle. But the rest is, as they say, up for grabs. And this is exactly why I love walking through the Vesta houses. Year after year I leave the show with big ambitions and a memory card filled with photos of decorating ideas to try at home or to save for when we build our "dream house". I make note of paint colors, finishes, window treatments, accessories, landscaping, etc.

Not this year! I left the houses feeling a bit down. It's as if the decorators were uninspired or didn't have a big enough budget to work with. Even the media rooms, which are usually so incredibly AMAZING, left something to be desired in my opinion.

It didn't help that they had almost the entire downstairs of one the houses roped off. Seriously? We paid to walk through this house, but we can't WALK through the downstairs? Nice!

And if that wasn't bad enough, when my disabled father couldn't take the heat/crowds/stairs/walking any longer and sat down to catch his breath, he was immediately told to get up off the sofa because there was no sitting on the furniture. Yeah, I think I'll keep my opinions to myself on that one!

Anyway, I leave you with some photos of the few things I did like:

This house's exterior had me swooning! 

I ♥ everything about it: the painted brick, the columns, the black iron railings.  

I really like these HUGE planters:

There was a lot of this going on inside the houses:

So pretty and such an easy DIY project!

I loved the bright colors in this playroom:

Simple and elegant:

I would LOVE to have something like this by our back door:

So there you have it.
Seriously, are you as underwhelmed as I am?

If you're local and have been to this year's Vesta, please let me know what you think. Did you like it? The houses? The decor? The location? How did it compare to previous years? Or, is it just me? Please do tell!