Loving These Preppy School Uniforms

 

Our teen daughter will start a new school in just a couple of weeks at a Catholic prep school, and she needed all new uniforms.  She and I had fun yesterday afternoon with a short impromptu photo shoot where she got to try on---and model for me---her new wardrobe from Land's End.  When I was a teenager in the eighties, these are the same types of clothes we wore every day, even in the public schools.  I love that preppy clothes just never go out of style. 

 

The navy blue blazer (from Land's End) is a must-have at her school this year, and it will get lots of use over the next few years.

 

With the exception of time spent at chapel and school assemblies, she can hang the blazer in her locker throughout the school day, which is good because many of the school buildings here in the Northeast still don't have air conditioning.  This white blouse and slate gray skirt with ballet flats are what she will wear most days of the week.  I can't remember where we bought the shoes, but the skirt is from Land's End.  And she's borrowing my blouse for this photo because we're still waiting for some of her Land's End oxfords to arrive in the mail.  Some serious ironing needs to be done, as you can see! 

 

The blazer can also be paired with a light blue oxford cloth shirt and khaki pants (all from Land's End) with a pair of Sperry Topsiders to mix things up a little throughout the week.

 

Here's the same outfit sans the blue blazer.  That apple came from the tree over her head, by the way, but they are far from ripe.  And no, she shouldn't be biting into it with her braces!

 

And for the days she feels like packing her lunch from home, she has this Vera Bradley blue plaid lunchbag we picked up in Bedford.  I hadn't really thought about it matching her school uniforms when I bought it; I just liked the plaid.

As a mother, it is a relief for me to have our school-aged children go to schools where uniforms are mandatory. It prevents many headaches and arguments about what is and isn't appropriate to wear each morning before school.  It also greatly reduces the comparing and "sizing each other up" that seems to inevitably occur in middle and high school.  The fact that the dress code just happens to appeal to my preppy tastes is an added bonus.

Even though I'd like another month or two of summer, I'm beginning to get back in the school spirit.  If only that didn't mean waking up at 5:30 each morning.

Adding a Preppy Touch to This Rustic Mountain Cabin

When we bought this cabin near our farmhouse a year ago, we knew there would be plenty of work to do to make it aesthetically pleasing for guests.  It served as a hunting cabin for a couple of older gentlemen for decades.  It was dirty, incredibly cluttered, and smelled like it had been closed up for a very long time.  Additionally, there were layers of various carpets throughout, bare concrete walls in spots with insulation and wires showing, a paneled ceiling with holes that had been patched with duck tape, and different sized windows in every room.  Oh, and did I mention the cracked pipes that had frozen over the winter?  Probably the ugliest thing in the cabin was the shower.  Mostly concrete and brick, it looked like it had a rusted tin base.  I thought it would be the perfect shower for A Nightmare on Elm Street.  Before any company could stay there, the shower would have to go.  Once my husband started hacking away at it, we learned that the floor of it was not tin after all but concrete painted a rust color.  Who would have thought?  Unfortunately, it cracked into pieces when we started working on it, so we had to purchase a new shower that took some work to install.

We were blessed to have the help of our eldest son who recently moved nearby.  It took a couple of weekends, but I am so happy to report that a new shower is in place, and it was tested by family from out of town this past weekend.  Everything works, and it doesn't leak.  I had my eye on a woodsy shower curtain in Kohl's since last fall, and I couldn't wait to run out and finally get it.  It works perfectly in our mountain cabin.

Kohl's has quite a collection of various decorative items for a cabin or lodge.  Since our nineteenth century farmhouse needs constant maintenance in addition to our cabin, we can only tackle about one project per year for each building.  This is frustrating for me since patience is not one of my strong virtues, but I do what I can by adding a little decorative touch of rustic preppy wherever I go.  Since Kohl's is having some great sales right now, I perused the cabin/lodge sections last evening and snapped pictures with my phone so I could think about the selections later.

For the bathroom, they have towels, rugs, shower hooks with bears on them, owl cup and toothbrush holders, bear soap dispensers, and that little boat soap holder.  I didn't buy any of those, but they are too cute.

There were so many moose, bear, and deer towels and shower curtains.  I haven't decided yet if I'll purchase any of these or not.  The cabin came fully equipped with linens, but none of them were of a mountain forest theme.

I love this moose waste basket for the bathroom, but it needs to come down in price some more before I can justify buying it.  The bathroom floor is currently concrete, and I think we should probably take care of that first before I go crazy on bathroom accessorizing.

One more towel.  If it said "cabin" instead of "lodge," I might have bought it.  I definitely can't give our cabin the name of lodge though.  It's far from that.

For the bedrooms, Kohl's has these woodsy comforter sets that I really love.

They have cabin/lodge sheets, coverlets, and pillow cases.

And they have lots and lots of throw pillows.

Then there are all these curtains.  It's so tempting to get some of these, but since every window in our cabin is a different size, and I'm not sure what we're going to do with the walls, it would probably be unwise to purchase any window treatments at this point.  Right now there are blinds and curtains up in every room (although none of them match) so I can't deem new curtains a necessity.  I'll have to wait on those.

Finally, there are so many kitchen items for the cabin: trivets, charcuterie boards, coasters, bottle openers, and more.  Our cabin came fully equipped with more kitchen gadgets than I have in my own house, but these would be nice to put on a wish list.

I love these dish towels.  I'm still contemplating picking up one of these because you can just never have enough dish towels, right?  Not sure which one I like best.  I think I'm leaning toward the tan with pinecones.

You know how much I love plaid, so when you combine plaid and cabin, I cannot resist getting something.

I ended up getting these bowls a few weeks ago, but they never made it up to the cabin because the children have been using them for their cereal in the morning.  It turns out they hold twice as much cereal as the bowls they had been using, which means that a typical box of cereal doesn't even make it through all five of my children in the morning.  Which also means the last person up is grouchy because the best cereal is gone as soon as it's been opened.

There is an entire aisle in Kohl's devoted to cabin placemats, napkins, and tablecloths.

Since the cabin didn't come with enough placemats, I did justify buying five of these last night.  I really liked the plaid moose variety, but there were only two of those left.

Several weeks ago there were quite a few signs and wall hangings for cabins in the woods.  Last night I could only find a handful.  I really liked this one, and I think I might go back and get it.  Do you think it would do well on the outside next to the door?  Or maybe it needs to be in away from the wind, snow, and rain.

I've also found a number of crafty cabin creations on Pinterest that I'd like to try.

Any ideas from you readers?  I am open to suggestions on incorporating some rustic preppy into this mountain cabin.

And just in case you're wondering if I'm receiving any kind of kickback from Kohl's for this post, they have no clue they're mentioned in Preppy Mountain Farmhouse.  I just happen to really love their cabin/lodge selections.  Although, it would be great to get a discount on the above items. ;)