As I was looking around my mom and dad’s house the other day, I realized something.  My passion and love for decorating…and pretty little things…stems from my parents.  They have always had beautiful homes.  My mom somehow manages to move into a home and have it perfectly decorated in a matter of days.  Her style cannot be defined.  It is a rare collection of unique antiques they have inherited, rugs they have collected, art they have bought…I feel privileged to have grown up in such beauty!

Here is a gorgeous hutch that my grandfather built:

Where grandchildren get to play.

We have another project for our home.  One that we have been saving for and are going to begin tackling in the fall.  One that intimidates both of us but we are excited about! Welcome to our kitchen:

A little 1970’s but still pretty.

And the other side.  See the beautiful built-in shelves Justin’s uncle built? We have this little island that was a Craigslist purchase.

It will definitely be replaced with something that has more storage and is a little bigger. So here is the plan… We obviously have an amazing canvas to start with.  Gorgeous shelves, panelling, a chimney (seen in first picture…)etc.  We have to leave the counter tops and back splash as is…which is great because we both love black countertops.  We also are going to keep our appliances the same.  The floor we have talked about replacing but that is not going to happen right away. We cannot afford to make big change so we are going to have to work with what we have.  It’ll be a challenge but we both enjoy this sort of thing! We would love an island this big. This kitchen is an idea of what we are envisioning.
But then I love this as well:

I will keep you posted.  Thankfully I have Justin to tackle this project and he is so talented with all things design…he’ll come up with the best solution!

**Warning**   This will be a long post with lots of pictures…bare with me.

This weekend we accomplished a lot around the house.  My mom was gracious enough to keep Cora for two nights and one full day.  During this time not only did we go out for two dinners. (one for our anniversary on August 11th) but we also tackled many projects that we had not finished.  Justin painted the window boxes and I painted Cora’s dresser…and a couple other things.

Here’s what our front yard looked like on Saturday.

Justin was smart enough to put himself in the shade with a chair…

Cora’s room used to be her room/guest room and looked like this:

Now it looks like this:

Unfortunately I did not have the best light for these pictures.  I am so happy with the new room other than the rug…it’ll need to be replaced but that won’t be any time soon!

I made a little reading corner for Cora.  Obviously she cannot use it yet…but some day.

A couple years ago I bought these little tin stars.  I have always loved them but didn’t know what to use them for…I decided to string them on the ribbon and love the way it looks.

I tore these little pictures from an old book that a child had marked with crayon…

Nothing is hung near Cora’s bed as she would try to pull it down.

I painted the dresser white and am going to keep the old hardware until I can afford to replace it.

Details.

I’m so glad I bought the tin table…

Of course I cannot forget the beautiful built-ins and all the pretty things they hold.

And one final view. My favorite $8 yard sale curtains.

It has been so much fun decorating Cora’s room…so much color and imagination can be poured into a child’s room.  I just hope she’ll learn to love it as well!

Over the past few weeks I have been fixing up our living room.  Here is a little peek at one of the tables.

Before it was red and looked like this.

Now it’s in another part of the room and looks like this.

Almost finished with the entire room…just taking it a day at a time as I have so little time to get it done.

As you can tell by the title, this post may be a little long.  There have been quite a few things I have wanted to share but unfortunately we left our camera charger in Virginia…yesterday our new charger finally arrived.  I did not realize how lost I would feel without a working camera!  The pictures of the tin table were taken with an ancient digital camera I still have…those are the only pictures I took all week as I discovered that technology has come very far!

I have blogged before about my drop cloth curtains. I got the idea from http://theletteredcottage.net. Because the curtains were so long I had plenty of extra fabric.  Some I used to make a table runner…but I still had a lot of fabric left over.  I decided to use some of it to hang this wreathe over our laundry room door.

Wishful thinking that I might hide all the junk that is “hidden” within.

I also mentioned we changed our entire house (not really but seems that way) around. The TV is in the side room so I had a whole empty wall to decorate.  I bought this buffet table from a local antique store.  It was slathered in the most disgusting brown paint you have ever seen with swirly, retro pulls.  Justin compared it to a pirate ship…I don’t think he had any hope for this piece.  I took it on the back porch and I sanded, painted…sanded some more…added coat after coat of paint.  It looks beautiful.

I finally printed pictures from Cora’s little photo shoot.  I hung them over the buffet and they just didn’t look right.  I started thinking and remembered my drop cloth material.  I took it out, cut some pieces and make hangers for the frames.  My sister gave me these beautiful hooks she picked up in Brooklyn.

Now when you walk into our front door…instead of a huge flat screen TV, this is what you see.

Huge improvement.

The chair needs to be worked on but that is a long time in coming.  I can’t bring myself to work on it right now!  Justin and I both don’t like the  yellow frame around the chalk board and the lamp should be smaller…but again, if that changes it won’t be any time soon. Oh…and little baby loves it too.  The pulls are not properly screwed in…so she is constantly pulling them off.

The whole living room has been rearranged and worked on but I’ll share that some other time because I need to talk about our Mac mini.   I am not some technology guru…far from it.  I’m one of those people who touches a computer and everything starts going wrong.  My husband however is quite informed in all things technological.  He is just smart with this sort of thing.  Saturday he was working on some computer related projects and hit a point of major frustration.  He never (I mean never) buys himself anything.  Suddenly he said ” I am buying a Mac mini…I can’t stand this!”  I told him he should…our dinosaur of a computer is always freezing up…always frustrating him.  He could fix it all but he does not have the time.  However, I did not think he would actually buy it because he is very frugal and never buys a thing without doing tons of research and careful budgeting.  Well, before I new it he was ordering it from Best Buy…he walked out the door and picked it up.  Can I just say I LOVE IT!  Yes, I love a computer…love, love, love…my brother Tim will only use Apple.  He is a self proclaimed Apple snob.  I can see why.  I am a computer idiot and this “thing” is so easy to understand…so fast…so well laid out.  It’s also teeny tiny and can be hidden away.  Justin laughs at me…but I can tell he’s just as in love with it.

I had mentioned in my post on Virginia that I bought a tin table for Cora’s room.  I have always known I wanted child sized furniture in her room but have not been able to find the right thing.  I have her little white rocking chair but had always hoped to find a table as well.

While driving by an antique  store in Cumberland,VA, I yelled “STOP!” to Justin.  There was a tiny table and chairs on the front porch of the store.  We stopped, I asked how much it cost.   The lady told me it was only $20.00.  I decided to wait til the end of the week…Justin convinced me I might find something I liked more.   Every time  we passed the store I would look out the window hoping my little table and chairs were still there.  The day before we left Bear Creek Lake Justin picked them up for me.

I wish I had a before picture.  They were pretty ugly…dirty, dingy and covered in 70’s press paper.  Here is what the little seat cushions looked like:

I removed the table top and chair cushions.  I hosed  down and cleaned the table.  After it was dry I spray painted  the table and chairs white.

I picked up some red polka dot fabric to cover over the ugly press paper.  All I had to do was cut it to size and staple it.  In no time the table was done.

She already loves it.

Her room is still in transition as we moved out the double bed.  I’m hoping to finish it soon…I really want it to be a fun and pretty space for her to play.

We have transformed our side room again.  This time out of pure necessity.  My parents-in-law let us use their daybed.  It fits almost perfectly in the room.  We set it up yesterday and it’s already been slept in. The room used to look like this:

Now it looks like this:

We have to spray paint the brass knobs.  But that will have to wait because I am tired of  changing things…

The bedding is from the guest bed that was in Cora’s room.  I like projects that cost nothing!

The living room is where we spend most of our time.  Since all our floors are hardwood, tile or laminate, Cora has few places to play comfortably.  There is a small patch of rug that she sits on in our living room.  I give her a giant basket of toys and she is happy.

The living room has been my most challenging room.  Even now, I still do not love it.  Nothing quite lines up and there are strange corners that just don’t make sense.  I am trying to learn not to obsess over such things.  I’ll try to show it from different angles. This is what you would see walking through our front door.

Going into our side room.

The view from our hallway.

To the kitchen.

There you have it!  It’ll change again…because it always does.  I’ll make sure to update when that day comes.

This weekend we are going to buy some window boxes.  We have give our house more curb appeal.  We considered shutters at one point but there is  one window that could only be fit with only one shutter.  Since we are still trying to sell our house we figured we may as well do something to improve its looks…and if we never sell?   We have some adorable window boxes.

I love these handmade ones.

But then I had these traditional white ones in my mind but our door is green so will probably have to paint them.  Our house is actually this same yellow.  If only we could have those shutters!

And I am all about this look for Christmas time!  I never knew window boxes could get me so excited.

I’ll make sure to post pictures of the finished product.

I’m a little obsessed…

with bringing the outside in.  The flowers keep on blooming and I keep on snipping, sticking in water and admiring.  I just realized last night that the roses have bloomed!  Sorry little rose bush…you are about to be left with only a few buds because this crazy woman is coming to snip you bald.