Late Summer At Our House

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Checking In

August is in full swing already! Can you believe it!?!

I noticed it's been 2 whole months since I last posted...

We've been really busy this summer with:

1. My husband is opening his own dental practice! We're hoping to be open by the end of September. We are busy doing the remodeling of the space right now. We're hopefully going to start painting next week.

2. We have decided to homeschool this year. We'll be jumping right in with a 3rd grader and a Kindergartner.

3. When we have a spare moment we have been enjoying the new aquatic center our town has.

I snapped a few pics of my summer decor {to help me remember when it comes time to decorate next year} and thought I would share with you!

1. Our little nook. The red oars I found at the flea market. The jute bags were free. The red bag came fromm the Hobby Lobby clearance. My mom helped me make the red ticking pillows. The bench was free from a sweet friend!

2. I found the boat at a garage sale! The person having the sale built these for a hobby and was getting rid of some of them! The black chest was also from a garage sale. It loooked nothing like this when it came home with me...it was miss matched wood and really ugly. I painted it black and stenciled the numbers on it.

3.Our front door. The basket is from a garage sale-.25 cents! I bought the plant at the nursery and put it in a gallon bag. It worked great and has been very happy welcoming our visitors!

4. The extra little flags I had all went into an old glass jar.

5. This flag is from a garage sale. It was an old farm gate that I painted to look like a flag.

6. Red geranium plant on our island.

7. Both the scale and the "feedsack"is from garage sales.

8. A wood box I picked up at the thrift store. Everything in it is from garage sales...except the shells and sand...which came from a family vacation to the beach.

As you can tell I mostly decorate with garage sale finds...I'm constantly amazed at what I can find...and with a little cash, patience and some vision I can decorate my house on a low budget!

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Vintage Printables for Your Walls

I had to share my 2 favorite sites for vintage printables and graphics...

Print them at home... email them to a copy center. Frame them...decoupage them to something! Have fun!

VintagePrintable.com

Check out this ad I found over at The Graphics Fairy !

The bicycle first caught my eye...but then the name of the wheel makers stopped me in my tracks! Apparently there's wheel makers on my husbands side of the family! I am thinking of actually paying to get this printed off huge, and making a big vintage sign out of it!

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Dress The Walls

Wallpaper or fabric attached to a frame.

(look for cheap frames at the thrift store and paint them the same color)

Big style for little money!

Details here

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On The Hunt...

Why didn't I think of this before ?!!??!!

A vintage index card drawer for my recipes...love everything about this idea! My favorite look is vintage industrial...but that is a look that can be hard on the wallet...but adding little touches like this is very affordable! Now I just have to keep my eyes open for one...any hot tips?

And laminating my recipe cards that I would put in here....icing on the cake!

The other item(s) on my wish list is:

Vintage Mailboxes

We hung up a big bulletin board in the hall between our mudroom and kitchen...for the girls to display their creations. I think a row of vintage mailboxes...one for each kid...would be so sweet under the bulletin board.

Any tips on that request?

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Did You Even Know?

Look what I found! Chalkboard paint in a whole lot of different colors...24 to be exact! Check out Hudson Paint to view them all! I've seen black, green and blue before...but this blows my mind!

And don't forget about Martha....she came up with instructions on how to make your own custom colored chalkboard paint! Check it out here!

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Solution: Laundry Day

Check this out:

a cute furniture piece that does double duty as a dirty laundry organizer! Love it! You could put this in a hallway and no one would know the dirt it hides.

You could even change out the knobs on it to label pulls that you could label with words or colors for the littlest to sort their laundry for you!

Find it here...along with a single, double and triple. In white, black or wood. Whatever your needs are!

Here are some more hamper furniture pieces...whatever your style or color preference is.

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Warming The Hearth

The jack-o-lanterns were there in October.

November still doesn't have very cold days to have a fire going daily...so while I was unpacking a box I came across the solution.

These candleholders I made a few years ago:

It's simply straight sided glass vases, candleholders and even drinking glasses. I then used papers in different shades of creams, tans and whites....drew a pattern lightly in pencil on the papers....took the thread out of my sewing machine and "sewed" the pattern on the papers! The needle just poked little holes in the paper in a WAY more efficient manner than I could have ever done! Use some double stick tape to attach to glass containers!

They're even pretty in the daytime!
Opening that box brought a smile to my face....I had made these for centerpieces at a MOPS special dinner we had many years ago...in a town we no longer live in. ...but still have dear friends there...and great memories of times like this. You past fellow MOPS moms...remember these? Which special dinner was it???

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A Little Excited...

Update: DON"T BUY THESE STOOLS! THEY ARRIVED AT MY FRONT DOOR WITH A BIG STICKER SAYING -USING THESE WOULD EXPOSE US TO LEAD! I WILL BE RETURNING THESE! I WISH THE WEBSITE WOULD HAVE MENTIONED THAT BEFORE I ORDERED!

We are seriously lacking in the large furniture department now that we've moved into the house. I love old character pieces that are found at antique stores, flea markets and occasionally garage sales...plus it's the right price!

There are a few things that we need to buy new...like matresses, a couch and barstools. The barstools are on that list simply because I need 5.

I've given up on my dreams of some cool vintage industrial drafting stools...as pretty as they are....$2000 for a set of 5 wasn't.

I have ALWAYS liked these stools from Pottery Barn:

But still, $249 each x 5 = not happening

I found unfinished ones for less...like around $90 each.

But today...I was innocently looking on jcp.com in their Outlet section...and came across these lovelies:

Wednesday Deal Only: $39 each!!!!! Already finished...Antique Black!!! I could buy 5 for less than 1 at Pottery Barn! Man, I love knock-offs!

I grabbed the phone and called my husband shouting "EMERGENCY"...I'm sure that didn't thrill him...but he did say I could order them! YEAH!

I can't wait for these babies to arrive!

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Have A Lovely Weekend!

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Stirring...

Sorry peeps...it's been too long.

I was the lucky recipient last week of a nasty cold, which is really a downer on productivity.

But I'm feeling better, and ready to get back at it.

Needing, um I mean wanting, a wreath for my lovely front door...my decision to "stir" as much as I can of what I already have...resulted in this:

All I used was some of my dried leaves from another dried arrangement I no longer wanted. Some sticks and dried naturals I already owned. An old wood frame. My trusty staple gun. In under one hour I was done. YEAH!

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A Lovely Shade of Blah...

One week and counting!!!!

If all goes well we will close on our house next Friday!

I have been cleaning and washing windows...

but yesterday I decided to repaint Sophia's room.

It was a color called Summer Fields from Lowes, and I really liked it.

But then I found this and really really liked it (the fawn and owl did it!)

And I didn't like the idea of those decals on a green wall.

Then it took me a few weeks to think it over in my head....how things would be arranged, other colors in the room, etc.

So yesterday I took the leap and painted it an original color (I didn't want to buy new paint so I mixed what I had) I call it:

Antique Alabaster

(antique white and alabaster mixed together)

Which is creamy white...which will be accented by creamy white carpet and the creamy white trim....that's right...

a lovely shade of blah for now!

Just trust me...I can see the finished product in my head...and it's not blah!

It will stay in blahland for awhile...until we:

paint her bed and bookshelves the Summer Fields color (thankfully I have over a gallon left!)

Her little kids harvest table will stay stained

the chairs will be painted pink

still unsure about the curtains.

The bedding will be made from this or similar colrs/fabric.

and I can see something like the edges of her sheets embroidered with this pattern.

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I HEART ETSY

This might just be the reason I repaint Sophia's room!

Aren't they BEAUTIFUL! They are fabric stickers! You can find them here.

Check out all the items for sale...they also have a boy version too!

lovemaestore

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Stick a Fork In It...

It's Done!

(not the house just this little closet/nook!)

This is the closet in our 4th bedroom. Right now the 4th bedroom will be our guest bedroom, so I decided to turn the closet into a crib nook for visiting babes. We bought the closet doors, but are leaving them off for now.

I bought the "Dream" vinyl decal on etsy from Elephannie. She didn't have exactly the size and style I wanted, but she easily did a custom order.

After I painted the closet white, my husband helped me find the center and hang the decal at the height I wanted.


The stripes took a great deal of time. 4 pieces of tape for each set of stripes, and all the measuring!

The thicker center stripe is 2 inches thick. The painters tape is 1 inch. The small stripes are 1 inch. The space between each set of stripes is 12 inches.

I then painted the blue on...but I think I should have painted another coat of white. Once I took the tape off I saw how much the blue "bled" into the orange peel texture of our walls, but I think if I would have done the white again, and then the blue, it would have filled up the texture and the blue stripes would have been much crisper when I removed the tape. Because I didn't do that, I had to go back and fix all that blue paint "bleeding" with some white paint. That took some time!
But, the painting is now finished, and it will be fun to put this little space together. I have a garage sale crib that will be painted black and a sweet little crib set that I can't wait to show you!

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I Think I've Finally Figured It Out!

I am really excited about taking my time and searching for furniture and decorations for our new home...once we move in. The one thing I had decided on was that everyone would have their bed all set up and ready for their first night in our new house...plus I needed to know what color to paint the rooms! I just figured Sophia would be in a crib at our new house so I picked out some bedding for her (yes she's survived 2 years without a matching crib set, and I think she'll still grow up to be a semi-normal adult!) Here's the bedding I ordered. It came and I loved it! But then I started thinking that wasn't the wisest move...buying crib bedding for a 2 year old who could probably do a big girl bed by the time we move. So I set out to find new bedding for a big girl bed! I was fine with re-painting, but wanted to do it before spankin' new carpet was in there! I did a lot of searching and came up with nothing that was "just right". I decided I could always make her bedding...I've done it for the other girls in the past. So then I needed to find fabric...which I've been searching for awhile now...but I think I've found it...and I don't even have to repaint!

Here it is:

"Pop Garden Sugar Mallow" by Heather Baily

It's perfect and will look so sweet in a quilt!

I won't even have to search around for matching fabric to do this:

I can still use this...I'll just vote a few butterflies out of the shadowbox and replace with some blue ones!

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What's Better Than Cheap?

FREE...of course!
I love decorating with old books and am always on the lookout for them...look at what I found at the public library the other day...free books!

I always am on the lookout for an interesting title and coloring. Perhaps something I can change out seasonally. But, what if they have a title I don't want to display?

I just turn them around...the simplicity of the cream pages and the variation of cover colors are beautiful. Sometimes you have to peak under a dust jacket to see the possibility, but once it's home just take that dust jacket off.

Stack them on a shelf horizontally or vertically or put them under something to elevate it.

Check out your local library for a free section...if you can't find one, ask the librarian what happens to the old books they no longer want...you may find some treasures!

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Decisions...

We are in the final months of building a house. My husband has done a great deal of the work. Pretty much everything after drywall has been done by my husband and his brother. They are doing a GREAT job. My husband built houses to support us through 7 years of college...so he does know what he is doing. Trim around windows and doors is getting finished up and then we will paint! The trim will be painted, and picking out just the right shade of white has been harder then I thought! I went to the paint store and picked up all their "whites" on one card so I could compare them all at once. I think I nailed it down...not stark white, but not too cream either. I'll take it over to the house before making the final decision. I am also figuring out wall colors...or should I say shades. I knew what colors I wanted everywhere, but finding the right shade has been the trick! The other thing that has been hard is the fact we have a very open 1st floor. So it all needs to flow...the fireplace stone, wall color, floor color and backsplash has all been taken into consideration. I also have some swatches from some furniture I have been looking at...plus a blanket that is my "color combo inspiration". The first floor conains a Great Room, Dining Room, Kitchen, Mudroom, Powder Room and Den. The Great Room, Dining, Kitchen and Mudroom will probably be painted the same color-Camelback from Sherwin Williams. The Powder Room will probably get the shade darker on the color card. The den will be red! I am going with warm tans, creams, chocolate (in the leather and wood) and red (mostly in my accents) throughout the main floor (oh...and some black accents). The picture above also has the backsplash that I am thinking about for the kitchen. Kitchen cabinets will be painted the white trim color. Countertops will be a sand/tan concrete (we're doing those overselves). Knobs and plumbing and lights are Oil Rubbed Bronze:

The top picture is the island lights and the bottom is the great room fan/light. I lucked out and got these on sale plus had a coupon code for 10% off...which was a blessing because they were the most expensive lights in my house, and I couldn't find any similar/that cost less. I look forward to sharing more pictures with you as the house gets closer to completion!

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