SO exciting!

I was featured today on Today's Creative Blog! I am completely ecstatic to see my house on Kim's site. She has so many inspiring posts on there, lots of great ideas you'll totally want to steal and copy! I'm flattered to be up there too.

I'm trying to get some good pics of the living room but this weather is not cooperating! It has been so rainy here, very dreary. Terrible picture weather. I promise pics are coming soon. If I can't get a sunny day in the near future, I'll just use what I have. There is a fun project I have to share with you using that pile of clothespins above. See you soon!

Hey Guys...

I should have mentioned in my last post that the tree came down for a number of reasons, one of them being safety. We thought long and hard and went back and forth on taking this tree out for the two years we've been here. In the end, although I will miss her beauty, I will not miss the constant worry of the tree. We plan on planting two in her place, closer to the side of the yard. I'm not sure what type of trees we'll plant, something that doesn't get as large. Our yard is extremely tiny and now we have a beautiful view of our fantastic tree in the back. I was going to type the name of the tree but I'm worried about google searches.....I'm sure you can figure out what type of tree it is.

Anyway, I'm not a tree hater. When it is family vs. tree....family wins. Just wanted to clarify. Have a wonderful long weekend everyone!

Goodbye Sweet Tree...

Any minute a truck will be coming down our street, prepared to remove this giant maple from our yard. I wanted to give her a proper goodbye. Goodbye tree.....

We have enjoyed your shade and the way you sway in the breeze. We've jumped in your leaves and leaned against you.

Unfortunately it is time for you to go. Your wood will heat homes and make campfires to roast marshmallows with.

I'd say we would miss you....but I'd be lying.

Don't Blink

I took some pictures to remind myself that there will be a time when.....

There won't be Webkinz snoozing on my step stool.....

Or cartoons on the TV.....

There will be no pet shops tucked into their construction paper beds...

Or stuffed animals on every surface, in every room....

There will be no small shoes piled by the door, or little footsteps on the stairs....

Some day I won't have to move tiny mans out of the way to prepare dinner....

And my refrigerator won't be every designers worst nightmare....

Because there will be no one to make special pictures just for me.....

I won't have to constantly say things like, NO throwing the ball in the house and.....

make your beds!.....

I won't have anyone all excited to bring me bugs.....

Or to pick my flowers right off their stems.


I'm just quietly thankful...

today is not that day.

IT'S DONE!!

I can't believe I'm typing those words but ALL the painting is done! It felt so good to cross those items off my "to do" list in my sidebar. The painting was a ton of work with all the trim to do but it was definitely worth it. The house is completely transformed. After we painted the living room, stairway and hallway we kept on going....into the dining room. Once the other rooms were gray, the dining room yellow was screaming. I felt like I was in a McDonalds playland. So now it is the same color as everything else and it all flows.



I'll show it to you soon. My fellow decorating obsessed BFF is coming for a visit on Saturday and I want her to see it in person first. She is that friend, the one who listens to me gab on for hours on end about paint colors and window treatments. Someday I'll show you her home, it's gorgeous!

While I'm being a tease about the living room, I thought I would talk about painting furniture. I transformed a number of pieces for our living room project. Who has the money to go buy all new pieces for a new look? I sure don't. So paint is the thing!

This is my secretary before. It was red and served us well for a number of years but with the new wall paint, it wasn't going to fit in.

First I sanded it down really well......

You can see I was completely lazy and didn't even empty the drawers out first. I do need to clean them out though, yikes. Bits and pieces of everything.

After sanding I wiped it all down and primed and painted. Home centers sell tacky clothes that will pick up all the sanding dust. A damp cloth works just as well IMO.

Next I took the sandpaper to it again. I wanted the red to show through.....

Looking good! But still a little too white for me. I wanted it to look more worn.

Don't forget to sand extra around places that would have gotten a lot of use, like this keyhole...

The cheapest way to antique furniture is to use paint you already have. I've heard glaze works well but it's $13 a quart and I'm cheap..errr...frugal.

Pick out the paint color you want to antique with. For this piece I chose the gray wall paint. Water it down quite a bit and mix it up......

Then take your brush and wipe your paint/water mixture on. Be ready with a cloth because it's going to run!

Immediately take a cloth (or paper towel in my case, I was too lazy to go to the basement for cotton cloths) and wipe it off. Use circular motions to rub it into the crevices of the paint. You can leave your paint mixture on for a few seconds too if you want a darker look. Just don't leave it too long or it will begin to get tacky and that makes it difficult to wipe off properly.

I like to let it settle into the design of the wood if there is one. That makes the details really POP. I'm laughing as I'm typing that. It drives my hubby nuts when designers say that things "pop." Sorry hun, couldn't resist.

And you are all done! The great thing about this is that you can't mess up. If you wipe the paint off and find you want it darker, just repeat the paint/water mixture. If you have antiqued too much, no worries, just go over it again with your base color and try again.

I also want to thank Rue for featuring me on her blog this weekend. She is a sweetheart and if you haven't been to her blog, go now! If you came over from her place, thanks for visiting. It's great to meet new blogging buddies!

I can't wait to show you the room. I have a couple fun projects planned for it so stay tuned!

Have a fantastic Monday everyone!

The Yellow House

I named our house The Yellow House not long after we moved in. But only in my head. I thought of it as our little yellow house but I'm not sure I shared that with anyone....until I signed up for Rate My Space. At that point, I made it official! It doesn't get more official than your username on RMS, right?!

Christina of Signs of Obsession made this amazing sign for my porch! She is super talented and had my custom order done in no time at all. She even sent a pic to make sure I was happy with it before it was mailed. I highly recommend working with her. Check out her blog and tell her I sent you.


You can see from the above pic that I am still in exterior paint color hell. Do you remember my post about colors months ago? Still undecided. I really like the green she used for the foliage on the sign. I may just take the whole thing to the paint store and match up a paint chip to my new sign!

Just a little update.

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a nice weekend. Mother's Day was so nice. My husband made homemade crepes in the morning with all kinds of fruit...strawberries, blueberries, bananas. They were so good, even the kids were excited. I tried to sleep in but I had a 7 year old coming to the side of my bed every 5 minutes to ask, "Mommy, are you ready for your special breakfast yet?" Sleep is overrated anyway, right?

After breakfast we headed outside to do some yard work. My husband planted and replanted for me and the kids played. Dinner was a barbeque at my parent's house. The entire day was just laid back and wonderful. Perfect even. OH, and the gifts weren't bad either......

My husband has been a Craigslist addict recently. I could complain but is he searching for tools, or golf clubs? Nope. Cars, a power washer, motorcycles? Not those either. He's on the search for furniture. Chairs, tables, bookcases, iron beds. You name it, he'll find it! These are my Mother's Day gifts and his finds....

I'm so excited to paint those up and make them beautiful. The little table is a drop leaf and just what I've been thinking I needed for next to the couch. And the dresser will look amazing on an empty wall in the living room. The table will get a coat of white and I'm not sure about the dresser. I'd like to incorporate the gray in the room somehow.

This candle holder was a must have at TJMaxx yesterday. Perfect for the dresser.

The painting is coming along. What a difference white paint on the trim makes! We have another coat to do on the trim and then on to the walls. Can you see the ceiling in this pic? I'm so glad we went with a color for it. All your advice on painting ceilings was wonderful and I'm thrilled with the results.

Outside work is coming along. I don't have much to show for now but here are a few pics. The planters on the porch are started....

We found these cute fence sections on clearance at Lowes. Aren't they darling?

The sides of our walkway are being torn up and it will become more welcoming with hostas and lighting.

More pics to come! I can't wait to get some color on our living room walls.

P.S. ~ To my pay it forward ladies...I have not forgotten you. I'm sorry it is taking me so long to get your packages out but I promise they are coming!

Two Years...

It's been two years since we first stood on the porch to our house, waiting for our Realtor (and friend) to open the door. You are probably wondering why I'm chattering on about 2 measly years....why is that so special? This is the fourth home we have owned. The longest we lived in a house was just over two years. By our second anniversary in those other three homes, we had it on the market, prepared to move on. Not here. We are building memories in this house, making roots and falling more in love with it every day.

Let me tell you the story! Before this home we lived in a 1970's colonial. It was a large home (with huge closets) but it wasn't "us." Our hearts belonged in an old home and this one was too "new." Don't get me wrong, she wasn't a bad house, just not the one for us.....so up for sale she went.



We received a contract on the home pretty quickly and we were thrilled to be able to start house hunting!

The rooms I would miss from that house:

My son's room. We did soft blue stripes and the whole room was calming and perfect for a baby.


And Hailey's room. Simple, uncluttered and pink!


A handful of homes into our search and we set eyes on this beauty. They accepted our offer and we were over the moon excited. I'm sorry the picture is so small, it's all I have! It was a 1930's home. Gorgeous woodwork, marble foyer floor, two story foyer with a staircase that winded around, built in corner hutch in the dining room, and two bay windows. The best part was probably the huge kitchen and the deck in the back. I pictured us having dinners on the deck and arranged furniture in my head....



Unfortunately, our buyers backed out and we couldn't qualify to buy it without selling our house. The sellers were unwilling to take a contingency and had a new contract on it right away. There were tears....no...make that lots of tears. We were very upset but not long after, we had new buyers and the search began again....


That's when we found this home. I took this picture today and you can see it is a bit overgrown. It was all trimmed and neat looking when we saw it. What a great house! This home is on the historical registry (I believe the date it was built is 1908). It has a beautiful front staircase with acorn finials and a second staircase that led to what used to be the Nanny quarters. Huge pocket doors separated the parlor and the living room.

We had the inspection. It didn't go well and so we needed to move on once again.....

And that brings us to our home, The Yellow House. Now I'm back to where I started this whole post....standing on the porch waiting for the door to open and looking around at the great porch and wide street....

The shrubs by the stairs were in full bloom. Aren't they pretty?

Does anyone happen to know what type of shrub this is? It blooms in the spring and spends the summer showing off beautiful foliage...
This house was meant to be. A long journey, lots of bumps in the road....but we were home. And as we come upon our two year anniversary here, with no intentions of leaving anytime soon, I'm amazed at what a great feeling it is to be here. Although we are the ones painting walls, tending gardens and fixing wires....this little house gives back so much more.

This is the pic we used for our change of address card, telling all our friends and family that this was the house, the forever house.

Busy

We're working away over here. Working on the living room and squeezing in some yard work at the same time. So far we have the ceiling painted and the trim all sanded down, ready for primer. Remember my post about painted ceilings? You can read it here . Well, I completely chickened out in the master bedroom....it's white. BUT, I went for it in the living room. I'm still not 100% but I think I like it. Pretty sure. Almost positive I'm going to love it. Like, 93.25% in love with it. At this point you are feeling sorry for my husband, no?


While I'm being a bad blogger and stepping away from the computer to get this living room done, go check out someone who has a project all finished. Thrifty Miss Priss asked me about my wainscotting in the Everything Room for her living room. She wanted a big impact for the room and she got it! She recently posted pics of the finished product and let me say, it looks fantastic! Oh and check out the color on that mirror, you love it right?! You can see more pics on her blog Thrifty Miss Priss

I'm off to go relax for the evening. Ohhhh, and that dishwasher project I mentioned not long ago? I found what I needed today at a yard sale for $ .50. I'm so excited! Stay tuned for that before and after sometime soon.

Thank you, thank you for all your encouragement on my last post! I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and tired (whining too, I realize) and felt so much better after reading your comments. Things will get done, the dust will settle....it will come together......in time. Blogging friends are wonderful!

Have a great Sunday!