Parade of Homes 2011

Welcome to the Parade of Homes 2011 hosted by Poppies at Play. 

Note: A few of the images are recycled, but I'm presenting a complete tour so you can see my entire house.

Let's get started ...Here's the outside of my house. 

Let's go inside.  My entry ...

Decorated for Spring ...

My living room has in a  new pale grey paint.  I just finished painting it from the yellow it was previously.  I love yellow, but I was ready for a change.

I also moved the botanical prints I had on either side of the armoir and rotated the desk 90 degrees.  I'm pretty happy with my new blogging space.

The console got a little spring sprucing as well.

On to the dining room ...

As I previously mentioned, I added some green including green curtains.

The botanical prints on the buffet in the photo above are now on the wall in the living room so here's how it looks now.  I picked up the Festival of Flowers wine last year on our trip to The Biltmore.  It seemed appropriate and I may actually drink it when I change over to summer.

Grace, the mannequin also got an costume change.

Next, the Kitchen ...I love my new dish on the fan hood from Pier 1.

Oh, and I painted (again).  The color is now a greyish green which is the color I wanted all along.  The table is in dire need of refinishing thanks to the abuse it's taken from my kids so that's a job planned for the coming months. 

Last stop on the first floor is the half bath off the kitchen.  I have tiny bathrooms that are hard to photograph so I apologize.

Taking a peek outside just off the Kitchen is our Patio ...

Look a little further down and you'll see the shed I painted last summer.

Ahhh, I can't wait until it warms up and looks like that again.  In the meantime, back inside and upstairs ...

The first room is our office ...

The closet in the office is a crafting space.

Down the hallway ...

The main bath.

The Master Bedroom ...

Master Bath

My youngest daughter's room ...

My oldest daughter's room ...

Lastly, way downstairs ...

Basement Family Room

Mantel (sorry for the glare) ...

Next to the fireplace is my mom's old sewing machine ... that still works great!

And, the play area ...

So, that's it for the tour.  And, yes, my house is ALWAYS this perfect.  I swear.

P.S. A huge thank you to Andy from Poppies at Play for including me.  I'm humbled by your invitation and honored to be among the other participants.

Now, on to participant #3 on the list - Dear Lillie. 

I have my Entry back (for now) ...

When we moved in, I removed wallpaper from the entry and painted it a pale yellow color. Eventually, I painted the living room a different pale yellow color that I still love (Behr-Castle Stone) and we planned to match the entry ... eventually. That was several years ago and the entry has taken a beating since it was flat paint.

I painted it yesterday ... finally! Its hard to see the true color. Its not as light as it appears here.
I also removed the child-proof gate that went from the wall beside the table to the side of the front door that's been there for 3 years. I forgot how spacious it was. Now, I just hope the novelty of the open space wanes for my little ones so I can keep it off permanently.

Today, I went to Anthropologie for the first time in a very long time. I had fun trying on all the great clothes and browsing the great selection of home items. Then, I browsed at J. Crew. I left empty-handed which is probably the best thing for my wallet.

Now, I have Boeuf Bourguignon simmering in a cast iron pot in the oven. I saw the Barefoot Contessa make it a few years ago and wondered how good it was after seeing pretty much an entire bottle of wine emptied into the pot. The other night, we watched Julie and Julia and there was the same dish again except this time it was Julia Child's recipe. I decided to give it a shot and judging by my sampling of the incomplete dish, its incredible! No wine flavor. Can't wait to eat. With all the bacon fat involved, its probably a good thing that my night will wrap up with belly dancing tonight. (UPDATE: The dish was amazing! Probably the most labor intesive thing I've ever made but totally worth the approx. 5 hours of cooking.)

Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

A Wonderful Wednesday ...

I've been looking for reasonably priced fiberglass urns for a while now. Despite the fact that I live in a busy metropolitan area, it seems like the stores near me have the worst selection. After dropping off my oldest at preschool today, I decided to take a drive with my little one. I finally found my urns!

As you can see, I also got some pumpkins and ornamental cabbages while we were out. Everyone (myself included) seems to be all about the white pumpkin lately, but after I got the urn, I thought, "Why not black?" Since I was at Wal-mart buying the pumpkins, I decided to pick up black spray paint and was thrilled to find that they sell a brand that is only $1! I love my Rustoleum Painter's Touch 2x which Wal-mart doesn't carry but for pumpkins, you can't beat $1. I also got some spanish moss to break up the black. I wasn't super careful about covering the bottom. I kinda like that you can see a little of the orange on the bottom. I didn't tape off the stem either. No biggie.

Since the pumpkins only used one can of paint, I used the other can to spray the plastic containers that the cabbages are in. I normally wouldn't do this since I'm sure the paint won't really stick, but the cabbages will eventually go in the ground and I won't be needing the plastic containers.

Above is a what we have by our side door. More traditional pumpkins. I hadn't intended to do any pumpkins at all outside because the neighborhood kids tend to steal them, but these are right by our doors so I'm praying the kids won't be so bold to come so close to the house this year.

The Office Project ..

I'm ashamed to post this ... Here's a peek into what was lurking in the closet of our office.

I had been planning to organize the space forever and between going through the mess, building shelves and painting its going to take weeks because I need Mr. T to work on it and I only have so much time myself.

Here's one piece of the project .... I kept buying boxes and more boxes, but never got around to actually doing anything with most of them. I didn't have enough boxes and some of the stuff was too big to fit in them. I could never find more than a couple of boxes in one color that I liked either. Frustrated, I abandoned the project. That's what I do when I don't know what to do next. ;-)



Mr. T and I had talked about what we would do in the closet. He tried to do the shelving for me while I was away so it would be all done when I got back (sweet husband!) but one shelf wasn't right. The project remained neglected.

Then, I came across some bins on sale on bins at Michaels. I found the perfect bin with blue and green stripes. One problem. They only had a couple. Over the course of the next week, I went to a different Michaels every. single. day. in search of the ever elusive bins picking some up here and there. I finally gave up and got other bins with similar colors.

Next, I spray painted all the mis-matched boxes to match the bin colors. The paper ones were easy. The fabric ones were not so easy. Rather than spray paint, I had to brush on the primer, but the spray paint worked on top of that. They didn't turn out as nice, but they work. Better than what I had before! I can always just go buy more of the paper boxes since they're pretty inexpensive. The learning experience here is this - if you can't find enough boxes in the color you want, buy them and spray paint them (but make sure they're paper boxes!

So, here are all the boxes painted to match the bins!


Next step is to go through all that mess in the first photo in addition to what you can't see on the bottom ... Ugh!

To Be Continued ...

My House

The other day, a friend (you know who you are out there!) commented that I never post pictures of my house, so here you have it. The reason I never posted pictures of my house is because I don't love it. I never have. I don't have digital "before" pictures but it didn't look like this when we saw it. When Mr. T and I first drove up to this house when we were house-hunting, we laughed and drove away. It was the joke of the street painted a bright yellow with green shutters. It was bad.

We later ended up returning to this house and the realtor called it the Green Bay Packers house because of the colors. The interior was all beige, the yard overgrown (one giant shrub was growning into the gutters by the side door), the kitchens and bathrooms were in desperate need of renovation, but I saw potential. It had more space than most of the other homes I'd seen.

Over time, we had it painted a more toned down yellow, the shutters were painted black, new light fixtures we got a new front door and storm door and of course, the plants. All the overgrown plants were removed. Other than 2 azaleas we salvaged and some juniper, every single plant was put in by either me or Mr. T. The walkway garden was a recent addition. Eventually, I plan to do the other side of the walkway as well.The house works for us and its what we need right now, but its not what I whould have chosen if I could had more options. I'm an old house girl and this 60s generic house is "blah" to me. We bought when the market was hot so here we are (for now).

So yesterday, I started painting the vanity/desk chair and stopped at primer. White just wasn't doing it and I stopped to think and moved on to something else. Below is our side door and storage room. This is the door we always use since its right off our carport. The front door is mainly used for guests.

Here's a tragic story. See the green wreath? I used to have one for each door. Last year, a bird decided to make a nest in the wreath on the storage room door. I thought it was sweet and exciting that we'd have baby birds. We tried to leave them alone, but every time we drove into the carport or opened the side door, mom flew off. Long story short, mom got tired of us and eventually abandoned the nest. I was so sad. Mr. T said - no more wreaths! They're just too inviting for the birds.

Yesterday, I made this shell wreath. I actually had planned to hang it inside, but then I realized there was nowhere for a bird to snuggle and hide so I decided to give it one more shot. (And, now I realize the door needs touching up after the damage the birds left.) If I find the time, I'll make another for the side door.

And, after that project, I decided on the desk color. Green it is!