quiet but not "still"

Hello bloggy friends, that is, if I still have bloggy friends out there. I check all of your blogs daily, but haven't been feelin my own lately. I HAVE been busy though. I have found my new passion. I love to watch staging shows and love to help others repurpose, redo and rearrange what they already own. Let's face it, in this tough economy, we still love to redecorate, or just want to freshen things up a bit, but without spending much money. I actually spent an hour and a half at a neighbors house last week staging there home that is on the market. Keep in mind, that I really don't know these ppl all that well. Just in passing and waving and the occasional conversation. But, they invited me in for my 2 cents worth, and ended up getting an hour and a half worth. :) THat was SO MUCH FUN!!!! I also just helped my parents redecorate their dining and living room and bath. We bought some new pieces, pillow, accents, but we also repurposed a ton of stuff with by best friend, spray paint. Again it was a blast!!! Oh, to make a living at this. Unfortunately my own house lacks... mainly because of money. But I try to update and change things with paint. I will take some pics of my parents rooms after we find the last items to complete them. We are having problems finding just the right overhead lighting, but man are the rooms GORGEOUS!!!
I have finished our master bedroom. It is just simply decorated in neutrals to make it look bigger. It is a very small space. We got a new Queen bed ( we downsized from a king) and it has made the room much roomier. I sprayed the curtain rods black for a punch of contrast, hung new curtains, new bedding. I think I may end up painting the tall candlestick lamp post black for more contrast too. What do you think. That lamp was from Goodwill for 8bucks! Oh yeah, I also pulled up the wall to wall old carpet to expose the hardwoods!


I finally painted my old green desk white and found some cute pulls at Marshalls. I like it with the brown walls and other green accents in the room.


I finally painted my kitchen table. It too was green. What was up with me and the dark green?! Anyway it is now black and I love it. I also sold my old kitchen chairs on craigslist and bought "new" ones from the same. They are orig. from Pier1 from a nurse gone stager!! go figure :) This is the only pic I could find of the before. You can see the chairs at least.


The little black table is a score from my new next dr neighbors recent garage sale for 10bucks. It was already black. What have you all been up to???

A promise is a promise

Months ago, while at Lowe's looking at paint swatches for our bathroom, Brooke decided she wanted to paint her room pink. I put it off for awhile, saying we would do it, but not untill the summer. That bought me a couple of months. But the other day I was hit with the fact, that it is now summer, sooooo. I am not quite ready to unveil the finished product, as "we" (Mike) are putting in new baseboards too so I will post the whole room when it is done. But I HAD to show you this find from Lowes. I came across it while picking up the baseboards....



Look at this lamp!!!! It has a crystal, heavy base. Did you see that original price and the price I actually paid for it. LOVE at first sight. I am trying to offset the headache inducing pink aka Berry Much pink, by making everything else in the room white, so it looks crisp. I have painted her little vanity that was purple and pink and also found a white mirror at goodwill for 8bucks that I put little poms into the holes. We had some white sparkle curtains down in the basement already in her play area, so I moved them to her room. She had some Pottery barn striped curtains, that actually match the pink, but it was just tooooo much!!



It is turning out fun!! Hopefully the baseboards will be done after tonight and i will show the room all put together!
Oh yeah, I was able to buy the new lamp and mirror because I am back on my coupon kick and saved $32.00 in coupons at the grocery store this week :) What projects are you doing this summer??

Tables are highly over-rated

My husband thinks I've gone crazy! Yesterday as he pulled down the street in his work truck after a long, hot day of back-breaking work, it happened. He spotted me standing in our driveway - with the table that once stood in our family room, adorned with framed family photos - now, lying on its side on the ground. I stood over it with his giant saw in hand....one look at this sight, and he sped up and flew past our house and drove down the street!!! I guess he knew what he was in for!! He eventually came home :) and "we" began our work on the table. This is another project I have been thinking about doing for some time now. I have spent the past few weeks living with the table without anything on it but a lamp, to help spur me on to starting this task. I feel we need more seating in our family room, more than we need a table to display pictures. Pictures that need dusted! So, "we" cut off part of the legs of the table and now have a new bench to sit on. What do you think??? Does it just look like a table that had it's legs cut off, have I completely lost my mind? Was my husband right, to flee down the street?? What crazy idea have you had lately, that may or may not have turned into something you love?

What I've been up to...

It has been over a month since my last blog post. But that does not mean I haven't been busy. I have been working on things that have been on my to do (some have been on my to RE-do)list!! Ever since I painted my kitchen cabinets 2 yrs ago...i hated the way they turned out. Hence, every single time I walked in the kitchen, which was about 30 times a day, I looked at said cabinets and said outloud, "I need to re-do those someday". That day FINALLY came!! I just had to jump in and do it!
This is the only pic of the kitchen "before" that i could find. Look behind the advent tree.....see the Yellowish cabinets from a staining project gone wrong?? Now, I have just creamy white cabinets...ahhh, much better!!....< Next, I painted our living room from a dark green to a dark brown now. I am loving it too. I wanted a small window seat in front of our wall of windows, so tried to repurpose what I already had. From this.... to this.......

Next on the to-do list is to paint our master bedroom. We have NEVER painted it and we've lived here for almost 9years. I found a great color for just $3.00 at Lowe's on their mistint shelf!!

Discover the Meaning of Easter

Discover the Meaning of Easter

An EGGcellent day!

Today is a gorgeous day outside! The trees are all in bloom, bursting with pinks, white, purple, yellow - what a perfect day for an Easter egg hunt! This is the very first year we actually took the kids to my work for an egg hunt. In years past, we would always go to Grandma Jan's work, but she is retired so we decided to give my hospital a chance. It was a great time for the kids and free!!! Chase even found one of the only 6, special eggs, that if found, would give you an extra prize! We figured this would be his last yr to partake in such festivities, so that was great that he found a special egg. Brooke was like an egg machine. She filled her basket to the top! Besides being very windy, it was fun. Mike thought the Easter bunny they had there, looked like it was choking....I guess he was in the right place if he was :).
Today is also the day I married my wonderful, handsome husband,17 years ago. Today would be a gorgeous day for a wedding! My gift to him was that I have lost my voice, so no nagging today, at least not that he can hear:).
Last night was our Good friday service at church. It was such a moving and powerful night of worship, and testimonies. My sister and I watched the Passion yesterday afternoon also. What an emotional, very hard to watch movie. But it serves as a reminder of what Christ went through for US!!
Tomorrow, we will go to church and then head to my parents house for Easter brunch and another egg hunt with all the cousins! I pray that you all have a blessed Easter and that you see new life all around you in the spring blooms and your loved ones.

To paint or not to paint

Awhile back I finally crossed another thing off of my lengthy to-do list. I sit around my house and look intently at the walls, windows, closets, etc and try to decide how to change things up or make them look better. Lately, I was looking at my fireplace. As you can see from this pic, there has only been a brick "mantle" if you can even call it that.
I have been wanting to add a very simple mantle with the scrap wood in the garage. Here is the finished product.

I know it is just very simple and plain, but it helps the fireplace have a little more prescence in the room. Thank you to Mike, my wonderful hubby, for helping me with this project. Of course I got the usual response at first, the ever popular eye-roll, but I reminded him how much I loved him and flashed him a smile. Now, I need your opinion. Should I paint the fireplace brick white also??? We do build a lot of fires. Please leave me a comment with your vote :) Thanks!!