I’ve not forgotten you…
I have not abandoned my blog again, I promise. I’ve just been busy with projects around the house (inside and out!) and today my inlaws are coming. SO…I will post today’s edition of my Home Tour this afternoon after they leave. So come on back tonight sometime and check it out….
Home Tour…The Kitchen Edition!
(The Before Pic)
Home Tour : Bathroom Edition
So, I decided on the bathroom for my next installment (and I apologize for not posting over the weekend…but hey – I got a husband and two small kids and it was 4th of July weekend, give me a break! Haha!).
As a refresher…here’s what our guest bath looked like shortly after we moved in…
Pretty boring, huh? I basically threw up a shower curtain I had from our previous house, tossed in a soap dispenser and a laundry basket and…well, that’s it. It was serving it’s purpose, yes. Pretty? No.
But here’s what it looks like now. Our living room is red with some black furniture and this bath is just off the living room, so I wanted them to compliment each other. I’m going for a “Traditional/French Country” style in the living areas, so I used some toile scattered throughout the bathroom and living room (which you’ll see soon…still got a few things to add before it’s considered ‘finished’ to me).
Here’s the view as you enter the bathroom
I picked up the shower curtain on CLEARANCE at Big Lots one day for like $8 or something. Gotta love a good clearance sale! The “valance” over the shower curtain is what Nester would call a Mistreatment…it is just a piece of quilted fabric folded over and hung over the bar. No sewing, no extra rod. Nothing. And it’s fabric I already had, so that makes it even better!
I had this little bench just hanging around the house…it’s lived in several places, but I think I like this the best. I added a few towels and some bath items into a black wire basket I already had and voila! Instant spa. Well, sort of. It’s as close as I’ll get with two kiddos using this bathroom on a daily basis!
This is the cabinet above the pot-tay. I spraypainted some old gold candlestick holders and the other items are some I just had around the house. The sculpture was given to my daughter when she was born. For the little shelf underneath, I just cut a piece of foamcore to the size of the opening and covered it in a pretty fabric. Then I just stuck it in…no adhesive or anything.
The countertop area…I got the towel hook from Hobby Lobby on MAJOR clearance. It was less than $2. Of course , it didn’t look like this – it had a zebra print on it! I painted it black and added a square of red toile scrapbook paper. The lamp used to be a wierd green color..painted that black and covered the shade with the same black quilted fabric that is the ‘valance’. The W is another HL clearance item, I think it was $1. It was pink and kinda country-fied, so I painted it white and covered it with the same toile paper. Beautiful!
That’s pretty much it! I want to paint the cabinets white and distress them a bit, but I haven’t had the time to do that yet. Maybe soon though!
Stay tuned for the next installment…it will be yummy!
Home Tour: Bedroom Edition, Cont’d
Okay…I promised I’d share my children’s hideous bedrooms today. I really dont’ want to b/c they have no style whatsoever. Ugh. I really need help in their rooms. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me, I can decorate any other room in the house, but not kid’s bedrooms. I’m challenged that way, I guess. SO…here they are…the lifeless, styleless, boring rooms…
My daughter’s room:
I have absolutely NO idea what to do with her bunk bed. I want her to have a fun, fresh, girly ’shabby chic’ style room, but how do you do that with a metal bunk bed like this? Please, someone help me!
And my boy’s room…
His bed and dresser are antiques. They belonged to my grandmother, and she remembers having both when she was a young child. The bed is a really dark wood, and the dresser is actually a dark brown metal. I love that they are antiques, but I just don’t know what else to do in this room.
He also has a desk in here that my pastor gave me when he redecorated his office, it sits on the other side of the room:
So, as you can see…I really need help here. I’d love to see any rooms of yours, or rooms that you like for inspiration! I have to work on a budget, but I love thrifting and yard saling to find things to repurpose!
Tomorrow’s installment of the Home Tour will be either the living room or the guest bath…not sure!
Home Tour: Bedroom Edition
So today I thought I’d start my tour with our master bedroom. Why? I could say because it’s the place I go to for escaping the world, or because it’s where all the magic happens, or a dozen other interesting things. But the truth is…it’s the one room in the house that I consider “finished” as far as decorating goes. 
Here’s the view as you enter the bedroom. I LOVE the bed on this wall…finally! I had never put it here b/c there is really only one window on this wall…on the right side of the bed. I thought it would look really wierd if I put the bed there. We have big white plantation shutters on all the windows in the house and I didn’t really want to cover those beauties up with curtains. But I finally realized that one thing the room was lacking was softness…it NEEDED curtains. So, I decided to fake it. I hung a curtain over the window on the right, then hung a curtain on the left to make it look like there was a window over there. I love it. And where did I get those curtains that match my bedding so wonderfully? Tuesday Morning. Love that place, people. These curtains were an expensive name brand and I got them for $20 a pair! Love it.
A fried had the idea to put the dresser at the end of the bed and I really like it there. I made the Monogram frames over the headboard from cheap yardsale frames. Just spray panted them and then traced on the letter and painted it in. Super simple people.
Above is a straight on shot of the bed and monogram frames. And you’d never know there was only one window in this room!
And here is a shot of the right side of the bed. I got that bench at goodwill for six bucks and recovered it with a valance that came with the bedding that I knew I would never use.
This is my husband’s dresser/chest of drawers that sits on the wall opposite the end of the bed. The rocking chair was his great-great aunt’s (I think that’s right…anyway, they determined that it’s over a 100 years old). I have recovered the seat a couple times. It needs a new cover again, but I haven’t found a fabric that I like that really goes well with the bedding and such. I wish I could use another one of those valances to cover it with, but the valance isn’t wide enough to cover the seat. 
And I don’t really want to sew two pieces together cuz then you’d see a seam. And now, I have a pretty teal damask pillow in that chair that I got at goodwill for like $3 or something. You see those canvases hanging above the COD?? I got those at a yard sale for $1 for all three. They were painted with a rainbow of bright colors. Not very pretty at all. But, I just painted them white and then went over that with a light teal color, distressed the edges with some brown ink (which I know you can’t really see here, but trust me!) and then I stamped some damask/scroll patterns around the edges. If you want to see this up close, let me know and I can take more pics.
And lastly, here’s the bathroom vanity…um…I just realized that I was out of cotton balls when I took this pic…oopsie!
Okay…that’s it for the master bedroom! If you want to see anything in more detail, or have questions about I did anything, just let me know. I’ll be happy to take better pics or explain stuff.
TOMORROW…we’ll continue the ‘Bedroom Edition’ and I’m gonna humble myself and show you my kids’ totally not decorated rooms. You can give me advice on what to do! Yeah! That sounds like a great plan! See you then!
Home Tour
Yes, I’m aware that I’ve been away for a LONG time again. I stink at blogging! I really want to do better, but then I get distracted by so many things that I just don’t get it done. BUT, I am determined to get back on the blogging wagon, starting today!
I recently had that “nesting” feeling and wanted to really “cozy up” my house. I had done some of that already, but I just wasn’t totally feelin’ it yet. A trip to Hobby Lobby’s home decor clearance isle and a few days later…I’m much happier! There are still some things I need to do, but I feel much better now. So, I decided I’d kick off my “return to blogworld” with a home tour! I’ll start with the official tour tomorrow, but for now…how about a few “Before” shots?
Okay, this is a very boring shot of our bedroom shortly after moving into this house a year ago. This was the 2nd or 3rd place I’d tried the bed…still didn’t like it. Note the lack of anything on the walls…hadn’t found anything I really liked.
This shot shows the ‘hotel style’ bathroom setup. The vanity is kinda out in the room and the bathroom (potty and shower) are off to the right and the closet is to the left.
Moving along to the guest bath…this is right after we moved in. Pretty much all I did was throw up a shower curtain and toss in a soap dispenser and some kleenex. Beautiful, huh?
The other side of the bathroom; a clothes basket (hideous, I know) and a mirror which was already here.
I cant’ seem to find my befores of any of the other rooms, so the rest of these photos were taken before we moved in…while looking at the house, so the furniture isn’t ours.
The living room. LOVE the red walls. Love ‘em. Only problem…our couch is red. Waaaaaay too much red in one small room! I don’t really want to get rid of the red walls, so I’m thinking of getting a slipcover for our couch…haven’t decided. What do you think? Slipcover or paint?
The kitchen…I detest wallpaper border. Have I taken it down yet? You’ll have to wait and see!
Dining Area:
Sunroom that is just off the kitchen…this is the left side…the right side is the same pretty much. We loved it as an actual sunroom, but…we needed the space for something else. You’ll have to wait to see what we did out here.
And the back patio. The previous owner left the patio set and canopy. We enjoyed the canopy for the first month or two. Then a TERRIBLE storm came and blew it down and ripped it to pieces. Yup. No more canpoy. We have plans for building something more permanent, like a pergola on each side of the sunroom (can’t wait to decorate an outdoor space with a pergola!!), but it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe before summer’s over, we’ll see.
Well, I think that’s about it. I didn’t show the kids’ rooms, b/c well…they still aren’t decorated. A year after moving in. I just dont’ know WHAT to do in there! I’d love to see some of your favorite kids’ rooms for inspiration.
So…join me tomorrow for the first edition of my Home Tour! Which room will be first? Come by and see!
A FABULOUS Giveaway!
Hop on over to Kimba’s Blog, A Soft Place To Land, to try to win an awesome prize from DaySpring!
I’ve been MIA…forever!
OMG…I didn’t realize it had been almost TWO months since I posted! I am really going to try to do better about that!
I wanted to share with you a fun swap I’m in right now…the Flirty Apron Swap
I just found out about this swap recently and had to join in! I love aprons, love sewing and love swapping! This month’s theme was “vintage linens” so we had to find vintage linens to create our aprons from. That was the hardest part for me…I went to several thrift stores before finding something I liked. I’ll share pics of my finished apron next time…but for now I wanted to just tell you all about this…there’s a new swap each month, so join us next month! And Shawnee (the mastermind of this swap) is hosting a Mother’s Day swap on her other blog too so be sure to check it out! How cute and fun would that one be?!?! Matching mom and me aprons! I might have to join in on that one too!
Menu Planning Binder
Yes, I am alive. No, I didn’t disappear from the face of the earth! I’ve just been SO busy with work, church and family lately that I haven’t made time to blog. I’m going to try to do better. I won’t promise daily blogging, but I’ll try to do at least a couple posts a week.
So, for today, I’m sharing my menu planning binder. It’s where I keep my menu plan for the week, recipes I’ll need for those menus, and calorie counts for restaurants where we eat out. I’ll share more info on menu planning in my next post.
Here’s my binder:
On the inside I have tabs for “Menu Plan” , “Main Dish Recipes”, “Side Dish Recipes”, etc:
Here are some quick pics of some of the pages in the binder. I will share more detailed info in the next post…I’ve gotta get going to work right now!
Organizing Ideas – Join the Party!!
The Thrift Decor Chick is hosting an Organizing Party, and you KNOW that I had to join in! I am an organizer at heart. The other day I was working on my Menu Planning Binder (coming soon!) and my hubby said “Too bad you can’t do this kind of thing for a living…you’re such a good organizer.” Of course, then he told me I must have a disease b/c no one should love organizing this much! 
So, anyway, I’m going to share several ways that I keep things organized around our house. I hope these ideas will help you some. And feel free to ask me any questions about organizing, I’m happy to help!
Our first area of organization is our Master Bedroom Closet.
This is the left side of our walk-in closet. All our short clothing is hung on the top shelf, leaving plenty of room below for a shelf to house my shoes (most of them anyway), and laundry baskets in the floor – since taking the photo, I’ve purchased 3 matching baskets that fit in the space perfectly, so that we can sort our clothes as we go – one for lights, one for darks and one for towels.
The left side of the clothing is mine – pants together, then shirts, all arranged by color. Then my husband’s clothing, is the same way, pants first, then shirts, however his shirts are harder to arrange by color b/c he wears a lot of patterened shirts (stripes and plaid mostly), so I just do my best there.
On top of the clothing shelf is extra blankets and sheets, as well as travel bags.
The other side of the closet is where our long hanging clothes go, toward the back, and that leaves us room for a small bench to sit at while putting on shoes. The tall dresser (which was my husband’s when he was a child, and I’m planning to paint once the weather is warm enough!) holds our belts, his t-shirts, and my purses.
The containers on top of the shelf hold a variety of things – off season shoes, extra toiletry items for our bathroom, my husband’s hair clippers, etc.
As you can see, there is a shoe “tree” thing that hangs on the back wall. It holds my DH’s shoes and a few of mine.
I’m in the process of making something to hold all my jewelry…but haven’t finished it yet, so check back!
Now, on to the Living Room…
Here’s our TV Stand – I made a curtain to hang on the shelf to hide the storage underneath.
And this basket holds our Wii stuff:
And under the curtain is where we keep all our games:
Now, we move on to the kitchen…one of my favorite rooms! I love to cook, but being the organizing freak that I am, I have to have my kitchen in order, and can’t stand it when it’s not! So, here’s how one of my cabinets looks.
Keeping things in see through containers is a big key to being organized. When you can SEE what you have, it’s easier to find and you’re more likely to use it! I keep my dried fruit in jars is easy reach. Behind the jars is a basket of baking items – choc. chips, coconut, etc. Since it’s not something I used everyday, it’s not a big deal to have to move the jars to get to it. On the top is a basket with jello and pudding mixes. It’s easy to pull the basket out to see what I have. And our nuts are in plastic lidded containers.
And the other ‘food cabinet’ – this is where we keep our cereal, pastas, chips, etc. On the lower right shelf is where we keep our homemade bread, along with a small cutting board and bread knife – everything you need to have a fresh peice of bread! I keep the small snack size bags of chips in a plastic container to keep them corralled.
We continue our tour with a trip to the garage!
This is a cabinet where we store all our “overflow” groceries. We don’t have a lot of cabinet space in the kitchen, so we keep all our canned goods and extras in this cabinet.
And, our recycling bins are also in the garage – as you can tell…we had a LOT of cardboard lately! We don’t have recycling pickup, we have to take it to the center ourselves, so we usually just go every other week.
And the last room of our tour for today is the laundry room…
When we moved in there were two of the wire shelves that ran the entire length of the back wall. They are really deep, so I had to have my washer pulled out really far toward the doors so I could get the lid open. So, I had DH cut the shelves in half and install the wooden ones in the right corner that are much more shallow. I was able to push my washer back at least 6 inches, which is a big deal in a small “closet laundry room”!
The drawer unit thing between the washer and dryer is where we store stray socks. There are four of us, so there is a drawer for each family member. It makes it easy to match them up once you get a few gathered up.
Okay…I think I’ll end our tour here today. In my next post, I’ll share my Menu Planning Binder, and some tips on Menu Planning. So, check back soon! And don’t forget to hop over to Thrifty Decor Chick’s party and check out all the other great organizing ideas!
Another award!!!
And, actually, I got this one first, but didn’t realize it until today! I’ve been so crazy lately that I haven’t had time to blog-hop like I want, so I totally missed this! Thanks SO MUCH LORI!!!!!
I am to pass this on the 10 other bloggers that I enjoy…so here goes…
1. Just Tutes - this is a sewing tutorial site…love it!
2. The Long Thread - another sewing one…lots of good stuff here!
3. Oh Fransson -more sewing, and a new one to me, but I’m loving it!
4. Mish Mash - a papercrafts blog
7. The Pleasures of Homemaking
8. Thrifty Decor Chick – and she’s have an organizing party right now! I am SO gonna do that! Right up my alley!
9. Shades of Color - just found this one today, but I can already tell it’s gonna be one I visit often!
10. Pink And Green Mama - some great craft and gift ideas here!
I’m working on finishing up a couple things to post on Thrifty Decor Chic’s Organizing party, so check back tomorrow for some pics!
