Finding Curtains

I have one of those doors in my kitchen that is sort of half a french door.  It has the glass windows in the upper part of it.  Right now there are blinds hanging on it to cover the windows, but I'm not a big fan of blinds.  I just ordered swatches from a place to get curtains and they didn't label the swatches, so I have no idea the name of the swatch to order.  Guess I need to call them to figure it out.

Here is my door. (part of it anyway)

Here are some of the swatches I ordered.

I ordered about 7 swatches, that is why I'm confused by which one is which.  You can order the curtains in any length or width, too.  I love this place. It's where I got the curtain rods for my living room.  Countrycurtains.com

I also can't decide if I want to leave my door white or if I want to strip the paint off of it and stain it for a more natural look.  Next year when the weather warms up, I am putting a new door on my front door, too.  I found a door out in my garden shed that is half painted, so I'll strip the paint off of that and stain it walnut. It has the glass windows in it, so I can get some sheers to cover it.  I love that look. Much better than the solid door that's there now blocking all the sunlight.

Should I keep the kitchen door white or strip it and stain it?

House Plans

Sometimes it's difficult to picture a house when you only see photos of the individual rooms.  I found this really neat house plan maker online that you can make of your home.  You just take each room, type in the measurements of it and viola, you have your house plans.

 If you have wondered where each room is, this makes it much easier to picture it all and bring everything together.  The total square feet is somewhere around 1200. I forget the exact number.

My Floor Plans

Floorplanner.com

I just realized I forgot to show where each window and the side door is, I will tweak it later. There's a side door off the kitchen that goes to the carport.  Later next year I am hoping to knock out a wall in the office and put french doors leading to the backyard.  Another mystery about this house, why does it have no door to the backyard?  I also need to show where the appliances in the kitchen are.  I'll upload it again later when I add all this to it.

It's easy, go make house plans of yours now :)

It also has little furniture you can decorate it with.

Mantle Up!

The mantle is up!  It is so beautiful, I love it!  This really pulled the living room together, I must say.  It just didn't seem right without the mantle before.  Now I can hang my stockings.  I used real cut holly from my holly bushes outside and placed on top.  The candle holders are from Becky, thanks Bec, she got them for me years ago.  Poinsettia plant is from Lisa, thanks Lisa!

My dad also made that picture frame from walnut that is sitting on the mantle.  He did a beautiful job on both the frame and mantle.  Thank you dad! I love ya bunches.

(click on pic to enlarge)

Fireplace prep

My dad came over today to build the stand so he can put the mantle on.  This is to hold it up while he works on it.  Tomorrow he will come back over to finish it up.  Here's how it looks right now.

Getting ready for Christmas

I don't have any projects or anything going at the moment.  Christmas will be here before you know it, just a few days away.  I have been busy getting some last minute shopping done and wrapping gifts....

stringing my cards...

burning cinnamon leaf oil...

I hope you're Christmas holidays are warm, cozy and full of joy!

First fire in the fireplace

My parents came over and spent the day with me today.  My dad brought his snow shovel to clear the driveway so I can get out this week.  Thanks dad!  Then when we were on our way out to Lowes, I accidently ran over his snow shovel.  Sorry dad.  I think he can bend it back straight though -  oops.

He has started the process of getting the mantle up!  First he has to drill 4 or 5 inch deep holes into the bricks.  There are 4 holes, then he will put a steel bar of some sort (not sure what it's called) into them and then drill holes into the mantle to attach it.

Here are the pics of the holes he drilled today.

He is coming back over some time this week to finish it up!

Here is the first fire in my fireplace.  It was so warm and cozy to sit next to and look out the window with all the beautiful snow everywhere.  I topped it off by making home made chicken noodle soup.

The weather outside is frightful, but this fire was so delightful!

Home projects

Someone gave me this nice little hutch and I really love it a lot.  The only thing was, it had folkart painting all over it when she first gave it to me.  Well, since I am not one that's into folkart, my first thought was... how pretty this would be if I replaced those panels with glass.

Here are the before and after photos of what I did to it.

BEFORE

AFTER

It was easy,

1. Take a hammer and bang those panels out.
2. Took 2 of the doors to a glass shop and had them cut the glass to fit.
3. Picked up some fasteners at Lowes to hold the glass onto the doors.
4. Put the doors back on.

This weekend I sort of got stuck at my house because I don't own a snow shovel and there was no way for me to get out of my driveway, so I just made the most of it.  Here is one of my little projects I tackled. I organized my linen closet (something I have been putting off).

This is the linen closet in my bathroom.  It's wedged between the bathtub to the left and stand up shower to the right. This seems to have been built on at some time and wasn't original to the house.  The same with the stand up shower.

Here is a magazine that gives a lot of inspiration to get things around your home organized.  The magazine is called Organize.

 Here is my breakfast I made this morning... French Toast.

It turned out quite nice.

Let it snow

First snow in my new house!

My little ranch house all covered in snow.

I'll needs lots of firewood, especially if we lose electricity, which pray that we don't!

Firewood from my dads farm.

I had so much fun today out playing with LF in the snow.  He absolutely loves it!  He just wants to run circles all over the place.  He even takes the ball and throws it up in the air and catches it himself.  He's so funny!

Let it snow!

Window is gone!

I knocked the window out of my kitchen last night! I am soooo glad to get rid of that thing.  There was a room built onto this house next to the kitchen and for some odd reason, they just left the window in over the kitchen sink.  It has bugged me ever since the first day I ever set foot in this house.  I couldn't take it anymore, so yesterday I got my tools and started banging away at the boards trying to loosen them to pull the window out.  Well after MUCH struggling, I did it!

It makes the kitchen feel so much more open and lighter now, I'm so happy.

Here are the pics of my little project, I did end up putting the frame back on so it wouldn't look so bad, but I'm still going to need to clean it up a little.  I want to put a couple of shelves in the opening now so I can put some vases with flowers, small herb plants and such.

See, I did it all without breaking the glass, too!

And if you don't remember, here is a pic of how it was...

This is a project I didn't even plan on doing before the year was up, but I just couldn't take seeing the window there anymore, so at least that is one less thing to do next year.

Oh and those cabinet doors above the window up there, they bug me, too.  They are also getting removed, but I am going to save that for next years project, because when I remove those, I have to change the light fixture behind them.  I am also getting new counter tops, new backsplash and a new faucet.
All in time.

Mantle is ready

My dad is finished with the mantle and now it just needs to be installed.  He found the walnut board from a friends farm, he cut it to fit the width of my fireplace, sanded it, then put a bunch of layers of pure tung oil on it.  Here it is at his warehouse where he's just finished it.

Isn't she a beauty?  Now all that's left to do is attach it to my fireplace!

Fog

It was so foggy this morning. It has been so cold lately, when I woke up, everything was iced over. Little Foot went sliding across the porch when I let him out this morning, poor lil' fellow!  I thought the fog looked sort of pretty though, so I took a picture.   (The road leading to my house.)

My living room in progress...

I have been trying to get my living room put together, but it just hasn't happened yet.  Like I said, I don't have a coffee table, end tables or tv stand.   My new area rug did come in and I think it's very beautiful.  Now I am stuck trying to figure out what to put on the wall over the couch.  I use to have all my photos on the wall above it, but the space isn't big enough for that between these two windows.  I don't like the way this mirror looks here, so I'm on the hunt for something else.

I do love how dramatic this mirror is over the couch in the photo below.

I think something like this would look better in my place, but maybe not as ornate as this mirror.

I'm still thinking on this...

(Photo from Restoration Hardware)

Here is how I had my pictures when I lived in the apartment in Atlanta.

I'm going to put all these on a different wall now.

This is the collage I ordered the prints for from my other post.

The living room has ended up to be harder to pull together than I expected.

I will keep posting the updates of it until I get it tweaked exactly how I want it though.

Christmas decoration

I love the gold and green Christmas decorations.  I really wish I had gone with this for mine.  The red is really clashing with my living room for some reason.  I guess because it's mostly white and creams like this one.  I have already gone out and bought a bunch of gold ball ornaments for next year!  Okay I need to relax and get through this Christmas first, lol.

And how delightful is this dining room?

Blisssss

The pictures above were taken from the blog Martha Moments.

http://marthamoments.blogspot.com

Photos for wall

I ordered some enlargements today, from pics I've taken, to put in my frames.  I need to start getting my walls decorated so it won't look as bland and bare in my home.  I will post pics of my living room once these come in and I get them all framed and on the wall.

Inspiration pics (Christmas)

I love this photo.  It's Pottery Barn of course, from last years Christmas catalog.  I went out and bought a red and white runner like this so I could do this to my coffee table this year for Christmas, but guess what. I still don't have a coffee table.  I'm looking for a cottage coffee table and am hoping to find one at a yard sale or thrift store so I can refinish it.  So far, I haven't found one, so I am coffee tableless.

I love just the small hint of Christmas decor, it isn't over the top, but just a smidge thrown in here and there.

This bed is adorable, notice the small hint of Christmas decor.

Check out those floor planks!  *drools*

Awww why don't I have some of these little greenery shrubs around my house?

Ok that is all the Pottery Barn porn I have for you.
Come back again :)

Starting on the guestroom

I am currently in the process of trying to fix up my guestroom.  Here is a little peak at what is going on so far.  I still don't have my nightstand and dresser in the room yet, plus I need to get some things on the walls and also hang some curtains.  The curtains I originally planned to hang in here do not match it at all, so now I've got to go buy new curtains for the guestroom.

The lamp on the little table is something I just picked up today from a little thrift store down the street. I got it for my bedroom, but I'm thinking it might look nice in the guest room instead.  You never know until you move things around.

Still in progress

Curtains are up

I finally got my curtains up in the living room.  I had to buy new rods since these windows were a different size than the last place I lived.  I love these beautiful walnut colored ones.  I kept trying to hang them at different heights and decided I like them hung right above the window frame best.  I've always wanted curtains that were hung from the ceiling height, but it didn't look right in this room for some reason.

Curtain rods purchased from Countrycurtains.com

Curtains from Ikea
Throw pillow from this Etsy seller 

I am still in the process of trying to pull the rest of the  living room together. I don't know when I will get finished. I need a TV stand, a coffee table and end tables.  I'm using a tv tray and a sewing table as my end tables for the time being.  Also am waiting for my mantle to get put up so I can get that all decorated.  The wait will be worth it  :)

Backyard

I was out playing with Little Foot in the backyard just now.  Thought I would take some pics while I was out there.  I love this fenced in yard so much!  Worth every penny!  LF is still playing with his new doggy friend next door, too.

Here is a tree that's in my yard.  I guess it's a rhododendron.

When it flowers, hopefully they will look like this...

There are also azalea bushes all along the border of my yard.

and hopfully they will look like this when they bloom.

The flowers look quite similar to one another.  I can't wait until spring so I can start working on my yard.  Ok first things first, get my boxes unpacked!  I am starting to reach burn out with all the work I've been doing on the house lately.  Sorry for the lack of posts.

Here is LF enjoying his new yard.

Fence is up

The fence is up!  They put the poles in on Friday and finished putting the rest of it up yesterday.  Today was a sunny beautiful day, so Little Foot and I played some fetch.  He loves all the space to run around in now.  He wasn't able to get out and run before.  He has found he can play a little game with the dog next door, they run back and forth with each other on opposite sides of the fence.  It's really cute.

We're going to have a ball next summer, I can get him a little kiddie pool and some agility equipment to play with.

Next project, getting my mantle up on the fireplace!