Updates on guest room

I finally got my furniture for the guest room.  It's some old furniture my mom didn't want anymore because she bought new furniture for her house.  I'm going to strip these and paint them white.

The nightstand

They will look pretty white I think.

I also need to get a doorknob for the guest room door.

I found this door out in my garden shed. Someone had taken it off for some reason.  One of the many mysteries of this house. 

I want get this door-lock for it.  

I would even like to replace all the knobs in my house with this kind.

Right now they are all that shiney brass that you know I love so much. ha

I wonder if you can spray paint door handles?  Is that possible or would it be a mess?

Wreath is up

I finally got  my wreath put up over the fireplace.  I needed a special nail to get it to go into the brick.

I got the wreath from Wheat Designs By Linda Bisnett. She makes them by hand for you when you order them.  I googled forever for the perfect wheat wreath when I finally stumbled upon her site.

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I was so caught up in posting pics of my living room, I forgot to mention that I got my butcher block counter tops for my kitchen.  I am storing them out in  my garden shed right now. There's plastic all over them so I can't take pics, but I did find this picture taken in an Ikea store of the exact counters that I got.  They are the solid oak like I wanted and so pretty.

I'm going to call around and try to see if I can find someone to install them.

New chair, mirror, coffee table

My living room took on a huge transformation this weekend.  First off, I was with a friend and we were in my parents basement moving some furniture and we both saw this mirror at the same time and said, wow, I love that!  So since I knew it had been down there for a while, I asked my mom if I could have it and she said ok.  I told her I put it over my couch and she was horrified! LOL She said,  "That ole thing? Why?"  She use to have it on the wall in their bedroom when I was a little kid, she did an old faux antique finish on it.   Here it is hanging over my couch.

Yes, that is an empty frame on the wall. I will get to that soon.
She also gave me this coffee table you see in the pic above. She got it for $20. at a yard sale. I'm going to refinish it similar to the photo below.

Here is the Ikea slipcover chair I got.  It looks so adorable and cottagey!  The seat is a bit firm, but I'm hoping it will soften up over time.

It's starting to look like a living room, isn't it? 

Armoire finally arrived

(Click to enlarge)

It is 2 weeks later than it was suppose to arrive, but it finally made it!  It looks just like it did when I photoshopped it into the room, but this time it's in the room for real! lol  I think it looks great.  Now to get those pictures on the wall on each side of it and I'm getting a chair this weekend to put on the left side of the armoire.  I need extra seating space in the room.  I'm also getting a coffee table this weekend that my mom's giving me. She got it from a yard sale for $20.

My wreath arrived also, so I will be getting that up on the fireplace soon. I need a drill to drill into the brick though.  I also need to go find candles for my new hurricane vases. I would say within the next week the living room should almost be pulled together.

I still need to find something to put on the wall over my couch though. It's a big empty space there.

Happy Valentine's Day

Hope everyone has a wonderful day.

I'm off to sit by the fire and drink some hot chocolate...

...and watch the movie Chocolat. 

 It's a tradition I do every year :)

Library table

I'm still at my parents house.  I went through a couple of boxes I have stored at their house and found a bunch of my old books.  I also found some of my old high school books down in their basement.  Weren't we suppose to turn those in at the end of the year? Oops  Anyway, I am on a book kick all of a sudden. I usually go through phases of wanting to read, then phases of where I don't.  Right now I am back to reading again.  I think that library closet inspired me! lol  I'm reading the book Shanghai Girls, it's pretty  good.

I stumbled upon a picture of a library table. Do you have one of these?  This looks so nice.  It's from the blog heatherbullard.com

I'm still interested in converting my coat closet into the library closet, but a lot of my projects are on hold  until the weather warms up.  It's just too cold for me to go outside and saw up a bunch of boards.

What are you reading right now? What is one of your favorite books?

I loved the book Little Women.

Beautiful scenery at my parents

I'm staying at my parents for a couple of days, it is so beautiful out here. They live about 30 minutes from my home.  Here is my parents house.  It's looks small from far away, but it is anything but small!

 That's an old well where they use to use the bucket to get water.  It's now the pump house.

I may take some more snow pictures later, I had to come in before I froze out there!

Pillow arrived & update on armoire

I really love the nest pillow.  It's bigger than I expected and the quality looks real nice.  These apparently are sold out at Pottery Barn, so they are currently selling these pillows for over $100.00 on Ebay.  Crazy!  Glad I acted fast and grabbed it when I did, the moment I saw it, I fell in love with it. hehe

Here it is on my couch. It arrived today.

The armoire situation.
Here's the story...   It shipped January 25th so I called yesterday to find out why it never arrived.  I thought maybe the snow or weather was holding them up.  What happened was, I ordered it over the phone so I could use the coupon and the lady that took my info wrote my phone number down wrong.  So they have been trying to call me and couldn't get a hold of me.  It's been sitting there waiting to be brought to my house for days!  Today I talked to them again to find out what day they can deliver it now and they won't be able to deliver it until next Thursday, Feb 18th.  Yesterday they took the shipping charges off my order so I don't have to pay shipping because of the confusion. Today since we found out it will still be another week before they can deliver it (they only ship to our area once a week), he took off another 10% from my order.  So that makes 20% off all together including my other coupon plus free shipping on my armoire.  Yay!  Now to continue to wait patiently for it to arrive next week.   That's the story.   :)

kitchen counters & backsplash

I am in the process of trying to decide what counters and backsplash I want for my kitchen.  I have  my heart set on butcher block, but am running into some problems.  First off, I priced them at Lowes and they want almost a thousand dollars for them. That seems a little pricey just for butcher block.  I can't find any other place in my town that sells butcher block counters.  I checked Ikea, which I would have to drive to Charlotte to get to and they have them really inexpensive, only a fourth of the price of Lowes.  Then I ran into the problem that they don't carry a piece long enough for the length of my longest counter, which is 100 inches long.  96 is the longest they carry, so I am trying to figure a way to work with the different measurements of wood.

Here is the counter I am thinking of getting at Ikea.

Ikea Numerar solid oak 

They have different types and colors of butcher block to pick from, but I think I like the oak one above the best.  Here are some pics of what more of their counters look like at Ikea.

This one looks closer to the color I would like.

This one is too light I think.

This one would match my walnut floors, but I think it's too dark for the kitchen.

Right now I have a shiney plasticy laminate counter and backsplash that's a real eye sore.  It is hard to tell from the picture, but up close and in real life, it just hurts my eyes.  

This is my kitchen.

I really love my kitchen cabinets.  It was one of the things I liked most about the house when I first looked at it.  I love that they were custom made to go all the way to the ceiling and I love the boards used to make the doors that give it sort of a cottage look.  I also love love my porcelain sink! It is the longest sink I have ever seen in a kitchen. It measures in at 44 inches across. The tile floor is ok, but my biggest complaint is they are COLD in the winter time.  

Here is some kitchen candy for your viewing pleasure.

Here is a beautiful kitchen from one of my favorite blogs.  She has the Ikea butcher block counters, too.  Doesn't it look beautiful?

I want a kitchen faucet like this one has. 

Countryliving.com

I am leaning towards the white subway tile. 

If I do white subway, I would most likely do a darker grout like this, sort of a pale gray colored grout.

Here is a full shot of the same kitchen.

So rustic, so beautiful.

This one's adorable!  Love all the baskets.

I  like how the bottom cabinets are painted green and the top ones are white.

Now this is a white kitchen. I love all white, but I think I still like how the warmth of the butcher block breaks it up a bit.

And last but not least, this has got to be my dream kitchen.

Yum.  Just yum.

Ok now wipe the drool off your face.

Do you think my kitchen would look good with the butcher block or something else?  The white subway backsplash or something else?  I would love to hear your thoughts as I make my decision.

Attic space

Remember my pretty attic dream?

I still don't have a ladder to get up into mine, but I couldn't take it anymore and had to know what was up there.  I devised a plan... I stood on a tall stool and held my camera way up into the hole that goes up into the attic and I clicked a picture of it with the flash on, then downloaded them to my computer so I could see it.

Genius, huh? 

It actually has higher ceilings than I had anticipated,

but there is no floor like I thought. Just insulation, which is a good thing, at least I know my house is insulated. Just wished they had insulated the room they built on where I have my office, but that's another story.

Here are the floors, or non-floors should I say.

Maybe I shouldn't have checked so it wouldn't have ruined the dream :p

Winter Wonderland

I know I complain about the cold sometimes, but it is all worth it when you wake up in the morning and look out the window and everything is just covered in snow, the trees, ground, houses, the dogs! lol  I was completely surprised this morning, I knew they were calling for snow, but I thought it was going to slowing pile up today. To my surprise I woke up to a winter wonderland outside. It's so beautiful!  Thought I would post some more of the snow pics, even though I've posted snow pics before. This time I got the neighbors houses in the pics so you can see the homes right next to my house.

This one is the lady that lives right next door to me, she has a cute little ranch house, I love it.

This is the neighbor that lives directly across the street from me.

Okay, so they are all ranch houses, lol.  They each have their own  little personality though.

This is the sweet lady that lives diagonally across from me.

My house from the backyard.

Snow sticking to all the trees, it's just so amazing it's hard to stop looking at it.

And of course I have to post a picture of my snow baby in it.  He loves the snow so much. I should buy a sled and see if he will pull me in it!

I'm going to go enjoy this beautiful snow we are having.  Have a wonderful day!

Library Closet

I stumbled upon the neatest thing. A library closet!  After doing some more googling on it, it seems they are more popular than I realized. Who would have thought of using a closet for a library?  I have a big empty coat closet in my hallway that hardly ever gets used. I had originally planned on cutting out the panels in them and putting some fabric on it, but I am thinking I like this idea better.  My closet has a light in it like this one, too.  How neat would this be?

Off to buy some books :p

I found the article here, Totally in his element.

Looking for a wreath

I am still on the hunt for a wreath to put over my fireplace.  It has to be a light colored one so it will show up against the dark brick.  I also prefer something that isn't plastic or fake, so I'm thinking a dried wreath.
I still can't get that wheat wreath out of my head from the Martha Stewart site, so last night I combed the web with a fine tooth comb looking for a beautiful wheat wreath.  It took me forever, but I finally found this...

They come in 19, 22 and 26 inch. I'm thinking the 22" would be good.  Do you think this wreath would look okay used all year, or does this look more like a seasonal wreath?  I was thinking I could decorate it for the different seasons by putting a bow or something on it.  Any other ideas besides a dried wheat wreath?

My fireplace.

Office collage

• LLBean cottage desk
• Antique bankers chair
• Braided brown jute rug
• Sherman Williams Antique White paint
• West Elm curtains
• Ikea lanterns
• Ikea pencil holders
• Michaels cork squares
• Bed Bath & Beyond waste basket

I am searching  high and low for some curtains for my office.  Everywhere I have been I haven't found what I'm looking for.  I can't stop thinking about these West Elm curtains though.  I can't seem to find anything like them anywhere I go.  I am a bit confused by the coloring of them, because the colors look so different on the web site. I may have to call and talk to them.

What do you think? Do you like these for the office/laundry room?

*EDITED:  Well, I was getting ready to order the white with the light brown design and they have already sold out of the length I need since this morning when I was on the site.  This is my luck.  So do you know where I can find any curtains similar to these anywhere? 

Let it snow.... again.

We had a whole weekend of snow.  I didn't get a chance to paint any more on my office because the walls are so cold.  I did however have a nice weekend just relaxing and enjoying the scenery.

I tried to stay inside mostly because the roads were so icy.

Here is my Christmas tree I planted all covered in snow.

My Pottery Barn armoire is suppose to be delivered this week sometime.  I was checking the tracking on the web site and while I was there, I scanned their sale section and saw these cute little butterflies.  They are having free shipping on a lot of their merchandise right now, so I took advantage.

Christmas ornaments.

You could even make a wreath from them, which I might do.

Stay warm!