SWEET HOME ALABAMA!!

Yesterday Jen and I hopped into the car and traveled to Alabama to visit our dear friends Nancy and Rob. This the view from their great room looking out to the ADORABLE screen room and her beautiful azaleas! Nancy and I became friends when she worked at my home away from home.....Home Depot. We share a passion for decorating and just enjoy getting into lots of trouble together (the fun kind of course.!)

So we are here for about 5 days and will be going to the Arts and Crafts Festival today in Fairhope, a nice upscale little community just outside Mobile.

We're off to see the sights!!

Happiness is a Bluebird!

I have recently become enamoured with bluebirds.

I found this teapot at T.J.Maxx on Saturday and I really like it. I have a few other bluebird items on the display shelf in my kitchen. I have a lot of Fitz and Floyd items,too and even though this one is not, it could have fooled me it looks a lot like their style.

Saturday because it rained for 3 days (what a blessing! We really needed it as we are having drought conditions here in Texas) we cleaned the garage instead. I now have the amount of

"treasure " in my garage down to a manageable amount. So, since most of Saturday was consumed with cleaning I didn't get to wallpaper until today. I am happy to report that the paper is all up. I am waiting for the wallboard to dry and then I will mount the standards for the shelving. I still have a lot of work to do but the end is finally in sight .I need to deciding what and where everything should go, then organize it. We've come a long, long way and it is really beginning to look like a cozy little room.

Hope each and everyone of you has a great week and the most festive Saint Patty's day!

Laundry Room Part 3

Well, the best laid plans of mice and men....as the saying goes. I didn't get accomplished all of what I set out to do this week end but I did get the laundry part of the room completely finished. It is the hardest part of the room because of all the cuts for the door, cabinet, outlets, etc. What is left is a straight shot without anything to paper around.

I am working all week this week as my boss will be off to visit with her family. We changed to daylight savings this week and that will give me an extra hour of light but don't know if I will have any energy left at the end of the day to work on the paper. I'm disappointed that I didn't get the other wall done as it is the wall with all the storage shelves and I am anxious to get some organizing and decluttering done in the garage. Well, I guess I'll just have to try to be patient and wait until I have more time next week end. I have a handy man coming on Saturday to help me dig holes for my roses that have been in their original pots for a year now. Unfortunately I hurt by back many years ago and have a difficult time digging especially if there are a lot of holes I will be relieved though to get them in the ground, at last.

Last Monday I had a huge mesquite tree in my front yard cut down. It was quite a site to watch them take it down. It took about 5 hours for 2 of them to get it done. The tree had 2 trunks and half of it towered over my house. That is the part that took so long as they had to take it down branch by branch. Unfortunately the tree was on it's way out and I wanted down before part of it landed on my roof. Not a good thing!!

The weather here has gotten quite warm and all the trees are beginning to leaf out so Spring is definitely on its way. Love to see all the beautiful flowers and warm breezes... Happy Spring!

Before and After Mirror

Remember several weeks ago when Jen and I went shopping for new tennies and we went to Marshall's to check out what goodies they had? One of the things I bought that day was an oval mirror. It was black with brown antiquing. Black is not my favorite so I decided to paint it.

I was going to paint it white and probably should have done that. I was trying to decide whether to take down the wire shelf in the dining room and replace it with the mirror so it would reflect the chandelier. I put it up on the wall in the dining room, got some ivory acrylic paint and just started painting, eventually I went to my paints and started adding some colors and I don't even remember what I put on it but it turned out like in the last pictures. I liked it in the dining room but the wire shelf was weightier (is that a word?) so it returned to the wall and the mirror replaced a picture in the hallway. It is directly across from a french door so I think it brings some extra light to the hallway.

The little shelf below the mirror is a castoff piece of trim from a half wall that we took out of my last house. I just cut it to size, mounted it with some cast iron brackets from Hobby Lobby and added some "stuff" I'm not sure I think all the accessories are great but until I find something that I think is better, it will do. Sometimes it's hard to know exactly what to put on the shelf and in the display shelf that sits on it. The spaces in the display shelf are somewhat narrow to put a lot of things in so I'll just keep trading them out until I feel that it is finally right. More fun, more shopping, right???

Laundry Room : Update-Week 2

Well, here we are week two. We've completed all the priming, I have repaired the cracks in the ceiling and we have the ceiling painted. Today I put the enamel on the door and the frame, got part of the cabinet over the dryer painted and painted the almond refrigerator white. (that way in matches the washer and dryer.) The refrigerator that is in the garage was the one that was left here when we bought the house so we use it for an extra freezer and to keep all our sodas in. I also keep the bottled water in it, I give my dogs bottled water as my older dog had bladder stones and had to have surgery to remove them. I figure it is a small investment to keep them from getting them again. I also use it to make my coffee as our water here is really hard and I kept going through a coffee maker every year or so.

This afternoon I sized the primed walls and hung the first wall of wallpaper. My wallpaper arrived on Friday. I'm not too sure about the boarder yet but see what you think. I just have it pinned up with push pins. I wanted to get this first wall done so I can move the cabinet back. That way I can get the contents off of my dining room table..... I'm tired of looking at the mess!!

Next week end, finish the wallpaper, mount the brackets for the shelving and start getting the shelves installed. It's a tall order, I guess we'll see how much I can get done. For now, into a warm bath and try to relieve my aching muscles. Have a good week.