Red, White & Blue Guest Room

I finally got something up on the window in the r/w/b room.

The shelf was over the window in baby boy's room (before he moved upstairs and that room became my office/sewing room) It spent several years in the attic collecting dust and I brought it with me not really knowing if I would have a place to use it or not.

It used to be blue - but not the right blue for this room. I looked for a pic but haven't found one yet (pre-digital camera)

I painted the shelf and made the valance - which it turns out I should have lined but I'm not taking it down and doing it over.

I need to get out my camera book and see if I can figure out why my camera isn't taking pictures as well as it was. I'm sure someone (wonder who?) has changed a setting - I just need to figure out which one so I can change it back! I know some of the problem with these pictures is simply lighting but I still think there is something set wrong.

Hanging around

I'm finally getting around to posting pictures of the piece I hung over the breakfast bar. I didn't take any before pictures - I dunno why - bad blogger? Anyway - I picked this up from Margo's booth in Athens (at Winnie & Tulula's) the day we went to Canton.

It was burrrr cold and I didn't find anything for this spot in Canton so we stopped in Athens on the way back and I found this. I took this picture standing in the den. I tried to crop out the fugly beige wall on the den side of the breakfast bar.

Here's a close up of the den side.

This is what it looks like on the kitchen side. It was plain on this side so I added the swag at the top and the small flowers inside the little circles close to the bottom before I gave it a coat of paint and glaze. (I don't know why it looks so dark in this picture, but it is the same color as the other side!) No way to crop out the fugly beige walls from this side. They are on the 'to be painted' list, but it is a long list!
I still think I could have used something larger here, but this will do for now. I'm thinking of adding some small shelves to the inside of the columns to help fill in the space and if I do that, this might be just the right size.
Hope you have sunshine where you are.
btw - spell check doesn't know burrr, Tulula's or fugly.

Details

For those who asked - the heart in the picture yesterday was one of a group I made several years ago.

I just used bits and pieces of things I had on hand. I intended to make more, but as of yet, that hasn't happened.
We actually have SUN today! It is still cold, but at least the sun is out!
Have a great week.

Happy Valentine's Day

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

One of those days

Do you ever have one of those days? You get up in the morning thinking you are going to get so much accomplished then the next thing you know, the day is almost over and you haven't accomplished anything. Today has been one of those days. (I seem to have a lot of them lately)
I think the yucky weather is getting to me. We didn't have any snow here (at least it would be pretty to look at) The rain has stopped but it is still cold and cloudy. Yuck. Migraines don't help my mood much either but when you combine it with the dreary weather - it ain't good.

Just to show how far behind I am, I bought this little Valentine charm pack before Valentine's Day last year and I just this week finally made a table runner with it.



Yes, it took me a whole week to get it finished. Of course, this is also the first time in weeks my dining room table has been empty enough to actually put a table runner on it - I've been painting stuff in there. (shelves and an architectural piece I hope to get hung this weekend so I can show you!)

I guess that is enough gritching for one day.

Cross your fingers we see some sunshine tomorrow!

The Powder Room

This room is very hard to take pictures of. It is small and has no natural light - I did the best I could. I would like to blame the size/light for how boring the before pictures are, but while they did make matters worse, it was just a really blah space. I hope the blue paint helps! So, here we go with the before and after pics.


Builder beige walls. What else can you say?

After, with a little blue paint on the walls! The little shelf has had several past lives. My dad made it and it was in the bathroom at our old house. First it was stained, then painted green (not sure if you can tell it is green in the before pic) I repainted it and hung it back in the same place.

What can I say about this little niche? Useless. I don't know why they didn't make a small closet or something here - or if they had to do the little niche, they could have at least put an outlet here so you could have a small lamp or something. Whatever.

The white cabinet is one we were using at the apartment and I really had no good place for it here so it just kind of landed in the niche. Good place to store extra tp.

I tried to get a picture of the sandcastle picture by taking a picture in the mirror. Didn't work too well but I hung it back in the same spot after painting.


We left the light fixture and mirror. I don't know if this was the one 'upgraded' light fixture when the house was built or if it was changed out after but it isn't too bad. I would prefer a framed mirror so may change that somewhere down the road, but for now it isn't horrible. We did change out the faucet and the tp and towel holder.
This is the same blue I used in the master bedroom. Sure makes me want to get going on painting the rest of the house!
That's about it - only so many pictures you can take in a room this small!

And in the other corner

On the wall opposite the one with baby pictures (that I showed the other day) I have senior (high school) pictures of the boys. (so one wall I have 18 months, the other - 18 years)

The quilt was given to me by a friend who was no longer using blue and yellow in her house.

The plaque above the boys pictures came from Hobby Lobby. It's metal and was a reddish-brown color which just wasn't going to work here so I spray painted it black then dry-brushed some gold on it to make the details stand out a bit. (should have used a different color gold, but that is what I had on hand)
I really wanted to buy paint yesterday and get started on another room but I resisted. Do I really want to paint again right now? No, but I want it painted and I can't figure out another way to get it done. I've got another project I've been working on this week - hope to have it finished by the weekend and then catch up on some other things next week so maybe I can put a little green paint on some walls the week after.
I have finally managed to get my blog reader under 100 posts - not an easy thing to do when it was over 600 at one point. I need to figure out a way to keep up with reading blogs while I'm actually doing something worthy of posting on my own blog!

Twenty-six birthdays

And this is the first one I've spent apart from him. I've missed birthday's for the other boys - when Brian was living in Illinois and when baby boy started college (and no longer lived at home) but this is the first one of Timothy's I've missed completely. I might have only seen him long enough to say happy birthday, but at least I saw him.
One of the things I was going to do once I wasn't working anymore was organize my pictures - I've had a year - don't even have a good running start but I went through a few boxes and I'm going down memory lane here a bit.

Three weeks

Eight months - he will surely love me for posting these. Takes after his mother and hates to have his picture made. A month later he was walking - everywhere!

First haircut. Yes, we went through a lot of 'binkys'

Out of three boys, he was the only one to break a bone or get stitches. He was five here. The cast didn't slow him down at all. The stitches came a few years later. Amazing - those were the only two times he injured himself badly enough to warrant a trip to the ER and trust me, he was a busy little guy - still is!

He would try most anything once - his first tomato plant - couldn't find a pic with it loaded with red 'maters but it produced a lot! (if Papa could grow 'maters, he could too)

He taught himself to ride a bike in one afternoon.

A teenager (barely - he had just turned 13) with our first doxie, Honey.

High school - he marched

he rested

he played

he concentrated

and yes, he knows what to do with all those knobs and buttons. How? I dunno - but he does!

High school graduation

College graduation

And now living on his own and working in the big city. (this picture was taken at Jason's graduation in May - I'm telling ya, he doesn't like to have his picture made - I had to hunt for this one!)
If he were here I would make him an Italian Cream Cake. I owe you one, kid.
Your parents are very proud.
Happy Birthday, Timothy!
Love,
Mom

Bedroom is painted

I did finish painting our bedroom - still haven't figured out what I am going to do with the window but I thought I would give a peak at the blue walls. Love 'em - so much better than all beige!

This is my side of the bed. I bought the ladder at Canton this past weekend. Let me just say one word about Saturday in Canton - COLD. 'Nuff said. Anyway - the tablecloth and napkin on the bottom and the pillowcases with pink were made by my great-grandmother. The 'his and hers' pillowcases are a very early embroidery project I did as a Christmas gift for my grandparents. If I remember right, I stitched them one summer while visiting my great-grandmother. The little towel on top is just something I picked up at an antique mall. The pictures on the right are my babies, each at 18 months of age. On the wall directly opposite that one I have their senior (high school) pictures. Pretty much the last time I could 'insist' on a picture! (I'll show that wall another day)

That is about it for today. So much to do, so little time!

Hope you are having a great week!

Shopping in the garage

In the never ending effort to clear out some 'stuff' in the garage, I went shopping out there today. I brought in some old 'soda' crates and put them up on top of the kitchen cabinets. I may have mentioned before that hubby's grandfather (and then his parents) had a little grocery store. Hubby worked there while growing up (along with many of his friends but we won't get into those stories here!) Anyway - we ended up with these three.


They are so 'used' you can barely read parts of it. This one is a '7UP' crate. It was divided up for individual bottles so it was easy to just sit stuff on top of it.

The two 'Coca Cola' boxes are divided for 6 packs so I turned one upside down and stacked them so I could put some stuff on top of them. That is the 'good' side of the one that is upside down! I see these things all over for sale - many in much better shape, but I like knowing where these came from. Still not totally happy with the arrangement up there, but I'll figure it out eventually. I don't climb up there and move stuff often - but I think about it a lot!