My Living Room

This room.  This room has given me some fits. It's the very first thing you see when you come in my front door, so I want it to be welcoming, nice and lovely.  I've changed the paint color, I've tried different furniture arrangements, I've swapped furniture with other rooms.  I don't know...I'm just not loving it. 
But here's the before, before we took ownership:

That bright red wall.  I thought I loved it at first.  But when a friend saw it and the green carpet together, she said "It's just like Christmas!"  And then I came to my senses.  So I painted the big red wall.  I eventually painted the wall of built ins you can barely see on the right.  And I painted the shutters on the windows.  That's pretty much it.
Here's how the room looks now:

 I got the ok from the Mr. last night to replace these couches.  We've had them nine years.  They've been great and served their purpose.  But our daughter whose getting married could really use them, so on to a new home.  I've got my eye on some Ikea ones. No more puffy brown marshmallows :)

Our entry way:

Not a lot of room in the entry way.  You can either turn left to the living room or right to the office.
The living room is better than it was, and that's a good thing.
Thanks for stopping by!

Home Evolution: The Kitchen

Welcome back to how my home has changed over the three years we've lived here.  The kitchen is an extension of the family room, they are one big room.  They need to flow together and have a consistent style and feel.  The previous owner was doing that, but in her 80's style.  Here is what the kitchen looked like before: 

Holy Oak, Batman!  Where do the cabinets stop and the floor begins?  Is that an oak kitchen table and chairs floating there on the oak wood floor?  I kid.  It's not a disaster.  In fact they had recently updated and remodeled this kitchen shortly before we bought the home.  New appliances, new countertops, I'm not sure if the cabinets are new or were built with the house in 1987. Their photo is extra orangey for some reason.
Anyhoo, here's the kitchen today:

I tried to get the same shot they used, but it's kind of hard to see the details.

Hello bright white kitchen.  So nice to see you.

Looking at the other side of the kitchen:

 I don't know why this picture is crooked.  Just tilt your head a bit and it will look great!

I really love my kitchen.  Classic white cabinets, wood floors, plenty of cabinets and counter space.  It wasn't that bad painting the cabinets.  (Kind of like childbirth, enough time has gone by that it doesn't seem so bad anymore.)   The only thing I would change is to have white subway tile as the backsplash. 
Oh well, we can't everything.

Come back soon for another room.

My Home: How it's evolved

We bought our home three years ago.  At the time (before I started looking at blogs) I thought it was wonderful!   Yeah it was a little out of date, but the thought of the work that would have to be done to bring it up to speed was overwhelming to me.  But my sister convinced me that I just HAD to think about it.  So I did.  Slowly I've been chipping away at things.  Mostly painting and putting my own personal touch on it.
I found some pictures of the house taken by the previous owners when they still owned the house.  I thought it would be fun to compare their rooms to mine.  I'll be featuring one room at a time.  Let's start with the family room, shall we?

Here is what it looked like when we came to see the house for the first time:
Nothing too terrible about it.  Lots of oak and too much furniture making the space too crowded and cramped.  The wall color was soft so I didn't think we needed to change it right away.

Here's how the room looks now:

Basically the only thing I've done in here is paint the fireplace and add my own decorative detail. (Previous owner made his own decorative sun detail that he attached with Velcro so he could change it out for the winter one with trees and a deer.)
  I've painted the French doors also and of course added our own furniture.  And I updated the oak ceiling fan with spray paint.  We do have a monstrosity of a couch, but this is where we hang out and watch movies, and it works for us.  We tried two separate couches in here for a while and it just didn't work.
I'll be back later to show another before and after room.
Have a great weekend!

A Rescued Canvas

I found this canvas at Goodwill.  What the fish? This thing is large and in charge!

But the price tag just couldn't be beat.  Yes please.

I didn't know what I wanted to do with it when I bought it but knew something could be made of it.
So today I decided to just do something  with it instead of let it sit in my "I'll get to you someday stash".  First thing was to paint over it and get it back to white again, like nature intended it to be.
Then I got out my letter stencils that I've never used.  If I had a vinyl cutting machine I wouldn't even be talking about stencils right now, but I don't.  So I am.

I mixed up some brown and black craft paint together and just applied with a foam brush.  Again, not really knowing what I wanted but just making it up as I went along.

I did know what quote I wanted.  So I just made me some lines with a straight edge and planned out where the letters should go.  I like how it looked, but it was too white.  So I added a little water to the paint and did a wash over the whole thing when the letters were dry.

And wiped it off with a paper towel.  .

 

The canvas naturally took the paint more saturated in some areas than others.  I like it that way, it gives it a more aged look.

And here is the finished canvas.

It fills the space on this wall in my bedroom.

One ghastly goodwill canvas rescued.

Fabulously Creative Friday

Feathered Nest Friday

A Pretty little Pantry

You  know how sometimes it takes someone else's perspective to get you to see how better something can be?  Yeah that happens a lot with me.  I don't know if I live in tunnel vision or what.  But lucky for me, I have a sister who doesn't.  She proposed the idea of moving my food pantry to a bigger pantry that I wasn't utilizing it's full capacity.  So I invited her to come help me, and she did!!
She has vision.  I covet her vision.  She can see how it should be.  I have to be shown.  I'm sure there's a psycological term for that.
Anyway, I only got one before picture of the previous larger pantry.  Bad blogger.
As you can see, this is a walk in pantry.  See the empty space down there at the bottom where no shelves are??  That drove my sister crazy!  Wasted space drives her crazy. Again, probably something psycological.   This is what it looked like before, kind of a catch all modge podge space.

We cleaned out, got rid of things, drilled, made home depot runs, drilled and sawed, painted, shopped and shopped some more.  It was exhausting.  We were exhausted.  We did this in 24 hrs. minus sleeping time.  I'm elated, ecstatic, and excited with my new pantry.  Take a look.

 

No more wasted floor space.

 We hung this peg board to hang baskets, brooms,  and a step stool to maximize even more space.

 Cute corn cob mold and chalkboard for the cute factor.

 We found a lot of these smaller baskets at goodwill

We both thought a clock would look cute in there.

 

It looks so old fashioned to me

Here is the after of the pantry where I used to keep our food.  It's now used to store my paint, cooking appliances, food storage and even the dog beds.

We even had time to build a couple of shelves in my hall linen closet and organize it.  She's a whirlwind, that sister!  She keeps me on my toes and organized.
Being organized feels so good, like losing weight, but a lot easier.
Thanks, Bev!  Keep your visions coming.

Tuesdays Treasures

Bookshelve makeover

This is how my built in book shelves USED to look:  Very wood.  Very shiny wood.

This is how my built in bookshelves look NOW:

Just a few days and some paint.  It really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  I've been putting it off forever.   But it's really so so so much better.

The items on the shelves are the star of the show now.

I may have gotten a little carried away and put too much stuff on them.

Did you know there's an art to styling bookshelves?  People write articles about it, are obsessed with it, dedicate their lives to it.  Well, maybe not.

It takes alot of skill, of which I have none of.
I opted to leave out some shelves in order to place some bigger scale pieces ( that's a professional term for stuff).  I don't know if I'll leave it like this or not.

*Sigh*  Timeless, classic built ins.