We're moving slowly with the kitchen. I think that anything of this magnitued I think moves slowly at first because once you start you really can't stop. We're pretty set on white cabinetry, we've picked out our appliances [I really have to show you those soon] and we think we're going with a wood floor to maintain the flow of the rest of the house. One thing we need to figure out is the backsplash. So I'm going to reveal one of the considerations we have, and that is glass subway tiles. And some inspirational pictures to show you why we like the idea...

Image via Better Homes and Gardens



February 2012 issue of Kitchen and Bath Ideas via Visual Comfort Blog



Barbara Waltman Design

I especially love the one above by Barbara Waltman Design. Isn't it divine? It shows a white kitchen but with a splash of subtle colour. Sometimes colour needn't be strong of powerful to make a statement.Anyhow, our mind isn't made up - so blogging about our ideas helps us figure out what to do. What do you think of glass subway tile? Like? No?

When I was in Virginia last time I took some time to dig around at my parents house for anything they would be willing to part with.

Haha.

My mom is one of those women that has done a little of everything, does do a little of everything and will do a little of everything in her lifetime.
(I am will be just like her when I grow up)

One of those "things" she picks up is some cool pieces of furniture and such at local places and auctions.

You can see a few treasures in her Etsy store.
(Keep checking her store cause she's holding out on you people. She has some AWESOME old stuff to sell!)

Anyway, to make a long story even longer...

I dug around outside and I found this old table top laying under some leaves.

I grabbed it with haste.

It's taken me a few months but J.T. Wilton is ready to shine.

In an old and weathered kind of way that is.

Will I keep J.T?

No, I will not.

Email me if you're interested in him.

***

Big stuff is getting ready to happen around here.

We are having our pool redone starting this week!

Do we want to do this?

No.

It just so happens that we have to do this though and it goes hand in hand with fixing our family room flooding problem.

I will keep you posted with pictures.
(as well as the photos of us eating beans and Ramen noodles.heh)

In the meantime, feast your eyes on this lovely new back splash.

I put the rest of the leftover cuts from planking our living room to good use too.

Will reveal that soon!



I decided last night that it was time to reopen my shop. It's a little hard to do so, but necessary to keep myself occupied. Since I closed my shop in the middle of our popular stamp sale I have lauched it again, and it ends next week. Save 20% on the wood handle stamps when you enter STAMPSALE into the promo code. Also, thanks for the lovely comments on the painting yesterday. I've gotten a number of lovely e-mails requesting commisions which has made my year. Many have encouraged me to sell some paintings, perhaps something I will contemplate over the next few months. Anyhow, sorry for the advertising of my shop. But this is what I'm doing today - working - so, well - fitting that today's post be about it. xo Lindsay

Stamp Sale at The Penny Paper Co. http://www.pennypaperco.com/ Enter STAMPSALE to save.

On Sunday, Adam and I finished hanging our interior doors! I love their dark finish against the white trim and light walls in the bedrooms and bathroom (this picture was taken from the hallway, where both the trim and walls still need to be painted - the trim will be the same creamy white we've used throughout the house and the walls will be the same blueish-grey we used downstairs).

I wasn't sure about using oil-rubbed bronze doorknobs on our dark-stained doors at first, but I love the finished look. So much better than our old doors, which looked like this:

Improvement much? I'm so happy to have this project checked off the list :) We're starting to look into hardwood flooring options for the bedrooms, which is hopefully our next big project! What did you do this weekend?

I've been slowly adding elements to our living room to make it complete. One of the big puzzle pieces that the room has been missing has been art. We had a stumbling block - The art I did like was out of our price range....so I decided to make my own.

I purchased a canvas in December, and it has since sat in the basement waiting for me to work on it. Although I've done abstract before (Perhaps not on purpose), doing it at such a huge scale like this [40" x 40"] proved to be intimidating. Fast forward to an evening last week and I felt a sudden need to paint. I had already primed the canvas black a few weeks earlier, so all I needed was the willpower to put that first brush stroke to the canvas. So when out of the blue I felt the need to paint - I did. And I'm happy to say, I love it!

Although this canvas could hang without framing, I'm going to get it framed. [pending costs] Right now it sits on the console, and is bringing beautiful colour to our room. I adore it. To read some tips of what helped me create the art, read more. :)

Read more »

Okay, so am I the only one who shies away from banner making? Probably so...my Type A, perfectionist personality sometimes gets the best of me and if I feel a project will not be PERFECT, I won't do it...or, at least I fear trying. I admit it. 

But this time, I had no choice. I was asked by a friend to make the banner for another friend's baby shower and of course, I said "yes". And, in procrastinator fashion, I waited until the last minute to finish it. Partly because I couldn't make up my mind about which papers to use and how to combine the chosen colors and partly because, well, you guessed it...I was scared. 

I decided to sit down and just start. 

It wasn't so bad...

 This was my first craft project since our new little one and aside from nursing in between and managing our other three and hubby out the door, it was almost painless. 

(Even though what would normally be an hour project  turned into a three hour procedure...)

And this is what I got...

Nevermind the alignment or lack of... :)

and a close up...

So, this was this was my attempt at such a creative paper banner...how about you? 

What projects are on hold or have you crossed off of your list lately? I'd love to hear about it! 

 Living fearlessly,

{snapped with my BlackBerry}

Adam has been working overtime to finish staining and sealing our interior doors. I snapped this picture in our garage this morning after he finished putting on the second coat of polyurethane. He used Minwax Wood Finish in Jacobean and their clear satin poly. The flash from my phone makes the finish look lighter than it actually is (in person it's all brown, not blonde), but I love that it's light enough to let the wood grain really show. The colour is really rich and warm and I can't wait to see it against our light-coloured walls and creamy white trim.

{snapped with my BlackBerry}

He still needs to get a second coat of poly on the other side of the doors, but hopefully we'll be able to hang them on Sunday and I can snap some 'after' shots to share with you early next week.

In other news, we had our first ultrasound today and got an official due date of August 14th! It's too early to tell much, but baby has arms, legs, feet, hands and all that good stuff :)

We're off to visit Adam's parents this weekend and we're going to pick up a bookshelf from my mom's house, so I may have some more basement progress to share too. What are you up to this weekend? Have a great one!

I have been rolling through the dresser options lately and finally (after weeks of searching) scored this dresser on CL for a great price.

(When I say great price then I mean less than $75)

I was happy to see that it was already painted an ugly copper color.

I hate painting an old piece of furniture when it is in perfectly good, unpainted condition.

I have been slow cheap about jumping on the bandwagon and trying out some of the new paints that everyone is loving.

I decided to go for the Old Fashioned Milk Paint that I had seen Marian from Miss Mustard Seed use.

I used the color Snow White.

I was very unsure of how it was going to work with the previous paint.

I sanded it up a little since the copper paint was super smooth and I knew this paint was not a paint that sticks really well.

Can I just say...

I fell in Milk Paint Love.

Achieving that very old, chippy look has been something I've worked towards for a long time.

Never could quite get it.

Milk Paint was my missing ingredient.

This paint has a mind of its own for sure.

It chips where it wants to.

Just like regular old paint would.

I used two different waxes to finish it off.

Minwax clear wax and Fiddes & Sons in Rugger Brown.

The hardware I removed and then painted with Caromal Colours since it gives a super hard finish that I knew would hold up well.

(I gently brushed the hardware with a little wax to add color when the paint had dried)

I found a local store that sells the Milk Paint.

I am super excited to try it out on some signs!

And I have just the right sign in mind...

Stay tuned.

(By the way, if you've been around here a while then you've heard me talk about Milk paint before, but I have always been referring to the COLOR Milk Paint that I like to use from Lowes. It is normal paint. The Paint I am referring to in this post is actual Milk Paint.)

Over the weekend, Adam and I took a little trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond with a gift card in hand. I was looking for a new shower curtain and Adam was looking to get in and out as quickly as possible (I swear, within 30 seconds of us walking through the doors he started asking me if I was done yet). I was hoping to find something for $24.99, when I stumbled across this beauty by Amy Butler for $49.99. Not to worry, I quickly rationalized that I was still saving money, so how could I not buy it?

Then we got up to the counter and it rang up at $13.99. Yes, $13.99. I held my breath. The cashier, who apparently really wanted to charge me $49.99, called over not one, but two managers, who looked at the computer and then at the shower curtain and then at each other and then at me and then finally, eventually decided that because they couldn't prove it wasn't $13.99, they'd have to go with the computer on this one.

I love the pop of colour it adds to our bathroom; it makes me smile everytime I walk into the room. And the price just makes it that much sweeter!

P.S. It's driving me crazy that the toilet paper roll is on backwards. I'd blame my husband, but at least he replaced it, right?

Congratulations to the winner!

Random.org picked out the lucky number 3.

Sometimes it pays to be the early bird.

Lori from My Heart With Pleasure Fills was our early bird this time.

She won a $25 gift certificate to sorrythankyou79

Thank you so much to Andrea from sorrythankyou79 for teaming up with me for this giveaway!

Also, a hearty congratulations to her for having her books splashed hither and yon across the pages of Fossil!

Our house when we purchased it

Now, with new windows

It's done! The last windows of our house have been replaced. We have zero windows left to do. We had Fieldstone Windows come in and do these and I love, love the look of them. However, we're now debating what to do for window coverings (I'll post about that tomorrow) Anyhow, I've been meaning to show the "before" and "now" shot. xo Linds

Thank you for your lovely comments and compliments about my newly-sewed slipcover. You guys are the best!

Currently, our new interior doors are lined up in the garage, freshly stained and waiting for a couple coats of poly (I like to imagine that Adam is at home poly-ing as I type this). That means the doors are no longer taking up space in our living room/dining room (as an aside, I knew it had taken us too long to get around to this project when not having the doors in the room felt weird).

With the doors out of the way, I was able to make some progress on my little work area. This is our old dining table and the top got pretty beaten up in storage. Nothing that a fresh coat of paint wouldn't fix.

The colour is Martha Stewart's Sharkey grey (I picked up a sample container for $1). I really like the way it contrasts with the white legs - very subtle, but just interesting enough. Since it's not furniture paint, I'm going to ask Adam to add a couple coats of poly so I don't have to worry about marking up the surface (again - I already have a couple of spots to touch up). Then comes the fun part, adding accessories!

I meant to post this for Valentine's Day. It is a bit of a recycled project from before but with a fun little spin - I bought a few dollar store boxes, stained them and painted the tops in chalkboard paint.The ways that you could use this project are endless. I especially think they are sweet as place cards at a dinner table. For adults, put a little after dinner mint inside or for childrens seating cards, place fun little things inside of the box to keep them occupied during dinner. Anyhow, it is such a simple and sweet project. xo Linds

Aubrey stayed home from work this week, and weekend to give me some help at home. Having him here meant I could just sneak away to the bedroom and lie down, when I just needed quiet. I love the cocoon of my bedroom. My quilt from my grandmother seems to follow me around the house when I need warmth or comfort - this weekend no exception. The above picture I snapped right before watching some HGTV on Saturday.

Some exciting things are in the works over here. Some news on appliances, rumblings of some filming with a TV show, some painting projects, kitchen details and more. All little excitements that make for nice distractions. Anyhow, more inspiration and blog posts will surely start to flow soon. I'm not feeling all that creative, so I'm keeping my shop closed for another week.  But right now I'm wrapped up in my quilt and I'm going to go watch Downton Abbey with Aubrey. :)  xo Linds

Ps., Thank you for all of your lovely support last week. I can't begin to tell you how much it meant reading each and every note you sent. xo

i

I haven't been a very good blogger lately. I've completed a few small projects - like sewing this permanent slipcover for my $20 thrifted chair - I just needed to find time to photograph and share them. You might remember that I sewed a practice slipcover a while ago, using inexpensive fabric, just to make sure I could. But we needed something with a little more weight, something a little more durable than my cheapy test fabric. Enter white denim. It's quite lovely, actually. And I fancied it up with some black piping, which made the sewing part a whole lot more frustrating, but was totally worth it. Oh, and I sewed this little pillow too. Now I like standing in my living room and staring at my chair. It feels like we got a brand new piece of furntiure :)

I've done a few furniture redo's the last couple of weeks.

The first one was a desk I found on CL and I bought it to use myself.

Turns out it didn't fit the spot I was hoping to use it in.

So back to CL where it was sold again.

It was a beautiful desk with a few veneer problems.

Some veneer can be fixed but this one had the bubble, the crack and the chip going on.

please forgive these photos. they were taken for CL

I used this method to take the veneer off and was beyond thrilled with how it worked!!

It took me about an hour to remove all the veneer from the top and back of this desk.

Now that's cool.

I can't even begin to tell you how happy I was to see this wormy, worn top under the veneer.

I used some wood conditioner to bring it back to life and then waxed it.

I added some new knobs from Hobby Lobby and painted the bottom in my favorite color Milk Paint from Lowes.

So sad to see it go.

The photo below was one I found online since I was a forgetful blogger and didn't take a before photo.

Typical white with butcher block top.

Blah.

Did I mention dirty and stained too?

This was a piece that I experimented on.

Big time.

I finally ended up using this ladies wonderful method to "weather" the wood.

*Tip* If you try doing this, make sure EVERY bit of finish is sanded off!

The legs were given a coat of my own made up gray paint, then splotched and spattered and dry brushed with white.

Then glazed.

The final look was a surprise even to me since I let it take its own direction.

It is now for sale at the Market.

And lastly...

I found this chair in someones trash pile.

It got sanded, painted gray then I used Caromal Colours Paint to add texture.

I then dry brushed Alabaster white paint over it and glazed with black and brown glaze.

The seat is white burlap with a sharpie marker design on it:-)

It is headed off to Market On The Square (Granbury Texas) to be sold as well.

I love redoing furniture!

I normally start out with a vision, but then kinda just let the piece take its own direction.

Sometimes it takes a wrong turn and I start over:-)

Don't forget about my giveaway!