HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!88 years ago today my mother was born. Almost 8 years ago, she went home to be with her Savior. I still miss her!

She was an example of what a Godly wife and mother should be. She loved us unconditionally and was patient and kind.



She taught me to make do with what I had and to LOVE it!! She was creative and content!

She was full of fun and could laugh at herself!

There are so many things I wish I could share with her - my daughters' weddings, the birth of the twins, our "new" old home, my son's marriage, the growth of the two grandchildren she did meet - not to mention all that has happened in my siblings' families!!

I picture her in heaven, looking down and smiling at us. I hope she is pleased with all of us!

I love you and miss you, Mom!

When I started this blog so long ago, it was a "decorating" blog. It was helpful to me - gave me motivation to not only start the projects that were in my head, but to finish them as well. It worked well for that. But as time went on, I found that trying to take all those pictures from start to finish, etc. was hard for me. I would get going on a project and just forget to take them!

Anyway, I have decided to change this blog to more of a "decorating/family" blog. I love to do projects - take something old and re-make it into what I want. I love to paint and change the look of things, so that will always be a big part of my blog. But there may not be as many pictures of each step! And there will be more "family" things, because that seems to be how we stay connected these days and then I will have a "diary" to look back on and remember what happened (you know, for when I get old).

So, hopefully, a little later, I will get some pictures posted of our Georgia trip - after all, it is inspiring to visit Georgia! (As the picture at the top shows)

Plants and a sweet potato casserole at Knottliten Cottage

The plants that I chose for the back yard (greens, yellows, reds, tropical ish) -

The plants that I chose for the front yard (blues, purples, pinks, whites) -The mature plants already in the front yard (pink azalea and purple lilac tree) -Proof that I do sometimes make dinner (sweet potato omelette casserole) -

Sorry for the photo quality; it was hailing when I took these pics :)

Super Easy St. Patrick's Day Sign

This is soooo easy - I forgot to even take pictures! Just grab a piece of 2 x 4 about 8" long. (In my case, I asked my hubby to cut me one since all the scraps were too big or too little). I gave it a quick, very light spray of heirloom white. Then it was just a matter of typing on a piece of scrapbooking paper, modpodging it onto the block and adding a cookie cutter. I then put some eye hooks and chain on the top and hung it up by my front door.

SUPER EASY - SPLASH OF FESTIVITY!

Hooking up with Cottage Instincts Make it for Monday and DIY at ASPTL

Master Bath Re-do

It seems like we've been working on the master bedroom/bath forever, but it's really only been a month! The bedroom was pretty much done last week and this week we put the final touches (is anything ever FINAL with a home?) on the bathroom. I've already posted about the mirror/vanity remake, so basically the floor was what we had left to do. It started like this and went to this.

When we pulled out the old vanity and put in the "dresser vanity", the lack of linoleum under the vanity became very visible.

My husband put thin layer of floor levelor over the whole floor.

I then taped off some grout lines

and gave the whole thing a coat of primer,

then a base coat of blue.

Next I sponged on three different colors (gray, green and tan) and smooshed it all together,

let it dry a few minutes and pulled up the tape.

Hubby added three coats of poly and - viola - a new floor. I'm glad we started with this floor that few people see because, of course, we (I) learned some things and I think I want to do this in our kitchen some day. 1. Depending on the look you want, keep searching until you find the right size tape for your grout lines. I really wanted thinner lines between, but got tired of looking. My husband suggested an auto body shop, but I was too impatient to try and find one. I like the floor a lot, but when I do the kitchen, I will definitely want smaller lines and will look longer and harder. 2. Try to remember that when you pull up the tape, it will be different pieces of tile. There are several places where it's obvious that my "smooshing" went from one piece to the next which is not natural in a real tile floor.

But overall, I'm very happy with it!

I'm linking up to Make it for Monday

and Metamorphis Monday

And DIY at ASPTL

Thrifty Decor Chick's Before and After

Master Bedroom Makeover

This was our master bedroom when we moved into this house 6 1/2 years ago. (Ok - it wasn't really this bad - I had already taken the bedding off and moved some of the furniture out before I remembered to take a before picture). I found bedding that was a floral yellow and red print and we made it work. But I did tire of it and wanted something a little more "calm". So I started by finding some bedding - our carpet is green, but I wanted a blue/gray. I looked for several months to find something that had both colors and finally found it on clearance at Walmart for $40.00. It's a king set - not queen, but that works great. No need for a bed skirt.Next, we painted - a nice blue/gray (Valspar Woodlawn Silver Brook). I had to change out the headboard, but that was easy. We had made this headboard a few years ago - it's a door we found in our basement and my husband cut pieces of thin wood to fit into the panels and I covered them with batting and material.

So now it was just a matter of recovering them in a new material ( you know - with the staple gun - sorry no picture) and adding the trim moulding around the edge.

Now to the other side of the room. We had just a little table to hold the TV, so we decided to build an "entertainment" center.

We bought kitchen base cabinets from Restore ($40. and $50.), used a bookcase we already had and then made a "matching" one for the other side. I am so happy to have extra shelves now for books, storage and display!

The pictures over our night stands are ones my granddaughter took. The keys on were from my mother's collection and those two pices of art have become some of my favorite things in the whole house!

I know my cords are showing - I actually bought some cord covers, but they are the screw-on kind instead of the velcro kind, so I'm going to exchange them.

I am pleased with how this room has turned out - it's restful and comfortable! I'm sure I'll be tweaking for several weeks, but it's mostly done!

I'm hooking up with ASPTL

for DIY Tuesday

Mirror ReMake

Here's what our master bath vanity and mirror looked like just a few weeks ago. Not Horrible - but not what I wanted for this 1885 Bungalow! The Southwestern border just didn't fit with my style. So it was out with the old . . .

and in with the new. (There was MUCH more to it than just saying "in with the new". Both my husband and my son helped me immensely with this project!! I will be posting more about the bath re-do in a couple weeks)

There was some left over tile from this job, and this mirror looked sadly plain,

So, I enlisted the help of my 14 year old granddaughter (she's VERY artistic and I trust her judgment more than my own on these things!) Anyway, these were the little 1" tiles that you could easily cut apart, so we did a dry fit,

Then pulled up one section at a time and glued it down.

No grout or anything fancy - just Elmers.

And here she is - all hung up! I am very pleased with how this bathroom is turning out and can't wait to post the totally final project! (We have to do something creative with the floor as there was no flooring under the old vanity when we took it out - we have an idea though!)

I love the "old-fashioned" toothbrush holder and the old utility room faucet for the sink.

(And look at that sun beaming through the window!! It was a beautiful day here in the NW today!)

I'm linking up to Metamorphis Monday

Cottage Instincts Make it for Monday

Kimba's DIY

Cheri's It's so Renovated