We live here

Thought it would be fun to have this picture of where we live.  This is where we spend most of our time, in the kitchen and living room.  It's not perfect and its most often un kept but its HOME and I love it.

We love Halloween

Garage Sale find

Oh, how happy I feel when I finally get around to a project that has been long overdue. I bought this shelf, bookcase thing-a-ma-jig at a sale for $10 - woohooo.....I saw it had potential even though the corner was beaten up. And....it sat in my pile of projects in the garage for months! I finally got motivated to organize our bathroom. So I hauled it out, sanded it down a little, fixed the beaten corner with wood filler, patiently waited (overnight...ugh I hate waiting...) and painted it.  Of course I distressed it, because I pretty much distress everything!  I love how it turned out and it got me motivated to repaint the cabinet door I had outside and turned it into a jewelery rack.  I found some "HIS" & "HERS" hooks at Rod Works that were perfect.  I still need to organize some other parts of the bathroom, like my hair and makeup junk but this is a great start!

Let Freedom Ring

I love decorating for holidays. Growing up in Ireland, we didn't decorate houses except for Christmas. The table in our foyer is a rotating holiday table of sorts. It's fun and keeps the house fresh. I especially love 4th of July decor. I love America! I love the words of the Star Spangled Banner. I love to honor the freedom we enjoy in this great country.
God Bless America!!!!

 

If only.....

I LOVE this picture Baili took with her new Ipod Touch.  It makes our home look like a snapshot from a home decor store.....  If only the rest of the house looked as put together as this little corner! 

3 months and this is all I have to show for it!

I have been a slacker. I haven't had any desire to organize, craft, clean or create for three months.....SAD!  Umm I take that back, I have cleaned my house and my toilets, sigh but nothing spectacular enough to blog about.  I did however make these gifts for the kids teachers to say thank you, thank you pinterest!  They were easy, which is always nice.  Jacob had two male teachers this year so they got the Root Beer, they said "I'm SODA-LIGHTED that you were my teacher this year".  If I were a teacher, I would prefer the Jamba Juice gift card so we gave those to the female teachers..."Thank you for quenching my THIRST for knowledge this year" (Ryans & Kami's). 

 

AND THESE CHAIRS.....did you know I take peoples trash?  Yes its a problem and a growing one.  Refer to exibit A:  A blog post from 2010 or Exibit B. Sometimes I cruise the neighborhood on a Wednesday night just to see what treasures might be waiting.  Actually I haven't done this for a long time mostly because our garage is stuffed with "TO DO" projects from Craigslist or garage sales.  I really need to get on that but now its hot, the pool is calling and I'm UNMOTIVATED to sand or paint or pull anything from the pile in the third car garage.  hmmmm, maybe I'll wait till Fall?  To long?  I dunno?

Meanwhile, I found these Adirondack (break it down and its easy to pronounce, I said it wrong for at least two years!) chairs outside someones house in our neighborhood, just waiting for me to save them from definite destruction in the REPUBLIC SERVICE SQUISH MOBILE.  I shoved them in the back of the trusty van KIMBEE, thankful that we only lived around the block because the back of the van wouldn't close.....GHETTO!!!!  I knew the minute I saw them that they could be beautiful with a coat of paint.  The boring, beigey color had a nasty coat of white stuff from the sun, probably pool water and just weathered.  I power washed them really well, twice! And then just spray painted them.  Now when it comes to paint, I have to do lots and lots and lots of coats.  I HATE when its not fully covered and you can see through the paint to what used to be there.  It took 2-3 cans of paint (and I bought the good stuff) to do each chair.  I actually have an orange one in the garage pile because I think that one will need one more coat before I unveil it to the world....or at least to the backyard.   I think they turned out cute!  I love the bright colors and they were FREE....well with paint, less than $10 each.  Ahhh, one mans trash.......

Finished Bookcase

After I painted and sanded this bookcase, it still looked a little dark. Definitely darker than the newly refinished desk that's sitting on the other side of the fireplace. I was nervous and unsure if I LOVED it....tear :( Then a friend suggested I put some backing on the bookcase to brighten it up and give it some dimension. After some searching on PINTEREST I had a plan. I found some great wrapping paper at Hobby Lobby (cheap with a 40% off coupon), cut it to size and attached with spray adhesive. It was simple & quick and I do LOVE how it turned out. It changed the look of the bookcase entirely. I was so excited to get my books and other things on the shelves. A picture of dear President Monson and a cute basket for baby toys on the bottom shelf were the final touches. Everything else I had in my house. I'm super excited about how it turned out. I'm also geared up to complete more waiting projects, because these last two were so much fun.

L.O.V.E me some color

Here is what I started with......a stripped down simple desk. I got it from one of my dearest friends, Nikki Sobotka, years ago. It looked like this when she gave it to me. I kinda loved it the way it was but knew one day I would get around to refinishing it.
I've never loved the color blue but with some inspirational pieces fell in love with a blueish/greenish color that I later found a name for "sea sage" Its very subtle and quiet and I'm hoping by introducing some blue hues into my life (and my decor) I will reap the benefits of some tranquility....unless that's a myth in which case my home will just now have some splashes of blue for cuteness!
Oh I LOVE how it turned out. It looks a bit gray in the picture above but you're welcome to come by and see it in person. Love it! I have a great story behind the paint, by the way, if you're not interested just skip to the pictures but with an intro like that how could you resist finding out what happened????
....so, I went to Lowes with a block of wood. The block is the "M" from my F.A.M.I.L.Y. blocks that sit at my fireplace. It's the color I decided to go for for these two pieces. Right away I found a matching paint swatch - sea sage - and went to price out the paint, which has gotten so expensive (along with everything else in life). I walked passed the mis-tints....the paint that was mixed wrong or returned or what-not. Hmmmm, one of the colors looked similar. But up close looked a little minty. Oh gosh could you imagine, my first venture into color on my beautiful furniture pieces and it turns out an ugly toothpasty mint.....EEEEEEEEKKK!
Anyway to cut the story short, the girl at the paint counter offered to try to darken it up by adding some color. After 30 minutes or so we had a final color and a perfect compliment to my block. When I was leaving the paint counter, the girls said, "oh by the way all the mistints are 50% off on weekends." I got a gallon of Valspar for $2.50 wooohooo!!!
I enjoy doing these pieces so much but it seems to take me so long to getting around to them.
This tall white bookcase, that also came from Nikki, is next. I can hardly wait...I'm only holding back today because its Sunday and despite my rationalization I felt it could wait until tomorrow.

I'm singing Handel

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah......I like the irony of me singing Handel's Hallelujah chorus because it has taken me two months to get my "homework center" wall up and going in the HALL-way outside the kids bedrooms. Nevermind the 16 holes hidden behind the frames from trying to hang everything even and straight......and that was using my spiffy little level, laser tool! GGGggggrrrrr......anyhooo.......
Here is a picture of my inspiration from Pinterest....Super cute!
Here's how mine turned out. I tweaked it a little for the size of our wall and our needs. Other than all four of my children looking like a random girl (in picture), it's complete. I want to schedule a photo shoot and get current pictures of the kids done soon. I'm excited to get new pictures into those frames, although I have two matching 5x7's (with the same girl in them, from RodWorks) by my front door for the last 6 months so please do not hold your breath!

Walls that Speak

I remember when I first started putting vinyl lettering on my walls.....the company I orders from was "if walls could talk". Sam used to say that the thought was "just creepy" and he would make awkward jokes about our walls talking to us!
As in many things, I just ignored him and went ahead and decorated our home!
I love using vinyl around our home. I love it so much that its hard to walk around my house without reading something that's on the wall.
The great thing about vinyl is its cheap, easy to use and you can remove it when you want it gone. Over the years I have ordered from lots of different companies but what I look for is COST, SPEED (how soon can they get it to me) and QUALITY....I've used some vinyl that is thick and hard to get to adhere to the wall, that's just plain annoying!
Anyway the whole point of this blog is to let you know about a company I just found and have fallen in love with. Vinyl Wall Expressions is so my new favorite friend in the vinyl world. Their site is very user friendly. When you get to the home page you can actually put in your saying, or word and preview it with various color, font and sizing. Their prices are good and their shipping is fast which satisfies my impatient self PLUS free shipping if you order over $25. After ordering a couple of times, I can say that they use a good vinyl product that applies nicely to the surface, without having to rub over it a thousand times and still have it stick to the top layer.
One other thing that I think is very impressive is that their customer service is superb. You can reach someone quickly through twitter and/or email.
I thought that they had missed something on my order when I received it in the mail....turned out that the error was mine and I had forgotten to order Kami's name.....oops. Well the long and the short of it is that through our communications they offered to work "Kami's order" into one of their others and send it to me......soooo nice! I received it the other day. I was seriously impressed and decided to spread the word about their awesome website and product.

Mirror ReVamp

I picked up this gold framed mirror at a garage sale and immediately knew I wanted to redo my mantle for Christmas. I love the detail on the corners.
I painted it white and it turned out really nice. Check out how our Christmas mantel looked this year. When Christmas was over the mirror went perfectly with Bailis new room.

Love Refinished Furniture???

Check out my friends blog. She does AMAZING work. I love everything she refinishes decided I'd let you in on the secret and share the joy!
She lives in Mesquite, only about 45 north of Vegas. Her prices are great and her sense of style is superb.... Especially if you love the shabby/country chic look. I always feel this style gives a sense of warmth and "lived-inness" to a home. Check out the stuff she has currently for sale....and then lets take a road trip?

Oops I forgot the link, when I posted this first.....here ya go:
Emma L's Place