my white plates, in a magazine

i'm not even kidding.

so it's not actually a picture of my wall of white plates,

but it's the same exact plates!

home decorators collection 

my breakfast room wall

in the home decorator's collection catalog, a set of 9 white plates is $139!
this is don't understand, considering that i purchased mine last month for $2/ea at a thrift store!
whatever the reason, i was pumped to see a similar display in a magazine!
i loved that they hung them with ribbon, too.

they use two of these in their arrangement

and a large and small of this star design, too!


have you ever seen something you found at a thrift store in a magazine?!

from drab to fab with drapes

ever since we moved in, these windows have been in serious need of drapes.

drab

i was in the process of choosing draperies about the time that we decided

to change our color scheme for the room.

as i said here i love thrifting and finding a good deal on home decor,

but this time i splurged.

i am so glad that i did.

fab

the entire room has been transformed by dressing the windows!

i am head over heels for my new ballard drapes.

they were worth every penny!

next family room project, pillows!

want to see how far this room has come since we bought the house?

click here to see the transformation

want to see how we dressed the other windows in our home?

see them here 

sweet potato vine

i bought one pot of sweet potato vine for each side of our front flower beds

because i adore its delicate, large leaves and bright lime green color.

i had no idea how it would explode!

it's taking over!

i needed to trim some of the vine, 

otherwise people would soon have to crawl through it to get to the front door,

but i didn't want to throw it away...

so i used it to transform the niche of my new corner hutch, that i l.o.v.e.

a nice little :pop: of green really brightens up the space

items:

clearance aisle white hob lob vase : $2.00

williams sonoma cookbooks : wedding shower gifts

sweet potato vine : entire pot cost $1.50, so we'll just say $0.15

i am still planning on painting my hutch, but i won't have time to tackle that for at least a week,

so i figured it should look pretty in the meantime.

i love how that sweet potato vine brightens the space.

all for $2.15.

project::office, closet clean-up

::this is the 1st post in the series project::office ::

the room in our house that has received the least attention is definitely hubby's office.

it's not that i don't want him to have an nice office, but

 i can shut the doors and don't enter if i don't want to.

but it's time to face the music and deal with it, head on.

on saturday, hubby was gone for the day,

and little one takes looong afternoon naps,

so i decided to make myself useful for those 3 hours.

::before::

 i'm embarrassed to even reveal that disaster

ahh!!!

::during::

i was making great progress, and either trashing stuff or setting it aside for donating
i just needed something great to help with my organization.
once little one woke up we headed to michael's...they always have a great selection of baskets
and sure enough they had a huge clearance area and i picked up these organizational tools for 1/2 off!

::after::

ta-da! 

check out those mad organizing skills.

i am going to make labels for our new baskets,

and i'm also thinking about spray painting the black file cabinet white,

and maybe even the shelves white, too.

but for now i'm going to love the organization and not worry about those pesky details.

hutch help

this little corner has been needing a friend for a long time now...

 

and we picked her up this weekend!

 ::sorry for the funky lighting in all the pics that follow::

although she needs painting/staining,
i love my new corner hutch!

she is my newest c-list treasure.

 

::please ignore the drapes, they are squooshed & the rod is obviously too long 

i'll fix all that...i was just in a hurry to take the pic!::

 i love how the hutch completes the breakfast room.

here is where you come in...

i need your paint color/ staining suggestions.

i am considering painting her white and distressing the hutch a bit.

then staining the blonde wood the dark brown of the table top.

what do you think? is that too much white in the room? 

the red wine rack in the right corner was purchased for our original color scheme...

what do you think about the rusty red wine rack?  should it stay red or should i paint it?

should i re-paint the chandelier?!?

any suggestions would be fabulous!

thanks & happy monday!

what a bucket of paint can do

Here are a couple of things you should know:

{1} When we moved into our house, all of the walls were a dark, dark brown.

O yeah, and so were most of the ceilings.

One more thing, the carpet was brown, too.

::i'll be doing a whole series of before and after with those pics soon::

{2} Once we signed the papers, we had a very short amount of time 

before we had to vacate our apt.

{3} This move came within our first year of marriage, and I was in my first year of teaching, too.

{4} I hadn't been creating a home portfolio my whole life...and...

{5} I was preggers, and in the business of making rash decisions to meet the deadline.

{6} I was in charge of choosing the paint colors.

{If you are into all brown decor, please don't be offended by this post}

That should give you an idea of what we were working with.

Our house was so dark and "cave like" 

that my mom said she had no idea where we saw the potential....once we already owned the house.

We, however, loved the floorplan and the neighborhood, 

and thought that painting every wall, ceiling, and trim piece wouldn't be too much work. ha.

My #1 goal was to brighten this place up, and that's exactly what I did.

I picked a creamy white for the walls in our family room,

and creamy white carpet,

did I mention we also had a white couch?

So, for a while I loved that because the result was so drastically different than before.

However, the white started to get to me,

which in part led to redecorating the family room, kitchen, and breakfast room.

It's an understatement to say that I have 

an incredibly supportive hubby who loves my creativity,

and gives me lots and lots of freedom in decorating our home.

He rocks.

He even hired painters to repaint 1/ 3 of our house once I decided I didn't like the colors

that my pregger self had chosen.

Which leads us to the family room ...

before {before we owned it}

before {before we painted it last week}

the top paint color sample of the wall is what we went with

after

it's so much warmer, and now i can decorate with white accents!

the loveseat and couch really pop

i love what a simple paint color change can do for a room.

panels...a splurge

i hardly ever pay full price for home decorative items.

i love, love, love to find a good deal

and
i am usually up to the challenge of making/sewing/painting it myself

now that i have that out there, i splurged this week. big time.

but

i have been looking for drapery panels forever...i had even decided that i wanted blue ones

i just couldn't seem to find the right blend of color and fabric.

until...

tuesday night i was flipping through my favorite catalogue, 

and realized that ballard offered many more color options than pictured on their drapery page.

they had the perfect blue! 

 ballard designs

spa linen blue

the spa blue that's in the fabric on my loveseat.

 ballard designs

the design is much larger in person, but this gives you a good idea 

and although you can't really see it, the background is spa blue

my heart started beating fast.

 then...wednesday morning i got an email reminding me that ballard was offering free shipping.

and my mom had given me a coupon for 15% off my entire order last time we saw them.

i thought about it all day going back and forth, 

but it was one of those things i knew i'd regret not buying! forever.

mom also said she'd help with the cost because my bday is coming up,

which definitely helped me make the decision.

thanks mom!

i did it! i bought the draperies! and i couldn't be more excited.

 ballard design

those lovely curtains, just spa blue

(they didn't have a picture of it)

they'll arrive sometime next week.

my walls will go from drab to fab!

o don't worry.  i'll post as soon as they're hung!

ketch-up

eek!

o how i have missed blogger world this past week.

i discovered a new pet peeve this week...waiting on service men who never show up!

our internet went out last thursday...just in time to mess up my 10 tasks::10 days post

we were going out of town for the 4th, and didn't have a chance to get it fixed before we left...

but i scheduled an appointment with our internet provider for tuesday

wouldn't you know that i sat around ALL day tuesday and they never showed up.

that's all it took to send me over the edge.

we cancelled our service with them, and hubby found a fabulous new provider

i'm smiling again :) 

i promise that a week of no posts is not, i repeat not, normal. 

i'll have a new post up and at 'em tomorrow.

here is what we've been up to the past week...

hope you all had a happy 4th!

we spent the long holiday weekend in tyler, tx with some of our besties!

little one is the first baby in the group, 

but from what i hear there are a couple more ready-to-be parents...

we played in the pool, rode jet skis at the lake, 

wakeboarded, ate watermelon, and loved hanging out with our friends.

little one loved chillaxin in the pool

those eyes make my heart melt

little one's first bite of watermelon.

now, he's a watermelon fanatic!

july 5

happy two year anniversary, baby!

it's been the best two years of my life.