My first love!

I just wanted to show you my first decorating project.  This was in 2004, and I was finally brave enough to tackle our lovely navajo white walls!  Plus there was no molding or any personality to this 80's tract house! 

The first room I tackled was the tiny powder room downstairs.  First posted on it  here.  Our downstairs is an open concept, there is really only one wall, it seperates the kitchen from the rest of the space and hold up the master bath, so it is sort of important.  The small powder room is the only room downstairs with a door.  Unless you call the closet under the stairs a room!

Here it is in it's 1980's glory:

Lovely isn't it!  and yes, it is only that wide!  And the door opened in!  Fun when you are pregnant!

So I had loved white walls, faux white marble counter's and 80's oak cabinet.  We had just had the floors done, so at least I had good baseboards!

So here is where it got fun, I decided on painting it, wait for it,     RED VELVET!

DH thought I was crazy, and my Mom told me the old addage, never paint a small room a dark color.  But I figured what the heck, it is only paint, right!

So we painted!

One coat.

Two Coats.

Three!

  It took 3 coats to get the color I wanted.  I used semi-gloss, and was using a flash here, sorry for the glare.  Next up, I was going to mosaic the counter!  Yeah I was brave!

Here goes nothing!  I really had no clue what I was doing, so had nothing to loose!

We bought some white and burgundy tiles at Lowes, and I broke them my self.  Then I found some awesome Toile tile already broken at Michaels.  It is really like putting a puzzle together.  Lay it out first then use the mastic to glue down.  Then grout!  Actually the grouting was the hardest part. 

Here she is all done and purdy!

I really love how it turned out, and still get lots of comments on it.

Here is a full view, since the room is so small hard to get a full pic.  We painted the ceiling the same color as the ceiling in the family room outside the door.  Of course I can't remember the color, but it is a pale yellow! 

All those changes were in 2004, flash forward to 2008 when we were redoing, or 'refreshing' the house. 

Ignore the blue tape, I was doing touchups!

I had the contractor add crown, and beadboard to the back wall. He also added a sill to the window. And we added a medallion and small chandy. 

Love my antique window!

I also painted the vanity white and added some embellishment

Since then I haven't done much, why mess with a good thing, right!  I did get a black toilet seat!  Yes that is what I said, a black toilet seat.  They are so vintage and you can get them on Amazon!

And recently I added a few pics of fireweed, a beautiful flower found in Alaska.  I took these pics and just bought frames at Home Goods on clearance.  Spray painted them white and voila pretty pics!

 I also hung my old curling irons up.  Sorry for the glare, hard to get a good pic in this small room

This is on the wall opposite the one above, more fireweed and a vintage map of Alaska!

I also hung a few of my cross stitch projects from over the years, next to the window.

That is is my Red Velvet Bathroom!  We have a friend that calls it the 'Bordello' Room!

Sorry for all the pics and that it was so long.  Sometimes our first project is always the one we love.

Have a great day!

Toodles,

Laura

linking to :  Metamorphisis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch

 

For Maggie - Pinterest Challenge

Meet Maggie!  She is our 12 year old daschund who rules the roost!  We all love her to death and she is spoiled rotten!

Here she is helping me quilt!  The ceiling fan was on overhead and she was catching a breeze!

She love to catch a few rays in the backyard.  Boy does she look gray!

When she was a puppy, DH put her on our bed just once, but the deed was done, she sleeps with us, always has!  It is her bed, so she thinks!  Probelm is her short little legs!  Can't quite make it to the bed.  So, enter the 28 year old footstool!

This is from our original living room set.  It included a couch, loveseat and chair.  They are all gone now, thanks to Maggie and her penchant for chewing cushions.  Probably had something to do with them being old and having had food spilled on them by small children! 

I have been wanting to slipcover this bad boy for quite a while, but was, well, afraid!  I can sew, just never done anything like this before.

So enter the wonderful ladies of the Pinterest Challenge!  Sherry, Katie, Kate, and Michelle.

I love me a good Pinterest session.  Just me and my ipad pinning away.  But these ladies are challenging us to get off our pins, so to speak and get producing!  So no more excuses, just do it!

I had pinned these cute drop cloth covered footstools for inspiration.
one, two and three.  Mine would be somewhere in the middle.

First I went to Lowes and bought the dropcloth, 6'x9' for about $11.  Forgot to take pic before, sorry.  Then I washed it, didn't bleach, just washed.  Here it is on the footstool with my jute trim.

I had been looking for some of the jute trim, but in black not red which you can usually find anywhere.  We were in Escondido last year and went to a little fabric shop, bought the whole roll!  Forget the price but was very afforable.  Anyway...

Made a band of the jute to go around the circumference of the footstool.

Then attached the top that I had cut to fit.

Yeah, it fit! 

Now for the bottom, I wanted to utilize the hem of the drop cloth so I wouldn't have to hem!  So cut 2 strips of what was left and sewed together.  Then on to pinning.  I wanted to put a simple pleat in each corner.  So I just winged it.  Just started pinning and matching up my corners.

Now I didn't expect this to be perfect.  Remember it sits on the side of our bed, actually my side, and no one sees it but me and the dog.  And DH if he happens onto that side of the bed.  So...

Just being real here, this pleat didn't quite make the corner.  No biggee.

This one did!  Still looks great.  Not to bad for my first recovering job.  Now to give it a little personality.  I added some stripes.

And here is the finished project! 

So much better than before.  Not too bad if I do say so myself.  It has been Maggie tested and approved.  I still have about 1/3 of the dropcloth left, that was my only cost, so totally worth it.

Thanks ladies for pushing me to the edge to get'er done!  Don't forget to check out the 'pushy' ladies blogs from the above links.  You will love them! 

Toodles,

Laura

Small Side Yard

Back in 2010, we redid our side yard.  It was and still is one of my favorite redos.  You can read about it here.  Every year I redo the raised beds and add or subtract from the shade garden, but it has pretty much stayed the same.  This year I planted 4 tomato plants, zuccini, swiss chard, lemon cucumbers, and beans.  Here are a few pics:

This is looking towards the front of the house.  There are 3 tomato plants first, then a zuccini and yellow pear tomato.  They get so tall.  That is a bottle tree in the middle.

This is one of the large tomatoes on the heriloom kellogg breakfast tomato.  It is even larger since I took this.  Wish we would get more sun so it would ripen.

This is called chocolate cherry, I was able to harvest some of these this week.  They are so yummy, and cut up with the yellow pear and a little pepper and salt, to die for!

Yellow pears waiting to ripen.  Ripen, ripen, ripen!!!

This is the lemon cucumber climbing the tomato!  I have never tried them before, but that is all they had, so why not?

This is looking toward the back.  You can see how big the tomato plants are.  We got a new fire pit this year and added the wicker chairs for seating.  You can barely see them though!

Here is a beautiful zuccini blossom.  I went out yesterday to pick one that I had seen the day before and found 3!  Luckily I have a neighbor who loves them, so I just set it on the fence and he will come and get it!  One zuccini plant, and my kids don't like it!  Oy, great sliced, seasoned and cooked on the bbq!

Hope you like my garden.  Have a great rest of the week.  Middle of the week holidays are weird!

Toodles,

Laura










 

A Summer Soiree

Every year we host a little summer soiree with some of our friends.  This years theme was a Patriotic Partay!  I have been a pinning fool on Pinterest, trying to find neat ideas for food and decorations.  You have seen my decorations here and here.  Here is the dessert table:

I wanted to cover the table, but since we have a square table, finding a table cloth is a challenge, so I just used some pieces of fabric I had denim, burlap and paisley.  Love how it turned out. 

Fresh flowers are always nice and I added them to the table outside as well as the dessert table

This was the offical unveiling of the old iron chandy, loved it as did everyone else.  You can read about that here

Here is the vingette you see when you walk in the front door.  The chalkboard, is actually a frame I bought at a garage sale and I just painted right over the glass.

I found an awesome receipe for Red, White and Blue Sangria at Recipe Girl.  I would show you what I made, but it is all gone!  And I forgot to take a pic.  It was real yummy!  I also found this recipe for Poke Cake, totally remember those from my younger days.  It was fun to make and so moist.  This one was from Lil Luna.  It was so yummy.

I wish I had more pics, but was too busy having a good time!

On another note, DS was finally diagnosed with Chondromalcia Patella!  Basically a degeneration of the cartiledge behind the knee!  He is only 23!  So he is undergoing phyical thereapy for a few more weeks before he goes back to work. 

Have a great week.

Laura