Happy Spring!

I missed it by one day, but I'm finally showing you my spring home. If you have been here before, you know I change out my colors for the season. I'm able to do that because my background is all neutral.

 For spring I've been using jadite green and a pretty aqua turquoise.

 I found this striped pitcher at the thrift store. Love to fill it with cotton stems.

 Here is the family room. I keep the colors going because of my open floor plan.

 And here again is my favorite new thing-my open shelves in the kitchen which I am truly loving!

I finally joined Instagram so come check me out. Just click on the camera icon on the top of the sidebar. I've been busy thrifting (not buying much) trying to control that, and getting the garden going. It's been super warm here. I hope you are getting some nicer weather so you can be outside. Happy Spring!
Leslie

Out with the red in with the blue...

I love having a neutral background in my family room. It makes it super easy to change colors out for the seasons. When I bring back the red for the summer it all seems new again. And I supposed you have noticed, I Love Color. Spring to me is green and blue and bluebonnets.Here's my inspiration. I wanted to be able to show my jadite and I had this vintage Vera dishtowel on the left from my Mom. I bought a few fabrics from Hobby Lobby and found the cute vintage tablecloth on the right. You'll see more of these fabrics in the breakfast nook post to come. 

 The other piece of inspiration was the Bluebonnet oil painting found at the thrift store. I just love the colors of both and wanted to tie them in together because the family room opens right into the breakfast nook and kitchen.

Here are the pillows I made for the couch. I hung the painting right over my old window frame. Then I started shopping my house.

 I found this nest on a walk. Added a few spring color eggs.

 Here's the view to the fire place. Brought out my little aqua chair.The bowl on the left holds Bowies toys.What you can't see are 2 leather chairs facing the TV. This room is super hard to photograph.

 Here's the thrift store chair I slip covered. I added the boxwood wreath on my old shutter. Another pillow to tie the colors in. Changed out my red curtain panels to plain white.

 Bowie photo bombing.

I did buy this New York pillow from Hobby Lobby at half off. I couldn't resist, because the colors went perfectly and NY holds a special place in my heart. That was the view from Central Park where my son got married.

 See how the fabrics tie into the colors in the painting.

 My old vintage fan on the mantle. I use alot of old books to add color and height.

 Here you can see the leather chairs, well at least one of them.

 I found the cotton stems after I took the first few pic's.

 Just stuck them in an old enamelware jug.

I have decided to break up this post into 2 parts. Breakfast nook and dining room to come next time.
Thank you for all the sweet comments on my thrifted finds.
I'm joining Thoughts of Home Thursday so you might want to check it out,
Spring has sprung around here, we've had beautiful weather. Hope your spring weather is just around the corner. Hope you all have a great week!
Leslie

Bathroom Mini Redo

Hi. It's time to share my bathroom mini redo. The reason this all started (and you all know about that old domino effect) was the bathtub needed to be professionally refinished. When we moved into our house the previous owner must have used some wrong cleaner that stripped off the shiny finish. So it looked bad-really bad. But before we did that I decided an electrician was in order. I wanted a new can light over the dreary tub (no windows) and the one bathroom light over the mirror split into 2. We've never hired an electrician before and I absolutely loved ours. Of course after electrical we need to patch and texture sheetrock holes in the ceiling and wall. Then a  new paint job. I would have loved to replace the counter on the vanity-but this was a Mini Redo!  So finally the refinish on the tub-it looks brand new. Here's the before. I would be too embarrassed to show that old tub. I took down the wall paper border and mirror,

The after.So hard to photograph  a small bathroom.New mirrors are from Ikea. New vanity light from Lowes.

Light blue paint on the walls. Remember-no window so I had to lighten it up.

A touch of vintage. Strombecker dollhouse furniture from Etsy. I made a little shadow box using vintage images and scrapbook paper.

Little box, painted with white chalkboard paint.This is our second bathroom-also for guests.

I had this in the old bathroom-

White spray paint and now you see the colors of the shells.Just hot glue them on.

Here's the bathtub side. New shower curtain-Target.

I found this old medicine cabinet at a garage sale.

Used AS chalk paint.

Added some scrapbook paper.  Love that old hardware and knob. Even the glass shelf was there.

Copied a picture from an old book. The towel hooks are from Home Depot-I screwed them onto an old piece of headboard.

There it is. Probably one of my longest posts. Thanks for sticking it out.The goal was to lighten and brighten the bathroom.It feels bigger and more modern.
 It's starting to get really hot here. But that's usual for us in Texas!  Hope you all have a wonderful week.
Leslie

Kitchen Cabinet Makeover

I finally finished. Here is the after of the kitchen cabinets. I'll take you through it quickly.

Here's the before. No hardware and hohum cabinets that were kind of dark. I have no window in the kitchen area.

First I painted the bottoms. I had doors all over the place. I sanded, cleaned, primed both sides of the doors and did 2 coats on the backs and 3 coats on the fronts. I used Benjamin Moore Advance Decorator White and I loved it. It has a really long dry time, but flattens out any roller marks as it dries.Then you wait 3 days for it to cure-yes I said 3 days!

Put the lowers back together and started all over on the uppers.

Put them back and added the hardware. 

Hardware was bought on the internet through Amazon. Cheaper then big box prices.

It really brightened up the kitchen. It also made a more neutral background. Was it worth the mess for 2 weeks and the back aches? Totally worth it. This is the 3rd house that I've painted the cabinets in and I think the BM paint was the best. I used  Young House Love for a refresher on painting. Check this video out if you are thinking about doing your cabinets.

I'm so glad I took the plunge. Not much of an investment moneywise-just time, but the results speak for themselves.I still have some tweaking to do-staging it better, but now I can enjoy it.I'm still painting-some small house fix-ups, but I'm so glad this big project is done. I'm joining Cozy Little House for Tweak it Tuesday. Check out some other projects at Brenda's. Hoop you all have a good week!
Leslie

Laundry Room Fix Up

My laundry room really isn't a room, but a walk through to the garage from the house. It's where we come in from the car and leave from. What I mean is -it's pretty small. I did some tweaks to hide some uglies and make the shelf reachable. Before, I had to keep my detergent on top of the dryer, because I can't reach the high shelf.

  You can see what a jumble of stuff was on that high shelf. I also hate looking at the water thingies behind the washer. Hubby added a simple shelf and what a difference in function. Now I have space to keep the things I use all the time.

I added a little ruffle (like under a farmhouse sink) to hide the plugs, but still you can access the water shutoffs easily.Here's the before of the metal piesafes. I had one and bought another on Etsy to have enough storage for the stuff I don't use very often.

I painted and added the cute cherry decals.

I have plenty of space to keep the cleaning supplies I don't use as often. The enamelware dishpan on the high shelf holds all my rags.

The red shelf was made by Hubby a long time ago-now it holds aprons and the small embroidered one in the front was my Grandma's.

I had the lamp and made the little shade cover. A lamp makes it a cozy space. The little water sprinkler was my Mom's.

 Here, you can see how you have to walk through the space to the garage.

See my Laundry sign I showed a few weeks ago? The little metal case holds dryer sheets. The jars hold Biz and Oxy Clean.

This niche opposite the washer, is supposed to be for an extra fridge. We got rid of ours when we down sized, so I put a Craigs list hutch in here to extra store quilts, cleaning stuff below, batteries in the tackle box.

I found a neutral bottle to hold my detergent. 

This is my first embroidery-I was probably about 9 or 10 when I made this. 

The only thing we bought was the wood for the shelf and the second pie safe. Adding the second shelf doubled  the shelf space, made the room more functional and so much prettier on a tight budget. I'm linking on to Cozy Little House for Tweak It Tuesday. Check out some other ideas and tweaks.

I'm having a 20% off sale in my Etsy Shop. this week. Just add the code Sale2 when you check out. I've added a few new items.

This is my Great Aunt Ruth and Uncle Ernie. I sure wish I knew when this pic was taken. . I hope you all have a wonderful time with your families and a Happy Thanksgiving Day!

Leslie