Craigslist Craft Hutch

Remember this picture?

And this one?

I found this old hutch on Craigslist and it now has a home in my guest bedroom. Those of you who have been to my house might fall off their chair when I tell you this but I have downsized my fabric collection to fit in this hutch and have moved out the entire contents of my sewing room and pared it down enough that it now fits in this hutch and in a small dresser in the closet. I can hardly believe it either.

But it is a good change. I have accumulated so many craft supplies and fabrics over the years that I no longer knew what I had. My tastes have also changed and some of those fabrics needed to move on and find a new home that loved them. (Which they did. I donates them to a local school.)

I also found these treasures at Hunt and Gather a few months ago and they are perfect for stashing craft supplies. I also bought a few for my office at work. Who wants plastic or metal organizers when you can have beauties like these for half the cost? (and double the charm!) I should have snatched more when I had the chance.

So, we will see if my new found craft digs will inspire some creativity......... maybe not until next winter as I love being outdoors every waking minute.

like it was meant to be

a few weeks ago a friend gave me this awesome chair.

and a few weeks ago another friend sent me a little package of TLC which included this fabric.

Looks like they were meant to be together!

Thank you ladies!

(and for any observant readers out there. Yes, the green chairs are gone. I sold them for more than I paid for them last weekend.)

And last I heard the table was going out the door this weekend.

paint it black

I saw some pictures on different blogs of black bathrooms and bedrooms. I know I have been painting most of my house white but I couldn't stop thinking about a black bathroom. In my mind black was a logical step. After all the bathroom started white, then was painted grey so what is next?????? (maybe a really dramatic wallpaper?)

I love it.

(The mirror and the vintage florals were all in my sewing room. They are perfect in the bathroom!)

And every time i think about the bathroom this song runs through my head.

ideas

I have been slowly painting our downstairs. I have no immediate plans to paint Aidan's room but I like this room a lot.

This would be simple - a fresh coat of paint - and it would be fun to use maps from the places we have been; then he could add more as he continues to visit new places.

{photos all found here. I love her blog.}

the color upstairs

So while I am busy eliminating the color from my downstairs I am still adding color to my upstairs. (Or at least I was. My Dad kindly came this weekend and he is helping me come up with a solid, reasonably priced option for my kitchen.)

A few weeks ago I met the lovely Jessica for some coffee and then we went to Hunt & Gather. Side note - meeting blog friends is a great idea. I have met a few over the past year and I now have real friends, not just imaginary computer friends.

Anyway, no sooner had I met her than I put her to work carrying chairs out to my car and playing the "puzzle game." (for all my thrift-store shopping, estate sale-loving-friends you know this is the game you play when you try and fit your treasures into your vehicle and hope there is still room for you.)

I found the cutest chairs that are perfect for my kitchen. They also don't creak and groan when you sit on them. (My other chairs were borderline unsafe. Cute - but unsafe and I had glued them and re-screwed them multiple times.)

Anyway - back to the chairs. They are the best color green, that kind of color you could never replicate, and they look darling with my seat cushions and decor. The only problem is that they don't fit under my kitchen table. So they make my already small kitchen seem even smaller........ I could paint them white and then they would take up less space visually, I could keep my eye out for a pedestal table on Craigslist, or I can sell them again. I am still undecided so they still are crowding my table. Any opinions? (oh - and if you have a pedestal table with a leaf you are trying to get rid of I may be your girl. It just needs to have 28 inches clearance for the chairs.)

How cute is that?

i haven't been blogging........

because I have been a busy lady. Somehow the month of February passed me by and I only had four blog - posts! Yes - I am way behind but I think if you keep reading you might understand why.

This is my downstairs. Or rather it used to be. If you look closely at the photo above you can see the stud lines shadowed through the paint. (I have done a lot of reading and it is caused by candles......... so no more candles in my house. My whole downstairs has those lines and my kitchen is starting to get them as well. I also learned that faux silver frames leave horrid marks on the wall.)

The color of our lower level is a combination of eight years of painting. I really did love our downstairs, although now looking at the pictures it looks really intense!

The stud-lines in our bedroom were really showing and I started the transformation there. This is a picture mid paint job. The room is now deep cleaned, (even the blinds) the mattress flipped and the entire room and ceiling are coated in a fresh white.

The decor in this room was already white - I just painted the rest of the furniture white and got rid of a lot of the "trinkets."

Our downstairs....... trying to pick the perfect white sample. I ended up with the same color as the bedroom. ( Which means I will have less cans of paint to keep on hand.) (Oh - and the rug is Cutting Garden by Capel if any one is looking for a rug. It is going on Craigslist. It has been featured in many a BHG magazine article........) (Insert smiley face here.)

And now drumroll please ..........

some junk on my wall from Hunt & Gather.

This picture has pretty bad lighting but you can see I repainted my buffet and the lampshade in white, and then I also covered the lampshade with some linen. (well...... not really linen. Paint tarps which feel and look a lot like linen, for the same cost as a yard of good linen. I bought two huge tarps and I am planning to slipcover my robin-egg blue chairs. My Mom thinks I can do it. I am not entirely convinced. ) My next project will be the stairs which you see on the left. The runner is from Dash & Albert and I haven't decided if I am going to sell it or keep it to sew into bags like this one. I just don't know if my machine can handle sewing through the heavy layers of cotton. But wouldn't it make a perfect beach bag?

I did find some junk at Hunt and Gather, but all this "junk" was already in my house, I just did some rearranging.

As was all this "junk."

The only real money I spent was on my $100 IKEA rug and some paint. (And a little "junk" at H & G.) Otherwise, I just rounded up items from around my house and put them to work. I am already in love with this room for one reason: the rug doesn't track dirt so I have gone the whole week without vacuuming it. I also cleared out a lot of the little items that took up floorspace so I have less to clean around as well.

This week I need to finish painting the ceiling in this room and then we will see what comes next..........

not that i don't have other things to do

i have been a very busy girl this week. i clocked a bazillion hours at work, repainted my bedroom, (all white, including some furniture. pics later when i finish touching up the ceiling.) finished up a few projects and i am finally sitting down to post. however, as a friend told me last weekend, i found that Tumblr is indeed very easy to use. and so in the midst of the busyness i have managed to stash a few photos on my new Tumblr site. you can take a look here, and as you can see i have kitchens on my mind. my dad kindly offered to come re-do my kitchen at some point and i am thinking this summer might be the time so i am trying to gather my thoughts via photos so that he can weigh in. i think my taste looks quite simple but easy for me to say, right? i also want to make "a plan" so I can keep an eye out for an old hutch or sideboard to incorporate into the design. we'll see. a girl can dream, right?

(p.s when i first started adding photos to tumblr i wasn't correctly linking the photo to give credit where due. so i found the above photo online somewhere, but i failed to appropriately save the credits.)

The Fridge Fiasco

I am pleased to say we have a new fridge, and I could bore you with a massively long story about the whole ordeal, but all I have to say is this. Stick.with.your.guns.








I did, and it meant that two managers from Home Depot hauled a display model to our house in the pouring rain that we were able to use for a week until the proper fridge actually came and then the two managers had to come back again a week later and haul away the display model. Oh, did I mention it was pouring rain when they made the return trip as well?





But now we have a fridge, that, well. works.





Amazing. No more milkshake-style ice cream at our house.








Oh - and I also happened to be cleaning out my sewing room this week and I found this rug I'd bought on clearance at Anthro ages ago planning to cut it up for bags. Its like I have a whole new kitchen!

Target.........

You never cease to amaze me.

Caldrea at Target, people. At Target prices.

These are my favorite bowls, and they go with everything. The best part is they are only $4.00 each so you can slowly gather your collection.




Speaking of collections, I love hers. (you have to scroll down for the picture)

Easter?

I packed up Valentines Day decorations..... time to move on to the next season.

I am loving decorating my grey living room for the different seasons. For some reason the sun seems so much sunnier in the grey room as opposed to how it looked in the red. I was never able to take naturally lit pictures in the red room and they seem to work so well now. So please humor me as I continue to post them!

(Note Aidan's Red Chinese New Year lantern is still hanging in the corner)

Lamp from my Grandma that my neighbor fixed for me. I think for now I like it best without a shade. I know, I am weird like that.

They look pretty good in natural light too.

At our house.........

..........we like to have sleepovers.

Sometimes in a tent (thanks James for taking this oh-so-flattering photo of us while sleeping.)

Sometimes on a mattress.

The mattress makes a great place for a wrestling match later.

See!

It's not just me!

(photo credit)

This month one of my empty frames has a Valentine in it.

Have I convinced you yet? I am serious, empty frames are so much fun to decorate with !

Why I love Trader Joe's

$4.99 tulips

Smiles are free.

February

Tomorrow at work we are supposed to wear red for heart disease. I surveyed my wardrobe and I have no red shirts. No pink either, just grey, black and brown with a few random deep teal or orange sweaters thrown in. Ugh! When did I turn into "Miss Neutral?"

However............there is red popping up all over my house because I love to decorate for Valentine's day.

Here's a little Valentine red from me to you.

p.s. I am thinking this might become a colorful addition - after it clears out. I tried it on last week hoping it would clearance out, but alas, not yet.

Finished!

It's amazing what a new coat of paint will do.

Thanks for the picture Grandma - I love it.

Finished!

So while I was here for a few days with the stomach flu, James kindly hung some things for me, and so now our little transformation is complete. Thanks James!

A Diversion

Aidan and I have been learning what that word means. He saw it on Word Girl a few weeks ago and so he has been finding ways to create "diversions" so he can steal my root beer or dessert. Today estate saling was a little diversion for me. I know - I am very sentimental, (I just prefer to try and hide it a little) so I have to admit today was a tough one.






Back to the diversion. My Grandma J. gave me this picture when we were visiting. It has hung on her wall for years and I love it. The colors are so soothing.

I think it would look great on a grey wall.

I also have been thinking about empty frames, that they would look neat on my big wall. This photo, unfortunately, does not show them at their finest, as they all are textured and have a perfect patina.



My Grandma also gave me this lamp, and since James did such a great job rewiring the last lamp she gave me, I have no doubt he can fix this one up too.




And last, this piece of Red Wing Pottery. I know it has a crack, but I do not care. I love the shape and the color and think it was totally worth the $1.00 I paid for it.







So - for tomorrow's diversion - lunch with a friend at SpoonRiver, a few Estate sales in Northeast Minneapolis and some more time at the gym. Then I am headed to Viroqua WI for a ladies retreat hosted by a friends church.







Then the diversions are over and we settle back into a regular routine. School -work - school -work......... and maybe I will catch up on some blog posts too!