Little Ranch for the holidays

I absolutely love the Holiday season, and decorating the house for Christmas is something that I look forward to every year. Over the next couple of weeks I'll be posting my favorite Christmas decor pictures from my home.

This is our kitchen tree. It's a little rustic looking, and a perfect fit by the back door. It's a German twig tree that my mom found a few years ago at HomeGoods after Christmas for an incredibly cheap $15!


The stockings were hung...

I love a tree with tons of white lights. Ours came pre-lit, and it has a combination of clear and frosted lights. It glows beautifully.

DEMO!!!

I love demolition. It's fun, and it means that there's a BIG change coming.

Yesterday, I tore part the ancient built-ins in the office. The previous owners had them installed in the early 80's as sewing room furniture. They weren't worth keeping, as they were not made with the best materials in the first place, and they were pulling away from the walls. The pieces were built on site, and consited of large, deep shelves on one end, a laminate run of countertop in the center that was entirely to low, with shallow drawers. On the other end was a tall closet that was used for various sewing projects and ironing.

I got to work bright and early in the morning, and even that early it was exceptionally hot and muggy, but there was no turning back- when the inspiration hits, I have to do it all the way!

Tearing out the old stuff was harder than I thought. Even though it appeared to be falling down on its own, it was was all held together pretty well.

I sawed:
I pulled:
I found these fabulous 70's artifacts: After about 300 trips up and down the cellar stairs, and out to the garage with all the debris, the room is clear, and looks huge!
I have a few ideas about what this room will look like. It will still be an office, but it needs to do double duty as a guest room, so we may do a daybed, or window seat/bed thing. I am having enough trouble deciding on colors roght now, buit I will try to sketch out a few things and see what works.
That's it for now, I will post pictures as we go!

Blank Wall No More

A couple years ago, I tried my hand at this faux finish in the dining room (translate= eat-in kitchen). It was so simple to do (just dunk an old t-shirt into some glaze and slop and swirl it on!) and added a ton of texture and visual interest. Unfortunately, the large expanse of wall remained blank for the better part of 2 years. I was at a loss as to how to fill the space. Later, we would like to add on and add windows, but I wanted a more affordable fix for now.
One day, I was at The Christmas Tree Shop and found these 2 ledges. $9 bucks each! I have to say, it was tough hanging them, and my husband and I were furiously flinging drywall anchors at each other (jokingly) by the end of it. I hate keyhole mounts! gaarh!!! We have too many chairs! lol , but the wall is no longer a boring stretch of nothingness. I would like to shop for more interesting doo-dads for the shelves (bigger things would look better up there) but for now, a few favorite things will do.
I had to mention this red piece of furniture. This was the center part of a small entertainment unit that my Aunt had built years ago. It had bookcases on either side, which she kept, but gave this to me when she moved into her new apartment. It spent a while in our office as a tv / printer stand, until I moved it in here to hold my cookbooks and table linens. That Grape-Nuts picture on the wall is an old grape-drying rack. That hung in my childhood home until my mother gave it to me for my first home, almost 10 years ago, and I love it. My friend Kelley threatens to smuggle it home every time she's here! LOL

Curtains...finally :)

I can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted about the new living room stuff. In that time, I've been super busy - school let out, and my son has been doing all sorts of summer activities. Speaking of my son, I started a diabetes blog and have been devoting some time to that as well.

Where we left off last was curtains for the living room. I hate to buy new when a coat of paint will do, so I took a can of spray paint to the gold colored curtain rod , and transformed it to a "wrought iron" look.

So, without any further ado...

New Stuff!!

I have always had a kind of decorating identity crisis. Deciding on a style is like picking a favorite family member...it can't be done! I like too many different types of stuff. Modern stuff, antique stuff, shabby stuff, shiny stuff...you get the idea.
So, once I finished painting the living room, the search was on for pillows and curtains. Picking colors and knowing what "goes" with what is not my strong suit. (This affliction crosses over into my clothes closet, too. I could be a prime candidate on "What Not To Wear". Stacy and Clinton would kick my ass!! )
Back to the pillows and such...I looked and looked forever. I wish I could sew my own custom made things, but my knowledge of how to operate a sewing machine got left behind at Hunking Middle School 8th grade Home Ec class.

I found these beauties at TJ Maxx.

Silk -(with a 9 year old boy, a husband and 2 cats) am I crazy?? LOL
Blue is not something I would have ever chosen but it looks so pretty against the new gold in my wall color, and it's the color of a Tiffany box- big thumbs up. I have a gorgeous curtain rod with pretty finials and such, but it needs to be spray painted. Once I figure out how to do that without spraying paint all over myself, I will post hanging curtain pictures!

Just because you have 2 favorite colors...

...does not mean you should put them together. I mean, I love sage and purple together, and really wanted my bedroom to reflect that. Unfortunately, I didn't know about accent colors and how to use them creatively. I thought "if I like it, I'm going to drown in it." Bad idea.

This is the story:

I was so excited to do a room from scratch! I never had a completely blank canvas before. I tried to pretend I was a real designer. (yes, I'm a dork!)
The first thing I did was run to the carpet store. My choice was inspired by the gorgeous Laura Ashley carpet my mom has in her bedroom. So I copied her, just in a different color.

When you go from matted, ORANGE shag carpet to this, you just have to enjoy with your piggies:
We had done the smart thing and painted the walls our dusky purple color before the rug went down, but what we didn't count on was :
1. the windows were bare at the time, letting in some nice, bright light -making the paint color look pretty light.
2. we were dead tired and living in a single bedroom at my mother's while we got the house ready before moving in. My husband worked 10 hour days, came here and worked till midnight. I worked here during the day, went to my part-time job at the bank and came back here to finish up the night with him. We had about as much common sense as zombies.
"that look good....?"
"uuuungh."

Needless to say, we ended up with a cave-like effect that depresses me on a daily basis. I love a light, bright but cozy room. What the hell was I thinking? I was sleeping inside a giant grape every night. The pictures here don't do it justice. In real life, it's so gloomy.
So it's been almost 3 years of other commitments, projects, and improvements and we're ready to make another go of it.

On a recent trip to Home Depot, I cleaned them out of practically all their paint swatches. I love these little cards. Anything that shows different shades of the same color is so calming to me. (I get the same feeling shopping for scrapbooking paper).

Just taping them to my walls made me happy.
I have asked the opinion of everyone except the UPS man (ok, I thought for a split second about inviting him in to take a look) and I think we finally have a winner after a week of observing the differences on the colors depending on the time of day, position of the sun through the window, lamp light, etc. I will keep it a surprise until the finished result, but I can tell you it's not any of the colors below. Watch for updates!

Oh!! Before I go, what the hell should I do with this area? I need the storage, but I've seriously had that bureau since I was an infant...maybe do a built-in? I'd love to hear your ideas!!