I'll Be Back Tomorrow

Due to a recent storm and flood damage of hubby's beloved new office and my computer area I haven't been able to blog. Flooding, ugh, fun stuff. I just remembered my daughter's laptop so I thought I'd come do a quickie post. No computer hookup after the flood and such. But we should be back up and running in the morning so I hope to have a wonderfully entertaining post to delight all tomorrow.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. We sure did.

Final Paint

Okay, the paint is done. We have a funny lighting thing going on. We have the french doors and 3 tall windows letting in a lot of natural light along with the ugly fluorescent light above. Makes an odd glow when taking photos. The colors are actually a little darker in "real life".

What do you think? My dad says being in this room makes him want to eat a Hershey's Chocolate Bar. Mmmmmmm.......

Well he wanted a manly office but well lit so I think we have accomplished that. Lots of brown but it is not overwhelming. The room is still very bright. The walls are a great blank canvas and whatever I put on them will really pop I think. I want to make it a soothing room that inspires creativity. The man has a lot of stress so when he comes in here I want him to feel relaxed and be able to think clearly and come up with new ideas and be able to problem solve easily. Not to much to ask of a room is it?

There's those 13" baseboards again. Crazy man. It does kinda look like a Hershey bar.

Office Transformation Continues

Well, we are in paint now. My toolbelt cowboy is just so excited to have his very own private office.

The walls are covered in primer with only a hint of the true color and it was making hubby nervous so our fabulous painter threw a little of the actual color on so he could have a little taste of his chocolate wall. That made him very happy.

His entrance into the house...

All of the painting will be done today so I will have some pictures tomorrow of the final paint job. The tool belt cowboy plans on moving his office in here this weekend. We are leaving the floors bare concrete for the moment. Cash is tight. We are very excited though about doing the "Taste of Forsyth" event on April 19. We will have a booth there for his company Stonecrest Homes & Renovations and we are a featured sponsor there. We are doing a giveaway so if you can make it to the big event you have to come!! Over 17,000 people were in attendance last year. Want to know what we are giving away?

One lucky winner will win a FREE exterior paint job and brand new gutters!!!

Now who doesn't want a new paint job? That's a lot of bucks......

It is being advertised in the papers along with the promos for the event so we expect to see a lot of people coming over to our booth. We will be giving away balloons too for the kids. I have been very prayerful for God's blessings to be on us for this event in that hubby will get some new jobs from it and people will take our information and call us later on when they do need work done. I am excited for him. How did I get on this topic?

Well, I can't wait to see the paint job all done. I am still a little nervous about the wall color. It is a little pinkish? The painter said it has red tones to it. Which may work out fine because his office furniture has red wood tones. ????

The hubby feels vindicated by all of your wonderful comments on the previous post about the garage/office. I was making fun of him for doing it up so grand and all of you were so sweet and loved it! I told him I was sorry for making fun of him and if all of the ladies in blog land thought it was great then it must be. He smiled big for you guys and said to tell you thank you.

See you tomorrow with the final paint pics!

My Man Has Gone Loco

My husband has lost his mind!!

Look at what he has done. Without asking me I might add.....That crazy man has bead boarded the entire garage turned office. Now my mom had a stroke in January and she needed a safe way to get into the house. None of our outside entrances had handrails or the ability to put them in unless we drilled into stone. So hubby took out the garage door and put in these:

A new entrance for mom with no stairs and then he built a whole new safe stairway with handrails at the garage entrance into the house. Which happens to be right in front of the stairway to the basement where mom & dad have their apartment. Pardon my junk.... we are still in construction. Y'all know I have to hurry and find a new home for those trash cans outside and his big silver toolbox or my Home Owners Association will be having fits!!! I fully expect the phone to ring at any moment. Mrs. Walker, your driveway is a mess...... sigh. Now he had taken over my dining room for his home office but he decided when he enclosed the garage to make that his office instead. No problem, I was happy I was going to get my dining room table back. The man has lost his screws!!

These are his baseboards. The first piece is about 9" high and the second is about 3.5". So together his baseboards are around 13" tall. I think he has been sniffing too much wood glue. He is a home builder/remodeler by the way. Have I ever mentioned that? Not only does he have huge baseboards but chair rail too. Oh, but wait, you have to look up too.

He's got crown moulding up in there. Definitely been sniffing too much wood glue. Now, I know a man's office is important to him but dang. Every time I walk in there I just start laughing. I think he is starting to get a little miffed with me. You should hear his guys make fun of him while they have been working on the place. It's been a real hoot. So anyhoo, this is our new home project and I have the lovely task of decorating it for him. Which makes me ecstatic. I picked out some paint colors that I liked and asked him to look at them. He liked them so much he had his painter go ahead and buy the paint and it is being painted this week. YIKES!! I wasn't 100% on those colors yet. I just gave them to him to do an initial consult. Boy oh boy I sure hope it looks good.

So this is a lot of wall to cover. Those are some tall walls!! I am a little nervous to tackle such a large room. He wants to start having his meetings in there so he wants it to be nice. Well, I'll have lots to blog about as far as decorating here for awhile!!

Sentiment Picture Frames

This is my new favorite frame. I heart this frame. I love every single thing about it. I love the scroll work, I am a lover of damask and anything closely resembling damask and pretty scrolly things. I love the font. I love that I can use 4 photos of my 4 beautiful kids. But one thing I really really love is the color. What color is it? I have no idea. This frame was the subject of much conversation in my shop before I closed it. Nobody can figure out what color the frame is. Depending on the lighting in the room this frame can be black, charcoal grey and a white washed hunter green. I kid you not. So really what you get is a very versatile frame that you can use in many different rooms that will give you a new look depending on the lighting. Right now I have this frame in a room that makes the color a charcoal grey. Before it was in a bright room and looked like a muted hunter green with a white wash over it. I love it! Very elegant.

This is another one of my favorites. This is a black frame/almost a charcoal black with the adorable baby's feet in a grey tone. How cute is this? Now who wouldn't want this for their sweet baby?

I love just about anything with sentiment and I love my family pictures. I am not however a big fan of having multiple family photos hanging all over a wall unless they are in matching frames and placed in some kind of pattern that makes sense. I also like the look of the big chunky frames with everyday size photos popped in.

I am all about doing more with less $$. But I do strongly believe that investing in a few good pieces is a worthwhile investment. A few good quality strong pieces in a room can really make a difference in how the room feels. I am a D.I.Y. girl all the way, don't get me wrong. But in my home you can also find beautiful items such as these frames that really make beautiful statements and they are very eye catching. Whenever I have people into my home they never fail to comment on my 20x20 wall frames. Why? Because they are big and they are beautiful and they are part of what just makes the room, that's why. I had a few customers who purchased on average one frame a month give or take and they were making collages of them in their hallways and stairways. That sounds just divine. I like to move mine around a couple of times a year. Another thing I like about these pretty frames? Whenever I see them they always make me smile and that's what your home should be about.

Do you know what else surprised me about selling these frames? I always assumed that people would mostly buy them for themselves and a small percentage as gifts. Boy was I wrong. By far the majority of the sentiment frames I sell are for gifts and most of the time the person purchasing tells or emails me about how they want one for themselves but are purchasing for a friend or family member. So of course I offer them a discount for buying 2 or more frames and many take me up on it. The generosity of people never ceases to amaze me. These aren't $5 frames, they start at $34.99 and go up to $59.99. But...... they are beautiful gifts and I can't imagine anyone receiving one of these fabulous frames and not just falling in love with it!! Many gift stores sell these frames for $79.99 to $99.99 but with independent gift stores popping up like crazy over the last few years the competition has been in favor of the consumer and prices sure have dropped. Thank goodness!! Do you know who else likes to buy these frames? MEN. Men are the majority customer base in my database. I'm thinkin though it has a lot to do with ladies telling their guy about a frame they like and want and the guy being a smart & savvy computer wizard just googles it or their wife maybe said she saw it at my store but somehow the men find me and they can buy in one easy click a great gift for the wife that will keep them out of trouble for awhile, ha ha. I sell a gorgeous black frame all about a man travelling the world in search of something but returning home to find it. Oh yeah, not only is it beautiful and classic in black & white but he gets to tell her every day when she sees it how much he loves her. Big points in guy speak.

Do you have a favorite go to gift for weddings, anniversaries and showers? These are my go to gifts because I know the receiver will love them and they will be used and enjoyed every single day. Totally worth it.

Decorating On A Shoe String Budget Part 3

Ta Da!!

This is the wall opposite from yesterday's post. Let's take a step back shall we?

I guess we can enter through the inside of the house today. What do you think? I just love it. Everything on top was already there but there was nothing on the wall before or any decorative accent of any kind. Let's see what the before looked like....

Ho hum, boring. During my trip to Wal Mart to buy chalkboard paint I saw some great black oval baskets. I even stopped and picked one up, they were so pretty. They were $5 a piece and I said to myself "These are so perfect for my laundry room! I can use these to tie in all of the black and I can use two of these black wicker baskets instead of the two white wire baskets that hold all of our socks waiting to be folded." It just seemed so perfect and would tie in all the colors so prettily. I have a lot of black on the opposite wall but very little on this wall. Just the sign and accent piece in black, gold and ivory. Not much black, these would help bring it all together and be much prettier than the wire ones. As I was contemplating the purchase I realized that I already own two of these baskets but not in black. Mine are in the natural wicker color. One is holding building blocks in Braxy's playroom and the other holding hair paraphanalia in my bathroom cabinet. So what does a girl on a budget do?

I didn't have the cash for spray paint but I still had my leftover gallon of black paint and a paint brush. This was the first coat of 3. Hey, this is a shoe string budget remember? Stop laughing. After the third coat they looked very respectable. Maybe later when I am rich again I will buy some black spray paint and give my pretties a touch up. Maybe. But for now my "new" black baskets are all FREE.

I was going to do a fourth coat but I decided I kinda liked the shabby chic look with some of the natural wicker peeking through. Okay, who am I kidding? I just wanted to get it done and the baby kept screaming every time I went outside to do another coat. I'll do the fourth coat this weekend when people are home to watch Mr. Braxton for me. Y'all are my friends, I can't lie to you.

This is the view coming in from the outside. I think these black baskets are much better than my wire ones. The cabinets were being discontinued from our kitchen cabinet maker and I bought them for $25 when we built the house.

The picture of flowers I already had. I arranged the flowers myself, I was going for a wildflower look. Nothing too perfect. The picture beside it was a clearance Hobby Lobby find. It cost $2, can you believe that? $2 and nobody had swiped it up yet. It was meant for me.

I didn't do a close up of this one yesterday. Not bad for a cost of .59 cents.

Total cost of this wall: $10 sign from Hobby Lobby. $19.99 x 50% off sale = $10. Square decor plaque $2. Clearance section at 80% off. Total cost: $12

Total cost of this wall: 2 framed artwork pieces $1.18. (I painted existing frames in the house) 2 pieces of scrapbooking paper from Hobby Lobby @ .59 cents each. Black barn star $10. $19.99 x 50% off sale = $10. Chalkboard paint $7.97 at Wal Mart. Total cost: $19.15



Total cost for laundry room re do: $31.15 plus sales tax.



Not bad, not bad. She squeals with delight! I just took an idea that I had and looked for ways to use what I already had and got creative about what I needed to purchase to achieve the look I wanted. A funny side note: As I was just starting this post my 16 year old Alexis walked over to the computer and the very first picture was up. She said, "Oh mom, thats a really pretty laundry room. Oh wait, that's our laundry room!". That made me feel really nice and we both laughed about it.



Room additions: I think I would like one of those vinyl letterings over the barn star that says "Welcome" pretty large. I think I would also like a W monogram someplace in black. I definitely want me some black and white toile fabric so I can make a pretty window treatment over the window on my outside door. The door is just begging for some toile love. But, it's not in the budget just yet and maybe some crazed looney person will have donated some black & white toile to the Goodwill so I can come along and buy it. Hey, I can dream. I hope you like it, I know I do and for $32 it sure is a big improvement. Please check out the post below to see how I did the other part of the room.

Decorating on A Shoe String Budget part 2

What a coincidence! I was ready to unveil a laundry room makeover on a shoestring budget using toile and http://prettyorganizedpalace.blogspot.com/2009/03/toile-party.html is having a toile party today. How fun is that? Please go check it out and see all the wonderful toile love going on over there.

Hello and welcome to my home. Please do not be offended that I am taking you in through the side entrance. This is the room we are going to be looking at today! That's right, my laundry room. In the previous post I talked all about decorating on a shoe string budget so I thought I'd put my money where my keyboard is. So I did a laundry room makeover. This will be a two post edition because I have lots of pictures and I didn't want this post to be a mile long.


Would you like to see the before?




In January I decided I hated what I had on the walls in here and moved these two picture frames (which I sell at my store) and the pretty bird picture in here and hung them on existing nails planing to paint the following week and put everything where I wanted it. Well, life happens and the painting never got done because a gallon of paint is expensive (when you don't have money anyway) and everything was going to cost around $100 that I wanted to do. So I just didn't do it........ and it made me crazy. Do you know what else makes me crazy? That little box cut out into my wall for the intercom system my husband was going to put in 8 years ago that never got done. That hole really bothers me.




This is the bottom part of that wall. It is all scraped up from kids scraping book bags across it and me scraping past with handfulls of grocery bags. Now, that really bothered me because it looked dirty. What to do? My 2 year old Braxton spends lots of time in this room with me becuase with four kids, hey, I have lots of laundry to do and I like to keep my laundry room neat and clean. And ORDERLY. I know, I'm a freak.

This wall really got me. Braxton took a pencil to the middle part of this wall and it drove me crazy!! Like I said, Braxton likes to spend a lot of time in here with me.

So the question became "What can I do to this room with practically no money to make it look beautiful and make it a place that I can enjoy being in?". Right after I asked myself that Braxton toddled in with a crayon and tried to color on the wall and it hit me. Chalkboard paint! So I headed to Wal Mart and purchased chalkboard paint for $7.97. Okay, now I will have a lot of black in the room so how do I tie all of that in? With no money. I know all y'all have some frames with old prints or pictures that you don't like anymore or they are sitting in a basement or closet because you might want them again right? Well, I had 2 prints hanging in my dining room that I really didn't love anymore.

So here is what I did.

I already had black paint in the garage. Love me some black paint for accents. Do you have any extra paint stored that you can do something with? I can paint these frames black and it will tie in with the black chalkboard walls, yes!! But what to put into the frames? Surely not these greek hunks.

Yes it's true, steak knives can be used to creat beautiful home decor. I'm such a professional. Just cut the back of this paper backing off if your frames are covered. But be careful with it....

Because in my case this paper backing made the perfect mat background for my new fabulous print. The mat that was in the frame had a peach tone to it and it just didn't look good at all. I was going with black and gold accents to tie in with the light green and black walls. So the paper backing was perfect! And it was FREE! I simply used blue painters tape to attach the two together. BUT..... I did have to cut down about half an inch on each side for it to look good. No big deal.

Stephanie over at http://www.notesfromthesoul.blogspot.com/ is always mentioning the Hobby Lobby so last week I happened to drive by one. I already knew what I was going to do with the frames but I had no idea what I was going to put in them yet. So I decided to go in..... I went straight to the scrapbook section and look what I found!! Some black and white toile, oh how I love me some toile. They were only 59 cents each!! So I bought 2 papers for my frames. Total cost of new artwork: 1.18. I already had the frames and the paint.



There she is all put together and I love it!! Finally I can have some toile in the house. The hubster hates it but oh, it must be a woman thing because don't all women just love toile?




Hello big boy...... $10.00 on sale at the Hobby Lobby. Was $19.99 x 50% off = $10.00.

Entire cost of this wall: $19.20.



Now I have a room I love and Braxton has a whole huge chalkboard wall that he can play with and enjoy. Bookbags and grocery bags can't hurt it and it will always be beautiful. And might I say.... I think my laundry room looks updated and elegant. Very soothing. Now I have some good stuff going on on the other wall. But that is for tomorrow's post so stay tuned!!



Before

After

Before

After

Did you notice that I hung one of the print frames over the big hole in my wall? Bye bye ugly wall. I love it! It's different, which I like to be different. How many people have black walls in their house? But I think it looks pretty and it will be covered over and over with Braxton's colorful drawings that will keep him busy instead of pulling my clothes down off the folding tables ha ha. I used what I had and was creative about using inexpensive items to give me a look that I really love. The other wall? I love it too and it really brings the whole room together. I can't wait for you to see it. I'll give you a few hints of what is to come. The total cost of the other wall? $12. Here is a sneak peek of what you will see:

The point: If I had another $50 plus dollars could I have made this room look even better?

The answer: YES! But right now I don't have $50 extra and neither do a lot of people. Don't wait to live a beautiful life. Be happy where you are right now with what you have. Use what you have or can afford (I spent $1.18 on new artwork) to make your home the one place where you can relax and feel good. If you are waiting for whatever reason to make your home the place you want it to be then stop waiting. Because whatever it is that you are waiting on may never happen and you are worth more than that.

Don't wait to be beautiful.