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A Sweet Purchase & My Meeting With a Superstar Blogger!

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Have you ever found that perfect “something” for your home? You really, REALLY wanted it until you began to feel like maybe you wanted it too much? Have you ever questioned whether your desire for things was out of balance with what is really important in life?

I left you hanging earlier this week with my post about being on the verge of something exciting thanks to my husband’s desire to make me happy.

My blog friend Sherry at No Minimalist Here, has recently downsized and has been having a virtual garage sale of items from her own home. THIS painting became the object of my desire! I have always loved this painting on the header of Sherry’s blog. The colors are so soothing and, in fact, as mentioned in a previous post, Sherry’s blog header was the color inspiration for my living room.

When I saw that this painting was up for sale I immediately began to yearn for it. I drooled, I swooned, I nearly fainted over it. Okay, so I’m exaggerating, but I had a strong desire to purchase this painting for my “work in process” dining room. The problem is that Sherry lives in Florida and I live in South Carolina (an 8 hour drive) and shipping would be too expensive. After obsessing on this painting for awhile I began to reevaluate my painting lust, especially as I began to think about all that I have and weighed that against what is really important in life. I felt convicted and decided that I needed to give it up. I prayed. I thanked God and I closed that door.

“When are we going to take our road trip?,” hubby asked one morning last week.

“Whaaaa?”

“I think we should head out Monday morning.”

Lesson learned: Sometimes you have to give something up before it can become yours.

So here I am with Sherry, Superstar Blogger at No Minimalist Here!

Forgive me if I gush but Sherry’s blog is one of the first blogs I followed and you can’t believe how excited this (then) newbie blogger was when she followed me back! That was in the days when I reported every follow to my patient husband and tolerant daughters until it got to the point where they thought I had gone “blog crazy”.

I adore Sherry’s style and her blog is a never ending source of inspiration. I never dreamed that I’d have the opportunity to meet her and even be invited into her home. I had to restrain myself from prattling on and on about every little thing I saw as she gave us the tour (not so sure I did very well with that). The funny thing to me was, that my husband also gushed over Sherry’s home. He even took my camera from me and started taking pictures!

This is one of Sherry and I standing in front of her Trumeau mirror flanked by the sea fans that she dyes herself.

Here we are in Sherry’s dining room with the painting behind us. The history of this canvas is that it is a 19th century painting that originally hung in Jamestown Plantation in Virginia. What a beautiful conversation piece it will be in my dining room. I wonder what the story will sound like? Will I talk about it’s historic roots or will I talk more about meeting the beautiful and gracious Sherry and the story behind how the picture came to belong to me? History runs deep.

So guess what I’ve been plugging away at (with 1-1/2 hands) since we got back from our whirlwind trip to Florida? Preparing my dining room for new wallpaper.

The room had two layers of wallpaper. The first one came off easily. The second had been applied directly to the sheet rock without proper preparation (sizing), and when I began to remove it it took the top layer of the sheet rock right off. That was several months ago and it has lived that way until now.

Without renewed motivation this past couple of days I sanded away the torn paper . . .

. . . and applied a skim coat of joint compound. After it dried I used a sanding block to knock down the rough surfaces, wiped off the dust with a damp rag and left it to air dry.

My next step will be to roll on a primer that is specially formulated for wallpaper. I’m pushing through tonight because I have company coming from Washington State this upcoming week and may not get back to it for awhile. Hmmm . . . unless I can get my company to assist in the wallpapering. 3- 1/2 hands are always better than 1- 1/2 hands.

On the way home from Florida Mr. OTN said to me, “You know we did this because I love you right?”

I knew.

Blessings,

My Signature

I’ve been known to link up to the following great parties!!!
Sunday:
UnderTheTableAndDreaming, TheDIYShowoff, LifeOnLakeshoreDrive,
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Help! Which Color Should I Paint my Rocker?

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This chair is beautiful to me. As a child I would sit rocking as I looked out at the water in from our lakefront cabin. I would hold my hand just beneath my eyes to block out the cabin’s porch and the beach beyond so I could see only the water. That made it easy to pretend that I was sitting on the deck of a cruise ship bound for distant lands.

Seriously, that’s what I did!

After years of being bounced from home to home and spending some time on the deck of our former lake house in Washington I was almost ready to take it off to the dump.

Almost . . . but not quite.

Along came Mr. OTN to the rescue! My dear hubby has been removing old cane and glue from the channels, as well as removing the rusted screws that had broken off inside the chairs arms and bleaching away the black mold. Now he’s ready to tackle the job of re-caning. What a gift of love.

I’ve decided that my old rocker deserves some color and this is where you, the most brilliant readers in the world, come in.

We will be using the rocker on the screened porch which has neutral colored furniture and blue accents so I’d like to paint it in a blue tone.

These are the colors I’m considering:

  1. Duck Egg
  2. Greek Blue
  3. Provence
  4. A random color of Behr clearance paint

The color of my sample board is close to the color of the caning, which we aren’t painting, so you can see what the contrast would look like. The colors here are a tad bit washed out but I had to brighten them up a lot so you could see the true color.

So what do you think? What’s your favorite, one, two, three or four? We hope to get to the painting this weekend so I’d absolutely love to hear your opinion!

Blessings to you,

P.S. Just a reminder that Farragoz Old World Furniture Painting Course is offering a special rate to my readers now through the end of March. Instead of $150 for the course it is being offered for $99, an amazing value. Click the link below to register:

Farragoz Special Offer

I’ve been known to link up to the following great parties!!!
Sunday:
UnderTheTableAndDreaming, TheDIYShowoff, LifeOnLakeshoreDrive,
Monday:
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Saturday:

My ALMOST Finished Living Room Reveal!

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What’s wrong with this picture? Can you see the two things that bug me about it? Haha! You may see a lot of things that bother you about it that I’m not even aware of, and I don’t need to be aware of them either, because in my obsessed decorator’s thinking I will stew on them and go sleepless over them and maybe even decide to change things up again.

Ughhhh!!! The thoughts of a former perfectionist sometimes creep in and try to take me captive!

The formal living room in our new house is pretty well put together but it probably won’t be exactly like I want it to be for awhile longer either because I have other priorities to tackle.

Like our formal dining room, which you can see across the hall from the living room. It is still partially stripped of wallpaper and has a whole dining room set that’s waiting for attention. Since we want to reach new heights in hospitality (Hospitality part one and part two can be seen HERE and HERE) in our new home, that is the first priority.

So let me give you a tour of what we have done in here so far. This is my Craigslist velvet couch. Custom made and only a year old when I found it.

This is the view looking from the den into the living room and I think the BIGGEST thing that bothers me about this room is most evident here. Have you guessed what it is yet? (By the way, if you haven’t seen the den reveal yet you can take a peek right HERE)

Most of the furniture in this room was either given to me or thrifted. Only the rug (Catherine by Ballard Designs) and the two end tables (Leilani from Hayneedle) were purchased new, and on sale, after we moved in.

These two chairs belonged to my mother. I had them recovered from pink velvet to a more modern pattern in gold and black.

Some winter decor and our living room 068

Here’s a little thrifted table we found in an antique mall in Anderson, SC. I say thrifted because you can’t get buys like this on new furniture!

This desk also belonged to my mom and I love keeping my note cards and pretty writing supplies here.

We found two of these little chairs on Craigslist. I will eventually recover them but for now the color is perfect for the space!

Some winter decor and our living room 035

This was one of my father’s first woodworking projects after he retired. Each of us girls got something he made and I’m thankful to have this reminder of him.

Living room 065

I chose a rug with muted colors for this room. It has a lot of greys and taupes and also seafoam green and gold accents.

That brings me to the first big thing that bothers me about this room. Even though the rug has gold accents in it, the yellow walls just don’t feel right to me. I would really prefer to paint the walls a more neutral “greige” type color. The yellow makes the room bright and cheery but this color, Sandstone Cove, is still light enough, and has enough yellow undertones in it that it will continue to be bright. This color will also make our entire downstairs entertaining space flow more smoothly from room to room. If you look at the entryway above it is already a similar color and eventually the den and the dining room will be as well.

The second thing that bothers me? After the walls are painted the whole room will be more neutral in color. That’s the idea, right? But as much as I love all of the beautiful neutral rooms I see on design blogs, I crave color. I want to use some of my favorite colors as accents. The pretty aquamarine color in this fishing float (also one of the colors in the rug) and some brighter peacock blue like the color in this pillow.

So that’s it for now. It sure does take a long time to settle into a new and completely different type of home than I’ve had before.

Next up, I have a couple of Valentine’s Day posts for you (Shabby Flannel Rosettes and a Chocolate/Raspberry Valentine’s Dessert) before I share my Living Room Part Two. I’ve already been shopping my house for added pops of color and I’ll also be sharing some of the close up details of this room. I DO hope you’ll come back again.

Blessings,

As a reminder, Farragoz’s Art of Patina is giving away a FREE online painting course to one of my lucky readers. For complete details (with pictures) on the course you can link back to my post HERE. Then sign up below. The more boxes you check the more chances you have of winning! By entering this giveaway you are confirming that you are 18 years or over. Void where prohibited. The contest will run through February 20th and the winner will be announced when all of the numbers are tallied!

To Enter: Simply follow the directions on the Rafflecopter form below and . . . please . . . don’t forget to tell your friends about this fantastic giveaway!

This is not a paid post.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I’ve been known to link up to the following great parties!!!
Sunday:
UnderTheTableAndDreaming, TheDIYShowoff, LifeOnLakeshoreDrive,
ThreeMangoSeeds, NiftyThriftyThings,
Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday:
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Saturday:

 

Brilliant Mirrored Bookcases!

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Have you ever had one of those amazing moments of sheer brilliance? You know the kind. When you’ve been searching for an answer to a decorating dilemma for months on end and suddenly come across an idea SO brilliant that you can barely restrain yourself from jumping up and down with joy? It may be so exciting that you run upstairs to tell your husband he needs to wake up right now and take a look at what you’ve found on the Internet. It may even be so exciting that you grab his glasses and iPad from the bedside table and place them on top of his slumbering body, then run down the stairs and back up again with a cup of coffee strong enough to help him focus at the crack of dawn.

Of course he will be amazed by your genius and he’ll agree to drop everything he has planned for the day to go thrifting with you . . . because he desires nothing more than that your dream of having the perfect bookcases be realized!

- OR -

He may say something like, “If you help me in the garage this morning, I’ll go thrifting with you this afternoon.”

The negotiations begin.

Bookcase Styling From Old Things New Blog

This is the way my bookcases looked when I first styled them, as seen in my post, Welcome to Our Den.

Bookcase Styling From Old Things New Blog

In that post you may recall my saying that I was enthralled by the word DEN . . .

Bookcase Styling From OldThingsNewBlog

. . . that it brought to mind thoughts of curling up with a good book or hunkering down for a marathon movie run.

Bookcase Styling From OldThingsNewBlog

I styled my bookcases with the sorts of things you’d find in the den of my imagining . . . and the mix of old books and treasures collected through the years added to the cozy factor of the space.

Comfy Den from OldThingsNewBlog

I also mentioned that the Screened Porch (my favorite room) sits directly behind the den, making this the darkest room in our home.

Bookcase Styling From OldThingsNewBlog

So while I’ve been itching to add a little something to the backs of the bookcases . . . wallpaper, a stenciled design, or a different color of paint . . . I didn’t really want to lose the light that’s reflected from the white background of the bookshelves.

Enter THE solution for creating BRILLIANT Bookcases!

Brilliant Mirrored Bookcases

Mirrors!

Brilliant Mirrored Bookcases

Brilliant Mirrored Bookcases

Lots and lots of mirrors.

Brilliant Mirrored Bookcases

Mirrors of different design, size, shape, and color.

Brilliant Mirrored Bookcases

Newer mirrors . . .

. . . mixed with antique mirrors.

Hand painted icon created through the Farragoz online painting course

Even simple pieces of unframed mirror.

After shopping my own house and lifting mirrors from dressers, bathrooms and side tables, the thrift stores and local antique shops became my hunting grounds.

Brilliant Mirrored Bookcases

Brilliant Mirrored Bookcases

I became obsessed by the hunt and . . .

. . . though I wanted to find everything all in one day . . .

. . . the hunt was spread over several weeks.

One by one, my bookcase cubbies filled with mirrors . . .

. . . to reflect my collected treasures . . .

. . . and pull in light from the windows across the room.

Brilliant Mirrored Bookcases!

The garage is coming together. Another decorating project has been knocked out. I’m happy. Mr. OTN is happy . . . or at least neutral. That’s just as good as happy for a hubby, right?

Brilliant Mirrored Bookcases

For more bee-U-tee-ful bookcase ideas, link to my Bookshelves board on Pinterest and don’t forget to Pin!

As a reminder, Farragoz, the Art of Patina painting course (where I learned to make the lovely icon you saw nestled in my bookcase) is offering one of my readers a FREE online painting course! The course is valued at $150 and consists of six modules (course content pictured on my sidebar) where you will learn Old World painting techniques using homemade paints. You can sign up below. The more boxes you check the more chances you have of winning! By entering this giveaway you are confirming that you are 18 years or over. Void where prohibited. The contest will run through February 20th and the winner will be announced when all of the numbers are tallied!

To Enter: Simply follow the directions on the Rafflecopter form below and . . . please . . . don’t forget to tell your friends about this fantastic giveaway!

This is not a paid post.

Next up? My ALMOST Finished Living Room Reveal. I do hope you’ll join me here again.

Blessings,

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I’ve been known to link up to the following great parties!!!

Sunday:
UnderTheTableAndDreaming, TheDIYShowoff, LifeOnLakeshoreDrive,
ThreeMangoSeeds, NiftyThriftyThings,
Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday:
Friday:
Saturday:

Hospitality & Dining Room Inspiration

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On any given day you might find me at home in old jeans, a too big sweatshirt, and a dingy Seahawk’s cap to hide the hair that I don’t want to mess with. My teeth will be brushed, my face washed . . . sorta . . . and my undies clean (LOL), but that will be the extent of my personal hygiene on one of my “moving mountains around the house” days! Will I invite you in if you stop by? Of course I will, though I may apologize just a bit for not being my normally gorgeous self! I’ll invite you in and I’ll do my very best to make you feel a warm welcome in my home!

What does hospitality mean to you?

Does it mean having your home spotless, the table laid with beautiful china, and a spread of gourmet delicacies? - By invitation only please!

Or does it mean a door that is always open no matter what condition the house is in, or what condition YOU are in for that matter?!

My word for the year is HOSPITALITY and I’m learning a whole new form of it living here in the South. I’ll be sharing more about that later this week in a Freedom Friday post . . . so come on back y’all!

So with thoughts of hospitality on my horizon, what a great time to share the Olioboard I created to plan out our dining room, the next project I’ll be tackling in our new home. This is the first time I’ve tried Olioboard and, though it was a little time consuming, once I got the hang of it it was a lot of fun! How revealing it was as I pinned items to the board and realized that some of the things I was thinking of using in this room didn’t look right together. I found this to be a great resource for planning out a room and also helpful at keeping one from making mistakes.

I’ll start with my inspiration piece, my own Great Blue Heron, (I’ve written a special story about him HERE) which has all of the colors I want to use in this room. Greys, tans, and different shades of green and blue.

Add to that a color washed grey buffet, my crystal chandelier, a vintage Karastan rug that belonged to my mother, a Craigslist dining table and chairs pulled from a pile in a garage, an antique store china cabinet found on sale (CHEAP) over the holidays (similar to the one in the picture but not the exact same piece), thrift store silver pieces collected over time, family china, boxwood greenery, a Trumeau style mirror and two wing back chairs (both on my wish list of things to find) and samples of traditional style wallpaper and upholstery fabric for the dining table chairs. I will paint some of the furniture and leave some of the wood natural as I like the mix of stained wood and painted furniture together.

It may not be Downton Abbey but our gifted and thrifted dining room will definitely have an elegant feeling when it all comes together!

I’m excited to begin work and even more excited to see how God is going to use our home to practice a little Southern hospitality in the year 2015!

Blessings,

I’ve been known to link up to the following great parties!!!
Sunday:
UnderTheTableAndDreaming, TheDIYShowoff, LifeOnLakeshoreDrive,
ThreeMangoSeeds, NiftyThriftyThings,
Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday:
Friday:
Saturday: