Spring Planter Centerpiece

For the dining room table I thought I would put something living on it for Easter. I had an idea of what I wanted so when I was in Walmart I went to the kitchen department. Bingo! I found the prettiest teal-ish blue colander from The Pioneer Woman. (Love her!) The color would look great with the cloth napkins I already have and the price I couldn't beat. A "normal" planter from a home improvement store would be double the amount. I happily paid for my new planter ($8) and brought it home.

My thought is that I do not want to ruin it so I lined it with plastic wrap. I bought a potted tulip from the grocery store-$6. I cut the top off a freezer bag and placed the potted tulips into it,

Now the colander is doubly protected but I could see all the ugly mechanics through the holes in the colander. That won't do! To hide the uglies I lined the outside of the tulips with plastic eggs.

I put another layer of plastic over the eggs to protect them....

...and topped it all off with preserved moss from A.C.Moore- $5.

I moved it into it's new home on the dining room table and proceeded to kill it!

No worries, this week they had nicer ones in the grocery store-as if they knew I would be back! Another $5 plant. I removed the moss, lifted out the old plant and put in the new plant making a mental note to be more attentive to the needs of my new plant.... I know.... you want me to check back next week to see how long it takes me to kill this one. For now, I am just going to enjoy the process and the tulips blooming on my table. If it dies I have these pictures to fill in for the loss:

I love the way it looks, I love that I have a pretty colander for fruit when spring gives way to summer (or when I kill this plant) and bulbs that are spent will be placed into the ground to come up again next year.

 

Thanks for stopping by. I pray your Easter, Resurrection Sunday, is filled with the glories of all Christ has done for the children of God in paying a debt we could not pay, for our sin is too great. He clothed us in a righteousness we could not obtain because all our attempts fall woefully short. God's command is to be holy as he is holy-I could never measure up....but Jesus did! He paid for my sin, he gave me his righteousness and as it was finished he died in my place. But that is not the end, dear ones. No, he did not stay in the ground because his sacrifice was perfect and accepted by the Father and I know this and have assurance of all that was done on my behalf because Jesus, the Christ, was raised from the dead. That is our reason for great joy and celebration today and everyday!

Happy Easter!

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Decorating The Hutch For Spring

It is time to change up the hutch in the living room for the Spring season.  I love and dread this as I am always at a loss for what to do with the area. I do love it when it is right but when it is wrong it is like a splinter on my finger that I can’t see-I know it is there and it is bothering me to no end but I can

A picture of the area when I decorated it for the winter period after Christmas:

 I was content with it. I am sure next year I will look back at those pictures and think “Yuck! What was I thinking?” But, for now, spring is fast approaching and Easter is just two short weeks away!

I gathered some things I had packed away last year and pulled different things from around the house. I piled them all in the vicinity of the hutch. I knew I wouldn’t use everything but I needed them all in my sight to make decisions. I started to dismantle the winter vignette in the hutch…TWO WEEKS AGO! I was stuck. 

I looked to Pinterest and other blogs for inspiration. I have hoarded pictures and other aspiring decorator’s idea like a squirrel hoards nuts for the winter.  The images make me think “I can do that” but when the rubber hits the road it looks like unrelated clutter to me.  Why?!

As much as I try I am no minimalist! I try to edit down and edit out. I have read that once you have it the way you like it take one thing away. I can never decide which one thing! I can’t tell what is off. Do I need more dimension? Less little stuff? Different color interests? Ugh!

I found of moss covered ‘stones’ at Home Goods that reminded me of spring and I think I may use them for summer, as well. Speckled eggs-8 for $5 was a no-brainer.  We don’t do the Easter Bunny, ect but I do love all the bright colors and they have their place in the dining room and a bit in the kitchen. For the living room I want a more toned down approach that can last a month or two.

When everything was said and done most of the treasures were packed away for later. I am sure it won’t stay this way long. As I was scavenging my stash I was reintroduced to my shells and beach glass. With the 70 degree temperatures we have been experiencing this week the summer is calling me but I will wait a bit and enjoy this season. I am looking forward to buds popping out on the trees, rose bushes growing their leaves, crocus, forsythia and lilacs. Oh, the beautiful opening buds on the maple trees against a clear blue sky!

On our drive home from a friends yesterday we heard the peepers out! Oh, it makes my heart sing! It reminds me of a piece of art I want to do for my house I saw on a Pinterest board: 

Did the grass sing, did the earth rejoice to feel you again? He is Risen!

              The image is courtesy of Love of Family and Home. The printable is courtesy of Nest of Posies

Party time!
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A Done-For-Now Office Reveal

Procrastination.  I am the queen of procrastination. If it were an Olympic sport I am sure that I would have already been award several gold medals in the event. I am not sure why I wait until the last minute. (I do find that some of my best work is done under the gun, though.) Why? I am not sure but I do know this….nothing can motivate me to clean my bathroom like knowing that we are going to be having guests coming (usually within 24 hours)!

Anthropolgy planter.

It is not a good or admirable trait. I am constantly pointing that fact out to my children as they scramble to get that last lab done or math assignment completed the night before it is due.  I guess to some extent we all do it.  I, however, seem to have perfected it to a form of art.

Having said all that I can now with a clear conscience say the office is, well, almost finished. How non-committal is that!  It did not turn out the way I had thought it would. What do they say about best laid plans and all?  I had measured out the room and measured the furniture that was to go into the room. I used graph paper to draw out my room size and used graph paper to cut shapes representing the pieces of furniture to be used in the room. There was room, according to my drawings, to incorporate most of what I wanted in there but in real life it did not look right. I did not take into account the positioning of the door and the fact that when I walked into I was looking at the back of a chair. Not appealing. It also left the area between the keyboard and the chairs a little tight- not too tight but enough to feel claustrophobic .  It wasn’t turning out the way I wanted it to so I drug my feet in finishing the project.

Everything got flipped. The chairs are now positioned in front of the windows. The old chest, that was a gift to us when we were first married, sits in front of them and houses countless photo albums and old year books. I love the chest. It has teeth marks from our youngest all around the edges. I don’t know why she liked teething on it. The filing cabinet sits between the two chairs. The hooks on the wall were perfect for a couple of throw blankets- great for curling up under and watching a movie or reading a book … or studying for that science or math test… I found the blankets at Home Goods. Love that store!

View entering the room.

The old music stand took up too much precious floor space. I found one that mounted to the wall allowing the keyboard to now sit closer to the wall.  Mister cut down the extender bar for me and mounted it to the wall.

I did not want a black “nothing” in the middle of the wall so I devised a plan to fix it. I ordered an enlarged print of a picture I took last summer on Cape Cod. It is a plover chick. It is the cutest little thing and it reminds me of summer. I used contact paper to cover it and made sure I left plenty around the edges to adhere it to the music holder.

There was a problem. It would not stick to the holder! So, I wrapped the edges under and thought maybe magnets would work. Nope. The music holder is not magnetic. So, I resorted to glue dots like the ones you use for scrap booking. They worked fabulously.

The girls named him Harold...Harold Puffington.

The wall the keyboard sits on was another compromise The dresser Mister and I had refinished when we were first married has to sit on the same wall.

I decided not to re-refinish it.

 I had only the area directly above the keyboard to work with. I am now glad that I had procrastinated in ordering the engineering print of a piece of piano music as there is no room for it. Mister had brought home two cd holders a while back.

We cut one up and used it in daughter #3’s bedroom. (here) The other I had Mister mount above the keyboard. I had two pieces of Scripture that I wrote out for Mister. He is the music minister for our church. He loves doing it and I love encouraging him to remember that his work is for the Lord. 

The stand in position for playing music.

I have to tell you that right after I ordered the print I was on Walgreens website and realized I could have made my picture a peel & stick kind of thing for about $10-15. I was kicking myself for not doing that but in hindsight maybe it would not have stuck the music holder any way but I am going to keep that info tucked away for later.

The room is multifunctional for our family. We can watch movies, study, read, and practice piano in that room. In addition it houses my closet. It would be nice to have a closet in my bedroom but in old houses like ours they were not built to hold the wardrobes we have today. The hooks on the wall are where people hung their clothes in the 1800’s when the house was built. Then, you had a set of work clothes, church clothes and a coat-3 hooks and done. No need for closets and shelves, cubbies and shoe racks. I imagine getting dressed didn’t take much thought in the morning. More time to get to what needed to be done and less time procrastinating.

 This room is done....for now. I am supposed to paint the book cubby-thing next to Mister's keyboard and I have a few tweaks here and that hideous file cabinet needs a paint job. That will have to wait for warmer weather and my new spray gun!  I still have to commit to some sort of window treatment. Each window has a room darkening shade so I only want a valance of some sort. I do not want a fabric valance. What I would like is some texture and am toying with the idea of weathered wood. I wonder how long I will procrastinate before getting that done? I will be sure to keep you posted.

Partying here:
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A Yard Sale Night Stand

A few years ago Mister and I were spending an early summer Saturday morning perusing local yard sales. I get happy just thinking about the warm weather coming! I know it means beckoning driveways and open garage doors filled with someone's cast-offs waiting to be my must have treasures. Oh, yeah. Anyway, in one particular yard sale we found a woman whose husband must have said "Enough!" and she had a gold mine of stuffs for sale!

I purchased an all white, Pfaltgraff butter dish in perfect condition for $1-oh yes, I did! I can't remember all the stuff she had except a cute little night stand perfect for a child's room. It was freshly painted white with a glass pull on it. The only problem with it was that someone had made a messy hole in it to pass through a wire of some sort. "We can fix that!", I declared to Mister. If you're new here- "we" means Mister; Mister can fix that. For $5, yup, $5 I took that little beauty home!

The little table was well used and we did find a solution to the hole. Fast forward to the recent redo of daughter #3's bedroom. There is no room for the little night stand anymore and it needs some refreshing and love.

First, I removed the drawer pull. I lightly sanded the stand just to scuff up the semi-gloss surface. I wiped the dust off with a damp paper towel. I let the surface completely dry. Using leftover paint from the recent redo of daughter #2's bedroom I mixed up a batch my favorite POP Paint! It took two coats.

1st coat of paint.

2nd coat.

The whole piece got a coat of Annie Sloan wax and once dry was buffed to a nice finish. I replaced the hardware.

I measured a piece of foam core board to fit the back space. I covered the foam board with left over peel and stick paper I used in the kitchen cabinets and slid it into place.

The foam core was left over from another project and the bright yellow showed through so I just flipped it over.

Next I lined the drawer and the sides with the peel and stick.

And ta-da! Isn't it sweet? Now, I still have no room for it but at least now I can sell it without being ashamed of it. Mister will be happy that another piece of furniture is leaving our home and hopefully, this little piece will be a treasure in someone else's home for many years.

Partying here this week:
French Country Cottage, Chic On A Shoestring, Remodelaholic, Craft Dictator, Just Us Four, Shabby Art Boutique, The Cottage Market, The DIY Village , DIY Vintage Chic, A Tray of Bliss, Patina Paradise, Crafty Allie, Blooming Homestead, The Girl Creative, Pieced Pastimes, Funky Junk Interiors, One More Time Events, DIY Showoff, Finding Silver Pennies, Thoughts From Alice, Pink When, Create With Joy, Inside the Fox Den, Dwellings-The Heart of Your Home, I Should Be Mopping the Floor, Plucky's Second Thought, Coastal Charm, Skip To My Lou, Sand and Sisal, Creatively Living, Karen's Up On The Hill, Strangers and Pilgrims on Earth, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Flamingo Toes, Cupcakes and Crinoline, Home Stories A to Z, A Stroll Thru Life, Elizabeth & Co, Ladybug Blessings, Our Home Away From Home, Cozy Little House, The DIY Dreamer, Savvy Southern Style, The Blissful Bee, The Newlywed Pilgrimage, Simply Designing, Gingersnap Crafts, The Dedicated House, DIY By Design, Crafty Allie, Handy Man Crafty Woman, Lambert's Lately, Imparting Grace, The Charm of Home, A Cup of Mrs. Olson, Blesser House, From My Front Porch To Yours, My Repurposed Life, Up To Date Interiors, A Vision To Remember, Must Love Home, Too Much Time On  My Hands, AKA Design, Craftberry Bush, Joyful Homemaking, The Pin Junkie, The Chelsea Project, Blogdacious, The Curators Collection

A Craiglist Hutch Tutorial

I love when the days turn warmer because it means that people start spring-cleaning! (Not me, of course, but other people.) They want to get rid of the old and freshen things up. What do you do with all the stuff then? You have a yard sale, naturally. The trouble is it is not warm weather here in Massachusetts and waiting through the cold months used to be torture. With the advent of the internet we now have access to year round yard sales, estate sales, ect.  I love Craiglist, Freecycle and local yard sale facebook sites!

Since we bought our home in 2003 I have had a love/hate relationship with the old steam radiators in our home. Some of them are gorgeous and because of that I do not mind terribly that they take up space in a corner of a room. At times I have placed a piece of marble or tray on top and made them into make shift tables.

U G L Y!

Neither of the two radiators in my living room are beautiful. They are short, squatty little things with no decoration at all. They weigh a ton so to try to bring them outside for a good cleaning and spray paint is impossible. They stick out from the wall about a foot and they are both placed in stupid locations. The one that caused me most trouble was between the two front windows. So this is the maybe-too-detailed story of what I did to deal with them. I have alluded to parts of this account in other posts but thought maybe I should just put it all out there.

My solution was to build display shelves of some sort to house collectibles, table lamps and whatever else I feel like. So the brain started thinking. It had to have an open bottom because Mister is insistent that we not block the heat in any way. Pedal back about a year or so before when I spied, with my little eye, two porch pillars being thrown out by my neighbor. After she left for work and before the garbage man came I, with cat-like maneuvers, made my way to her garbage pile and snatched the pillars stealing them away to the safety of my back porch. In hindsight they were in no danger from the garbage man as they would never have fit into little compressor thing but no doubt some crazed DIY nut would have snatched them up for some cockamamie idea! ....What?

Yes, you know when Mister saw them he rolled his eyes and asked about them. At the time I had no plans other than to hoard them like they were water and it was Y2K! Okay back to the present time. So now, I had a plan for those pillars. They were going to be the front legs to my shelving. But, what about the shelves? That is when I became obsessed with checking Craigslist in three different areas for like a week. One day, boom! There it was a top to an Ethan Allen hutch that some woman did not want anymore. I immediately emailed her. She forwarded the measurements and I was thrilled that it would fit into my SUV. Off I went with my $40 (either $30 or $40 I forget which).

A little too country rustic for me.\

My daughter was with me. In theory the top would fit into my car....if I could get it through the opening which is smaller than the inside cabin area! I was not letting it go. My daughter and I put it on top of the luggage rack but had only a few bungee cords to try to keep it in place. I drove back roads home 10 miles or so with the sun roof open, our hands sticking up through it holding tightly the top of the hutch. That my friends is determination! Once home I took it quickly to the basement until I could draw up a plan. Mister does so much better with things he can see.

Mister caught the vision and the whole family got involved. The girls washed the cut down pillars readying them for paint.

Mister cut the top from a piece of pre-packaged wood at Home Depot. He built the skirt out of 1x6 and used the corners of the posts to tie the skirt in,

Mister mounted the base onto the wainscoting using it as a sort of cleat. Then the top was placed onto that. Everything got a fresh coat of December Starlight from Lowes to match the trim in the living room.

I painted the top using paint from around the house. Now, please don't fuss that I painted a piece of Ethan Allen furniture. I did not pay $2000 for it and in order for me to have it the way I wanted it the color was going to have to change a bit.

And, done for about $80 in materials, including the hutch top and wood. The decor changes seasonally and it has become one of my favorite diy's.

Kinda makes me want to go see what I can find on Craigslist....and no, I have gotten no farther on the office.
                                           Thanks for spending time with me today!

Linking up:
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