Little Yellow Chair

I've often joked that we don't have "grown up" furniture and don't live in a "grown up" house.  When I visits friends' homes, they seem so "grown up."  I don't know how to explain it any other way but their beautiful homes with beautiful furniture and beautiful artwork seems just that...GROWN UP.  I do love it and maybe someday I'll live in a "grown up" house but for now I love my hand me down, flea market furniture and vintage vibe.  The other day I actually realized that in our entire downstairs we have maybe one piece of furniture that we didn't find at a flea market or have handed down from family.  It makes me kind of happy that I can look at our dining room table and remember when my parents bought it back when I was probably Charlie's age.  I know that the cabinet in our breakfast nook used to be in a little girl's room I know that is all grown up now. Most of the furniture in our bedroom belonged to my mom when she was a little girl.  I also like that when I break out the paint my husband doesn't even bat an eye.  It's not like we are going to ruin an expensive piece of furniture.
For years I have been wanting to paint the hand me down table in our dining room.  It's black.  I don't really do dark furniture.  If I had my way, every piece of furniture in our house would be antique white.  I wish I had taken a picture before sanding down the top of the table but here it is mid redo:

And here it is after painting the base and staining the top:

Of course the chairs and that bench back there now needed a redo. 



Makes the dining room look COMPLETELY different now that the big black table and chairs are gone.

 

I decided I wanted to do something a little crazier than antique white for the bench and settled on yellow.  I 'm loving it.  While we were painting the bench, I started thinking about my grandma because she always had a yellow dining room.  I can still picture the yellow and white gingham tablecloth that was always on her dining room table.  And in the corner there was a little ice cream parlor chair.  It was my grandma's when she was little.  Every one of her kids and grandkids sat in that chair.  It has been painted a million colors but I remember it best sitting in the corner of her yellow dining room.   I always loved that chair growing up and am beyond blessed to have it now that my sweet grandma is gone.  I had Nora run in and grab it and gave it a little makeover too.  I had painted it light green YEARS ago for Nora's baby room and it was looking so sad and dingy.  Now it looks so happy and reminds me of my grandma and her yellow dining room.

 

 

© 2012 paperdoll designs

Seriously Considering...

I'm seriously considering the following things...some of the them might shock you...
*cutting off my hair
*taking a sledgehammer to our master bathroom even though we can't afford to remodel right now
*taking a sledge hammer to our kitchen tile even though we can't afford to remodel right now
*hiding every can of Lysol in the house from The Baker and officially changing his blog name to Lysol King
*buying these shoes
or these shoes
AND these shoes
because something has come over me and I am all about orange and green right now. I'll need matching purses. I'm considering adding these because you know how I already love this color
*Home Schooling...yes, you read that right.
*Painting every last piece of furniture in my house ivory (starting with my black dining room table) because I love that clean look and it just makes me happy
*blowing off the idea of an honest to goodness grown up PaperDoll website because loading all the pictures and pricing and info on the darn thing is just making me crazy
*kicking my kids out of their "game room" which is really just a GINORMOUS closet that they never play in so I can use it for storage
*taking flu girl and "I don't want to pee in the potty" boy to get cute donuts in the morning followed by a gigantic Diet Dr. Pepper fountain drink

That last one is probably the only one that is sensible...don't you think?

Lots of Pics...

We had a great Spring Break! It was so nice to not have to work as much and now I'm having a really hard time getting back to business. I'm still in that Spring Cleaning mode. Today I tackled the linen closet...it desperately needed it. I won the battle with the Barbies and plastic jewelry that had taken over Nora's room and I'm so glad to have that one checked off the list. I'll have to take pictures of her room and closet because I'm pretty sure it won't last. Charlie's room and closet are next. It's pretty bad in there. I tend to dump all the things the older two are done with in his room and he drags it all out and makes a huge mess. Some days we seriously just have to make a path to his bed. The Vacuum (the thing that started this mad cleaning/organizing thing) is my new best friend and it has almost met every last corner of the house.

Bubble Gum Bags - Sporty Stripe with Bowling Pin
Domino Blue Small Clippie
Sports Bottles for the "SPARKLES" soccer team...Zebra Hot Pink

Hepburn Red Pen

Small Guitar Mom Note Pads

Rugby Orange & Blue Bookmarks

Black Damask Hot Pink & Tiffany Blue Tumblers

These family calendars have been selling like CRAZY! I LOVE mine...it's helped keep me sane lately. Shown above...Brown Damask and Green Family Calendars

Blossom Pink Flat Note Cards and Mini Bag Tag

Dot Dot Darcy Pink & Green Note Cards

Groovy Boy Note Cards and Mini Bag Tag

Hippie Chic Pink & Brown Sports Bottle, Groovy Girl Bright Pink Bag Tag & Pencil Cup

I seriously LOVE these lunchboxes!!! Pink GumDrops & Little Bo Peep

Black Damask Hot Pink Lunchbox

Pink Harlequin Bunny Mini Candy Bars

Pink & Green Stripe Easter Basket Mini Candy Bars

Rugby Blue & Red Plate & Matching Straw Cup

© 2009 paperdoll designs

Spring Break Update

The Little Darlings returned on Tuesday. The Baker and I missed them so much while they were away BUT we had a great time eating out, watching movies, shopping without kids and just hanging out. Amazingly, I did NOT sleep late everyday. I actually got up and got to work. I GREATLY underestimated the time it will take me to complete the PaperDoll project I had mentioned but it is definitely still in the works and hopefully will be ready SOMEDAY. Who knows when but it will happen!
Now that the kids are back I am on a Spring Cleaning mission. Today I had a Lego Intervention. My sweet little Graham used to be my organized one. He used to make sure everything was in place before he went to bed and I never had to worry about him messing up his room. Then he was introduced to Legos. He's CRAZY about Legos. LOVES Legos. They have taken over his room. He has them everywhere. He doesn't like to take things apart once he builds them so his room is covered in little Lego spaceships and cars and strange little Star Wars figures. I put special shelves in his closet JUST for the Legos. Once that was full he started putting them on his bookshelf in his room...then his dresser...then his desk...then the windowsill...then under the bed...EVERYWHERE! Once the room was covered in Legos it didn't really seem to matter to him whether his other things were put away and I couldn't take it anymore. We woke up this morning at 8 am and worked until noon. We bought some containers at the dollar store and got out the label maker and labeled everything. We sorted clothes, toys, books and LEGOS, LEGOS and more LEGOS. He's excited that everything has a place so I think he might actually keep it that way. I'm hoping. It's an amazing transformation. I should have taken before and after pics but of course, I didn't.
Tomorrow I will be having a Groovy Girl, American Girl, Plastic Jewelry, Stuffed Animal, Barbie Intervention. Wish me luck on that one...Nora's got her own opinions on organization.

Spring Makeovers!

I've got crazy Spring Fever! I've had makeovers on the brain. I've got lots of home renovation plans in my dreams (new flooring, major bathroom renovation, and on and on and on) but the budget friendly ones are what I will be settling for right now. I've been cleaning out drawers and closets and my refrigerator got a major cleaning the other day. I think the new vacuum and the storage baskets I found at the Dollar Tree brought about my crazy organizing. Of course, I should be scrubbing windows and dusting and doing the noticeables. Who's going to be looking in my drawers and cabinets???

One little makeover that I am super excited about is my fireplace redo. Since the day we moved into This Old House we've been talking about painting over the dreary, dark red brick. FINALLY this weekend we decided to just do it.
Here's the before pic...well, the during pic...



And here's the After...
We still need to do some touch ups but I'm so happy to have it done. It makes the living room feel so much bigger and brighter! So HAPPY!
MY BLOG GOT A MAKEOVER TOO!!! Isn't Amber fabulous???

What's your style??

My mom sent me a link to Sproost.com today to find out my decorating style. It's so fun...you have to do it. My decorating style is 50% Nantucket, 50% French Eclectic. I think I kind of like that...
What's your style???