Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Your Top Ten Favorite Post of 2013



 Hello Bloggerettes! I hope your Holidays are going fantabulous!

Wow! I can't believe this is the last day of the year. Time has truly flown.  Renovations are still going on here and I have been taking a much needed break from painting and blogging. But to be honest I was getting bored and missed connecting with you, all of my blogging friends. 

By the way, I would like to welcome all of my new followers. I hope you feel as special as I think you are. :-)

So I was sitting here with my grandchildren watching Despicable Me 2 and thought why not take a minute to share your favorite ten posts for the last year?

So without further ado I put them together and here they are starting with number ten.





Number 10 is my Peaches & Cream end table redo.



Number 9 was the Stamped & Stenciled telephone table.



Number 8 was the Antionette Pink & Lace bedroom set. I love how this turned out and it is now part of a new baby girl's vintage style nursery.




Number 7 was the Victorian Chifferobe which was also my favorite of the year. I transferred this image from The Graphics Fairy three times before I was satisfied with the results.



Number 6 was a French Provincial desk/toilette table in pink and gold.



Number 5 was this cute Little Bird Table with another picture from The Graphics Fairy.



Number 4 was Part II of how my kitchen renovations from 2012 were holding up. My stock oak cabinets were painted with chalk paint and we built the counter tops from red oak flooring.



Number 3 was Part I of the kitchen update showing the eat in area of my kitchen. (By the way before I put my large china hutch back in the dining room, after renovations are complete, I plan on painting it the same Louis Blue and Old White as the pieces above.)


Number 2 was my Shabby Chic Jewelry Armoire. I've done a couple of these and they sold quickly.


Number 1 was also one of my favorites this year. A 1970's hutch I turned into a Jelly Style Cabinet by adding chicken wire and painting with my own mix of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in a color I call "Sea Glass".

Now, I could not close out your favorites this year without including your favorite post from my "Free Graphic Wednesday" blogs. Every Wednesday I share some of my vintage and antique images. Here is your favorite for the year.


Free Graphic Wednesday #55. To see more free images click the button on my page header. I will start sharing images again next Wednesday so be sure to check back in.

Thank you so much for following along with me this year. I hope I have inspired and encouraged you to try transforming a piece of your own furniture.

My wish for you in 2014 is all the peace, happiness and love you can handle. 

Until next time hugs,



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Tuesday

Friday, December 20, 2013

My Christmas Porch 2013

 I hope everyone has all their shopping done and are ready for Christmas. No? Oh well, me neither. lol

I wanted to take a minute to share my new porch all decorated for Christmas. We are really enjoying sitting out on our porch when it is warm enough.

I am a little late sharing this because I was just too wimpy to get out in the cold weather and decorate. We really had a cold spell for awhile, but it has really been pretty here in east Texas the last few days so I finally got it done.

There is such a mess in the rest of the house with renovations going on that the porch is the only thing I had to share this year. 

A word of warning, I believe I am sharing more pictures than I have ever done before. So without further ado here is my Christmas porch.






The mesh garland was made for me by the sweet ladies at New Beginnings, a local gift and flower shop. I also purchased the ornaments, snowmen, and elf there.


My nutcrackers, which I'm totally in love with, came from Dollar General along with my candles and a couple of other items.





My daughter says they creep her out. She says its 
the teeth. :-)



Don't you love my husband's antique railroad lights? They work on kerosene and are very pretty lit up with my Christmas lights.








Without the lights around the garland.



With the garland lights on it is very bright you could read a book.





The joy and awe on my grandson's face made all the work worth while. Isn't that why we as parents and grandparents do everything we do at Christmas?

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone. Be safe. Be happy.

Hugs,


I'll be sharing with some of the following lovely parties:


Friday

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Renovations Are Underway

 Hello everyone. As you may have noticed I have been taking a break during this Holiday season from my blog and social media sites. 

But I just had to take a few minutes to tell you about the renovations going on at my home. Before I tell you what we are doing let me give you a little background on our home.

We bought this home around 1993 because my husband had always wanted to live on Monterey Lake, as it is a private lake. To get onto the lake you have to live on it or know someone that does who would be willing to give you access.

My husband loves to fish and hunt and has lived on the water most of his life so I could understand his deep desire to live on here but folks...I hated this house!

It was small and dark and built as cheaply as possible. So he promised me he would add onto it and make improvements if I would agree to move.  Since I can't seem to ever tell him no when he really wants something it wasn't long before we were moving in.

The first couple of years he built on an addition that included a den and master bedroom. I couldn't believe what a wonderful job he did without any carpentry training whatsoever! He even had an acquaintance take some local cedar trees and make us some one by four planks for wainscoting and beams in the den.

Next we updated the kitchen a little because of damage from a leak in the refrigerator. While we were at it we took out part of the wall to the dining room to open it up a little more.

After that we converted one of the three original bedrooms that was located next to the new master bedroom into a bathroom. I was very happy.

Of course, if you have followed me long enough, you remember that I did a full remodel of my kitchen and eat in area summer before last. Here is a picture of my kitchen now.





If you would like to read details on how I completed my counter tops go here. How to install the back splash go here. For my post on installing snap lock ceiling tiles go here.

We just finished a screened in porch off of the den and I have been decorating it for Christmas. I will be sharing pictures with you soon.

I still don't love my home but it is getting there. I guess I'm hampered by the fact that I love Victorian homes with 14' ceilings and I'm living in one where most of the ceilings are 7 1/2'. lol

Now we have started on upgrading the dining room, guest bedroom, laundry room, and my craft room.  Here are the before pictures.


This is our dining room and was originally the living room. Every room of the original house had this dark, cheap paneling. The first thing I did was paint every room. In this room and the kitchen I applied the scalloped border you see here. I also painted the wooden light fixture.

The ceiling tiles are made of a styrofoam product and was very easy to poke holes through with your broom handle or in William's case a fishing rod! Your laughing aren't you? lol


The guest bedroom was occupied last by my son who had a camouflage decor. Notice the same ceiling tiles in this room.



This is my laundry room which is basically a hall you pass through coming in from the carport.  I have an upright freezer that was in front of the window blocking all of the light. We will be moving it next to the water heater and putting the dryer under the window and next to the washer.



Here is a view of the laundry room once the ceiling tiles were removed. I so want to raise the ceilings but the contractor said it just couldn't be done. Sigh.


Here is a corner of my craft room with the sheet rock installed. I will be putting my new, antique piece I shared on Facebook last week in here. Below is a picture of the cabinet with lots of glass fronted drawers that came from a men's store ca.1910.  My husband bought it for my birthday. I'm in the process of doing some minor repairs to it.


The base of the cabinet is finished just like the top we just set it down on the base backwards.


The guest bedroom now.



All of the ceilings will be tiled with these ornate ceiling tiles like the ones in my master bath. I love their vintage look don't you?

Every room will be sheet rocked with a wider trim around the ceiling and new trim around the windows and doors. (Anything will be better than the plastic trim that was used before. Yes plastic! Our carpenter was laughing as he ripped it down. Not funny! lol) 

I will be getting new carpet in my bedroom and the guest bedroom as it has definitely seen better days.

Luckily my bedroom and bath, the kitchen, and the den are all finished so the renovations are not causing too much trouble. We stored nearly all of the furniture in a storage building nearby. My main problem is no washer and drier.

I hope you will follow along as we remodel and I will try to share any tips I learn with you.

Here's a tip for today. Notice the sheet rock that has been put up in the guest bedroom? Instead of installing the eight foot slab of sheet rock vertically they now install them horizontally as they are more durable this way, and instead of nails use screws to attach it. 

I'm not sure I will be posting anything else before Christmas so I will wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year now. By the way there will be no "Free Graphic Wednesday" for the next two weeks while I am taking a much needed break from blogging.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs,

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Free Graphic Wednesday #79



Have you got all your Christmas shopping done? Me neither. I did get a lot done on Cyber Monday but I never shop on Black Friday. I'm just not that brave. :-)

Did you see my post on my renovation of a vintage buffet? I used one of my own color mixes using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. I'm calling it "Sea Glass". You can see the post sharing all the details here.





Well, it is Wednesday already and time for free graphics.

If you like "Free Graphics Wednesday" please share across your social media sites. I would greatly appreciate it.

Now on to your images.








































Good luck with all your shopping. Have a wonderful rest of the week.

Hugs,


Here are the rules for using these images.


  • The above images are free and for personal use only they are not for re-sale.
  • You may use the images as part of  a single project to sell but you may not sell the images or multiple projects using the imagesIn other words no mass production of items with my images.
  • International viewers please check the copyright laws for your country.
  • I do research the graphics to check if they are copyright free to the best of my ability before I share them with you, and because I am providing the graphics for free I am not legally responsible if you use these images and are sued for copyright infringement. It is totally your choice to use or not use the images.
  • All other images on my blog are copyrighted. You may pin them or share them on your social networks but any other use is prohibited.
    All images that are not listed as "free" on this blog are copyrighted and not for public use. Copying my images without my permission is subject to suit.


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