Wordless Wednesday: First Night of Christmas Tree Glow

Photo Shoot Sunday: November Sunsets

One of the things we just LOVE about our home is the beautiful sunsets. They are just spectacular, no matter what time of year it is.

Flashback Friday: Teaching Em While They Are Young

Cannot believe these two used to be so little. Actually I can, it just seems like it was yesterday. Now they are Middle Schoolers. Unbelieveable. Truly.

 This was the first time they helped me by doing the dishes. It was February 2007. They were 7 and 5 1/5 years old. Little babies.

They don't show nearly this much enthusiasm about doing this job anymore.



Take A Picture: It Will Last Longer

Yesterday I spent the whole morning working on my bedroom. Nothing fun. Not decorating or purchasing decor items for it.

 Just cleaning and organizing. A lot.

I pulled out the furniture, wiped everything down,

vacuumed every inch, cleaned the shutters.  

You name it, I cleaned it.

While I was organizing and cleaning the phrase came to  my mind, "Take a picture, it will last longer." So that is exactly what I did.

My kids harass me sometimes about our room and that it isn't always as clean as we require their rooms to be.

I always counter that I am so busy with the rest of the house and what I need to do for them that my room is at the bottom of the list. Not today.

 I am going through a phase where I don't want matchy-matchy bedding. I am really enjoying just buying pieces that make me happy. I love texture and have a thing for soft fabrics. It really frees me up to just buy what I love. I am finding I am moving more that direction with most things throughout my house. Surrounding myself with things I love and enjoy looking at or using. We shall see what the future brings.
My jewelry box in the corner was recently given to me by my mom. I remember it being in her bedroom most of my childhood. It used to be my Grandmothers as well. I love having pieces in my home that have a familial heritage. Plus, I own a lot of jewelry that needed a home, so win-win.

 I hope to one day get some pretty panels to put on the windows, but haven't found the right ones yet, or the money it will cost to purchase them. Someday. 
I love my little old lady, yellow velvet settee, that sits in my window nook. Not terribly comfortable, but oh so cute to me. The afghan on the back of it was recently made and given to us from Nate's Grandma, Elaine.  She is a woman who I will forever strive to be like. She is one of the most interesting, classy, and spunky ladies, and  she has so much spiritual depth and knowledge. I truly look up to her and love her so very much. Every time I see or touch that blanket I feel that desire in me grow. Love that.

  You might notice all of the empty picture frames in my room. Some day they will have pictures in it. I just haven't gone thru the effort to pick them out and get them printed. Someday.
My bookcase/hutch isn't really styled the way I ultimately want, but I didn't have time to work on it today. Again, bottom of the list.
 Nate bought that for me five years ago for our 10th anniversary. I still love it and look forward to it being in our home for many years to come.

It was funny when the kids walked into my room after school and saw it they kept saying, "Whoa! It is so peaceful in here. I love it. I wish this was my room."  Sorry kids, this is my room and yes, you are right, it is peaceful. It was funny though, however, it also tells you how messy it was. Oh well. It is clean right now and I have the pictures to prove it. ;)

Why Do I Wait To Do Things?

I know the ten of you who read my blog have seen this space MANY times before. However, I am super jazzed about the changes that are taking place around these parts. So, even though I am crazy behind on posting about anything and everything my little family has done lately I'm gonna take the time to show you the new and improved entryway. Actually, the new and improved stuff is spread through a lot of places in the ol' house. Let's just say that there has been A LOT of paint therapy goin on round these parts the last month or so. AND I LOVE IT! But today is JUST the entryway. So, welcome to my home, again.

Notice anything different?

How bout now?

I have been a busy little painting beaver. ALL of the trim in the house is gettin hit. I was so tired of the beige doors and trim. Too difficult to work with for someone who prefers to live in a crayon box full of colors. So, after five years of living with it, I dived in. I started way back in early August and I am still going strong. Just a few more spaces to hit and that color will be eradicated from my home, FOREVER!


I didn't want white white trim, but not too creamy of one either. It took a bit to find the PERFECT color. But I did! Adobe White baby! Also, I have been dying to paint my doors black for a while now. Once the trim color was picked and that ball got rolling I figured now was as good a time as any!

So, I waited for Nate to go to Scout camp and busted out the rollers. Poor guy didn't have a clue, AGAIN! He didn't even know I was thinking about it! Hehe
Well, if you know me AT ALL, you know then that one thing led to another and I ended up painting the WALLS of the entryway too!


Originally they were a creamish color and I was already struggling with boredom. Once the creamy white trim went up I COULD NOT STAND IT! So.....I grabbed my favorite go to color, took it to the paint store and had them mix it up for me at half strength and....VOILA! Happy Dance! I love love love the direction my house is going in. As a reminder of what it looked like just a few weeks ago here is a before shot.

See the boring beige and cream. Ugh! The thing I really don't understand is why do I wait?
I had a vision of what I wanted to do to my house when we bought it five years ago. And yet here I am just now getting my crap enough together to actually do it! Crazy! And no more I tell ya. If I were to show you some of the projects I'm knee deep in right now you would totally see that I mean it! I am getting at it baby! I thought I was making this place OURS five years ago, and now I see that I am just scratching the surface. Can't wait to show ya the rest! But that will have to wait for another day.




I am linking this post to

the Roomspiration Party

being started over at Abode Love.

The Most Photographed Room In The House

I know you are probably sick of seeing this room, it is just seriously my favorite area of the house. I guess that should tell me to get going on the rest of the place, huh? I have made a few minor tweaks to this room in the last few weeks. I moved the spiral plant to the other side of the couch. Not sure I love it there but I really like it and there is nowhere else to put it, so for now it stays.

A few days ago I was the lucky recipient of this beautiful, antique mirror. It used to belong to my Grandmother and for a while it hung in my house growing up. It's been in storage for a few years and now it's mine. I am so beyond excited to have it in my home. I knew exactly where it was going the minute I got it. I love how it lets more light in the room and makes the space feel bigger. The only thing I dislike about it, is that now when you sit on the couch in the piano room you can see around the corner into the great room. No more keeping the messy part of the house a secret. Shoot.

But I think it will be worth the effort.

Some of the other changes are across the room. I changed out some of the accessories in here.
I found Nate's first set of scriptures from his childhood in a box out in the garage and a hymnal that was my family's when I was a child. I also found a beautiful magnifying glass with a mother of pearl handle at TJ Maxx, love it. I also framed the pressed olive branch my mom and Bob brought me back from the Garden of Gethsemane a couple of years ago.

A couple of weeks ago when I was digging through boxes in the garage I came across this gold leaf picture of the Ogden Temple. My mom made it when I was ten years old. It hung in our house til the day they sold our house. I immediately knew where it belonged.

I then added Nate's mission plaque next to it. I just love adding beautiful, sentimental things to our home. I keep teasing Nate that my inner old lady is really starting to speak her mind. I look around at other thirty-somethings homes and mine is definitely different. I don't mind though. To each their own.


The last change to the room is this little round table. It used to be in the great room, as well as the lamp and some of the accessories. I love the added warmth of another lamp in this space. I think the reason I am loving this room so much is because it has the most layering done to it. I love it.

For some reason there is still something I want to do to this small space. I REALLY want to add a small brass and glass cocktail table. Even though the room is super tiny and I want to keep it as open as possible I can't help thinking that I need something to tie it all together. It just feels like everything is floating and needs an anchor. I don't know, what do you think?

I think if I do, the spiral plant definitely has to find a new spot. But what do I know?

I am linking up to Wow Us Wednesdays

Upholstery Project #2: My Croffice Chair

Here is a little sneak peak at a part of my Croffice. This room has yet to be shown on my blog because for the last 4 and a half years it has been, well, a mess. It's getting better and getting closer and closer to it's cyber debut. However, I think it is high time I show you My Croffice chair Before and After. After all, this chair has been kicking around these parts for almost a year and has been finished since September. I love it!

I found this dirty little cutie on KSL for $10. It was hanging out in a garage in Layton just waiting for someone to come along and rescue it. It definitely needed a new chance at life.

Although slightly disgusting, the chair had GREAT bones and was actually surprisingly comfortable. It hung out in the garage through late spring into late summer when it finally got a chance to be made over. In the meantime I sat on it a ton while working on other projects.

I wanted something with a little pizazz. Something I knew would be fun and would give my Croffice a little personality. So I found this super fun upholstery fabric online for like $8 a yard. I stripped it down, sanded and repainted the wood and away we went. Doesn't it look so much cuter! Unfortunately I wasn't able to do the new reupholstering myself this time. Mr. Upholstery Guru was just too busy to take the time to show me. :( But, I still just love her to pieces. I was also given a foot stool by my Mom, so I repainted that and with the left over fabric recovered that too. It will be shown later with the Croffice reveal. I forgot to photograph it for today. I love quietly going down to my Croffice, turning on a little lamp, grabbing this cute little vintage blanket I got at a consignment shop, putting my feet up and secretly reading. Inevitably the family usually finds me but still it's great!

Hope you enjoyed seeing my new little chair. As well as the little sneak peek of the Croffice. If it weren't for the fact that reupholstering involved sewing (HIVES) I think I would redo a different piece a month! It just gets under your skin to remake something old into something new again. Love It!

Do You Have An Opinion?

Alright, I need some advice. Nate and I recently acquired this sectional off of KSL classifieds. (Photo of the listing, not at our house.) We are currently playing a game of musical furniture at our house. Selling pieces of furniture left and right, moving pieces upstairs, downstairs, this room, that room. You name it, it's been moved. Not really, but it sure feels that way. Anyway, we have been on the hunt for a sectional that will fit the room downstairs that we are in the slow process of finishing. It has been much tougher than I thought it would be. We are also looking for a sectional to go in the Great Room upstairs, that one is even more challenging. In the interim this sectional is hanging out upstairs til the downstairs family room is complete. Is that clear as mud? Well, this sectional is perfect for downstairs, the problem is, is that it is ten years old, the fabric is shot and the cushions are a wee bit lumpy, but it has great bones. So, what's a project crazy girl to do? Reupholster it of course! Like I have nothing else to do with my time, right? Well, Mr.-I'll-Teach-You-How-To-Reupholster-Man has an opening in the next ten days to help us get this sucker done. SO, I gotta hurry and find the perfect fabric. The perfect neutral, durable, INEXPENSIVE, fabric that can reside upstairs til heck freezes over and we actually have the downstairs done and not give me hives because it doesn't match AND look right at home in the downstairs room as well. That's a pretty tall order and a lot to ask of a fabric. Can it also raise my children and mow the lawn? So, I have compiled a bunch of fabric swatches to choose from and Nate and I have narrowed it down to three different groupings.

Option A

The top is a fabric I am in love with for pillows and maybe curtains. The bottom left is also for pillows, the bottom right is the upholstery for the couch. It is a heavy duty chenille with a subtle paisley pattern to it, it soft to the touch as well. What do you think of this combo?

The next photo shows the other chair in the room that it has to coordinate with. It's another KSL find, that may or may not get reupholstered some day as well. It also shows the rug, a little bit that is in this space.

Option B

This photo shows Nate's top pick. Funny I just realized that the actual upholstery pick for the couch is the same in this sampling. I guess we really love this one, eh? Only so far we have only seen it in pictures and read great reviews about it. When the sample arrives in the mail in a few days I will know if I REALLY love it. What do you think of this grouping? The large print is for the larger throw pillows and the top right fabric which is shown in a more zoomed in way than the actual print should be in person is for the smaller throw pillows.

Option C

I am really kinda diggin this one too. I like that it incorporates the black which is definitely throughout the room but that the other pillow fabric isn't stripes which the chair and chair pillow currently have in spades. Hmmmm

I LOVE pillows and blankets. Especially soft ones you can snuggle into. It's important to note that the pillows might remain upstairs once this couch goes downstairs, I am hoping for a darker chocolatey-ish brown leather sectional for upstairs, or a saddle type color. Probably more likely saddle, we shall see. It's also important to note that I tend to get bored and cover up pillows with slip covers, so really I'm probably agonizing over a 6 month decision. Yeah, I'm ocd that way. Any how, help a girl out and cast your vote, so I can sleep already.

Barbie's New House

So, Barbie has a new house around these parts. Well, I should say more like a renovated house. It's been a long time coming. Back in August, ( or was it September?) I was given this doll house by my sister. Her two girls had outgrown it. Luckily it was given to me during garage sale season so I was able to sell our old slightly flimsy doll house. Ally and I had great hopes of getting this house fixed up quickly. However, the most that happened was that the wallpaper got steamed off and it got a thorough cleaning. Then it sat, and Ally impatiently waited.

Finally around the week before Christmas it got my attention. Suddenly I had a ticking clock over my head. I had to do 4 coats of primer. It had been painted multiple times, with both oil based paint and water based paint. It had been scraped off, drawn on with permanent marker and nail polish. I had just painted the roof pink and was starting on the actual white paint for the base of it when Ally saw it. She immediately wanted "pink carpet". So off I went, taping, painting, taping, painting, you get the idea. I was working down in the unfinished basement and it was cold, so the drying time in between coats was forever long. But I had it ready Christmas day when the girls opened up all of their new Barbie furniture. The house was ready to move into.

As you can see it was a hit. The only thing this house needs is a little artwork on the walls. Ally and I are keeping our eyes out for something cool, and Barbie worthy.

There's Been a Few Changes

I was looking through my photos the other day and realized that there had been some changes to this room since I last posted it. To be fair there have been changes throughout most of the house but this area is feeling more and more "finished" than the rest. Plus, it is one of my favorites, so I thought I would do an updated post on it. So let's check out more evolution of this space shall we?

The chair was here last time we visited this area. I still love it to pieces. I bought the little table for staging the Ogden house last year. I had intended on putting it on my downstairs landing but it just felt more right here, so that is where it has stayed. I absolutely love this room. It always feels warm and calm to me. It is one of my favorite places to sit when I feel hectic inside.I added the curtains last spring. At first they just hung on the ends, it wasn't long before I realized that they needed a little bit more. So I ran back to the store and luckily they still had them, and not only just on sale but on clearance! I grabbed the last one and did the dance of decorating joy all the way home. I had my super sewer friend Shawnee cut it in half and add them to each panel for a little more fullness. Then just this weekend Nate put up my tie-backs. Love it! Now they are perfect. Back in August I added the covering on the windows on Nate's office doors. He is a piler, so I start to get hives and a tick when it gets bad in there. Since we have that huge window into his office and I couldn't nag, er, persuade him to organize it, I did what any woman on the verge of a meltdown would do. I hid it.
Here is a close up of it, to give you a better idea. This area really hasn't changed much. I found those awesome blue urns a while ago and fell in love. I never really thought of myself as a blue person but I am definitely thinking about incorporating that hue into my house a bit more. It's an actual warm blue, in my naivete I honestly never thought that there could be a warm blue. I guess there is because that color melts me like butter!

Sorry for the crazy black circle around some of the photos. My wide angle lens adds those in, but now you can see the space better. For those of you who have never actually been here.

Another shot of the newly covered office doors. Luckily he wasn't offended, in fact he actually likes it a lot. Now whether that's because it is a pretty bamboo which hits his asian button or because it has gotten me off his back significantly I will never know. But, I can guess which one it is.

This shows the hallway that leads to the Cincesses room, a bathroom and my master bedroom suite.

Since the day we found this place and knew it would be ours I have dreamed about what to do with this space. I went back and forth on what to put here. Things that crossed my mind: a grandfather clock, some chairs and a small table, etc. Well, I finally landed on this table. It took me almost four years to find just the right piece. Not too big, not too small, plus the right color. I finally ended up with it around September I believe. I had a lot of people try to talk me out of putting anything here and keeping the walkway open. I am so glad I didn't listen. This area now feels so much more warm and cozy to me. More like a home. And we still have plenty of space to walk. In fact we have moved at least 3 pieces of fairly large furniture through here and we didn't even need to move it. We are currently playing another game of musical furniture around here. We have played this game before and I am sure it won't be the last.

I think it's funny I always seem to photograph this area when all of my fall decor is out. It's one of my absolute favorite times and since my home is mostly decorated in fall colors I guess it stands to reason.

I love this lampshade. Well, if I am being honest I love the whole lamp. I found it last spring at Target on clearance for like $15.oo. It hung out in a closet til about September when I finally got the table. This photo doesn't really do it justice. It has so many fun colors in it. Blue-ish grays, rusty maroon/reds, golds, etc. I love it! It looks so pretty all lit up too!

Well, thanks for going on another tour of this area. I promise there is more to my house than just this space, but I just love it! One of these days, hopefully soon, I will show you around a bit more. Since it's not the summer months and I am not all consumed with playing in the dirt. I am in over my head in room transformations and tweaking, although a bit behind schedule thanks to my Hysterectomy in October. I am working feverishly to get some things done inside before being lured back outside after the big thaw. Wish me luck!