A New Project

Now that all of my house projects are finished I have been thinking about working on some furniture projects.

One of them being my breakfast table. It has been on my list to paint black which is very popular here in Charlotte. I really would prefer to have a round table, but until I find one I will have to live with the one I have. I would also like to either paint the chandelier and change the little shades or replace it with a drum shade.

I haven't ever liked the design in the shield back of my chairs and thought it should be covered it with fabric... but wasn't sure what color or pattern.

Then, Tuesday night while perusing Craiglslist I found an ad for some Ralph Lauren chairs.

They were listed at $900 and said  they were $3,600 retail!!

I love the black and white fabric with the black frame. I also love the chartreuse seat, but not sure how I will handle the seat on mine. I'm thinking of  doing them in green, but as a tied on pad. 

The design of the shield back is so interesting. It sure would be nice to have these chairs ... if only they'd take $200!

Here's a cute drum shade.

It is  a white shade with black ribbon on it.

 I'd have to find one cheap, though - or I could make one. Hmmm, so much to think about.

Hope you are having a good week so far!

Pam

A Framed Letter

Last week I told you how it was difficult for me to take all of my photos down upon advice I've read from Realtors and home stagers. You can read about it here if you missed it.  I never put a photo in one of the frames on my night table and didn't want to put it away because it is so pretty.

 It's a big heavy frame and holds a 4 x 6 photo. I felt a little silly leaving an empty picture frame out even if it was pretty, and I started thinking... that a letter would look good in it.

Up to the office I went to print a black capital letter R in 250 pt in the Times New Roman font on cardstock ...

... cut it to size and put it inside the frame.

What do you think?

I think I like it! The best part about it is that it didn't cost me anything :)

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Pam

Its' So Very Cheri for Spotlight Yourself

Thinking About a New Kitchen

Coastal Living

No, I 'm not thinking about changing our kitchen that we just installed beautiful new granite countertops and tumbled marble backsplash! I'm definitely not that crazy, but I am thinking about the future.
I am fully aware that in the current housing market that our house might not sell. And do you know what would be the one of the most disappointing things about that? ...

Not being able to re do a kitchen. Weird. Or another thing I think about after looking at a lot of homes for sale ... I would feel a little bad if, say, the kitchen in the house we bought looked new like this one in one of the homes we are keeping an eye on:

 It would be too new to justify remodeling.

I am secretly hoping (it's not a secret now) that the house we buy won't have a nice kitchen.     

ok... this kitchen might be a little too uh, un-nice.

But then again, look what they did with this kitchen from House Obsession:

    before:                                                              after:

                                                              Gorgeous!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

I wouldn't feel bad fixing up this kitchen. (another house we are keeping track of). 

It  isn't bad, but it could look fabulous!

It looks a little bit like Kristen from My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia's kitchen ....

before she did this to it:

Gorgeous, isn't it? You definitely have to read about how she and her husband transformed their now beautiful kitchen on a tight budget.

Here's more eye candy... I think I'm in love with white subway tile.

Coastal Living

ooooh, pretty ... more subway tile ...

Coastal Living

 ok. I know we are going to be downsizing and my kitchen won't be this big, but it's still gorgeous...

Coastal Living

Look at the beautiful ceiling in this kitchen ...

Coastal Living

Even a smaller kitchen could have some interesting details like that!

How many of you could live with open wall cabinets?I think I have too much stuff ...still, the kitchen is gorgeous!

Coastal Living

This photo doesn't show much of the kitchen, but the whole area is really cute.

Coastal Living

Do you have a dream kitchen? Even a dream of fixing up the kitchen you have now? What would it look like?

Wishing everyone a wonderful week!

Pam

Garage Clean Up

You'd think because we have a 3 car garage that we would have plenty of space. This is in addition to a full basement. But, it hasn't ever been tidy, at least not the way I would like it. If it were up to me we would have all 3 sides of the garage lined with 8 ft white cabinets -- WITH DOORS. And nothing on the floor! In my dream home I would have my own garage and it would be neat and tidy.

Ahh, but I live with a man who has tools -- and lots of them. He also has stuff for his work. And then there's the lawn mower, and gardening things.

Since we have been so busy in the past 12 months doing projects, everything just got dumped in the garage, with no organization whatsoever. So it ended up looking like this:

That was the 3rd bay. The double part of the garage wasn't so bad because I parked my car in it & kept the right side nearest to the door swept and somewhat tidy. 

We definitely wanted to make the garage look presentable, so we started with painting the floor with a special concrete floor paint.

The floor looked pretty good when it was finished.

Then the walls were painted a really pretty shade of gray.

We still hadn't organized the 3rd section of the garage until this weekend. And it was soooo hot out there. But Mr. Fanatic braved the heat and cleaned it up. We did a curb alert on the gray cabinet & the one in the other corner too.
Before:

This is what my third of the garage looks like. Not perfect, but oh, so much better.

These are the cabinets near the door to the house. I keep light bulbs, batteries, extension cords, shoe stuff, etc. in the plastic bins. I also keep a shelf full of extra rags.

And here are the shelves in Mr. F's workshop area. The shelves are filled with painting stuff on the left, tools in the middle & work stuff on the right.

And the workbench side ... I think this is as good as it is going to get, but if it were up to me .... oh, I'm sure you can guess!

I'm not sure how we are going to fit all of his stuff in a 2 car garage... I'm guessing we are going to have to build a shed for all of the tools, work stuff , lawn mower and gardening stuff. Hmmm something to design... :)

I would like to know how all of you handle all of your stuff that goes in the garage. Are you like my next door neighbor whose garage is so clean you could throw a party in it on any given day? Or do you have lots of stuff? I would love to know!

Hope you all had a great weekend! I hope it wasn't near as HOT as it was here!!

Pam

The Hardest Part

Most of you know that we have been getting our house ready to sell for the last 12 months. If you didn't know that and want to see what projects we accomplished in  that time, you can read about it here.

 We have lived in our house for 10 years, but we are ready to have a smaller home. 1 or 2 floors instead of 3 is just fine for me. As I've said before, our girls go to school, have jobs and most of the time I am here by myself or with Mr. Fanatic ---  : ) this part is good  --- and we really don't need a big house anymore, and more importantly, we don't want to spend as much time taking care of a big house.

Anyway, back to my original reason for the post. The hardest part about prepping the house for sale has been taking all of our personal photos down. We have far too many to leave them up until we get a call that someone would like to see the house. Everyone says that personal photos have to be taken down so the potential buyers can see themselves living there. We have taken almost all down, but kept a few that can be taken down at the  last minute... I kept our oldest daughter's graduation photo and our youngest daughter's homecoming photo with her dad. Oh, and an antique photo of my aunt which is in a beautiful antique frame and one of my favorite cat. That's it. I will take down all of these except for the antique one when there is a showing.

I wanted to show you all the places (well, most of them)  that we have photos & how bare it looks now without them (at least for me)

Living Room

The bookcase looks ok. I think I'm going to steal use Kim over at Savvy Southern Style's idea of putting a burlap back in the bookcases. Hers looks great. You can see it by clicking here.

Foyer
I've got nothin' for table :(

Family Room Sofa Table

 Kitchen- I'm going to miss these cute photos  A LOT! The plant looks ok, but I really miss the photos.

The Upstairs Hallway had the most photos of all. The yearly photos of the family and our girls. I have nothing to put on the shelves. I thought about taking them down, but there would be big holes in the wall and it would have to be painted. Any suggestions/opinions?

Master Bedroom Nightstand

The ornate frame is empty. I might put a drawing in it.

The Master Bedroom Dresser
 I found the silver box at HomeGoods yesterday and thought it would look good on my empty dresser.

I really miss my photos, but know it had to be done. Not sure if I could live without them indefinitely, though. The wall of family photos was a lot to be displayed, so putting them in an album is going to be a future project. How about you? Do you have a lot of photos in your house & would you have a difficult time taking them down. If you have sold a house, did you take your photos down & how did you feel?

Hope to hear from you... Have a great day!

Pam

 

Linking up at Debbiedoos Loves Livin In the Carolinas for Before & After