A Big Thank You!

First off, a BIG thank you to all of my followers! You all just hit the 300 mark! That makes me smile : )

It is so nice of you to come by for a visit and I really love your comments and feedback. 

Bloggers really are the best kind of people ...so supportive and encouraging. It strikes me often that even though we might live in different areas of the United States,  and  in far away countries,  we all still share a lot in common - namely, the love of our families and making our homes a beautiful place to come home to. I have often thought that if bloggers ruled the world we would have world peace! There you have it ... the answer to world peace! 

 I am off to Ikea tomorrow! The one here in Charlotte has been open for over a year (I think) but I have never been! I will be spending several hours there and will probably go back on Saturday with Mr. F.

I can't wait!

I hope your week is off to a good start!

Pam

Where Do You Blog? Party

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend. I don't know about you, but I love weekends because my husband is home! Both my girls work and if they are off of work they are with their friends. These days we have to plan something in order to all be together. Ahhh, the beginning of the empty nest. Very new and strange to me after 18 years!

Centsational Girl is having a Where Do You blog Party, so I thought I'd share where I blog too.

Most of my morning blogging hours are spent in this chair in my bedroom. I blog in the morning and if I am at home that day, I take breaks throughout the day to publish comments and visit your blogs. 

I love my bedroom and it has become our own little family room. Many evenings Mr. F and I watch TV in here and do "web" stuff...emails, facebook, look things up, etc. Our room is opposite the hall where the entrance to the garage is so when the girls come in they come and talk.  I really love that. We catch them right when they come in so we can hear how their day went. Sometimes one of them will come in our room and watch a movie or tv program in there with us all cuddled up. That is the best thing about having girls...

Back to blogging... Around dinnertime, if something is cooking and I need to watch it I will blog at the bar.

 If Mr. F has paperwork in the evening, I will be upstairs in our office/craft room and will blog at my worktable or in the recliner. Our girls would also do their homework in here, so it is definitely a good place to be.

 I would love to  hear about where you blog, so head on over to Centsational Girl and join the party!

Have a wonderful day!

Pam

Some "New" Pillows

Hope everyone is having or had a great weekend. On Friday I got a jumpstart on a project that I've needed to do for some time now.

Several of the pillows on the family room sofa have had holes in them for a couple of months now & I have been checking HomeGoods for new pillows every single week, but to no avail. I have been wanting to get a new sofa or a new plain two piece slip cover that will fit my oversized sofa.

 Here's the Ikea sofa that I want to get. It is only $399 or $499 - can't remember which, but either way it seems to be a good deal.

Back to the pillows...This week, one of the pillows corner completely ripped out & that was it! I had to do something....

Since the down pillow inserts were still good I figured I could make some covers instead of entire new pillows. So, I went upstairs and found this:

And made these! --- The total cost? O dollars : )  I had the fabric, the matching thread and the buttons in my treasure trove of craft supplies! Now, all I have to do is sell a few unwanted items on Craigslist and I can buy that new sofa!

 Wishing everyone a wonderful week!

Pam

Participating in:

Jump Start On A Weekend Project

Thought I'd show you what I'm working on this weekend without spending any money! Will tell you more about it on Sunday night!

Have a great weekend!

Pam

Summer Tablescape

This week my tablescape is in my formal dining room. My daughter called it the "Thanksgiving Room" when she was young. That ought to tell you how often we use this room! I set the table with the table pad on it, then thought it would look much better showing the beautiful top of the table.

Since I don't have too many different sets of dishes, I used my Mikasa Italian Countryside again for the dinner plate. The salad plates were purchased at Marshalls many years ago.

I found the placemats, candles and candleholders at HomeGoods.

I showed you the painted terra cotta pots last week, but I originally painted them for my oldest daughter's 18th birthday/High School Graduation Party.

This napkin and the tablecloth were a great find about a month ago- at the Goodwill.

Hope you all had a fantastic day!

Pam

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House Hunting

Today we are going to see 2 houses that are for sale in the same neighborhood. We drove by these houses this past weekend because photos can be deceiving!

This house had landscaping that even I couldn't find fault with. I might say that they did a better job than I could have! This is my favorite style house ... a cape cod with a big porch. Mr. F and I thought it would be a no brainer to add a couple of dormers on the main section of the house.

The interior of this house is darn near perfect.

Ok, maybe not the kitchen : )  And those of you who follow me know the reason for the smiley face! The wonderful thing about this house is that the listing price is $30,000 less than the maximum that we want to pay - meaning we could still re-do the kitchen and add the dormers and still be under our max price. Remember we are diy-ers!

They had me until I got to this photo. Having only girls, I had to ask Mr. F what this contraption was. Definitely would ask them to remove it! Not sure if you could sell it on Craiglist.

The second house looks much better in person and is on a bigger culdesac lot. The listing price is $50,000 below our maximum price. However, and this is a BIG however...this house reminds me of The Winchester House with it's many, uh, odd additions. A shed comes with the house which is great, but it is just to the left of the garage, just out of the view of the picture.

And this kitchen definitely is in need of a complete tearout because of the layout.

I could definitely do something wonderful with this Master Bedroom, though!

SERIOUSLY! What were they thinking!

Here's the odd addition that truly I have no idea if this can be fixed or made better. There is a sunroom that is very small, but very tall ... the proportion of the sunroom is what I am concerned with, the Victorian design could be changed. So this house is less expensive, has a bigger lot, but needs more work. Not sure if we want to do a lot of work on a house after all of the projects we completed in the last 12 months at our house!

Hope you enjoyed the little house hunting tour and my ramblings!

Have a great Tuesday!!!

Pam

Remembering the Guest Room Transformation

I haven't done much to the guest room in recent months, but thought I'd share with you how it's changed.

Below is a before photo guest room that my sister sent.  As you can see, the paint was still the builder white. Since this room was barely used, I hadn't even purchased blinds and was still covering the windows with some old curtains. There was an old dresser in there, but no headboard or nightstand.

Below is after the room was painted. I bought the Bassett nightstand and a bed from a friend's garage sale. A few month later we found the matching tall dresser on Craigslist. The sheers were purchased at Lowe's.

Found the lamp and red pillow at HomeGoods. The room looked finished at this point, but I still didn't like the comforter.

I picked up a white matellase bedcover at HomeGoods and put the floral pillows behind some white ones. The striped bedskirt remained, as well. The white bedcover makes the room  look a lot cleaner and uncluttered.

Hope everyone had a terrific weekend! We were hoping for some cooler weather this weekend, but it is still very hot and steamy here in North Carolina! Has it cooled off a bit where you live yet?

Pam

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