before & after

With spring here and in an effort to lighten things up around my house, I decided to tackle a piece last weekend that had been bugging me to no end lately. This dresser was posted about here... it has served me well for many years but it was time to go white. Everytime I paint a piece white {which has been many, many times} I never regret it. So I knew it was time.

Here is the before. Clunky & heavy and the pine sides were enough to make me drink.


Here it is after a coat of white mixed up from leftovers in my garage and distressed:







A close-up of the distressing.

In an effort to blend my love of white furniture with my tapestry and leather couches, I had to drape a honey colored scarf over it... otherwise I would have left it bare. And I realize it's still really cluttered, but the family photos have to go somewhere.

See how good it looks looking down the entry hall now {and this is TOTAL BLOG LOVE cuz my house is a wreck and Neva is watching Zoboomafoo and I didn't even close the entertainment center for you...

Here is that same corner of my living room {with a different mirror in the corner} on a normal day:

Now, do I paint the black shelves above the dresser to match? I think it might look better....

p.s. I don't know why the photos look so washed out... I tried flash and no flash. It must be the time of day here and my lighting. Sorry.

p.s.s. {or is it p.p.s.?} I wanted to order glass knobs for the dresser, but I actually think I will leave the knobs as is because it ties it in with my big heavy living room furniture just beyond it. And it looks kind of Ballard-ish with those simple little knobs. Thoughts?

{brocante}

Hope you had a great weekend. I had fun at the yard sales Saturday, even though they were pretty disappointing. I have never seen so many crockpots, neon stuffed animals and car tires in my life. Not to mention clothes. I did however get 1 or 2 little treasures. And I had a great time with my friend Cassandra and her Mom, Mary. Here is some of what I found yardsaling and at a recent estate sale:

Little Italian framed print $3 {key from Kasey at Lola B's}


French print $1


crazy oil painting of woman that looked french to me {maybe not} about $8

Books galore, most from the 1850's-1890's. $1 each.


Little lid to who-knows-what $1.


little white teapot $1.

I got a few other things but forgot to take pictures. Maybe in another post. Hope you enjoyed my new little tresors.

playing around....

on polyvore....

i think i could live in a room like this. don't know exactly how to describe it, but i know i love it.


Dream living room - by kpayne on Polyvore.com

{merci}

First of all, I just want to say thanks to everyone who reads and posts on this blog. I know my posts have been few and far between, but I have just been so busy with life. However, I miss doing regular posts and am working on at least one, so stay tuned.

Secondly, I am so honored to "know" so many of you through your blogs, some of you I have even forged friendships with outside of the blog world. But I am especially honored today to have received the giveaway package from Ness at Marley & Lockyer. Let me just say I do not ever win anything. Ever. If my Mom was the one doing the giveaway I wouldn't win. I don't win prizes at baby showers, I don't ever win anything. But this time I won. Look at the adorable package I received, sent all the way from Tasmania, Australia at great personal expense of Ness!!!

Is it not adorable? I love the little floral paper wrap on top of the brown packing paper. So chic.
When I opened it up, I was so happy to see the contents:
{don't know why that is posting sideways... hmmm}

And a close up of the little floursack pillow. Darling.

I am busy figuring out where I am going to put my new gifts, and beaming that someone in Australia didn't put my name back into the hat and pull out someone a little more local to send the giveaway items to. I'm just floored that I received such a thoughtful, generous gift from a blogging friend.

Merci Beaucoup!

p.s. Tomorrow a little town near me is having a city-wide "trash to treasure" yard sale. I'll be there with my running shoes on tomorrow and hopefully will have a fun post about the treasures I find. Stay tuned.

Kids Corner - flea market style

So I'm always looking for creative ways to contain the kid clutter. Throwing toys out or giving them away would be one option, although my kids would totally disagree. So, we have to work with it. I fashioned this kid corner into my family room using some pieces I already had. Nothing was bought specifically for this purpose.

When we rearranged our family and dining rooms {read about it here} our family room lost our seating area and gained a casual table and chairs, formerly in our dining room. This sort of pushed the "kid-centricness" of the room aside. Determined to give them a place to play near the kitchen, I took the coffee table from the former seating area and stuck a junky little bookshelf I had painted black and distressed on top of it. This way their books are up at their height and they're not tempted to empty it all out onto the floor. Now they also have a place to play and draw and eat, but it's still compact.

By the way, this coffee table was a $19 Salvation Army find which I sanded down and painted cottage white and then distressed. Very affordable if you want to replicate this or make your own kid station.

Next I added a little crocheted lace cafe curtain on a tension rod {both of which I already had} to hide the bright clutter of the books. It's a little too short which has ended up being a good thing because it reminds them there are books under there.


Lastly I added some buckets for toy storage, a vintage chalkboard and little old enamel colander for toy odds-and-ends and a vintage enamel french coffeepot just to tie it in with the rest of the room. Done and done.

So what do you think?

{luscious}

Lately {or as I get older} I am finding myself attracted to more feminine interiors. In that spirit, here you go. Luscious eye candy for your weekend. Enjoy!







isn't this the perfect mix of shabby, paris flea market, and cottage? love.

how perfect is this?


this isn't necessarily feminine, but how awesome is this?

if i stole this from your blog, i apologize. i don't remember where i got this image.

~a moroccan baby shower~

The shower for my sister, Jonna, turned out really nice. We had a nice group of about 25 people, not too big, not too small, the food was great and all the little touches really went a long way.

The "theme" or more accurately the flavor of the shower was Moroccan as my sis's hubs is from Marrakech. She had brought back miniature tagines and sachets filled with lavender and rose petals from her last trip so we used those as favors and loosely based the rest of the decor around that. It was not really a traditional baby shower in the sense that it wasn't all pink and white but rather deep satured colors...

My sister and I. She is very swollen at almost 8 mos preggo so she will kill me for this picture. I on the other hand have no excuse.

The spread. The beautiful indian scarf was on my head table when I was married almost 7 years ago. I had a really unique vintage hollywood/victorian flavor with hints of india & morocco at my wedding if you can imagine. Probably not. So anyways, this lovely deep indigo scarf is very sentimental. We had mostly typical food with the exception of Chicken Silicia {our fave middle eastern specialty} and we served moroccan mint tea in darling moroccan tea glasses.

The gorgeous cake from Le Gateau Elegant. If you're in the area, you must use this bakery! Their cakes are amazing.

The favors.



The diaper cake I made using this method. This is a terrible picture because of the lighting, but it was sooooo cute.

The gorgeous roses in a hurricane filled with fresh limes.

Jonna opening the hand knitted baby blanket and sweater from our Mimi.

That's it. I'll be back with a cute decorating idea post either later today or tomorrow.

little lovelies

Just a few beautiful images to start the weekend off right...

Who wouldn't love a blue antique armoire?


Speaking of pantries.... oh my gosh.... LOVE everything about this image. So charming...

and if my desire for rum & diet coke or gin & tonic {yes, I'm old school} ever outweighs the need to store peanut butter, here is what I'm gonna do with my french pantry:


And just a lovely little spring image...



Ditto.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

French Pantry: Before & After

In my not-so-large kitchen, I have a real lack of food storage. So, in my attached family-room-turned-eat-in-kitchen, I put a large TV cabinet that I was no longer using for it's original purpose. Cute, no? But as you approach.... beware.......


{jaws music playing}
It's a train wreck inside!!! With the baby shower this weekend, I thought "oh dear lord, what if someone needs to grab some ketchup and has to open my pantry?" So I thought I better clean it out and spiff it up a little. The idea of my french pantry was born.

First I cleaned it all out. I {unfortunately} had tons of food that had expired and had to be thrown away. Bad me.

Then I decided I wanted something cute to line the shelves with. I wanted to use tea towels, or these cute placemate I have, or lace or something. I wanted it to have a vintage, frenchy feel.

I decided to use my Grandmother's lace doilies. I don't usually have them out in my house so this is a way to admire them without them being under a plant or something. And I think it gives it that cute vintage flavor I was after. For the containers, I used only things I had on hand... photo storage boxes {for more ideas on how to use these, click here} cute baskets, metal bins, my coffee dyed french stamped tags for labels, and that's it! Et voila!

The top shelf.

I love storing my sugars and whole wheat flour in these big jars from Cost Plus. Add a cute tag and I thoroughly enjoy getting out the sugar. I also hung a great tray my Mom got me in France on the back wall of the pantry, using Velcro. Worked like a charm. Now I have something to look at when I'm digging for mac-n-cheese.

The 2nd shelf. Used 2 matching garden metal bins {these are also great to use for beverage tubs at parties} more lace from Mimi, a vintage wine box w/ french stamp, and a little garden bunny, to block the Skippy, just cuz.

Here's a cute metal basket I repurposed to hold beans:


A close up of the tags, tied with jute twine.

More frenchy cuteness:

And finally, I hung 2 salad-drying bags {vintage, but like 1980's vintage, but cute anyways} from an upholstery tack as well as the back side of a vintage french postcard, bought here.


Eventually, I would like to hang a vintage apron up inside, and add some more postcards to the inside of the doors. Or, decopage cute frenchy scrapbook paper inside. Hmmm, that's sounds really cute. I will work on that next. Hope you enjoy and are inspired to tackle a closet or cabinet that's {insert Jaw's music} horrendous!

p.s. I used the word "cute" 11 times. Pathetic. I need a new word. Ideas?