{DIY Mail Organizer}

What? A post that's not related to baby?!! Something must be wrong with me! I have not been total baby brain lately {ok yes I have, that's why the projects are lacking} I think baby is a pretty legit excuse though......Anyway, our mail drives. me. crazy. Literally.  I hate having it everywhere.  I don't even really like it in view at all, but I found a way to conceal it a bit.  I made a little project out of my used Kix box, look how cute it is!

This is some wedding scrapbook paper from JoAnn's.  Cute! It sits on the side of the fridge with the help of these magnets, $2 at Target.

And it gets the mail out of my line of vision.  This little -and very helpful, I might add - project cost a whopping $3 and some change. Yessss.....

I just love it! And no more mail to drive me BATTY! We are off to Lidia's to celebrate being 20 weeks pregnant! YAY!!

{fall around our home & mantle reveal}

Two posts in 2 days...what?! I'm gettin' good at this whole blogging thing! The best part of this post is at the bottom...so I'll be ok with you scrolling alllll the way down and then coming back up...just sayin.

My all-time favorite season is here! It's so cozy and the food is hearty and yummy, and the clothes are cute and comfy, and the weather is just perfect!! It's after the extreme heat and before the extreme cold that we get here in Kansas City. And of course, next weekend we get to take our annual family Christmas picture!

In honor of the season, and because we went to get our pumpkins punkins and mums Saturday, I decided to post some fun, festive fall stuff around our home:

Our new window treatment.  Placemats from Pier 1! Such a great idea!

Our newest favorite coffee. 

And I can't forget our beautiful mum! My hubby kindly planted it for me :) It just isn't fall without a mum or two!

Those are just some pics I took of things that remind me of fall....Here is our very simple but oh-so fall mantle for this year.  I like decorating like this because it will transition from the beginning of fall through Halloween to Thanksgiving.  My best friend and I were shopping for pumpkins yesterday and she said something about soaking them in some sort of a bleach mixture and they will last longer.  I didn't have the time but what a great idea! Maybe next year, we will see how long they last........for now I am positively LOVING our fall mantle!

I just love me some FALL! I think everyone does..........

{Christmas in October?}

Hey there! Happy Saturday!!

My little dog baby woke me up early this morning so I thought I'd do a quick post before I'm off to get my mums and pumpkins so that Mikey can carve and I can decorate with them!! I have seen such cute pumpkins ideas lately, who knows what we'll come up with!!! :)

So, I  was in THE Home Depot a couple of days ago and *accidentally* found myself in the faucet aisle.  This accidentally finding myself in random aisles happens A LOT. Mostly in Home Depot and Target......
Anyway, in Home Depot picking up some stuff and found this pretty faucet that I'm newly obsessed with.

Look at all the other prices of the faucets....Oh well...I'm not letting this one go!

It's oh so pretty!

I put it on my Christmas List board on Pintrest, but I'm thinking I may want it before then.  Isn't she a beauty?? Hubby has always said that he wants one of those spray things to clean the sink/whatever you do with it (I've never lived anywhere that didn't have one, so I think it's weird), so it would make us both happy! These bridge faucets are just so pretty to look at and don't you think you need something pretty like this when you're miserable having fun doing dishes?  


Here are some examples I found on Pintrest of the pretty bridge faucets:

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L.O.V.E


&




HAPPY FALL

{Painting the Kitch}

Hello, Hello!

I am progressing on the kitchen!! Woohoo!  I was off of work yesterday and the day before, and completed almost{touchup in some place is necessary} all of it {with the help of my loving, caring, handsome, sweet husband who mainly encouraged me, he wanted no part in painting}. He just loves my constant home improvement ideas....doesn't he?

Monday while waiting for the primer to dry, I began staring at my chalkboard, the red just does not go with the grey anymore.  I began taping the chalkboard with my trusty Frog tape. My husband walked into the room and said {and I quote} "Oh Lord, now she's painting everything...." I think he loves my beautiful decorating mind.  If nothing else it gives him something to laugh about.  You probably remember the before of this one....It was obviously around Christmas.

and the BEFORE-before....

Well, I painted that baby white {Behr Ultra Bright White left over from the guest bedroom/future nursery} and I love the contrast of the white and griege {grey-beige} on the walls. Those little snowmen on the BEFORE-before have been through a lot of changes this year.

Oh Yes, this is a sneak peak at the new color in our kitchen.  Glidden Wood Smoke. Don't you love it?

Cute chalkboard.  So happy to be rid of the dark red! The sunshine comes pouring in!!

I may paint a trellis pattern on it or I may leave it be. Most likely the latter but we will see.

Now I'm really struggling with the question of dark or light cabinets?...Light cabinets would REALLY lighten it up in here, but we both like the look of dark cabinets with the rest of our house...We are planning on refinishing the cabinets in the near future, but don't want to get overwhelmed, you see.

BYE!

{an exciting arrival}

Hello, Hello!

Guess what showed up on my front porch today...? My Glidden Wood Smoke, two quarts of this fabulous paint! I *think* I'm going to have to get more, but I may not. If I just use a primer, it may be enough for the kitch!



I was so very excited that it arrived, but I'm going to have to wait for another weekend to paint. My family and I are headed to the lake this weekend after a friends wedding on Friday night. There (in my opinion) is not better place to be than the lake for the 4th of July. It just makes me SO happy!! We're going to enjoy some smoked meat, some wonderful much needed family time, and of course the annual fireworks that they do the cove over from our place and about 200 boats are just floating in the water right in front of us.  It's amazing!

I'm going to be spending exactly 3 days in this little number (or something along these lines)...


and enjoying some of this tremendous view from our place...







4th of July LAST year, lake

Mike and I's lake trip summer 2010

I hope you all have a safe and fun 4th of July! USA!

Until next time!

{Cute & Cheap Rug Alert}

Well hello again my dear friends! I'm doing this post today with MUCH excitement! Some people probably wouldn't find this very exciting, but my little decorating-obsessed heart is overflowing this Sunday morning'. I was doing my blog stalking the other morning before work, which I rarely do, and came across Decor Chick's website. Not to be confused with 'Thrifty Decor Chick' which is another fav. The blog title was the same (I copied her) as mine. I clicked on it because I love 'cute' & 'cheap' & 'rugs', right? So once I got there I didn't even read the article! All I had to see was 'Lowe's' and '$34' and I was all over it. What!? You're telling me this beautiful 5x7 rug is $34!! It's 50% off so I knew I had to start making my calls...

I first called the Lowe's by our house. No luck, not to mention not very friendly. Note to self, the Gladstone Lowe's does not like prissy girls looking for pretty little rugs. I don't like mean people. So I called the Lowe's in Liberty (I was going to make my Hubby pick it up after work). The forces were against me on this particular morning because he said "we don't need another area rug" I told him my plan to replace the floral one. Then he was OK with it. When I first moved in after we got married, that was the ONE item we fought over. He didn't/doesn't like it. Anyway, Liberty's inventory said 3 and, bless his little heart, the guy at Lowe's tried really hard to find them. No luck. Sad face. I wasn't going to get my precious rug!

I'm not one to give up though. I finally found one 20 minutes away in Roeland Park, KS! (P.S. as of yesterday they had 2 more if you're interested...)Holler! I was so excited! I would like to give a shout out to Jevon in flooring at the Roeland Park Lowe's. He was beyond helpful to me and I was able to get my rug. Now it is just making itself comfortable in its new home underneath our kitchen table. We haven't found a place for the old rug yet, but I'm slightly over the floral thing I had going on for a while. This is the rug if you can't remember/had never seen it.  This picture was taken with my iPhone around Christmas when we got our new kitchen table.

Goodwill might have a cute rug for cheap in the next couple of weeks ;-) Ahh It brings me peace when I look at it. The new one that is. It's the PERFECT size for in here and a much less busy pattern.  I think it will go really well with our new glidden wood smoke paint. I can't wait to see it!

I also FINALLY put up this paper towel holder that I got at HobLob decades ago it seems.  Hubby kept asking, "when is this thing going up on the wall?!" Oh, don't question me lover. And so it did this weekend.  It's supposed to be a paper towel holder but I thought it'd be cute in our bathroom to hold hand towels.  Here it is in all it's glory!

You know what I love even more? Our monogrammed towels.  A wedding gift from a dear family friend. 

Who's sleeping with their windows open tonight? I am! I am!

Until next time!

{You guys! I'm excited}

Hey you guuuuyyys, 

Name the movie you get a cookie.  I'm so excited today! Over the last couple of weeks I have been going crazy trying to pick a color for our kitchen.  Well it turns out "Wood Smoke" by Glidden was my number one choice.  As I was blogging around this past freezingicecolddreary weekend, I found a little post that said something to the effect of, "Glidden giving away 200,000 free quarts of paint on May 16 at midnight" Uhmmm rewind, WHAT? Nothing comes free anymore.  Here is a little preview of my new favorite paint on a wall in a fellow blogger's home, she literally did a whole post on this color right here. 

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 It's the perfect neutral for the kitchen! So, I did a little more research, and set my alarm (yes I go to sleep before midnight on a work night) for midnight.  Well obviously their website was WAY overwhelmed with all the traffic.  I think it crashed.  People were mad.  I figured whatever, the worst that happens is I have to $buy$ some...I tried one more time before I went to sleep, and PRESTO! It worked! I got my quart of Wood Smoke.  All I'll have to buy is some primer and possibly a little extra paint.  I do think these 2 quarts will color all the kitchen but we will see. Yay! I made my mommy get one too for me (one per household rule), just in case.  I can't wait to get the ball rolling on my kitchen.  I'm beyond sick of the brick red we have in there now.  This color is going to lighten it up so much and we really get so much natural light in there anyway.  I'm going to paint the trim white eventually as well.  

I got to thinking all dark on the cabinets now (my mind changes more than the weather here in KC) and just get glass put in some of the doors probably the ones I had taken off but didn't love that look...

Speaking of open cabinets.  I'm beyond frustrated with the dishes we had on our registry at BB&B for our wedding.  The manager is going to hear from me soon.  Almost every. single. one. is chipped.  It's annoying.  So I went and bought 12 new place settings on our one year anniversary.  Happy Anniversary to us! Who says paper is the gift for your one year anniversary?  I went with porcelain. Well, we got each other cards so I guess those count.  Anyway, I'm in love with these little beaded plates.  I read every single review online and everyone loves them.  Milky white, durable, classic, and so stinkin' cute.  Why didn't we register for these to begin with? Sad face... They will look too cute behind some glass cabinet doors.  Sorry about all the bad pictures in this post. All were taken with my iPhone...at night...When will I learn?

In other exciting news, I finally decided where we're going to buy our deck furniture cushions. BALLARD DESIGNS!!  I've been getting their catalog for about a year and a half.  If you are not getting their catalog, you need to! You're missing out... Here's a picture of all the options by way of outdoor cushions. I don't want to compromise on these because we aren't getting new furniture for a while, so I'm convinced we should reward ourselves with eye-candy cushions.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...

They put way too many pretty fabrics together on one page.  How does a girl ever decide?  Help me! I'm torn between: (I would mix patterns and solids, patterns on table chairs and solids on lounge chairs and chaise) Arden Spa & Spa, Arden Black & sand, Ikat medallion & green, OR brown canopy stripe & brown... Oh, boy this is going to be tough.  If you have an opinion please don't hesitate to let me know.  I'll take all the help I can get!

We have a very busy weekend ahead of us!  Our friends are getting married in St. Joe this weekend and we're headed to the Royals vs. Cards game Sunday...did you see the game 2 nights ago? Pathetic, really. I hope they can pull it together.  I don't want to waste my Sunday for a loss... 

CIAO!

{Kitchen Thoughts}

Welcome Back!  I did a post yesterday but have been busy today and wanted to do another one!
Remember the project I talked about yesterday.  The drapes painted with wall paint?? Well I did it! And I swoon over them every time I enter my kitch! They are perfect.  I should not say 'perfect'.  None of my projects are perfect,  that's what makes them unique!  It does have little bitty minuscule teeny tiny flaws like the paint line is not so even on some parts.  But if you're looking that closely, you probably would not be invited into my home in the first place...

Here is the before:

During...

More measuring???!

Hard at work!

The curtains all painted!

And the beautiful but not perfect after!

They look so great here! Mike doesn't ever know they're up yet! 

This picture is a better indication of the true color.  I think it's beautiful.  I am definitely going to paint the wall this color as well!

I'm toying around with the idea of having some open cabinetry.  My mom doesn't like it, but it's growing on me.  I took three doors off yesterday and rearranged some things to see if I like it before filling in the holes from the hinges with wood filler.  I think I like it! Here's just two of the doors off. 

Our Wedding Cake Tray!

Since the upper cabinets will be white so will the inside of the open cabinets.  I'm thinking mirrors on the back of the cabinets...Sounds pretty.  And I need to get some cabinet liners, BAD!

I took the doors off of the cabinets below the sink, as well.  Our kitchen just had WAY too much oak.  I wanted to break it up a bit until we refinish them, so I added a little sink skirt.  It's pretty darn cute if you ask me.  It was actually a longer curtain but I just chopped it off and used some Stitch Witchery from JoAnn's and cropped it a bit.  I then bought a cheap tension rod and VOILA...

We get SO much natural light in our kitchen.   

I also wanted to give a quick tip to my readers that have chalkboards in their homes.  I discovered what is called a Chalk Pen at HobLob.  It makes the writing so much more clear.  I'm obsessed!  Check out my chalkboard with this new pen! No chalk dust or anything.  Think about it.... :-)

Linking Up HERE!