And the winner is.........

Me!

As you may know, I entered my bathroom remodel in the Habitat for Humanity photo contest for fall, and I won! I am now the proud owner of a $25 gift certificate good towards anything at ReStore! I can't wait to spend it!

Since we are going to talk about the bathroom again, I might as well share Christmas in the bathroom with you too, right?

And that's about as Christmasy as it gets in there (this year anyway ;)

I have another Christmas project entered in another contest so wish me luck!

Christmas Carolers

 

This Christmas I've been a little down, seeing them at the door brought a tear to my eye.

A Quick Centerpiece

My daughter is hosting a Christmas "come and go" party next week. She thinks her house needs to be more Christmasy (she said I spoiled her by dressing up the house like the North Pole at Christmas time). I decided to bring her a nice centerpiece for her table. I saw someone talk about this on her blog. How her friend paid $25 for one and she made it up for less.  I can't remember who or her total cost, but I'm determined to find it!

We went to our favorite thrift store, even with everything in the store being 50% off the people there are always SO nice, and I put this together while we were in the store. The vase was $3.98 (and half off of that). All the Christmas bulbs together were $1.98 (and half off of that). She told me I could have the flowers if I wanted them :)  So the total cost? $2.98 (I'm so cheap and thrifty it hurts) After I made it, I got tons of compliments on the way to the front (and a roll of the eyes from the hubby)

When we left, we noticed another thrift store across the street, wait till you see what we found! I'm so excited about it and wish I had a picture to share now, but it's outside and it's too cold!

I'm sharing here:

Working on Christmas

I've been working on making gift tags

Decorating and Re-decorating the Hearth

Trying to figure out what to do with this table

Decorating all the trees (I think we have 6?)

One thing I love that happened on accident, is this bowl. I had taken fall out of the bowl, set a few pine cones in it to get them out of the way, then threw on these snowflakes to make them easier to carry to another spot, and fell in love with what happened.

I've got a lot to do today as well (how can I possibly need more decor?) but I've got a lovely cup of morning motivation

And besides, with the cat on the computer, who can get on anyway?

The basement doors

....are in the floors of the sun room and the laundry room and are a P.A.I.N.

They just lay there, in the way, not doing much unless you need them. They also make it hard to do flooring.

The one in the laundry room is painted this ugly brown color.

We decided not to strip the floors at this time because there are several other things that need replacing under the floor. But since I needed a floor before hosting Thanksgiving, we (he) laid down the same stuff I used in the kitchen. It's waterproof and seemed like a perfect fit for a laundry room anyway. Btw....most people that come over can't even tell it's not real wood ;) So anyway......... I decided to paint it, but quickly changed my mind when I remembered I had black glaze.

This is after the first coat. You can see all the essential tools to the right of the door. I love the way it turned out besides it being darker than the flooring we put down. I imagine if I painted it a lighter color and then glazed it, I would probably get a better match. It takes up an entire length of wall.

My whole laundry/utility room looks so much larger now!

Ummm yeah, ignore the hanging laundry and my slippers drying on the chair.........It still needs some more organization, but I love the way it looks and feels in there now! My mom made me those curtains for the previous house I lived in. I don't have enough toppers, but luckily for me, she took a topper home to make me 2 more. Isn't she the bestest?

Because of the way this turned out, I'm almost tempted to paint the sunroom floor a light tannish color and glaze them too versus trying to strip them. *sigh* Is that lazy or what?

Goodbye Fall, Hello Christmas!

This is Freckles, In the middle of one of the trees

Most of the time she is sleeping under another tree. Here she is with Tom.

This is Jerry (his cat) sleeping in some of the garland.

At this point, if anyone has any advice (besides glue) to keep ornaments ON the tree and OFF the floor, I'll consider them!

The New Chandy

This is the chandy that was previously in my entry hall. One of the previous owners claimed they bought it from an antique store. And while it is a great light, I thought it was way too small for my entry hall, and one of the lights didn't even work.

 I can't remember the square footage of my entry hall, but I do remember it is much larger than my kitchen.

This is the one we bought at ReStore for the bargain price of $25! It is HUGE! And it is also very heavy. I'm so not a fan of gold or brass and had design to paint it. But since I haven't figured out the other colors in there yet (more on that later), it got hung as is for now.

The old one came down, but since they didn't hang it from a stud (ugh) we (he) had to make a bigger hole since the new one was much heavier.

We had company, they (he) helped. They reinforced it.

And then it got hung up and they called us women folk into the entry hall to check it out. They thought it would be funny to hang it "my size" so I could easily change the bulbs. Mr. Company is demonstrating the shortness of it all. HA!

Back to business.........it works! But Oh Em Gee it's bright! You think 40 watt was a bit too much? LOL I can now operate in that room! We still had the business of the new hole in the ceiling though and without a cover around, we needed something quick! Mrs. Company (knowing my love of repurposing AND spray painting) suggested a paper plate! Genius!

I thought about NOT sharing that part, but really, in a pinch? That is genius! No one even knows what it is all hung up there pretty like.

See? And it looks oh so fabulous in there! We are thinking of getting a dimmer switch to tone it down a bit because I'm thinking even the 20 watt bulbs are going to be a bit much if you aren't operating!

Back to the business of color.......See that floor? It's fabric. I guess back in the day some of the more affluent people covered their floors in fabric to prevent drafts. They just painted them, saturate them is the instruction I got from a previous owner that recreated this look. It's currently caramel color.

The walls are kind of a sunny yellow color. It is NOT what I wanted but I was frustrated and moved on to another project at this point. You can see what I was wanting HERE.

My house consist mostly of the colors in this pitcher. The entry hall leads into this sun room whose floor is another problem child of mine. WHY PAINT WOOD FLOORS? *ugh*

This is actually the way the sun room looks now. But anyway...........if anyone has any advice or suggestions on what to do with these two floors, painting or otherwise, please feel free to chime in!

The bathroom is finally finished (I think)

I talked about my bathroom a while back here, and while pleased with the progress, it wasn't all there yet. I knew I needed something to house towels in the bathroom, but due to limited space, I was never sure what that would be. I always carry around my handy dandy list of measurements of nearly EVERYTHING in my house and luckily I had it with me last week.

I saw this shelf, actually there were two of them, and it looked like the perfect size. Since he now carries around a tape measure everywhere we go, we measured and it was perfect. I saw it was only $3.98 and it was going home with me. My daughter was with us that day and I knew she needed a shelf for her bedroom. I asked her if she wanted the other one. She kinda sneered her nose so I said "It's $3.98" and her eyes lit up and she says "OH! Well let me look" (Wonder where she gets THAT from?) Yep, that one went home with me too on the condition I paint it for her.

See? It fits perfectly over there! I painted it the same gloss valspar black as the vanity. I'll show you a close up if you promise not to look at my mismatch of towels.

Well shoot, the picture is fuzzy. But trust me, it's beautiful! I also picked up a door knocker for the bathroom last week. And with a quick coat of spray paint (black, of course) It is now my hand towel holder. The first picture is right after painting, and the second after we (he) hung it up.

I got the towel hooks hung up also.

The last thing to go in was the light bar. I so hated the light bar that was there. It was too small for the space and didn't match a thing in there.

So we went out and bought a chandelier

Disassembled it, and used the light parts to build a new and better light bar that fits perfectly in there!

I love it every time I walk in there now! But does anyone know how to get the cat to stop throwing cotton balls all over the place?

Linky Parties I'm joining: