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?