The twice re-do bergere chairs
I must start off with a confession. I stupidly volunteered to re-upholstered these bergere chairs. I was naive, to say the least, thinking I could easily re-upholster these type of chairs. I had no idea what it really entailed. I can tell you now, it was way beyond my upholstery skills. But as my sister tells me, I am tenacious and that is what forces me to finish things. I just want to say, hats off to all of you who can do this effortlessly and even give a tutorial!
I took on this challenge for Priscilla, someone whom I have known since she was 7. She is now 33. She was my shadow for years, helping me with my girls when they were little, dressing them up, playing with them and just being my buddy. I have watched her grow up and now have two beautiful kids of her own, whom I love dearly, she is a big part of our family’s life. I rarely say no when she asks me to help her with a home decorating project.
She originally got the chairs off of Craig’s list and they looked like this
They were in good shape, but she didn’t like the fabric or the finish. She was in the process of putting her living room together and wanted them to match the club chair she already had for the room {how cute is her dog peeking over the chair?}
Nursery progress
Well, my daughter Shannon hasn’t had her baby yet, but her due date is July 22nd and so little Carter will be coming soon! We are on our last leg of finishing up the nursery. We are still waiting on the roman shade {I choose not to sew it and we hired a professional to do the work} The one thing I did sew though was the crib skirt
It is Dwell Studio’s Zoo Pals Blue Fabric. I didn’t have a pattern, so I just winged it, {well kind of, I read tons of tutorials on how other people did it and then went from there} I think it turned out pretty darn good for a novice sewer. {just don’t look TOO close and we are good}
I haven’t taken any good pictures of the whole room yet, but you can see how it ties in with the ottoman in the room that I had done a couple of months ago
{isn’t that bear so cute! Shannon got it as a gift from her Aunt}
We kept the “carter” letters I used at Shannon’s shower, and put them above the changing table dresser. Shannon just re-vamped them with scrapbook paper that matched the room. {she has a lot of time on her hands being in the waiting mode and not working, she is getting kind of cre8tive which makes me happy!} We used the 3m velcro picture hooks to hang them. I highly recommend these for this type of project. Super easy to use and you don’t put a ton of holes in the wall trying to get them to hang perfect. Plus they come off easily when you want to take them down.
People are liking my Houzz pictures
I have some professional pictures of interior design work I have done on a web site called Houzz . For what ever reason, lately my design work has been included in many Houzz featured idea books, which is exciting! Anytime someone thinks my work is worthy of highlighting on a front page of their site is always humbling.
Have you ever been to this site? It is a web site that has beautiful pictures of homes and gardens, mainly uploaded by designers or architects. It is a place where homeowners or soon to be homeowners can book mark things they like. If you see something you like, you can add it to an idea book that you create. {it is similar to Pinterest but only for homes and gardens} And, if you really like someone’s work, you can contact them and discuss working with them. I have never been contacted, {sigh}, but I am always surprised on how many people have added my pictures to their idea books. Like this one
Put into 1,212 idea books! Wow huh? The comments are fun to read, all are very complimentary and some even in another language! I put in the description that this is a kitchenette but people I guess don’t get that. There are some comments on how it isn’t functional for a kitchen. It’s a kitchenette people, not a full on kitchen. But for the most part, everyone loves the color combination. wasabi green and aqua. This kitchenette is part of a whole entertainment room, so I went with decorative shelving rather than functional upper cabinets. But there are still plenty of lower cabinets to store useful items.
My ugly Fort Knox garden
An old friend of mine was visiting me last week from South Carolina. We were walking around my yard and she said
“What is that? You have a chicken coop?”
“Um, no, it is my garden.”
So I took her over to look at it, and she said “what are these tomato’s ending up costing you? $60 a pound?”
I said “pretty much!”
See, I had always imagined having a cute little garden surrounded by a white picket fence I found a perfect spot in my yard, and created my dream garden. I knew we had squirrels so I put a perimeter concrete footing 6″ down to keep them from coming in. To keep the rabbits out, I put chicken wire all along the inside. These pictures are from 1999, sorry for the poor quality.
Cute huh? I even planted those daisy’s around the outside of the garden to ward off bugs (something my brother told me to do) Boy, was ever naive to the creatures of the wild. Duh! Squirrels can climb over a short little white picket fence! Oh and don’t forget about the gazillion birds we have flying around. Did I mention we have a family of racoons that like to romp in my garden? Yeah, they like fresh vegetables. So after many years of dealing with all the different animals that were munching on my garden, it now looks like this.
What I call my Fort Knox garden. I have spent a fortune over the years on keeping creatures out. Gave up pretty for ugly just to grow some vegetables. Look how you can hardly see my cute little white picket fence, not what I had envisioned.
My new kitchen hutch
This is the bakers rack I had in my kitchen table wall since we re-built our house in 2006. {of course in this picture I have everything off of it, but I can tell you it was was being used as a catch all piece of furniture with no real purpose or storage}
It was suppose to be temporary. I brought it over from our house that we lived in while our home was being re-built. I knew it wasn’t the right piece for the space and was going to get the right one eventually, but it wasn’t high on my priorty list.
Come Decemeber of 2010, when I was taking down my Christmas stuff, I had had it! Four years of looking at it and I just couldn’t stand it any more, so I put it on Craig’s list. My husband was baffled because he thought it looked fine, and didn’t understand why I wanted to get rid of it. I didn’t even tell him when I did it, it was just one of those things where I had to do it NOW! So for 7 months the wall has been empty while I have been causally looking for a hutch. I had my eye on the one I just bought since February, and just decided this week to pull the trigger and get it. I couldn’t believe the store still had it, so I figured it was meant to be.
Weekend fun & a new kitchen hutch
Over the weekend I took my nephew and two of his friends, his mom and dad (my sister and brother-n-law) to our river house for his 17th birthday. They were the best behaved teenage boys! We had such a good time on the water. It was so relaxing and fun. It has been hard to get into the swing of things back here at home. I think I am still on lazy river time..I can’t seem to focus on getting any posts up this week! {I have also have had out of town family and friends in this week, so that has kept me busy as well.}
When ever I go out to our river house, I am the main boat driver. 
(like the way I covered up my upper half with the label? wish I would of made it bigger…can’t believe I am showing you this!)
But being a boat driver means you have to focus on driving and watching where you are going so you don’t get to really enjoy what fun your passengers are having. But when I saw these pictures it made me smile, these boys were having a great time!
Look at their huge smiles!
I can be one fun driver!
And my nephew (in the middle) loves to see if I can keep him on the tube…
Got him! They had a great time, and his friends think his Aunt rocks! That just made my weekend.
4th of July decorating
I know the 4th of July has come and gone, but I did some fun last minute decorating that I wanted to show you.
I originally was planning on a small group of 12 friends and family, but in the end we had about 20 people. I had to change my plan of using real dishes and pull out the paper goods. I couldn’t just throw the plates and silverware on the table..not my style.
I wrapped the silverware in the napkins and tied a ribbon around them and put them in pretty white cups. I put the plates in a nice wire basket I got on sale at Pottery Barn.
I tied ribbon around these mason jars for the raspberry lemonade and put them in this red box I had lying around.
I had so much fum making this banner that I hung in front of the food table! I made it out of place mats that I just cut in half. I hot glued them to a long ribbon and tied on the stars. I liked the way it turned out. Plus I can use it again next year.
I got fresh flowers from the local farmers market and arranged them on my tables
I bought these flag pennants at World Market for decorating my umbrella but didn’t have enough for the second umbrella.
A sweet 4th of July
This year we couldn’t of gotten any sweeter for our 4th of July barbeque. It all started when I got an invite from my friend Gail at myrepurposedlife, for Pinterest. {ADDICTING I tell you!} So I started pinning. And pinning and pinning…and then I pinned these really cool ice cream cone cupcakes. So since I am not a baker, {don’t let my pins on baked goods fool you} and my sister is, I quickly emailed her the picture with a suggestion that these would be really cool for 4th of July {hint, hint} She didn’t really say much, so I figured she didn’t like my idea.
Well I was wrong. My sister out did herself this year on her sweets she brought for our 4th of July barbeque. She blew me away when she arrived. Look at what she made!
THE CUTEST! EVER 4th of July ice cream cone cupcakes. Red velvet even!
With a cherry on top. So cute right?
But that wasn’t all! Check out these super yummy chocolate cupcakes she made {oh and I told her if she was going to bring cupcakes, could you make them festive? {Rude I know, but hey she is my sister who else could I say that to? I am the decorator and she is the baker, I just wanted to make sure the display of my dessert table looked good lol}
They were so good too!
