Oh, Those Houses

During the weekend, we went to Frisco Texas to take some pictures of another area we saw recently while we were driving around drooling over the landscaping. 

The lovely flower beds in this housing area also have rocks mixed in with the flowers.

I was so busy looking at the flower beds, and trying to get a good picture without getting  reported for stalking, that I didn't even notice the lovely houses!

With our pictures in hand, we went down to the local rock place to price out some of the rocks to get an idea how much it will cost. From that we know we won't be able to afford any of the big ones!

They price by the pound, so I guess we'll start with the pea gravel and smaller rocks. 

I'm ready to get started, but it will have to wait for a few weeks.  I'm on my way to see our newest grandbaby again.

Rocks In Your Beds

We've been trying to figure out how to re-do our flower beds and enlarge them to get rid of some of our lawn.

Whenever we go out and about, if I'm behind the wheel, I always drive through housing areas stalking their landscaping.

Here's some houses and a new model home we saw recently with a great use of rocks in their landscaping.

The less grass the better as far as we're concerned, and I love the idea of breaking up the flower beds with rocks. What do you think of the idea?

Lazy Woman's Color Board

I've been looking for inspiration for colors to paint my walls. I like every paint color I see on other blogs...and...that's my problem!

Then, we ordered a new mattress/box springs set.

*We moved everything out of the hall and dining room (you're probably saying "huh?" right now) and that furniture ended up, in a mix, in the great room.

It was 6 a.m. on Saturday morning when we started clearing the hall and dining room out.

We were done by 7:45 am.

The delivery guy called at 8:00 a.m. to tell us they would NOT be delivering that week!

"...parts were not available, yada yada yada..."

Crashing into a chair, more than a little agitated, I noticed that the colors of blue, black, creamy white, and brown were really appealing to me.

"I think I found my colors." I said to Wild Bill.

He didn't actually say anything in reply, but I'm totally sure he was silent because he was so thrilled for me at that moment!



We had moved the old frame/box springs and all to the dining room* to store temporarily to make way for the new stuff.

Maybe The Door

The Dallas newspaper recently ran an article about the town of South Lake Texas, which they claimed to be a walkable town attracting lots of empty nesters. Of course we had to go get a look-see!

                  Love at first sight? ---yes!

Affordable? ---no!

Most of the front doors on the 3-story townhouses are the type we've been pricing recently. I can tell you each of these doors alone cost between $4000 to $8000! ...Yeah, for the door.

I found myself drooling over their doors, then we walked around the town area, through the stores and had lunch at a curbside restaurant.

It would be nice to live just around the corner from so many of my favorite stores and restaurants, but we're guessing the 3-story townhouses are meant for younger legs! 

Hey, I wonder if they would miss that door?

Must Love Crappy Furniture

I've been married longer than on-line dating has been around, so I never experienced it.

One of my favorite movies, Must Love Dogs, was on TV last week. As I watched it for the 14th time, I was wondering:

"...what catchy phrase would I have used for my on-line ad had I been single when on-line dating was catching on?"

Of course...Must Love Crappy Furniture... would be an honest line for my bio, but I don't think it would've gotten me many dates!

When I posted pictures of the vintage dresser we re-purposed for Olivia's birth, I mentioned I painted the dresser (and all my other wood furniture) forest green back in the early 90's when I was a single mother trying to make ends meet.

In case you're too young to remember that stylish color back then, I found pictures! Well, sort of. 

This is an old farmhouse side table I still have, and it has been many colors in recent years. It was already vintage in the late 80's when I bought it from a farm wife who was happy to be selling the farm and moving to town. You can still see the forest green on the bottom...



Here's baby Olivia's vintage dresser when it was forest green:

A few years ago, I painted the dresser with Annie Sloan's chalk paint in "Old White". 

For Olivia's room, we used "Swiss Coffee" in Behr's paint and primer and a dark raspberry color from Lowes for the inside of the drawers.

I liked the Swiss Coffee paint color so much, when I got home I bought a quart of it for some projects I had been putting off for too long!

Wild Bill asked the other day, "...are you a fix'in to paint everything white?"

...and he said it like that was a bad thing!

Of course I had to answer yes!

He's just lucky he doesn't know that I know the "in" color this year is emerald!

Find me at these parties:

http://www.timewashed.com

http://frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com
http://www.primpjunktion.com

Mantle Mistake

Just before Easter,

I was fooling around making

sweet little fairy nests.

 

I showed you them,

but I didn't show you some

terrible mistakes I made.

 

See, I have this wire cloche

that I haven't been able to do anything
with for the last year.

But, much to my dismay,
the poor bunnies look like they
expected to be executed...

 

...and trapped birds don't make for a
good Easter look either!

 

No matter what I did

the cloche just looked like a cage.

 

How about you?

 

Have you ever had such a flop?

I'd love to hear them.

 

 

Hope you'll join me
at the following blog parties:

 

 

http://primpjunktion.com

 

http://frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com

 

http://www.findingfabulousblog.com
 

 



 

 

Hand-Me-Downs

A while back, middle daughter Jaysa said she was looking for a new dresser for the baby's room.

I offered up a vintage dresser I have been hauling around for a life time. 

Jaysa wanted a dresser that would double as a changing table. Yep, this one would! It had a nice large top. I just needed to paint it.

Wild Bill and I hauled it up to Illinois with us just before the baby was born. We used Swiss Coffee (with a satin finish) in Behr's paint and primer from Home Depot.

Jaysa and I looked for "baby-type" knobs everywhere. Nothing worked. But, once the final coat was done and we put the old knobs back on, Jaysa decided they were perfect.

The knobs are from Hobby Lobby. I bought a whole bunch of them a couple of years ago, for a couple of dollars each, when they were 50% off.

We decided to paint the inside of all three drawers a raspberry color. The only color we found that qualified as raspberry was a little too much on the red side. We put it on anyway. But if anyone out there knows a sweet raspberry paint color, please let me know!

Jaysa loved the dresser and wondered how old it was and how long I'd had it?

I truly don't remember when I bought it second hand, but it was already vintage back then. It even has the original wheels on the bottom of the legs.

I just remember that back in 1993 it was in my "single mom" bedroom holding my very large boom box, which was a 6-CD changer -cassette tape player -- and radio combined!

Yeah, go ahead and laugh. I know you want to.

...Anyway, back in the late 80's, the hot color of that time was forest green. 

Being a savvy DIY stylist back then, I painted all my used furniture in my bedroom forest green. I think I painted all my mis-matched dining chairs forest green too. WOW. Imagine!

So the dresser was forest green until I re-painted it in 2011 with Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint in Old White. And then apparently I started to paint it a yellow color instead. 

Well there it sat, part-way painted and holding painting supplies, until Jaysa mentioned needing a baby dresser.

Here's the before: 

I'm so glad it has a new life with a purpose.

I'm so glad it's not forest green any more.

And, I'm so glad I still have my early 90's boom box.

Come join the party over at French Country Cottage.

http://frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com

Favorite Lamp

One of my favorite blogs, The Polohouse blog, does a "favorites on the first" post each month. This month the feature is on lamps.

I immediately thought of the bird lamp I love that has been put up in a closet every since I got it.

Why the closet? It has no shade.

Four and a half years ago, I stalked it at my favorite shop down in Salado TX when we lived close by.

The price was "high-dollar" as Wild Bill would say. Too much for me.

Then it went into the clearance section of the shop because another customer ruined its shade!

Well, I thought it would be easy to find a shade similar to the oddly shaped one it had, which was kind of rectangular.

That was 4 years ago! It has been in the closet ever since.

This morning I decided to show it anyway, so I brought it out and moved the lamp below so I could put the bird lamp in its place on the side table.

The more I looked at the other lamp's shade, the more I wondered...hmmm?

Might the shade fit my bird lamp?

Yay! It did!

So...thanks to The Polohouse blog and her favorites on the first party, I'm finally able to use my bird lamp!

Here's a link to her blog party. If you have a thing for lamps, you should join up too...or at least come look.

http://thepolohouse.blogspot.com