Back From The Abyss

It's been a while...Let's catch up!

I spent December with family in Illinois.  In early January, Oldest Daughter and I went down to Mississippi to get the house Wild Bill and I bought last August ready to sell. 

Our house was located in the town of Southaven (northern Mississippi) just south of Memphis Tennessee.

On the night of January 11, 2020, there was a bad storm in the Memphis area. In Germantown TN (west side of Memphis) 20 to 30 houses were demolished by the storm.

The next day, Sunday the 12th, a couple standing in the middle of the lot that was her home the day before, made a call to a realtor friend. The couple had been planning to marry in the spring, then buy a new house together in the summer...

"We're going to need a house a lot sooner than we thought!" they told their realtor friend as they picked through the rubble of her home.

"I have the perfect house for you."  Realtor Friend replied.

I was packing boxes that Sunday (getting ready to have our realtor put the house on the market) when he called me asking if I would be willing to let a friend of his see the house right away. How could I refuse when I heard their situation? 

The next day, Monday Jan 13th, the couple came to see our house... packing boxes and all! 

All the home-selling advice you will ever get advises you against showing a house before it's cleaned up and ready -- but what the heck -- I had a feeling.

They came, they saw, they liked. But...they wanted to look at the competition, just in case. I knew they were "The One's" and didn't even bother to put the house on the market. 

A few weeks later, the couple returned with her 3 daughters to look one more time. 

On our back patio that day (with an engagement ring in his pocket) he got down on his knee and proposed to her and her girls. 

They got married a few weeks later and, as a brand new family, they moved into the house at the end of February. 

I left them most of the new furniture we had just bought and moved on. The house was never really our home, it's just a place we once lived. 

Wild Bill, 1996, I Would Love To Do It All Over Again

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Why The Bench Didn't Get Painted

The hall bench was going to get painted in THIS post a short while back when I was inspired by some painted chairs in Purple Hydrangeas' blogpost.

The bench is very functional and photogenic! Here it is dressed up for Christmas...

Fortunately, before I got a paint brush out our house was under contract in 2 weeks, and the buyer was interested in purchasing some of our furniture. 

So the bench is staying with the house, along with some other pieces. 

It's a blessing because we are moving several states over and haven't found a new home yet, and our closing date keeps getting closer and closer.

I'd rather find a loving home for my favorite pieces of furniture than to drag them around and put them in long-term storage. 

My grandmother put her family furniture in storage just after the Great Depression when she moved to California from Nebraska, and her furniture stayed stored for over 40 years! 

Ten years after my grandma died, my dad went back and rescued three pieces of her oak furniture in the late 70's. I wrote about that in this POST one Christmas. 

He brought back my great-grandmother's childhood washstand and mirror for me...

They are remarkably well preserved for being in a barn for over 40 years! 

The mirror has very few spots and no damage on it although I did remove the oak wooden arms that attached the mirror to washstand because they were wobbly.

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The Mantle Quandary

I'm going to need your help for a minute...please, please, please.

Putting a house up for sale is exhausting! They say in the first 3 weeks you will get the most traffic, so it's important to "show" well the day the sign goes up.  

For us, the sign goes up this Monday!

With A Large Heavy Mirror

Now that we've decluttered, dejunked, and taken away most of the house's personality, we're trying to decide what to do with the mantle.

The large wood mirror looks kind of plain without some color to it. What would you add for color if we chose to go with that option?

I didn't want to move the very heavy mirror until I was sure we wouldn't be using it on the mantle. Call me lazy...I placed a family painting that I was thinking of using right in front of the mirror temporarily.

With A Family Painting

You'll have to imagine the painting without the mirror behind it. Sometimes squinting helps to block things out!

The other option we tried was this large round clock that has the same whites, grays, and browns as the pillows and furniture in the room. Again, pretend the heavy mirror is not there...are you squinting still?

One problem with using the round clock over the mantle is that it would need to be hung on the wall. A while back we paid someone to repair and paint the wall where a large TV use to hang and I'd rather not mess the wall up again!

With A Large Round Clock

Hey...Don't go yet! 

I'm thinking of replacing the coffee table too, so maybe you can imagine one of these ottomans from PotteryBarn in the room?

Which Of These Would You Pick?

The cream and metal ottoman on the bottom left in the photo is the one I'm leaning toward -- but we also have some leather in the room so the tufted leather ottoman in the upper left corner might work too.

Leaning Towards This Ottoman

This photo from the PotterBarn website shows the cream ottoman with a sofa similar in color to our love seat and chair. 

I kind of like the idea of adding a little pink to the mix like they show in the catalog photo. Any ideas? 

If you have any opinions on what to do, please leave a comment below...I'd honestly love your help.

Thanks for dropping by!

Words Of Comfort - A Time To Heal And Rebuild For Us All

Over at Joey's Pad I was fortunate to read his words today. Although he was speaking primarily of the fire at Norte-Dame cathedral in Paris, I will carry his words in my heart for a long time to come.

Wikipedia

The thing about blogging is...you just never know where inspiration will come from or whose words you need to hear at the exact time you run across them.

If you have time, I recommend a quick stop to Joey's blog post HERE.

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The Mind Wanders...

I've been Missing In Action lately. Actually, I've been around to read your posts, but just couldn't find my speaking voice.

Expected more good news when Wild Bill got the results of his recent PET Scan last week, but it was not so good. Kind of took the wind out of our sails.

It wasn't for a lack of prayers! You've all been so kind with your hopes and prayers for us. We appreciate each and every one of you. Please keep praying -- we will be giving it a good fight and hope to find a better cancer treatment in the near future.

We have been preparing to put the house up for sale. After losing both Bill's parents this past year it feels like our tie to Texas is gone so we are planning to leave the state. 

Change has become harder as we grow older. It seemed staying put for 8 years was for his parents, but now I'm not so sure. Did we just become complacent? I think so!

Our number one goal use to be finding a small town that we both could enjoy. Now our goal is finding the best treatment for Bill. Nothing else seems to matter.

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Colorful Outdoor Pots For The Holiday Season

Are your potted plants losing their color and life as mine are? 

I was looking for inspiration down in McKinney Texas the other day and the plants outside the shop My Favorite Room drew my attention.

Potted Plants Outside My Favorite Room

The shop owner always manages to pick just the right time to add a few new seasonal plants to the year-round boxwoods and ivy in front of her shop.

Here the purple and green cabbages and the yellow mums are growing in fuller just as the peppers are starting to fade away...

No matter how I try, our front entry doesn't have the northern exposure that seems to provide the perfect light and temperature to keep potted plants as happy as these plants seem to be no matter the season.

Yet, despite past failures *sigh* I plan to try once again to perk up our outside pots this season. 

Please let me know if you have a favorite outdoor plant that will add some color to outdoor pots in an east side exposure and thrive for the holiday season.

Thanks for dropping by!

Joining Here:
Home And Garden Thursday

Favorite Photo Sunday...The Story Behind The Photo

Here's my favorite photo this week...

Would You Believe She's Almost 45?

Oldest Daughter as Dolly Parton!  

She even got her husband (at 6 foot 5 he had to stoop down to get in the picture) to grow a beard and dress as Dolly's favorite singing partner Kenny Rogers...

And then they did a lip sync to Dolly and Kenny's recording of Islands In The Stream and made a video to share with all their family and friends. 

This photo is an inspiration for me because Oldest Daughter doesn't really like to wear make up or put herself "out there" usually.  

She chose to do different this year. It's an example I plan to follow.

Do you see the joy on her face in these photos? I do. Joy is what I aspire to next year and why not start now? Joy comes when you loosen up a little and let yourself try new things. 

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Blame Debbie Dabble's Cute Filing Cabinet

Downsizing my late mother-in-law's things has been a long, drawn-out process due to the chaos in our life right now.  

My father-in-law is learning to adapt to being "Me" instead of "We" after a long happy 71-year-marriage. 

At 95, he's springing back...although that spring is a little too sprung more days than not!

Recently I brought home two drawers from their little filing cabinet intending to shred my mother-in-law's paperwork and then donate the 2-drawer file cabinet.

Debbie Dabble's Colorful Patio Furniture

Blame Debbie Dabble that the empty filing cabinet is still hanging around our house! 

I came across Debbie's post HERE and fell for the colorful cabinet she has on her patio...How cute is that little guy?...Well, cute enough for me to think I might copy her idea someday using my mother-in-law's file cabinet.

Debbie Dabble's Colorful Porch

I hope you'll hop over to Debbie's PLACE if you need to add a little shot of color in your life too...It's like she stole a rainbow and put it on her porch.

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Glass-Doored Kitchen Cabinet

Our kitchen's glass-doored cabinet got a decluttering this week...

Glass-doored cabinets are another thing I'll eliminate from any wish list for a future kitchen.

If we were staying here a few years longer, I'd remove the glass doors and add trim to make this cabinet into open shelves. 

In my opinion, glass doors just make the shelves behind them harder to use. What do you think? Are you a fan of glass-doored cabinets or would you rather just have open shelves instead?

These glass doors are made to look old with the old-fashion glass that has bubbles in it and kind of makes it look wavy.

For now the glass doors will have to stay as we are downsizing our belongings with the intent to sell our house in the near future. 

"The Ugly Before"

Painting the inside of the cabinet is a possibility, but for now just cleaning the clutter was enough for me. 

To get the cups up off the counter and to put some color in the drab cabinet, I decided to add cup hooks to the middle shelf. That entailed another round with the despicable "cup-hook math" which I find so overwhelming. 

This time I laid a long piece of painter's tape across the shelf in the position where I wanted the row of cups to hang. I marked the middle of the board with a line of chalk.

Then I just eyeballed the position of three cups on each side of the middle line. Last time I hung cups in the china cabinet HERE I tried to get all perfect with the math. This time I decided to go a little easier on myself. 

What happened to the china cabinet you might ask? It's getting stored in an effort to minimize furniture to just the necessities. 

Less furniture = bigger rooms right? Yep, thought you'd agree!

Once the cups looked about equally placed, I marked each cup handle position with a large dot of chalk. This is about as scientific as I can get...

Since these are small cups and I might want to put larger cups up in the future, I spread the cup hooks a little farther apart and limited it to just six.

Here's all you need to make your own professional cup hanging kit...Painter's tape, measuring tape, and a big ole piece of chalk!

Any advice about prepping a house for sale would be appreciated. Do you have any special tip that worked for you? 

I'll be sharing at the here Share Your Style party and here at the Keep In Touch party this week, hope you'll join me.

Thanks for dropping by!

Our Fixer Upper Road Trip

We took an impromptu road trip down south to the Waco Texas area recently. 

Until we moved north in 2011, we lived in a small town near Waco. Every day I drove to Waco where I worked in the small downtown area, just a mile or so from where the Fixer Upper folks now have their market place and nearby restaurant.

Magnolia Table - Joanna and Chip Gaines' New Restaurant

As old folks sometimes do, we started talking about taking a road trip one morning around 9, started packing a suitcase at 10, and we finally hit the road about 11. 

We did some shopping at Joanna's 'Magnolia Market at the Silos' first, then took a ride by Chip's new restaurant, Magnolia Table, even though we knew it was already closed for the day.  

I only bought a few things at Magnolia Market (a Fixer Upper T-shirt and these sweet little flowers) because we are downsizing our "stuff" these days, but there was so many wonderful things to see and do.

When we got home and I was unpacking, there was a cute little "Thank You" card in the bag. The card talks about how Chip and Joanna hope their market place area will become a gathering spot for families and friends to come and enjoy themselves. I can assure you it already is!

There's so much to see and do at the Magnolia Market shopping area, but that's a story for another post. 

Because the landscaping at both places was so lovely, I took a lot pictures. I want to share the landscaping with you, especially if it's dark and dreary where you are.

Just like the homes they do on Fixer Upper, Chip and Joanna's buildings and landscaping were the real star of the show!

The new restaurant is open from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m. and is only a short driving distance away from Magnolia Market at the Silos. 

The Magnolia Table restaurant has already opened for business, but the landscaping was still being "tweaked" when we were there.

At our house this winter, we've lost some plants in our own bedding areas that we'll need to replace when the weather warms up. Seeing the simple (but beautiful) landscaping Chip and Joanna did on their grounds inspires me to make ours simple too.

If you're a big fan of white and black with beautiful landscaping, you won't be disappointed at either the Magnolia Market shopping area or the Magnolia Table restaurant.

Boxwoods, olive trees, and various plants (with primarily dark green leaves) are mixed throughout the rich brown bark at the restaurant. 

Flowering plants are kept at a minimum here, but wait until you see all the wonderful flowers at the market place!

Around the corner to the left of the building below, there's an open dining area for sitting outside with a little side shop that sells pastries and juice.

I would have gladly walked around and taken pictures of the open air dining, but a couple of security officers were giving me the evil eye...so I was happy to get the photos of the front before we were wisely on our way.

Here's an interesting article about Chip and Joanna when they were starting out broke and finding it difficult to pay their bills, and also talks about the effect their business success and TV show has had on the little city of Waco. See it here on Entrepreneur.com

Thanks for dropping by!