Thankful Thoughts

Last week, a friend of mine posted on Facebook about how, rather than complaining about all the things she wishes were different about her house, she wanted to share the things she loved about it. I love that thought! I have a tendency to be a little negative and I'm always thinking about the next thing I want to get for or change about the house. So, in honor of being a little more thankful, here's a list of the things I love most about our house!

1. Its our first place together, the house we can drive by years from now and point out to our kids and tell them that's where our family started out.

2. The wonderful man and adorable doggy I get to share it with!

3. It isn't your typical 1950's ranch, where you come into the living room or kitchen and the other rooms are all off a straight hallway. It has some fun character and history.

4. Speaking of history, I love that it was built in 1954. That's one of my favorite time frames to decorate from, so it is perfect for me!

5. I also love this cool story that my husband heard from a guy he works with. Apparently, the guy grew up right near our house and he told hubby the house was originally built down the street, and was moved to this lot in 1954! His mom used to practice photography outside, and I guess he has pictures somewhere of the house in the original location. I would love to see those!

6. The entire house needs updated and remodeled, which may sound like a bad thing at first. But that just means we get to redo the whole place without feeling bad about replacing mostly new things. And we can make it totally ours!

7. We have a strong, sturdy house that keeps us cozy and protected. So many people don't have anywhere near as much as we do. God has truly blessed us!

8. Our house has plenty of space for the two of us, and enough for when we have a family later on. It isn't huge, but we'll never have to move because we run out of space. Unless we have ten kids or something. Oh, heaven forbid :)

9. I have my own *huge* laundry room. I hate doing laundry in a public facility, and it is a blessing to me not to have to cart it anywhere or deal with other people while doing it. And like I said, the room is massive, so that's a bonus!

10. Most of our rooms get tons of wonderful sunlight. I love natural light and usually throw open all the blinds and curtains first thing in the morning. Nothing makes me happier than a comfortable morning with sun streaming in the windows!

So there's the top ten things I love about our house! Take a few minutes to look around and be thankful for your home today!

My Favorite.....80's Hamper?!

First....if you look at the last post, its been a really long time since I posted. As in, months. The good news is, lots of good, big decisions have been made and lots of changes are in place and life is great! And, I'm back with some fun projects!

This is now one of my very favorite things in our house. Want to see it?

Oh yeah, that's some pretty 80's tackiness :) And all those shoes on the floor? They are the reason for this whole project. I HATED looking at those shoes lined up every day! So, my mom and I stopped in at our favorite junk antique store and she convinced me this is perfect for the job. Want a closer look at that fabulous fabric on the lid?

Wow, I honestly haven't seen any of those little prairie people in a LONG time! But, a little spray paint and some fabric can make a world of difference!

Ta-da! The picture doesn't quite do it justice. The blue is just beautiful! And best of all, the shoes are blessedly hidden. This thing makes our whole bedroom look kind of shabby! But never fear, I'm mulling over a make-over for the rest of the room soon, too :)

Keep checking in for more great projects!



I'm linking this up over at Remodelaholic! Go check some of the other awesome projects there!




P.S. I forgot to add the best part! The hamper was marked for $5, but when I got to the register, it came up to just $3.50! I got the fabric, which I want to cover my entire house in, at Jo-Ann Fabric for somewhere around $4 (1/2 yard). I went to Lowe's and picked out that great dark blue spray paint, then happened to walk by their little spot for returned paint and saw an almost full can of the same color for $1! So the whole thing was only $8.50!

Happy 2011!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season! We had some great time with family and a whole week off together, which was tons of fun.

I usually don't enjoy New Year's Day very much. After all the other holiday fun, it had always been a little bit of a let-down for me. But this year, hubby and I spent the day cleaning out, organizing, and rearranging things in the house. I love those types of projects, so it was actually the best New Year's Day I've ever had!

Here's my favorite project from the day. I not only have a junk drawer in the kitchen, but the cabinet above it is also full of junk! A couple months ago, I spent some time cleaning it out and arranging it, but in no time at all, it was back to this:

Ugh! It may not look too bad from far away, but believe me, this was craziness! So we made a trip to Dollar Tree, and I found these:

I probably wouldn't have chosen pastels, but for a buck a piece, I'm not going to complain!



Here's the finished product! Well, almost finished. I'm planning to make labels to put on each box, and I may go get another one to put all my candles in, just to make it look that much neater :)

Christmas: Part 1

My Christmas decorating is FINALLY done! I've been really anxious to get pictures and a post written and share everything, but half of my pictures didn't turn out too well. So this post will start things off, then I'll write another post later when I get some better shots!

To start, welcome to our front door :) No one ever uses this door, but I love the new color I painted it this summer (used to be dark brown like the siding. It looked like the opening to a cave!).

I like wreaths, but I was soooo inspired by something similar to this that I saw on a blog somewhere. It's just an old picture frame I painted white and tied ornaments to with ribbon. Easy! So sorry I didn't keep the link, so I'm not sure who came up with it, but I think it is too cute and different.

Next you'll enter our living room, which I newly rearranged to accomodate that huge black TV cabinet! I don't think the angle of this picture does the cabinet or the fireplace justice. It really looks a little less crowded in person!

I'm super proud of how the mantle turned out! Here are a few close ups:



I think I need to work on my photography skills, because these didn't turn out as pretty as I hoped! Anyway, next is the kitchen, which has probably my favorite things this year. You can't see it so well, but I went for the red/lime green scheme, which I'm in love with!

My improvised Advent wreath...

On top of the pantry cabinet. The red bowl has vintage colored metal icicles sticking out of "snow".

So there's part one. When I get a chance, you'll get to see the bedrooms and bathroom!

Snapshots of Life

At 7am on Thursdays, I'm.....

....putting on my scrubs and heading to the hospital for a long day of clinicals for school!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

So it took us 3 days altogether, but we got both of our Christmas trees all decorated today! It's our first Christmas married, and we both had our own Christmas stuff, so instead of cramming it all onto one tree, we put up 2 :)

Here's hubby's tree in his office. Notice the sports theme evident on the wall :) This is his normal tree: colored lights, silver star with colored lights, solid colored ball ornaments, and silver garland (I added the tree skirt!).

This is "our" tree, the main one in the living room. The tree was my grandma's until a couple years ago, and it is covered with white AND colored lights, an assortment of glass ornaments (mostly mine), random ornaments we've collected through our lives, and icicles. Lots of icicles! Oh, and grandma's vintage tree topper.



I don't have a skirt for this tree yet, but I do have a project in mind to make one. Stay tuned for that!



Here are some of my favorite ornaments:

I couldn't get great photos, but the first and last ones are vintage from my grandparents' collections, and the middle one is oh so shiny in person!

Snapshots of Life

4:00 PM on Thursday had us doing this:

After Thanksgiving dinner and the usual passing out for a while from being so full, we pulled out my parent's brand new pre-lit fake Christmas tree. We've always had real trees, so putting the tree up on Thanksgiving day was a whole new thing for us! This is me, my hubby, and sister-in-law working on getting everything plugged in right!