Tuesday, September 8, 2009

"You Should See the Before Picture" Party

Jen from Sanctuary Art is hosting a party today entitled "You Should Have Seen The Before Picture!" Party, and as she has said, it's not for the squimish or faint of heart because she bares all in her decor pictures. Well Jen doesn't bare all, but you know what I mean. She shows before and afters of decor from days gone by.




Since I've only had my digital camera for a year I don't have many "before" photos except for this one project I worked on right before I started my blog.

THE WOODWORK.




We've lived here for 6 years and I was so thrilled to find this house because of the beautiful dark hardwood floors, recently installed, and the white woodwork, which had also recently been painted. We repainted most rooms but there was always one curious thing about the dining room and the master bedroom. They had a strip of white crown molding under the stained crown molding. Now, I understand their reasoning. The doors and stairway were part stained wood, part white. So I guess their thinking was that if they "mixed it up" in the woodwork department it would look like it was intentional... WRONG! All it did was look disjointed and made the rooms seem smaller and drew the ceilings down.




Every single day I looked at it and hated it. You know how that is. You hate something, but you just don't take the time and effort to fix it? Well, that's what I did for 6 stupid years, until I just took the plunge, grabbed the paint can and went to work.














It was one of those "V-8" moments where you slap yourself on the head and say "Why didn't I do that 6 years ago?"

You may not be able to tell alot of difference, but believe me, it looks sssooooooo much better, higher ceilings, bigger room, cleaner. Yeah, finally!



Hope you have fun with some "befores and afters"!

Debra

Monday, September 7, 2009

Junkin' Monday

This hasn't been a very good week for Junk around my place. We stuck pretty close to home this weekend... didn't hit our usual haunts. I found a few things early in the week, but I added a few things that I hadn't shown yet from last week. The mirror below is really pretty. It has great pewter-y color paint. You don't see too many old mirrors with that finish, usually they are gold-toned.










I love these little glass boxes, not particularly old,
but so many possibilities to display with them.



Old black scales could be used in a neat Halloween display.
I need to put on my creative thinking cap.



Old marble mortar bowl.



An old briefcase with initials.





C.B.S.


wicker picnic basket





Old green birdcage, that I may use for a Christmas display.




Some great vintage woodsy-cabin prints.

One of our dreams is to have a cottage/cabin at the lake
filled with woodsy furniture and camp style goods.













A great luncheon tablecloth in fall colors
and a stack of old books.




After buying several things from this one vendor,
he asked me if I liked old books, when I said yes he just gave me this stack.
He said, "All this stuff has to go. I could not stand to throw away a book."


This is an old Bible




This makes me want to set a sweet lunch spot for the sunroom.




I'm joining Clara and Marcela over at

Be sure to check out their blog for more participants.




Have a great Labor Day!

Debra