Long weekend

So I have a long weekend, five days off --- lucky me.  I have a lot that I want to get done.  I am pretty much done with the den - hope to get Steph over to take some pictures this weekend.  Anita and I have been rearranging the living room, what a waste of space to have a living room and a den but my house was built in 1950 and they had big rooms like that back then.  No one ever sits in there but maybe once I add some TLC to the room, I can create a reading corner and actually use the room.  I am most anxious to get my kitchen done since I spend a lot of time in there but I have to wait for warmer weather.  I plan to take all of the cabinet doors off and outside they will go to be sanded and sanded and sanded some more.  They probably have 5 or 6 coats of oil paint on them plus I tried painting over them with latex paint when I moved here and the oil paint is bleeding through.  They not only look horrible but they are several different shades of white.  That will be a hue undertaking and I will need a lot of help.  I have 25 cabinet doors and 13 drawers.  I will definitely be hitting up my friends for some help with that in a couple of months.  I am using the blue-green Mason jars and birds in there, sounds odd together but it will look good when I am done.  I have lots of shelves to fill.  I am trying to find a farm table, I have been looking for several months but have not found what I want yet.  I have my favorite thrift store that I go to pretty much every weekend .... today they had once that would have been great but it was a funky color and had these ugly painted flowers on it so it would have entailed stripping and sanding to to make it work, plus it is more than I have put aside for a table.  Right now, my table and chairs is "retro" - I might have a picture of the kitchen as it is if you want to help me out with some ideas. 

The chairs are torn some but I might still be able to sell the set once I find another table.  I have 4 chairs already that Anita found ..... her neighbor had them outside at the road with his trash and she asked him if she could have them.  They are nice Windsor chairs that I plan to paint whatever color I use.  See the yellow on the shelves ... I do not like it at all.  I took the curtains down and have been collecting Mason jars so that is what I want to use on that shelf.  I need help with colors for the cabinets and wall space.

My new addiction ........ Chandeliers

I am working fast to get my craft room ready because I have so many great ideas that I picked up from Pinterest.com to make some cool decor from old chandeliers.  I have three now and visit the thrift store every weekend and when the weather warms up and I can start going to yard sales, I am going to buy as many as I can.  Who knows?  Maybe I will come up with something that is unique, all my own idea and sell them to make some money so I can buy even more.  Check out some of these ones that I found that I really like.  I have three to get started on so I must finish the den today so I can get into that spare room and have somewhere to put all of these things and the other junk that I keep bringing home.  I will have my "Girl Cave", I will, I will.

These are easy ones, just some spray paint and a few dangles.  Some of these others that I found are more intricate. 

And this one below is my favorite, not too difficult to make. I got the idea from another blogger .... she has some really cute ideas on her blog.  Reckless-Glamour.com

Can you tell I am excited?  I can't wait to make this one for my craft room and may make one for my daughter as one of these might look really cute in one of her rooms.  Oh, I love the internet, so many ideas but so little time ..... I plan to use this year to make time to do things like this.  I love creating things.  Happy Day.

Wow.....what a week.

Where did the time go?  I let almost a whole week go by without writing.  I am not so good at this and honestly I think I am doing this all wrong.  Nonetheless I was going to post more pictures of the den ... and though it is STILL not finished  : ( - it is almost done.

The fireplace ..... it is an old granite stone fireplace that was once used to burn wood I guess.  It is dingy and dirty looking and aside from using muratic acid I don't know how to clean it.  I have tried a brush and water but it still looks pretty bad to me .... but everyone else seems to like it.  Being married to a firefighter makes it a little difficult to do too much decorating over top because the gas logs get "too hot" and I understand but gee, I wish I could put something over the top there.  SO this is before .....

And here are a couple of after pictures.  I don't have the center done yet .... just a couple of sneak peeks.

The first one is not very clear.  But Anita and I just went on another scavenger hunt through my house looking for "stuff" to put on the shelf and when we didn't have enough, we went to our favorite thrift store.  I bought the little rocking horse which my daughter immediately called "creepy" but I thought it was adorable.  I guess it is all in the eye of the beholder as they say.  It really works, too .. .the music box works when you wind it up and it rocks.  Oh and the chandelier .... waiting on some pretty white candles.  And today I bought another one so now I have two more to use in my next decorating venture.  Hint, one of them will be white  and I am looking for crystals ..... very cute surprise for my dining room. 

I bought new curtains and slipcovers for my couch and loveseat.  I like the curtains but I hated the slipcovers.  So for now, we just threw an old one from my living room sofa on the couch and put a throw over the loveseat.  It is a bit vintage-shabby chic-coastal all in one.  What do you think?

TGIF ..... finally

Thank goodness it's Friday ... whoever came up with that phrase was on the money about the feeling this day brings to the work week.  I like my job even though the drive sucks (1.5 hrs/day) but it is nice to get a break.  I have not forgot about adding more pictures of my den ... I just can't seem to find the time to write on weeknights.  It will get easier as I go along but I still get flustered because I cannot figure this whole blogging thing out yet. 
Anyway, I hope to completely finish the room tomorrow because I need to paint .... it is therapeutic for me and keeps the joints moving.  Plus I just joined loseit.com which is an online weight loss program and I can work off some of my daily calories painting......up and down the ladder is a good exercise.  The program works like another popular online program in that you can eat whatever you want but you have to stay under your daily caloric intake.  When you join, you enter your current weight and your goal weight and you choose how fast you want to lose and it figures up how many calories you can have in a day.  You then add in what you eat and most every food you can think of is on there and you also add activities that you do .... I just joined yesterday but if I stick with the program, I will get to my goal weight by June.  It is not healthy to lose too much too fast.  Now if I can stay away from cupcakes and cookies I will be good .... or else I can eat two cupcakes a day and I would probably be done. I can have 1470 calories a day, that is not bad. 

Now for a few more den pictures .... as you look at these my goal is to have the room look coastal because I do like the beach (though I like the mountains MUCH better) and the room was already decorated nautical but it was a little boring.  It needed some personality and I think that Anita and I have managed to add that nicely.

As you know, I love thrift stores and yard sales and anything that is shabby chic.  Anita brought me a present the first day we painted ...... the perfect addition the the room to give it :the look" I was going for.  Check out this chair.  I love the chipped paint, the look of the beach and that is looks weathered.  Funny thing is that when my husband saw it, he was like "That is nice, it will look good once you sand it and paint it" ..... so not happening.  LOL 


I will post the rest of the pictures tomorrow.