Excited about Spring

Hello my friends! While wondering through Hobby Lobby the

other day I was so excited to see all of the colors and patterns

they have out for the Spring. I had my point and shoot camera in

my purse and managed to get some quick pics before the battery

died. You know when the battery light is blinking...low battery

and you are praying, "no, please one more picture" or is this just

me?  

Love quatrefoil pattern and bold colors.

Utensils in any color and they have the plastic

cups and bowls that are similar to IKEA's.

Beautiful shades of blue, it draws me in.

Polka dots are all the rage this year and animal prints

are always hot. 

If these boots were "real" I would buy them, but wouldn't 

these look awesome with some spring flowers planted in them?

I'm inspired, are you? I know we aren't suppose to wish time away, but 

there is something special about the change of seasons.

I was not compensated by Hobby Lobby for this post, it is strictly my opinion.

Simple Friday's: Room tours

Can I preference these room tours with saying this "I haven't done anything with

these rooms I'm about to show you, but things are going to change"....

Sorry had to take the pictures with flash,  sorry it was gloomy today

Our front room, formal sitting room, or like we call it the piano room. 

We bought our very old 1920's baby grand piano because hubby 

played when he was younger and wanted to pick it back up. As you
can see it takes up the majority of the space in the room. We thought about
selling it, but now our 9 year old is taking piano lessons, so yeah.
I want this room is look appealing and not formal like you imagine when
someone has a baby grand. Do you know what I mean? However, it
 still needs to be functional/usable for our family...help!!  Any ideas?

The front bay window is hardly used, but has so much 

potential. Pinterest here I come!

 We had an old over sized stuffed chair in here, but hubby brought up this 

love seat(not my favorite) from the basement when we purchased
our new living room.furniture. The biggest challenge I have is the traffic
pattern through the room. I've we've moved the piano every which way
imaginable. I've even thought about moving it into the dining room and
switching up both of the rooms. Problem with doing that is there is no
over head lighting in the piano room to go over the table.

Here are some of my ideas for this room 

1.  New Paint, however this room runs into the foyer, down the front hall, and up the stairs...big job!

2.  Can you say texture and color, with pillows, art work, and maybe a rug...something

3.  New lighting and more of it, again there's no over head lighting in the room. Plug any lamp into the bottom plug and "presto" you have light...who thought of this?

4.  Maybe a stencil on the wall?? 

Ready for the next room? The dining room  

Our dining room is used once a year at Christmas, no kidding. The other

364 days it's used as a catch all room. Hubby stores his planner, laptop, and

all of the mail eventually gets thrown on the table. This room needs
so much work, it's making me tired just looking at it. Can I just
start completely over and ripe everything out?

First thing I would do is get rid of the oak, ugh!....maybe this
should be an office/craft room for mom.

Our china hutch was given to us by my hubby's

parents and has been in the family for over 100 years. 

The glass is still original, can you believe it?  

This is a precious piece to us and hope to someday pass
it down to one of our girls. 

My mom gave me her china that my dad had given her when he was in

military. I did some research and it's still available.

It really is a beautiful gray with white and black flowers and a

shame we don't use it. Perhaps we would if we used our room

like it's suppose to be used. 

I'll share my ideas with you on my dining room later...sometimes you

just don't want to deal with it and that's where I am right now.

Kitchen lighting reveal

I'm sure you had to of known what I was going to do with my 

overhead lighting in my kitchen, maybe? 

If not, here are some of the options I have been trying out. I couldn't

resist using the beautiful fabric I found at Hancock Fabrics. 

Since the lighting was above the sink I had a clear view of the underneath

and I had to cover it too. It's not perfect by no means, but it's covered and I am 

okay with it. It's not very easy to measure the inside and get it just right. 

Step by step directions: 

1.  Trace a pattern of the lamp shade and cut it out. Add an extra 1"-1 1/2" to it to allow for folding the fabric over the top and bottom of the shade.

2.  Turn your fabric over with the good side facing down and place your pattern on the fabric. Trace around the pattern.

3.  You should be able to see the lines for an accurate cut.

4.  Once it's cut you can start working with it and wrapping the fabric around the shade. You want to make sure there's enough fabric on the top and bottom.

5.  You still with me?? 

6.  Time to glue, I used spray adhesive glue and slowly worked my way around the shade. Be sure to glue it on in small sections to alleviate wrinkles and smooth the fabric out as you go. It does go on easy, but it comes off too if you make a mistake AND I did.

7.  After the fabric is glued on and set, I used a glue gun for the rest the project. Fold over the extra fabric on the top and bottom and glue it over the edges. Again it's not perfect, but adding the fabric to the inside helped cover up my mistakes.

8.  FYI...I used my scissors to cut a small slit for the fabric to fit over the wires. 

9.   Finally I measured the best I could and glued the fabric inside of the shade. I folded the edges over for a cleaner look and I think it made a big difference. Voila your done! 

All lit up and I really like love how it turned out even with the drum

upside down. 

Joining At the Picket Fence
Funky Junk Interiors
Tatertots and Jello
Simply Klassic Home

Simple Friday's: Kitchen Lighting

Hello friends! Can I just say I am happy it's Friday...how about you?  Any big plans?

Well I've been tinkering in the kitchen these past couple of days with the overhead

lighting over the kitchen sink.  I've had my eye on these recessed lighting conversion kits 

in the Ballard Design catalogs, but the price kept me from ordering.  

However, I've seen a couple blogs recently who have used this kit from 

Lowe's for $20.00 so off to Lowe's I went.    

The kit was easy to assemble, but did have a little help 

from hubby, thanks!

Before: plain recessed light, boring...sorry I took the picture 

after I took the light out. I was a little excited to get started.

Ok, here's the story. I had my heart set on using a 

drum shade, but to be able to use this one I had to turn it upside

down. The reason why is the light bulb, it sticks out and is over

powering. With flipping it over the light bulb still shows somewhat, 

but the light projects up. It really does provide great overhead lighting

we need and looks better than the recessed light we had.  

Hubby gave it two thumbs up, SCORE! 

Then I got to thinking, maybe I should try a pendant light like they

suggest on the package. Went  back to Lowe's and of course I like

the most expensive one $14. I brought it home, put it up right away, and 

there you go...I'm just not feeling it.

Now we're talking, look at that fabric. I picked this up 

the other day at Hancock Fabric's for 50% off. Love a sale!

 My thoughts were to use this on my drum shade, humm...... 

source

Pure inspiration!

source

Can you say love?

Which one do you like, would love to hear from you...

I'll be back soon with the new overhead lighting!! 

Free Valentine Subway Art

Thought I would share some free Valentine subway art today since we are

right in the middle of winter and spring.

Check out The Daily Dye for a free download of her art.

source

Here's one more for you from Homemakin-Decoratin 

I'll be back soon, I'm working in the kitchen today...on some lighting

Living Room Update

Ok, here it is...our new living room furniture

 

   No not this one, this is our old leather couch sitting in the dining room,
just waiting for a ride up north....

Our big plan was to move the "old" furniture to the basement to the Man Cave, but those
plans backfired.  The puffy couch wouldn't fit down the stairs so we had to go to plan B. 
Hubby solicited on Facebook about getting rid of the couch and the first person
to reply could have it for FREE, but you have to come get it.  Yes, I said freeeee....it felt
good too. His sister quickly chimed in and said "we'll take it". They came and picked it up 
and we were so happy to keep it in the family. Score! 

Can you say love?  I do love everything about it; color, clean lines, comfortable, and my feet touch the ground when I sit on it.  You have to know what I am talking about when you try out new furniture and it just doesn't fit your legs properly. 

 

This was the matching chair with the couch and just loved the pattern.  Hubby was adamant on this chair.  It was a little more expensive than I would have liked, but he talked me into it and it did match.  It too is so comfortable and over sized, perfect for snuggling into with a good book. 

You know who's chair this is, don't ya?  Hubby's! 

While we were shopping I really wanted to get two different chairs instead of a love seat.  Have you ever priced love seats?  They are only $90 to $100 dollars less than the price of a couch.  If you have the room you might as well get two couches for the money, right?  So this recliner was on sale and was the last one because I guess the manufacturer had gone out of business. Hubby sat in it, reclined it, took a nap and was happy to report it met his standards.  Mind you he's 6'3" and it's challenging at times to find a recliner to fit him.  The color is a rich brown and went well with the rest of the pieces.       

Now all I need is some color in there, any ideas you want to share...I would love to hear them

Giveway Winner is...

Just a quick shout out to announce the winner of the $25.00 

Pottery Barn Gift card here at Our Blue Front Door...

The drawing was done at Random.org and the winning number was

23

Congratulations to Lauren@BaylorSays!  I am so excited for you and can't

wait to hear about what your plans are for the gift card.

A huge "Thank you" to everyone who entered my first giveaway. It was a 

blast and I'm looking forward to doing more in the future.  

  

Winter Mantel in 2012

 Well I am not sure about you but I have been struggling with how to

decorate my mantel after the holidays. I wanted so badly to skip

winter and move right into Spring, but it's not Spring even though it feels

like it outside. Reality check here, it's early January and

we are right in the middle of winter.   

Tried to keep it simple.  I bought this round mirror after Christmas

at Hobby Lobby, it was not cheap but did get it for 50% off.  Besides,

I can use this mirror all over the house, right?  Justification here...

(notice the hour glass...waiting on Spring)

As I looked through all of my pictures I could not find a

single picture of "winter" or snow without a child in it.  I goggled

winter pictures and came across Shutterstock and found some

of the most beautiful pictures.  I found this picture with the park bench,

 snow packed tress, and a brilliant blue sky. Perfect!  Just what I was

looking for.

I still needed to fill some of the space so I brought out my lattice chalkboard.

I found a quote here, it's not winterish but does mention wind.  It's done and
I love how it turned out and before you know it, it will be Spring. 

I'll be back soon with a sneak peak of our new living room furniture and a winner

of the $25 Pottery Barn gift card..... 


Joining 52 Mantels
At the Picket Fence

Simple Friday's: Living Rooms

Welcome, it's Friday and I'm happy to be back with my series called Simple Friday's.

If you are new here at OBFD, thanks for stopping by.  Today my inspiration are these beautiful living rooms and the pops of color, pattern, and overall design.  Ok, ok I'll tell you more, we went out on New Year's day and bought new living room furniture. There you have it, I'm super excited and what a better place to look for new ideas then on Pinterest. Right?
    Thanks Pinterest I love you!

Source: ih6.ggpht.com via Andrea via Pinterest

Source: houseoftourquoise via Andrea via Pinterest

Source: janiemolster.com via Andrea via Pinterest,  just love the curtains.

For now I am working diligently in my living room with my new furniture, my floorplan, and accessorizing now that the holidays are over.  I will be back soon to show you some before and after pics and the progress I'm making.  Until then have a great weekend!

***Don't forget to enter my first giveaway, a chance to win a $25.00 Pottery Barn gift card, entries
close on Saturday, January 7th at 12:00am CST...there are 4 ways to win.