September Acres

Well, hello there!  I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year.  It's hard to believe it is 2016, right?  Even weighing heavier on my mind is the fact that my daughter will be 14 next week. 14.  High school in 8 months. How did this happen?  Moms of younger kids: believe it when people tell you it goes fast.  So fast. Faster than you can imagine.  That, my friends, is an entire blog post. Today though,  let's talk about decorating for winter.  I finally got my Christmas decorations down. Oh, how I love that red and green and those sparkly lights.  Yes, I love it.  But after putting everything away I realized that I also  like that bare, sparse feeling and really considered not adding anything back.  I'm still thinking about it but who am I kidding? I've been perusing the web looking for inspiration for winter decorating.  You know, not quite Valentine's Day but no longer Christmas.  I love using...

Once our kids hit the school years most of us look for a quiet place for them to do homework.  As they get older homework takes longer and a designated homework spot makes sense for most of our little students. Some of us have the luxury of a separate room for a homework station.  Some of us only have the space for our kids to work at the dining room table.  Either way you can make the space workable for your family.  The more challenging scenario is the dining room table way.  How can this work on a daily basis? Keep the Dining Room Table Empty - It's hard to do anything at the dining room table if it's covered with mail and newspapers and who know's what else, right?  That's why it's so important to keep it clean . Turn off the TV - Keep the homework area quiet with no distractions from the TV. Have Supplies Close at Hand - Sharpened pencils, erasers, paper, crayons, glue.  Keep it all in a homework container so there's no excuse to get u...

I painted our front door.  I talked about doing it in this post .  And here is the end result: I used Valspar (Lowes) exterior paint with primer custom mixed to a Sherwin Williams color - Summit Grey. (Please excuse the command hooks on the glass-I am debating putting up another wreath and decided to keep them up until I make my decision - classy, yes?) I think I like the color with the house but part of me thinks I should have gone with a warmer grey to better complement the cream color (Sherwin Williams Muslin).  I think a little accessorizing will take care of that. Love how it works with the brushed nickel hardware. Many thanks to everyone who 'voted' on their favorite color! I'm linking up to Hooking Up with HoH @House of Hepworths,  Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest & Weekend Bloggy Reading at Serenity Now &  Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home..

Are you spending this weekend decking the halls?  Are you thinking of spicing things up with a new color scheme?  Or do you stick with the traditional red and green? I try to do something a little different each year without breaking the bank (of course).  Last year I went with a red and blue theme in our main living areas (family room, dining and kitchen). And pink and green in LM's room. Here are some other great ideas for this year's Christmas look: Source   Blues and Greens.  I love these colors so much. Source  Turquoise and Orange.  How fun is this?  It really creates an exciting and modern feeling. Source White and Brown.   The beauty of this color scheme is that it's easy to incorporate your regular decor into a clean Christmas look.  And it's very White Christmas-y too. What non-traditional color schemes have you used? 

I finished my fall mantel today.  I actually started it last week but it took awhile to get the inspiration since I am not ready to do Halloween yet so I wanted something that was fall-ish but not all witches and bats.  I am happy with how it turned out and plan to keep it like this until I'm ready to put up Halloween in mid-October. If you have read my blog for any time you know that our T.V. hangs over the fireplace.  I need to work my mantel decor around the T.V. to make sure that it is not blocked by anything (heaven forbid).  Since I finished the mantel today, the first Sunday of regular season NFL games, the T.V. has been on since early this morning making it a bit of a challenge to photograph my work.  These first two photos are an overview of what I did. And here are the closeups.  I did take a few pumpkins out of the Halloween bins to add a bit of fall.  I got the black and white harlequin pumpkin last year at Hobby L...

I am linking up to Show Us Your House @ Thrifty Decor Chick today.  Today's feature is family rooms.  There are some fabulous ones over there and I have oodles of ideas churning in my head. We have one family/living/great room in our house.  It's a decent size but I always like a formal living space (we've only had that once & I am sad to say that we used it for a pool table).  My husband says there's no need for a formal living room - I guess not if it houses a pool table! :) Our family room is to the left of our front door.  This is the view as you walk into the house.  I think the lighting is horrible in the room.  We have two large corner windows  & a tube skylight (hate it) over the red chair, so you'd think there would be plenty of light. It just always feel dark to me.  When I open the blinds it's too hot with the sun in the summer, although the winters aren't too bad. The view as you walk in from the front door....

I was going through some old blog posts looking for some pictures of my kitchen before we re-did it a few years back.  I came across this one and my first thought was "That's my old kitchen.  I can't believe I lived with it like that."  Isn't it funny how our taste evolves over the years? This is the before. Yuck. This is what it looks like now.  Cabinets painted, new counter tops, new back splash, under cabinet lighting (maybe it's just as well we didn't have that before).  Hard to believe it's the same room.  Here's the entire post on the backsplash reveal .  You'll notice the wall was brown, not yellow, before we put in the back splash.  We painted it after the cabinets were painted and the counter tops were replaced. I sure do like my new kitchen better.  You agree, don't you?

While my husband was out of town a while back I did some moving of furniture and other stuff in an effort to open things up in our house - specifically our bedroom on this mission.  I moved out a dresser and a love seat and moved my dresser to one of the open spots.  It's so nice to be able to move around better in this room.  When I was doing all of this I noticed that our mantel had become a hodge podge of all kinds of things.  All things I like and want to keep but didn't have a new home for.  I started here: With some editing I ended here: That waterfront print was in our room on a wall that housed the short dresser I moved into LM's room (are you still following me?)  When I moved my tall dresser to that wall, this print no longer worked there.  But I am loving it over the fireplace. I bought nothing new for this makeover.  I put away a lot and pulled a cute little frame out of the closet.  I love the transformation and...

I tackled my first re-upholstery project a couple of weeks ago.  It was really more like re-covering since it was super simple and no-sew.  I have to apologize for the poor quality of these photos.  They were taken on my phone.  I really need to get my camera out from now on. I have had this little bench for almost twenty years and the entire time it's been covered in this fabric.  I've never been in love with it but only recently did I decide I wanted to do something about it. I went to Hobby Lobby to look for some fabric.  I had something bright and geometric in mind.  But I don't always  hardly ever end up with what I have in mind.                                            This black, grey and brown circle print is what I ended up with.  My husband actually pointed it out saying he liked it so I decided to give...

I finally painted our guest bath over the weekend.  After much deliberation over which shade of grey to use  , I ended up with 'Silver Leaf' by Valspar.  It's a bit lighter than the 4 original shades I was considering but I really like how it turned out.  It's actually the same color my husband used for his work office.  There was quite a bit leftover from that so I decided to use it and hope for the best.  You know me, always looking for a chance to save $$$! It turned out to be a good decision. Here's a look at the finished room: I wasn't sure how this print, with it's green mat and frame, would look on the wall but it looks really nice.  Actually, it looks better in real life than in this picture.  The grey-ish white of the rocking chairs ties in with the wall color quite nicely. The galvanized, numbered pots work well with the grey walls. This little bath was the last room in the house to be painted.  No...