Category Archives: Before and After

You Asked For It!

My Metamorphosis…

From gray roots to covered up with subtle highlights and not so subtle new identity. Meet the new Ellen b. Elle Kadriya!

 

It’s amazing what covering up your gray can do! I might have mislead some of you into thinking I was going in for a real change with my hair. I am a hair wimp. I can’t handle anything too fancy so it will be the classic bob for me until I die. I might be real bold and go a little lighter in highlights for the wedding next year…time will tell.

Today is a day off for me. That might sound funny since I’m pretty much retired. Even when you don’t have a job outside the home there are weekly schedules you are committed to. So when I say day off I mean I have no commitments on the calendar today. It feels refreshing just thinking about it. What are you doing today?

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

A Little Sleep, A Little Slumber…

Why is it that some lessons have to be learned over and over again. You would think in my many years I’d learn that moaning about a task, over thinking a task, avoiding a task is not the way to success and peace. We decided months ago that we would have a garage sale on Memorial weekend. We’ve set things aside for those months leading up to Saturday. So today I moaned and groaned and avoided the task of organizing the stuff. And then I reflected on my laziness and put on my grubbies and headed out to the shop.

 

All these bags and boxes of stuff started out looking like this but within a couple hours things started to look real organized.

 

I had to chide myself again that it’s better to put one foot in front of the other and get moving and do something instead of sitting on my duff moaning and complaining about the job.

Proverbs 24:30-34 (Contemporary English Version)

30I once walked by the field

and the vineyard

of a lazy fool.

31Thorns and weeds

were everywhere,

and the stone wall

had fallen down.

32When I saw this,

it taught me a lesson:

33Sleep a little. Doze a little.

Fold your hands

and twiddle your thumbs.

34Suddenly poverty hits you

and everything is gone!

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

It’s So Great…

…when your husband was a former master painter…

In a day he transformed this…

into this…

And now we have a proper guest room ready for company.

With the lighting in this room it was hard to get the real color of the walls in the photos. The color is called Grass Cloth. We had this bedroom set from the condo and had to find a place for it in our home in Washington. I wasn’t willing to buy new bedding so Dear changed the wall color to something that would work with the bedding. My desk still fits in the room and it works as our office when we don’t have overnight guests.

The desk had to be moved to the opposite wall. I even tidied it up so it wouldn’t be such a eyesore in this transformed space…

Thank you Dear for your hard work!

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

Progress and Coyotes…

It’s Thursday morning and the sun is shining right now but we have a small system moving through later. I wanted to show you some photos of our attic now that I have everything back up there.

Lots of stuff but we still have half the floor space up there vacant…she pats herself on the back.

On to our outdoor progress…

These are before and after looks at the side yard.

Yesterday the gravel and the concrete blocks arrived. After the gravel was delivered I headed out for a walk.

I took a new route today heading straight down a very busy street so I could photograph some unusual yard art that I’ll show next Thursday. After photographing I headed back up the hill and spotted something I wasn’t thrilled about…

This coyote was across the street looking at me. Yikes! Thankfully the traffic was very busy and he couldn’t make it across the street until I was well past him.

Looking back he’s still waiting for a good opportunity to cross…

I’ve got to say that this is my preferred sighting on any given day! A pretty Robin doesn’t make me nervous.

Back at the homestead the big boulders have been moved and set in their new home. We’ll clean up around them later.

The block arrived and the wall is going in at a good pace. We should see a lot of progress today.

Hope your Thursday goes well for you!

Metamorphosis Monday ~ Window Coverings

 

The Before: The strings in our pull up blinds were giving out and we needed to come up with something to replace them. Off to the Home Depot to see what was available off the rack in the right size. We decided on some wood Faux blinds…

 

The In Between: Dear was able to install them and shorten them to fit our windows. He’s such a handy guy. We needed to remove 3 slats.

 

The After: We are happy with the result. The drapes we have are darkening drapes so we can block out more of the light when we need to. I like the fact that we can get airflow without pulling the blinds up…

To see more Met Monday visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Metamorphosis Monday ~ Lawn

It’s time for Metamorphosis Monday hosted by Susan at Between Naps on the Porch.

Dear and I were at our home in Seattle for the last 10 days celebrating Easter with our kids and getting some things done around the house. While we were there it was time for the first mowing after the Winter lull in grass growth. So I’m showing the before and after shots that I took.

 

Don’t you just love the look and smell of a freshly mowed grass?! OK, Ok, truth be told we really can’t call this a lawn, it’s mostly moss and dandelions but all 1/3 acres of it is ours. Hopefully some day we can tear it all out and re-seed…

 

Dear and I are just back to our Condo in Southern California. We had some interesting flight challenges that put us in 2-1/2 hours later than we expected. Now I’ve got to replace my Seattle brain with my Southern California brain! Ejola!

To see some really great metamorphosis visit the lovely Susan at Between Naps on the Porch!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Metamorphosis/Blue Monday ~ Master Bedding

This week I’m combining Metamorphosis Monday with Blue Monday. Our bedding in our Master Bedroom was getting very tired looking and we found a pattern that both Dear and I could live with. Since the new bedding is mostly blue and green it made perfect sense to combine our two Monday events. I appreciate Susan at Between Naps on the Porch and Sally at Smiling Sally for their gracious hosting of these fun events each week.

Before…

A buttery yellow duvet cover and slightly lighter dust ruffle. Green and yellow accent pillows.

After….

When I first started looking for a new fresh look I was really discouraged at what I found especially the prices. I just couldn’t justify spending $249.00 for a Duvet set. We found this April Cornell Duvet Cover with two shams at Home Goods for $34.95. Now that’s what I’m talking about! Then at a different HomeGoods I found an April Cornell green sheet set with pillowcases for $29.95. The dust ruffle was $14.95.

Now I was on the search for some throw pillows to finish off the look. Again I couldn’t justify spending $20.00 to $50.00 a pillow. On Friday I made a special trip to the Ventura Main Street Thrift stores and was so excited to find these three pillows, 2 blue, and one green for $4.95 each. It was like they were just sitting there on the shelf waiting for me.

 

 

We’re enjoying our new fresh looking Master bedding.

To see more Met Monday visit Susan here and to see more Blue Monday visit Sally here.

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Metamorphosis Monday ~ Bathroom

Our Metamorphosis this week is all about the bathroom. We have one bathroom in our Condo. The sink area is separate from the shower and toilet. There are no cabinets in the shower/toilet area. We decided the space above the toilet could be used to our advantage for some more storage.

Here’s what the wall above and around the toilet looked like before. (It is very hard to get good photos in this small space)

Here is Dear at the beginning of the project. We bought this upper Kitchen Cabinet from the Home Depot. It is part of their standard stock items.

It fits and is ready to add the shelves and the doors. We get three shelves of space in this new cabinet.

The doors are on but we’re thinking we need some hardware to make it easier to open the cupboard.

Now we’re getting there. We decide at this point a little shelf would be nice to tie this space together better.

We found a shelf and started experimenting with decor to add to the shelf. Attempt #1…something is not right.

Attempt #2 after finding these 3 matching plates at the Goodwill for $3.00.

I like this look a lot better than attempt #1.

While we were at it we decided these green towels really didn’t go with our wall color.  Truth be told I do not like to dry myself with a towel that has a large decorative pattern on it that is not terry cloth. So we switched out the fancier towels for plain white towels and I like the look a lot better especially now that we have the white cabinet and shelf added.

Susan At Between Naps on the Porch is the hostess for this weekly Metamorphosis Monday. Head on over and see lots of before and afters. Enjoy your Monday everyone.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Metamorphosis Monday ~ My Pear Tree

For my Met Monday this week I am at my home in the state of Washington. Usually I’m at my condo in Southern California. My before and after project was completed today during a short period of time while the rain was not falling here. I’m not a gardener by any means but my Pear Tree really was in need of a pruning. All I know about pruning a tree is that branches that grow straight up are the ones to go after. (I sure hope that’s true). So here is my pear tree with all those unsightly branches that are growing straight up…

 

I got the trusty pruning tools out of the garage and started to work all by myself…

 

Here is the result after about an hour and a half. And this next collage shows the before and after from the same angle.

I hope I didn’t kill it. Time will tell.

To see more Metamorphosis click over to Susan’s at Between Naps on the Porch.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Metamorphosis Monday With Blue ~

For this weeks Monday Posts I’m combining Met with Blue. Susan at Between Naps on the Porch and Sally at Smiling Sally are the hostesses of these two weekly events. Met Monday is all about transformations, before and afters. Blue Monday is anything Blue.

We have been on the lookout for some bookcases to replace a small folding one we’ve been using between our living room and dining room. We wanted to add some width and height to the space. On Valentine’s day we found the bookcases at Target and Dear put them together.

 

 

 

Both Dear and I think this space has a more “grown-up” look now instead of college dorm.

 

 

Some closer shots of the shelves where I can put some of my china, too. See the blue :0)?

 

The photos in this frame got a “Met” job too. I purchased mats and shuffled the photos. These are our children. I really like the transformation with the added black mats.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today. Have a great week.

For more Metamorphosis Monday visit Susan here.  For more Blue Monday visit Sally here.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.