Distractions…

I have a lot of photos from the tulip fields to share with you but right now I’ve been thrown into a world of clamor.

Big trucks, scraping and hammering and danger all around. Well…the danger part is mostly me and how I feel about men walking around on steep roofs or climbing up tall ladders.

When things are removed, new things are revealed. Here’s Dear painting the fascia underneath the old gutters that we realized were just bare wood and never painted. I got to hold the ladder, except for when I was taking a photo. Now when the new gutters go up the wood will be more protected.

We’re real thankful that the roofers have gotten some periods of dryness so that things aren’t as slippery as they could be.

Soon the mayhem will be over, my checkbook will be drained, and I’ll post more tulip photos.

Before and After ~ Guest Room #2

This used to be our daughter Katie’s room before she got married and moved to North Carolina. We decided to re-decorate it making it into our second guest room. I’ve promised too show the process and results.

We started moving things around and moved some things out. We took our queen poster bed out of storage and bought new queen size mattresses to set it up. I had the quilt in the cupboard and since the colors of the walls in this room were blue and yellow we decided to decorate around the quilt. I bought a bed skirt, sheets, and quilted shams to complete the bed and moved the blue pillow from our other guest room. The white pillow shams were a steal at Goodwill in perfect shape for $1.99 each. The short bookcases went up into our master bedroom.

The bedside tables were part of the Queen Anne poster bed set that we purchased in the late 70’s. We moved the lamps from our master bedroom to this room. We washed the windows…oh so wonderful and crystal clear.

We brought in the two taller bookshelves that we moved from our condo in California. Next we started measuring and leveling for wall art. We switched this small desk with our larger home office work desk. We put this small desk in the other guest room which really opened up the space in there, too. We put the mirror in a horizontal position.

We aren’t interior decorators. Our decor has always worked around our comfort and re-purposing what we already have. Every now and again we buy something new that will work in with what we already have.

We moved more framed photos and art into the room from other rooms and storage.

We really are enjoying the new updated room and are looking forward to wedding company using the new space.

Katie arrives tonight for the 3 weeks we have till the wedding. We’ll be taking care of all the last minute details. I’m relaxing today because I know I’ll have very little time to sit around in the next 21 days.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend and that you have a good week ahead of you. I’m saving my President’s Day Post for after President Washington’s birthday because Katie, my friend Beth and I are going to High Tea at the George Washington Inn in Sequim to celebrate and I’ll be sharing photos from our time there later in the week.

I’m linking up with Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday and I might link up with Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphasis Monday.

The New Look…

…in our Living Room and entry area. Since I’m not showing you before photos you are just going to have to trust me that we moved some pieces around. Katie will be able to tell the difference from North Carolina!

We moved the piano next to the bookcases and under our old mirror.

The piano used to be where that library table with photographs on top is now. That antique white cabinet was not in that corner before. It used to be where this painting is in the area between the kitchen entry and Katie’s room.

As you can see our stuff is a mish mosh of styles and colors. We’ve been talking about staining this cabinet for years and always wondered why Dear’s dad antiqued it white.

We took a big heavy T.V. off this sofa table to Goodwill on Monday. Boy was it hard to get it into the car. I’m pleased to have it gone. It used to sit where the stereo equipment is now. I’m going to work on something to cover up the cords, etc. I can see that we’ll need to lower that painting a bit now that the T.V. is gone.

It would be nice if the white antique cabinet matched the secretary on the other side of the sofa.

Katie’s door is shut because that’s the room we are now working on to convert it into a second guest room. It will be after the wedding that the room will be ready because there are pieces of Katie’s furniture that she and Andrew hope to haul across the country. It is also on the master list to replace all the flooring in this old house. We are planning on wood floors in the entry, hall, and kitchen. We will re- install carpeting in the actual living room area. We’ve learned over the last several years what areas are heavy traffic and dirt areas so that’s where the wood floors will go.

Here’s our decorating ~~downfall~~ secret…we don’t decorate from scratch. I don’t think we’ve ever decorated a room from scratch. We’ve always had “hand me downs” that we’ve worked around. It really is a stretch to call it decorating. But it’s always been comfortable for us. Eclectic or Mama’s old stuff is another label you can put on it. For the record, I’m not complaining, I’m happy in our space. I hope you are comfortable in your space, too.

We are pleased with the changes we’ve made and feel it has really opened up the space.

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!

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!

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!

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!

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Category Archives: Before and After