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Wednesday, December 21, 2016

A White Christmas

For the last couple of years I have been doing a white Christmas tree, it has taken preference over my other color schemes I have used in the past.  Don't get me wrong, I still love my pink themed tree of the past, and my red and gold themed tree, but right now the all white, creams, and crystals capture my heart. 

Two years ago I purchased a snow flocked tree, I just love it compaired to my solid green trees of the past, there is just something magical about the wintery white snow tips on the tree.  It makes a bit of a mess when setting it up and taking it down, but it's worth it.
Sorry it is not a full length photo, I could not stand back far enough with the tripod to get the full view, but I'll post a few photos of the sections of the tree.

I used white poinsettas, santas, and birds as the "character" theme.  Along with that,  just simple white, and clear glass Christmas balls, cream grapes, icicles, crystal and sprigs of glitter laden picks.

The best thing about all using a white and cream color base is that they make an excellent start for when I decide to add in a color or many colors depending on what color theme one would want to use.  My daughter has decorated her tree similarly, but has just added in blue ornaments to the white, and it makes a striking tree.


I love doing garlands, they are just so graceful looking and add a festive look to my fireplace.


I love these large white birds I found at Pier 1.  I only bought 3, one for the top of the tree and the other two grace each end of the garland.




 There are also white and silver butterflies added to the tree and garland.


I love these little white and pinecone birds too.



I just can't resist my Santas, I have to add them to every tree I do.


This is a sneak peek at my coffee table sparkle display.  Ah, my mercury trees that I bought years ago. I bought 6 in varying sizes, I think they go perfectly anywhere in most decors.  This year I added some gems to the trees.  I just love how the gems sparkle on the tree.   Right next to the mercury tree are a few other different trees added to my forest of glamour.   


Just a few close up photos of some of my ornaments on my Christmas tree.






I'll try too add in more shots of the coffee table and my dining room table in the next day or two.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

I'm back.......................

  You may reeling back on your chair from disbelief, yes, I know I am.  I'm starting to post again.


 Please don't judge me on my new header, the table setting is not complete (just a quick snapshot with my phone), doesn't fit correctly in the space, the digital quality is REALLY bad, but I have to practice on something.  Did I mention that I am NOT techie?


   I really have missed being on blogger and sharing what I enjoy so much with you and especially connecting with you.  Unfortunately, I am still so far behind the times (as usual) when it comes to the techy stuff on doing web pages.   I'm still struggling with Facebook, its pretty embarrassing when most 10 years olds have it down to perfection.  So bear with me while I try to figure out all these blogger techy things again.


  The new header will give you an idea of the different direction that I am going, color and theme wise in my house.  It's a happy and exciting time for me, leaving a bit of the past behind and looking forward to the future.


Hugs to all of you that have visited my stalled website, literally for years!  Thank you for all the concerned emails and emails of lovely support.


Judy

Friday, May 17, 2013

Better late than never....

Yes, you are seeing correctly, a photo of my 2012 Christmas tablesetting. why am I posting this now?   Well it's a bit of a long story. Late in Dec. of 2011 I was told my cancer had returned/traveled and had appeared in my lung.  So I went through chemo and surgery to remove part of my lung. I had quite a few set-backs during this time, but I am happy to say I am getting my strength back. So I thought I would post one of the only happy pictures from that year. My setup for Christmas dinner the next day. (you can see my little box of decorating goodies on the chair from me putting it together).
I was still in recovery, and did not feel like taking too many pics and I certainly needed some more fine tuning for the decor, but I was a bit spent from just doing what I did.   Luckily I got this shot and wanted to share with you now.

Of course before the meal was served the flower centerpiece was removed to another spot. I forgot to take a pic of the gifts that I placed under the glass domes. Anyway, before the meal after they got their gifts, the domes were removed too.   I am still in the remodeling process with the rest of the house.  I will be posting a few to show how far I got until my little "interruption".

Monday, December 26, 2011

Elegant Lady Tablesetting, and a Pink, white and silver Christmas Tree

Hi all, I hope you all had a great Christmas, I sure did with my family.
I am joining up with Tablescape Thursday at Between Naps on the Porch make sure and visit her to view everyones designs.

My tablesetting color theme this year is pale green (platters, ribbon,greenery etc), snow white dishes, silver, pearls, and crystal.




Closeup shot of placesetting.


Pink tree, I didn't do as much this year, I had gone thru a bunch of medical tests and well, it just wore me out.


Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Living room, dining room and kitchen remodel

For those of you who still check in on me and leave me comments, thank you! I know, I haven’t posted for AGES! Due to computer issues (which I still have), my laptop got a raging virus, and well, it’s dead, but libraries do work out for occasional posts. But, I do want to share what I have been doing with my time.

It has been slow finding the right person for the construction part and money, yep, it’s always about the money, with labor mostly being the highest cost…... The cost of the drywall, the 2x4s, small electrical parts/wire etc. is minimal. The cost of the flooring will be painful, basically the whole house floor needs replacing. I am hoping the type of styling that I plan on will be what will set it off to give it the updated finished look that I want.

A little history on my decision to remodel…

A year ago, on a sudden epiphany I decided to take my small parameter of control that I have over my life and live for what makes me happy now. I decided to go against ALL conventional wisdom and changed my three bedroom home to a two bedroom home. Ow! I can hear gnashing of the teeth, sighs of disbelief that I have committed one of the cardinal sins against real-estate resale.. But, the way I see it is that I have no plans on ever selling my home ( I don’t have a crystal ball, but I just don’t see me moving..unless it’s to a more permanent place if you know what I mean.) My DD will get my home when I pass, and she can do what she wants with it, I figure she will still be one house ahead of the game.

Any hoo, I set about tearing down the wall that divides my old living room from the 3rd bedroom, and hey, while I was at it, I had also decided I could no longer stand the 10ft x 7.5ft kitchen that I have suffered in for 12 years, so 3 walls came down there too. What a difference! The peace and happiness was immediate and so very satisfying.
Not. One. Ounce. Of. Regret.

My plan:
Turn the 3rd bedroom into living room. (90% done) needs flooring and crown molding.
Turn old living room into a dining room (50%) done) I still have flooring, the back wall and ponywall/column to do.
Turn the old dining room into a much larger kitchen addition. (well… the walls are down sigh…)
I am also gaining a foyer of sorts, before company just “landed” in living room, I really hated that, now the living room is behind the entry door and ponywall/column, so some division and privacy is maintained.

Disclaimer, this MESS is NOT how I normally decorate, I had all the contents of the living room, dining room and the bedroom moved, shoved, anywhere I could put it in order to do the tear down. And, no, it was not easy to live with, but I had a vision, or perhaps it’s really called blindness. It would have probably driven anyone else nuts, but since this is something that meant so much to me, I managed to overlook the chaos, but I am very glad that it is more ordered now.

These next 2 photos are of the entry and the living room are NOT mine, they are from a MLS posting of another house that was built exactly like mine just so you can get an idea of where I started.



This is what the dividing wall between the original living room and a very tiny bedroom.  I remodeled the wall right after I moved in so that I would be able to recess my tv and not have it stick out into the walkway. I also added 2 lighted niches (the secetary hutch is blocking one of the niches in this photo.)

I ripped out the walls myself, it fit my pocketbook (free), and it was very satisfying to take out all of my frustrations out on the walls.  I highly recommend tearing out walls yourself, it burns calories and stress and is cheaper than a shrink. ;)  

The electrical and first part of the build was handled by someone I hired, and then fired pretty quickly, but that is another tale.

Photo looking in the direction of the entry and windows of what was the old living room, now to be the dining room.

Below is the start of my tear down, I put up the plastic paper to keep down some of the dust and debri that would come out from the bedroom during the knockdown. If you are going to live in a tear down, it is really worth the prep of trying to keep down the drywall dust.

Next photo shows me working from the inside the bedroom tearing out the wall leading to the new foyer and new dining room, you can see the mess it makes!
Moving right along:

Looking into the old dining room and the walls that will be coming down in the kitchen. (I had to stuff the LR furniture where the dining room furniture used to be in order to start my tear down.

Photo from MLS listing of the kitchen (remember this is not my exact kitchen, it is same house as mine, but another listing, one difference is that this kitchen has a dishwasher, my kitchen does NOT, and mine has the washing machine in it-HORRIBLE!  The original kitchen was about 10ft x 8 1/2ft.  So tiny!

Ah, what a difference with the walls to the kitchen being down.  Looking into my future LARGE kitchen after the walls were torn down, you can see my "pretend" island, I placed it approximately where my future island will be. I had to tear down the horrible fake tile board that was in the kitchen before. I will probably do a faux country french type of wall treatment in there until I can do the major fixing in there. (the exercise equipment sitting in the DR is long gone) LOL A new wall is planned to be put up to divide the DR and the kitchen in the future. The new wall will enable me to have floor to ceiling cabinets for all the storage of my smaller kitchen applicances and my extensive collection of dishes.

Looking into the new living room...I moved the living room furniture in to see how I wanted to set it up (plus, I was still living there so it had to be somewhat functional for me inbetween building spurts. There is still lots of teardown and building to do.

Pony walls and columns, dividing the entry from the livingroom and dining room. The back wall, and the old bedroom door still need to be removed and drywalled over.

Stay tuned....more coming