Something is finally finished!

I finally have something in the house finished that I can show y’all!  Introducing the entryway:

I bought the decal from Vinyl Lettering on Etsy.  I’ve put decals on walls before but this was probably the most difficult one I’ve ever done.  I think it was a combination of the orange peel texture on the wall and the delicate little strips of vinyl.  I lost my religion more than a few times trying to get this sucker up!  The crosses are all very heavy iron and other metals that I bought at various antique shops in Georgia, Alabama and here in Texas.  I plan on adding to the collection as I find others that tickle my fancy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On my trusty old Southern Living at Home tray sit a couple of factory thread spools.  West Georgia used to be a center for mills and textiles.  As developers in Columbus are now buying the old mills to use as urban lofts and shop space, they’ve found many of these old spools.  I bought these at Angel’s Antiques in Opelika, Alabama.  They appeal to me for their history, the homespun and, at the same time, industrial look to them and because I sew and grew up around sewing.  I also like that one of them still has thread on it.

 

 

This beautiful, rustic birdhouse was a purchase I made at Ft. Campbell, where my brother, sister-in-law and gorgeous niece live.  I love the doorknob perch. 

I picked the lampshade up at a shop in Columbus called Finds & Consigns.  I was about ready to chunk the lamps and go for something new until I found those lampshades.  Finds & Consigns is a great little shop that deals in furniture and home decor items.  I wish I’d found it sooner!  I only stumbled upon it about a month before we left.  If you’re in West Central Georgia or Eastern Alabama, definitely go check them out!

 

Round Top Summer Antique Show

The Round Top Summer Antique Show is this coming weekend.  We’ve been to Round Top before but have never been to one of the antique shows.  I know there are those of you out there who have been before…what do I need to know? 

Do I need to bring mostly cash or do vendors take credit cards? 

If I buy a large piece of furniture, do I have to take it immediately to load in the truck or will I be able to leave it to get before we leave?

Is there a good amount of furniture available, typically?

Are there any “can’t miss” booths that I absolutely have to see?

Do they sell food and drinks there or do I need to bring something with me?

If you have any other important info that you can share, I’d appreciate it!  I’m really excited about going.  I think my husband may wind up dropping me off and then taking our daughter on to College Station since he hasn’t been back to the “promised land” in over 2 years.

Does anyone else plan on attending?  Let me know, maybe we can meet up!

 

Use What You Have

When we moved into our old house on post in Georgia, I bought some little plates and a stand from Kirkland’s.  They worked in our old kitchen but I knew they wouldn’t work in our new kitchen once we moved.  I thought about taking them to Goodwill but I decided to hang on to them and see if and how I could transform them.

Here they are, shortly before I painted them.  Ask any of my eighth graders from this past school year…I HATE the font Comic Sans. Hate isn’t even a strong enough word…it should be eliminated from all MS programs!  (Apparently I’m not alone) 

I took my Valspar Porcelain White to them and banished all that evil Comic Sans.

Then I took some “Family” rub-ons from my old days as a scrapbooker and added some lovely words that mean a lot to us, put the plates back in the plate holder and hung it in the kitchen.

If you can’t read them, they say: “Love One Another”, “Family”, “Togetherness”, and “Cherish the Moment”.  I’m jazzed about how they turned out!  Whatcha think?

 

Blanco Lavender Festival

Aidan, my friend Shelley, and I went to the Lavender Festival in Blanco, TX, today.  It was HOT out there!  We ate at a new restaurant on the square there called The Redbud Cafe’ with some friends that met us there and then shopped around at all the vendors surrounding the old courthouse.  Aidan and I got to try a lavender cookie, lavender lemonade and lavender ice cream.  I had no idea that you could do so much with lavender!  I stopped into the “Hill Country Lavender” tent and bought some lavender foaming hand soap, lavender bug repellant and a sachet of  lavender to put in my undies drawer.  While I was shopping for all that fun stuff, Aidan cornered Shelley in a booth with tons of puppets and a very cool doorway puppet theatre.  I think Aidan was trying to convince Shelley to buy her one or twelve of those puppets.    Further into the festival I found a booth selling Lavender Margarita Mix from Miller Creek Lavender Farms.  They had a great deal, 3 for $18.50!  So, I had to snatch up 3 of those suckers.  I just got a new pitcher and margarita glasses at Market Square the day before so now I have something to put in them (I do still need to get some tequila, though!)  There was another booth (Simply Home Design) that I could’ve spent a fortune at with beautiful frames and wall hangings made from ceiling tiles.  After spending about 2 hours in the heat (and Aidan sucking down a bottle of Lipton Green Tea like it was nothing), we decided it was time to head out.  I’m very excited that we live so close to so many great Hill Country Festivals.  We fully plan on taking advantage of this while we’re here. 

 

Thrifty Thursday

I’m playing along with Bloggaritaville’s “Thrifty Thursday”. 

Today after getting some errands run at BAMC, I decided to venture over to a nearby Goodwill.  There are a few things that I was looking for but I also wanted to check out the quality of our nearest GW.  I wasn’t all that impressed with the layout.  The GW in Columbus was new and had a great layout.  This one’s housewares stuff was way too spread out and there was almost no furniture.  I’m also pretty sure that if a cashier hadn’t intervened there would’ve been a fight over “who was first in line” between an old hippie and an older woman who he thought line jumped.  Craziness.  I plan on checking out other Goodwills in the near future.  But, all that aside, I found a few things and promptly got to work transforming them when I got home.

The “mise en place”, as it were:

Cardboard boxes come in handy as a makeshift dropcloth!  And you know I have plenty of those around here!

The before: a bare wood Lazy Susan was $3.99.

The after: I painted it with Valspar “Porcelain” white spray paint, satin finish, from Lowes.  I couldn’t find the famous “Heirloom White” that everyone around the blogs uses.  Anyone know what brand that is?  Krylon?  It was super windy outside so that’s why all the paint is going towards the left!  I have a plan for this Lazy Susan but I’ll show y’all that in the future when it’s all put together.

Before #2:  A cute little lamp.  It looked like a previous owner had the same idea I did.  Based on the color underneath the chips, it looked like it was a glossy maroon lamp that someone painted black.  All it needed was another coat to cover up the chips.

After #2:  This was taken immediately after I painted it so it looks glossier than it will be.  I also got a nice, beige-y gold shade (didn’t get a picture of it).  I plan on putting the finished product in my kitchen.  Now that I’m looking, I probably should’ve protected the cord a little better…oh well, c’est la vie!

Before #3:  This cute little flower mirror.  I took this after I cleaned the mirror…it was FILTHY!  I wish I’d remembered to take it before I cleaned it so y’all could’ve seen how gross it was!  The messy mirror and a broken hook were the only things this little guy needed.

See the broken hook?

After #3:  Here it is all finished.  I went to Lowe’s to get the paint and a new hook.  They didn’t have any hooks with the angled screw holes so I bought a hook that was similar in size to the old one, screwed one screw into an old hole and then had to drill a new hole for the 2nd screw.  And, I couldn’t find my cordless drill so I had to do it by hand.  After stripping out the “X” on the top of one screw, I finally got one in.  This will either go in Aidan’s room or bathroom…I’ll have to ask her where she wants it.

So that’s it!  My first foray into “Thrifty Thursday”.  In all, I spent around $15 on the stuff from Goodwill and about $7 on the paint and $7 on the new lampshade (GW didn’t have any so I bought new…it was on clearance at Lowes, though!)  Not too bad, if I don’t say so myself.

ETA:  I brought the pieces in from drying outside.  Here’s the sorta finished product of the lamp.  I think it either needs a ribbon or a tassel.  Considering how I suck at tying pretty bows, I’m leaning towards tassel to add a little flair.  I have it stacked on some vintage children’s books that I bought back in Georgia and were sitting on top of the fridge since we moved and I unpacked them.

 

Mommy’s Time Out

Found this pinot grigio at Central Market yesterday.

If you can’t see the illustration on the bottle (click to enlarge), it has a chair facing the corner next to a table with a glass of wine on it.  I love it.  After all this unpacking (we may drown in packing paper), mama definitely could use a time out.

 

Frustration and a Question

Remember that job interview I had a while back, before we left to come to San Antonio?  The phone interview went great.  The principal seemed really interested and then called me back a week later asking if I was still interested in the position.  Sounds good, right?  She said that she wanted all the new people to come in and meet with the priest so we scheduled a time for that to happen the day after I got into town.  I showed up at the school dressed up, not in a full-on interview suit but dressed up.  Dressy capris, heels and a jacket.  I thought I was hired, I thought I was meeting the priest.  Nope, I was interviewing again with the principal, 2 teachers and (in the priest’s place), the president of the parents’ council.  It would’ve been nice if I’d known I was interviewing again so I could’ve worn my suit.  Anyway, I was asked all the same questions again that the principal asked me over the phone and I gave the same answers.  I thought I was doing good until I accidentally mentioned that Ryan had been deployed to Iraq and my faith got me through the 14 month deployment (I was being asked about how my faith is a part of who I am).  I saw the parents’ council lady write “Husband military?” at the top of my resume’.  Well you might as well have stuck a fork in me then because it was all over.  I left feeling like crap and then got an email on Saturday telling me that I wouldn’t be hired.  Yep, we’re military, damn it.  My address on my resume’ says Ft. Benning and we moved to friggin’ “Military City USA” and your school is the closest one to the Army post in town.  Don’t act shocked to find out an applicant is a military wife.  I’m sick and freakin’ tired of being discriminated against because we’re military.  Schools need to get it through their thick skulls that there are a lot of military wives that are teachers.  It’s a nice, portable career for women who get dragged from pillar to post every 3 years.  Grr…I’m really frustrated.  I thought I had it all secured until this load of crap got put in my lap.

. . . .

In other news, does anyone know what kind of plant this is?

The color of the flowers didn’t show up well, the flowers are purple.  I saw them all over my parents’ neighborhood in landscaping and I just love them and would like to see if they’d grow here.  So, any thoughts on what it might be?

 

La Casa Nueva

I made it, I’m here in San Antonio and loving it!  I’ve actually had the week to myself.  On my way through Houston, I stopped at my mom’s and spent Saturday and Sunday nights and left Aidan there to spend a week with her grandmommy.  I came on to San Antonio on Monday morning to get into the house, get in-processed on post and get all of the other logistical stuff done.  Can I tell you how nice it is just have a few days for just me?  I’ve definitely missed it.  I’ll go back on Friday morning to get Aidan and to see one of Ryan’s cousins graduate from high school.

So, a few pictures?

Unlocking the door…she’s mine, all mine!  (The lockbox was still on the door so they could get me my key on Memorial Day).

How should I deal with these windows and this whole wall room in general??

 

I plan on putting the armoire (that we don’t own yet) in the corner, either 1) the corner by the windows or 2) the other corner of that wall you can see that doesn’t have windows (it meets a half wall).  If I go with option 1, I’ll put the couch that we don’t own yet, jutting out perpendicular to the wall with the window, next to the righthand window and then the chairs (one of which is being delivered 6/1, the other we don’t own yet) against the half wall with an end table and a lamp  between them. 

If I go with option 2, the armoire will go in the corner shown here where the full wall and half wall meet.  The couch will go against the wall with the windows and the chairs will go perpendicular to that wall (where the couch was in Option 1).

Either way, I’m going to have an expanse of wall that’s basically empty.  I really didn’t want to go the route of  “Center the armoire on the wall with the cable outlet. Done.”  I’m trying to expand my horizons and put furniture on angles (I’m a big fan of the 90 degree angle…anything beyond that is stretching it for me).

So, any ideas?  Do you have a totally new idea that my small decorating brain hasn’t even thought of yet?

. . . .

I have a similar issue upstairs in the playroom. 

When I first envisioned this room, I had the idea of a low TV/Media stand to go against the half wall here where you see the outlet.

Unfortunately…

The cable outlet is on the other side of the room.  The husband of a friend of mine suggested (via Twitter) that we (meaning, Ryan) could run white cable from the outlet, along the baseboards, over the three doors between the outlet and the other wall and connect it that way.  Otherwise, I really can’t figure out a good configuration for this room.  I need a little corner for sewing, the long wall for the couch we currently have and a spot for the chair and a half that Aidan loves to climb all over when she’s watching Noggin.  Plus space for toys.  Am I expecting too much?

I’m thinking this short wall for sewing (the one without the vents), it’s close to the utility room so I could leave my ironing board set up in there and it wouldn’t be in the way.

. . . .

I need my furniture here!!!  It was supposed to arrive today but it didn’t.  Grrr…  Not sure what’s going on with that.  So, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade and go shopping…but that’s for my next post.  Found some cute stuff at World Market.

 

Movin’ on Up!

This was my living room on Tuesday night:

The biggest part of our belongings, neatly packed into cardboard boxes.

On Wednesday, they all got loaded onto a truck:

Having the Army deal with the heavy lifting part of moving is one of my favorite benefits of being an Army wife.  I know a lot of military families prefer to do it themselves (DITY moves) and pocket the cash but for me, my time and energy is worth FAR more than the Army could ever pay me.  These people are professional movers, they do this every day.  I HATE packing with a purple passion so I’d much rather they do it. 

In other news, I need a blog name change.  I was thinking about this at about 4am when I couldn’t sleep (our air mattress has a hole in it that we discovered at about 10pm last night so we slept on the HARDwood floor…I feel like I’ve been beaten by sticks).  Any suggestions?  Something Texas/military/crafty?  I dunno.  It’ll come to me.  It has to change though because we won’t be living on post anymore and I’m weird about authenticity that way.

Tomorrow will be my last day with Internet for a little while.  We’ll be driving to Texas on Saturday, I’ll stay with my parents in Houston until Monday morning then I’ll get up and drive to San Antonio (leaving Aidan with them for a week).

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, all!  Catch you on the flip side!

 

Obsessed

I’m officially obsessed with the black and white train sign in this picture.  We wants it.  (Or a reasonable facsimile.)

I like this one because it says Houston, our hometown (even though it’s technically referencing Houston St. in NYC)

From http://www.subwaysigns.com/  Those are more NYC oriented though and we have no connection to NYC.  I prefer for things in my home to have some connection to us.  Hmm…now to try to find a black and white Texas train sign.  Easier said than done!

PS. Anyone know where that first pic with the Virginia railroad sign is from?