Some favorite things and a mild addiction

Been super busy lately with the family so I haven't had a lot of time to put together a post but this morning I got up early and the teen is gone for the day and the spouse is still in bed, so I thought I take a few minutes and post something.......

Have I told you that I'm a candle freak?  well, candles and wax tarts/cubes.....lately it's been more wax tarts/cubes and I have to admit that I have a LOT....it's my mild addiction.....lol.....I've also found that the Better Homes & Gardens wax cubes you can purchase at Walmart are just as good as the expensive ones from Yankee Candle and Scentsy, or at least to my nose they are.   I'm partial to fruit and nature smells and I can't seem to pass them up when I see them.  Here's just a part of my current stash.

 A few weeks ago, I made a stop at Ulta to use a coupon and my reward points before they expired and I scored on these two things........cheap.....

I've been eyeing that butterLONDON polish for some time...it's called "Artful Dodger" and that Stila powder was something that I came upon at the store....it's a great finishing powder with just a bit of sparkle to it!

One of my favorite stores in Des Moines is eden in the East Village.  I've been buying from Jennifer for years and it's this store that turned me on to Kiehl's.  She was the first brick and mortar to carry Kiehl's west of the Mississippi for a long time.  It's very close to where I work, but I don't get in there as often as I would like and that's probably a good thing in regards to my pocketbook, BUT I was going right past the store on one of my days off and had some time, so I stopped to browse and came home with another one of my favorite things......Caldrea

Beside the fact that the company is owned by a mother/daughter duo originally from West Des Moines (gotta love hometown girls), the products are heavenly, but a bit pricey so I always consider it a spurge to buy.  I love this laundry wash for delicate clothing I wash.

Back in August I was in Baltimore for a work conference and my hotel was right across the street from an anthropologie and anyone that knows me knows I can stop from peeking my head in the store.  I wish I was 25 years younger so I could wear their clothes....alas I'm not young enough or skinny enough any more, but I ADORE their home collection.  I had been wanting a new butter dish, but I wanted one with some flair, when I saw this one.......I knew it was the one....it's blue...my favorite color and it's got yellow in it and all good swedish people have blue and yellow in their homes.  :)

Last, but not least and of course, it's in the food category of favorite things.....I can't leave without mentioning food.....but caprese salad.  LOVE it!  If I'm out to dinner and either these for bruschetta is on the menu, it's mine......all mine.  The one below is the last one I made with our own homegrown heirloom tomatoes and basil, fresh mozzarella drizzled with a bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Have a great weekend!  I'm spending mine trying to get organized for the upcoming holiday season.....making my lists and checking them twice.

Halloween Time @ Our House

I like decorating for Halloween and Autumn.  I decorate both inside and outside, but I don't do as much of it as I did when Connor was little.  This year I make a conscience effort to purge and donate the Halloween stuff I no longer want to use (that felt good to get rid of a bunch of stuff).......however, I still have five totes full of stuff that I use.   :)

I concentrate my efforts in our family, kitchen and den where we hang out the most.

This is our ladder shelf full of our favorite Halloween/Autumn things.

This is one of our IKEA Expedit bookcases decked out for Halloween

 

We've had this hinged wooden ghost, pumpkin and black cat FOREVER.  I found it at a craft fair and still love it.  The small ceramic ghost peering over the fence I had in a ceramic class back in the 90's.

This is another ceramic piece that I made in 1993.  It's lighted and still one of my favorites and as you can see, my cat love comes out in holiday decorations.

I found this felt runner at Pier1 in an after the holiday sale.

This is one of our favorite newer pieces of decoration.  So cute!

 I adore snow globe and have a ton of Christmas snow globes so it was only right that I should have a few Halloween snow globes.  These are the three I have right now, but I may have to add another one.

I have a hutch in our eat in area and serves as more storage for things I use in these rooms, so I like to dress it up for the different holidays too.

Several of the things on this hutch I made.  Below is a ceramic piece that resembles a paper bag I made a long time ago.  It holds the candles that we use in our pumpkins and luminaries.

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This year I filled my glass apothacary jar with candy corn.

I love easy touches like these vinyl bats on our round mirror in the family room.

Or spider stickers on the lampshades.......

 Since our hanging wine rack is new, this is the first Halloween that I've been able to deck it out.

I used the Doodlebug House that I made in Halloween themed colors and paper, a favorite Halloween card I framed in a cheap IKEA frame, a wooden "Boo" and a rustic pumpkin.

I put a few things out in our den just to make it feel like it's part of the party too!

Thanks for dropping by and taking a look at our Halloween decor and the last thing I'll show you are the most darling shot glasses I found at the Target Dollar Spot.....they were too awesome to pass by, so I bought two sets!

Dining Set Re-Do or "I'm too cheap to go buy a new one"

We bought our dining table and chairs when we moved into this house nine and a half years ago.  We really didn't want to spend a lot of money on a expensive more formal set, so I found and bought this set at Kmart for 200 bucks.  Being tall people, we love the bistro height and very surprisingly it has held up remarkably well for as much use as it gets.  Fred has had to tighten up some of the screws over the years on the chairs, but for the most part, it's done it's job well.

I have noticed in just the last year or so that the top of the table is starting to really wear, the finish was almost gone.  I really didn't want to go out and buy another one since it does serve it's purpose well and knew I could probably breathe more life into the set with a little imagination and work.

I decided to paint the top of the table black to tie in with the other black cabinets and island in the kitchen, but I wouldn't be able to use latex paint for the job.

Latex is fine for some projects but this table was going to require a oil based paint.  It's much more durable than latex, but clean up is MESSY, so I decided whatever brushes I used, I was going to just toss after I was finished rather than trying to clean up with paint thinner and mineral spirits.  It was worth the money to just toss the sponge and foam rollers and brushes.

I started with the table......had to take it out to the garage for fear of certain household cats that would possibly hop up on the wet painted table and then carry OIL-BASED paint throughout the house, so I nipped that little problem right in the bud.  After sanding the top and sides of the table, I used a tack cloth to get rid of all of the dust and even washed it down before starting to apply the paint.

I used a Rustoleum High Gloss Black and used a sponge roller to apply it.  It took two coats but it turned out pretty darn good.

I liked the contrast of the wood and the black.

To finish the re-do, I decided to paint the decorative curves of the back of the chairs black also.  These were a bit harder to prep and paint because of the area involved.

I'm glad I decided to take the time to do the chairs too because I think it added just the right touch to the set.

Now, I'm going to work on a pop of color for the room........stayed tuned.   :)

Kitchen Updating

In my last post, I showed you what we did in regards to the new flooring we put in, but I also did a bit of updating of the kitchen.  I had been using red as an accent color in our kitchen and once the flooring went in, I decided to change that up too.  Since blue is my favorite color and our family room that the kitchen is connected to also has blue in it, I decided to carry that into the kitchen.  I still have a couple of things I want to re-paint and I'll share those once I'm done...but in the meantime....

Here's our wine rack that Fred found at one of the Iowa Wineries that we've been visiting over the summer.  This was found at Eagle City Winery outside of Iowa Falls and we both thought it worked perfectly for the spot we wanted about our buffet bar.

 

 

I also found new kitchen valances for our corner windows which is where our sink is located.  The originals were a tab top red and cream plaid by Waverly and I did sell them on Craigslist so that helped with cost of the new ones.  These I found at Bed, Bath & Beyond and I wanted something very simple in a muslin or linen.

Our kitchen rugs were getting pretty worn and they take a lot of abuse anyway, so I went on the hunt for new rugs wanting to them to coordinate with the blue/brown color scheme I was working toward.  I ended up finding exactly what I wanted at JC Penney and I love them and love the fact they are machine washable.

I have just a couple more things that need to paint that I want to use in the room and I'm hoping to have those done soon.........

In the meantime, I've moved on to our den for a fresh coat of paint on the walls.......I'll share soon!

A Long Time Coming - New Flooring

We've been wanting to replace the flooring in our kitchen an eat in area for a couple of years.  Like some other things in this house, the contractor skimped on areas and the vinyl in the kitchen was one of them.  The only good thing I can say about it is it hid dirt well.

We had hard wood in our foyer, hallway and downstairs 1/2 bath but it was cheap also and I never really liked it, but we were stuck with it.

One of my goals was to replace the whole thing some day and this summer we decide now was the time!

 

Here's another view of the vinyl flooring we had.  The only reason I'm showing you photos of it is so you can see what a change the new wood flooring made.

Here's the after photos.......

 

 

We carried the wood into our hallway, foyer and 1/2 bath and I'm thrilled that we no longer have a transition between the kitchen/eat in area and the hallway.

I also love that we decided to do recessed wood floor registers.  We had two of them, one in the eat in area of the kitchen and one in the foyer.

We love our new flooring and think it was worth every penny we paid and the best part was we didn't DIY it, which we normally would, but decided.....nah.......   :)

Now that the flooring is done, I've been weeding out my cabinets getting rid of some of my kitchen goods.  I was using red as an accent color in the kitchen, but I'm little tired of that, so I'm slowing switching out some of my things and painting and upcycling others.   I'll share all that later.

Thanks for stopping by!  

Kitchen Love

I've promised that I'm going to share our kitchen update, I just have to get some time to get my photos organized, but in the meantime, I'll share something that makes me smile everything I open the cabinet.

Our colorful dishes!  I'm going to be adding another place setting in the new Lapis color soon. 

The Saga of the Kitchen Light Fixtures

We've been in this house now for almost 9 and 1/2 years and when we first moved in, we did change out quite a few light fixtures from the cheap ass brass fixtures the contractor had put in this house.  The very first ones we did were all the fixtures in the kitchen and family room since we spend the majority of time in those rooms.  I knew I wanted brushed nickel and the pendant I chose for over the sink was no problem....it's a pretty basic fixture, I liked it and still like the frosted shade and it puts out the right amount of light for the task and it's still hangs over the sink.

See those curtains?  I just replaced those with a very simple cream linen/muslin rod pocket valance.

So, to continue the saga of the fixtures....we also replaced the fixtures over the island and in the eat in area of the kitchen, but boy did I chose poorly......neither of those fixtures were ever right for the area that I choose for them, but I'd spent the money, we installed them so I had to live with my choices.   The fixture I chose for over the island was way too big and the one I chose for the eat in area was too big and the light shined downward and it made it way too hot.

Another HUGE concern for me was the location of where the contractor had put the eat in area light.  It was NOT where it was suppose to be and had a noticed it when we were buying the house, I would have made him correct it and move it before we bought the house.  It wasn't even close to where someone would have wanted to put a table.

For nine years, I've been telling i.e. bitching, nagging Fred that I want to move the fixture to where we can actually put our dining table under it, but he's never wanted to do it.  Too much work, whine whine, whine....then earlier this year, one of Fred's friends, a fellow carpenter that Fred worked with for years was over and we got to talking about the fixture and how I hated where it was at, and Lance offered to move it for me.....YAY!

Since the fixture was going to be moved and I've lived with the poor choices I made for 8 years, I decided to start looking for new.  I didn't want to replace the pendant over the sink, so whatever I found needed to coordinate with it.  

First up with the island lighting because Fred could install that and I wasn't dependent upon Lance.  He grumbled a bit, but he had it up and installed in about an hour.

I found both our new fixtures online at ATG Stores.com.  They were very reasonable and they matched the pendant perfectly.  The new island light gives off the right amount of light, it's more stylish and appropriate for the area AND I sold the other one on Craigslist, so win/win there too!

Here's what the old eat in area light fixture looked like.  It's not awful, it's just the wrong light for the spot and although you can't tell from this picture, it's way off from where the fixture really should be.  This one is going on Craigslist too as soon as I get some time.

Notice the old vinyl floor........

Finally this summer we were able to coordinate schedules with Lance and get him over here to move the light box and install the new fixture.......I was so happy that I would finally get to have the light over my table.  I still smile whenever I come into the room.  :)

You can see in the above photo where the fixture used to be and in the below photo you can see that it is now lined up with the island fixture and my table can fit under it.  I also chose a fixture where the light was reflected up and not down on the table.

 

Notice the old vinyl floor......

 

I'm so pleased with our new lighting and it's a huge deal to me that I finally got to have that fixture moved where I've wanted it...it only took nine and a half years.

 

Oh...and see that table....it's a cheap ass table that has served us well for 7-8 years but it needs a makeover.  Stay tuned for that.

 

 

Something Fun I Found

I've had a set of these Longaberger mason jars forever and I use several of them for pantry storage.  I also like to use mason jars for salad dressings, marinades and sauces.  I found this awesome mason jar pour spout that comes in both regular size and wide mouth.  It's super easy to make my favorite Zesty Italian dressing in it.

 

I don't really have a exact recipe, I just use vinegar (any kind, I like red wine, white, apple cider and other flavored vinegars), garlic, Italian seasoning, dollop of Dijon mustard, coarse salt, pepper, shake it all up and then add canola oil to emulsify everything together.....instant awesome dressing!

Okay, okay....I'm going to start blogging again....

I've got bunches of things to share........stay tuned.