Return of the Rain and Decorating Plans

I woke up during the night to more rain. It rained this morning when Abbey and I were supposed to be running. Then it stopped, but there were tornado warnings all afternoon. It is now thundering and lightening...I also think I hear rain, yet again.

Enough about the weather though! I thought I would share a couple of my idea for decorating my new house. I pointed out in yesterday's post that every wall is yellow. At this time I feel pretty certain the living room and guest room will remain yellow. The master bedroom will definitely change. I am still trying to decide about the office, bonus room, and kitchen/dining area. I want to paint my bedroom to go with the new bedding that I have picked out....well, at least I think I have picked this out.

Abbey thinks I should paint the walls green, but I am a little nervous as I have not actually seen the bedding in person. I have this "fear" that it may be a little more lime green than it appears online. I am going to order a sham in the next week to see if I really do like and if I want to paint the walls green or brown.

I really want to incorporate some red/burgundy in the living room, so I have picked out this rug for the floor that brings in some burgundy.

I am actually taking a painting class this weekend and hoping that the piece I finish tomorrow will go over the fireplace or some where in the living room. It's an abstract piece that will have pink, burgundy, green, yellow, and blue in it. At least that is my vision. I'll have to post pictures tomorrow. (If you don't see any posts this weekend, know that I am taking my computer in to the Mac store tomorrow. I have this funny feeling they may keep it a day or two...Since I work Sunday through Tuesday, it may be Wednesday before I can go pick it up.)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Just As I Imagined

Here she is. She didn't start off very pretty.

She didn't start off very practical...what were they thinking?

Her "jewelry" didn't even match.

A fresh coat of paint did wonders. (The color is Macadamia.) It did not fix the hole in the back of the pantry. Eventually, I devised a plan that fixed the hole...I forgot to take a picture of that portion.

Lowe's cut all my lumber for me for the new shelves, which was painted to match the outside.


It did not fix the top of the cabinet which was badly damaged.


It wasn't even flat.


I had this piece of Birch cut to fit the top (at Lowe's of course!)


A little...or a lot of wood glue was used to fix the piece of wood to the top.


An assortment of heavy items were placed on top for the night. I used wood filler to make it look almost seamless and then it was painted to match as well. You might wonder why I chose such a blah color. Well, I actually had a greater plan in mind. Since the piece of furniture was in quite bad shape, I wanted to hide it's flaws. There were large chunks of wood missing in different places. I used quite a lot of wood filler throughout the process. However, I wanted to make sure that this solid wood cabinet's imperfections, wear, and tare were hidden. I decided to use a crackle coat on top of the Macadamia color and then use Porcelain Red as the top coat. And...


Voila!!!

New handles and

hinges made it complete.

I decided to put two shelves on one side and three on the other.

It definitely brings a pop of color to the room! I still need to hang a few pictures and put a few things on the top of the cabinet, but that will have to wait for the weekend. I still need to put the color protector on, but all the direction say you should wait 72 hours.

A Gift for Madeline

It is finished...No, not a grand theological statement in this instance, however; my gift for Madeline is finally complete. I just put the finishing touches on it and thought I would share.

Over the last several weeks I have painted 8 canvases for her nursery!

Her bedding is white with green, orange, blue, and two shades of pink polka dots. I originally came up with this idea many months ago. At the time Stuart and Michelle had not picked out a name. I also wanted to surprise them, but decided I would at least check with Stuart. He thought it was a great idea, but asked what would I do if her name was long. I should have known they were thinking of some nice long names!

I decided the best way to "finish" the edges of the canvas was with ribbon. I bought the blue and green ribbon when I first began gathering my supplies. I was actually thinking of using several different types of ribbon. My goal was to find some pink and orange ribbon as well. However, the more I thought about it, I decided Michelle should have some say in the project. When they came to Tampa several weeks I ago I had the canvases pretty much ready, and let her choose the ribbon color.

She picked blue. We also decided that I would allow them to attach the loops for hanging so they could have them the exact length they wanted. I was very worried about having enough ribbon so I bought every roll that Michael's had. After I cut the eight strips to finish the edges, I still had a little left on the first roll...I think she'll have plenty and can mess up a couple of times or tie bows...maybe both!

All I did to finish the canvases was hot glue the ribbon around the edge.

There they all are! I must confess, I am quite pleased with the way they turned out.
It's also been fun to rearrange all the letters and see what other words that can be made out of her name.