Oh there it is!

Every Spring I wonder where my yard went.  And then I trim my terribly placed willow tree and find it all over again!

Here it is half way through trimming.

And done.

If only...

As my Pinterest tag line states "Obsessed with interior design. If only my wallet matched my vision.....".  And that is true in this moment.  I look at my house and I see SO much that I'd like to do.  Even going the cheaper route, ie. DIYing everything, the money is just not there right now.  So I have decided not to pout about it and instead I'm going to work on what I can change.  Deep clean tile grout, reorganize my office file drawers, see if I have enough leftover paint to repaint the guest bathroom.  These kind of changes make me happy and wont cost me more than $10. 

So what's motivating me to repaint my guest bathroom?  My new bargain! (please excuse quality, its another phone pic)

 

 See that pretty art above the toilet?  I was in StL this past weekend and visited Home Goods (SO wish we had one here!) and I found this framed art.  I got BOTH for $12!  I couldnt pass it up.  I hung them up and I love them, finally filled in that blank space.  See the before...

I stepped back after hanging up the pictures and thought... "those would look a whole lot prettier hanging on a gray wall".  And I think with as much gray as I've painted in my house, SURELY I can find enough leftover paint to change the color in here.  Hoping!

Although I'm sitting here saying we have no money right now to make big changes, I should say that we did actually make a big change.  We had been saving to do it and it's almost all done now.  And I guess it's not really a secret since I wrote about it in my last post.  We are doing the final tweaking of the backyard and then I'll post a bunch of before and after pictures.  Can't wait to share them!

The new addition

As mentioned in my last post. There is a new addition in my living room.  I guess you'd actually call it a replacement since there was already one there.  But it is... another new fan!  Check it out...

 

Here is a reminder of what we had before.

 

I don't know that I have a close up to share.  But this was your basic builders grade fan.  Unfortunately with the added details of some kind of speckled paint job.  But anyway, isn't the new one so pretty!?  It's another one designed by my sis in law, made by Emerson.  It's called the

Highpointe.  I've taken some full room shots that I'll try to post soon too.

Next up.  THE BACKYARD!  We've been working on it as the weathers been warming up and we are making some fun changes (especially this weekend)!  It will finally have a more "finished" look. Can't wait!!

Vacation

My family and I spent the last week in Florida and had an amazing time!  The first half of the week we spent at Disney and the second half was the beach, shopping and time with my grandparents.  We went with my parents, my brother and his wife.  We've never as a group taken a big vacation like that so it was really nice.  The best part about all of it was getting to make my daughter happy!  Getting to take your child to Disney World is like getting to go as a kid for the first time yourself.  You see everything through their eyes and it's so fun.
Here are a few pics...

 

 And since my last post was about my new Emerson fan I had to share the following...

As I mentioned before my sister in law designs fans for Emerson.  She designed the one that's in Raeleigh's room and in our office...

So it was an awesome surprise for all of us, especially Bethany, when my brother spotted this...

You've got to feel pretty good about your design abilities if Disney chooses it!

Coming up soon, a new addition to my living room.

Fan-tastic!

It wasn't until we put in our new chandelier in the kitchen last year (seen here) that I realized what a huge difference a new fixture makes.  This house not only came with builders grade fixtures, but some rather ugly ones at that!
This was the fan in our office.

 Not the worst thing in the world but definitely not our style.  So when my sister in law said she was finishing up at a lighting expo (or whatever its called that she travels and does as a part of her job with Emerson) and wanted to know if I wanted a free fan they were done using. I said send it our way!  And she did.

Well it took us awhile to get to it because we'd never really put a fan up on our own before and maybe it intimidated us? I don't know.  But we finally got around to it (and honestly just take your time, make sure youre doing it right, and its not that hard at all).  But there was a problem.  The fan was smoking!  We wondered if it had to do with faulty glue on the light kit that Bethany (my sis in law) warned me about so we put on the extra light kit she sent, but same thing.  So... I contacted Bethany and she said Emerson would send us another light kit for free.  That didn't work either it was still smoking.  Emerson is such a great company.  The quality control manager said he'd like us to pick out another fan, a brand new one, for free.  So we did!  We picked out the same one that's in Raeleigh's room, because we like it so much and since the rooms are right next to eachother I thought it would look nice so the rooms, though styled different, still have a cohesive look.  So we took the first one down (or I guess the second if you include the original.) 
Here's a pic I got as Jake was taking it down.

 

 Emerson cares so much about putting out a good product they asked if they could see the fan we had problems with to make sure whatever it is thats going wrong doesn't happen again.  Our conclusion, we think it was the light bulbs and nothing wrong with the actual fan at all.  But we'll see what the fine folks at Emerson think.  

So anyway, they sent us our beautiful new fan. And here it is...

 

I love it already but I think it will look even more amazing with all the changes I plan to do in this room.
So conclusion... With so few companies that seem to care anymore, it was refreshing to see that Emerson did and I think they are an amazing company.  Conclusion 2: I love new fixtures! And I have another one I'll be putting up in a few weeks that I can't wait to show you!

Easter! Easter!

I've always wanted to be the kind of person that puts out cute decorations for the not as popular decorating holidays.  But I've never felt like putting my money towards the decorations.  Until I got a little crafty and realized I can get the look without the price.  For example here is a snapshot from my phone of some of my Valentine decorations this year.

 

I hung up red hearts that I already had from a few years ago and then my girl and I made cupcakes.  So for practically nothing I got that fun festive feeling every time I was in my kitchen.

For Easter I was keeping my eyes peeled for something I could put up.  It took awhile but eventually I came across some great stuff in Targets Dollar section at the front of the store.  I found a cute sequin bunny for $3 as well as some "wooden animal shapes" that came in a pack of 5 for $1.  I bought 3 packs.  So for the grand total of $6 I got my Easter decor.

Here's what I did...

 

 I already had some twine and the shapes came already "hole punched" with string through them.

 

 So I cut down the string and tied them every few inches onto the twine. 

 

 When it was all done I had adorable Easter/Spring "garland".  I strung it up on my mantle using some command hooks I already had.  Then I set my bunny up on the mantle and Ta-dah!  My Easter decor...

A little better

Well our guest room ended up having some changes made to it.

When I first designed Raeleigh's bedroom (in my head) I had decided to use her existing espresso colored dresser.  So I got a small dresser/nightstand to match.  However, when it got closer to time to redo Raeleigh's room I made the switch and decided she needed a white dresser.  I just wanted her room to be very light and airy feeling and the dark furniture just wasn't going to do.

So then I ended up with extra furniture.  A good problem to have especially when that very furniture was needed in our guest room.  Well on top of a new dresser and a new nightstand we also got a new headboard.... for free.  Because it's actually just a part of Raeleigh's crib.  It was a convertible crib so although it's meant to use for a full sized bed and the guest bed is a queen, it still works. Oh and I also found a white bed skirt in my attic to use.

So here's where the guest room was before the recent additions.

And here it is now.

 (join me as I pretend you dont notice the finger smudges in this pic)

 

And just for fun let's compare the bedroom from where it was right after we moved in to now.