Merry Christmas!

So little has changed since last year so I decided to link back to a few post from last year….

Here you can check out the “Kitchen Reveal.” Lots of Christmas decor!

Here I shared my “funky bow” obsession….still love them and even made a few more this year. I have made a few for every “holiday” throughout the year!

The only real change is in the “all-season” room. I shared a few changes HERE.

I didn’t decorate this space last year for Christmas because…well, I just didn’t.

On October 1st, I lost my uncle to cancer. We called him “GUS”…because he was our Great Uncle Sam…one of the greatest. He was the 3rd of 5 siblings we have lost in the last year and a half, including my mom, his sister.

They are Stewarts….my Uncle Bob wore his Stewart plaid tie for Uncle Sam’s memorial service and the church decorated all the tables at the reception with Stewart plaid.

So in honor of the Stewart family I decided to decorate this room in Stewart plaid.

Precious. I have always loved Stewart plaid. A simple pre-lit tree with Stewart plaid ribbon and red and green ornaments.

A few plaid pillows and a throw.

Touches here and there in a room that has always honored members of my family.

Two cute little lanterns with remote controlled candles…fun!

I love that you can see the BIG tree through this window!

Here I shared the beautiful stained glass made by my mom and dad and the cool table made from wood salvaged from the building my dad worked in most of his adult life.

So it is fitting that this room honor the “Stewart” family.

Merry Christmas to you and your family. Our family has been hit AGAIN this year with Covid, so AGAIN we will have a “different” Christmas.

But it is still the MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR!

I will be taking a few weeks off but I will have a lot to share in the new year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

All-season room reveal...again!

Last week I shared the new cabinet I bought for the all-season room and the changes I made to it to turn it into a giant litter box. Brian was a tad miffed that I would buy something only to hack it up for the kitties, but if you have ever had a litter box and all the mess that goes with it, you certainly understand my attempts to corral it.

The litter box is hidden away and the critter food is stored in the drawers!

One week later, it is working perfectly!

The outdoor couch I bought for this space arrived Friday night. I am always amazed that such a large piece can fit into a relatively small box…until I unpack it and start putting it together. Geez!

If I have learned anything in 57 years it is FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS. While they may not make sense, they make sense. When they say “hand tighten only,” hand tighten.

It is in place and I love it!

It’s not near as plush and comfy as our living room couch but it is an “outdoor couch” so I didn’t expect it to be.

I was a tad concerned about the fact that it is a “canvas white” and the cushion covers weren’t zippered for easy removal in a house full of critters. Our new puppy (oh yes, we got a new puppy! To tired to share that news just yet!) managed to christen it within the first 10 minutes…muddy paws. Fortunately it cleaned easily!

The coffee table LOOKS like teak wood, but it is actually metal. Kind of chintzy if you ask me so eventually I want to get something a little better quality and much smaller…it is just too big for the space.

I am still debating the height of the kitty cabinet…I THINK I want to cut it down but I am living with it for the time being. One day the bug may hit me and I will drag it outside and hack on it some more!

For now I have a space perfect for watching the leaves and snow fall. In the winter I put out corn and bird seed so this will be the perfect spot for critter watching as well.

A few months ago I put a kitty door in one of the windows between the living room and the all-season room so the cats can could come and go without having to leave the door open.

Since this has turned into the “cat room” they will LOVE watching the critters. And no, the cats never go outside so the critters are safe.

Hopefully we will use the space now that the changes have been made…the cats certainly do!

All-season room revamp...

I seriously love this room….

…it stays cool in the summer and relatively warm in the winter. I honestly thought we would spend a great deal of time here.

But we don’t.

When we want to sit “outside” for dinner or drink our coffee in the morning, we always sit on the screened porch.

The “all-season” room has become a place for the litter box and a dumping ground for all my outdoor critter food and seeds.

The rest of the room was still good, but again, we just never used the space like I thought we would.

So I am making a change….

Last week I ordered an outdoor couch. It should be here this week. I moved the big “bar table” to the screened porch, and I decided to corral the critter mess.

I searched Craigslist, flea markets and Marketplace trying to find a credenza/buffet/cabinet type thing I could convert into a storage/“kitty cabinet”….kind of like the one I made for our master bathroom.

I found this….

I like the “style” well enough in this space, but I am not sure about scale…seems kind of tallish so I may eventually cut it down and eliminate the void space. I think it is meant to be a tv cabinet and that space is for Blueray players or such. Who knows. Again, I kind of like the style for this space, I knew I could convert it for the kitty box and the drawers would give me storage for bird seed and critter food.

I decided to leave the bottom right drawer intact and just set the litter box in it. It fit perfectly after I cut the height down a bit and I can easily pull the drawer out to clean out the box. I trimmed the side of the drawer down just a tad using a jig saw. I used a skill saw and jig saw to cut a hole in the side for access….

To give the kitties “head room” I had to remove the guts of the drawer above this one and then glue the drawer front back onto the cabinet…so it’s not really a drawer, it just looks like one.

TIP: To glue the drawer front back onto the cabinet, I applied wood glue all around the edges and put a blob of hot glue on each corner. The hot glue quickly sets up to hold the drawer front in place while the wood glue dries.

Again, not sure about the scale of the cabinet but all in all I am pretty happy with it. It sure beats the mess that was there.

Hopefully the new couch will be here this week and we can get the room completed. Again.

Sometimes you have to live in a space for a time before you know what you REALLY need.

Until next week…..

DIY and Cinderella...

At this moment I am sitting in my “all-season” room drinking my coffee and watching it rain.

Heaven.

There is so much I love about this house and honestly, I can’t t think of a thing I don’t. We have spent a great deal of time the past few weeks working outdoors and many of our neighbors have stopped to tell us how wonderful it is looking. (Probably more a testament to how badly the place looked to begin with.)

Making a home beautiful after years of neglect, for me, is like the Cinderella story. Abused, neglected, mistreated…until someone who cares comes along and waves a magic wand and makes everything beautiful again.

Simple analogy…seriously, who waves a magic wand and makes a home beautiful. Truth is, it takes a lot of work to turn an abused and neglected home or piece of furniture into something beautiful and useful.

My blog friend Cristina shared a chair she recently transformed. Abused, neglected, dated and something no one really wants in their home anymore was completely transformed into a piece of furniture fit for a ball!

SOURCE

A super simple project for someone like her and me and not so difficult that someone with minimal DIY skills couldn’t tackle. The hardest part would be the sanding and staining, but just a simple KSTP treatment (Kilz, sand, tack, paint (search on this site for examples) would completely transform this simple chair. How cute would it be paint lavender for a little girl’s room. Or bright royal blue for a little boy’s room. (Yes I am a “gender snob”…raised 4 kids like that and they are killing it…so get over it)

After sitting and watching it rain for a few hours I finally decided to tackle the trim and cabinets in the laundry room. As I mention I am painting all the trim a whiter-white…BM Chantilly Lace. Not so “yellow”…just a pure white.

I have drug my feet on the laundry room because I really dreaded painting the cabinets. But I did and they are now done. All except the new hardware and that should be here next week. The only other thing I want to do in that room now is replace the dated ceramic tile. That chore is WAAAAY down the bottom of the list.

Still waiting on the master bath windows. Built a dining table and bench for Brandon and Taylor’s new house…just waiting on the legs we ordered. Waiting on a few final touches before I FINALLY share my shop transformation. The glass for the pantry door should be here today. In other words, lots going on to share…just nothing quite ready.

Cinderella may have transformed with the wave of a wand…unfortunately most DIY projects take a little more time and patience. But the result is often the same…magical!