Sunflowers

 Last week we visited Anderson's Sunflower Farm in Cumming GA. 

Sunflowers are Mollie's favorite and I was inspired to find a sunflower farm after I saw 

this post on IG

I simply googled "sunflower farms near me" and several popped up. Anderson's was the closest and easiest to get to so I checked the weather for the next few days (we've been having lots of showers) and planned an outing!

We had a ton of fun. I highly recommend any outdoor adventure you can come up with right now. After being cooped up from Covid19 lockdown for so long these little outings to enjoy nature are more fun than ever!

I did not know that the "sunflower season" is relatively short. Anderson's is only open for 7-10 days depending on weather and bloom. We picked a tub full - at a dollar a bloom it was hard to have self control :)

We put them all over the house!!!

They are on the porch...

In the Family room...

Even in the newly refreshed Powder Room.

It's hard to be crabby with all of these beautiful sunflowers around.

I hope you can find a "pick your own" outing near you!

They are good for the lifting your spirits!

Socially Distanced Thrifting.

Socially Distanced thrifting during a pandemic has become a thing. For me anyway.

I posted this picture in one of my early posts containing a few thoughts and observations about our Pandemic experience. 

All very non-political or containing any blame. I'm not about that.

But this picture got a lot of feedback - 

While going to Goodwill and other favorite thrift stores is not essential a lot of us missed it! 

We are on Week 17 here and while many things have opened we must continue to be abundantly cautious. So we are at home 99.999999% of the time :)

For that reason we have worked very hard in our backyard on projects and improvements to make spending our Summer at home more enjoyable. 

One thing I wanted was a lounge chair to go beside our stock tank pool

 (which I call The Bucket.)

I wanted something other than a folding metal beach lounger if possible. I really wanted wrought iron and vintage was preferable. That's what I like and the new ones were shockingly expensive and then you need a big, thick cushion. Also a bit pricey. 

But by late April I thought I could make a FB marketplace transaction be safe if I wore a mask and we put the cash in a baggie and left it in the mailbox or somewhere like that for the seller.  I scrolled through FBM constantly. Let's face it, I had time, and then finally in May these popped up!! I didn't even try to bargain. She was 15 minutes from the house and so we jumped in the truck and headed to pick them up. And it was TWO for $50.00!! Yay!

When we arrived her husband came out and chatted from a distance! We were masked and safely apart. I'm so glad he came out. He told us that his wife's father had been a Master Welder and had made these two lounge chairs for her decades ago!! I love them even more. They are not exactly identical because they are handmade

 but they are soooo well made and sturdy.

So the next step was to find new cushions. I had shared on IG that the "color scheme" of the pandemic (for us) had been dark green and white because that's the paint I had on hand when the lock down began. We already had a lot of our outdoor furniture painted a dark green because 

I am from Charleston and it's in my DNA to paint outdoor and porch furniture dark green.

 I can't help it!!

So I, of course, wanted green and white striped outdoor cushions. 

Sounds easy, right? Not so much. 

But after diligent searching online I found an excellent price for Sunbrella chaise cushions through walmart.com. 

I read the descriptions and measurements on other sites where the green and white striped Sunbrella cushions were $249.00 and $198.00. The descriptions matched exactly, were Sunbrella brand like the others and were under $100.00 with free shipping and returns. 

I figured it was worth a try.  

They are so nice, thick cushioned, and perfect green and white striped Sunbrella fabric!

(The dappled light makes funny looking shadows on the cushions - there isn't anything wrong with them! In fact, they are fabulous and I've already spot cleaned one and it looks brand new!)

I have made another masked, socially distanced Facebook Marketplace purchase since this one!

 I'll share soon. 

My 9th-ish ORC and WASH Your Hands!

Racing for the finish line here at the last-ish moment!! 

This is my 9th-ish ORC and the smallest by far - just 65" square! 

You'd think I could have finished sooner :)

 

Our downstairs Powder Room. 

We were without a working sink in our only first level bathroom for the bulk of the Pandemic. 

Perhaps not the best choice but that's how we roll!

The before wasn't awful but now that this ORC is complete I realize it really did need a bit of a refresh and update. We were sheltering in place so I used what I had on hand and made only a couple of online orders and my husband, who was out and about being "essential," did two curbside pick-ups for me. 

This One Room Challenge presented the challenge of being locked down and getting creative with what we had on hand. Are there things that could have been "more" or better? Yes. But is our Powder Room better than when we started and are we happy with it? 

Yes. So, that is enough. 

And a valuable lesson too. 

It's nice to have a fresh look because we are spending still spending our time at home.

So, here we let's see what we accomplished...

It all started with the desire to use a gold/ochre color in this space and a partial bolt of fabric I had previously thrifted and then didn't use where I thought I might. It matched my favorite gold/ochre Sherwin Williams color - Anjou Pear. So we were off to a good start.

Is this the fabric I would have chosen if I had been in my favorite fabric store? 

Probably not but it is the color I wanted to use, has a bit of a chinoiserie feel 

and I had thrifted a large roll of it for $4.00. 

In the end, I love it in the room.

The biggest change, our only major expense, was a new vanity. Our old 80's cabinet was built into the corner and was large and clunky and the countertop and sink had been past their prime for ages. I had painted, faux marbled, done everything I could to make it appear far nicer than it was. 

We arranged a curbside pick up for a very reasonably priced, very plain base cabinet. Is this my dream bathroom vanity? Again, no, but in uncertain times being frugal seemed the best move and this one is perfectly acceptable and a vast, vast improvement over the previous one. 

And it was in stock and easily picked up from Home Depot. 

(The brass container I use as a trash can is old and has some wear but  is beautifully etched with a chinoiserie design)

We had a few demo/reconstruction issues and one was that the old base did not have flooring under it so we patched the hardwoods and I used paint on hand to create the floor treatment I had been wanting to do in there forever!

Black and white check floor. It is my favorite floor design of all time and is so versatile and classic. It can look chic, high end, Parisian, or farmhouse depending on what you pair it with. 

It is a lot of taping and dry time in between to achieve the crisp lines wanted but I think it's worth it and we love it.

Mollie was going to help pull tape when I finally(!) finished the floor

 but Cooper beat her to it!

Everything else (except the hand towels) came from shopping the house 

and using as is or doing a little DIY with paint and such. 

I bought the hand towels on a masked, socially distanced trip to pick up a needed prescription called in to the wrong place which happened to be Target! So while waiting for the prescription confusion to be sorted out I bought the extra hand towels. 

The vintage bamboo towel rack was thrifted before the Pandemic.

Never, ever underestimate the ugly lamp. 

I had been holding on to this monkey lamp for a while. 

I'm a firm believer that glossy white spray paint improves everything.

A couple of coats of my favorite extra high gloss white spray paint and a brand new fabric covered shade and the ugly lamp is a thing of the past!

The vintage bamboo shelf and artwork were in the Powder Room previously. The diffuser is by Better Homes and Gardens and came from Wal Mart. It makes the room smell like a spa and will be so nice when we have guests again!

Things on the bamboo shelf were gathered up from around the house and given a home in the Powder Room. I tucked in a little artwork from a trip to Turks and Caicos (remember travel??), 

a sweetgrass basket from Charleston and thrifted blue and white pieces. 

I'm not a fan of toilet paper holders that are mounted on the wall ( nobody replaces the roll anyway) so I decided to toss our TP in a big blue and white bowl on the bamboo shelf.

The vintage wicker suitcase conveniently hold more rolls.

The bamboo mirror was in the Powder Room previously as well. It was thrifted years ago and when we went to hang it up it was so tall that we couldn't have a light fixture above it. We installed an energy efficient, highly effective recessed light in the ceiling above the vanity. I generally turn on the lamp when we have guests and I like not having a light fixture that collects dust and is hard to reach to clean. 

I haven't missed having a light fixture in here at all.

The white garden stool was also in this bathroom previously. I did find the fabulous planter head on FB Marketplace a few weeks ago and I made a masked, outdoors pick up because I wanted her for this bathroom soooo much and we were ready for a little outing. It was perfectly safe and the sweet gentleman reminded me to use hand sanitizer when I got back in my car!

The large picture over the toilet is a print of a fern cyanotype from the Biodiversity Library. 

The images are free and I ordered the enlargement online from Walgreens. It was less than $15.00 for that amazing print. I didn't have a 24 x 36 inch gold frame at home but I had a black one and some gold spray paint on hand!

I don't have anything on the wall behind the door. I just couldn't make up my mind. I had a gallery wall of travel photos there previously. I wanted something visually simpler this time. I thought about another cyanotype of a fern. I love ferns and grow huge ones on the porch each Summer. But that just wasn't it. And then 2 days ago I figured it out! So technically, the room isn't finished. I'm waiting on an online order. I'll be sure to share on my IG when it arrives and is in the Powder Room!

Thank you for stopping by!!

Be sure to see all of the other finished spaces here.

Thank you to Linda for hosting the One Room Challenge. It is always great fun to participate in and so exciting to have a fresh, improved space at the end but this ORC was an especially welcome diversion during this pandemic induced lockdown.

We are thankful to have a safe, comfortable home in these difficult times 

and are aware that others do not. 

I did not enter into this ORC lightly.