January Makes Me Want To Paint!!

It's all  that New Year/fresh start stuff 
and it makes me want to paint !!

My view every morning! I paint. I shower. I go to work!

Plus every paint company and Pantone are releasing their "Colors of the Year"!
And I am happy about the whites!!

Everything just feels so clean and organized after you paint, purge and move back in to a space.

College Girl graduated in July, had a short term recruiting job at her university for a few months and then landed a job in Midtown Atlanta.

Her lease in the college town ended 12/31, the commute was a bit much even though she loved Carrollton and her years there, so she's moving home to save some $$ so she can move into her own place.

If you want to feel better about any bills you are paying them "google" rents
inside the Perimeter in Atlanta and you will instantly feel better.
You will also see why she has to live at home and save for a bit.

So another move for College Girl.
If you follow on IG then you know that a much used hashtag in our lives is
#isit6movesor7
Not kidding.

To make living at home after having your own 2 bedroom townhouse for 2 years a little more appealing we have cleared out the guest bedroom across from her childhood bedroom and created a little "suite" for her - bedroom and sitting room and the bath next door which we just glammed up in the Fall 2015 ORC. See below!!

I started painting the room that will be her sitting room in December as we were moving our stuff out, her stuff in and all the other craziness that goes on at Christmas time.

It's all fresh and white. 

(This room will become the sitting room.)

And while the 5 gallon bucket of white paint is upstairs...

Goodbye yellow stripe accent wall in the bedroom!!
You were fun but it's time.

Now it's all freshly painted white and ready for the star of the room:

The vintage wicker headboard that I found in perfect condition at Goodwill for -

 I did not make this up!! - $24.96. 

It was an amazing day of thrifting!

Sadly, I actually had to leave great stuff behind. 

Mollie loves it and her bedroom is slowly coming together as well. 

All in the same Chinoiserie meets Boho vibe like in the ORC inspiration rooms!

The faux bamboo dresser and lamp are from previous lucky thrifting days!!
I can be in and out of a Goodwill in 10 minutes!!! It's like I'm on a mission!!

And Mollie and I hit 3 Homegoods in 2 days to scoop up all the great knob possibilities for a dresser update going on on the other side of the room. 
More on that later but look at all this hardware goodness. 

Don't worry. We are going to be returning some of these!!
It'll be hard - but we don't need them all :)


Linking up at Coastal Charm!

From My iphone...

... randomness.

If you follow along on Instagram then you may have seen one or two of these. 

Maybe not. 

Instagram moves pretty quickly.

 I always find missed posts when I check on my favorites.

1. I found two brass pineapples  while thrifting a couple of weeks ago.

 I've looked for ages and nada. 

Then 2 in one day and none since!!

They were practically black but look at them now!!

2. Mollie collected letters and put this together above her bed. 

She's adding travel photos to her gallery wall and her blanket from Honduras is at the end of her bed. 

We always have a bad case of wanderlust, see here.

3. I am painting this humongous orange-y bed for a client. It fills the entire room.

It has steps to climb in and out of it. Big, I'm telling you.

4. If I were still a "room mom" I would be all over these.  I love their cute ideas.

So stinking cute!!!

5. I am going to give these a try. 

Hopefully today.

#glutenfree

6. If I were going to drive 2 hours to have lunch then this place would be my first pick!!

It's in Birmingham - not that far - so maybe someday!!

Check out the website.

It makes me want to hop on a plane to France.

( OK, I always want to hop on a plane to France, but this place looks amazing!!)

7. I saved this picture and told my husband that it is my dream bench and if you ever see one... 

In my mind you can never have too much bamboo. It's practically a neutral. 

I love it. 

There's a decorating mantra out there that says every room needs a touch of black

Mine is that every room needs a touch of bamboo.

 Well, check out #8 and see what happened on Tuesday!!!

8. I walked in to a thrift store and this was sitting there in perfect condition for under $25.00 

Not the same but fabulous anyway and that price??? 

I'm not sure where it's going but I grabbed it and crammed it in my car like a boss!!

I usually like to know I have a home/place for something

 but in this case I will edit, rearrange, sleep on it, whatever.

9. Love this IG account for great GF ideas. 

( I am not compensated by Udi's but we have tried every GF item we can find and we love their products. This feed has great tips.)

These look delicious and would be great for entertaining.

They also remind me that exactly this time last year  we were headed to France.

We ate radishes there because they taste better in France than anywhere else.

"French - style" with butter and coarse salt.

10.  Mollie went to her first football game as an alumna and said it felt pretty  darn good to sit in the Faculty/Staff section. :)

Every Flood Has A Silver Lining...

If you follow along on Instagram

then you know

 that Mollie's apartment flooded -

while she was away for a few days.

 So it went from college apartment to indoor swimming pool.

The people next door started seeing water in their apartment

 and the maintenance guys tracked it to her place but by then it was a mess.

I got the call and we took off to see what we could do.

 The maintenance guy jumped in and started "saving her stuff"

and ripped up the soggy carpet and padding.

(The hot water heater was the culprit

and those guys got her HW back up and running in a few hours!!)

( This thing ran non-stop.)

Then came 2 weeks of non-stop fans and dehumidifiers

 and unreturned, frustrating phone calls to the leasing company. OY!

Mollie had to live upstairs and try to function due to work commitments.

But finally she got her carpet put back down and after repeat visits from the carpet guys to deal with a horrible lingering smell we gave up and cleaned and treated it ourselves.

A friend gave us some products from her company, ZEP, and they did the trick!

Frustrating experience.

But the silver lining was that we had fun fixing up the little, under stairs powder room that was trashed in this event :)

I had found an adorable elephant lamp while thrifting this Summer

and Mollie had been planning to use it in that powder room eventually.

Sadly, the poor elephant lamp was a victim of the flood.

He was broken beyond repair in the chaos.

So we just went elephant hunting... in a good way!

This is the replacement elephant lamp. 

After searching high and low this one was the cutest one for the money

 (and some lamps we googled were hundreds of dollars - wow!)

This is actually from Wal Mart ( I know??) 

It is from the Better Homes and Gardens collection and the one Mollie liked best.

We adored the one that was destroyed but this one works.

Please pardon the dated sponge painted walls - it's a rental.

 In a college town. 

You get what you get.

We skirted the cheapy plywood cabinets just like before.

We had the fabric but luckily had not gotten around to making the skirt.

The towel ring came with the rental :) but we found the cute little elephant shadowbox at a favorite thrift shop.

 And the pretty hooked rug survived the flood - I just had to dry it out and clean it.



A close up of the happy elephants on the fabric. It is indigo blue and white. 

But the real thrift shop score was this vintage bamboo shelf for the wall opposite the sink.
It is in perfect condition and so cute.
And just a few dollars!!

The little blue and white jars and bowls were scored at yard sales and Goodwill. 

I'm sure she'll add some other goodies as she finds them 

but for now the powder room looks good again.

 My dad used to bring me little figurines and travel mementos when I was growing up and he traveled (a lot) for work. Quite a few of them were elephants and I stumbled across a couple when I was cleaning before the big graduation party.
 The elephants are still my favorite animal to visit at the zoo.
One of my all time favorite photos from when Mollie was little was taken in front of the elephant habitat at Zoo Atlanta.
I fell in love with this guy during the ORC!
And I have been a longtime fan of the elephant rescue program at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

You can follow them on Instagram for daily updates with adorable baby elephant pictures and updates of successful rescues from elephants caught in poacher's traps.

How about a baby elephant kiss??



Sign me up!
A visit to see these guys in Africa is totally on my bucket list!!
If something closer to home is more your style then
watch the Youtube video of Shirley and Jenny being reunited after 20 years -
have Kleenex handy. No, really.
 It happened in Tennessee at an Elephant Rescue Sanctuary.
Tennessee? How cool is that?

So elephants never forget and I haven't forgotten how much I have liked elephants through the years.

Other than the flood part of this redo, the elephant hunting ( in a good way) has been fun.

Burlap Banners - Quick and Easy!

I know these are everywhere and there are tons of tutorials

but after I posted a picture on

Facebook and Instagram

I had a bunch of how-to questions and promised a tutorial.

 

 

These are so quick and easy.

 

 

Wow - that's blurry.

I bought a roll of burlap ribbon/table runner from Wal Mart. It was on an end cap.

It is 12 inches wide and has finished edges.

It was $5.97 and will make several.

 

 

I cut a length 21 inches long.

 I didn't measure but a friend texted me

and wanted to know the dimensions, so I measured.

I folded it in half and cut it at an angle.

 

 Think about it before you cut and make sure you are angled the right way!!

I mess up at least one bow every Christmas!!

 

I ended up with this 'pennant" shape.

You could leave it straight like I did on this one.

 

 

This was a scrap of burlap with frayed edges on all 4 sides.

It was drying here - the tape came off later.

 

 

 

Then I took a piece of chalk and lightly doodled a whimsical letter on the burlap.

Just work with it until you are happy with it.

The chalk lines will wipe right off later.

 

If freehanding and whimsical is a little outside your comfort zone

 then you can print off your letter in any font you like.

 Just enlarge, enlarge, enlarge until it's the right size

 and you can see right through the burlap to trace it with chalk.

Seriously that easy!

 

Tonight a friend hosted a Ladie's Night Out and I was the entertainment - LOL!!

They ate and chatted and created.

It was a relaxing, creative evening for all of them -11 total.

They had a great time!

( Two of them work together at a school and

 I think they are going to have this as a staff meeting!!

 A treat for hard working teachers.)

 

 

 

Then take a flat edged, fairly stiff bristled brush

 and trace the letter lightly in your paint color.

The brush I used was about 3/8 to 1/2 inch.

 

 

 

And then with either method just start painting the letter

 and filling it in until you are happy with it.

 

And then we used spouncers to add polka dots.

 

 

I put gold dots on my banner because it is headed for College Girl's front door.

 

 

 And she loves gold polka dots on burlap.

 

Then you can sew a rod pocket at the top and slide a dowel through

or glue a scrap of lattice across the top and then add a twine or ribbon hanger.

 

I didn't get that far tonight but I'll try to put a picture of the finished banner

on FB and IG so be sure to look for it in a day or so.

 

And not everyone painted their initial.

You can do anything you want on a burlap banner.

 

 

 These are so quick and easy (and inexpensive) that you can still make some for Easter gifts!!

 

Linked up at:

 



#green

I love the color green.

 I'm not a cold weather kind of gal so green is important to me.

 Green grass. Green leaves on plants and trees.

Looking out of the windows and seeing green scenery.

I love green moss.

 I even like green veggies and salads.

I don't get to use  green all that often at the design studio where I do some free lance painting.

But green is practically a neutral. It looks good with everything.

A room can look perfect and then you add a green plant and it goes to another level.

I just need green in my life.

 

 

I've talked about this bamboo mirror recently. It is Ryegrass by Sherwin Williams.

It's a new favorite green.

 

 

College Girl chose this fabulous mint-y green ( Sherwin Williams Kiwi )

 for our $5.00 yardsale mirror score.

 It hangs right in her entry way and is fabulous.

 

Looking at turquoise-y blues and greens for a project.

  It's a process :)

 

This was the view from my chair for a while.

Indecision, indecision.

The light in this room really affects blues and greens!

 I usually am more impulsive with color and just grab a brush and go,

 but I painted this room a soft blue gray years ago

(without looking at a swatch in the changing light)

 and it looked baby blue - like nursery baby blue. Oy!

But we have reached a decision and the paint is here
 and waiting for the opportunity to paint the cabinet.

We ended up with a turquoise on the blue side not the green side.

 



 

 This is a humongous console. It was black and pretty beat up.

This was a re-do for a huge, newly renovated home in Buckhead.

And the designer chose the fabulous green SW Ryegrass.

I was so excited. I paint a lot of white, gray and black for people so a pop of color is exciting.

It turned out fantastically and I have neither before, after or install pics.
It happens sometimes.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, buy some green paint and remember...