My Domestic Nightmare

This is my domestic nightmare. I ususally have an organized house. I'm not OCD or anything, but my husband and I both are pretty good about putting things where they belong and teaching our four kids to do the same.  Having said that, I can not seem to tame the clutter of my pantries. I have two in my kitchen, one large walk-in in my garage (it's very organized) but neither one in the house is organized. What can I do? I need some serious help.

All of my canned foods are behind those boxes and tupperware containers. Can you just imagine how fun it is to try and find something canned when I'm cooking?

This is a picture of the smaller pantry. It mainly holds extras. You know the 4 bottles of Miracle Whip I bought because they were on sale. We believe in stock piling food.

Anyone out there have any ideas to help me out. I'm telling you I need some.

Butter Dish

I have a small obsession with butter dishes. I don't know why, but I totally love them. I have so many and have been collecting them for many years. I had them packed away until I discovered blogland and realized that I could use them for something other than butter. Imagine that! So here is my absolute favorite butter dish, in my bathroom holding my facial cleaning pads. It's perfect and I love to be able to look at it every day.

Sweet Delivery

Ok, so I'm totally new to blogland, but I'm also totally hooked. I've seen many talented women put beautiful things in their Etsy (never even knew that was a word before) that I would love to have and I think the idea of supporting stay at home moms is great. All of that makes me a warm and fuzzy inside, but yesterday I reached a new level when I came home with a box on my porch from The Lettered Cottage Home which is The Lettered Cottage's etsy site.  I couldn't wait. My first purchase from an etsy. How exciting! Can you tell I don't get out much?

I tore open the box and saw this.....

and finally this.

I uncovered these four beautiful boxes. I can't wait to put them up. They smell so good, I think they're made out of cedar. Love them. I post some pics when I decide where to put them. I don't think they'll fit where I had originally thought. They're much bigger than I thought. Have a great weekend!

Rehab House-Alan I-Part 3

These are the last of my pics for the horse farm house. I so wish I'd taken pictures of the horse barn outback. It is so pretty. There are lots of pretty details and rooms that I missed. I took these before my blogging days. Now I would do a much better job at capturing the details. It's amazing how much I've learned from everyone in blog land.

If you notice the circular room on the roof we called this the Princess room. It's round and full of windows and a spiral staircase leads up to it. It's amazing. I do think the house would look much better painted a different color, but it just wasn't in the budget.

The sink area in the kitchen.

This is the kitchen in the mother-in-law suite. It even has it's own entrance from the garage.

Master bedroom on the first floor. I believe there were a total of 6 bedrooms in this house. Have a great day.

Rehabed Houses-Alan I Part 2

Yesterday I posted a few pics of a house on a horse farm and today I want to show a few more, especially the outside. The view is the best.

 

This is the wrap around porch and this is the fenced in horse pasture. It takes up several acres. They're both breath taking.

 

This is a picture of the foyer. Not a very good picture, it doesn't do the space justice.

 

And the final picture is of the master bath that was almost completely redone. We debated taking out the stain glass window, but decided to leave it.



Hope you enjoy having a look. Have a great day.

 

Rehabed House-Alan I

My husband buys houses that are in bad shape and cleans them up and resales them. I'm really bad about taking before shots, but good at taking after shots. You really should have seen it before to appreciate the transformation. It's a beautiful house on a horse farm and these are just a few of the after shots. I know I love looking at houses, especially well loved house so I hope you enjoy.

This is the formal dinning room. We didn't replace any of the cabinets, we just changed out the hardware and put on several coats of polyurethane then put new flooring down. The floors are marble.

The kitchen was totally redone with granite and marble floors. Still the same cabinets with polyurethane and new hardware.

This is the living room. We painted the brick because the old brick was very dark and I happen to love painted brick. First we tried grey, but changed it to this caramel color.

Memories to Be Framed

I love decorating and it has always come easy to me, that's not to say that everyone would love what I do in my home, but I love what I do in my how. However, I've always had a hard time with hanging things on my walls. For some reason it's a struggle for me to commit to putting something on my walls and I often leave them blank until I find the perfect piece. Now this has been a time consuming problem because we move often (5 times in the almost 10 years that we've been married) and so my walls are left empty more often than not. But I have found something that I always love to look at and it fits in every house that we live in. It's one of each of my kids baby outfits that I had framed. In this house they're in our Master Bedroom, but I've put them in the living room, library, and hall at other houses. I will never tire of them and my children love them.

This is my little boys. He was born in November so his is a Winter outfit. Below the outfit is a card with his name and birth date.

This outfit belongs to my first born. Hers also has a silver spoon engraved with her name.

And this dress belongs to my little Lovey. If you notice they all have the same frame, my sons has a walnut finish while the girls have a cherry finish. That was an accident by the framer, but I liked it and didn't make him redo it. Another thing that my framer messed up was that originally he put my son's baby spoon in the frame, but he put it in at an angle not under the outfit and it looked off to me so I made him take it out. It just bothered me to look at it and made it unsymmetrical. It wasn't pleasing to my eye. I very much appreciate symmetry. I've used this framer for many years and he was very good about fixing the mistake. I don't have many things professionally framed because of the cost, but I do think it's worth paying the money when it's something you love. And I love looking at my kids baby clothes. I know some people say that you shouldn't have your kids things in your bedroom, it should be all about you and your husband, but my husband and I are all about our kids and this makes us happy to look at. Now I just need to get the Chubsters outfit framed.

Fall in the Dinning Room

I have a few more Fallish decorations for the dinning room. This is a turkey gravy boat that I got this week at TJ Maxx. It will last me through Thanksgiving and it's one of the few Thanksgiving decorations I have.

I really like these bottle lables and creepy food signs that came from the dollar tree. Perfect for my buffet table.

And finally, I have a tiny pumpkin peeking out of a bowl on one of my shelves. It use to be a door hanger, but Lovey got a hold of it and took care of the hanger part. Oh well, I think I like it even better now.

Yard Sale Finds!

My SIL and I went yardsaling this weekend and we went to one community yardsale that was to die for. We both got a lot of good stuff and here is just some of my score. The bowl above was $.75.

I got the whole set of white potter with pinecones for $3. The white chip & dip was .75 and the 4 candles were $2.25 for all three. They still had the plastic on them.  The beautiful white baby afghan was $1.  Oh and I got that sconce thingy(not sure what it's called) for free and the yellow shelf in back for $1.

This mirror and framed picture was $1 each.

And these beautiful plates were $.50 each except for the white one in back. It was a whole dollar. I'll be sad to see the yard sales end, which is real funny since I've never been before this year, but I'm definitely a believer now.

More Fall Goodness

I love this pumpkin peeking out from behind my peace lilly. My Lovely is in love with this pumpkin man and she recently broke one arm off and his head. Oh well, we'll glue on again next year.

This is our little grave yard inside. I got the BOO idea from a blog that I read last year and totally love it. I got the white pumpkins from Michael's and free handed the letters with a Sharpie marker. They're one of my favorites.

These beautiful ladies came from Cracker Barrel last year after Halloween. I think I got them for 70% off and I've been waiting all year to put them out. I had to put them up high on our entertainment center so little Lovey wouldn't totally destroy them. She already broke the purse off of one.

Isn't this so sad. The grim looking cat is holding a sign that says "Beware of Cat" and those mean crows have locked him up inside.

I hope everyone is enjoying this nice fall weather. I live in North Carolina and it couldn't be more perfect. It's the simple things that make life some pleasant. Oh and don't forget to go by Kristen's @ Kristen's Creations for a seriously terrific give away. Her frames are georgous.

Thanks to all who left sweet comments yesterday.  It was the first time anyone left any comments, I told my husband (who is a big supporter of how much care I put into our home) and he was  excited too.

Fall Goodness

Fall is my favorite time of the year and I'm so happy it's October 1st so I can decoratre. (I fibbed a little, I've been fall decorating since mid-September) Rhonda over at Southern Hospitality is having a fall party so go over and check out all the pretty fall decorations in blog land. I love looking at other people's house and decorations. It's so inspiring and addictive.

My sofa table has a mix of fall and Halloween decorations. The kiddies love them.

I love the tiny pumpkin under the cupcake holder, so does my two year old. I'm shocked it's not broken already.

Love the skulls in the glass all but one came from the Dollar Tree. Can you guess which one?