Little Rose Oil Painting

I am always working on something. 

If you were to come for a visit you would rarely find things the same way twice.

 I have to remember that not everything has to be a big project to make the cut for a blog post. 

I told you about my chalk paint fail.

I used it on our powder room vanity but I really didn't like using it. It seemed messy.

But I do love it for my random picture frame projects.

It looks good on an adorable painting that I picked up at the thrift store a long time ago.

 While I loved the painting, I didn't love the gold frame. The gold didn't flow with the naive quality of the painting. 

I didn't worry about perfection when I painted it.

I was happy to have it look like it had been laying around in a dusty antique shop.

But I love the painting now that is white. 

 It looks great with the vintage Ethan Allen clock that was a $5.00 find at Goodwill. 

Cute!
Sprinkled with chalk paint,
Katie

Linking with,
French Country Cottage

Master Bath Update- Part II

We have made some progress on the master bath. Nothing physical done yet, but progress none the less. 
I told that we are using a designer. I have a firm sense of what I like but I felt that I needed the expertise of someone who does this day in and day out. 

She indicated that the first step was to find our bathtub.

We are trading out the large whirlpool tub for a free standing tub. I have gone over and over pictures on the internet and in magazines for hours. 
I was a little nervous about picking out the tub. It is the most expensive element in the room and what if it is wrong? Our designer refered us to a bath and kitchen wholesale supplier.
Immediately our consultant was able to point us in the right direction.
Bill and I have tossed around the idea of a antique cast iron tub for a couple of years. We thought we could find one and have it refinished. We have even looked at them numerous times at our favorite archetural salvage store. 

A refinished tub was going to be about $1000.00. Of course I would love to find one in a horse pasture, but you never know if there are cracks and it would still have to be sent out for reglazing. The weight of a cast iron tub filled with water was a concern for me in a second story bathroom. I had visions of me crashing through the kitchen ceiling. 
Bill and I have spent weeks looking at the tubs available at the big box stores. We knew what was out there as a retail option. I was concerned about the quality. 
Within minutes of our arrival, our design consultant at the supply pointed us to a lighter weight limestone tub. 

The weight of this tub is only 115 lbs. How is that even possible?
Once the tub was chosen, we were able to move on to faucets. We debated getting the spray nozzle or not. We decided that even thought it added some visual distraction to the faucet we would regret not having the option of spraying down the dog after a bath. (I don't even think that I'm letting that dog in my tub.) I will love the spray nozzle for my nightly foot bath. :)

Ours will be chrome without the white porcelain knobs.

This for the shower and these for the sink.

These will have the little porcelain knobs to tie in with the white tub. 
It was so easy. 
It only took an hour. 
Our design consultant knew what we needed after just a few minutes of conversation. 
In minutes we had what we needed on order and it will be delivered at no charge. It was amazing. 

Buoyed on our success, we went by an outlet type of bath and kitchen store to look at bathroom vanities. We left without anything. We are back to the drawing board on that one because they were all very curvy and carved and just not us. 

Now that things are ordered it is time to start demo and pick out tile. 

I will tell you, that I was dreading picking out the tub. I thought it would be the most difficult part. 
I think it turned out to be the easiest.
Sprinkled with doing things with a professional,
Katie 

Sick Again

I have been sick again. 
I guess I really need to stop saying;
"I never get sick."
I've been sick at least twice this year. 

I have missed two days of school.
I hardly ever miss school.
I have a very low tolerance for medicine.
For some reason my body just does not do well with certain concoctions from the pharmacist.
At dinner I asked my husband what Bromfed D.M had in it.
He said it was "dizzyloopflakeyouout" medicine.
100 mili-liters. ;)
Apparently, I was a little spacey when he got home.
Rebekah asked me. "Why are you still awake?"

 A couple of years ago after I had surgery, I had to go 
cold turkey off the meds. 
 I woke up, ran across the room convinced there were bats flying around. 

 Of course by the time I reached the door knob and I had nearly popped a stitch, I realized I was just dreaming and it was the Tramadol making me "see" things. 

Even a Benadryl makes me sleep for hours and hours.
I have been zombie like for a couple days. 
Yesterday I tried to go to work, I'm sure I lost several minutes of our teacher luncheon just staring into space. 
 I am pretty sure I even lost a few city blocks on the way.

We have had a few stressful weeks, some of it I will share later, which is why I think my immune system is a little off. 
Usually, I am pretty impervious to the little germ factory that is the classroom. 
Not this time.

I have sat here all day reading and looking at my computer. 
It is has me thinking about my blog. 
It is probably not a good thing to do when on 
"dizzyloopflakeyouout" medicine. 
But...

I wonder if my blog should be a bit more personal. 
Do you enjoy reading blogs that have a bit of personal content?
I want to respect my privacy and that of others but sometimes I don't get the feeling that you are really getting to know the "real" me or the real "us"

Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts unless you are spamming me again with your creepo website. 
Sprinkled with "flippyloopdopeydrug",
Katie 
I'm going to go sleep this off.

Tomorrow we have an appointment at the plumbing store to talk about bathtubs. :) 

It's Sunroom Time

I've been sitting in my favorite room and it's the perfect season for it. 

My dream for this room came from an article I saw in Victoria Magazine years ago. I originally thought that we could make the walls completely out of old French doors. 

Bill had something more finished in mind. 

We enclosed the space so we would have a quiet place to sit during the kid's teenage years. We finished this project about 10 years ago. We already had the roof. The foundation needed to be beefed up a few inches, but Bill did the rest by himself. 

He did the walls and windows and we tiled the floor, together. His brother helped with the electrical. 

Sheetrock was the worst part.

This room has gotten some tweaking in the past year. 

I painted the walls Urban Putty by Sherwin Williams.

I painted some furniture and recovered the little settee.

I re-did the little school house desk, now a plant stand. 

I love this room.

It is a great place to play with decorating styles. 

It used to be the family "meeting" room when we needed to have a serious talk with the kids. Our house has small rooms so this space gives us a few more feet to spread out. It's perfect for overflow seating during holiday get togethers.

I usually put a drink station out here. 

I am not afraid to embrace my country decorating roots in this space. 

It is a little more casual and laid back.

In most of the country this would be considered a three season room. It is not vented for heat or air conditioning and therefore it's not factored into the square footage of the house. But it is about 110 square feet.

It has a window unit for the summer but even with a small air conditioner it gets too warm on July and August afternoons. 

We can use it all winter except on days when it is in the teens or below. That doesn't happen too often in Texas. We have a couple of little heaters out here that keep it toasty on other days.

I really love it in the spring. 

 

Corrugated Sheet Metal Ceiling

I am not really a tea drinker but what do you think? Would you like to come by for a cup and a cozy chat?

Sprinkled with a cozy sunroom,

Katie 
Linking with,
French Country Cottage  
From My Front Porch To Yours
The Brambleberry Cottage  
Funky Junk Interiors   
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Between Naps on the Porch   
Savvy Southern Style  
A Stroll Through Life  
I Gotta Create  
Sew-licious Home Decor

New Upholstered Chair

Mr. Bill enclosed the porch and finished out the sunroom when the kids were teenagers. We had to have a quiet place in the midst of video games and garage bands. Bill did most of his T.V. watching out there but now that the kids are grown we could actually move back into the house for T.V. and movies. Bill had most of the say in the furnishing and decorating of his man cave. ;)

He got a new media cabinet.

He built his coffee table. Read about it here.

 We found the leather loveseat and chair at an outlet kind of place called The Dump.

It matched an ottoman I picked up at the consignment store.

Perfect!

But, we had this old worn out chair.

You can see where our old dearly departed orange kitty used to sharpen his claws.

My sister had taken some of her old chairs to be reupholstered in leather and fabric. The transformation was amazing, so Bill and I wanted to do the same thing with this chair.

We bought our materials and then did nothing for a year.

We found the hide at Tandy Leather in Ft. Worth. It was 110.00. We found the fabric at Joann's. It was 130.00 for it and some supplies.

Now...

 you will think I have lost my mind, but I entertained the idea of doing this as a weekend project just the two of us.

         

Have you seen the show, Renovation Realities?

Bill and I are a little like that sometimes in the midst of a project. We would never be one of the couples that cuss at each other but we have been known to snip at each other.

When it came right down to it, I just didn't think we could do a good enough job.

I dropped it off at the shop in August of last year.

It was supposed to take 8 weeks but it actually took 14 weeks.

I think the shop got backed up with other stuff needing to be re-done for the holidays. I liked the little shop we worked with, but I suspect that they had other orders that had to be rushed. I was patient and polite so I think we kept getting bumped. The owner of the shop dropped it off at 6:30 the night before Thanksgiving.

He was kind of enough to get it here for the holiday. 

He doesn't know that our only guest, my mother-in- law, would not have climbed the stairs to see it.

I love the leather and fabric combination. It has a southwest flair that we have seen around furniture stores in Dallas. Bill kept saying that he couldn't believe it was the same chair. 

I don't know if he had ever fully grasped the vision, but I am glad he trusted that it could look fabulous. It wasn't a very expensive chair to begin with. We got it at one point in the 90's at a Penny's outlet center.

 

 

     

The leather we chose matches the loveseat and chair perfectly.

                     

I think it looks so cute. If we had purchased retail, we would have had a tough time finding something that matched as well as this piece does. 

He calls this the mancave. I think that is stretching it a bit since it is so open to the stairwell. But it works for him. 

Sprinkled with leather and fabric,

Katie 
Linking with,
Between Naps on the Porch  
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia  
Coastal Charm  
Savvy Southern Style  
The Farmhouse Porch for The Scoop