Restyling the Secretary

Hello everyone!

My secretary is a fun piece of furniture to redecorate.  I don't have shelving units anywhere else in my house, so every now and then, I like to tweak the shelves in my secretary.

I gave it a summer look by changing just a few things.

I changed the pillows in my slipcovered chairs by using this sweet floral pattern.

I leaned a floral canvas on top and filled the shelves with old books turned backwards to reveal the old pages.  

Old blue bottles and mason jars add a pop of color along with some faux purple lilacs.

It's light and summery but most of all sweet and simple.

Do you have a favorite item that you like to change up displays in too?

Thanks for stopping by.

~ Kelly ~

Italian Florentine Trays and Tables

Hello everyone!

I hope you're enjoying your weekend so far.  It is beautiful here in GA. 

I wanted to share my newest love with you.  I have fallen in love with these feminine Italian Florentine trays.

I found these at a local antique store and just snatched them up!  I love how affordable they are too.

Isn't this petite round one pretty?

It has a very subtle pink color on it.  

This rectangular one is pretty too.

It has a cream background.  

I love the painted gold on all of the trays along with the scalloped edges and detailed design in the center.

I plan on grabbing more when I see them.  Also, Etsy and Ebay are full of them!  

In addition, to these trays, I love the nesting tables.  Now, I've actually had these for years.  Every now and then, I bring them back out of storage.  I decided to bring mine back out after finding the trays.  

This makes a great little table for my glasses, coffee , etc. next to the chair. 

Look at the pretty design on top.

These tables are meant to be seen, not covered up with stuff!  

I used another smaller one beside the bench in my foyer.

I noticed that there are many different styles and color combinations of these trays and tables.  Do you have any of these?

If you have a feminine style home (like I do) they fit in perfectly!

Thanks for stopping by.

~ Kelly ~

The Best Way to Buy Meat

Hello everyone!

One of the perks to being married to a firefighter is the fact that he can cook.  In fact, my husband enjoys cooking!  In particular, meats.  With that, comes being picky about his meats too.  He prefers to buy our meat at the local meat market as opposed to the grocery store.  Why?  Because it's a better quality meat that is fresher and you can control your quantity size as well.  For example, we can buy the number of pork chops we want rather than a pre-packaged pack at the grocery store sold by weight.  

We shop here for our meats.

It's nothing fancy, but you get high quality, fresh meats here.  We buy in bulk and bring it home to freeze for later.  

We take it out of the white butcher paper it comes in.

We separate the meats by type and portion size. Be sure to have plenty of freezer bags on hand.

Then when it's all packaged it up, we load our freezer with it.

We have an extra refrigerator in our garage to store it in.  

At first, I wasn't sure if the meat would be any different than what we've purchased elsewhere, but after browning some ground round one night and had no fat to drain off of it, I was a believer.  It even broke up easier in the pan.  Everything we eat from there is much fresher than anything we've purchased at the grocery store.  We make a trip about once a month and stock up.  

So, if you're looking for a new way to buy meat, try your local meat market.  You may be surprised at the difference.

Now, what's for dinner?

Thanks for stopping by! 

~ Kelly ~

New Pillow Covers on my Bench

Hello everyone!

Since I painted the chest in my foyer, I have been slowing adding soft shades of blue in other areas of my home to coordinate with it.

I came across these pillow shams from the Simply Shabby Chic line and decided to give them a try on my bench in the foyer.

They were the perfect subtle shade of blue with tiny floral bouquets sprinkled about.

They are in the Wallpaper Ikat pattern.  I like how casual and soft they look casually strewn abut the bench.

They help offset the blue chest on the opposite side of the foyer as well.

Blue and grey make a good pair.  Don't you think?  

And speaking of blue.  I finally caught a picture of the little blue bird that flies in and out of our birdhouse!

This particular birdhouse has only been home to blue birds.  They come back every year.  

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kelly ~

Romancing the Family Room

Hello everyone!

It's no secret that I love romantic style furnishings.  I love white slipcovers, candles, flowers, mercury glass candlesticks and white dishes on display.  I also love decorating books and magazines.  So, why not combine them all for a fresh summer look in my family room?  

It all started with a new vignette on my coffee table.  I changed it up by adding a vibrant purple orchid, some decorating books and candles.

The orchid is new.  It's actually real too!  I have faith that it will do well because of the other one that I've had for years and successfully re blooms.  I love this bright purple color with all the white and grey in the room.

I also decided to change up my mantel again by using only mercury glass candlesticks.  I like the collection together.

Of course, I have plenty of decorating books to browse though too.  I brought some of them out of storage for easy access too.

The family room is always a place to relax and unwind at the end of every day.

I think that's why I like it so soft and unfussy.

Do you have a favorite room to relax in?

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kelly ~

Porch Clean-up

Hello everyone!

I promised you pictures of my fresh clean front porch all ready for summer.  And I'm happy to say that it's ready.  It was a lot of work, but so worth it!  Our porch provides us a lot of shade since it's under so many trees.  However, the trees can make it get dirty fast.  Plus we live in the south which means we get a lot of heat and humidity during the warm months, so we have to deal with mildew on the white railings.  Then yellow pollen in the Spring.  So, cleaning our porch is not a luxury, it's a necessity!  

We used these two solutions to clean it.

My poor husband did most of the cleaning because I wasn't able to use the pressure washer.  Have you ever tried using one of those things?  It's hard!

He climbed up the ladder to get the top portion of the porch.  It was a wet and dirty job!

Just look at this close-up of our gutters though.  The left side is before and the right side is after it's cleaned.

We really need to cut these limbs off that are hanging on our house.

Just look at what visited us while we were out there too!

Yep!  That would be a snake.  It was a king snake so it wasn't dangerous.  But, let's just say that I quit walking in the pinestraw after that!  

We took the furniture off the porch to clean it also.

And now.................here is the after!

I didn't style it for photos because it's just too darn hot!  It's also too darn muggy.  So, this is how it looks all the time now.  The cushions were also cleaned.  They are made with outdoor fabric.  Everything out here is weather proof and functional.  That is key to having it last!

Sometimes, at night, I'll light the candle in my lantern and sit outside and rock.  So peaceful!  

I recently purchased these pink geraniums for our porch.  I've had good luck with them before. We removed the planter baskets that were on our rails because they were looking bad. So, now I just put flowers around the front door.

So, do you want to come over and drink some lemonade with me on my newly cleaned front porch?  I promise you'll get lots of shade.  But, I can't promise you won't sweat to death from the high humidity here in GA.  I really could use some ceiling fans out here. 

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kelly ~

A Romantic Style Lampshade

Hello everyone!

I recently stumbled across this beautiful blue and white lampshade while shopping at Target.  I walked passed it thinking it was really pretty. So, I finished up my shopping and then returned to give it another look.  And by golly, it ended up coming home with me!  I figured that I could always return it if it didn't look as good in my home as it did in the store.  

I had hoped it would bring in another touch of blue somewhere to coordinate with my newly painted blue dresser in the foyer.

It coordinated SO well, that it landed on top of that dresser!  

Here is a close-up of the shade.

The white flowers are actually raised on the shade.  

But, my favorite part is how it looks at night when the light is shining through it.  

It almost looks like lace.

The blue color sort of fades away and just leaves you with the pattern on the shade.

I added it to a lamp base that I already had.  It's a white glass base that reminds me of milk glass.

So, I'm pretty happy with it!.  I decided to put the lamp, that was in here, in my kitchen.  I missed not having a lamp in there.

My husband and I have been working on our front porch over the past few days.  So, I should be able to share that with you soon. 

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kelly ~

Touring Through Blogland

Hello everyone!

First of all, let me give everyone a huge THANK YOU for the sweet comments on my magazine feature post!  I certainly felt loved.  One of the great things about being a blogger is all the support you get when you have something big happen in your life, whether it be good or bad.  It was so nice to be able to share my news with everyone.  

Today, I'm participating in a blog tour.  I was invited by Penny at The Comforts of Home.  I've been following her for years, even before I started blogging.  I remember when her blog had a different name!  She mostly blogged about her beautiful mosaic creations back then. She and her husband have purchased and renovated many homes in their lifetime.  It's amazing to see the before and after's!  She currently lives in a beautiful home in NC that she renovated into a french country style. But I'm most jealous of her incredible back yard space!

Ok........let's get this tour started!  

I'm supposed to answer these 4 questions.

1)  What are you working on right now?

Well, I'm not working on any major or very exciting projects at the moment.  I'm actually working on cleaning and sprucing up our front porch.  (So it can live up to the picture in the magazine.)  I have a lot of things that need to be done though.  I need to update our master bathroom.  I hope to get to that some time this year.  I also need to repaint our garage interior and clean up our basement.  Those just don't sound very fun though.  Any volunteers???

2)  How does my work differ from others in this genre?

This question threw me off for a minute.  My work?  Well, maybe they mean my blog.  My blog is a home decorating/home cooking/gardening/family blog.  I think there are dozens out there just like mine.  The only thing I can say that makes mine different is that it's about MY home/MY cooking/MY garden/My family.  I love sharing all of these with everyone and hope that it brings some inspiration to others the way their blogs do for me.

3)  Why do I write/create what I do?

I enjoy sharing my home with other people.  I like the interaction that goes along with blogging.  It's like a cyber world of like minded people that I wouldn't normally get the chance to meet any other way.

4)  How dos your writing/creating process work?

I'm not usually a spontaneous style person.  I'm a planner, list maker, organizer etc.  However, when it comes to blogging, I often just do it "on the fly".  I literally come up with something to write about very close to the time I sit down and do it.  I don't do a lot of planning (except for blog tours like this). I often write about what I'm passionate about that day.  What my inspirations are or something new that I want to share.  That's it.  I try to keep my blog fun and not write for the sake of writing. 

So, now that I've shared a little bit about myself.  It's time to pass the baton over to these 3 lovely bloggers that I've chosen.  They will participate in this tour next Monday, June 23rd.  These are blogs that I enjoy visiting and I think you will too.  They all have one very important trait in common.  They are very sweet attentive bloggers.  If you visit them, you will make friends with them instantly!!  

1)   Lisa at Texas Decor

She started her blog over a year ago.  She blogs about traditional decorating and sharing simple and inexpensive home decor tips that she has learned.  She likes to share holiday decor and recipes as well.

2)  Christine at Little Brags

She lives in a house in the Pacific Northwest.  She blogs about her casual eclectic style that includes many DIY projects and rustic accents.  And watch out for the most adorable bunny, she owns, that you've ever seen!

3)  Carol at Art and Sand

She writes about life in a tiny California beach cottage.  She shares decorating and gardening along with creative projects such as hand painted pillows and signs.  She loves attention to detail and is constantly tweaking things around the house. 

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of mine.  Be sure to check out more tours next Monday!

Thanks for stopping by.

~ Kelly ~