Settling in Small space

After many painstaking hours, we finally have settled into our little place. It's amazing of what you can live with and live without. I love interior designing, if I can say that. It's great therapy for me. Some people love gardening like Mr. Home. Me, I love puttering around inside. It's a great love of mine. I have found when you do have a small space it frees you up to doing other things, I hope to do.


From this view you are standing at our front door looking in to our little space.
My Glass canisters are here at our entrance because it was the best place to put them. I like the color of the oats and flour and sugar they go well with the pattern of our throw cushions, don't you think.


This is our small foyer. This shelf was originally from our girls room when we lived in Pleasant Valley. When you don't have lots of space you have to multi-task your space, like this one, you can see I am keeping some of my grains here along with cookbooks and our calendar. Underneath the bench are stored shoes.


Every nook has to serve some type of purpose. I wanted Mr. Home to have a place that he could let his creativity flow and maybe even mine, so here this is.


This is our "Media center", behind the desk is Mr. Home's comfortable chair where he can relax and watch his games. I can watch too while I'm sitting at the computer and even from our bed.


Our dinette, this was actually one of our patio tables and the chairs were leftovers from an Old Togo's from our town that is no longer there. I have been storing these for quite a while, I knew they would come in handy, I have two more of them.


Looking into "the suite".


Our comfortable place for sweet dreams.


Our Micro kitchen. This Cabinet is part of the original cabinetry of the main house probably from the 40's. It's been moved so many times I have lost count. When we painted our little bungalow we decided to paint everything one color and we finally painted this cupboard and cabinet.

Purples, whites and tans

Our Master bath, this dresser was a local antique find.


Spring time Tulips

Family room for family time

Dining room from a different vantage

It was a misty foggy morning, like any morning on the coast, except it was here in the foothills. I loved it.


Looking out to our front porch, with a peek of our cedar weathered rocker.

Faded Cedar, sea grass & sand = nostalgic smiles

If I can't get there now, I can at least dream about it.


I just love the color of Cedar after it has faded.


I want to go where this leads to............


This reminds me of the simple life that one dreams about.

Inspiring Blogs

I love Willy Wonka, because he was able to see things and create a world his own with his imagination. Whomever created this world the Internet was a genius. I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting these girls through their blogs, *see my favorite buttons and blog sites on right sidebar. It has opened a world that I never imagined and awakened the things I truly love, such as interior design, photography, creating things from things in my own home. I am a closet, vintage,garage sale gal. I love old stuff, I guess I really do, because my house is old. I love take something old and making it new or usable again. So I am an amateur camera girl, one of these days I may take a class or two, but until then I'll keep pointing and shooting what I enjoy. Here are so"Fotos" just around the living room. I love everything that reminds me of the ocean, beach, sand, cool breezes, smell of the salt air, cotton, whites, blues, and so on. It all reveals a laid back relaxing being.

White lace & pinks

They say the "cheapest" way to change up your interior is to splash a dollop of paint on something. I love it when I recieve my PB magazine in the mail. It gets my creative juices flowin and I look for ways to duplicate the look within my meager budget. So this past week as I was perusing the pages I decided to change up my dining room and went to town to painting a couple of my dining chairs. I have had these 4 chairs for about 10 years I paid $25 for the 4 of them at a yard sale. I wasn't able to start on the two of them until late in the evening Last Thursday. I knew it was going to take a couple of coats to cover up the dark brown. And sure enough it did. After I painted them, I was still in the mood to paint, so I took our old worn out bench that sits near in our entry way and decided to put a fresh coat of Benjamin Moore's White lace on it too. It took me probably a good couple of hours to do the first coat. This is the before:

This is during

In the wee hours of the morning when I'm half asleep, I started planning my day in my head. It was a Saturday morning, first thing to do, take the chairs and bench outside in the sunshine and put the second coat of paint on them so they will have all day to dry. While I'm at it, paint the chair that's in my bedroom that needs a sprucing. Then clean house. Oh and have hubby do two things for me. That's how I present it to him. I say, honey I just have two things I would like you to do for me today and then you can do whatever you want. He's pretty good about complying. And to his credit, he did those two things. So here is the:
After


I love fresh flowers in the house so after the chores I went grocery shopping and bought these beauties.

Spring pastels and lazy days

whitewash & pinks so soothing, I love spring.

One of my favorite places, the beach, wiggling the sand between my toes, heaven.

Dream a little dream, a place that suits me.

Gratitude

Sunday evening I was trying to plan a simple Family Night, I don't know about your family but our family has a very short attention span. As I was reading March's Ensign I read a few articles on "Gratitude" and that was it. I made this jar presented to the "fam" and instructed them each to write something that they are thankful for. I told them it can be anything. I placed it in the kitchen and mentioned that it would be nice if each day they would take a moment and add to the jar. It's been 5 days and as you can see it's getting filled. "I'm thankful".

It's been a while since I purchased something from Potterybarn, so I was thrilled when this vase came out in the Spring catalog. They were only $17 dollars and to top it off I had a 10% online discount and it was free shipping, so what does a girl do? but get two! I just love it, it's so cute. Doesn't take much to make me happy. I couldn't wait to fill it up with these white Tulips, they're so cherry. Chow for now!

Revamped

Today was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and warm and it was Fast Sunday. I got home from church and I told myself I wasn't going to end my fast until 4pm. So I sat outside and read this month's Ensign magazine, fell asleep for about 45 minutes. I thought I still have about 2 more hours, so I decided to work on my blog. Time just passed very quickly and before I knew it, it was 5pm. I don't know about you, but I was very thankful. Made dinner and enjoyed the rest of this evening tweaking my blog. I have found some great sites that I have fallen in love with. As you can see I love the beach, coast, etc. This new site (see button for abeachcottage) I totally love, I can really relate to Sarah who lives in Australia. I love her taste, simple and clean. Check it out, you may feel the same way. One great thing about working on my blog, I'm not snacking, a great appetite suppressant. Enjoy.

Sisters

I love my sisters so much!
Some of you may know, my sister who is 2 years older than I, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had her FIRST mammogram February 5th, her 2nd mammogram February 9th, biopsied Febuary 11th and diagnosed Febuary 12. Her Mastectomy February 26th.

And through all this,and many Priesthood blessings, prayers, Ward fastings and prayers were heard. She is doing remarkably well and we her family, friends are very hopeful. She feels at peace, and so do I. I believe we are all being comforted. You know it's funny she and I don't always see eye to eye, but as soon as this happened, and if there was anything amiss, it all went out the window and that's because she is MY sister and I love her so much.
My younger sister, Rhonda and I spent the weekend with her after her surgery, Rhonda cooked, I cleaned, it's the best combination. We talked and talked till after 2 am one night. I felt so thankful inside, because I knew if it was the other way around they would be there for me. Sunday was especially sweet, when her husband, my brother-in-law came during church with his Home teaching companion and served us the sacrament. As he blessed the bread, my sweet brother-in-law stopped briefly, over-come with emotion as we all did. I think we all felt so much gratitude for the Priesthood and the blessing that my sister was doing so well and with hardly any pain or discomfort from her surgery. It just makes me feel so appreciative of what we have.