You've got to be kidding me...

I finally got a few new pillows for our living room.

I'm loving the light gray/blue background and still some of my 'go to' colors of red and green.
I had my eye on them for a while at Hobby Lobby.
They'd been moved to the 60% off aisle which I LOVED. But I was SHOCKED to see the original price tag.

I thought to myself, "Who would spend $100 on a pillow!!??" Not this girl apparently.
Even 60% didn't help me out here.
So. I. Waited. and Waited.
Eventually they got down to $9.99 and I scooped up three of them.

They are nice, comfy, pretty pillows. Worth $100? Not in my book.

Maybe it's a scam for me to think I got such a GREAT deal. 90% off is pretty stellar. :)

Things are a changing...

Well if any of you visited the blog yesterday you may have noticed a few things that were messed up. I attempted a quick HTML adjustment which lead to a minor overhaul of the blog. I'm still not a guru when it comes to HTML codes, but there are a TON of excellent tutorials around. Bear with us as we are under some minor construction. I still have a lot of learning to do and have some things I want to add or change. But for now.... I hope you like the new look!

Chalkboard Craze

I did it... I made my own chalkboard.

I turned a piece of artwork destined for the garage sale pile and created a new piece that will float around my house until it finds it's resting place.

I've had this artwork for 8 years... I still remember buying it with a crazy coupon the day after Thanksgiving our first year of marriage -- at the crack of dawn. It matched perfectly with our then master bedroom decor and in our many moves I've found a place for it to land each time. But, like my last post told you... I'm ready to weed out what I don't LOVE and take the time to slowly gather what I do.

The detail on the frame is awesome! I had a feeling it would look great in a different color.

Here she is all finished up. Fresh coat of red spray paint and a chalkboard center.

See the detail... I love it!

I'm not sure if it will end up staying here in our entry but I love the thought of being able to have verses, quotes and announcements to greet our guests. It's also visible from the stairs and living room so it will get quite a bit of notice. All I have to do now is work on my handwriting!!

I used chalkboard spray paint and the jury is still out on whether I love it or not. It's a bit rough and erasing seems to be a bit of an issue. Towels leave their residue (due to the roughness) and I'm afraid to use water. Any of you out there have spray paint chalkboards? How do you erase and clean the thing?


Linked Here:
Someday Crafts

New Year, New Bedding

Well, after 6 years of the same quilt bought at Ross (or Marshalls or TJ Maxx) I broke down and bought new bedding. I'm almost more excited about the deal I got than I am the actual bedding. ALMOST. I'd been eyeing this set for a while off and on. I occasionally check the website for deals and was shocked to see the set marked down from $250 to under $75. I decided to take the plunge and make the purchase. I am proud and still shocked that I got the comforter, two shams, dust ruffle, two Euro pillows and one throw pillow for $100 (thanks to a promo code saving me additional % off). When one Euro pillow has a sales price of $60 I feel like I robbed the store.

I'd like to think the bedroom looks more grown up and a 'little' luxurious. Let's face it for $100 it's not going to be luxurious...but it feels better to me and that's what matters right? :)

Let's take a stroll down memory lane...
It began like this:

Quick changed to this:

And today looks like this:

New Year, New Arrangement

Ahh... January. The time when you take the Christmas decor down and pull everything else back out and put it in the same place you had it before, right? Well NOT THIS YEAR! I decided I was tired of things as they were so I did a little rearranging. I didn't know this would happen so I don't really have before pictures without Christmas decor. And... is it just me or does anyone else "think" their stuff looks good until you see it in photos. Whew... I have got to get better at this decorating thing! HAHA.

Piano area BEFORE

I hated how this looked with the big frame. It was just not right and I didn't know what to do with it. Without Christmas decorations I had the wreath on one side and a few smaller picture frames below it...nothing with height and nothing eye catching.

Piano area AFTER

it almost looks like a piece of furniture instead of a piano. My husband had this mirror in his office at work and it wasn't working well there. I'd planned to Craigslist it but when I mentioned the other night that I needed to try a mirror over the piano my sweet husband gave me the look... you know the one where he's telling you "no need go buy a new one when we have a perfectly good one here". Tell me I'm not the only one who gets that look? :) I figured I'd give it a try... and you know what? I like it. With a few accessories I bought from the good old Hob Lob I am pretty satisfied. The lamp... 66% off!! I was so happy I decided to buy it and find a place for it. For now this is its new home. The frame... yes it's sideways and no it is NOT my family - when I finally get around to putting a picture in it my kids will be in high school (they are 3 & 4 now!).

The built-in shelves BEFORE

It pretty much looked like this with out the Christmas frames and decor... just with regular frames.

The built-in shelves AFTER

I added a more substantial plate rack for the plate & grouped some finials together instead of the red pot which I moved to the mantle. I still need to get rid of the willow tree angels, but they were a collection a while ago and it's hard to part with them.

The mantel BEFORE

The mantel AFTER

I like the red pot on the mantel much better... It still doesn't help the massive white fireplace ... but that's another project for another day. What do I paint it anyway??? If any of you have painted fireplaces I'd love to have you weigh in on that decision.

So... is my husband the only one who asked "Can't things just go right back where they were before Christmas?"

My China Hutch

Do you remember the wall of white plates that you helped me with a few months ago?? Well, I still love it!...

But it left my china hutch looking like this...Yikes!! I'd like to think that it looked better when ALL of the plates were in there, but looking back at this picture, I wonder if it even looked good then! Talk about being white-washed!

So I pulled everything out this weekend and started from scratch. It's funny how the idea of having company motivates me to finish projects like this!

I shopped the house and found some warm-colored pretties that seemed more Fallish. I also stole these wood paintings from the living room. The pastels fit better in here. Especially if you could see the curtains. I'm too lazy to go take another picture, so you can see them here if you'd like.

This basket and garland became my no-fuss table centerpiece.

Whew! Much better. My dining room is now ready for Thanksgiving guests!

Are you doing any last minute re-arranging??

Go Big(ger) or Go Home

I have a problem... I tend to think too small when it comes to decorating.
I have had these lamps on our nightstand for the entire 7 1/2 years we've been married (yay for me for longevity!). The problem is they are just too small for the space. I also had grown tired of the shade and the style of the lamp base. I see lots of lamps at Marshalls & TJ Maxx that are super cute, but I just can't justify spending the money to replace something that functions fine... but isn't decorator savvy.

I've recently rearranged some furniture in the living room and sold some things on Craiglist which left me with one of two matching lamps needing a new home. I thought I'd give it a try and see what I thought about it being in the bedroom.

Once I decided I liked it and that it would stay, I had to steal the matching lamp from the office so I could have the same size lamps on each nightstand. I thought I'd taken a good picture of 'before' the new lamps...but all I found was this one. And I am too lazy to put the old ones back just for a photo! :) Hopefully you can use your imagination as to what it looked like.

BEFORE

AFTER

What do you think? Are they too big? Do they need new shades?

A new look for the girls

Beadboard. Check! New paint. Check!

What do you think?? At first glance, it looks half-way professional, right? I found that wood putty & caulking can fix just about any flaw. Can you see my mistakes??

I used Morning Fog 401-1 from Pittsburgh paints.

I thought it would be a tad more grey, but I'm still happy with it.

Now for the fun part...decorating!!

Girl's room upgrade

We're under construction here at That Village House.

Or at least my girl's room is!! This will soon be a shared bedroom & before moving furniture around, adding a bed, etc., I wanted to add some character! Like color and beadboard! Lindsay showed up yesterday with power tools. That's right...power tools!! Watch out world. We're armed and dangerous, as Lindsay says. So here we go. Wish us luck!

My revised fall porch

This was my porch earlier today...
I love so much about it. The pumpkins...the make-shift chalkboard... & the hay bale that I store in the garage all year just to bring out during Sept-November for my fall decor. I think this may be the one thing my husband just doesn't get about me... :) I always add mums on one side but I just wasn't loving it this year. Reason number 1: it's too small (sometimes the thrifty side of me makes poor decorating choices) Reason number 2: the ugly black pot. Well I couldn't do anything about the size of the plant since I wasn't willing to buy another one (yet).

Then I had a lightbulb moment when I remembered the stash of burlap I had bought for another project... So here's my simple quick fix. It doesn't magically grow the plant but it does help me love it a little more than I did this morning.

More Canton goodies!

We're showing more goodies from Canton today! One of our friends Amanda found a great desk for $40 that she bought to put in her living room. Can you see it in the back of her trunk?


These photos were taken with her cell phone...but I think you can get the picture. Here's the before.



And here is the lovely after! She painted it black and went back and distressed it. She added a new knob she found at Canton too. It's amazing what a little paint can do to turn around a $40 desk?!


Here she has it in her living room with a cute red stool she also found at Canton. I think it's going to look really cute with some fun accessories up top.