Sunday Blessings

...If God is for us, who is against us?

Romans 8:31

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{So sorry this is late today}

The Day After

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know we did!!!

The day started off a little crazy, but that's what keeps it interesting right?

You see, everything was going along smoothly at first. We got up early and my husband and I were enjoying a cup of coffee while getting breakfast ready for the kids. Then, as we got ready to prepare a huge meal for about 20 guests...it happened. I discovered that we suddenly had no running water. Now you have to understand, around here, we seem to always have a water main break somewhere in town which causes the surrounding neighborhoods to be without water for a couple of hours. No big deal, we're used to it. So I thought...okay, I'll just do something else until the water comes back on. Yeah...famous last words. I then discovered a huge puddle of water on the floor in front of the sink. Our sink sprayer hose decided to burst on Thanksgiving morning! Each time I turned on the faucet, testing for water, I was unknowingly sending a torrent of water loose under the sink.

Well, we had seen tons of commercials on TV advertising Lowes pre-black Friday sales, so we assumed that Lowes was open right? Wrong! No one is open on Thanksgiving Day! Here we were with no runing water in the kitchen and I needed to wash potatoes and do lots of breakfast dishes! We got lucky though, there was someone else in the neighborhood who seemed to be having some plumbing issues as well. They had called a local plumbing service who made a Thanksgiving house call. My husband walked over to the neighbor's house as the plumber was finishing up and heading back out to his truck. Hubby asked the guy if he happened to have a sink sprayer hose that he might be able to sell us. Not only did he have one in his truck, he gave it to my husband. Yes, gave it to him - free of charge. Hubs insisted that we pay but he wouldn't take anything for it. Just wished us a Happy Thanksgiving and told my husband not to worry about it. People are so generous!! Anyway, thanks to that plumber who makes house calls and another very handy neighbor, we got that sink up and running in no time. Thanksgiving was saved and we had a lovely dinner! We had lots of family over and after dinner we all competed with each other in a Wii Bowling competition. We had such a blast and have vowed to get together very soon to do it again. A large family game night! What fun!

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Today, we started the full fledged Christmas decorating AND...I am getting ready to embark upon a HUGE project. It involves our bedroom, paint and lots of furniture rearranging. Wish me luck!! I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew!

The basement project is finished. I'm just waiting to find a beautiful Frenchy cabinet to house all of my creative supplies. So, for the time being, I have decided to move on to the bedroom redecorating project. Will have lots of photos to share once everything is complete!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

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xo and God Bless,

Kathleen

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Thanksgiving wish from our home to yours...
may you all have safe travels, wherever you are...enjoy your day with friends and family.
God Bless each and every one of you.

I also wanted to thank each one of you who stop by and read my blog. Thank you all for your comments and your emails. They mean more to me to me than you know. I appreciate your kind words and thoughts!

Happy Thanksgiving!

From our home to yours!

xo and God Bless,

Kathleen

Sunday Blessings

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 27:1

Moving Right Along....

Okay, so the show us your past decor linky party wasn't exactly my best idea ever!! Moving right along...to Christmas decor.

I know that it isn't quite Thanksgiving yet and we've already put up one tree, but I love to have a nice mix of fall Thanksgiving decor along with a Christmas tree. I like how it makes the house feel more festive and it's a nice hint of what's to come.
So we pulled all of the Christmas stuff out of the attic today and put up one tree. I love this time of year!!

xo and God Bless,

Kathleen

What Do You Think of this Idea???

I was going through some photos from several years ago and came across some old decor photos.

It gave me a fun idea.

Have you ever been so in love with a certain style of home decor, that you did your whole house that way, lived blissfully with it for a few years, and then suddenly want to rip everything out and start completely over with something new? I have.

Wouldn't it be fun to share old photos of how your home used to look along with what it looks like now?

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I would love to see how your styles have evolved over the years and was thinking of hooking up a linky party to share them all. Anybody interested, or am I the only one who would have fun with this?

Let me know what you think and if there's enough interest, I'll do one!

It doesn't matter how old the photos are, as long as we get to see what your place looked like then...and what it looks like now! I think it would be a lot of fun.

Let me know what you think!!

PS~the photo you see above is a peek at my before. There are tons more where that came from. If there's enough interest, I'll show the rest!

Hope to hear from you!!

xo and God Bless,

Kathleen

Sunday Blessings

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from Him comes my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly moved.

Psalm 62:1-2

Let There Be Light!!

It has arrived and it has been hung ~ my lovely crystal chandy. Do you have any idea how long I have desired to have one of these beauties?? Oh, let's see...about 8 or 9 years...but let me tell you, it was worth every minute of the wait. It simply makes the room.

Remember the old, unfinished light fixture hanging from the ceiling? Well, it's gone.

Poof!

This is now in its place.

And I'm thoroughly enjoying the soft but bright light she casts over my sewing desk.

I'm slowly starting to put a few things into the room. I can't add too much yet because we're still waiting on all of the baseboard trim to arrive. I'm also on the hunt for the perfect French little something to use as a storage unit for all of my crafting goodies. I'd love to find some sort of cupboard/hutch/cabinet that will span the length of the wall. I found a wonderful shelving/cabinet combo last Saturday on Craigslist. It was perfectly rustic and chippy but after responding to the ad, I never heard a thing back. The posting was removed very soon after, so I'm assuming they either changed their minds or it just sold very quickly. I'm guessing it sold ~ it was beautiful. That's okay though...I figure it just wasn't meant to be. Something even better will come along.

{although I hope it happens soon because all of my fabrics, paints, papers, etc...are piling up and blue rubbermaid tubs just aren't looking very pretty with that chandelier!}

Okay, so until I can show you the final reveal...

...I can show you a few of the little things that I have lying about here and there.

a cool industrial cabinet to hold rubber stamps, jewelry making supplies and whatever else I find

Some drawers are still waiting for items...

while others are already full.

A sweet little angel to keep watch.

Have a wonderful weekend!

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xo and God Bless!

Kathleen

Sunday Blessings

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Proverbs 15:1

A Goodwill Makeover, A Hobby Lobby Find and a Basement Update

Yesterday, I went to Hobby Lobby in search of some cool plug and switch plates for the new craft room, aka studio. Studio sounds much cooler and sophisticated doesn't it? Okay, now that we've got that all straightened out, we'll just refer to it as the studio! Anyway, I found what I was looking for - plus something else tres chic - which I will show you a little further into this post. Well, it just so happens that there is a Goodwill across the street and me, being the thrifty soul that I am, decided to pop in to see what they have.

This is what I found. They look like candle holders right? Yes, they are, but I discovered something else that they can do as well and for this reason alone, I bought them. I brought them home and gave the raffia/wicker base a nice coat of gray paint...

and placed them on the table


here they are again...you can see the gray a little better
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here's the fun part ~ the other thing these sweet little candle holders can do...

they can become cloches!!

If I decide to change up the decor {which I do quite often} I can remove the candles, take out the glass and invert them.

Instant cloche - how cool is that? Gotta love the Goodwill store!

and the other happy find from Hob Lob...a train station clock from Paddington Station. Well, not actually from Paddington Station but a very nice replica. I've been really hoping to find a nice one of these for quite some time now so when I happened upon it yesterday, I was very excited. Plus, it was 50% off - woohoo!

Here it is hanging proudly in the entry foyer.

{Please excuse the not so lovely oak cabinets in the background - haha -I'm still working on hubby to let me paint them}

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Okay, now for a studio update: We are running right on schedule so far. The room is going to be divided into two parts. One side is going to be for me and the other side is for my husband. It will be his home gym. Because of this I had to choose a color for me and he had to choose a color for himself. He is a saint - he knew I had my heart set on gray and said he was willing to go with a color that would coordinate with whatever I chose. I chose Light French Gray by Behr and he went with Blue Heather by Benjamin Moore. They look amazingly fabulous together. Meant to be. A match made in heaven. Who knew that two colors from two separate brands and stores would go so well. So, we painted all day Tuesday and on Wednesday...

we gathered our little helpers

more helpers

... and laid the floor. We used this awesome new product from Allure flooring. It is resilient plank flooring.

It looks like wood, installs like wood, only, it's completely waterproof and perfect for a basement. No subfloor required. Greatest thing since sliced bread!

Here's the hubs putting it in.

Father-in-law helping too. As you can see by this shot, they were just about done.

The room is almost complete now. We have ordered all of the baseboard trim, we're just waiting for it to arrive. Even though it's not completely done, I couldn't resist placing my sewing desk in there just to see what it would look like. Here's a peek...

I'm really loving it so far and will keep you posted as we continue the journey! Thanks for reading along as we complete this special, long awaited project.

Have a great weekend!

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xo and God Bless,

Kathleen