Early March Happenings

 Here in Texas we finally thawed out, and spring has sprung - hooray! We're busy with checking out sprinkler lines, praying they don't shoot out like geyzers when they're first turned on, fertilizing the lawn that looks like something from the Sahara Desert. We've also had in the plans for the past nine months to double the back patio, and that finally started this morning with the digging of holes. 

So I'll post updates on that as the project progresses. Hopefully very, very soon we'll be back there cooking out, and enjoying having family gathering around the fire pit in the evenings, which are still coolish. 

We happen to have 'guests' coming the end of this month, and actually they're all family. You don't have to fuss for family, but it is a good excuse to up your game a bit. So we've been working to get the upstairs bedrooms and game room furnished and fixed up a bit. 

One of the things I find intimidating about decorating a new home is choosing a color palette. We lived in our last home for about three years and never did put up window treatments. So I decided to start there, and just choose something I really loved for the queen (referring to bed size) bedroom. I found these at Wayfair. 

 They jumped off the page at me, so I decided to just go with it. The chair is really too big for the room, but it is wonderful to curl up in, and decent quality, and paid for, so I decided to leave it there as well. I found a wall lamp from Target to brighten up the spot early in the morning, as this is where I take my first cup of coffee every single day. 

The booster pillow doesn't show behind that piece of fabric, but it was a gift from our DIL about 10 years ago. It had a monogram on burlap, and added some nice texture to the room, so I did this:

I didn't fuss, but rather just chopped the monogram out of the middle of the pillow and sewed it on top of this piece of fabric, with a foldover back on it, for laundering. That little blue slip you can see behind the pillow is a heating pad, which I also start my day with. It's such a cozy way to begin the day, but a guest might also enjoy it in the evening. I call this chair my 'polka dot chair', found at Rooms to Go I think about 7 or so years ago. I love the variety of colors in it, which makes it easy to use in almost any room of the house. 

This is a relatively finished picture of the room (without the newly covered pillow). The drawers of the antique dresser have extra sheets, a pair of slippers, CD's of nice, quiet music and a few other guest items. I think it's ready!

This second guest room I kept really simple. We added window treatments in a sage green, to go with the Nautica bedspreads I found forever ago, and the big cowboy picture on the wall. Cub Sweetheart also installed ceiling fans in both bedrooms because we live in TEXAS and upstairs bedrooms need all the help they can get come summertime. The beds are CS's from his childhood, going on about 64 years old now, and I love that grandkids sleep in them when they come for a visit. 

Then I decided to finally, finally use the old window we'd salvaged out of our Pennsylvania home when we replaced them all. I don't know how many there were in that two story house, but a bunch. Every single one was held up with a stick of some sort, and we lived there forever before we could afford to replace them with vinyl ones, but before we hauled them all off to the landfill I grabbed four, one for us and one for each of our grown kids. So we've moved ours around for eleven years now, and I finally decided what to do with it:

This has been living in the back of a closet for far too long. 

I took my granddaughter with me to Joann's and let her pick out a handful of fabric fat quarters. At under $2.00 each they're a great way to go when you only need a little bit of fabric. It's fun to let an eleven year old decide anything - they feel so grown up when you do so! 

I took a piece of computer paper and cut out a pendant shape, looked on Pinterest to get some inspiration and started cutting out the fabric. 

I ironed all the crinkles out of them, then pressed over the edges on each side, leaving the top frayed. 

A little bit of time at the sewing machine and I had along strip of them sewed nilly willy together by turning the top side of the pendant over some white twine I found in my gift wrap bin. 

I decided the upstairs bathroom, which has a grey and gold and white shower curtain, was a good home for this project. But it still looked just a little bit bare. So I added writing with sharpie :-) 

The fruits of the spirit as inspiration to start the day. 

Nothing is perfect, I didn't fuss too much over anything, but it's done and that feels good. I think we're ready for 'guests'.