Starburst

The walls in the green guest room were still looking a little sparse, even though the Orla Kiely art was looking good on the headboard wall.

 Opposite the bed is the door to the closet and the door to the landing.  In between we have managed to squeeze my favourite piece of furniture we own.  No surprise, it was a flea market find (Encore Resales).  Amazingly, I didn't buy it the first time I saw it.  After two days of worrying someone else was going to snap it up, I called the nice people at Encore to hold it for me.  It's more of a buffet, but adds good storage to this room, and I love the mid-century style.

I hung the starburst mirror above it.

And my 3 Marimekko glasses, ok plastic cups, found a home on top. 

Bama Flea Mall

Bama Flea Mall is probably my favourite flea mall.  It's housed in an old Walmart building, so is HUGE, plus there are no painted, distressed, stenciled pieces of furniture (I'm all for DIYing some old crappy furniture, I just don't want to pay for someone else's efforts).  Bama Flea Mall is other peoples old junk.  Don't get me wrong, I'm sure if you have the patience to rummage through the toot, there are some legitimate antiques.

But its mainly toot. 

And that's usually what I'm looking for :-)

This weekend was packed with shoppers.  Clearly the combination of a 3 day weekend and baking hot weather had everyone in the mood for a bargain.  And I wasn't disappointed. 

This is my loot:

And all this for $27!  My best bargains were the chip and dip tray, originally $4, but that booth was having a 25% off sale, so $3.  And the candle stick (front right) is solid marble, weighs a tonne, and was $1.

No idea what I'm going to do with half of it yet, I'm sure I'll find a home for everything eventually :-)

Living it up

The curtains are (finally) hung, the sofas are in, and the living room is starting to come together.

This is my favourite little area so far.

Kitchen catch up

The kitchen has definitely been our largest undertaking.  The original cabinets were in good shape, but in need of a face lift.  They were a dirty cream upper and grubby green lower with brass hardware.

We decided on a crisp white for the cabinets with brushed nickel hardware.  We've been painting and painting and painting, and it still looks like we have loads to do.  The cabinet doors and hardware are ready to go.

The drawers are a work in progress.

But there is one little corner that we have finished.  Its right above the microwave, so probably the most impractical cupboard to finish first.  But at least its one more thing check off the list.  One down, only 18 more to go!

Can you handle this?

One of our ongoing projects has been replacing the gold door handles with a more modern brushed nickel. 

We updated our address with the post office and received a 10% coupon for Lowes.  I wanted to make the most of the discount so bought all of the door handles at once.  I'm never one to pass up a discount!

Not only were the handles gold, but they were pretty crapped up too.

They look a million times better now.

Be our guest

And on to the guest bath.  This is still a work in progress.  We need to find a blind and a mirror.  I'm contemplating breaking out the glue gun and framing out the one that was already there to save some pennies.

Below is the shocking, headache inducing, orange colour before (not very relaxing).

And this is what it is now.  A nice calming blue, with clean white waffle shower curtain.

To save on space, opposite the loo is our Ikea swivel towel bar (Grundtal!).  Bought during our recent trip to Atlanta (our nearest Ikea is 150 miles away, augh!).

We already had these candle holders which matched the towels perfectly.

Basement or storage room?

We hired a moving company for the big items but, to try and save a few pennies, we started moving the smaller items ourselves.  Pillows, poufs, picture frames.  If we could squeeze it in a box or Ikea bag, we lugged it from our apartment and in to the basement of the new place. 
Where most of it still is!!
Exhibit one.

I'm sure I've forotten what's in half of these boxes.  One day, hopefully sooner rather than later, this will be an amazing craft room man cave!

The green room

Here are some before and after pics of one of the guest rooms.  We decided not to paint it......yet! 

Before:

The room is mainly furnished with thrift store finds.  The headboard is from Craigslist, the chair eBay, and the Orla Kiely art is framed wrapping paper (bought from the nice people at Paper Source http://www.paper-source.com/).

A close up of my Orla Kiely "art".

Moe pillow has made himself at home on the eBay chair.

Teal-tastic!

We've also been busy painting the family room.  The trim was already a crisp white, and we were lucky to have the plantation shutters.  The carpet was also in good shape (Sears arrive on Tuesday to freshen it up).

Now for the colour.  Bye bye ketchup/mustard combo.

Say hello to our aqua, teal, turquoise treat.

I think the plastic patio chairs really make the room!!

After the carpet clean, we'll be hanging all of the curtains and playing around with the furniture (no, not the 2 plastic chairs!) to see which layout works best.

Here we......go!

We finally have Internet hooked up, so time for some updates.  First up was the dining room.  It was a dark dingy green before.

We primed and painted the whole room, these were our first brush strokes.  The dollar tree plastic drop cloth didn't last long!

Hmmm, a long way to go.  Still, we soldiered on.  This is the first coat of the purple on the accent wall.  It was looking a little sweaty.

But after a second coat it was the perfect colour.  This is the wall with the stallion painting - sadly he didn't come with the house!