Arty pants

In my search for cheap art, I took to the mean streets of Birmingham.  Well, I took to the streets of a nice residential area called Inverness.

The whole subdivision has Scottish street names, and I thought I could drive around, take some snap shots of the street signs, and frame them as a little reminder of home.  There were so many to chose from.  Imagine living on Tam O Shanter Lane (I promise I'm not making this up!), or Selkirk Drive, Clydebank Circle, Coatbridge Lane, Tartan Lane, Glasgow Circle.

I'm sure the residence thought I was crazy driving around taking pictures of their street signs, but the results were great.  Here they are framed and ready to hang:

To finish off the set, I bought this close up pic of a Highland Coo from Etsy (Stephanie McDowell).

Console

We've been playing around with our living room furniture.  My clever plan of switching the sofas failed miserably, unless you enjoy squeezing through a one foot gap to get into a room! We don't, so they're in the same position but shifted down a couple of feet.  This has opened up the perfect little space for something like this:

Emily A Clark

Aesthetic Oiseau

An Indian Summer

Pottery Barn

I bought some graphic fabric from a great Etsy shop (Katherine Codega) which I'm planning of framing.

All I need now is a console table.  Luckily, I have this to look forward to on Saturday:

I'm ashamed to say I have never been to a yard sale!  I just don't like the thought of turning up to someones house, being the only one there, and feeling guilted into buying some rubbish I don't really want.  Lets face it, I buy enough crap of my own accord :-)  But with 690 MILES of yard sales, I'm pretty much guaranteed safety in numbers. 

It runs from Gadsden in Alabama (my jumping off point) to Addison in Michigan.  Google map it - it's gonna be HUGE!!  It actually started on August 2nd, so I'm hoping by Saturday that there is still some good stuff left, and that sellers have dropped their prices to get rid of it!  I have a loooong list of things I'm on the hunt for.

I'll report back with my finds.

Singing in the rain

The weather has been crazy over the past few weeks.  We've had massive storms and blazing heat.

This is a snap shot of a storm blowing in over the carpark at work.

Last night was probably the worst set of storms.  They were rolling around throughout the night, and we had flash floods all over the state this morning.  This is a video I took from our front porch.  For just a few hours, we were a waterfront property!!

Make sure your volume is good and loud to hear the thunder.  It was ground shaking stuff!

Green Room finished?

Could one room in our house actually be finished?  Well, I don't think I'll ever be completely finished moving and tweaking and re-jigging, but this is the one room that has most of the major things done.

We have a bed, a mattress, side tables, lamps, a headboard, curtains, storage, a chair and even pictures hung!  And it's probably the one room we use the least, ha!  Still, at least we can check it off the list.......for now :-)

Let's take a look at the before shot.  Mmmm, floral!

I love how it turned out. 

 

LINKING BACK TO:

 

Thrifty Decor Chick - Show Us Your House - Bedrooms

 

Porch progress

Our porch transformation has finally begun!  2 ferns and 2 little boxwoods are our new additions.  My track record hasn't exactly been great when it comes to keeping plants alive and kicking.  Fingers crossed these 4 make it.

From this:

Nothing says welcome quite like a pineapple!

To this:

Next up is spray painting the outside lights (I'm thinking black).  And I'm still on the hunt for a couple of rockers.

My little green apple

I buy a lot of junk.  There, I said it!

I have big plans of refurbishing, or painting, or upcycling.  The treasures sit in a box until I get sick of them being there, and donate them back to the thrift store I bought them from.  Still, at least the money goes to charity.  So on Saturday I paid a visit to the Jimmy Hale thrift store in Irondale. 

I picked up a few knickknack bowls, a planter and a couple of plates.  I also bought what I thought was an apple sponge holder (yeah, classy, I know!).

 

The weird thing was, the opening faced up. Hmmm, not very convenient for easy access to my sponge, but for 99c, I bought it. 

I always like to come home and search my purchases on eBay and Etsy to see if I've struck gold.  The plates were going for a whopping $5 on Etsy ($4.50 profit, woo hoo!), but I couldn't find the apple.  I was starting to think maybe it was a tea light holder.  I Googled pottery apple, and I couldn't believe it when this popped up:

Turns out my little green apple sponge holder wasn't a sponge holder or a tea light holder at all, but a vase designed by Henry Booth for Bretby Art Pottery, around 1890!  What!!!!  1890 - that's ye olde Sherlock Holmes type stuff!!  And there's not a crack on it (although the thrift store did kindly write the price on the side!).  Jeez, don't these people know an antique when they see one :-)

My very own Ozzy the Owl!

Early retirement here I come!!

Green space

When we said we wanted a garden we didn't mean a bloomin' forest!  No really, the trees in our back garden are HUGE!  So huge that the Direct TV man refused to set us up as we wouldn't be able to get any reception.  U-Verse to the rescue!!

There is a little sliver of grass where the sun breaks through the leaves. 

And we have ivy.  A lot of ivy. 

Otherwise known as the chipmunks playground. 

The positive is that the garden is flat, a great size and completely fenced.  We've been advised to have some of the trees cut in winter when it is cheapest.  We'd also love to grow some fruit and veg (though those pesky chipmunks may have other plans!).

This will be a seriously looong term project!