Seeing Green!

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you!!!!!!

This week we have been getting outside a LOT more and I am so happy about it! It's wonderful to get out and enjoy the fresh air after so many months of being cooped up!

I decided this week I would be on the hunt for green things in honor of St. Patrick's day. There still isn't much green to be found in nature yet - mostly still brown leaves and bare trees, but if you keep your eyes open you can find little bits of green just about anywhere. Here are some of the pictures from my green quest ...


{a fun Irish store in Mystic}

And lastly a couple fun shots from last year - the girls were really hamming it up in these!

Hope you have a great St. Pat's day ... we have a fun filled day planned with our girls that I will be sure to blog about later. Have a good one!

My Living Room Re-do Reveal!

First, let me warn you -- this could possibly be my most picture-filled post EVER. But if you'll stick with me I'll show you all the changes I made and I think you'll agree the change is amazing.

One of the biggest changes I made was opening up my windows - in this before photo you'll see that I had wooden mini blinds and long, red curtains that hung between each of the 3 window panes. I hated covering up the windows so much but also valued my privacy. I asked for opinions here on my blog and also on FB and below you'll see the after shot ...

Sorry this shot if sort of washed out looking. I've found that there is so much sunlight pouring in every day that it's hard to get a true color shot of the windows as they are now. Basically we used olive green faux silk lined panels on the sides of the windows and crinkled, light blue sheers behind them that I open during the day and can close for privacy at night. I am absolutely LOVING my 'new' windows! I sit and enjoy the view and the sun pouring in EVERY single day now!

Here is another BEFORE shot - we have had our TV in that same corner of the room for the entire {almost} 10 yrs we've lived in this house. That's where the cable hooks in so we've never even tried to move the TV elsewhere in the room.

And here is the after of that corner, we moved the TV to another wall and totally rearranged the furniture. It took a few times of moving couches across the room and back to finally figure out just how we wanted them but now we love it!

here are all the BEFORE photos ...

My couches need some help - from the dogs lying on them they have gotten very ripped up. I did not change the couches for this re-do. We could not afford new furniture and I didn't want to slipcover them because I really love the shape of them and the way they look. I DO plan to make new cushion covers though as soon as I can find fabric that is as close to the couch fabric as possible. That will be an ongoing search for right now.

And here was the photo I took of the 'bare' windows that made me realize I really didn't want to put those blinds back up again ...

OK -- ready for a WHOLE BUNCH of AFTER shots???!!!

The corner that formerly had the TV unit ... I painted over the wooden duck with some light blue paint and got a tall floor lamp for more lighting in the room ...

I also painted over one of my metal stars with the light blue paint ...

Then I added a bit of black paint smudged on the edges to give it a distressed look ...

I am LOVING Ann Voskamp's book and this whole bookshelf area is my 'thankful' area ... I have the book on display, I have all my fave books/Bible/Bible study journals, etc on the shelves and I have the 'Count your blessings' wall hanging on the wall above ...

Here is the mantel area - the quilted runner is from Waverly and I got it at the Christmas Tree shop - it was super cute and had the olive green color that my couches are - plus it also had the light blue that I wanted to bring into the new room - so it was definitely my inspiration for the room ...

These wooden word balls were given to me for Christmas by my friend Sandy and I had no idea how to display them until I decided to place them on top of the candle holder and I love them! Now you can actually see the words that they say!

The blue can I had and just painted to match the other blue pieces in the room. The hydrangeas are dried ones from my friend Lynn's garden from last summer - I LOVE them!

Here is the full view of the bookshelf area and wall - truly my fave area in my home right now.

In the other corner of the room I put my round table that I've had in my bedroom for awhile - I got it for $5 at Goodwill. I sewed a table cloth for it in a slightly bolder blue than the rest of the room.

These were from Valentines Day but since they were white I decided to keep them in the room ...

Candlesticks that I got from my friend Erica when she was getting rid of a bunch of stuff - the candles I already had, they were just used in my downstairs bathroom before ...

hmmm, my pics are all out of order, but anyhow, I loved this 'Count your blessings' wall hanging. It cost $1.99 at the Christmas Tree Shop.

My friend Sam gave me this cute little sign because of our blog name ...

Oh yes, this is the reason why my couches are ripped up ... but look how cute, how could I make her get down?

Here is my collage wall ... I really wanted to do a Nester-style collage wall but didn't have any big walls left to do it, so I figured I'd try to do it in this corner and I like how it turned out. I would still like to find a few small-ish decorative items to put up there but for now this is all I've got.

There is my quilt hoop that I made! I love it in the room! The photos we had taken back in the fall by a friend of the family.

This is the window on the side of the house - since it looks out to our neighbors house I basically leave the sheer curtains closed all the time.

And here is the whole room - if you remember in the before photo the TV cabinet used to be where the loveseat is now.

I used some light blue fabric to recover my pillows. And I bought a few of the Waverly napkins that matched the table runner and sewed them in the center of the pillows ...

And this is looking back at the room toward the kitchen - both rooms used to be the yellow color and now you can see where the paint transitions into the kitchen. I still love my yellow in that room but I'm happy that we changed the color in the living room. I was SO ready for a change!

And since the old rug had so much red in it I moved it downstairs and pulled this neutral rug in from the dining room. It looks great in here!

And there ya have it! The whole she-bang!

I spent about $75 on paint and paint supplies.

I spent $80 on curtains. I could have made my own but searched 2 different fabric stores and couldn't find any fabric that matched what I was looking for. And I figured that many yards of fabric would have cost about that much anyway.

I spent $22 on a second curtain rod.

I spent $12 on fabric.

I spent $15 on photo enlargements.

I spent $13 on the Waverly items and a couple random accessories.

I spent $25 on the new lamp.

And everything else I already had in my house.

My grand total spent was $242. Not bad for a total room re-do!

I still have a couple things to work on. I want to add some coat hooks near the door and possibly some bookshelves next to the fireplace. And of course I want to fix up those couch cushions. But aside from that I am loving this room and have been enjoying so many sunny days sitting and taking it all in with my big open window that is no longer covered up with mini blinds. ;)