Well, this post is 15 years in the making. We finally had the kitchen professionally done. We hired a local company called Keystone Kitchens for the cabinet refacing and another company called Building Interiors for the quartz and backsplash.  I love the dark cabinets with the contrasting white counters and sink.

We bought the open shelves from Wayfair and the hanging pot rack was already there.

I didn’t have plans to get a new faucet, but my son convinced me that we needed a new faucet with the new kitchen. I’m in LOVE with the one we found.

I’d say it’s a pretty good upgrade from the bright blue tile and orange-ish cabinets that came with the house we purchased 15 years ago.

Our DIY attempt at a kitchen update held us off for a while. About 10 years ago we sanded and stained the cabinets and had some granite tile put in. I did love the look, but the cabinets were starting to fall apart. We definitely needed the cabinet refacing.

I love how light and bright this feels!

I’m a happy baker!

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Now that my kids are older (my son turns 17 tomorrow and my daughter is 13), I’ve taken back a little time for myself.  They are off doing their own things, spending LOTS of time at sports practices, plenty of time chilling in their rooms, and a good chunk of time doing homework.  Sadly, when they have spare time they don’t usually say, “Hey, mom, do you want to play a board game?”  Nope, those days are gone.

So, how do I spend my time?  I really love to cook.  I enjoy looking through cookbooks, Pinterest, and blogs to find new recipes.  If I can cook with ingredients grown in my own garden, this makes me even happier.  As much as I love to cook, I must confess something.  There are days when I ask myself, “WHY, oh why, do my children want to eat 3 times a day EVERY single day?”  I try not to use too much processed food as I’m cooking, so that makes things a bit time consuming, but I have a hard time keeping every meal on the healthy side.  I really love cheese, and cooking with butter and cream just makes things taste better.  It’s a work in progress to find healthy meal options, but I’m trying. (If I don’t try hard enough, my naturopath gently reminds me at every appointment.)

I’ve always loved to bake.  Cookies and bread tend to be my favorites.  Lately, I’ve tried to change things up and try whole wheat breads or flourless cookies.  When my kids were younger, we’d have Cookie Friday.  Our district dismisses early each Friday and I’d always have cookies ready for the kids when they got home from school.  There would usually be a handful of friends and neighbors and sometimes a cousin or two.  Those were the good old days.  Now the kids just hurry home so they can take naps.  Ah, teenagers.

Sometimes (most times) I really wish I lived in a sunnier location so I could happily enjoy my garden day in and day out.  To say that I love to be outside is an understatement.

Most of my edible garden space consists of herbs and veggies that don’t require full sun.  My neighbor’s trees have grown so tall that they shade my veggie garden.  I’m barely able to produce tomatoes any more, so I’ve just given up on things that needs tons of sun.

My basil and mini tomatoes have been moved to a plant stand on the deck.  The deck gets a good amount of afternoon sunshine and the heat reflects from the house onto the plants. Basil is probably my favorite thing to grow and we eat a lot of pesto in the summer time.

I have my fair share of perennials in the center of my yard.  I love that I don’t have to replant them every year.  Every few years, I get to divide them.  Score!  Free plants!

The best part about gardening is the end of the day.  I love the “golden hour” in my yard.  After spending the day getting my hands dirty, I absolutely love putting my feet up and enjoying the view.  I do miss the days of the kids playing on the swingset or jumping on the trampoline, but there is also something incredibly relaxing about the quiet of the backyard.

Sewing and quilting are my winter hobbies.  When I can’t spend time outside because of the relentless rain, my sewing room is my happy place.

My mom taught me to sew when I was about 7 years old and I insisted that both of my kids learn to sew.  I make all of my own home decor items.  I love making curtains, valances, pillows, and quilts.  I love the personal touch handmade items have on a home.  I’ve even been designing my own quilt patterns with a quilting program for the computer.

I’ve had to start changing pillows and quilts out seasonally because I’m running out of space. I’ve started putting zippers into my pillow covers so they are each to wash and change out frequently.

This was one of my favorite projects.  When my daughter was younger she picked out a fabric line that she thought was pretty.  I bought the fabrics and she chose a pattern that she liked.  We painted her room a color that coordinated and her new room was born.

I love looking through blogs and seeing cohesive quilts that all have the same feel, but I can’t seem to stick with one theme.  I love vintage/scrappy, French General, warm and cozy, and also whatever is new and trendy.  As much as I like the cohesion, I also like to try new things when it comes to quilting.

I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to photography.  I love trying new things with my camera.  My favorite subjects are my own kids and my YoungLife kids.  My YL kids are Juniors in high school and I feel so lucky that they’ve allowed me to follow them around with a camera on my neck, capturing memories of Summer camp and school dances.

Of course, these two have my whole heart and they know to always pack “picture clothes” every time we go to the farm or the beach.

How about you, friends?  What’s your hobby?

I’m sharing a few of my favorite photography items that are sold through Amazon.  I’m part of the Amazon Affiliates program and if you choose to purchase through Amazon, I get a teensy-tiny portion of the sale.

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I found that cute little black bag, with picnic items inside, at Thorp Antiques over Labor Day weekend.  I’ve always wanted a small thermos collection and now I have my first two antiques!  For those of you who like my cute little bag, and live near Snohomish, I saw a similar bag upstairs in Joyworks for around $25 over the weekend.  I pictured my plaid bag looking nice near the Christmas tree, fireplace, or even by the coat rack in the entry.  I should almost run out and grab the bag from Joyworks myself!

I realized, as I was typing this, that I forgot to get my old sled out of the rafters in the garage, and I still haven’t been able to find my plaid wool blanket.  I’ll find those next weekend.

That’s the beginning of the of Christmas at my house!  There is so much more to come.  We had a fun weekend of decorating, Hallmark movies, and family.

Merry Christmas!

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Here’s what we decided and you can see why it’s a BIG change.

We decided to go with a giant sectional.  This is the Radley sectional from Macy’s furniture.  It comes in just about any size and configuration you can think of.  Friends, I’m in love with this.  This room is mainly used for two purposes.  First, we use this room for family get-togethers.  Before we had the giant sectional, several people had to sit on the floor.  Now, I think we could probably put 20 people on this sectional and there are still three more chairs in the room.  The second thing we use this for is as a teenage hangout.  We don’t have a bonus room in our house, so the formal living room was to transformed into our bonus room a few years ago.

Here are a few more pictures so you can see the rest of the room

This room is very cold, compared to the rest of the house, so I bought that little space heater that looks like a fireplace.  It’s small, but it works to warm this room.

The big wall above the sectional needs something more.  We bought a lamp to put in this corner, but the base didn’t fit under the couch.  I’m not sure what we are going to do now.  I may have to find a few more pieces of art to put on the wall.

Now, let’s talk pillows!  I decided to start out getting some Christmas and Winter pillow covers.  I love Courtney’s (Golden Boys and Me blog) pillows and I emailed her to find out where she finds them.  She told me she shops at H & M.  I had no idea they even carried pillows.  Their online selection is amazing and the prices were awesome!  I think the Christmas covers were both $5.99.  I bought a couple to use in Spring that were only $3.99 each.

I loved this star pillow.  This may stay around well after Christmas. I’ve always loved the sweater pillows so I bought three of these covers. I bought my pillow forms from Jo-Ann Fabrics and used my coupon.

I found this shelf on Wayfair.  I think it’s slightly smaller than I want and I think I mounted it a bit too high.  This area is still a work in progress but I knew I needed a place to put cameras, antiques, and pictures.

We may find ourselves some barnwood boards and make these shelves a little longer.

Yay!  If I make the shelves longer, I’ll have more room for old cameras.

So, that’s the story of the BIG change in the living room.  We still have changes to make and work to do, but I’m in LOVE with the giant sectional.  The kids are going to have to fight me for use of this space.

Happy decorating!

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The big problem I’m having is with the space to the left of the tv.  It’s empty wall space that is calling for something to warm up the room.

This room is usually colder than the rest of the house and the couches are not that comfy.  It needs something cozy and inviting.

I ordered this blanket ladder from an Etsy shop called JustKnotWood so that I can lean it against the wall in that corner.  My friend bought one and I love the way it looks in her room.  You can choose your own stain color, so I choose a dark brown.

I can’t wait for it to arrive!  Now, I need a thick-knit cream blanket to hang on it.  I thought about quilts because I have so many of those, but the room is already busy with patterns.  I think the cream blanket will add texture without overwhelming the space.

I also found the perfect pillow cover for the pillow that sits on the rocking chair.  This is from an Etsy shop called SoVintageChic.  She’s a local gal, so I just had to support her!  I’m in LOVE with this pillow!  It has our home town and the longitude and latitude coordinates.  I bought the 16″ pillow cover.  Hindsight, I wish I would have gone bigger, but it still looks great and feels personalized for our family.

I love everything about home and family, so this feels special.  I also love that it’s sitting on my great-grandmother’s rocking chair.

So, that’s the style update for the living room.  Now, I’m just waiting for my blanket ladder to arrive!

Happy decorating!

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I live by my watering a fertilizing schedule in the Summer and I love my hanging baskets and window boxes.  I fill my baskets with red and white flowers and tuck little flags in everywhere.

Geraniums line the stairs on my tiny porch and more flags are there to greet people.

I may have a slight obsession with using flags as decor and it might be time to take the 4th of July decor down and store it for next year.

I bought a new variety of hydrangea for the front of my house.  This a brand new variety from Monrovia, called Bobo.  It’s a compact hydrangea, so I’m hoping it will stay nice and short.  I also planted some Blue Star Creeper, which will fill in nicely as a ground cover.

Here’s my Bobo

I finally got rid of my old benches in the front of the house, and we bought some pretty Adirondak chairs from World Market.  We also dug up all of the overgrown hydrangeas and moved them to the back yard, replacing them with Bobos as well.

I planted a pretty little basket for the front of the house to add a little color to the white chairs.

I did save two Annabelle hydrangeas, because who can live without Annabelles?

I can’t wait until my flowers fill in!  They will grow up to be so pretty!

It’s almost time to start figuring out how to turn my 4th of July house into a Fall house.  Until then, I’m just going to hold on to Summer.  Welcome to our house!

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See those shelves there?

A couple of years ago I saw these pieces of barn wood leaning up against my cousin’s barn and started begging to take them home.  They’ve been in my garage waiting for the perfect project.  Well, the perfect project is this one!

I had three long pieces of barn wood, which we only had to trim a little bit.  I looked for cute brackets but couldn’t find anything that I liked.  We ended up using L-brackets that really weren’t meant to be shelf brackets.  They were sturdy enough and had kind of an industrial look.

I still need to find a few office-type organizing pieces for the wall between the table and the first shelf.  I was thinking about some sort of  wire wall basket to hold papers, and maybe a few mason jars mounted to the wall to hold pens and pencils.  This space is also pretty dark, so I’ll be on the lookout for a lamp for the area.

We found the long skinny table, on sale, at Cost Plus World Market.  I already had all of the baskets.  I wish they still sold them because I could use a few more now.

(Please excuse the blurry pictures.  I’m still trying to figure out why WordPress is making my photos blurry.)

Not bad for some reclaimed barn wood and an inexpensive table, huh?  My hubby likes his new office space.  I kind of think his favorite part might be not having to fight with all of my sewing projects for space.  I was feeling pretty proud of myself for thinking of using these pieces of wood!  I have to admit that it wasn’t ALL my idea.  I just asked myself WWJD (What would Joanna do?).  Now, if I could just tear down a few walls, find some rustic light fixtures, and add a few farm animals out back!!

Happy decorating!

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I emailed my friend Courtney, over at The Golden Boys and Me, and asked her where she finds her cute pillows.  She said she orders them through H&M.  I have never been to H&M and I would never have even thought to shop there online, so I was glad to have the suggestion.  I spotted this Herbs & Spices pillow and knew it would be perfect in my dining room!

I’m loving the charcoal gray!  It looks perfect against the drapery panels.

Don’t you just love the way a small change can just make the room?

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Now onto my post.

The things you love help you create the space you love to retreat at the end of a long day.  My work days seem long lately.  I think it’s because I wake up in the dark and it’s dark by the time dinner is on the table.  I feel like I haven’t seen my yard in weeks.  In addition, I’m spending most of my evening hours at doctor appointments or physical therapy.  (I’m still recovering from back surgery.)

I absolutely LOVE coming home at the end of the day.  I crave homelife.  I love cooking, baking, crafting, sewing, gardening, and spending time with my family and pets.  I struggle with decorating and find myself using catalogs and Pinterest photos for inpiration, copying their ideas when I can.  There are a few things in my house that I really, really, love.  These things help me create the space I love to come home to at the end of the day.  Yes, I love coming home to my kids, hubby, and pets but we also need cozy blankets, handmade quilts, and maybe candles here and there.

I love decorating with old books, especially when they come from my family.  Most of my old books belonged to my grandparents.

I do love to bake.  (You may have noticed!)  I love greeting my kids with a plate of cookies.  In the “good old days” I only worked part time and every Friday was Cookie Friday.  It was my favorite day of the week.

I love my yard.  Ok, I really, really, love my yard.  I tend to be a fair weather gardener and a sunny day in the garden is my favorite place to be.

I really enjoy family get togethers.  My husband says I’m a hoarder of dishes.  I may have a few different sets, but it’s fun for me to make different tablescapes for every party.

Once in a while I even go all out and set up a pretty tablescape for our little family of 4.  This was a day that we made clam chowder and set the table so pretty.  My youngest loved helping in the kitchen.

I love to sew and my house is filled with quilts.  There is nothing better than cuddling up with a homemade quilt at the end of a long day.  The quilts I made are very thin, but if you are under them for a few minutes, they warm up quite nicely.

How about you?  If you had to make a list of things that make your house a home, what would your list include?

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