Garage door paint

Jason came home to me painting the garage door. I just painted it the trim color. The verdict is still out. Jason wants it repainted but I'm thinking of just using the creme house color for the whole thing.  What do you think? 

New glass door

Jason installed a replacement glass door a few weeks ago (all by himself). The other one's frame broke. We were so sad to see it go. The new one is much heavier and sturdier which is needed in this house with kids and pets. We've so enjoyed having the sun come in the door again but here are the two family members that love the door the most.

Happy New Year chalkboard

Here's my updated chalkboard frame that sits in my front entry. It's all ready for the new year and guests that come to visit.

Christmas Home Tour

Here's my little home all dressed up in its Christmas best.

Ivy Wall

Here is one of my million summer landscaping projects: an ivy wall. I planted a new flower bed on the garage side of the house with hydrangeas, gardenias and ivy, then I envisioned an ivy wall. I searched for it on Pinterest and found this picture of exactly what I want. Possibly in the next year or two, it will look like this. Fingers crossed.

Polar Opposites

The polar opposites at my house are my front and backyard. Front yard looks like it should during winter: dormant. The backyard did NOT get the memo to be dormant. Just look at it! The new seed came in in abundance! It was so tall that I actually measured it at 9 inches tall. Time to mow. Yuk! I mowed it last in November but today I was forced to pull out the lawnmower again and mow it down. I mowed on February 3! I could have mowed in January but just plain refused. Since it was such a pretty day, I cleaned off the red umbrella and put it back at the table. So now it looks like late spring or even early summer out there. If that groundhog is right, I might have snow on my green grass soon. Wouldn't that be a hoot?

The front yard

Looks like summer!

The backyard after mowing.

Living room Before and After

With some extra money I had from selling my treadmill (see previous post) I was able to buy new living room drapes and wood blinds. I have been opposed to blinds over my living room window since we moved in seven years ago. Just recently I started warming up to the idea though. Since the house is on a hill and there is a big tree in the front yard covering this window, it was a not necessary to have blinds for privacy in that room. I also loved the sliding windows and didn't want to cover them up. The drawback is winter. With the couch in front of the window, it can get a little chilly there. So I opted to try to out blinds and new drapes to help remedy that. Here are my before and after pictures. The after picture was taken on a gloomy, rainy Monday and the room looks similar to what it would at dusk but I still love the hominess to it.


Before

After

The top choice

When searching for a new home, our choices are quite limited this spring. The Knoxville Area Realtors' MLS website lists 5 homes on the market for our requests. FIVE!!!!! My only requests are location (West or South Knox County), price, 4 bedrooms, 2+ baths, 2000+ square feet and on 1+ acre. I'm not even searching for a garage or fenced backyard too, just the bare minimum. When you throw in the acre, the number goes from 77 down to 5.

What's scary to me is the lack of inventory this spring compared to last spring. There used to be over 250 homes available in Knox County in our specific areas of choice, price, # of bedrooms and baths requested. Now, there's only 77! Last spring, there used to be over 40 houses on the market with over an acre of land with our specifics, now 5.

WOW! So I'm hoping that when we put ours on the market, the lack of inventory will help us to sell quickly. But in the meantime, Jason and I have agreed and compromised on this one home. It's a 5 bedroom, 3 full baths with 3,078 sq. ft. It's on 2 acres with a bonus room and playroom. It has wood floors and a small fenced yard. It is on a peninsula with other homes overlooking the Little River valuing in the millions probably (by the looks of them). It does not have a river view because of the woods it's on and also the hills in front of the home. It has almost everything we wanted but a garage which can be added later.

Saturday, we went to see it and saw it's potential. Thinking caps were on! This house can be gorgeous when we finish with her. But for now, we just have to sell ours. Our goal is to get ours on the market by May 1. We still have a few projects to complete in our home first. New carpet, repainting, repairing nail homes, etc. So we will be quite busy these next few weeks, but a good busy preparing for showings. Whew.... here we go again.

Here we go again.....

After many, many long talks, Jason and I have decided that it's time to put our house on the market again. This time, we are going to use a real estate agent which happens to be our friend, Greg Reynolds. The family might remember the Reynolds. I babysat their 4 kids for years before getting married. They were our "caterers" at the wedding reception too. Greg was most recently a builder in Knoxville but has recently gained his real estate license. So we decided to forgo the fsbo bit and use him and his company this time around.

So PLEASE be praying for us. My list of things to do to before putting it on the market is 5 pages long. I have a lot of decluttering to do, and those that have been in my home know that I'm must be going crazy. Actually, I am going extremely thin with stuff left in my home this time around. Think skeleton. I'm desiring that not one accessory would interfere with their focus on the house itself. So I've boxed up all my darling accessories and am left with a shell of a home. But that's okay because I'm praying and believing that we will be in a new home before summer ends. Pray too, please?

Dream Kitchen

Jason and I have been planning to use some of our tax return money to update our kitchen. It's so old and tired looking and is so in need of some love. But lots of love need lots of money when it comes to my kitchen. To fully update it, we would need new cabinets, countertops, sink, hardware, back splash, flooring and stainless appliances. That "aint" gonna happen. The compromise is to get new countertops and a back splash and I'm planning to repaint the cabinets (again).


I was originally eyeing a glass or tile backsplash like this but in tans and creams.

Then I saw Joan's farmhouse kitchen in New Hampshire. It's a beauty. Check out Joan's blog called "For the love of a house." Her website is fortheloveofahouse.blogspot.com. I'd enclose a link for you, but right now the link system is updating and is not available. Sorry, I'll add it later.

She used beadboard. I fell in love with it! I'm a sucker for beadboard though. Think of the cost! Nothing compared to glass backsplash. I even have and use those big glass containers for my coffee beans, flour and sugar. We're now thinking of switching out the wood cabinets doors above them and replace them with glass doors. SWEET! I can't wait. Next project... decide on countertops.

House Hunting

Link to Website Listing
I started perusing the Knoxville home sale market again and came across this sweet home. I loved it!   Just wish it was not in the city and had some land to it. It had character which is what we're wanting.  My furniture would so fit right in too but Jason nixed it because of the location.   He's still holding out for a lot with an acre minimum.  I'm actually desiring to drive by it tomorrow and since nothing is on the calendar, I think I will. :)

I loved the charm to the kitchen but would definitely tear out that ivy wallpaper.  The butcher's hutch was pretty neat too.  The living room looks huge.  The master bath would need some work though.

I really liked the upstairs landing area.  All my school/playroom stuff would fit right there.  Then all the kids' bedrooms would be upstairs which would be nice since they're getting older.  Hannah and Andrew could have their own rooms and Caleb and Ethan could share one.

I loved, loved, loved the sun room.  Jason said we'd HAVE to paint the ceiling light blue like the walls because that's the way all the old front porches in Charleston were done. Know why? Because the light blue color resembles the sky and wasps/bees do not make their nest in the corner of a porch painted that color. Pretty neat, huh?

The back yard with it's already raised garden beds would be perfect for Jason but I wonder if there's more yard for the kids' to play.

I give it a 7 out of 10 for meeting everything I want on my list.  2 car garage, flat big backyard for the kids, and outside the city limits were the big drawbacks to this sweet cottage charmer.  But my burning question is why can't I find this gem outside the city limits??

Fall Decorations post #3

Scroll down first to see the beginning of these blog posts. Here is day 3, my living room. I was able to spend some money on a few fall decorations. Hobby lobby again to the rescue! They had all their fall/Halloween decor on sale 50% off two months before the holiday. Who does that? Retail sure has changed. Shows you what the economy is really like.

I purchased two acorns. My cell phone camera just didn't give it justice. They are much more detailed and colored gorgeously in real life. The baby acorn lasted only 1 week before the other baby in the house destroyed it. The tops come off to reveal little secret compartments inside. Caleb couldn't resist. He played so much one day that it was bound to happen; he dropped the top and broke the stem. I've debated replacing it but am convinced it WILL happen again. With 3 boys and a cat wandering around, my house is always in danger. No nice pieces of furniture or accessories here. One day though. Maybe in my room in heaven.



My new accessories include a brown metal bell with bird on top. The kids are always asking if I'll ring the bell for dinner and to start school. It's surprisingly loud too. Beside that cute bell is a little dish with mini acorns in it. They've been bombs in wars being dropped from the living room down to the front door. Surprisingly, they survived in one piece. I had a scarecrow in the plant for a few days til Caleb discovered it. He really hated it. He said it scared him even though it was a cute friendly scarecrow. He asked for the black crow instead.



On top of the tv cabinet, the gorgeous lime green hydrangeas in the silver pitcher came down and was replaced with wheat and fall flowers. They totally changed the feel of the room.



The last two pictures are of my leather chair. I bought a new fall pillow and placed a bright gold blanket on the arm. Two little cuties begged to be in the last picture so you can see the blanket behind their heads.

Fall Decorations Post #2

Here's the second post of my "Fall Tour De Home." If you missed the first one, scroll down the page to read the first one. Today's post are pictures of the front door, front bed and front entry inside. My mums in my window boxes are just now blooming so I'll post those pictures later when they're nice and big.


My sweet neighbor's mom made me this wreath years ago when we lived at Londontown Apts. before the kids came along.


Pottery Barn had these huge candle holders pictured on a front porch of one of their magazines. I was just thrilled to find some exactly like them at one of my new favorite stores, Hobby Lobby. They were considered a summer item and on major clearance. I got these two for under $20. The ribbon and pine cones set the fall scene on them. Come Christmas, I'll change the ribbon and might put silver ball ornaments or something similar in them to make it feel more "Christmassy."


Here's my flag banner in the front bed. I have a box full of seasonal flags that I change out with the seasons. To me, it's the little things that bring me joy like this flag that welcomes my friends in to my home.



This is the inside at my front door. I love changing out the floral cone each season. My plastic pumpkins are holding up great (surprise, surprise).

Check back tomorrow. I plan to start posting the living room decorations. Happy weekend!

My fall decorations

I love autumn! I especially LOVE decorating my house for autumn. Since it looks like the family will not be visiting this fall (not that you aren't welcome, we'd love to have visitors) I decided to bring my home to you via pictures. So the next few posts will be a tour of my home showing all my fun stuff. We start today with the playroom. Here's the fireplace complete with new autumn banner that I made last week. I got a little crafty. Something I absolutely LOVE to do by the way. The close up shot following shows my brown with white polka dot ribbon, orange checked, and plain orange ribbon tied to each section.





We're also in the process of switching out the silver stars that used to be above the school table with fall things like leaves, pumpkins, an owl and an acorn. The kids helped me do these in our art class. Some of us had fun (me) while others did not like art class that day, no names mentioned.




I'll post more tomorrow of the front door and living room. So check back soon!