A Room Fit for a Teen

When we had the water damage in our house, we decided to have hardwoods installed in the living and dining rooms since they were the only rooms on the main floor that had carpet.  A's room needed new carpet badly, and her room is directly above the living room with the same footprint.  It worked out great to install the living room carpet (which was barely ever walked on) in A's room.  To do this, we had to empty out her room....HUGE mess!  If any of you are ever even slightly thinking about replacing carpet....think looooong and hard and only do it once!  It basically means you have to move every. single. thing. out!

Anywhoo....when we got everything out of her room, it was easy to see the walls were in dire need of paint.  Here is what A's room looked like before:

All her furniture came from Ikea....and it is a room full!  I loved the apple green wall color, but she was ready for something a little less child-like.  I never liked the placement of the bed, as I feel strongly that the bed should be a focal point when you enter a room.  And her room was very chopped up with the large pieces of furniture.

We decided to go ahead and paint the room while all the furniture was out.  And since I am on a HUGE grey kick right now, I immediately knew what the new wall color would be!  This is Vintage Grey by Valspar.  I was seriously contemplating using this in my master bath reno, but went with a lighter shade. 

So here is what we ended up with after the paint and moving the furniture around.  I don't like that the bed is in front of the window, but it reeeally opens up the room!  

These letters used to be pink and they hung above her bed.  We spray painted them silver and moved them above her closet doors.

This...is...PUFFY!  Puffy came to live with us before A was even born!  He sat in the corner of her crib and somehow she found him.  We have lost Puffy at the mall, at restaurants and even yard sales.  I can't remember all the times we had to back track to find him!  After 17 years, Puffy is looking pretty raggedy, but he will always be wherever A sleeps!

I bought these white on white zebra curtains at Target a while back.  Now I need two more panels....any suggestions about where to find them???

 These are photos of A's bathroom.  It is connected to her room and picks up with the purple accent colors and black.

 Every teenage girl needs a place to keep all the essentials! LOL!  These baskets hanging above the toilet,as well as the jars on the shelf really do help with keeping "girl supplies" neatly organized.

 Ashleigh is in French 2 this year, and was just inducted into the National French Honor Society!  I am positive this is because of all she learned from her shower curtain! LOL!



So there you have a room fit for a teen!  A loves her space and I love her grey room!

I am linking up to these great parties:

Ruffles and RickRack

Two things I just love...ruffles and rickrack.  Last week, I found these dishtowels at Homegoods.  I didn't know exactly what to do with them until I found the ruffle fabric on clearance and jumbo rickrack at Walmart later in the same day.  It was a lightbulb moment.....the ruffles and rickrack needed to become one with those dishtowels! 

I started with my supplies and trusty old Mrs. White.

And turned it all into these little cuties.....

I already had the dish towel with the Easter eggs on it, so these two just made the perfect backdrop, don't you think?

Linking up my thrifty little project here....



A Home Tour

~I LOVE A PARADE!~

I've had such fun on the Parade of Homes tour this week!!  Poppies at Play held an event this week featuring four homes per day all week.  Since it is spring break, I have totally looked forward each morning to checking out all these wonderful homes!  Check out Day One....and from there you can go to each home in order.  Soooo much awesome inspiration out there!

Poppies at Play is also having a linky party for all of us "regular people" to show off our homes. While I know that there are many other homes I have seen out there in blogland that are just gorgeous right-off-the-pages-of-a-magazine-type-homes...ours surely is not.  My hubby always says I am never satisfied, never happy with how our house looks, always wanting to change things up.  And he is right. :o}

BUT.....I am so incredibly thankful, proud and BLESSED with what we have been given through the grace of God!  I told him about this home tour and he rolled his eyes....he has not come over to the dark side of blogging yet. :o}  I explained that I am very proud of our home, the one he and I have created together, and even though I will never, ever stop wanting to make it better, I want to share it with others.  While I know that there are plenty of other homes that will be far more worthy of being shown off, I hope that some of you will find inspiration in our home.  I know I cannot wait to visit all the others who come to the party!  So here we go........

~WELCOME!~

Our home was built by John Weiland in 1998.  We live in a swim/tennis community in the suburbs of Atlanta.  We have a corner lot, which gives us a HUGE front yard.  I like to think that our home has lots of curb appeal. 

~THE MAIN FLOOR~

The Foyer~

These black and white paintings in our foyer show all the homes we have loved in our 23 years of marriage!



The Living Room~

This room and the dining room (next photo) were carpeted until our master bath flooded causing damage to the main level hardwoods.  So we had hardwoods installed while the damaged floors were being refinished.  No rugs in these rooms yet, except for this little rug that will eventually go in the foyer....lots of brown...can't wait for rugs! :o}

The Dining Room~

The Powder Room Bath~

Recently painted this room a gray-blue color...jury is still out on that....

The Kitchen~

 The Family Room~
The kitchen and family room are really one big room.  And the rug in here was ruined with the water damage, so I am also patiently waiting for a rug here too!  Our built-ins and fireplace have changed drastically from what they originally looked like.  You can read more about that here.

~THE SECOND FLOOR~

Girl #1's Room and Bath~

Just recently made over....a blog post on that coming soon.

Girl #2's Room and Bath~

Blog post on her room, which was made over last October, also coming soon.

The Office~

Hubby works from home (when he is not traveling) so this space is not for show....it is a real working office!

The Master Bed and Bath~

Feeling the itch to update our bedroom...gathering ideas in blogland right now. :o}

Our master bath got a major overhaul last October due to an overflowing toilet....you can see/read more about that here.

We also have a guest room and our laundry room on this level....two rooms that are NOT ready for photos...both rooms end up being a dumping ground for laundry, out-of-season clothes, and various other junk...I mean stuff! :o}

~THE BASEMENT~



The Theater Room~

The Game Table/Room~

**Are you sensing a theme in our basement?**  If not....here is another hint....GO DAWGS!  :o}

The Kitchen/Bar~

The Bath~

The Craft Room~

This room is all mine and I LURVE her! We revamped this room in January. You can read more about it here.

I hope you enjoyed looking around our home!  Y'all come back now! :o}
Blessings to All~



FUN Shirts!

It seems like many of my posts mention my friend D'Ann. That is because she is my creative muse! She and I find ideas and feed off one another. And this post is no different. D'Ann made the cutest shirt for her daughter Hallie while Hallie was a student in my class. D'Ann is always making something cute for Hallie to wear, and poor Hallie knows if I see her around and about our school, I am going to stop her so I can ooh and aah over D'Ann's latest creation. She also knows what happens next...I am calling up her mama asking "who, what, where and how" so I can re-create what she has made!  These cute shirts are no exception.  I have two important little girls that have birthdays in April, and these shirts were perfect gifts for them last year.  I have since made a couple more that are school spirit wear shirts.  BOBCATS is the mascot for our school, and I got my creative thinking cap on and came up with a fun design.  Then my good friend Jennifer was moving to a new school and I knew she didn't have any spirit wear items, so I cooked up a shirt plan for her too!  I must say....these shirts are time-consuming and truly a labor of love!  I have been approached by several people asking to buy one, I just can't do it!  BUT ~ Dawn and Marsha ~ if you are reading this, I do promise to make yours...soon. :o} 

Wanna try this yourself???  Here are some tips....I used a variety of felts, fabric, rickrack, and embroidery floss. I started by ironing the fabric/felt to a fusing material...I used Steam-A-Seam from HobLob, but there are other less expensive options out there that I would use if I did this again.  I drew the letters and parts onto the back of the iron on material...you have to draw it backwards so it will not be backward when you turn it to the right side.  I placed and ironed on all the letters (except for the rickrack letters, and for those, you just have to leave a little space for it).  Then I used a cross-stitch hoop to keep the fabric semi-taut.  The stitching part is easy, but slow-going!  You can see for some letters I used my sewing machine and zigzagged around them.  I am not very good at zigzagging, so these letters were the hardest for me!   Lastly, I sewed on the rickrack letters.  These are difficult and they don't look very good until you iron them down.  These shirts have washed very well....and I lay mine flat to dry.  It looks as good as the day I made it!

Thank you again to my creative friend D'Ann....who deserves all the credit for this cute idea! :o}

I'm sharing at these great linky parties~