I have sadly neglected this $10 shelf I found at the thrift store.  I planned on painting it over the summer and it fell to the bottom of the "to do list".  I wasn't exactly sure what color I wanted to paint it and so I never got too excited about it.  

Sometimes when I'm less than thrilled about a room in my house, I'll make a change.  That change will lead to another change and then another change.  Fortunately my husband is a "roll with it" kind of guy so he is very accepting of my incessant changing, rearranging and painting problem.  Well, is it really a problem?  I think not.  It's more of a habit/hobby.  Let's just go with that!

Once I added the vintage school chairs to our family room, I started yearning to make more changes.
It was another one of those episodes, like this one, where I grabbed a can of paint and a paint brush (around 9:00 p.m. on Sunday) and jumped right in.  Not even my husband asking "Really, you're going to do that RIGHT now?" could stop me.  However, I am concerned that if he had to ask, does he really know me at all?

We have had this chair for a long time and I have loathed it for almost as long as we have had it.
Not sure why I never got rid of it.  It has definitely seen its better day.  I have been thinking about painting it for a while now and I even shopped around a bit for some spray paint in a color that would work.  I never came up with anything.  Itching to get it done, I remembered we had some exterior paint in the basement that was the perfect color.  I would love to tell you what it is, but I have a really bad habit of getting the paint can so covered with paint that I can't read the color.  We used it on our outdoor shutters and it's a Benjamin More green/gray color.  That really helps, doesn't it?   Painting it with a paint brush certainly wasn't the easiest way to go about it, but I still spent less than one hour on the entire project.

After I thought for a while about painting the chairs blue, it donned on me that I already have this fabric that will be used to make slipcovers for our dining room chairs.  The dining room is just on the other side of the wall from the chairs I want to paint. Too many blue chairs in too close of proximity to each other.

I feel like I say that a hundred times a day to my children.  They are quite loud.  If you know them, you can attest to this.  If not, trust me, they can sometimes be heard blocks away!

But today, I'm talking about a beautiful Asian inspired brass lamp I bought at the thrift store over the weekend.  It has been sitting there for months, just patiently waiting for someone to come by and take it home.  I have been eyeing it for a while, but it was $10 and do I really need another lamp? No!
Fortunately for the patient lamp, I was at a friend's house last week and she commented on a lamp she has that she is not too fond of.  I immediately thought of the Asian lamp and how great it would look in her living room.

A popped into the thrift store on Saturday, and of course, it was still sitting there.  I took it up front and kindly explained to the cashier that the poor lamp had been sitting around for months, just collecting dust, and I would be more than happy to take it off her hands for $5.00.  She is the same sweet cashier who sold me the $75 deal of a lifetime piano.  I think I may get her a Christmas present this year!

Anyway, back to "Tone It Down".  The lamp is vintage and has a beautiful shape, but I'm not a huge fan of super shiny brass.  I'm much more of a tarnished brass kind of girl.

As promised, I would like to introduce you to my next victim, uh, I mean project.



When we were working on the floor plans for our renovation, we knew we wanted a master suite and we knew we wanted the laundry room on the second floor. In order to get all of this accomplished, we had to sacrifice on the size of our master closet.  It is a decent size walk-in closet, but nothing spectacular and we definitely are in need of more storage for our clothes.  I have been on the hunt for a certain size dresser.  I see a lot of antique dressers that I love, but I needed a dresser that is sturdy and functional, not just pretty.

"Boring" had me at $45!  I took her home and immediately gave her a good sanding.





So what do you think?  Can you see the potential with "Boring"?  She'll be ready to reveal next week.
Hope you all have a great weekend!

I seem to have developed this habit of offering my unsolicited advice when it comes to decorating.
I tend to be very blunt and honest (it's a good quality and a bad quality of mine).  Anyway, I do it and I mean no harm and of course, people can take it or leave it.  I normally only offer this unsolicited advice when it comes to enhancing someone's decor, not completely overhauling it.

Take, for instance, when I said to my awesome hair stylist, Becky, "Hey, you know what that wall needs?  It needs to be stenciled."  She replies, "Okay, go for it!" And so I did.  You can see it here.

Recently, I struck again.  I was at a friend/neighbor's house and she has recently re-decorated her dining room, which looks fabulous, by the way.  Another friend of hers, who happens to be a very talented artist, helped her pick colors and fabrics for the makeover.  I was checking out the room and suddenly, out of nowhere, I say, "You know what would look fabulous?  If you painted the backs of those corner cabinets a color".  She ponders it for a moment and replies, "Yes, it would, let's do it!".  I helped her pick a color and she put on her painting clothes.  It turned out marvelous!