Rose Bush Confession

A few years ago ago before we replaced our weed filled front yard with sod, we installed a sprinkler system in the front yard and a decision to make keep the rose bush in the corner or remove it. I wasn't a huge fan of the rose bush placement in the front corner of our yard, but the purple-ish pink roses were pretty so we left it. Even in the picture below you can see its odd placement, in a big triangle at the edge our yard, just strange. 

This is my confession, I'm not a huge fan of rose bushes. I think roses are pretty, even better when they are cut roses in a vase ( hello present!). I love the look of roses growing on a trellis or up the side of the house. To me that is so pretty! I love how these climbing roses look on this home. But a rose bush all alone is kind of sad. 

{ via here }

Back to our rose bush, not only did I not like the placement, it was hard to care for because it was big { the past two years I missed the cut back date time } and the thorns would poke me. So weeds would just grow around the bush, like tall weeds, we'd keep the rest of our lawn looking good, but that triangle was a sore blah spot in our yard. Since I'm not a huge fan of rose bushes by themselves and not growing up a trellis or building, we dug up the rose bush and got rid of it. Before we dug it up, we checked with a few neighbors to make sure they didn't  want, no one did. I'm so glad I was brave enough to say good bye rose bush. Plus, I think the rose bush was dying from my lack of learning to care for it. See the biggish hole? That's where the rose bush once stood with a weeds all around, plus it was too close to our lawn and not centered in the triangle.

Now I have nice size empty flower bed to work with, Hasani dug up all the weeds and left me with fresh soil. Here are my plans, I'm going to plant a flower bulb garden VERY soon since the cold weather is right around the corner in Northern California. I want to plant a few types of bulbs that bloom from early spring until late summer, I'm also going to plant two small ornamental grass-like shrubs too, for year round greenery. I love how pretty bulbs look, and they come back year after year :) easy maintenance :) I think, I know very little about gardening, I'm learning as I go.

{ via here }

{ via here }

I think the bulb garden will add the perfect amount of color to our front yard, and look so pretty! The boys and I went shopping early last Saturday morning in search of the best bulb deals at Home Depot and Lowes.

I love this picture of my tween, I'm not sure why he posed like this but I find it darling. He's my little math wizard and helped me pick the most bulb for my buck.

I have a ton of bulbs to plant, I'm so excited since its my first time planting bulbs. I might plant some bulbs in our flower beds in the front of our house, just not sure yet. I'm going to keep a two of three out and force them to grow indoors for pretty winter flowers, I hope I can make it work. Pinterest and Martha Stewart are making it look so easy. To easy. I'll share the bulbs I bought, and how I planted ours in a couple of days, once Halloween is out the way.

Is there a plant around your home you don't love and are tempted to remove it? Or you did more it ? Any flowers you think are a tad overrated? Have you had experience planting bulbs? Did your bulbs come back year after year? Or are you a first time bulb planter this year like I am?

Happy Pinning!

A few months ago after hearing about Pinterest, I deiced to joined sounded like fun, well it took me until yesterday to actually starting Pinning. For those of you who haven't heard of Pinterest here's the definition "Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes"

Even though I've only been using it for 24 hrs, I'm already in love. It's so much fun and a great way to find beautiful and creative ideas, and you can add follower other people and see what their pinning and vice versa. I love how collaborative it is, and the cool thing it it links back the site where the idea was originally pinned at, so you can get the in depth 'how to.' Since I'm a newbie I only have 4 boards: I Love Baby, My Style, Favorite Spaces & Places, My Style and For the Home. Here's a few things I've pinned so far.

Darling kids softie kids bowling set, via Anthropoligie. I really thing Avery needs these, don't you! 

Also from Anthropologie { oh how I love them! } I love this knob and think it might look super cute on out MCM Secretary desk, that's almost finished! :) It says 'Favorite Things to Keep Forever' 

I really really love cake stands, I've been drooling over this style that Martha Stewart & Rachel Ray both use on their shows. I need this jadeite cake stand in my life STAT. It would make a darling present to our kitchen, when its finally done. Yep, I'm a firm believer in gifted rooms goodies once they look pretty :) 

So if you haven't already joined, or on the fence about joining our just learning about go take a peek its a blast!! For those of you already on Pinterest, follow me and I can't wait to see all of your pretty Pinboards. Here's my link to Pinterest. I'm so excited about filling my boards up with pretty things :)

Oh and Happy Pinning! 

Are you on Pinterest? What Do you think about it? What's your link to your Pinterest? 

Spooky Halloween Entryway

This month has just flown by, and Halloween is only a few days away! For Halloween last year we decorated our entry with Spooky Scary bugs this year the black crows took over our entryway. It's so much fun to decorate our entry, it creates a great focal point in out living room { since it opens up right into our living }  For this years Halloween decor we used a mix of paper crows and the stuffed { fake } kind for a creepy look. I also used the Flor rug tiles I purchased last year, if you look close you can see the pattern of the spiderwebs, creepy! Here's our Spooky Halloween entryway.

I might have to paint the inside door jam of our front door, the exposed wood is looking funky! lol

On the inside of the door, I also hung the black feather wreath I made a few years ago. This was a super simple project, here's the how to. Here's a nice full view of our entryway. 

Since we've decorated our entryway two years in a row, I think its becoming our family tradition. We all like taking turns adding to the creepy factor.


Have you decorated for Halloween? If so did you go with a theme? I'd love to hear! 

My Next...

As you know I've been doing all lot of sewing projects for the past few months and have gotten better at sewing, practice makes perfect right? I'm a novice self taught sewer, my mom taught me the basics threading the bobbin and sewing a straight line a few years back, since then I've been learning as I go. I bought this book a few years back when I was first leaning to sew Sewing 101 for $ 16 bucks via Amazon. The project pictures are dated, but it really gives you the good basics. It really helped me and me be a good resource for any one beginning to sew. It also added words to my vocabulary: like bobbin, zig zag stitch, blind hem etc. 

I came across this book, The Complete Photo Guide to Sewing recently on Amazon its the same price I as the one I already own and looks to be worth every penny! If your interested in learning to sew, check out either book. And, nope I'm not getting paid to promote these books! It's my opinion that there helpful and may be helpful to you. 

I have a simple sewing machine a Singer Prelude, I bought on sale at Target 4 years ago the day after Thanksgiving ( Black Friday ) its a good sewing machine has the basic stitches with no bells and no whistles. I think I paid around $ 60 bucks for it? Here's my sewing machine below.

It's a good little sewing machine and every now and then we have words when my thread jams due to tension issues. But I like I said its basic and I've been wanting to get a new machine to tackle more and more projects. I want my next sewing machine to be heavy duty. I really like the look of the Singer Heavy Duty sewing machine and love that it can handle heavy materiel and as 23 stitches and it sews faster too!! Pretty stylish for a sewing machine huh! 

I'm pretty sure this will be my next sewing machine, even though some of the reviews are mixed, which is to be expected. I think it will be fun to tackle larger projects on and be really helpful when sewing outdoor stuff like cushions for our patio. Now that I've shared whats on my Next List its your turn! :)

What's on your Next List? New sewing machine? New Phone? a New Laptop??? 

Roman Shade in the Kitchen

As I mentioned on Friday on our 'To-Do' list is updating our kitchen and making the entire room feel light, brighter cleaner etc. The plan for our kitchen is to take on many mini projects that will add up over time. One project ( or want ) I’ve been wanting for our kitchen for quite some time is a pretty roman shade in to fill the dull void between the two cabinets. Currently we have basic white faux-wood blinds which will stay, it’s all about prettying up the space. I’ve collected some pretty pictures with my vision of what will be very soon. Since we the plan on painting our cabinets white very soon! I know I’ve said these exact words in the past, but I mean it this time. I’m over the dark cabinets, very over. I went back and forth between solid roman shades, woven roman shades, and pattern. I'm really drawn to pattern roman shades because they add such a pretty layer of color into a room. Here’s the round-up of pretty roman shades!

{ via Decorpad }

{ via Atmosphereid }

{ via here }

 I just need a pretty stationary shade since I’m keeping the basic faux-wood blinds for added privacy at nighttime. So I decided to make a faux roman shade. Here’s a reminder of how kitchen currently looks (kind-of) we have removed the left side cabinet doors and had the middle cut out, we are replacing the panels with glass inserts. They’ll go back on after we start painting. Be nice! I know the 1980’s white and brown grout is hard to look at (we ripping that out) In my mind I can see a really pretty space, dream with me OK!  I do like the layout our small kitchen and know that painting it white + new back splash + new counters + new sink + a million and one other changes will all make a huge difference and make the roman shade look great in the space.

Since our dining room and kitchen share the space and I LOVE the drapes I recently sewed for the dining room, I decided to go the ‘matchy matchy’ route and use the same fabric. I purchased two more yards at 5.99 per yard and I used my 20% off coupon. Don’t you just love coupons! I was a little concerned about using the same fabric because the print is very large, but if I don’t like it after it’s hung and the cabinets have been painted white I only spent $ 9.59 so I’m not going to be supper upset. Here’s what I have thus far, the fabric had been cut and sew and the roman pleats widths are be tweaked. 

The roman shade will be hung very soon and I’ll share the how-to and before roman shade entered our kitchen and after! Of course the real after won't come for awhile, but adding up the many mini projects really make me happy and its easier on my eyes! 

Is there a mini project you want to complete in your kitchen? Or do you have many mini projects you want to get done?

The Project List

On Tuesday I mentioned we have lots of projects 'The To Do' the best way for us to get them done is keep a list. The goal is to get the big and small projects done room by room. I used to be really good at keeping lists of what needs to be done around our house. Especially the first year we owned our home { we were under and an outside appearance crunch for our back yard wedding reception } In a spam of 6 - 7 months a we painted our entire house, added lots of curb appeal, rolled out sod, replaced the leaning brick flowerbed and seeded our backyard. We had a non-stop project list. There was something to do every night  and every weekend. We went from the ugliest house on the block { all one icky peach color } Who paints there house all one color? It's a don't!

To a cute charming grey house with a cheerful bright red door.

Inside we have a lot of little finishing projects to do as well as bigger ones. Here's our Project List room by room. I'm going to keep list updated and may even dedicate a page to it on the blog, just to keep us accountable.

Project List



Living Room

Touch up baseboards
Sew New Drapes
Buy Area Rug
Finish Secretary Desk
Buy Art for Walls
Hang Family Pictures

Dining Room

OK for now!

Kitchen

Paint Cabinets
Paint Ceiling
Paint Walls
Cut Door panels out for glass inserts
Buy Glass for Doors
Buy Hardware
Sew Roman Shade
Replace Counter tops
Install Back splash
Install one base cabinet

Hallway

Paint Doors ?
Replace Doors ?
Hang Artwork
Hang Large Mirror

Bathroom

Paint
Hang Shelves
New Light Fixture
Paint Bathroom Cabinet
Shower Curtain

Tween Room

Rearrange Furniture
Area Rug
New Bedding
Sew Blanket
Hang Roman Shade

Nursery

Area Rug
Install Tall Windows

Master Bedroom

Hang Mirror
Area Rug
Hang Curtains
Hang Artwork
Touch up Baseboards
Buy Extra Down Comfortable


I'm most excited about finally getting around to making our kitchen pretty, its hard to look at! Our dining room and kitchen share a room so one side looks polished the other dark thanks to dark cabinets and poor lighting. I'm so over it and very motivated to have a pretty bright new clean sleek stylish { you get the point, right? }


It will also be nice to have the little teeny things done hanging art up, done! Wish us luck as we cross items off this list and I know as we cross things off, many new 'To Do' items will pop on. Its never ending, but that's the way like it uh uh { now, start humming KC and the Sunshine Band's song along with me }

What's on your Project list that you been putting off and want to tackle ASAP?

Homemade Kids Halloween Costume Ideas

Halloween is just around the corner, and its time to start planning Halloween costumes for the kiddos { well maybe just one kiddo this year } I suggested to my tween Tabari to try something different this year for Halloween costumes, lets make it! I've always was wanted to make a Halloween costume, but time always ran out and we ended up at the local big box store. In the past he's been Simba from the Lion King , Sully from Monsters Inc, a Boxer the list goes on and on. He was on board for to make his own costume. He likes doing making things { he has DIY in his DNA! } so this is a perfect project for us to work on together. We checked out Martha Stewart for costume ideas, we both liked Super Hero & Space Invader. I think the Space Invader would be lots of fun, love the cup hat! lol
+

{ via Martha Stewart }

Then we looked on familyfun.com and came across more cute ideas. The costumes the stood out most is his mind: Lego Block and a Super Large Grocery Bag { of grossness } How cool would it be to make a Lego Block costume and the how to looks pretty simple! The grocery bag would also be cool.

{ via familyfun.go.com }

Now we just need to decide what to make him and gather our homemade supplies!! I'll share his Halloween costume soon and how we made it. For Avery still not sure what he'll be for Halloween and I was thinking Gypsy or Fortune Teller for me and Hasani undecided. A few years back Hasani & I dressed up as Diana Ross and DMC from Run DMC you can see the picture here.

Are you making a Halloween Costume this year? What was your favorite Halloween Costume of all time? Any plans yet for Halloween?

Magazine Sale!

I have a serious addiction to glossy magazines, I picked up my habit in high school and it still in full force today. I can't walk past the magazine aisle at the grocery store without spending several minutes on the on the aisle. Even worse than that, I hate tossing them. I keep almost every magazine I've ever bought or subscribed too. When we moved into our house over two years ago, my husband asked 'Do you really need this Marie Claire from 2004' of course my answer was 'YES!' I caved and threw away of ton of magazines, and only kept the good ones. I still love my fashion magazines {I now get most of those from my girlfriend} but my true LOVE is home decor magazines! So I was super excited when I saw the yearly magazine sale on Amazon.com, they have a few home decor magazines on sale for FIVE BUCKS for a year long subscription, they do this annually and its the only time I subscribe. I mean seriously FIVE BUCKS for 12 issues for home decor inspiration, heck ya!


I subscribed to Country Living, Elle Decor & House Beautiful so I got three year long magazine subscriptions for $ 15 bucks talk about a steal!!

When I look early this morning only Elle Decor appeared to still be on sale for only $ 5 bucks!! Don't wait hurry and click over and get your magazine deal! :) There other magazine on sale too for $ 7 bucks and up, you really can not beat the price


Which one are you to subscribe to? Which glossy home magazine do you already get in the mail?


ps: what do you think of the blogs new design? 

Two Years of CLH

Sunday marked two years of me blogging about our beloved little house. It's been fun s-l-o-w-l-y transforming our little rancher into a comfortable spot for my family. We've tackled a bunch of projects and shared the highs and lows of DIY projects. The afters are what keep us plugging along project after project. Over the past TWO years we’ve gained a lot of DIY knowledge, we can know caulk like and expect, know why its so important to prime! Hasani’s become really good at installing light fixtures and dimmers! He’s installed eight light fixtures around our house and trust me he's no where near done yet.

I’ve been sewing up a storm on my hand dandy very simple Singer sewing machine (lots of pillows, drapes, ottoman, and blankets). With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to look back at some projects we completed the past two years, but not just any projects my favorite ones. Here are my top ten favorite projects completed so far { in no particular order }


1. Painting the Front Door Red. I really love how the Posh Red Door color looks against our grey house greets us and our guests. I'm not saying Posh Red just for fun, the paint is really called Posh Red!

2. Reupholstering the Vintage Ottoman. When I came across this less than perfect ottoman, I knew with some new fabric it would look amazing in Avery's nursery. It was a huge challenge of patience and practice to reupholster this ottoman, but so worth. I use this ottoman on a daily basis and the nursery wouldn't be complete without it.

3. Refinishing Our Hardwood Floors. It took us living in our home almost 2.5 years before we got around to refinishing our hardwood floors, and it was worth the wait. My dad and Hasani did an awesome job on transforming our original 1956 Hardwood floors in a dark brown stain that looks great!

4. Sewing Drapes for the Dining Room. Finding this pretty fabric for only a 5.99 a yard was an amazing deal and it truly transformed our overly white dining room into a more lively spot to dine in.

5. Building Ledges for our Entryway. I'm often inspired by Pottery Barn, most of the time not but their prices, after seeing a fellow blogger build some simple ledges inspired by Ikea, I knew I had to build ledges to make our entryway feel more inviting. Since building these ledges, I've also built two for the nursery.

6. Chevron Baby Blanket. I loved this pattern when I came across it and decided to sew a baby blanket with chevron one side and white minky on the other. Now that weather has been cooling off, I've been using it all the time. It's so cute to see Avery snuggles up in a blanket I made for him.

7. Refinishing Tabari's Desk. I bought this desk for $15 a thirft store, it was so much work getting to its after! I even cried becasue I was sanding so much, lol. It was all worth it when I walk by Tabari's room and see him completing his homework on the desk, I redid for him.

8. Painting our Craigslist Dresser. Over the years Craigslist has been good to me. I bought this solid wood dresser with dovetail drawers for only $45! All it needed was new paint and pretty hardware.

9. Installing a Drum Shade Chandelier in our bedroom. I was so called when we got rid the old boob lighting on our bedroom and replaced it with a pretty chandelier I bought from Overstock.com.

10. Making Nursery Artwork. I had so much fun creating this 'artwork' for Avery's room, the colors make me, He's already noticed them while lying in his crib!

It’s fun to take a look back, but even more to think about our future projects we need to complete. We have so many projects on our to do list, that we’ve decided to keep a monthly goal of crossing items off asap. We plan to take on a lot of projects after the kiddos head of to bed. I'll share our project list to do very soon.

My love of blogging has only increased the past two years, along with the loving it now more than ever. We want to improve it, just as I mentioned updating the DIY Project page as well as added a Craft & Sew Page (coming soon) We also want to start hosting monthly Giveaways to you our readers which we love so much! We also plan on doing some video projects, house tours of our tiny house and maybe some craft projects (we had fun taping the House Proud Segment for Nate Berkus Show)


I also want to get better at take pictures for the blog and of course of my family! I’ll be investing in a new DSLR camera soon! I was gifted Abode Photo Editing software recently (thanks mom) so I’ll be learning that too. Big Thanks to everyone for the sweet comments, encouragement and emails about our little house. Another goal I have for the blog is to blog more often goal is 4-5 days a week which is so doable. The plan is show you more of our projects we’ve thinking about and in process of even if there won’t be a pretty after for awhile, and continue keeping our content good ( at least to me its pretty good!). I will also be more invovoled in other Social Media, mostly Twitter. Oh hoe I love to tweet!! I hate to say it I'm  to into Facebook, but I love Twitter, so if your on Twitter follow me :)

What's your favorite project of ours that we've done around our house?

What's your favorite DIY project you've completed in your home?