LIVING ROOM & BATHROOM CHANGES

It's a gorgeous day in Chicago, 80 degrees and totally looking like summer!  And in Blondieville, things have calmed down considerably.  I've caught up on my sleep and I feel like I have my life back.  In fact, yesterday I was thinking, well, what I am I going to do now?  The wedding seemed to use up all my free time.  Thank you so much for your nice comments, I passed them on to Emily and she was thrilled.  

I did a lot of work around the house over the past few weeks, things I had wanted to do but thought, "I'll get around to it.".  And as usual, it starts with one little change, like  a new valance for the bathroom window.  This is a very small bathroom with a tiny sink and vanity and I wanted some surface space.  A trip was made to Home Depot where they cut a long piece of pine in half for me and I found wood brackets that fit.  I painted everything with the same paint used for my living room.  DIL, Mary Clare and I hung them last week, okay MC did 99% of the work, I just stared in awe at how good she was with a power drill!

I like the extra space it gives me.  I just arranged a few essentials, most that I already had.  The jars are from HomeGoods and the hand towels, Target.  The valance is from JC Penney.

I scored a whole basket of these old, old iron hooks at an antique store years ago.  I used most of them up at the lakehouse but found one left and thought it would be perfect here. 

You might remember me fussing and fussing with this long wall I have in my living room.  It finally came together last week as well.  For some of you it might have been as easy as 1-2-3, but for me it was battling with the perfect combination of balance, shape, color and space.  Foremost, I wanted a gallery space but it had to be in proportion with the size of the room and the furniture.  I found these ledges, or "floating shelves" at HomeGoods for $19.99 each.  Let me just say that they are a real test of patience to hang.  Good old Mary Clare and her drill came to the rescue again.   I needed something organic and colorful to go with the sofa...it was all looking very neutral and I found this prints at Art.com.  Anyway, I'm happy with it and after all the crazy agonizing I did over it, it's staying like this for a long time!

A little close up of the ledges.  I found all of my frames at HomeGoods.  I had gone through my photo files on my computer and had some printed up at Walgreens.com., but foolishly ordered them in 4X6.  Most frames are 5X7.  Lesson learned. 

And finally, I had to throw in a picture of my Granddog, Rusty, here with Emily.  He just wears himself out!  He runs around like mad for a half hour and then just collapses in a heap in a corner!

Abigail is leaving for Florida with a big group of kids on Saturday.  They are renting a house on the beach for a week of fun in the sun.  Oh, I'm envious!  It's going to be a little lonely without her.  She finished classes last week.  I have flowers to plant...oh, yes, the front yard was seeded, you can see me out there every morning in my jammies dragging the sprinkler around in the mud.  Grrrrrr....I'm just going to plant a few pots for the front porch and steps, and backyard patio, I have enough watering to do.  And then I'll do the same thing over again at the lakehouse.  Hopefully we will get up there soon, plans this weekend and we have to round up my sons and some of their hunky...I mean strong friends to help with setting out the patio furniture, cleaning the boats, getting out the wave runners and kayaks...ugh, so much to do!  The Husband has been totally dreaming and preparing for his big summer of fishing.  He has driven into Indiana several times to the Bass ProShop for all sorts of crazy fishing gear.  Son Jeff remarked to him the other day, "For someone who rarely catches a fish, you sure do have a lot of stuff"!  Too funny!

I'll see all of you later in the week!

I'm joining Sherry at No Minimalist Here for her Open House Party

XO,

Jane