The Remodel Is Starting!

The contractor will be over this afternoon to start the remodel. We had him give us the estimate several weeks ago and since then he has taken a job with the state because of insurance so this is going to be a part time project for him. It's not a big project but we've given him our time frame (Hah, as if that makes any difference to contractors! In Calif. we had a second story put on our home there and it was supposed to be a 3 month project. It took 5 months!!!! Hubs was sitting on the toilet one day and the men started coming up from the crawl space while he was .........well, you know. A traumatic experience to say the least!) Anyway, he has to be done before Hubs has to go to Orlando middle of august. Nuuuuuuuu, I ain't goin', chicks, I don't DO airplanes, remember?!?!?! I know, I know, I'm missing this great opportunity to go see Disney World, but I've seen Disneyland! So why would I want to go to a humid place in the middle of summer to see little mice running around mischievously?? Nuuuuuuu, ain't happenin', chicks!

Anyway, I'm seriously digressing here. First off, these are 2 little shelves I got for 99¢, yessssssss, ya heard that correctly, 99¢!! Squeeeeeeallll!!! One was already white but had some black felt pen marks on it so I repainted it and painted the other bigger one and voilà here they are - good as new! I'm so thrilled!! Can'tcha tell, my little doves?!?!?! I'm feelin' like the Spritzing Queen with my little spray can of paint! This is sooooooo easy to do - take cap off of paint can, point to object to be painted and press top tab! I'm loving it! No clean up except maybe for the index finger.

Here is the wall getting the remodel. (Read carefully; you will be given a pop quiz at some point!) I hate pass throughs from living room to kitchen and do NOT like people seeing in my kitchen from a living room. (Yes, we might have been able to get it done when being built but it was beyond that "easy/quick" point, would have taken much more time and we HAD to be out of other house very, very quickly. Thus we knew that someday we'd redo it.) On the photos you see where it says 12" out from existing wall. Well, we've decided it is to go out 30" on each side leaving an archway of about 5 ft. We will then have a little more "defined" living room, no view of my dirty dishes and squeeeeeealing with deeeeeeelight........more WALL space!! I'm so happy I could walk barefoot over pink nails!! THIS means I can move our lovely grandfather clock to that wall along with "other" things getting it out of my family room and put a new fireplace........squeeeeeeeeeeeal again...........in there!!! Get my drift here? More fabulous shabby, chic, frou frou looking stuff in family room!!!

But the downside is we're living like pack rats for a couple of weeks. Unorganized is not one of my favorite states to be in! But I promise "progress" photos daily if you want to travel along this "remodel" with me, my little blogging buddies. So stay tuned!

This was taken last night as we started taking down stuff. It's a mess this morning! *Sighhhhhh*................

We Have A Winner!!!

I'm such a kid!! I get anxious and excited about drawing a name for the winner of the faux desserts giveaway! I just get so excited to be able to make someone happy, if that's the word. I sure hope it makes her happy....... So the winner is:

Theresa@takeasentimentaljourney!

Congratulations, my little sweetpea!!!

Faux Pastries and Chocolate Kisses Giveaway!

My giveaway is finally here after days of making so many faux pastries from a new material someone told me about. I can't say I'm crazy about it but it's lighter weight.

Anyway, chicks, here it is finally!! There are some petite pink ones, some bigger pink ones, a yellow one and chocolate kisses - 10 of them in all or 11 if you count the one cup as two!! You can tell by the plate how petite these little petit fours are. All except the kisses have porcelain clay roses. Squeeeeeeeeallllll!!!! All you have to do is post a comment here on this blog post and your name is entered to win. I'll pull the name sunday night - 7/27 - to announce the winner. Ooooh, nuuuuuuu, the cake plate is not included but will be for sale in my selling blog - La Maison Rose.

My Favorite Thing!

Cindy at My Romantic Home has asked us to show our favorite thing in our home but it can't be a person or it would have to be Love Bunny! Now, I have a lot of favorite things but as anyone and everyone who decorates their home it is usually the latest thing we've done. That may or may not be the case with some of you but for me this little lamp sits on my nightstand and the little pedestals are what I look at when hubby and I eat dinner. It gives me visual joy to look at them. I think, no, I know this big retired Marine loves our home. He may be the king of this castle but it's the queen, ME, that has to keep him in line, right?!?! I adore that man! Anyway, I used my PhotoShop to make it into one picture so you wouldn't have to spend much time clicking! But if you don't click on most of the things I post ya ain't gettin' the full flavor, my sweet little chicks!

Oooooh, and this is gonna count for Pink Saturday also. I gotta get something done around this place, my lovely bloggers!

Oh, and here's dinner tonight just so you can see the bounty coming out of our garden. Not too bad for a pink-thumbed chick......okay, okay, I only picked it today. *Sigh* Love Bunny has the green thumb in this house.

White Roses to Pink Roses

Funny, not funny HaHa, but funny strange, but I wasn't going to post today. Got up and hit the deck running! BUT I couldn't keep myself outta here, you blogging chickadees!!
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I cannot even begin to tell ya chicks how busy I've been. It's not just getting back from California and all that entails when returning from a trip - washing clothes, buying food, cleaning, etc., but I've got soooooo many projects I want to do. I think at this count I'll have to live to be 562 years old to catch up and complete everything on the list!! Each new day or each new trip to the thrift shops brings new projects. I'm sure none of you understand this! ;-) Riiiiiight!!!!

Anyway, I haven't stopped since we've been back. Up at 6 am and to bed - reluctantly - at 10:30 or 11:00 pm. Wednesday night at about 7 pm I decided to finish the living room drapes. I had quickly made a couple of side panels, but I didn't think they were full enough. I didn't have enough of the fabric to make them anything but a narrow side panel. I ordered some more fabric from New York before I left and my neighbor was kind enough to receive the parcel from UPS while we were away. So at 7 pm I set about making them and hanging them before I went to bed that night. I've posted other pix of this room just after I made the first panels but here they are now and I think it looks much better fuller - lush and not so "stingy"! This is a very difficult room to photograph also. Not much light with that huge porch overhang. However, here it is now.

Those of you who visit my blog regularly may remember this little cutie I picked up in California. Anyway, I started painting those white roses pink before I had a picture for today showing them to new visitors as the roses were 2 weeks ago. So I quickly snapped a pix for you just after I painted one rose pink. You can now see the "before" and "after" photos. I like them pink and poppin' out at ya!

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These are the little faux pastries and candies I've been trying to make for 10 days now! I'm almost finished with the hardest part. Someone suggested a new "material" with which to make them. I don't like it but I'm not wasting it, sweet cherubs, so these will be the giveaway! Of course, they'll be much better when decorated and I hope to get to that today. So stay tuned for the giveaway. I've been so blessed to win 2 things this past week that I simply must share my bounty.

Just thought I'd throw in some "eye candy" for you sweet virtual chicks!! This is my only granddaughter. She's now 28 and counting and still no great grandchicks! Where did her mother and I go wrong?!?!?!

This is a post I put on my ebay group yesterday - thursday - and yep, Love Bunny has a new toy:

This morning I showered and "coifed" my hair, went to KMart, then to Goodwill, then bank again(!), then to visit teach with my partner at their pool (Well, not theirs, but they have one in their classy development.) The 2 moms let the kids swim and we sat under the canopy (I don't do sun!) and chatted and gave a spiritual lesson. I left and then went to Costco to buy some fruit and veggies. I ended up getting Jack a Magellan RoadMate because he got us "I'm not lost I just missed the turn" during our trip to Calif. He's done this 2 or 3 times and admits it. There just isn't a sign that says "here's the 210" so exit here. That's his excuse. He's really pretty dang good about finding his way but I did get lost in Calif. this last time trying to get to the convention center when they're always fixing the exits and close them so I had to take another route. Sheeesh, I hated that. But, anyway, it's a new toy for him. Hah.