Laundry Rooms Can Be Very Pretty!

Okay, here's a giveaway for this darling little ribbon tree. I made it months ago and gave it away but never heard from the winner. So I am trying again. I simply can't imagine someone entering to win this little cutie and not checking back, even after I sent them an email that they won. Oh well, let's try it again. You know the drill. To win this, you must leave a comment and be a follower. I love my followers and they get priority for their loyalty.

I am also including this Alexandra Stoddard book I mentioned a week or so ago.

The winner will be announced this coming Friday, the 27th. You can tell your friends to drop by and try winning it also. But Friday I'll draw the name, put it on here and notify the winner. Ooooh, there will also be some of those coffee filter paper roses included also. Very nice prize if I do say so myself. Here are what those roses look like.

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In our house before this one I had a pretty big laundry area in the pantry of the kitchen. It was much nicer than the one in California as that one was in our garage. But the one we have now is really made up pretty. I like doing chores in pretty and charming places, no matter in what room the chores are done—office, bath, studio, bedroom, kitchen, wherever. I like pretty! So this time I'm showing you my present laundry room. Soon I'll show you some other laundry rooms that are lovely and some even huge and exquisite. Nothing in your home need be ugly or uninviting. You can do whatever you want to do with a room if you have the desire. Hardly any money went into my laundry, just thought and things I had around the house.

This is a decal I made and put on our laundry room door leading from the hallway into the laundry room.

I bought this little bucket to hold laundry detergent.

A little tin holder I bought and painted white. It holds clothes pins or little packets of laundry detergent I've received from friends. The little wood basket I painted rosebuds on. Not the best but it was my first try.

A shelf above a little green bench I painted white and made a bit shabby. It holds greenery, which makes washing laundry a nicer chore in a beautiful place. The walls are pink of course. The bright pink clay pot on the left I painted and decoupaged with a beautiful rose and put a faux plant in it. I saved pretty seed packets and just tacked them on the wall with Fun-Tac, easily removable when I want to change something in there. Other photos that have been given to me by JoAnn Coletti when I helped her with her computer a couple of years ago. She sent me several little cards of her pictures of her rose garden and some of her paintings. I love them; they're gorgeous.

This is an old redwood board from the fascia boards of our old house. I saved several boards, which were 50 years old and well-seasoned and made signs out of them to go around our house. I made the decals on my computer and printer.

I saw this gorgeous rose border and had to have it. It is in my laundry room. My laundry room doesn't look like any I've ever seen. Just shows you what you can do when you want it badly enough. I did! It's a unique laundry room and my style also.

Rather than the kitschy stuff you'd usually find in a laundry room I wanted this picture of a cottage in the woods with a lovely garden. When I wash clothes this is what I see. Much nicer than a wall.

I bought wood letters and put different kinds of roses, polka dots, plaids, stripes and paisley fabrics and gussied them up with rickrack, lace, bows and ribbon roses.

I made several clothespin bags and gave a few of them away in giveaways here on my blog. This should tell you how nice the items I give away are. No junk here. Handmade crafts. I also gave away some of those letters once. The three clothespin bags I have left are hanging in the laundry with clothespins and various other things a laundry would have.

Iron hangs on a holder on the wall next to some old french packets of soap given to me.

This is the door to a pantry in the laundry room. It hold fruits, cereals and cleaning supplies along with paper plates and napkins and other sundry stuff.

This little plaque has knobs to hold my decorated hangers, baskets or keys. Also notice I use lace scraps in this room or lace trim.

The rose border goes around the whole room except over the washing machine and dryer. It has shelves that hold detergents, cleaning supplies, bleach, spot removers, etc. I chose to hide them behind a pretty curtain.

Notice I even covered the pole with fabric to hang clean shirts out of the dryer.

Much nicer not seeing all that junk up there. All this was very easy to do and it adds a lot of pizzazz to the room. When a room is pretty, you tend to enjoy doing chores in it more than if it was dark and dank and a mess.

Even the ironing board has a cover when I'm not using it to iron. It's really a lovely laundry room and a great place to decorate and not have it so boring and ugly.

These last 2 photos are ones taken by my young best-bud-forever with that wide angle lens she had rented for a couple of weeks. She just popped over while I was doing laundry and I didn't think nor have time to set it up for a photoshoot. This is what it looks like on any given laundry day.

I'll show you some other laundry rooms I've come across on the internet. Some are fancy. Some are cute. Some are gorgeous and huge. Some are simple and small but with great design features. Soon, very soon, I'll show those to you. Just keep a lookout for them in the next couple of weeks or so.
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Linking up with WOW

Couture #9

Continuing with a short series of gorgeous haute couture gowns. You might enjoy reading two posts I have regarding couture and why I'm doing it: here and here.
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Enjoy and remember to consider the fabrics and the construction of the clothing. These will not be found on dress racks at T.J.Maxx!

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A Travel Story

This is a story about traveling to another country. Since some of you have read me long enough to know how I feel about traveling, flying, and other countries, this story just may help you understand my feelings. (I hate traveling and flying even though I've been to other countries and refuse to do either anymore.)

My daughter's husband died about 3 years ago now and you can read the blog post about that here. It was a very sad day for all of us. But her in-laws treated her to a Mediterranean cruise 5 months after their son's death. It was a sweet and gracious thing to do. But it got ugly real fast.

My daughter hadn't ever traveled to any place beyond our continental borders, except for Hawaii several times, and wasn't used to the culture shock. And, truthfully, I don't think those countries were ready for her. Before the trip, she had traveled extensively in the U.S. and her choice for the worst drivers in the U.S. and the worst city in the U.S. are recorded forever in my memory. I won't mention which were her choices here on the internet, but if you ask me through an email I'd be happy to share with you. I just don't want rants from people about a city which just may well be their city.

Anyway, after crawling through the pyramids of Egypt (scary and suffocating—her words), trekking through the filth of some of those countries and experiencing the ports of call in that area of the world, she told me her experience in Turkey, which she now says is the worst country for drivers. Their laws for motor vehicles are taken as just a hint, never enforced really. Traffic jam? They just pull on the sidewalk and drive. Now, that alone should be your first clue but I'll elaborate. Second clue is my daughter is very demanding—very. This is important to the story.

A relative is a travel agent (Terry) and sets up all the trips for the family and always travels with the group. This is also important to this story as I don't think most travel agents would go as far as Terry did in helping daughter. They spent a few days in Turkey off the ship.

When time came to return to the ship and they got to the dock to get back on, her passport was missing. She looked through her purse, pockets, everywhere and they couldn't find it. The border agents put her in detention. Terry, travel agent, was beside herself. She couldn't leave her in Turkey but the Turkish government wasn't about to let her go to the ship without a passport. Finally, she thought it could be somewhere in her luggage that went on back to the ship and was on board at that point. (Luggage goes on before you do.) So Terry went on the ship, waited for  ALL the luggage of all the passengers to get on the ship, rummaged through hundreds of suitcases until she found daughter's luggage and finally found the passport. Now, the relevant part here is that took hours. SEVERAL HOURS! Daughter was in tears because she had absolutely no control if they wanted to keep her there. (I'm sure some of you have seen the movie, Midnight Express.) Plus the cruise ship would sail on time, with or without her. They did give her some things to eat and Terry or her in-laws brought her food. She was scared to death when in that detention. She just wanted to come home to California. She said she'll never leave the U.S. again.
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Another cute pink vignette I like. I think I say “love” and “adore” too much, but it is actually how I feel about these photos.

I saw this pool on this high-rise home and just can’t see myself ever swimming in it, not that I’d ever get the chance, but I’d get dizzy just approaching it.

Do you remember these old 1950s dining chairs? I certainly do and it looks like this one had been given a fresh update. Cute!

Beautiful for French, English or any décor actually.

Sweet.

A teapot from Green Gate.

Bedroom with Green Gate accessories in it.

Green Gate tea tin. You’ve really got to visit their website. I’ll be posting more Green Gate items here for you to see though.

A mews in England somewhere. I think mews are very quaint places to have a shop, office or residence. Mews are a row or street of houses or apartments that have been converted from stables or built to look like former stables.

While I doubt this is really pink, I thought it was clever the way the photo turned out sort of pinkish.

Cute way to do some used eggshells, if one can paint! I can’t. Read about that here if you'd like.

A cute little thermos.

Another divine old lawn chair with a cover for the sun.

Fun place to watch the ocean.

I can’t believe this is available somewhere for sale. Surely the owner spray painted it and painted or decaled the BREAD on it.

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A Story about Accents

 
Back at this post I alluded to hubby's accent being different from his sisters' and brother's accent. I'll now tell you the story.

When Love Bunny was overseas the first time, I left Southern California and went to San Jose to live with my parents, I got a job at JCPenney working in the women's clothing department. I liked it actually because it helped the time go by faster plus the extra money would come in handy while we were maintaining 2 households—him overseas and me living with my mom and dad.

Anyway, one day a family was shopping there and came up to the counter to pay for their purchases. An older mother and father with their adult daughter were the customers. When they started talking I noticed their accent right away. I asked where they were from and they said, "Oh, you've never heard of where we're from."
I said, "Try me."
They said, "Pennsylvania."
I said, "Where in Pennsylvania?"
They said, "Ahhh, you've never heard of it; it's a small town."

I persisted and finally, they told me. It was the same town my hubby was from! I asked if they'd ever heard of a family with our last name. They said yes they had. Then they told me their name and I squealed. Their son, Charlie, was my husband's best friend in high school. Charlie was then living not far from us in Southern California before I went up north to my parents. He now lives over in Oregon, not too far from us here. Hubs couldn't believe it when I wrote and told him about it. So never tell me I don't catch that accent from that part of Pennsylvania. It's very distinct to us from California. ;-)
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This is such a "feel at home" type of living room. Just calls out "home" to me.

Like this blue sun porch also.

Bucket of posies.

This is a kitchen/dining area in a Scandinavia country. Looking at them a lot recently I've noticed they are very, very small.

Another red and yellow bedroom. Those are close to my favorite of pink and yellow.

Gorgeous walkway to a beautiful home.

I liked this living room also. Very homey too.

Very pretty living room in white and beige with touches of bright colors.

Cute paper teacup.

A lot of old churches are being sold off to homeowners for homes. I don't think I'd like to have that much room but what some of them do to the churches are beautiful.

Pretty idea for a patio. While they aren't lights, they certainly add an appeal.

Another absolutely stunning lamp! I love that shade.

This is the first I've seen of this kind. Beautiful!

Another small European kitchen.

One of my all-time favorite bedrooms.

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Linking up with Mosaic Monday.