Guest Post

Happy Thursday.  

I was asked by sweet Marty over at A Stroll Thru Life to guest post while she is away from blogging for a short time to help her son decorate his new digs.  I know she will have her decor charm on to make her sons new home so beautiful.

 I decided to post on my love of taking old vintage architectural  pieces that I have reloved back into my home decor. Any old doors, windows, pieces that are chippy and have some history and character will always find their way into my home decor.  

 So if you would like to see some samples of what I have repurposed in my decor hop over to Marty's blog to check it out.

Guest Post @

Have a wonderful rest of the week.  Be sure to check back on Saturday for another wonderful blogger in the Spotlight.

Kris

:)

Entry Way Reveal

I am in the process of changing up my living room to a Pottery Barn Meets Cottage.  I recently replaced my slipcovered sectional with a leather sectional.  Just more practical with my basset hound and grand daughter  and family that love to lounge on my sectional.  I miss my white slipcovered sectional it just was not practical with that being the only piece of furniture in our family room.  We use this piece all the time.  So washing those slipcovers was not fun.

My challenge is getting a cottage feel to the leather sectional.  So I am working on that room and should have it ready soon to reveal.

In the meantime I did the entry way that is part of the living room.  Here is how it looked before:

The entry way is in front of my living room.  I had a lot of chippy shabby pieces in here.

The first thing we did was to take all the pieces down in the entry way wall.

The challenge is to get my pottery barn meets cottage look and spend $0 dollars and use stuff I already have.

Terry used pieces of mdf board to frame out the wall for the board and batten look.  Then we painted it white.  We had these hooks from another wall hanger in his office area so we used those.

I had these great old frames so thought they would look nice above the entry way hanger wall.

So far this entry way only cost $12 for the mdf board.  Everything else I had including paint.

I added another small white frame inside the bigger frame and then put this Count your Blessings sign inside for the middle frame.

Here is my umbrella re done from my last post.  I agree with a lot of you that more of the umbrella needed to be seen.  So I took out the hanging greens and rearranged the flowers.  Added this cute little bird.  Now this spring welcoming umbrella is hanging in the new entry way.

I added my summer garden hats and rain boots to the front entry decor.

In these two end frames I thought about hanging candle lanterns off chippy hangers and then I thought about putting chalk board behind the frames.  I think I might like that look better and I can change up the chalkboard art for different holidays and new sayings.

Here are some examples of chalkboard art work I could reproduce onto my chalk board frames.  I think this might be a good idea and I can have fun changing them up.

So here is my new entry way.
I think I will put the chalk board in these two end frames and then do up a cute saying for each one.  I think that will be a fun idea for these frames.
So for $12 I got a new look to my entry way.  Hope to have the living room to show you soon.  My pottery barn meets cottage is coming out very nicely.

Have a great rest of the week.
Come back on Saturday for Spotlight.  I have a great blogger for you to get to know.

Kris
:)

Parties:

WOW
Inspire Me Tuesday
Share your Style Up Town Acorn
Treasure Hunt Thursday
Shabbilicious Friday
Show and Tell Friday

French Vintage Umbrella

Happy Sunday.

Terry and I took a drive to Morris on Friday where all the cute little shops are that I love.  While shopping I saw this old vintage umbrella hanging in one shop with all kinds of spring flowers inside it.  It was so pretty.  I thought to myself I have an old vintage french umbrella at home in the closet.  Hmmmm.......

So this is what I decided to do with what I already had a home.

My vintage french umbrella.   I love this umbrella the wrap tie even has an old vintage button instead of snaps like today's umbrella's have.

I had some of these flowers from last Spring still in my storage closet so I grabbed them and made this Spring Umbrella.

This was my first version.  I used less flowers.

This is my second version.  I used a few more flowers. Which one do you think I should keep.  Less flowers or more flowers?  This will be cute hanging on my front door or maybe in my new entry way decor.  We will see.

We are having just gorgeous weather here in Chicago Land.  It is in the high 40's and going to 50's.  I know that is cold for a lot of you but for us this feels so great.  We have been at zero and single digits for so long this is feeling really great.

Hope we have turned the corner on Winter and we will see Spring soon.

Have a great start to the new week.
I am getting a lot done in the living room and front entry hope to reveal that soon.
Kris
:)

Saturday Spotlight: Life Behind the Blogger Series

Saturday Spotlight: Life Behind the Blogger is a feature done each Saturday that introduces you to a blogger you may already know or a new blogger for you to get to know. This feature gives you a peak into the personal life of the blogger.  Getting to know the special person behind the beautiful blog.

There is so much talent and inspiration in blogland so enjoy getting to know these talented bloggers each Saturday.

Shane from Roses, Lace and Brocante

I have a beautiful and sweet blogger from New Zealand with a French heart to introduce you to.

It is Shane from Roses, Lace and Brocante.  Please read and get to know Shane and then hop over and visit her pretty blog you will not be disappointed.  Shane is as sweet and kind and open as her beautiful blog.  Enjoy.

Thank you so much dear Kris 

for inviting me to take part today.

I am delighted to have the opportunity

to meet and get to know more bloggers

via your

Saturday Spotlight!

Hello and welcome to everyone reading this post!

My name is Shane and I blog at

Roses, Lace and Brocante

where I often post about things french.

My love affair with 
France 
begins with

my daughter and three granddaughters

who all live there.

We travel to France as often as possible and

we will be there again in June this year!
I'm counting the days, hours and minutes
until I step off the aeroplane
and I can hug my favourite girls!

One year we hired a canal boat for a week
with four friends from home and had such a great time.
We cycled up to a village every morning to
buy a baguette, ham, fresh salad, fruit and delicious
patisseries

Much as I enjoy travelling...

home 
is where my heart is
and I love
decorating, painting old furniture with Annie Sloan paint
and styling with collections of
books, vintage pieces and pretty things...
flowers and candles bring ambiance to a room
they give that certain
je ne sais quoi

my garden 
is developing year by year
it's filled with old fashioned roses
hydrangeas,perennials and herbs
all growing happily together
though the dry conditions this summer are a challenge!

With my love of

vintage 

lace, linen, buttons 

I search the village brocantes when I'm in France

and come home laden with gorgeous pieces.

With these I make collage pieces and fabric books.

I dream 

in french but I'm very much a

Nouvelle-Zélandais

(New Zealander)

and I live in Auckland.

Since I started blogging five years ago, 

my camera or iPhone are always by my side

photography

has become an absorbing interest - I photograph everything!

Our family love messing about in

boats 

and my dear husband is restoring an old classic launch

which will be in the water for next Summer - Yea!

I'm looking forward to visiting your blogs

and I do hope you will pop over and say hello/bonjour

to me!

thank you

sweet Kris for hosting 

Saturday Spotlight - Life behind the Blogger!

I know my followers will enjoy popping over

to meet you and your followers too!

Merci 

take care and

be kind to one another

Shane

Thank you Shane for sharing your beautiful family with all of us today.  It is so great to get to know you better.

Have a wonderful Week End everyone.

Kris

:)

Happy Friday and Happy Week End

Wishing all of you a wonderful week end.

We are suppose to start to warm up starting this week end.  Hoping this is a sign Spring is on it's way.  It will feel good to start to thaw.

Oh remembering this from last summer.  My happy place to lounge and read in the sunshine.  Ohhhhhh hope to see this again soon.

Have a great week end.  We may hit 50 next week.  Wooooo Hoooo!
Kris
:)

Faux Brick Wall Living Room

I thought I would share with you another faux brick wall we did in the living room.  You can see the faux brick wall tutorial we did on the kitchen wall here.

This time we did it a little different than we did in the kitchen to get another look to the brick.

Here is the grandma's basement faux brick panels from Menards.  They come in 4X8 panels for around $22.  This  half wall took 3 panels.

First step was to put a cream base on this wall.  I used paint I already had.  It was Behr Ultra with a satin finish.

 Just rolled the paint onto the brick panels with a paint roller and let it dry.

The next step and the messy step is to put grout on the wall. I used the bright white grout I had left over from the kitchen wall project.  We put the grout on pretty heavy to cover all the grout lines and bricks for texture.  You can see the mess it leaves on the floor.  That is why I showed on the kitchen faux wall tutorial how we used these inexpensive plastic drop cloths and used painter's tape to attach them  to the wall and spread it out on the floor.  This way clean up is easy and it protects the wall and floor from the grout dropping all over when applying to the wall.  To see how we put the grout onto the faux brick check out the kitchen tutorial here.

 Next step on this faux brick in the living room we used some Rustoleum Cabinet Glaze we had in the garage.  Terry got a cloth wet and then added some of the glaze to the cloth and wiped it onto the bricks.  I went along behind him with another wet and dry cloth and rubbed out the glaze to get the look I wanted on the bricks.  I used the wet rag to rub off more of the glaze on some bricks and the dry cloth to not take off as much on other bricks.  This is where you chose how much color you want in the bricks.  I wanted a soft weathered look to the bricks so we did not do a heavy glazing to the bricks.  We decided to try the glaze instead of a paint technique like we did on the kitchen wall.  Since we had the glaze all ready we thought we would see what kind of look we could get using the glaze.  I liked the weathered exposed look the glaze gave to the brick.

This is the end result we got.  It gave me the weather faded brick look.

This is the up close picture of some of the bricks after the glazing so you could see how it makes the bricks look old and weathered with lots of texture to make them look real.

Ok while Terry was applying the glaze and I was rubbing away at the faux brick to get the brick looking just right,  I turned around to see my little decor assistant fast asleep on the couch.  Terry and I both shook our heads and said Oh Libby must be so tired from watching us work all day on the wall! I guess Libby is in the decor union that allows for naps on the job!So that is a peak at the wall in the living room.  I am working on getting Pottery Barn and Cottage to mix in this room.  This room has been a fun challenge for me.  I am getting a new look using everything I already had and spending zero dollars for this make over.  Hope to have the whole reveal soon.
Have a great rest of the week.
Kris
:)



Parties:
Share your Cup Thursday
Treasure Hunt Thursday

Start of Living Room Decor Change Up

I am starting a new decor project in the living room.   I took everything down off the walls.  Here is the wall before shot and hopefully soon will have the after picture of what we do to this wall and the new decor change ups for my living room.

We got a new leather sectional not too long ago after I sold my pretty white slipcovered sectional so that is starting a whole decor change up in this room!  Hopefully Pottery Barn meets Cottage will be achieved in this room soon.

I have to really watch the budget while Terry is trying to find another position in the fire service so I am going to do all these changes with supplies and decor pieces I have.  I love a challenge and have a "captive helper" that has tools so it is all good! 

 Have a great start to the new week.
Kris
:)