More Goodwill Thrills

You just never know with Goodwill. Some days, there is nothing for you there. Then there are other days...ah...other days that Goodwill has a special something just for you.

I've been on the look out for a large mirror lately to go on my old dresser that currently resides in my living room. I'm addicted to mirrors (though I don't always necessarily enjoy looking into them). As more of our house is completed, I need to spread them throughout our home a bit more instead of having a mirror concentrate in our living room. But back to Goodwill...

I was there on Friday, my usual Goodwill Hunting day, and I spent a great deal of time picking out a collection of vintage metal picture frames. I didn't realized how much I loved these little things. I want to use them for black and white family photos. I haven't decided yet if I'll leave them as they are or paint them all the same color. White maybe? Suggestions?



As I was about to checkout, I spied along the wall a beautiful, large, antique mirror! My heart skipped a beat! I made a dash for it and picked it up to put it in my cart (somehow)- it was so heavy! I couldn't believe the treasure I had just found. And best of all? It was only $12.99! I thought my eyes were going to pop right out of my head!

So here it is in it's new home. Again, I don't know if I should paint it white or leave it. Something tells me that I'll end up painting it, though:)





Here is a close up of the beautiful ornamental details...



The cashier that checked me out said she priced that particular mirror. She said she knows that it's worth probably at least a couple of hundred, but no one would pay that much at Goodwill - so she thought she might as well make it affordable! Here's another interesting story she shared with me. She said a lady came in a couple of weeks ago and bought two pairs of shoes. She paid about $30 for them (they were really nice, new shoes) but then she put them on Ebay and sold them for close to $500! Can you believe that?! This tells me two things: One, there are fabulous bargains to be found at thrift stores. Yes, one might have to do a little digging and searching, but that's half the fun, don't you think? And two, in today's economy, I think it certainly is a good idea to think about picking up a few extra bargains here and there at thrift stores with the idea of reselling them for a profit. Nowadays, every little bit helps! If you already enjoy "treasure hunting" anyway, why not?!

Have a wonderful Monday, everyone!

Seeing Red in a Cottage Kitchen

I've been fortunate to meet so many other "red lovers" in the last few days. I really appreciate all the thoughtful comments about my red cabinets. Someone asked me if it was a tough decision to choose a bold color such as red for our cabinetry and I have to say that for me, I didn't even have to think twice! Love, love, love red! (Now, picking the right shade of red was quite a different story!)

But you don't have to have red cabinets to have a red cottage kitchen. Red accents are just as lovely with cabinets of just about any color. It's a beautiful morning - just perfect for snapping photos, so I took a few shots of some of my red accents right now:

There are those berries again! You've seen them in my window sill as well. I found the big white bowl either at Goodwill or Marshall's on clearance. I bought it a while back, but I know that I didn't pay much (true to my thrifty form!).




A teapot from Ebay, platter, bowl, and eggs from Goodwill, vintage doily from Ebay (it was a part of a very large vintage doily collection- I struck gold with this one!), and dish towel from Wal-mart... Funny story about the eggs: One morning I decided that I was going to order some ceramic eggs online. But I first made a run to Goodwill, because...that's just what one should do on a Friday morning...and what do you know! I found these ceramic eggs all wrapped up and hidden down in a vase!



I bought lots of red and white cotton dish towels on clearance from Wal-mart a couple of weeks ago. They came in packs of three for just $2 per pack! I bought three packs to use just for decorative purposes. A couple towels sewn together would make a great little summer pillow cover, don't you think?



A little word stone I made a couple of years ago....




I bought faux apples at Wal-mart as well. Did you know that you can now buy them by the bag? The cashier ringing me up that day thought it was a real bag of apples! The old bowl is from Goodwill.



I hope you've enjoyed taking a peek at my recent red additions. I want to incorporate more robin's egg blue - just a little here and there as a secondary accent color - but it's a harder color to find. But you can bet that I'll also be on the lookout for that happy and delicious color red!

Cottage Style Altered Art

Do you remember the sweet painting below that I bought at Goodwill last year? I liked it, I really did! But with my new found love of robin's egg blue, I just couldn't make the dark green and yellow background in the painting work for me. What to do?



With a little paint and a lot of nerve, I tackled the background myself. I also painted the frame a dark, chocolate brown.



I'm no artist but I know that it lacks the same depth, shadow, blending, and texture the original painting had, and I may continue tweaking in future...you know...as I save up a little more creative nerve:) For now, I'm just going to enjoy my new cottage style "altered art"!

Charming Glass Jar Bank + Goodwill Treasures

If you're like me, you're always discovering spare change in the couch cushions, under furniture, or in pockets while doing laundry. I've never really been quite organized enough to collect and save found coins in a sensible fashion like most folks do, I'm sure, but a couple of months ago I thought it would be fun to have a special place to "bank" any change that we find lying about the house. So with a glass jar, some scrapbooking paper, buttons, and little bit of decorative trim, I made a sweet little coin jar to keep in the kitchen. The kids love depositing money into it and I like feeling a little more organized!

It is that time of year again - "going back to school" time. This past week we were busy doing all of our school shopping and now I'm in the process of getting the house ready for the new school year...things like cleaning out the kids' dresser drawers and closets, culling old clothes, and cleaning out the laundry room and fridge and other areas that will stay quite "hopping" throughout the busy school year. With all the activity that homework, projects, and school events adds to our schedule, I like to get the school year off to a fresh start here at home. Also, (and many of you have been asking me), I do still plan to get my faux dessert business off the ground before December and feel like I am so close to being ready here. But home and family have always come first so I've been waiting until I feel like I can in good conscience move forward with the business without neglecting other duties...and I'm almost there. I have a lot of fun ideas that I'm really looking forward to trying...stay tuned!

I will probably be scarce here for the next couple of weeks as we get ready for the new school year and as we get accustomed to a new routine all over again. We've also all been sick here and I think between cleaning and organizaing, I'm going to try and rest up so I can fully recover. Poor hubs has a coughing fit every time he moves...but fortunately, the kids were the first to get sick and the first to recover, so they are now enjoying what's left of their summer break.

Before I sign off, I thought I'd post a few photos of some Goodwill finds... Goodwill hunting is SO much fun!

Mostly vintage cookbooks....



Baskets...(you can't tell from the photo, but the largest basket is BIG!)


Metal plant containers with text about gardening...


An oil painting (I'm not sure if I like the frame or not, but the painting itself is sweet!)



Thank you for your kind comments about the painted trivets and the chocolate chip cookies! I'm glad you enjoyed the photos! Until next time... Have a great rest of the summer!

1955 Good Housekeeping Cookbook

Do not walk, RUN to Ebay and snatch up a copy of this vintage cookbook from 1955, the Good Housekeeping Cookbook ! I found one at Goodwill yesterday and WOW, what a gem! There are over 3000 recipes in the book (760 pages!), from old-fashioned dishes to the "newer" dishes of the 1950's. There are plenty of practical kitchen tips as well. This is a great one to add to your cookbook collection. Vintage and antique cookbooks are so charming...through them, you can take a step back in time to the kitchens of your mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and beyond.

As of this posting you can get this book for as little as 1.99! Check it out! And let me know if you order one! I know you'll love it as I do mine!

The Twice Remembered Cottage Online Yard Sale - Monday @ Noon thru Thursday

I've been talking about the big (in real life) yard sale that I've been getting ready for for weeks. We are *finally* having it at our home this coming up weekend on Friday and Saturday. I will be so thrilled to have the extra space and a fresh start! We are going to be doing a bake / lemonade sale, too (the kids love doing this!), so I'll be back to baking all those cookies again this week!

I mentioned in a previous post a couple of months ago that I would be sure to set aside any cottage decor items and offer them for sale online here on my blog first. I have all the cottage items ready to go now and just need to photograph them in the morning. They will be available to view and purchase around noon central tomorrow. We'll just keep things simple and do as many others do when they sell things on their blogs - the first one to post and let me know that they want an item or items, along with their email address, the items are considered theirs and I'll send them an invoice via PayPal. All I ask is that folks consider carefully before claiming items because everyone loses out when claimed items are forgotten about by the buyer. I really would like to put everything that doesn't sell online this week in my yard sale on Friday and would rather not have to deal with items that I'm not sure are "sold" or not. I hope you understand:)

I'll ship all items the Tuesday after my actual yard sale this coming up weekend as I won't have the time before then to pack and mail. Between pricing beaucoodles of children's clothing and baking cookies, I'm just hoping to be done with everything by the time Friday morning rolls around! Every time I think I'm making headway, oh look! Another box of *stuff* to sort!

So stop in tomorrow and see if there's anything that strikes your fancy and I'll happily send it from my cottage to yours!

Yard Sales - How I've Missed You

I've been especially good this spring at not bringing anymore "stuff" into our home. Surprisingly enough, I haven't been to a yard sale this year at all, I don't think. I'm preparing for a yard sale of my own right now and goodness, we need the space! But this weekend, I spied out a yard sale just right down the road and I thought maybe I'd take a peek. It was near noon and I figured that probably all the "good stuff" was gone by then anyway. No huge risk of actually finding anything, right?

I guess it goes without saying that I did find a little goody. I've been thinking lately that I'd like a piece of furniture under my (once gold) mirror in the living room, something to put flowers or books on - and what do you know - I found it! It's an old little telephone table, I was told. I also found a couple more items that I'll write about later. So I brought my new old table home, put it in place,and cut a bouquet of roses from my rose bush to place on top. It's like the table belonged there all along, don't you think?

I love the little niche inside - a perfect place to slide my Carl Larsson books. The table is sturdy but the finish needs attention. I can't decide if I should keep it dark or paint it white. Eventually we will have very tall white beadboard in the living room, kitchen, and hallway, so I guess it depends on if I want contrast or softness. Hmmm....something to think about:)

More Thrifty Finds / Cottage Treasures

Yard sale season is upon us and I'm thrilled:) Friday, on my way to taking the girls to school, I ran upon a rather small but promising yardsale. I had to wait until after I dropped the girls off to stop and I'm sure I missed out on a lot of cool stuff in those five minutes (any pro yardsaler knows that the "early bird gets the $10 antique oak desk", which I missed out on by seconds!) BUT, I did find a few items that I'm really happy about.

For $10, I found a nice sturdy antique chair with some interesting carving at the bottom. Like nearly everything else that I pick up, this piece will get a makeover. I'll probably paint the chair in a fresh light green or white and cover it in a nice crisp fabric...maybe some kind of ticking.

I also picked up this folding screen with a black and white pattern that I just love. I may leave this just as it is or add criss-cross ribbons to create places to hold photos.



Lastly, for $1 each, I bought these poor, poor little antique wooden tables. They have these sweet little scalloped edges that form a tray top. The wood veneer on the top will have to be replaced and the tables themselves are a little wobbly and need to be strengthened a bit. I'm planning on painting them out to give them a fresh new cottage look. If they don't turn out nice, well, I've lost a little time and $2. It will be an interesting to challenge to see what I can do with them...we'll see!

I don't always post my Thrifty Finds / Cottage Treasures here in my journal, but I do usually try to post them to my photo gallery. If you'd like to see more, take a peek here.

I hope everyone has a great Sunday!

A Little Cabinet Update & Notes from the Heart

Just a note to say we are chipping away at our cabinet project. We've finished the inside of two cabinets and have another coat of red to put on the shelves. I cleaned and sanded the corner cabinet in order to start painting it today. Wow, it's amazing how much gunk comes off a surface when you use degreaser. I thought my cabinets were clean, but I was wrong!

Yesterday Zoe and I did a little Goodwill hunting and found a few treasures. I found a few earthy baskets to add to my growing little collection, a giant wreath, a cool frame, and a sweet little urn/vase. I'll try to take some photos soon.

There is a thread going on at the Cottage Living forums about what we are least proud of concerning our home decorating/renovating. It's been a depressing last couple of weeks, thus very easy for me to focus on the negative. Here's what I wrote:

I have been *so* depressed over the state of my totally undone home. I was out of town this weekend and stayed with family and while there, I was just in total awe and envy being in a completely put together, nice, clean home. Everything there so neat and organized...and did I mention clean????

Here, we are pretty much living on a construction site. We remudded the walls in the living room and kitchen and we're still trying to get the drywall dust off the surface of everything. Our kitchen floor is old beat up and scuffed up linoleum. We will be ordering hardwood floors within the month, so we're not going all out to clean up every paint drip and drywall mud plop. Have I mentioned that we ripped out our living room/hallway carpet last spring? I was having major allergy problems and it just had do go. Good thing - I don't even want to think about all the dust that would have settled into it. Even so, we've been living with painted plywood floors (painted to seal them so the kidlets wouldn't get splinters). Black,of all colors (it was cheap oops paint). Like our old linoleum, it has tons of paint splatters, too, and just looks dirty. We have a corgi and beagle who are constantly shedding - and the hair really shows up on the black plywood - and I sweep everyday. Even though we're ordering floors soon, that doesn't mean we're putting them down soon. Hubs wants to get the major painting projects finished before we put down our flooring.

Hmm, should I continue, lol?! Our bathroom is completely gutted now save for the tub, (thank goodness for the tub!). We want to get our living room and kitchen wrapped up before putting the bathroom back together. It feels so icky being in there...no drywall, one lonely light, plywood flooring, plastic sheets protecting the yet to be tilled tub surround...*sigh* We had to move the bathroom door down 10 inches to keep it from hitting the toilet in it's new location, which means that we have more drywall work to do in the hallway, too.

Apparently, the way this house was built, the only thing keeping the door casings in place is the trim around the door. We're replacing ALL the trimwork in the house (it was built nearly 30 years ago with cheapy trim). We took much of the trim off most of the doors when we mudded the walls. Last night, our coat closet door and part of the casing literally just came crashing down out of place due to the lack of trim around it (now revealing all the clutter within). *Ack!* A far cry from the nice, peaceful, SAFE home that I stayed at while out of town this weekend.

There is so much left to do in this whole house remodel and sometimes it's so hard for me to focus on what we have accomplished. I'm terrified that someone will stop by just to visit, lol. I know exactly where I'm headed with this renovation and what it will look like when it's complete , it's just a tough getting there!

Let me add to that that my little girls have the most boring, unimaginative bedrooms ever. Beds and dressers. Since we'll be replacing trim and remudding the walls in those rooms, too (and because we're so busy with the rest of the house), I've put off doing anything nice. We truly do have a long road ahead of us here. I wish I could snap my fingers and it would all be done but I know that's just crazy talk. One thing that keeps me going is knowing that the longer that I whine and lament over being in the middle of this tedious remodel, the longer it will take to complete it. It also helps to know that every little bit of work that we do here (however slow the progress) is important and is one step closer to the final result.

What is important is that my kids are healthy and happy and seem to be pretty much unaffected by all the chaos and general state of ickiness our house is in right now. When I was growing up, my parents did a major remodel which I'm sure took many months (funny I don't remember how long it took). I do remember at some point having to wash dishes in a plastic bin on the floor because the new cabinets and sink was not yet installed. But that's about all I remember. Makes me wonder how much my girls will remember about this remodel????

Months ago, I promised the girls an End of the School Year party this summer. Looks like we may be looking for an alternate location, lol. There's a new park in town...maybe there?

Well, I better find an activity for the ZoeMiester to work on while I start painting again. Love to all:)