time to tour...my front room

My front room this week 

I spent a fair amount of time cleaning, redecorating, and organizing my home this week. Not something I would have ordinarily planned in addition to my already busy schedule for the week, but something happened that I wasn't counting on. When you get an email from a magazine editor who is considering your home for a feature in their magazine (WHAT?!?) but they need a few photos of the layout of your home, you get busy. Never have I had better motivation to clean and organize. I don't even want to admit how long it took me to get each room ready for these photos. When you have three kids under five...well, you can imagine how scary things can get around this place.

my front room...from another angle

It was great motivation to finish a lot of half-finished projects, too. I got several things spray-painted that had been waiting for weeks...months?...for their lovely new coats. I'll show you the details of those things in another post.

my mantel with artwork I embellished myself (more on that in a later post)

This is the closest thing I've got to an entryway! This is that yellow vase I made a while back.

my "entertainment center"...really a yard-sale buffet

my beloved piano and newly re-re-painted mirror above (remember the yellow disaster?)

my favorite huge white bowl (from Crate & Barrel) with lemons and my mantel in the background

these roses were all from my own front yard...I love the colors!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this little tour of my front room (which is really two rooms!). I'll show you my kitchen later on this week. I still don't know whether they will want to shoot my home for the magazine or not...but I figure, even if they don't...the amount of cleaning and sprucing up I did this week was PRICELESS!  In fact, the whirlwind of activity was so impressive that my husband tried to tell me that somebody wants to photograph our junk drawer for a magazine and could I spruce it up for pictures? He's a funny guy. ;-)

i'm such a tease...but this gorgeous photography is no joke!

Disclaimer: I am teasing you now. I have some REALLY fun projects to show you. But there's only so much time in the day, so you all will have to wait till I have a chance to upload the photos, edit them to the proper level of fabulousness (or as close as I can get them, anyway) and post them to this little corner of blogland. I also had some amazing news the other day about an opportunity that is so exciting that it helped turn a really icky week into a really great one. But I can't tell you about it yet. Let's just say that I have been spending the last couple of days, in between other real-life duties, decorating and staging and photographing my own home for a special project. I'll share the pics with you soon...you will get a bigger glimpse into my home than ever before...and eventually I'll even tell you why I went through all the pain and suffering of the intense cleaning it required to even feel like my home was ready to photograph.

In the meantime, you have to check out this beautiful original photograph. I found it some time last week, and now that I've gone through the exercise of re-decorating and staging my own home, I realize one of the reasons I like it so much. The three colors in this photograph are my three favorite colors for accessories at the moment! I seriously have little touches of aqua, yellow, and hot pink all throughout my living and dining rooms. The colors are fresh, cheerful, and summery...although I'm not sure I can blame it entirely on the season (as I've been loving these three colors for quite a while now). This gorgeous print can be found in the very lovely Etsy shop AddieDesigns. Here are a few more photographs of hers that I am really digging right now:

Every single one of these photographs by AddieDesigns speaks to me in some way. Please check out the gorgeous shop of this talented artist who is not only a photographer, but does watercolor paintings as well! Can you believe it? Here are some examples of her paintings:

Gorgeous, yes?? Please go see AddieDesigns, give her some love...tell her I sent ya! :-)

still here...

I'm still here. Planning the Largest Yard Sale of the Century. Okay, not really, but it seems big to me because it's SO much work. And here's the thing: don't ever buy a house with an unfinished basement...not unless you plan to finish it RIGHT AWAY. Because it becomes the biggest (free) storage space ever and when you put things down there to store "for a little while" they multiply. Something happens down there, in the darkness, and what was once a small collection of treasures quickly becomes a huge collection of junk. And then, if you're afraid of spiders, or allergic to dust, or just plain lazy (or some combination of all three) you never go through all that stuff. Because there might be spiders! Or dust! In fact, there are spiders and dust guaranteed. Not to mention the work involved. And isn't normal everyday life work enough?  So you continue to purchase treasures at other people's yard sales (some of which might occasionally find their way to said basement) while rarely having one of your own. Plus, don't even get me started on all the gear that comes with that tiny little creature known as a baby. And after three of them (babies, that is) there is a lot of gear.

 This is just a very small glimpse of what I'll be selling.

Anyhoo, I've got to get rid of it. All of it!

To make room for stuff (from other people's yard sales!) like this:

...One of my bestest bargains ever...a Mikasa white porcelain cake pedestal (in the original box!) for $1. No joke. It was actually marked $2 but all the lady's stuff was 50% off that day! I had thought it was a bargain at $2, but at $1 I almost felt guilty. Almost.

And this beauty. Found it this weekend for $20. My mom and I were standing at the sale, waiting to pay for something else, when they brought this out of the house. You better believe I SNATCHED it up immediately. I have plans for her. She will be sanded and repainted once my yard sale is over and we've cleaned up the aftermath.

What bargains have you found recently?

Oh, and if you're in the Oregon City, OR area and you want to come to my sale, just send me an email and I'll give you the location. :-)

top photo: source unknown (if you know the source, please tell me so I can give credit where it's due!)