Beauty in the Backroads - Pink & Green Trains

While I'm busy on the backside, i wanted to drop in and leave you with a little bit of color for the day.

I discovered these on a road trip through the backroads recently.

How fun are these colors?

I just love finding unexpected treasures like this!

Back Yard Inspiration - An HGTV Makeover from Me

I was looking through some of my past projects from HGTV during my time as designer for the Carter Can show, and I ran upon one that I thought was fitting for the summer.

I really enjoyed this makeover of a row house back yard because it shows how, with the proper additions, you can maximize a small yard for major impact. The use of color ended up being even more spectacular than I had planned.

I LOVE this yard!

In fact, I'm using it as my inspiration for our own deck.

For those of you sprucing up your yards, I hope you can find some inspiration here.

I also found an online video of the episode, so that was double reason to share it with you. You can see the pictures, and then see how we created it. You won't want to miss the water feature on the garage wall!

And check out the color of that garage wall - love it!

Apple Green - you can never go wrong with Apple Green.

(I pulled this pic from my portfolio, hence the verbage, because it's the only one I can find after losing my pics a few weeks ago.)

Here's a tip to get a full screen viewing of the video: When the video screen comes up, mouse over it. You'll see to the top right there is a button that says "Pop Out". Click that and then maximize your screen, and you'll see it full screen.


WARNING: Pardon my strong southern twang. It is what it is, I can't help it. I know I sound edgy, but really, I'm sweet as pudding!

(Here is a post) I did about this project in the infancy of my blog. I just went to look at it again and it has a lot of close up pictures. Check it out.

I'd love to know what you think!

Feel free to share a link to pics of your own yard in the comments. If there are enough of them, I'll do a post and share the pictures with everyone.

Musical Tables for a Perfect Fit

When we moved into this house, I just put the furntiure wherever it would fit.

Notice I said 'where it fit', not 'where it worked'.

Well, we've been here a few months now, getting settled in and used to the layout.

One thing that has always bothered both of us is how big the table is in the kitchen nook.

It's never been right for that space, but we needed something there, so I parked it where it fit.

I had to put it right next to the window because there wasn't room enough to put a chair on the backside, so I ended up with a table that had only 3 chairs. I won't mention how off the light fixture is!

(Please don't pay any attention to that partially stripped wallpaper. It's slowly but surely making it's way out of the kitchen. And yes, I have junk laying everywhere at the moment -disregard that too. I have a plan, really I do.)

The nook happens to be right in the middle of the walkway between our bedroom, the laundry room, and the living room. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to pull out my jigsaw and make that table smaller!

I kept telling hubby that we needed a round table small enough to put all the chairs around, that we could center under the light.

So one day I realized that I didn't really like the coffee table I had to use here either.

The coffee table I really like is still sitting in the garage waiting for a larger top.

I decided to go on a mission to convert my coffee table top to a kitchen table. It was the perfect size, so why not?

I headed off to my favorite new thrift shop (which I'll tell you about later this week), sure I would find a base for the table. When we pulled up, guess what I saw sitting outside?

Woohoo! I knew it would work perfect, and for only $8 (that's right!), I took it home.

The gals at this thrift shop paint everything that comes throguh the door, so I double scored since they had already painted in black and distressed it.

In it's previous life, it had been a leather top bar stool. They had just removed the leather that morning and sat it outside. No doubt, they knew I was coming. :)

As soon as I got home, I proceeded to take the coffee table off it's base.

Easy Peasy - removed 4 screws and it was done.

Finally, I put the new base on it. I used 8 screws for that for extra assurance.

And now I have the table I want for the nook.

Eventually I'll be painting and stenciling it, but for now, I'm just going to cover it up.

This fits so much better, and even more impotantly, we both like it.

As you can see, this is a room in progress and I'm hoping to do a full reveal of the kitchen in 2 weeks, provided I find the time to make the window treatments and paint it.

I just kinda go with the flow as far as time is concerned. We rarely have anyone over, so it's me and hubby that have to deal with the disarray, and well, he doesn't say a word about it.

I'm sure he knows better. :)