Spring Lilacs

I know I haven't posted anything on here for a (long) while now, but I had to drop by and show you my oh-so-pretty lilacs! Our one and only lilac bush is in bloom right now and I've been taking full advantage of it. The smell is just amazing; I could hang out by the lilac bush and just whiff it in all day long. Sadly, they'll be gone in just a few short weeks... nature is mean.

A Bowl of Manliness

I'm not sure if pine cones qualify as "manly", but the deer antlers certainly do. Amidst all my flowers and pillows and frills around the house, I wanted to incorporate something rugged and masculine for the sake of my husband, the hunter/gatherer of the household.

I really like the earthy textures of the antlers and pine cones, and Jesse just loves the fact that there's a bowl of deer antlers on the coffee table. Something we can both agree on... duh, winning.

Reality Check

Tomorrow may be the first day of April...

...but it's still Ohio. Not really what I wanted to see outside my window this morning, but beautiful nonetheless.

Got Pillows?

I have more pillows than any one person (or even two) would ever need. Yet, here I am buying another one; and a big one at that. But I just can't help myself! I think it's a compulsion... someday you'll see me on that show, Hoarding: Buried Alive, only it will be a special called Hoarding: Buried Under Pillows. Actually, that show gives me the heebie-jeebies and will absolutely never be me. Anyways, where was I? Oh yes, a new pillow!

 

I found this king-sized pillow sham at T.J.Maxx for $12.99 and was drawn to the oversized print. Big patterns usually tend to scare me off a bit, but because this was a neutral color it worked. And it's nice to cuddle up to a pillow as big as me. :)

Oh, and when I say I have lots of pillows... I mean it. Exhibit A:

This doesn't even include the pillows we actually sleep on, or the stash I have waiting to be sold on a garage sale. Yes, I am crazy.

Grocery List

I'm a visual person, so this little trick is a big help when it comes to getting groceries for me and my husband. I don't know how many times I've made a trip to the grocery store only to come home without the item I went there for in the first place. Once I hit the cereal aisle (a serious weakness of mine- we usually have about 7 or 8 different kinds in our cupboard at once), I'll completely forget that I haven't been able to do laundry for the past week and a half because I've been out of laundry detergent. Duh. So I slapped a chalkboard on the kitchen wall so as soon we run out of something, we can write it down. It hangs right beside the fridge, a place where I'll see it numerous times a day, over and over. So by the time I run out for groceries, the words "toilet paper" are burned inside my brain and I will not forget.

Don't be fooled, this is a bogus grocery list. On a normal day the list would be something more like Coco Puffs, Vanilla Coke, tampons, pop-tarts, and milk. You know, the bare essentials.

Have a happy weekend!

Spring-ish

According to the calendar, spring has officially sprung. Yay! But if you look outside, you're gonna get some mixed results. There's budding trees and baby flowers poking their way out from the underground world, yet it's a bitter 30 degrees and there's even snow in the forecast. Fail. But living in Ohio, you learn to expect the unexpected... 70 degrees in March or snow in May, it doesn't phase us.

What I'm not used to is having a garden of my own. The house we moved to this past winter has the cutest little brick and stone patio surrounded by flower beds. Because we've only lived here in the winter months, I'm really excited to see what our new home will look like all spruced up for spring and summer. These little guys popped up recently:

 

I'm not sure what they are... daffodils maybe? Time will tell! There's also some of these, which my mom says are tulips. Wa-hoo! I love tulips!

 

And we have a couple of these bushes with little bright green buds. Anyone know what these could be? I'm clueless when it comes to flowers and plants.

 

 But what I'm most excited for is this:

Hydrangeas!! They don't look like much right now, but they will be beautiful. (I hope.) My mom has a monster of a hydrangea bush at her house and I've always loved it. Now I have not one, but three hydrangea bushes of my own! I suppose technically they belong to our landlord, but we still get to enjoy them.

And of course I couldn't visit and photograph my new gardens without paying a visit to Allie and Tippy, Jesse's hunting dogs who also live outside. This is Allie, who doesn't believe in holding still for a second. It's almost impossible to get a picture of her that's not a complete blur. I've never met such a wiggly and bouncy dog!

 

She's a total phsyco. But we love her!

Fit for a Queen

Here she is folks, in all her glory... our new bed!

 

I was so giddy, I could hardly fall asleep in it the first night! But I eventually settled down and slept like a baby. The mattress now sits up about an extra foot off the floor, so me and my short legs literally have to climb into bed. I love it!

In lieu of the standard bench at the foot of the bed, I opted for a little antique desk and chair instead. It gives me a nice place to fold laundry or paint my fingernails... or for my husband, a nice place to clean his shotguns. (Look at the left side of the photo, beside his nightstand... notice anything? Ha!)

 

My dad hand-distressed the bed for a slightly antique look. Very Pottery Barn-esque. :)

 

Here's what my side of the bed looks like- a tree stump side table, a lavender topiary, and an ugly alarm clock. For some reason, all the pretty clocks I've ever seen don't have alarms. How sad. Maybe I would be more pleasant in the morning if I had a prettier alarm clock? Wishful thinking.

So there you have it! Our one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted, fancy-pants bed. :)

The Bedroom, Pre-Bed

This is our bedroom. (Excuse the horrible lighting; it's a basement bedroom which makes it extremely hard to photograph.) But it's missing one important detail: a bed. Sure, there's a box spring, a mattress, and pillows galore, but no headboard, no footboard... nothing. And while we sleep perfectly fine just the way it is, there's something about snuggling up to drywall every night that just doesn't do it for me.

That's where this baby comes in:



For my birthday (which was yesterday) my dad built me this awesome bed! I helped him design it, and just three days later it was ready to come home. Do I have the greatest dad or what?! Pictures are on the way, so stay tuned!

Shedding New Light

Remember when I said my super sweet hubby bought me an awesome Valentine's Day gift for the dining room? Well, it's all finished and ready to be revealed! But first, a little background information.

Ever since we moved to the new rental house a couple months ago, I've wanted to get a different light fixture for the dining area. This is what was there when we moved in:



A contemporary-style silver chandelier with alabaster glass shades. Or in other words, "ick." (You can see another picture of it here - second to last picture.) So I started paging through a stack of old Pottery Barn catalogs to get some inspiration and found this beauty:



Gorgeous! But expensive. So the search continued for something similar... then I saw this post from The Lettered Cottage and loved the Pottery Barn knock-off chandelier she created for only 75 bucks:



And so, this is where my hubby comes in... for Valentine's Day, he bought me the supplies I needed to make my own Pottery Barn knock-off chandelier! Woo-hoo! He sure knows the way to my heart. :) Here's the final results:







So much better than "ick." I love it! The chandelier and shades came from Lowe's, and the jute trim came from M & J Trimming. I attached the trim with a few dabs of hot glue, and ta-da! A stylish chandelier for about a quarter of the price... in yo' face, Pottery Barn!

I also made a make-shift cord cover with a bit of burlap I already had. Wrap it around the cord, and hot glue the ends.



Hot glue is my new best friend.

Look What I Found!

This is why I love T.J.Maxx. Cute stuff, cheap.

I have a mild obsession with pillows and baskets, so it's no surprise that I came home from T.J.Maxx yesterday with, you guessed it, a pillow and a basket. The big basket might be one of my favorite T.J.Maxx finds ever. I've always wanted one of these baskets from Pottery Barn:



But there was one thing holding me back from buying it... the $200 price tag. Are you kidding me?! Even if I had that kind of money, I'm not sure I could feel good about spending $200 on one basket. Insanity.

My $29.99 price tag was much more realistic. :) Chunky woven goodness.



And a new down-filled throw pillow for $16.99... fluffy striped goodness.



On a side note, it is sunny and nearly 60 degrees today. In February. In Ohio. Uh-mazing. The Lord is good!

Valentine Roses

As if my husband wasn't sweet enough for running out on a Sunday night to get groceries by himself, he felt he needed to be even more of a perfect man and come back with a dozen white roses in hand. :) How lucky am I?



He already bought me another awesome Valentine's gift (which I'll blog about later... it's for the dining room and not quite finished yet!) and apparently I have yet another gift coming tonight. Wow!



I hope all of you have a Valentine's Day (and husband!) as wonderful as mine!