Rearrange is my middle name...............

I think taking pictures of your room is a wonderful way to really tell if you like it or not. When I looked at the pics I posted yesterday...although I loved the wall, the furniture arrangement just wasn't working for me. You guys know what is coming next.......it's REARRANGE TIME!!!

I drove over to my daughter's house, picked up the brown armless chairs...she wanted to use the seagrass ones for awhile so we switched....hauled the armless chairs up from her basement and hauled the seagrass ones down her basement. No wonder I am hurtin for certain today.....LOL!

If you are sick of seeing my room, this post is definitely not for you. I switched the rooms up again....thought hubby was going to kill me (but in all actuality he said "you can put this room 3-4 ways and they all look great and this one looks really awesome"). Okay, well he didn't say "awesome" but something like that.

We also purchased some faux logs for my faux fireplace. Hubby is going to build a hearth and make it look more realistic this weekend. He is so good at that stuff!!

I am trying to hold off decorating for Christmas until after Thanksgiving but I don't know....it's getting tempting...especially when you are in all the stores and you see al the lights and splendor.

We are going to fix our hardwood floors in the next few weeks....post to follow.

Thanks so much for all the comments on my art wall. I am loving it and I am especially loving the sofa on that wall.

Hope your Friday is a good one!

Hugs,
LeAnn:)

Project Art Wall: Mission Accomplished!

FROM THIS........................................(BORING AND COLD!)

TO THIS........................................................

Mission accomplished!! I think I am finished:)

I purchased everything on our road trip.....dog canvases were $15 a piece (Homegoods), Kim Parker floral was on clearance for $10 (Homegoods), the key and initial were 1/2 price at Hobby Lobby so $10 for both, the cow (which is my favorite was on sale at a decorating store in my hometown for $25, the dream canvas was $15 and the southern plantation lady (that's what I call her) was a steal for $49.99 (Homegoods), heck the frame is worth that!! I did the whole wall for $155.00!! I am really pleased with how this project turned out.
Hugs,
LeAnn:)

Creating a wall of ART!

Hey everyone....

Happy Wednesday!! My daughter and I just returned home from a trip to Illinois visiting my parents and aunt and uncle. We had so much fun and crammed a lot into two days. When I am driving, I think a lot.....and that is where sometimes my creativity juices start flowing.....

I have been struggling with my very big dining room wall ever since we have lived in this house....

As you know I recently painted it wedgewood gray and I like it....but when I sit in the living room and look at it, it is just too bare and cold....

Do you remember in the 80's when a collage wall was all the rage. I can remember moving into our first little bungalow and creating a huge collage wall above the sofa....laying everything out on the floor and then hanging the first item in the middle and working my way out.....

I am going to do a collage wall in my dining room. I haven't been this excited about a project in a long time. Yahoo....my creativity gene is back!!! I think it has been missing for awhile.

Here are a few of the pictures that will be used to create my wall of art......

I am super excited to do this project....I am going to have another cup of coffee, let the caffeine kick in and start creating. I shall keep you posted......literally!!

Have a great day.

LeAnn:)

It was just a simple motorcycle ride.....

G'day my friends...


Yesterday was absolutely the most splendid fall day, the sun was shining, the sky couldn't have been bluer and the temp was in the 60's so out came this.....

(I call her the other woman in my husband's life)


most of the time we have no idea where we are going, we just hop on...
well we ended up near Amish country and decided to stroll through an antique mall....
Nothing harmful right???....can't buy much we are on the motorcycle....


Sitting atop a bookshelf on by her lonesome was this...Mr. VMF noticed it as he was casually looking at old books,  he said "did you see the chandelier up there"? I LOVE CHANDELIERS!!!

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But she had no price, just an empty tag:(....so I mosied up to the proprietor and asked him if he could shoot me a price......"WELL HE SAID....HMMMM....I HAVE NO IDEA, SHE DIDN'T MARK IT...WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO OFFER ME HE ASKED....WELL I SAID, I DON'T KNOW, WHY DON'T YOU TELL ME.....HE SAID WOULD YOU GIVE ME $40.00 FOR IT??? Okay now if you knew me, my heart was racing, I was trying to stay calm and composed...looked at my husband and trying to keep my cool said 'I'LL TAKE IT!!!

It is the smaller sister to our dining room chandelier that I adore and now I was going to have another one....so now the question you want to know is where is it going to hang....

well it is already up and shining in all its glory but we are going to have to move it a few inches and I am looking for a cloth cord cover for it. Does anyone know who carries them? I have looked on Etsy, did find some.

I don't even have all the bulbs in it yet, I was so excited to show you.....

Also we are going to swag it from the corner, put the cord cover on it and I think it will look much better....but I am thrilled to have found this for only $40.00 with no missing crystals and in extremely excellent shape. I am thinking I may hang it lower over the coffee table...what do you think? Should it be lower?

Here she is with her big sister...........

I also fell in love with this to set on my vintage desk...I love all the orange in it....

It's a perfect addition..........

Uh oh....how is all of this going to fit on the cycle???? We ended up going back after hours and picked them up in the car. He put them in a box outside the shop...trust me it's a sweet little town, no one was going to bother it.

So we hopped back on the cycle, went and had a late lunch/early dinner at The Barn Restaurant in Archbold, Ohio and rode back home, only to hop back in the car drive 45 minutes to go back and pick up our finds, made a quick stop at Menards to purchase what we needed to hang it.....and came home and he hung it for me. HE IS THE BEST!!!

So what started as a simple motorcycle ride ended up turning into another home project....LOL!!

It never ends, that's what makes it fun.

Have a beautiful Sunday. I am off to Illinois to visit my parents for a couple days.

Hugs,

LeAnn:)

P.S. ALSO, IF YOU WOULD BE SO KIND...IF YOU WILL DELETE ME FROM YOUR SIDEBAR AND THEN RE-ADD ME, IT WILL CHANGE THE NAME TO "MY VINTAGE MODERN FARMHOUSE" INSTEAD OF SIMPLY DANDY. BUT DON'T FORGET TO RE-ADD ME!! I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IT IF YOU DID THIS FOR ME. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Musical Chairs

I have shared before that I have a chair obsession and a pillow obsession and a lamp obsession. I can't help it....I am drawn to these things. Once I purchased my new sofa a couple of months ago, I flanked it with my seagrass chairs, great chairs but not super comfy, definitely not a curl up in your chair read a book kinda chair!!!

I did have my orange wing chair. I was so excited the day I found this at an antique store for $50.00!!! But if I put it by the sofa, that still left an empty space so.......

We then found this chair at Pier 1 being sold as a floor model.......

But then the orange wing chair got moved upstairs (I will show you the results of that in another post)so this left a hole....what's a girl to do?? I remembered seeing this chair at JC Penneys about a year ago so I checked on line and sure enough, it was on sale for $599 but it could only be purchased online, there were none in the store and it was being discontinued...hmmmm....$599.....way too much..............

So I called the JC Penney outlet store in Columbus and they had nine of them and they were 70-80% off of the original retail price which was $899.00. So I'm thinking that's a pretty good deal but was I willing to go all the way to Columbus 2 1/2 hours away???

Of course I was......and the hubby was SWEET enough to drive me over there to pick up this chair that I had to convince him I really needed.

Well when we got there, they did indeed have nine chairs but they weren't $240.00 like I had thought, they were $179!!!!!  WHAT!! MAJOR SCORE!!

I love the houndstooth chair with my herringbone sofa.

This is what it looks like in my living room.....

Not bad eh??

And since I saved so much money on the chair, I bought a coffee table. Remember I used to have a big cream ottoman instead of a coffee table. Well I sold that to my friend Robyn and I replaced it with this....

So now my living room ensemble is complete and all on a budget! Now I have two curl up in your chair with a book chair!!

Hugs,
LeAnn

One of my all time favorite kitchens....

Happy almost Friday.....

First off, I am so touched for all of your kind comments. Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are all THE BEST!!!

Today I am showcasing one of my all time favorite kitchens from Flickr. I am not one who loves the high end ginormous kitchens you see on TV....I am more of a small to medium size cottage kitchen kinda gal. Don't get me wrong, the high end kitchens are beautiful but I wouldn't know what to do with all of that space. Have you ever watched HGTV "Bang for Your Buck"....$90,000 on a kitchen, WHOA!!!!

This kitchen is glorious with all of its color...............

What a happy space!!! To the owner of this kitchen, you get 5 stars from me.


Hugs,
LeAnn

I would love to earn your respect.....

I have had a lot of turmoil in my life recently (hubby's employer was sold, lost my job, son was thinking about going in the military, one of my BFF mother whom I adore was in hospice care, lost one of my best friends, my very ill father, etc. etc.), and so I did what I always do, deleted my blog. I am way too emotional, I blame it on being menopausal. My daughter says "Mom people are going to think you are a weirdo if you keep doing this". Heck, if I were you guys I would think I was weird. So I made a decision there was no way I could come back after deleting my blog so many times. But I am because I love my blog. I promise I am not a weirdo but a very energetic impulsive person.

Sometimes I make hasty decisions. I have been miserable since I quit blogging. I get mixed reviews from so many people about if I should blog or not but the simple truth is I love to blog and I love to read blogs.

I admit I am fickle and sometimes too quick to make decisions, hence why I paint and repaint. But I would love to earn your respect so I am asking for another chance to blog. So if you want to stick with me, hang on cuz I've got a lot to show ya.

I guess I just didn't feel like anybody cared about my blog but I now realize it doesn't matter if I get 1 comment or 82 comments, this blog is my creative outlet and I need it. I love to change the header and the wallpaper, it's decorating without spending any money....LOL!!

So please forgive me for my impulsiveness. No more Simply Dandy but "My Vintage Modern Farmhouse"!!!

And if you do like my blog, please add me to your sidebar, I hate feeling left out!!

So for my first post of "My Vintage Modern Farmhouse", take a look at my dining room wall when it used to look like this.....


and my fireplace looked like this......

WELL NOW THEY BOTH LOOK LIKE THIS.....





At first I just painted the wall this color called Wedgewood Gray from Benjamin Moore. I am in love with the color. My daughter put it in her dining room a couple years ago and every time I go over there, I drool over it. I actually put this color in the master bedroom which I will show you in another post. I then decided to paint the fireplace, I figured if I didn't like it, it was only paint.

For now I like it, I didn't at first but it is growing on me......

When I sold my white hutch...



I realized I needed something else so went to an old barn full of antiques and I found this...


Do you like my $27.00 vintage mirror find???



For now I'm not going to paint it, I put our parents wedding photos on it. I want to get new frames, something more modern maybe. What do you think? Good buy for $175??

That's all for today. Please just know, I have missed all of you and I hope you will give me another chance.

LeAnn