Open cabinets

One of my all time favorite looks for a kitchen is open cabinets and shelving. I have done this in our last three homes and I really love it. Nothing breathes cottage kitchen like this look...it's casual, it's beachy, it's just plain fun!















It's funny because as I was reading the blogs that did "Price My Space" the other day, I thought to myself....this cabinet is filled with secondhand and clearance items:



This set of 10 water goblets belonged to my husband's grandmother..



I bought odds and ends of these white dishes, cups and saucers...all for $4.00..



The red transferware cups were $3.00 a piece at a little vintage shop...



Two sets of vintage fruit glasses on clearance at Kmart..$4.00 a set...



The beadboard was left over from our bathroom and the paint is a color I mixed with leftover paint. I love this look and I never tire of it. So if you are tired of your kitchen, be creative, take off your cabinet doors, wallpaper, paint or scrapbook paper the back, hang some teacups, display what you have or scour yard sales for mismatched lonely dishes....whatever you have and make it your own creation.

Until next time,
LeAnn:)

Bursts of color.....

Happy Monday my sweet blogging friends:

Whew, it seems like I've been gone a long time. I haven't posted for a week, that's not like me at all.

Operation meatloaf (for the soup kitchen) was awesome, not a morsel left!




Operation garage sale was very successful.




I ended up having a one day sale and only had one crate of objects left to take to Goodwill!! I had a few friends stop by on Wednesday night to shop early. It feels so good to clean things out and have your house feel fresh again.

Today I am showing you bursts of color. I am definitely a person who has to be surrounded by color. It makes me happy:)

My new dining room table runner...it looks so vintage...it's from Pier 1.



I picked these up yesterday at Marshalls....$3.99 a piece, couldn't resist their citrus colors.....



I was so excited to see this sitting at a garage sale.....$4.00.




One of my most recent favorite finds are my pair of vintage orange oars....



MORE COLOR..............................

My hip funky lamp I got at Homegoods this weekend for $39.99. I put it on my little vintage $12.00 table between my beachy seagrass chairs. What a mix, beachy, modern and vintage...I love it!!



Do you remember this picture from last summer....I got it when it went on clearance at Target.

One of my favorites is this towel from Anthropologie, don't you just love the pom pom fringe?

My $10.00 cake plate is now filled with oranges on my kitchen table.



My kitchen needed these vintage sodas, don't ya think??







How about you? What colors make you happy:)

I hope to catch up with everybody today, it's Monday so it's soup kitchen day. Tonight's recipe: Goulash.... I've never made goulash for 65 people. It will be fun, I have learned not to stress about it, God always provides and we seem to always have enough food for everyone. God is so good!!

And if you are wondering, I am still going gray...I just haven't got completely there yet, tomorrow is another haircut, so we will see. I shall show pics soon....(ugh...you know I don't like showing pictures of moi).

I have been working in the master bedroom the past few days(in between everything else)....it has been such a source of contention for me as y'all know. But......BY GEORGE I THINK I'VE GOT IT!! Stay tuned for pics later this week.

Have a blessed day!

Until next time,

LeAnn:)

Musical chairs............

I love this chair from Pottery Barn. I haven't had a wing chair in years but there is something about them....they never seem to go out of style.
This one from Pottery Barn is only $1199.00......$1200 for a chair....I don't think so, not in my budget so what's the next best thing????

Thrifting that's what!!



Hubby and I found this at an antique mall downtown on Friday. They were asking $65 and I offered them $50 and they took it. The chair is very clean, faded in some spots but isn't that what gives it character???

The cushion is down filled and eventually I will have it restuffed but for now it looks pretty darn good.

Remember these guys?



This purchase was an impulse purchase with Christmas money I got from my mom, I thought they would look really great in my room and I kept switching things around, changing colors, whatever I could think of, even thought maybe I needed a new couch and then it finally hit me.....I DON'T LIKE THESE CHAIRS!! They are not me! So they are getting a new home with my daughter because she loves them. She is so excited!!

So this prompted a lot of rearranging......



a hunt for some new pictures.......and then a vintage golf club.....



adding a little green paint to the back of my hutch......



Bought this beautiful cake pedestal for only $10...same place the chair came from!



put my old dining room table back........






Would you believe I have never had the couch on this wall before??? This is the wall my fireplace used to be on. I have once again switched my living room and dining rooms.

And the fireplace now divides the living room and dining room....



And if you are wondering about the watercolors above the sofa they are of of Walter Hagen, a famous 1920's golfer and Babe Zaharias. They just caught my eye at another antique mall...I loved the colors, they were already matted and framed and they were totally different from anything I ever had...but they needed a vintage golf club between them so hubby found this one for me today.

The half curtains were really nice but I missed my plaid ones so I left the half ones on the stairway window and put the plaid ones back up on the other windows.

I know you all must think I am fickle....but I love playing around and how do you know if you never try something. My husband doesn't call me "Lucy" for nothing. That's why my blog is Simply Dandy because my husband always tells me "you're a dandy"!!

So I am definitely going to have a garage sale this Thursday or Friday. I will be selling the round dining room table, as much as I liked it, I like my old one better.

Needless to say, I have a busy week ahead, making a meatloaf dinner tomorrow at the soup kitchen, and then getting ready for my sale so this will probably be my only post for a few days. Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying your summer (or winter if you are an Aussie)!

Hugs,
LeAnn:)

LET FREEDOM RING!!

Thank you to the men and women in the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and National Guard. God bless each and every one of you who have dedicated your lives to help defend this wonderful nation. God is still going to keep on keeping on and HE still sits on the throne.

Have a safe and happy 4th of July. Don't forget to thank a soldier!!

LeAnn:)

Sumsum summertime!!

Happy Sunday all! It is a very windy sunny 87 degree day here. Yesterday I was sitting in my living room when it hit me....."Girl, you got too much stuff in here again"!!
Are you like me, do you crave more in the winter and less in the summer? In winter, I love to cozy it up with throws, extra pillows and lots of candles but when summer hits, I want it breezy and minimal.

I just wasn't like my zebra rug for summer, it felt too heavy so I pulled it up and put the smaller outdoor rug down but the biggest change is this:



I switched out my long curtains for halfsies.

Girls, if you love Martha Stewart, run, don't walk to your nearest Kmart. All of her stuff is on clearance. Is Martha going bye-bye from Kmart? These are like the ones underneath my farmhouse sink and they are only $9 a pair....you heard me $9.00 a pair. That's pretty cheap for a pair of curtains I think.







Still lovin my bench.....



I think the halfsies give it more of a farmhouse/cottage look and feel. And the best thing is they are on tension rods, no extra holes, that made hubby :).

Freshened up the mantel......




Brought a summer look to my hutch.....



Lightened the load in our built-in......



Brought this piece out of storage.....



Put a simple basket with paper balls on the dining room table for a centerpiece....
can you see the pretty crochet trim on the bottom of the curtains???



Remember the little drum table I bought that I said I wasn't going to paint? Well guess what???? I didn't, I love it in its natural state.




Uh oh....I feel a major garage sale coming on.

Until next time,

LeAnn:)

First of all I want to thank everyone for your kind comments on my last post. I truly appreciate each and every one of them. You made me smile:)

It was 100 degrees here today, at least that's what my car said....summer has arrived!!

I spent the late afternoon tweaking my kitchen. Ever since my hubby installed the farmhouse sink, I had been debating over whether to take the doors off underneath and skirt it so today was the day. Let me tell you the screws had so much paint on them, they fought me long and hard....but aha!! I won!!







These are the same curtains that I used to have in our bedroom...what do you think? I think it's look really fresh. There is still a wood piece underneath the sink that hubby has to paint so it's not quite finished.

I went to Kmart tonight, ours closed...bummer....so I went to another one a few miles away. I still really like a lot of the Martha Stewart line. I don't know if they are going to continue to carry it or not because almost everything Martha Stewart was on clearance.

I got this adorable tablecloth. Doesn't it look vintage? It was only $5.





It's a rectangle so I just folded it in half.

I also found these glasses on clearance $8.00 for the tall ones and $5.00 for the smaller ones. They are exactly the pop of color my shelves needed.








On Saturday when my in-laws were visiting we took them to the annual Wolcott Museum Lawn Sale. I am so excited....look what my wonderful sweet hubby bought me.....



I have struggled with this area by my stairs ever since we have lived here, nothing ever seemed quite right there...so when we spotted this black bench, I knew it would be perfect so hubby bought it for me. It doesn't even need painting...yahoo!! This afternoon I painted the wall it sits on the whole wheat color that the rest of my room is, I had painted it green but since I don't have much green in these two rooms anymore, I thought it needed continuity, so out came the paint brush. Luckily I still had some paint in the basement.

I am so so happy with the bench. It is just the right size for the space.

So when we went back later in the day to pick up the bench, I had been eyeing this and since it was later in the day, the man came down on the price so I got it. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it and where it would go...



The date on it was 1923, it's in our bedroom. I love peonies, especially faux ones cuz they always look beautiful!!

So needless to say, I had a very productive day, got all my laundry caught up, it was a perfect day to hang things on the line. Don't you just love the way sheets smell when you hang them on the line....they are yummy!

Until next time,

LeAnn:)

Anonymous

A few days ago, I showed a post in which I bought a new quilt at JC Penneys. While I like the quilt, it was a bit too country for me. I loved the colors in it but ended up returning it and going back to my old quilt which was more me.



Also a few days ago, I had an anonymous comment that was very unkind. I deleted it. The jist of it blasted me for always shopping, painting and rearranging.

I had to wait a few days to comment back so that I could think about what I wanted to say.

Well to my anonymous commenter, yes there are days go by that I don't paint, shop or rearrange. Mondays, I am the team leader at a soup kitchen that our church volunteers at, there is a lot involved in being a team leader but it is very rewarding to help feed people who might otherwise not get a hot meal that night. Last night, there was an adorable little boy who walked into the kitchen and said "what are we having tonight?" His eyes lit up when we told him we were having tuna noodle casserole. "any dessert" he asked...."cookies" we said....what a huge smile he gave us. Now that was worth the hot kitchen we were cooking in.

On Wednesdays and sometimes Thursdays, I am blessed to volunteer in the office at our church answering phones and whatever else they may need.

And also right now, I am working on a special project of an event we have coming up in August at our church and it involves a lot of my time and oh yes...I am now transcribing the sermons on Monday from the previous weekend so that they can get posted on the web for the benefit of other churches.

So "anonymous" not that I needed to tell you all of this but before you go throwing stones, you better know what you are talking about because I for one don't need to be reminded that people are dying everyday and going to hell and then asking me what am I going to do about it.

You see, I am just one simple person put here for a purpose and I am learning to let God use me where I am needed.

Do I have hobbies? Yes of course I do and one of them is decorating but I make no excuses that I like to rearrange, paint and shop, especially to you, someone who can't even leave their "real" name.

Oh and one more thing, you say I have no decorating style. Well, that's just your opinion. I for one like my style and it makes me happy. So what if I change it up, haven't you ever heard "variety is the spice of life".

And yes quite frankly, when people leave me a nice comment, it does make me smile. You say people never mean what they say in the comments, well you are wrong. I have made many good friends via blogland that I communicate with via email, phone calls and meeting them in person.

My mother always taught me if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

I apologize to the sweet anonymous people who have left me comments but I have had to take that privilege away, as usual one person has ruined it for everyone else.

I am not going to delete this blog. This blog is about decorating and just about life in general. If you don't care for the things I do "anonymous", then just stay away. There are plenty of other blogs I'm sure would satisfy your taste.

Until next time,

LeAnn:)