What a Difference Paint Makes! (Desk Redo)

Today's entry is courtesy of the boy and shows what a difference some paint and effort can make.

Once upon a time the boy bought this sad little desk from a guy on Craigslist for a mere $20. It wasn't impressive in his current state, but the boy thought it had potential.

So he rebuilt the damaged corners and gouges with wood filler, cleaned it, sanded it down, and repainted it black. He also spray-painted the hardware metallic. And then the desk was happy.

And the boy was happy too, although he vowed to tame the cord dragon soon.

Spring Garden Porn

I love, love, love this time of year. I love driving around and looking at what is blooming. Almost every day I walk around my yard and spot a new surprise. My crabapple is GORGEOUS this year. Last year the show was cancelled by an April freeze, but this year, wow! I had forgotten how pretty it is.

The tulip show also continues. It's hard to pick my favorites and not drown the blog in tulip pictures. But there's always another post...


View more pictures on my flickr page and tune in next Sunday for more garden goodness.

** Gardeners, plant and nature lovers can join Green Thumb Sunday every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Tulips!

As if by magic, one day there was no sight of tulips, the next, this batch was up and blooming. They look so fabulous next to the hyacinths and daffodils. This is the first time I've seen this combination as last year they didn't all bloom together.

While daffodils are my favorite flowers, tulips are a close second. They come in so many colors (including pink!) and are such a cheerful addition to the garden.

** Gardeners, plant and nature lovers can join Green Thumb Sunday every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Scarf Pillows and Other Inspiration

photo by Kitty Von Bang

I discovered a new blog with fabulous style, My (BOHO) Life Style by Finn Kitty Von Bang. I love her style, especially her revamped living room, shown above.

Kitty also shared her great idea about using scarves to make pillows. As I'm still looking for a few unique pillows, maybe this is a solution.

My Lovely Daffodils and Their Friends

I find nothing more welcoming after a long, snowy winter than the cheerful faces of daffodils. And while I like other spring bulbs (few things beat a pink tulip!) quite a bit, the fact that daffodils naturalize and that squirrels shun them, together with happy past memories of them, helps make daffodils my favorite flower.

Yes, they can be bold, as the popular yellow daffodils show, but I simply can't agree with Elizabeth that they're too loud for a small garden. To me it isn't spring until the daffs show up.

But daffodils aren't the only things blooming now in my little central Ohio garden. I'm still waiting on the tulips to bloom, but I am enjoying these chionodoxas.

These gorgeous pansies that are sprucing up my deck are anything but wimpy.
I only have a few hyacinths, but I look forward to seeing them!

Visit May Dreams Gardens to find out what is blooming on gardens across the globe on this Garden Blogger's Bloom Day.

Rearranged Design: I Like It! I Like It!

from Happiness for $7.99

I'm constantly on the lookout for more great home and design blogs; I just can't get enough. One of my favorite newly-discovered blogs is Rearranged Design. I loves it! Ana has a great eye for design which she shows in her beautiful home and features a lot of fun house tours. It's quickly become a blog that I frequently check for updates (in my feed-reader o' course) and one of the few that I looked back through months and months of archived posts.

house tour - March 25

Ana is also in the running for Apartment Therapy's Smallest Coolest contest, which is another fun daily blog stop of mine. I love the pop of green in in the bedroom.

Ana's Kitchen (Even More Kitchen - January 2008)

If you haven't visited Rearranged Design, check it out. I've also added it to my faves links.

(photos from Rearranged Design)

Spring: It's Official

Winter is losing it's grip and spring is here. I finally have spring flowers from my garden to share for Green Thumb Sunday! I can't tell you how much I needed to see these blooms.


First up are these cheerful little pansies. This is the earliest I've ever bought them, usually I get them too late and they don't last long before the heat kicks in. But this year I really needed a flower fix.


The crocuses have been around for a few weeks. I really don't remember buying all these gold ones, I really would have expected purple, but they are a cheerful sight for parched garden eyes. A few purple crocuses have joined the early golden blooms.

I had forgotten about these Puschkinia Libanotica, as last fall was the first time I've planted them. But they're very pretty, and fairly early bloomers to boot.

Tune in next week, when I should have some of my absolute favorite flowers to show off.

Note to self: This fall, plant snowdrops and hellebores. I need even earlier blooms! Oh and tons more purple crocuses.

** Gardeners, plant and nature lovers can join Green Thumb Sunday every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Pillow Shopping

When it comes to decorating, purchase creep is practically unavoidable. First you buy one new decor item, which leads to another purchase, and another.

Some of the purchase creep I'm currently experiencing in my living room was planned. Part of the reason I waited to buy living room curtains, was because I needed to purchase furniture first. Of course, I got the new couch and chair last November so it still took a wee bit of time to find the perfect curtains. I also got a new rug and now I desperately need new pillows because the old green and pink ones don't go with the new blue curtains. Yep, purchase creep.

So anyway, I'm now scouring near and far for the perfect pillows (in my budget of course). Here are the current candidates:


First up, the blue pillow with brown circles sitting on the chair, was found today on sale at Marshalls. I like it, but not as well as the similar yet more stylish pillow at Target (which isn't online, what's up with that?). The other three blue pillows are from the fab Etsy shop, Ruth's Crafts. Her pillow are stylish and reasonably priced! The tempting yellow pillow is from another Etsy seller, joom.

Ideally, I would like to have some pillows with various prints and designs that look well together, but aren't too matchy-matchy. But I'm not so confident I'll be able to pull that one off, especially given how hard it's been to find anything I like in the first place.

Any words of wisdom, all-knowing Internets?

No More Naked Windows

Without further ado I present you with....the living room curtains. I'm pretty happy with them. The room feels so much more finished now.

Yep, after some debate I went with blue curtains (from Target). I also exchanged the blinds for sheers. I'm really happy with how it turned out. But, as often happens, one purchase leads to another. Can you tell what I'll be looking for on my next shopping mission?


Yep, new pillows.