Today's Playlist: I'm Still Standing- Elton John Sunday Morning- Maroon 5 When We Were Young- Adele (Because music is the perfect backdrop for everything...click on the links above to listen) For many years, I was in love with country and primitive decor. When traveling, I would frequent antique stores to find primitive-type items such as old crates, license plates, and wagon wheels. I once got a pair of snow shoes at a roadside antique store in Vermont and a massive tobacco basket, both of which I used outside on my porch through every season. I had built up quite a collection of unique items over the years. As for colors, I have always been partial to deep, earthy tones; "fall" colors were my favorite. As you can see in previous posts from several years ago, my walls and decorations were a mixture of deep oranges and browns. This helped create a warm and cozy atmosphere, which was always my goal in creating a space for my family. Fast forward a few years since my last Home and Perfection post...after years of watching Fixer Upper with Chip and Joanna Gaines and shopping at Hobby Lobby, my preferences have slowly changed. I finally did it. After months of "Pinning" ideas, figuring out how I could repurpose some items I already had, and purchasing some new items, I finally took the plunge. I transitioned my house from country to Farmhouse style. I enlisted some help to paint over the burnt organge and light green walls with grey, beige and ivory tones. My primitive decor has been replaced with a mixture of modern and vintage. I love the "new" look of my house! (I actually made the switch awhile ago and am just now getting around to blogging about it..sorry.) I have sinced copied the look in both my classroom and my camper. Yes, I actually decorated my camper. Although the "fall" colors are still very natrually pleasing to my eye, I love having the lighter colors fill my home. The Farmhouse style still has a rustic, country feel, but at the same time, is modern and refreshing. If you are contemplating a Farmhouse makeover, let me give you some inspiration! Start off by checking out my pictures. Then, get on Pinterest and search for Farmhouse decor. You will notice several common elements used in this type of style. A mixture of metals and baskets (tobacco baskets are popular), stems of cotton, different types of greenery (boxwood, eucalyptus, lambs ear, etc.), wooden signs with modern fonts, burlap. Stick with a neutral, clean color palette of white, ivory, beige, brown, and different shades of grey (not 50, but a few...lol). If you choose to include an accent color, I would use something like navy blue, a very light teal, but nothing too drastic. A Farmhouse theme should evoke feelings of simplicity and purity, so think "light and airy." I have found that putting greenery in various places around the house makes the most difference in this style. You can get it at any craft store, Walmart, or Amazon. To save money, use old items that you already have and spray paint them white or grey to match your new decor. For example, the container I use to store my utensils next to my stove was red and now it is ivory. I repainted shelves, tables, picture frames, shutters, and many other items. In addition to repurposing items from around the house, you can also print out your Pinterest board and take it to thrift stores to look for inexpensive items. And of course, for all the other Farmhouse pieces you need, I suggest Hobby Lobby. They have the best selection of Farmhouse-inspired items hands down and usually everything is on sale to some extent. With some research and planning, you can give any room of your house a modern Farmhouse makeover. Take a look at mine... Farmhouse MakeoverToday's Playlist: Saturday in the Park- Chicago Babe- Styx Carry on My Wayward Son- Kansas (Because music is the perfect backdrop for everything...click on the links above to listen) It seems like there is an app for everything nowadays. Whether you want to chase virtual Pokemon or keep track of the food you eat, developers have come up with some amazing ideas and tools for users. My favorite app in the digital world is Pinterest. I could spend hours pinning ideas and discovering new ways to do things. I assume that most of you have used Pinterest, but, in case you haven't, I will explain it quickly. Once you create a Pinterest account, you start by making boards for different categories for which you want to find ideas. These boards are sort of like virtual bulletin boards to which you attach or "pin" pictures. For example, some of my boards are: Organization, Meal Ideas, My Classroom, Country Inside, Country Outside, Seasonal Decorating, and Hair. You don't have to make all your boards at once; you can make them as you search for something new. You can add as much as you want to each board and have as many boards as you want. When you search for a key term like, "kitchen organization," it will bring up hundreds of pictures that fit into that category. You choose the pictures you want to save to your board. Then, later on, you can go back and look at your board, which will be a collection of all the great ideas you have saved. Another cool thing about Pinterest is that it also has a social networking aspect to it. You can find your friends' accounts on it and see what they are pinning. If you find someone who has a good sense of fashion or decorating and you like the pictures they post, you can follow their board and see when they pin something new. You can also choose to keep your boards private. For those of you who have never tried it, check it out! But be warned...you will likely get lost in a sea of good ideas so you may want to set an alarm to bring you back to reality and to realize how much time has passed. Not kidding. As I mentioned in my last post about decorating my home, I get tons of ideas from Pinterest. Sometimes, it is difficult to remember the ideas that I had pinned when I am out and about, so I find it very useful to print out one of my boards on Pinterest and take it with me to thrift stores. I can then find unique items that I can use to build the displays I liked on Pinterest. I decorated my whole house using mostly items from thrift stores and yard sales (and some antique stores too). Check out some of the things I have done inside and outside of my home since I became a Pinterest junkie… In my post called "Home Sweet Home," I shared some pictures of my house when I first moved in and then some additional pictures of my home after I had done some decorating. Looking back now, a little over three years later, I see so many changes that my home has undergone. I get bored and change my decorations often, finding new ideas all the time. Actually, I get teased because sometimes the house will look different in the evening than it did in the morning. I admit to being a perfectionist about decorating and if I notice that something doesn't look just right, I can't focus until I fix it. OCD? I think so. Regardless, I have so enjoyed coming up with different displays I have featured in my home over the last three years. I'm no expert on decorating or anything, so it demonstrates that anyone can find the ideas and make them a reality in your home, even on a budget! It just takes patience and practice. The more pictures you see, the more you will get the hang of putting random items together to make beautiful collections. I bet you have items all around your home right now that you can rearrange and use in fresh new ways. I hope I have inspired you to try some new ideas. Eventually, I hope to link these pictures (and this blog) to Pinterest so that I can become part of the revolution. If you have never tried it, create an account and look for me! Maybe someday you will see some of the pictures featured in this blog as you search for good ideas on Pinterest. If you have any questions about any of the items and where or how I acquired them, feel free to comment below. As we head into the change of seasons and the excitement of the holidays, I will share with you some ideas for seasonal decorating and pictures of my home at different times of the year. Remember, your home doesn't have to be big or fancy to make it warm and cozy. Until next time...
Today's Playlist: Counting Stars- One Republic Banana Pancakes- Jack Johnson Ain't Enough Blacktop- Rick Huckaby (Because music is the perfect backdrop for everything...click on the links above to listen) Last year, my husband and I set out on a search to buy a camper. I have wanted one for years and always thought it would be great to have a seasonal campsite. It was so fun to look around and a much-needed distraction in our lives at the time (a few months after Kacie passed away). I have always loved to go inside the campers and see all the different types and am in awe of how fancy they have become. This time, we really were in the market to buy one and it was so exciting. We looked at a ton of RV dealerships and pictures of hundreds of campers on Craigslist, and finally found the perfect one for us. It had only had one owner and it was immaculate. I knew as soon as I saw it that it was the one I wanted and it didn't take me long to start figuring out how I could decorate it. Decorate a camper? I know, sounds crazy but camping is not what it used to be. Here are a few pictures we took the day we went and looked at it. It is a 32 foot Jayco Jayflight model with a bunkhouse and an outdoor kitchen. (I had to learn all that lingo...this was all new to me.) It sleeps about 10-12 people. When we picked up the camper in Columbus, we took it straight to Spring Valley Campground in Cambridge, Ohio, which was on the way home. We wanted to learn all the ins and outs of hooking up the hoses and leveling the camper, etc. so we left it there for two weeks. We had a few chances to camp during that time and I LOVED IT! Of course, we knew nothing about owning a camper but I didn't let that intimidate me. I started getting on YouTube and watching videos to learn everything I could. There is so much information out there; I seriously think someone could learn to be a doctor by watching videos online. I also got lots of advice and help from a very kind neighbor. After a thorough cleaning, I was itching to decorate and organize. With the hopes of seasonal camping for next year on my radar, I wanted to make the camper feel like our home away from home. Naturally, I wanted my decorations to reflect my personality and the way I would decorate my own home. I also knew that with a family of eight plus guests, it would have to be super organized. I found some great videos online with suggestions and got some great ideas from Pinterest too. One channel I found extremely helpful on YouTube was Becky's Feathered Nest, which has some great ideas for homes and RV's. She too decorated her camper and had everything meticulously in order. I took notes (nerd alert) and then got started. Here are a few pictures of our first outings as new campers. Fall quickly came and our abbreviated camping excursions wrapped up for the year. The campground didn't have a seasonal site available so we couldn't leave our camper there. We hauled it home and put it in our yard until we could find winter storage. All winter, I prayed that a seasonal spot would open up at Spring Valley and at the end of March we were notified that we got one. I was ecstatic! A few weeks later, we hauled it back to the campground and set it up on a "permanent" lot. While we waited for the weather to break, I started to plan for all the things we would need to do to establish our lot and make it look nice. If you have never driven around a campground, people put decks and landscaping, outbuildings, lights, and all sorts of upgrades when they are staying awhile. It is now June and we have begun our first full camping season. Of course (for all you "real" campers out there), we know that it is more like "glamping". Don't judge. Our campground has a pool, wifi and cable. Like I said before, it is our home away from home. I have been stayed a few times so far and am writing from my camper as we speak; it is ABSOLUTELY my happy place. There is a peace that exists here and a comfort I can't explain. We named our camper "Kacie's Dream" because she, out of everyone in our family, would have loved having a camper the most. In fact, she wanted to ask for one from Make-a-Wish so she could live in it at the beach when she got older. I so wish we would have done this while she was still here but in an odd way, I feel like it is honoring her to provide our family with this opportunity...the chance to be outside and to embrace the beauty of nature. To see the kids running and playing, fishing and catching bugs. These are all the things that she would have been doing. I feel close to her when I am here, as crazy as that probably sounds. Maybe it is because the sights and sounds I experience when I am here take me back to the times before she was sick. Maybe it is because I feel God's presence magnified through nature. Maybe that's where the unexplained peace comes from. Here are a few pictures of what our camper looks like now and a few more pictures of some of our recent outings. I am so anxious to see what this summer brings and what kinds of tales we will have by the end of the season. We have tons of work to do this season to our site that will pay off in the years to come. I will take tons of pictures and I have started keeping a journal each time I spend the night here. I hope you will stick around and read about our adventures in camping! In an upcoming post, I will go into detail about how my RV is organized in case you need some ideas for your camper or other small space. Until next time...
Today's Playlist: Home- Michael Buble Don't Know Why- Norah Jones Each Day Gets Better- John Legend (Because music is the perfect backdrop for everything...click on the links above to listen) I know it is a cliche saying, but there truly is "No Place Like Home." My home is my favorite place in the world; it is my safe place and a place where I want my family to feel comfortable and loved. They are what make it a home, but I like to try and add to the love by creating a cozy environment. I know that they appreciate it and that makes it worth it. I spend a lot of energy and time on my house, perhaps too much. In fact, I am a little obsessed with making it cozy and "just right." Over the years, I have developed a passion for decorating and I like to think I have a knack for putting design elements together just right. I love decorating for holidays and different seasons too, so my house always looks different depending on the time of year. Overall, I am not a materialistic person, but I do take pride in making my small home as nice and welcoming as possible and I would love to share my special space and ideas with you. I moved into my current house only about three years ago, when we relocated from our house near Columbus, Ohio back to my hometown in the Ohio Valley (on the border of the northern panhandle of WV). Although the move came at a really rocky time in my life, I am glad to be back in a small town and away from all the traffic and such that come with life near a big city. When we moved back to the Valley, we downsized our home by about half in an attempt to simplify our life (and our bills). The little home we bought is only about 1200 sq. feet on the main floor, with an additional unofficial 700 sq. feet of living space in the basement. With the help of some friends, we made some extra bedrooms in the basement to make the most of every inch of the house, which has actually ended up fitting us just right. Even though it looks tiny (from the front), we have five bedrooms and 2.5 baths. When we moved in, I was sharing my home with my husband, six children, my mother-in-law, and a dog. Slowly, that number is getting smaller as our family dynamics change; therefore, it already does not look the same as when we moved in. Before moving in, I took tons of pictures and began studying all the aspects of the home inside and out to envision how I would decorate it and make it my own. Starting with a blank slate was so much fun...here are some pictures of our new house before we moved in and when we first began some renovations. By the time we moved in, I had gotten tons of stuff at thrift stores and country/antique shops, along with some decorations I already had, and I was ready to make my new house a home. I already had some idea of what I wanted to do and it didn't take long for me to make some big changes. You would be amazed at what you can do with a limited budget and a little creativity. I found it really helpful to pin ideas to a board on Pinterest so I could then print off the board and take the pictures with me to thrift stores and yard sales. Here are some pictures of different areas in my house when I was done adding my personal touch. I hope you can get some good ideas! It was hard work getting all this done during what was the most difficult year of our life. (You can read more about that later on the Faith and Reflection blog page.) So, I was very pleased and content and definitely grateful for the times I got to be at home to relax and enjoy my new digs. It is fun to look back and see what everything looked like when I first decorated it. I don't know whether it is due to boredom or just a constant state of change in my life, but not a whole lot looks the same anymore. We have had to shuffle bedrooms several times in the last three years and the displays in my house move around on a daily basis sometimes. I get teased because things will often be in a different place by the end of the day if I don't think they look right. Being a perfectionist is exhausting (Lol). In an upcoming post, I will share with you some of the different ways I have changed the decorations and displays in my home since we first moved. See what my house looks like now and some ideas I have for the upcoming months. Until next time...
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AuthorHello and WELCOME to my site! My name is Amanda Yates and I am a 44year-old mom of six children from a blended family. I am a middle school teacher and a passionate follower of Christ. In my "free" time, I love decorating my home, organizing, studying scripture, camping, and making every attempt to get my life "just right." I am blessed beyond measure! Archives
March 2020
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Life Just Right. | Home & "Perfection" Blog |