New family member: Mr. leather chair

 Wow, what a busy few weeks I have had. There have been a few things I've been looking for while I've been redoing our home. One was either a coordinating ottoman for this chair we got a few months back… or a new leather chair with coordinating ottoman of course.

 The previous chair was definitely more feminine with her little curves and cute little queen anne feet. I posted about her and the adventure I went on to find her here! She has been a great little family member but unfortunately, I found a new chair and ottoman a few days ago that was a little better for the space. So, she will be for sale! If you're interested, shoot me an email at homebyally {at} yahoo.com 

Now, onto the man in the room now. In all of his masculine, rustic, hardy, time worn self. Isn't he pretty? Hehe. I'm still not crazy about the legs on this one either.. only because I prefer a more antique style leg… but that can always be changed just as I said before! Did I mention how SUPER comfortable it was? The dachshunds have already tried it out and one of them is already snoozing!

The owner said their family originally purchased him from Ethan Allen…and he's been very well loved. Well, just so happens, that is just the way that I like it!

It will remain in the same place that the other chair was in. This is located right near the door from the sunroom to our back patio. We are still hunting for a french door on the cheap for that room.

I found these ticking striped Ralph Lauren pillows at TjMaxx a few months ago also. I just love the simplicity of them. I think I want to look for a more interesting lamp… but for now, I am just bringing color and interest in with greenery and some small accents. 

I would really like to get some darker bamboo blinds and install them on each window (rolled up of course) in this room and then do some nice, thick bright white panels on each end. Hmm, maybe soon!

And I can't believe that I have not showed y'all this. If you're a frequent reader, you might know of my obsession with architectural salvage. We love to inject character into any of our homes and this one is no exception. These old chippy corbels we bought from a fellow vendor… and we just adore them! All that chippy goodness… all the colors underneath and oh how many stories if they could talk!

Here's a detail shot. These are hanging into the entryway into our sunroom. I've been contemplating with framing out a faux framed out column on either side to kinda chunky up this entryway.

Aren't they lovely?

All in all, things are coming together around here. And I've been doing SO many projects… all of which that I need to post about! I really am loving the direction that things are going… it's just hard to not want everything done at once but hey, we're supposed to enjoy the journey right?

Front door facelift in 15 minutes

I'm really getting excited about my house y'all. And I cannot wait to show everyone everything! But I'm trying to take one project at a time. Along with that, I have been super busy with real estate! And opening up the new shop if you haven't heard! Whoop! Visit the Facebook page for more information!

Today, I wanted to show y'all how I updated the INSIDE of my front door in under 15 minutes. Most homes that I have been in, the interior of your front door is likely white. And here lately, trending is painting interior doors charcoal grey or black. And I LOVE that. But I'm one of those people that gets tired of stuff quick. I really don't want to have to paint it twice… so I painted her white. And guess what, the whole entire room feels 10x brighter. So whether you're like me and just wanted it to be cohesive and lighter… or you're a bit of risk taker, try painting it a fresh color or coordinating!

I'm not sure why the photo below looks like the way it does? 

Here's another from when we first viewed the home while it was on the market. I really loved the wood look and we've had it like that since we purchased this home back in September of last year. But I stare at it all the time because I wanted to paint it white so it would not compete with the other wood tones in our front living space… so whats' a girl to do at 11pm at night? Paint, of course.

Here's the after.

This photo is super grainy because I took it late in the evening so I had to play with some photography settings and in photoshop for you to really see.

These were taken today so they are much better. All of our walls are painted with Valspar's Oatlands Subtle Taupe which is a perfect greige in the Valspar line. If you also notice, we have originally cove ceilings which I absolutely adore… it gives the home so much character!

And here's a step back. I have an idea for above the hooks to the left but I haven't finished the project.

You may have noticed the curtains to the right. Yes, they are FABULOUS! One of my great friends and fellow vendors, Dana from The Painted Dresser made just for me! It's a linen like fabric with charcoal grey pin striping. They are very similar knock off's to some that Pottery Barn sells. I am currently swooning over them everyday and can't thank Dana enough! If you are in the area (Melbourne, FL) and want to try MMSMP (Ms. Mustard Seed's Milk Paint), come to our new shop at 5555 US Hwy 1, Rockledge, FL and get some from Dana! It is set to be called 

"Vintage Living Marketplace."

I also need to find a tiny rug for the front door. Did I tell you I bought a new front door while I was home in North Carolina? My parents are supposed to bring it to me. I really like this one but I want something that allows more light into our space. We will see how it looks when it gets here.

Small updates sometimes make a huge difference. 

DIY Entryway Table using corbels/architectural salvage

Well it's been around three weeks since I lasted spoke with y'all! WOW! I've been so busy with real estate which is SUCH a blessing! And I also have more good news coming your way, especially if you're local so you definitely do NOT want to miss out on that! 

I've been searching for the perfect entryway table for some time now. I wanted something narrow, long and a statement piece. And I really wanted it to be old as dirt. I'd rather have something with some history, that's not perfect and that tells a story than I would something new. I searched and searched and searched and came up with nothing. 

Enter these two corbels that I found at HomeGoods of all places! Shout out to HomeGoods! Love that place. I practically stole them for the prize and get this…. I found one here in Florida and took a trip to North Carolina around Mother's Day. Wouldn't you know that I found the MATCHING one in North Carolina?! It was totally meant to be. I may or may not have jumped up and down that day in the store.

I apologize for the sorry cell phone photos! I took this really quick to document what it looked like as the process kept going! I was way too excited to actually get my real camera out! So here is the BEFORE photo of the space and then a few cell phone photos of it as it progressed. I'm not sure why this photo is oversaturated like it is but just try to see past that. To the left of the front door is a longer wall that serves as our entryway which is also open to the front living room.

Here is the cell phone photos I was speaking about earlier. First thing that I did was get my level, some wall anchors with screws and a drill to make sure my corbels were the correct length apart and were anchored correctly to the wall as well as being even since I was making a top!

I got really excited at this point but the balance was a little off with how thin the plywood top was compared to the chunkiness of the corbels below. So what's a girl to do? I found some scrap wood in the garage and created a skirt for the wood top to hide cords and chunky it up!

You can somewhat see under the last picture that I hid the cords with good old tape by taping them to the bottom of the wood top. From standing you can't see it at all and really can't even see it unless you are looking when you are sitting. That makes me happy, no cords that is :)

And here's a view with the new lamps on. I'm playing around with how I want the top styled and I still want to do something creative with the cord in the old crock. But I am really loving the look, especially because no one else that I know has something like this. It is unique to our house! Let me know what you think and if you want to pin this to remember on your Pinterest boards, just hover over each picture and click the Pinterest icon to pin!

SOURCE LIST:

Mirror: HomeGoods

Lamps: Kirklands

Corbels: HomeGoods

Boxwoods: HomeGoods

Chippy bowl: Found

Harp salvage: Found

Crock: Found 

DIY Open Shelving

So, many of you may know, especially if you have spoken to me locally or followed along for awhile that I have a plan for our kitchen. It is the cutest little kitchen, just big enough and has a lot more space than I think most people realize... I checked off one of the things on my to do list before I left on vacation. Open shelving of course! I'm searching for the correct photo of this wall we have near this bank of cabinets. They left it open I'm assuming because they thought it might be crowded if they did add a full wall... but my decision was that I wanted something to display my dishes, towels and anything else for the kitchen. For some reason I cannot upload the BEFORE photos so I will add them later.. for y'all and hopefully you will check back!

I opted for these iron brackets from Hobby Lobby.  They are the smaller version and were $3.50 each after receiving 50% each since they were on sale. I already had the wood in the garage so that was FREE... gotta love when that happens! Total, this project cost me less than $25.00 since I had most of the supplies already on hand including the drill, anchors and screws, etc.

I'm really loving how much they break up this wall. I plan to do white dishes stacked and any other items that may be functional for me to have open. I simply measured how far I wanted the brackets to be and measured how long I wanted each shelf to be. I marked a dot where I needed to drill each hole for each bracket and got to work! This project probably took me about an hour to fully complete.

I did opt to purchase the smaller version of our old canisters for this house. They are from Walmart and I believe are under $10 each. We also installed puck under cabinet lighting. It really looks great at night and even has a remote with a dimmer! The lights are all LED and they are awesome!

I quickly added some layers to these shelves just to give y'all an idea of what you can use in open shelving, virtually anything! Like I said before, I will do my white dishes and well as linens and probably some fresh fruit weekly. I love the warmth of the stained wood tops with the black brackets!

Over all I am very satisfied with the look! Next up will be painting our kitchen cabinets. I am excited about the progress of this room and hope that y'all like this as well. If you like any of the images, feel free to hover over your favorites and pin them to your Pinterest accounts.

DIY knock off Ballard Designs flower pot urns

Just wanted to write a quick post today...So I've been slowing working on our back patio as well as many other things for our home. Being from the south, I enjoy pretty much everything certain. In my opinion, a staple for a southern front porch is rocking chairs, ferns and flowers. Lots of curb appeal. I've had ferns since our last rental but I used our old urns for either side of our garage door. You can find the post about our exterior makeover of our home by clicking here!

This left me without urns for my back patio and with two extra large ferns. So, what's a girl to do? Well I took myself back to Lowes but unfortunately, I don't think they carry my $20 concrete urns anymore so I had to improvise. I browsed the internet for inspiration and knew in my head what I wanted. Something with a classic, traditional look that could still make a statement and have some height so it would not be over powered by my large and in charge ferns.

Insert Ballard Designs and their Grecian urn. At $179.00 for the large urn and I would need two, it just was not in my budget. But I really did like the look... so I kept my eye out. And came across these two at our local Dollar General for $8 each! Yes! The before is on the left. I used a $1.00 gloss black spray paint from Lowes and got started!

Here's the after:

And just to show y'all, I also added two hanging ferns to our back patio as well. They were also purchased at Lowes and each hang from a hook. I'm having a lot of fun working back here and currently am trying to either 1. find a new patio set, 2. decide if I want to build a farmhouse table or 3. both. I can't wait to show y'all more progress as we make it.

If you enjoyed this project or want to remember it for a project of your own, hover over each image and pin to your personal Pinterest! Hope you love it as much as I do...

New dining room table & some planning

This morning I woke up really earlier because I planned to take some photos of the dining room. Thank goodness the lighting was beautiful and I get to show y'all my new dining room table! If you have been following, you can read a post I wrote about what I wanted in a dining room table here. I happened to get very lucky one night while cruising through Craigslist and saw something with not so great photos but at a wonderful price that looked like something I might like. My hopes were not set very high however because how many times do things on Craigslist really look like what the picture says… well sometimes. But I just didn't have my hopes up…  but man, when the guy brought this huge hunk of love out, I had to contain my excitement. It was THE table.

Originally, I was thinking the base was much thinner and not so prominent but I am SO thrilled that it is chunky and amazing! I am in love and cannot stop staring at it. The same day that I scored this table, I stumbled upon a mutual friends yardsale and found the couch I've been eyeing at Ikea that matches the one in our sunroom…for another steal of a deal! That post is coming! It was seriously my lucky day y'all. And I was feeling on top of the world. I mean, this table. Is. Like. Over. $1,000. Dollars. I love me some Ballard but I have not even begun to prepare myself to pay that kind of money for a table. Not when you're thrifty and try to save/diy/buy clearance for everything.

Is he marvelous? I shouldn't say he. Because it's definitely a she. She has beautiful curves and a gorgeous color. And we did upgrade from a 48" table to a 52" which can more comfortable accommodate dinner guests and lets more chairs come to the table if necessary.

IF you remember, here's our dining room before with our old table. I never really took an up close photo of it because I planned to paint it or do something but I did like the lines of it. The price wasn't bad either so we worked with what we had at the time… It had a much smaller, petite base with drawers on the top part. That was perfect for storage of linens and game pieces… :)

Here's a view of the after standing in the front living area. If you noticed, I took the rug out. It needs to be cleaned from our dogs and some little puppy I know had an accident so I professionally cleaned it and I'm now looking to paint some interesting stripes on it. If that doesn't work, I'm going to order a new round jute rug that hints at the one in the sunroom. I love the texture of that one.

There's a few more things to do in here. I used to set the dining room table but found that the dishes gathered dust and we never really used the formal set as much as people/I would have thought so I have them back in the cabinets. For now, a small antique dough bowl sits in the middle. It's usually full of bright green Granny Smith Apples which are my favorite but I haven't made the grocery run yet. I know, shame on me. I'm not sure if I like/dislike the boxwood wreath hanging on the sunroom windows. But I'm letting it stay for awhile to see. I did order those antique reproduction herb crates by the refrigerator. I had been eyeing them for some time and finally ordered them off of Antique Farmhouse. I love their website and am a frequent customer, even just to browse their amazing items. I would love to team up with them one day to bring an amazing giveaway for y'all.

I am still loving the lantern chandelier. I grabbed the pillows from the sunroom and tried them on the chairs and I am thinking about ordered 4 more of them for each dining room chair. I love the stripes and texture that it brings to the table. I still would like to find something interesting to put a top of the old cupboard I have there. Right now, a plain jute bowl with hydrangeas sits…but I'd like some type of conversation piece sooner than later. 

Here's an up close and personal view. Isn't she lovely? Whistle!

I just adore this table and I am thanking the big man upstairs so much for blessing me with such a wonderful day and great friends, shout out to Lucky Day who helped me in getting my new sofa and this table! If you haven't met Dawn, you're missing out. Wonderful woman who I adore!

And I'm surprised I didn't post on Facebook but I attended Florida's Fancy Flea in Plant City, FL. I found a few things, one of which is this cute and darling little ice cream table that now sits in my sunroom. I love the lines and wanted something a little different than the other antique table. That other antique table will be headed to the shop soon after I paint her…AGAIN!

I love the rustic wood top and iron black legs. Swoon worth if I don't say so myself! I love these lamps….and have had them for some time but I am wondering if I want to look for something alittle more interesting. I'll keep my eye peeled! Until then…

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Miss. Mustard Seed
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