Front sitting area help , please!

My big plan for this small space is to have a patio in the shape of a circle here to make a small courtyard area , I had this furniture sitting around and thought I should try this out , a nice place to sit and watch the children play. This is right at the front door in case you are wondering where this is and I have already stained the patio stone grey where it is not in the photo.

I would love a little help though , the fence I know it's not beautiful , should I paint it dark grey , or cover it over with something stylish not lattice though , if you have anything that comes to mind or a photo that would work well please send it my way , thank you for the help in advance. Oh one more thing no plantings please, something wood based.

Chris

Wedding photos

I wanted to show you some more wedding photos , look at these girls don't they look lovely.

This is the photo that the photographer took after he heard it was our anniversary I thought that was so nice he did this little photo session.

Here is the big photo of my family all my siblings and nieces and nephews , Mason my big girl was not in this photo until recently , during the taking of this photo she was hiding to get out of it , but she was digitally put in , isn't that amazing , you would never know????

A whole lot of nothing much.

This is my little wee garden area in my backyard, it is filling in nicely, I add a couple of plants every year, I am just not into gardening this year , maybe it is all the rain, my grass has never looked better , so green but so saturated with water its a muddy mess , good thing we put in that deck this year. I do plan on adding more gardens for instance around the deck , around the playhouse and so on, but I have not felt motivated to do so lately . I have lost my mojo , don't worry it will be back.
This morning glory was given to me by a former neighbour many miles away , I harvested the seeds and brought them with me from our old house , now it just plants it self around , pretty cool , something feasts on it every year , but leaves all the other plants.

This was for a fire pit we used oh twice , but it is nice to keep , I would love to do the whole yard like this , a pattern of these squares all over. Little miss fashion, she surprised me with cleaning her whole room after playing in it all day , even Mason is keeping her room cleaner since my recent improvements. The dresser was a nice addition , its a bit of a pinky white , but looks worse in the photo , at least Mason is on board with me painting her bunk bed , now I just have to find the energy to do it .
I love how these curtains turned out , I have been dying to use this fabric somewhere , these curtains cost $4.00 to make.

after searching and finding some really pretty fabrics that did not appeal to my 10 year old and her finding things that were thin or cheap or inappropriate for curtains, I decided while she was out to try this fabric that I thought was perfect the greens the blue, they are short because there will be a double dresser under that window on Thursday as I have found the perfect Nantucket style white dresser and it is on its way , I imagine that girls from 10-18 only begin to get more and more into clothes so I am getting ready with lots of storage, since she doesn't have a dresser in her room right now , I imagine it is about time.
I love the drapes , they are very vintage quirky.
I gave Mason my fave white Nantucket mirror for her room tired of her having hand me downs and left overs and I moved around a few things like usual and found room for the weathered frames I got for a bargain , I also found these two salvage beachy frames , now this is beachy. I am working on printing out the black and white photos right after this post is complete.

Rains ,sink holes and a whole lot of nothing weekend.

This is a sink whole , I discovered it while disposing of dog dootie, wow there is a big gaping whole on the corner of our house, this is the only down spout area for the back of the house , apparently the neighbour saw and was GONNA tell us, and he was waiting for what , a human to fall in it? the ground just kept falling in , it was about 2 feet deep , it took 11 bags of drainage gravel to fill this in and a new extended down spout as well as redirecting my neighbours downspout which was pointed directly at this spot, hopefully the fixes we did will solve this problem , we have been having rain , torrential down pours daily for a very long time now, but question where did it go , the earth just falls in , alarming isn't it . I assure you it was much worse than this photo can show.

I have been hard at work this weekend trying to pull my daughters room together , she is busting out of this room, she has an incredible amount of stuff, I took out 3 big bags of trash ,amazing to me. I painted these panels green, she loves it , it looks cute, I need to paint her double bunk beds white as it is dark brown now, no good , it will look so nice white.
I am trying to rework this piece of furniture it was a hot pink, but it is just so odd , it doesn't fit in very well anywhere I put it, I may need to find another side table.
I am reworking items that are in there already , like these finials which I never liked but they weren't for me, the are now a bright green with pink gems.
I am looking for a modern blue and green print fabric for the new curtains something a little funky, like she is , still working on that , today I am sure I will find just the right thing.

The garden this year

Linda did a post today sharing her lovely cottage garden , palatial garden compared to my wee patch , I suppose I like it small because I am not so good at imagining a garden not like I can envision a room indoors. What I was given was a slope of grass which I quickly ripped out , I carved out a path from sidewalk to door which is now a gravel path , treacherous to navigate so that will change, but fine for this year, I built this picket fence when we first moved in , this is my favorite feature of my garden.
This year I stained the cement steps and the pavers that the builder plopped down , I love how the stain , charcoal grey, adds some style to what was a pale faded cement entry.
Always adding accessories.
I love this knocker I found it at Winners before we bought the house , it is aging very well, I think it was $10.00 , I am thinking of painting this green door black ?
These are my favorite flowers day lilies , these peachy orange one are outstanding, easy , drought tolerant.
Red was a new color for me , I like it with the purple, as you can see I have no plan overall, I just buy what I like.

Soft peach with ruffles edge, stunning.
Last years window box was better, oh well, I painted the bead board dark this year.
This is my fave spot, I like how full it is , the textures, I am trying to make this happen everywhere, I need patience , it takes time for perennials to grow.
I have just ripped out two shrubs that were between the day lilies as thy were full of some sort of infestation, creepy, I hate bugs , lovely gaps.
So my garden is simple , a work in progress, as I just ripped out 5 shrubs this years so I am filling in , I suppose it is just like inside always evolving.

Things I swear by cedar chips, box woods, day lilies, beach stones as ground cover, and having an open mind and patience.

Summer rains!

This has been how the skies look all week , and more days like these to come, it has meant lots of playing in the rain for the kids, the air is nice and cool , better than horrible extreme heat , with all the rain we are getting the grass is wonderfully green , that's a plus, it has not been nice enough to cut it so it is crazy long ....
These are the dog days of summer, with a house FULL of kids the days are LONG and messes are CONSTANT we are not able to get out during the days as I do not own a bus ,good news though luckily I have a four day weekend coming up unexpectantly , yipee, I need it , I suppose that means more rain.
Feeling like a maid and cook these days I know there are many other women out there feeling this way too, give me a shout out to that , I am feeling alone in the world these days. I wish I could get in a get away .
When is school back in....?

New Header

The regular image , oh I found a spot for my bargain mirror.

Spotlight with cartoon feature

Cartoon effect And the coloring book feature.

Isn't that neat , I have a Kodak camera and this is one of the fun effects they have, it is coloring book , so no I did not draw this at all.

I had intended to build a new mirror , but didn't really feel up to it , my husband bought me two of these round studded mirrors for Christmas and I decided to pluck them from their spots and try them , I love it , what do you think ? oh I also changed the star out from a beautiful green one to this blue one.

Stair progress again , hey it is a big job. Here is the before again , just to remind you of what a change it is...

After . look the dogs match.... I love the bold and crisp look it has given these rooms, It has taken about 20 hours so far , there will be a little more touching up to do , I also need to borrow a ladder to paint under the stairs as I can not reach it at all, I had painted the treads black , gloss black , just because of laziness , I didn't want to wait to have paint tinted so I bought pre mixed black , it was gloss or matte, the gloss made the imperfections in the wood shine and glare, it was strange looking , so I re painted with the matte on the tread and gloss on the hand rail, its good now, I am very pleased , and it is worth all the effort , all good things are.

Speaking of which ....
I came home to find this , my girls playing out in the rain , they had so much fun , they did it the next day as well I was glad to see their Dad was fine with it too, why not right. They sang and danced and got dirty , good clean fun.This wall has always bothered me something was missing , I moved this antique plate below the painting and moved the painting up a touch and it seems to make me happier now, funny how tweaking can help.
Ok, look at this isn't it gorgeous, I could not pass on this , it is so pretty and a beautiful color, I was thinking for my bedroom , but now that I added the round mirrors this will stay down stairs.

I have a couple of ideas of where I will put it .

The best is that is was $22.00 can you believe that , it was in a clearance bin, what a steal.

Settee drama's

So here is the settee in desperate need of recovering, I was told that the company Rowe makes slipcovers so I could always have them make a one , well apparently I may have been misinformed , the sales girl is inquiring for me , cross your fingers for me , it would be a wonderful thing if I could just pick one of their beautiful fabrics and wait patiently for 8 weeks for it to arrive , we will soon see.
This first fabric is my first choice , I love the pattern and the colors are beautiful, no one else shared this choice but that is just how it goes sometimes.
These are two others a little bland and safe , but nice as well, I want a pattern , it has worked well so far as it hides small stains and dog hair doesn't show as much on a pattern .

If it doesn't work out that they can make me one I will have to have one made else where or have it re-upholstered with a washable fabric. I sure hope they can do this for me.

Which fabric sample would you vote for ?? 1,2 or 3??

I though I should add this for a little bulk in content. A while back the lamp I had here broke , I ordered another lamp and it got back ordered , so I bought a simple cheap glass/plastic one at Wal Mart I totally in my quest to add some style to the shade ruined it , I have been eyeing this one at the grocery store , I know gorcery store, so I decided to give it a whirl, I am thinking of spraying it a shiney green , like the star below , that color not that finish . What do you think , or maybe apricot , very glossy....what to do I have the apricot color in my dining room rug right beside , and green in the new sofa slipcover from Ikea.

I sanded the black mirror frame to give it a worn appeal, I need to use a finer grit to soften it up but I like it this way better , I have never really liked this frame , my husband picked it up at a yard sale for $10.00 a long time ago , I never mentioned that I didn't like it , I like the size but that is it, I had the mirro cut for it , for $30.00 , so all around it was a great deal.
I love the end of season sale , I have been admiring these frames and they were marked down to $6.00 so I indulged, I am so glad I waited , I haven't found a spot for them yet.
These were a couple more items the kids suggested I buy , I had to agree, I have had this rose for some time, but these lotus flower candle holders were marked down as well, I need to dig out my little tea lights.

We received this DNA test in the mail , Sophie has been asked to participate in a peanut allergy study , all she had to do was give 2ml of spit to this cause, the study will be world wide, she had to sign her own consent form for permission, they are trying to see if there is a gene that causes peanut allergies, we were all very happy to join in the scientific quest for answers , the funniest thing was that they will keep this sample for up to 25 years after which it will be destroyed that would make Sophie almost the age I am now, if there is any sample left, we just thought that was pretty cool , to be asked , hope they can find some answers.
This is not my hallway , wish it was , this is a beautiful finished stairs , that which I wish mine was..... gorgeous with all the dark wood floors and crisp white wood work.This is motivating me to get mine done.

I have not made any progress , I haven't picked up a brush once this week, did a few other things but nothing worth showing, I still need to build a mirror , re-paint the trim , we have been battling with our air con , either it is too hot or too cold, right now it is freezing , obviously it is time to get the digital thermostat, asap.
I am a big fan of stripes but this is a bit much , what is that a blanket on the stairs, sorry that is over board.

This weekend will be searching for the right fabric for my settee slipcover finally , tending to my front garden , finishing the stairs and the mirror, there we go that should keep me busy.
What will you be doing this weekend ?, I would love to hear .