J Cooper Photography

God has been busy with some major character building at our house.  So I’ve made myself busy adding a touch of character to our home.  Sometimes the plateaus in life are easier to handle with some good ‘ol re-decorating fun.  I’d love to do a major overhaul…just strip the place bare and start again (unfortunately, that wasn’t in the budget)…but even little changes can make a big difference in how your house functions!

Here’s a few of our changes:

Slip cover the dated striped chenille couch with a washable linen…and paint the walls a cocoa brown.  (been dying to paint the walls in our house since we moved in 3.5 years ago!)

We carried (actually WE didn’t carry anything…2 men with biceps bigger than my toosh carried it) the piano downstairs to make room in the living room for more seating.  S man’s changing table fit perfectly between the windows and I found a little basket to slide right into the diaper storage cubby.  A pair of $15 clearance lamps added some MUCH needed lighting to the room.

Switched out the red/green dishes for some simple white wares from my cabinets.

Pulled a flea market table into the family room to use as a coffee table (after sawing off the legs).  I threw a bunch of favorite magazines in the rustic tray for easy access and inspiration.

Painted an entire wall with chalkboard paint near my pantry door.  This picture is horrid…the space is VERY tight.  I am finishing up re-painting our corkboard and then I’ll hang it on top to keep our school papers organized.  We can’t wait to try out the chalkboard…as soon as I can find WHITE chalk (I think there was a run on it at our Wal-mart!)

Some added laundry room shelving.  Our laundry is TINY and there was NO storage.  I’m hoping that once these are primed and painted they will help coral the ART SUPPLY BEAST who lives at our house!

Daniel’s room is painted and the crib and dresser are up.  Now I’m trying to add some personality to the room!  We moved this bookshelf in from the girls’ room and I used some leftover paint to change out the color of the beadboard.  Now I’m busy scouting for vintage cars and trucks, books, and other random tidbits to fill it out.

Pretty little vintage knobs for a flea market dresser in the baby’s room.  Boys like crystal knobs, right?  OK don’t answer that.  But I have a rule that anything I put in the kids’ rooms has to be stylish enough to be later worked into the rest of our house…so crystal knobs it was

I’m still working hard to complete a dozen or so projects.  And while my mind is consistently MILES away…it is providing much needed relief for my tired, waiting heart.  Once we are home from Africa I certainly won’t have time for re-covering chairs and scoping out flea markets so I better get it out of my system now!!