IFS

What if you could have the
HOUSE OF YOUR DREAMS
in the home you're living in right now.
How would it look?

Most of us have a list of things we'd like to do to improve our home. I don't think I know anyone who lives in their ideal home.
But, do you find yourself saying "If only..."
If only I had hardwood floors, then I would be happy with my home.
If only my appliances were beautiful stainless steel, then I'd have my dream kitchen.
If only the furniture came from a high end furniture store instead of a thrift store and hand-me-downs, then I'd love to entertain.
If only my walls weren't decorated with children's hand prints and the floor with toys, then I could decorate my home with beautiful things.
If only my house was bigger, then. . .
If only we had enough money to make home improvements, then. . .
The problem with the "If only's" is that you choose to delay your happiness and miss out on JOY you could be having right now.
If you learn nothing else from my blog, I hope you learn that every day you should do a little something to find the JOYS of home. That's my goal. Let me illustrate with photos of my own home.
Our main bathroom looks picture perfect. It's not! The tile floor has cracks, the top drawer falls out if you pull it too far. The cabinets are low end wood laminate and the sinks have rust stains that cannot be removed.
I could have chosen to live with the "If only's." Instead, I painted the cabinets, replaced the hardware, and stocked the linen closet with fluffy white towels.
The flooring in our home was not pretty, at all. If I lived in "If only" land I would not have torn out the ugly carpet and tile, painted the subflooring and personalized our stairs. Would I love to have beautiful hardwood? Of course! But look at the creative opportunities that I would have missed. The kitchen has the same cheap cabinetry as the bathroom and the appliances are white. It had the ubiquitous U-shape of the 1970's until we decided to tear it apart and make improvements on a budget of a thousand dollars. The "If only" attitude would have robbed us of wonderful memories of working together and of preparing our turkey on top of the washing machine because hubby was installing the sink on Thanksgiving morning.The beautiful fireplace I told you about yesterday is still not finished. It's missing the surround on the firebox. No one notices because I painted the whole thing black and loaded it with pretty candles. Would I love to have a finished gas burning fireplace? YES, but I can enjoy it this way until our finances allow us to finish it. Our master bedroom has painted subflooring and a master bath that needs major work. The furniture is from the thrift store, the draperies are drop cloths, the walls are painted with mistints. But it can still be beautiful and on a budget.

With an "If only" attitude I would never have discovered the depth of my creativity. I would not have had the opportunity to help others design their homes, and I certainly would never have started a blog.
Don't let the thief "If only" rob you from the JOYS of home that are at your finger tips.
Please stop living with the "If only's" and do what you can, with what you have, to find the JOYS in your home. This weekend would be a great time to start!

HGTV Dream Bathroom

HGTV Dream Home Bathroom

You must take special care of decorating your bathroom while pursuing home décor. Bathroom renovation is an essential aspect of home improvement. One can get influenced from the bathrooms included in the HGTV dream home.

Hgtv Dream House: Dream Bathroom

The guest bathroom of the HGTV dream home is spacious and very attractive. One of the most alluring aspects of the guest bathroom in the HGTV dream home is that it includes dark wood furnishings that can create an elegant atmosphere inside the guest bathroom.

Hgtv Dream House: Guest Bathroom

The best thing about the HGTV dream home is that it includes botanical prints that can attract your guests like never before. Your guests can feel cool and calm by enjoying the spa treatment with the help of massage spray by the hand held shower inside the guest bathroom of the HGTV guest bathroom.

Hgtv Dream Bathroom: Master Bathroom

If you are planning to design your kid’s bathroom then you must get influenced by the kid’s bathroom in the HGTV dream home. The kid’s bathroom in the dream home chosen by HGTV includes fun accessories, circles and subtle stripes.

Hgtv Dream House: Big Bathroom

You can also include games inside the kid’s bathroom so as to make the kid bath in a fun manner. HGTV dream home includes an ideal bathroom décor so as to attract guests than never before.

Hgtv Dream House: Kid's Bathroom

The best thing about the dream home chosen by HGTV is that it includes water taps and bathroom accessories of superior quality. The wall paints are also light in color so as to make the room look warm and refreshing. Guests can surely have a good time while bathing in the bathroom of HGTV dream home.

Ad Inspiration

Almost every time I post a photo of my fireplace, I get comments about how much you like it. Did you know that it's not the original fireplace? I looked through a gazillion photos and can't seem to find a good "before" picture, but I can give you a good idea of the original fireplace.
This is a photo of what the front of our home looked like before I redesigned it. See that wall of rock? Now, imagine that exact same rock wall as a fireplace. What you may not be able to see is that some rocks jut out so far that my boys would literally rock climb the fireplace (as well as the front of the house). There was no mantle, and because of the strange rock formations we couldn't hang a picture. I managed to hang a huge wreath off one of the protruding rocks, but it wasn't centered in the middle. It also had an over-sized, rock covered hearth that stuck out an additional two-plus feet into the room. Just getting rid of it gave us a lot more usable space.
We tore that monstrosity down all by ourselves. Our three youngest sons did a lot of the work. It was our practice run for tearing down the rock on the front of the house. It was a HUGE, dusty job! We re-purposed all of the rock into a dry stream bed in our back yard. We hired a friend to put up sheet rock and then my husband and I built the mantle. We used this picture, that I had torn out of a magazine, as our inspiration. Do you do that? I can't throw a magazine away until I've gone through it and torn out anything and everything that interests me. Right now I have three stacks waiting to be sorted through and torn apart. Magazines are a wonderful idea source for making improvements in your home.

A Golden Opportunity

HGTV dream home: A golden opportunity

HGTV house project is a project house of American Cable Network home and Garden Television’s which was started in 1997 and since then it is being held every year. The January 1st has been decided as the first day for the telecast of the HGTV show which starts with the sweepstakes and ends up showcasing the millions dollars valued custom homes.

Room in Dream Home

This project provides the facilities that can accomplish the requirements of one’s dream home. That is the reason behind naming it as a dream home project. The HGTV can be accessed online as well. There are experts giving excellent suggestions over how to keep the home clean and green. They also advice people how to maintain the dream home by providing important tips.

Dream living Room

Building dream home requires lots of things to keep in mind. For e.g.: how to manage the kitchen, essentials for bedrooms, bathrooms, and living rooms. It starts from finding, to framing and building and is a long way ahead to go.

There are experts giving innovative ideas and inspirations about how to decorate the overall home. There are various types of designer rooms like modern style, contemporary style, romantic style, Mediterranean style and eclectic style.

Your Garden

The customer has to choose the styles out of them according to one’s own requirements. The HGTV dream home Tour gives a lot of varieties to these rooms so that they can offer a wide array of choice for the customers. This attracts the customer the most to make it their dream home.

Am I Alone?

Please tell me that I'm not the only one
who continues to add layers to holiday vignettes
up until the day of the holiday.

Fancy Eggs

While I was on an egg roll (pardon the pun), I thought I'd take some ordinary paper mache eggs and make them fancy. First I gave them a quick coat of paint, then I tore some scrap book paper into pieces and applied it using mod podge. They seemed a bit plain so I applied more mod podge and covered them with sparkling crystal glitter.

The glitter looked so pretty that I covered the remaining eggs using only sparkling silver glitter. Once dry, I placed them into a tarnished silver basket along with the chalkboard eggs.

Who says Easter eggs only look good in pastels?

Eggs-ellent Idea

I saw this idea on a local TV show
and immediately thought,
"Why didn't I think of that!"
Just because I didn't think of it
doesn't mean I can't share it with you.
Although I really should have thought of it
because it involves eggs and
black spray paint.
Don't do this with boiled eggs you'll eat.
Use wood, or ceramic eggs,
or hollowed out real eggs.
There is only one thing better
than a spray painted black egg . . .

a spray painted black chalkboard egg!If you don't like them in black,
chalkboard paint can be tinted almost any color.
Wouldn't these be wonderful
for place settings at Easter dinner?Now, you're probably saying,
"Why didn't I think of that!"