More Guest House

Today the blinds for the great room should be installed. The windows are very low so we raised the shelves over them so they will appear to have better proportion when the brown and camel match stick blinds are added. Our friend Sarah just installed them in her work room and when we saw them we decided they would be just the ticket to expand the windows and add more texture. The color will bring the floor color up higher and tie things together nicely we hope.
If you want you can go to Dana's blog and read more about our shabby Lady lamp that is on the half wall that divides the sun porch from the great room. We debated about putting bar stools her and decided that it would be best left open.
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Here's a picture of a couple of chairs in the sun room. We are still deciding if we should put blinds on these windows or not. The view is pretty but in the evening it does get a bit over exposed.

Dana has pictures of the counter tops and the farm sink on her blog and will continue to post progress pictures as things develop. Thanks for coming along with us as we put together this fun little house. Dana did a good job of designing the renovation and arranging for everything. I had a good time just coming in for the fun part of picking out the furnishings and installing them with her.

Hope you are enjoying the Guest House journey with us as much as we have enjoyed hearing from all of you.

Hugs,

Sue

Front Porch and Green Shabby Guest Room

This is the front of the guest house with the porch that, though I argued against and wanted a low terrace, turned out just fine.
The smaller of the two bedrooms is done in the green Shabby Chic bedding from Target. The side chair is draped with one of the Shabby Chic shower curtains that match the bedding in the bigger bedroom. We bought three of them with the intent of using them for curtains in the other bedroom but used one to cover this very comfy chair that was just the wrong shade of green.

The bathroom still isn't finished. When it is done Dana will probably post pictures. It is very small but should function alright for short term visitors. I did take a quick shower in the corner shower that has yet to receive its glass shower doors with only a small flood on the tile floor which held up quite well ;)

Shabby Chic Bedroom

This is the larger of the two bedrooms. We knew we wanted to use Rachel Ashwell's Shabby Chic bedding from Target for both bedrooms so that was our starting point. She has so many pieces at reasonable prices that it is a quick and easy way to get a look with out to much expense.
Our next stop was the antique mall which had two old doors wearing suitably shabby shades of pealing pink and green paint on them and a sweet pink lamp. The builders cut the doors to fit as head boards and hung them for us.
The chair and lamp provide a quiet place for guests to relax.
An old dresser gives them a place to put on their makeup and set their stuff.

Going Green

The guest house embraces green living from the color of the decor to the use of found items and energy efficient light bulbs. It was so cute yesterday morning when I jumped into Dad's hybrid car and saw his little green reusable shopping bag in the back seat.

We are so excited for Mom and Dad to get home from vacation to have them see their green guest house. They have been away all of last week while we put everything together for them and we hope they are pleased that we kept with a green theme in decorating and energy efficiency.

This nook in the kitchen with the lamp that needs to be reworked will be a comfy spot for them to have coffee in the morning. The old cupboard successfully holds dishes, food, TP & PT for easy access.

This corner shows the use of an old flour bin that we found in their basement and incorporated into use as additional shelf space. It fits in just right to allow a place for a trash can and a recycle can as well as allows room for the broom and dust pan.
The shelf over the window is held up with old brackets that we found St. Germain's antique shop and holds some mementos from Mom's attic. The big picture of flowers was also from the attic.

By Friday we had most everything finished but I didn't take pictures because we had company coming and I just ran out of time. Dana has a couple of other photos posted on her blog.

Hope everyone had a good week.

Work In Progress

Here are a couple of pictures of our work in progress. It took about an hour to load these two pictures on this dial-up lap top so not much time to go into detail. We still need to write some orders yet and get them in tonight.
Hope all is well with every one. More pictures might be on Dana's blog later.

Guest House Progress Report

Things are starting to come together at the guest house that Dana has been working on for my parents. This week I will be up here helping get it decorated. The builders will be in finishing up and getting it all cleaned up, hopefully tomorrow. Saturday we went to a local furniture store and picked out an apple green sofa, a green and white check chair with an ottoman to match, and another chair with a dark brown background, white roses and green leaves. We picked out the mattresses and frames for the two little bed rooms and a couple of night stands.

The old wood floors that we had refinished turned out pretty well. They still are dusty but we think they will be nice when they get them cleaned up.

Tomorrow we will head to the junktique shops around here for the end tables, lamps and what
ever else we can find. Target and TJ Maxx hopefully will have bedding and kitchen supplies to stock the kitchen with and finish up the bedrooms.

I'll try and post our progress as we go along. Hope you all had a good weekend. The weather here at the lake was just beautiful.

Vera Bradley Store ~ Troy, MI

Several months ago the new Vera Bradley store at Somerset Mall opened. When you first enter you feel like you are walking into someones home, someone with a very creative eye for creating a large impact in a very small space.
My first thought was that this space, so beautifully laid out, would be a nice arrangement for a retirement condo or small home. The architectural detail and proportion was so precise that even with all the pattern, which I like but some might find objectionable, you immediate felt balanced and comfortable. The ceiling treatments really caught my eye from the moment you enter.
This little dining room area, to the left of the entry, is wallpapered in a Thibaut pattern with a dark brown background. The yellow toile upholstered chairs and needlepoint rug were so cute and fit the area really well.
The body of the store was papered in brown and cream buffalo checked wallpaper from Scalamandre. It is the biggest checked paper I've ever seen. Across from this grouping on the wall was a sofa covered in the brown check with little side tables on either side , a coffee table in front and a sofa table behind it, set up just like a living room.

Hope you enjoyed this little tour of the Vera Bradley store. Oh, they sell purses too ;)

The Path of The Lord

Well, I had some pictures to show you of the gorgeous new Vera Bradley Store in Troy but the pictures won't load. I won't bore you with the whole ~~~this is the reason that our computer was in being fixed because the UBV, UBA, what ever, thing didn't work~~~story.

Instead of fretting over such things I stepped away from the computer to get started watering my plants and swipe the feather duster over the spots left vacant by the draining plants while this old picture uploaded. God leads us and I give him the glory for occasionally letting me follow. Today I followed. While this picture was loading I plugged in the video that Angie made me for my birthday. Some of you have seen Angies video that she made for me on Mothers Day three years ago and know how cool they are. This new video is even more glorious. I pray for the knowledge to some how be able post it here to share it with you.

Many of you left comments when Aaron was sick with the passage from the Bible that says that if God brings you to it, He will bring you through it. Oh dear ones, I am hear to tell you that it is so true. There were times during the past few months that I hung onto that passage for all I was worth and today as most days give Him all the glory for being faithful to His Word. Our families, everything that we have, are gifts from God that we have to hold on to loosely. It is all so fleeting. He gives us fleeting glimpses of beauty, the beauty that is His and He shares with us. He shows us glimpses of pain and sadness that He shares with us. His pain that He must feel when He sees us suffer or head off down some dangerous path.

In these fast moving, internet connected times, where we have the potential to reach all the people of the earth and all the people of the earth have the potential to reach us, let us guard our hearts and homes for God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that he {even} gave up His only begotten {unique} Son, so that whoever believes in {trusts in, clings to, relies on} Him shall not perish {come to destruction, be lost} but have eternal {everlasting}life. Let us cling to his promise from the Holy Bible in John 3:16. Let us not be distracted by the times and remain diligent in our walk with the Lord.

Getting Organized

Hi there! My computer has been out of commission the past few weeks, so if I haven't gotten back to you, please accept my apologies. I have missed you!

After this busy winter it was time to get organized again. Before even attempting to dig into organizing I had to gather and update my tools. The first tool to be updated was our calender that some how was still on February ;)

Carrie wrapped my birthday presents in the prettiest paper so I recycled it to cover my enlarged Control Journal to give me a little inspiration to pretty things up a bit. Please forgive the spaghetti sauce on the wallpaper in the above photo, the camera points out everything~~~~
My old Control Journal was packed to over flowing so I switched to a larger note book and printed out the page from Alison at Brocante Home as my title page.
Meal planning is probably my least favorite job. I love to cook, set the table and don't even mind the clean up but have a hard time deciding what to fix for dinner. My Master Grocery List helps me to quickly go through the pantry and refrigerator, see what I have on hand or might need and plan from there each week. It is not fool proof but at least it is something.
There is way more than I stock regularly on the list but it reminds me to think about what we might be out of that we will add to the shopping list for the week.
My final tool is my planner which gets put to use usually when I get behind like I have recently.

With my tools updated and gathered up last week I was able to get a good portion of the house back into running order. The basement, garage and yard still need attention but today is supposed to be a beautiful day here and Angie is coming down to do some shopping so I am off to get ready to meet her and enjoy this day that the Lord has made.

Thank you for continuing to stop by! I have really missed you all.

Hugs,

Sue