Decorating for the Summer: A Patriotic Theme (Part 2)

Hello, and welcome to our great room

and dining area!

Continuing with yesterday's post,

here is our dining space...

The towels on the primitive ladder

were purchased at Hobby Lobby last week,

and replaced the beige and black ticking stripe

ones that I usually keep there...

I also bought the runner at HobLob,

and love the stars on it...

On the sideboard is a wooden plate which

had been painted by the artist mom of one

of hubby's son's friends,

along with some old transferware that I had.

The twiggy garland is also from HobLob...

Mr. Billy the Goat stands watch over our

fireplace most of the year.

Since the background is black, I didn't want

to use any navy blue here, so a minimal dose

of red seemed right.

This is the second year that I have put out

the little jars with (fake) flowers in them...

I've had the silver-glittered stars since I-

don't-remember-when,

but they seemed right to dress up the

red ribbon that has white stars on it...

Well, I wish you could come over and see it in person.

We could have some sweet tea and cookies!

Have you done any summer or patriotic decorating this year?

Decorating for the Summer: A Patriotic Theme (Part 1)

Happy Monday friends!

This year I decided to decorate some of our spaces for the

summer in a patriotic theme.

It's been a while since I've dragged out

my red and blue stuff

so in light of some of the bizarre things going on

in the world (and in our own country),

I wanted a reminder of what we are supposed to be about.

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I love to decorate our small entryway

for the seasons...

You may recall that this is part of an old

fireplace surround that I purchased when

I lived in Florida.

It actually came from an old house in

North Carolina,

and here it is back in its rightful state!

The flag banner was a cheapy from

Walmart that I spotted a few weeks ago,

and the mantel is topped with old

architectural salvage and a pitcher,

all of which I have had for a while...

Though I don't decorate with a lot of primitives

anymore, they feel at home in a patriotic

theme, and these I have also had for a while.

They were purchased in a shop in

Micanopy, Florida and made

by a couple of different

artists.

They are standing on the galvanized

milk box that I stand our little

farmhouse Christmas tree on.

I love the tinsel "sparklers"

that the big guy is holding!

If I were a REAL artist,

I would want to create works

with facial details such as these...

I don't want this post to be too

picture heavy,

so tomorrow I'll bring you

part 2 of my summer decorating.

Until then...

Christmas outside. Christmas inside.

Hello dear friends. I hope that you are doing well and enjoying the Christmas season. We are taking it easy this year as it was a busy and hectic year with Mr. Perch's leg. As usual, we decorated the inside of the house very minimally, but this year, right after Thanksgiving, we also did the outside in a minimal fashion since I basically had to do it all myself. Below are a few photos that I took last week or so.

We didn't put the lit garlands on the porch railings

this year.

I decided to use garden lights instead,

telling myself KISS: Keep it Simple Stupid!

I'm sure that there are those in the neighborhood

who surely think that I lost it.

I couldn't agree more...

To further antagonize those who never

want to march to a different beat,

we used the excess lighting

around this old primitive tree that we had

up in the attic and just left it on the porch

swing.

Do you want to guess if more than one

person has asked me if I needed help

standing up the tree?

I politely reply: "No, thank you."...

We put our old metal snowman from

the fifties by the steps going up to the porch...

I am a person who would father eat live

goldfish than shop on Black Friday.

I have never bought into the argument

that the good sales are only on that day.

Point proven:

Last week I went to Michael's and lots of

stuff was 70% off, and with quite a lot

of stock to boot.

I bought these lovely wooden

"Joy to the World" tags...

...and this nice wire basket,

with the fabric Noel painted in grey...

...although the fabric Noel was originally red, as seen below.

No problem, I just painted the letters grey with cheap

Walmart chalk paint.

At 70% off $19.99, who can go wrong?...

In that drastically reduced stash I also bought this

beige knit stocking, topped with fur,

and coordinating throw pillows, not seen

here, but I use them on the black rockers.

Also the twiggy heart below.

The greenery was also on sale...

Of course, I couldn't resist taking a winter

 photo of the back yard.

Not for any decorating reasons, but because our lawn is

back to being pretty and green,

thanks to our yard crew who did an outstanding job

of reseeding it this fall after we lost practically the whole

thing this summer while the Mister was in the hospital and the

sprinkler system let go...

But the best view of all is Mr. Perch,

for the first time since early August,

standing on his "own two legs" in front of

the fireplace last Friday after we got home

with his new leg...

What a wonderful sight to see!!

A Dollar and a Holiday Place Setting

Hello dear friends! I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas and are taking some time to relax now.

I am a Target shopper by nature. I love many of their selections at reasonable prices, and though I only go there about once a month, I do usually come home with something for either Plum Tree or The Nest. After I finished my actual Christmas shopping and wrapping, I went over there to pick up some bagged kale salad mix (they carry the one that's my favorite), and stopped in to browse the bargain section. If you shop there you may have noticed that right at the entrance, where you pick up your cart, there is usually a small section of items on sale, mostly seasonal. I couldn't help but notice that some of the Christmas doo-dads were things that had not previously been in the main Christmas department, so they must ship the inventory in from other stores.

I couldn't resist buying 

two packages of these...

...seasonal greetings printed 

on burlap-style fabric...

...and at four for a buck

who could resist?...

Of course, the red string did not do it 

for me,

so...

...a bit of a quick-change act

to black and jute twine...

...tied with some faux rusty bells

with silverware 

and taupe linen napkins

(also from Target)

and we have a place setting

for not-so-much-money-or-work...

For the first time I actually found chargers

that suited my dishes.

They were from Kirkland's for $3.99 each,

and believe it or not,

they are a nice grade of plastic

and won't scratch the table!

No place mats or table cloth necessary!

Love it.

If you're wondering where the wine glasses were,

we were already drinking out of them,

as these photos were taken just prior to

our Christmas Eve dinner!

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Did you incorporate any budget items into

your holiday decor this year?

Some Little Touches: The Last of Our Christmas Decor!

Hello to all!

I just thought I'd share a few of my little holiday touches, though certainly they are nothing spectacular!

This is our entryway.

Kept pretty minimal because 

hubby likes red and we

don't have a lot of it throughout the

rest of the house. 

He picked out the picture last year

when we were in the mountains

(it actually has some very cute twinkle

lights that we can turn on),

so I tried to work around it.

This is the area that I usually play

around with using stuff that I normally 

wouldn't put elsewhere.

The sign was done by a sign painter

on Etsy.

You can find all kinds of signage

there if you like it as much as I do!

The shelf is from an old fireplace

surround that I bought years ago when

I lived in Florida.

It originally came from an old house 

in NC, so I guess that you could say

it found its way back home!...

This is a pretty little apron that I bought 

in Walmart and matches the little 

deer plates that I featured a few days

ago...

Thanks for coming by.

What little things have you decorated with this year?

Our Great Room at Christmas

Good morning. I hope that your week has gotten off to a good start! Continuing with my previous post, here are some shots of our great room.

This beautiful 1800's glider horse sits on top of our 

entertainment center.

Shortly before Christmas last year,

I frivolously took the plunge on eBay winning the bid for it.

I never showed it on my blog because I could not get a 

decent photo of it, and still can't, 

as you see here. 

But it is such a beautiful antique that I am sharing it anyway.

She sits up there all year round,

with different seasonal pieces surrounding her...

This year we decided to go with a small,

4-foot country Christmas tree

which I decorated very minimally.

I purchased it on-line through Walmart.

On it there are tiny star lights 

(LED, and battery-operated) 

strung on beautiful bendable silver wire.

I purchased them on-line from the

baby division of Restoration Hardware...

...and lightly larger ones drape down over

the gifts,

antique galvanized milk box

(remember the days of the milkman?)

and bench.

We bought the milk box in Hendersonville

and I love it because the front of it says

"Willow Brook Farms".

The bench,

which I painted with Annie Sloan 

Chalk Paint (Olde White)

and finished with her clear wax, is one

that you may remember

from this post when it was 

an ugly shade of yellow...

To the left of the milk box is a basket 

filled with birch logs (from Michael's),

greenery, and a twig star

(which was originally a Walmart

tree topper from which we cut off

the red berries).

The basket is actually one that you

would use for serving utensils...

On the tree I put just 12 small mercury glass

ornaments, all different.

They were purchased on-line at Luna Bazaar

found here 

A lovely company to deal with!...

...and some hand-felted small acorns

through Etsy,

and found here...

...and then added about twelve crystal 

ornies. 

Can't remember where I got them, but

I think it was Target...

The best part about trimming this little tree

was that I could sit down and do it,

and then was able to move it to the bench.

This was a real bonus to my back,

which has been aching considerably

lately!!

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And now, for our big accomplishment of 

the season.

You may recall that a few years ago we 

bought an old black china hutch top 

and installed it over the fireplace.

You can see a post about that here.

It was nice for a time, 

but truthfully I got tired of figuring 

out how to decorate it seasonally

without it looking like it was always 

filled with "chotchkees".

So, Mr. Perch and I, who are

avid fans of HGTV's "Fixer Upper"

decided to rip out the shelving,

take off the top layer of the mantel,

which he had put on to support the hutch,

and add a beautiful piece of wood as

the top part.

He went to about five stores in search 

of the wood, since we knew that

we didn't want something typically found

at a big box store.

There is a wood-workers' store in Raleigh

called Klingspor's Woodworking Shop,

and there he found a beautiful piece of

butternut wood (not the squash!), 

which is also known as

white walnut, and more rare than

black walnut.

He cut it to fit,

sanded it smooth,

and I applied three coats of a wood 

finisher product that they recommended

(not a stain).

And of course, above it he planked the 

wall for a ship-lap look,

adding crown molding at the top.

As with the farm table 

and all of our diy projects, 

DH does the woodworking and building,

and I do the painting and staining.

Fair deal!...

We kept the rest of it simple by adding some

 glittered pine cone branches (bought at Michael's)

 to the mantel (the glitter looks like rock candy)...

...and swagged a glittery star and jute

 garland underneath it...

And since I couldn't find any decent

candle holders, I used, of all things,

two antique wooden bobbins

that I had upstairs in my studio!...

In this photo you can also see that we 

added greenery to 

the tops of the windows

(now minus curtains!)

which flank the fireplace...

There you have it!

Not quite what you would see on those 

beautiful, but heavily sponsored 

and advertised decor blogs,

but home just the same.

Home is where the (humble) heart is!

As ever, thanks for spending this time with me!