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House Tour: Restored Style


During my most recent adventure snooping around blogland, I found this lovely cottage. Again. It is the home of Kirsten Nieman of Restored Style and was featured on Young House Love earlier this year. It is just too beautiful not to share. Again. Kirsten’s home is so well put together, yet looks comfortable and lived in at the same time. Enjoy.


















Epic Room Makeover Part II

So many of you probably already know that Mandi from Vintage Revivals is doing yet ANOTHER Epic Room Makeover to one of her oh so lucky readers. Ya know what? I hope it’s ME!!! The area that I want made over is really my great room. It’s so SAD, but has so much POTENTIAL! Take a look for yourself and I’ll show you along the way why the great and powerful Mandi should travel her cute little self to AZ to redo MY place! WARNING: look at the pics at your own risk. The Hubs would be mortified if he knew I shared our house all over blogland looking like THIS! It’s mostly for dramatic effect though.




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This is the Oh So Sad view of my Family Room that you can see AS SOON as you walk in the door! GASP! The Hubs insisted on putting the couch there. I told him that it SCREAMS, “HALT! Who goes there and what makes you think you can come in my house. We’re not warm and fuzzy so turn around and go.” Yup, that’s what this says.

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Here’s the view of that room from the dining nook. Not dastardly. Who am I kidding?! Yeah I have cutesy frames on the wall with pretty pictures but it’s just drab!

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(Look at those kids. They NEED their family room made over too!)
Once you’re in the family room, it gets worse. (mess for dramatic effect) The view into the kitchen/dining area is quite pathetic. And do you see what I see? Buckets and buckets of orange ish brown ish FUGLY wood tones!!! Cause that’s what I see.

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This is our dining awesomeness! That round table there has a WHOPPING 48” diameter. As you can see, unless we get a rectagular table, much like this extendable rustic beauty, (hint hint, sounds like a DIY to me) This is as big as our table can get.


I don’t know if I even have to tell you what’s wrong here. Because the table is right inside the garage door, it is undoubtedly a catch-all. I mean catch-ALL. As for the rest of it, The paneling, THAT LIGHT FIXTURE, those shoes! My DIY shelf isn’t bad, but that’s about it.

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Did I mention our table is a catch-all? BTW, don’t you just LOVE the garbage and recycle bins right next to our table? Awesome right? Oh! “Why are my chairs different colors?”, you ask. It was the beginning of a DIY to go from orange to Dark Walnut, but we moved. Then moved again. So it has stayed like this. “Why do I only have 2 chairs?”, you ask. Because the Hubs may or may not have broken one. We roll out our computer chair every night to eat at the table together. Totally great!

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Who needs storage for their shoes? Not me. When you have a remnant of your carpet right inside the door, that slides out from under your feet when you walk on it, you DEFINITELY DON’T need shoe storage of any kind.

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And Lastly, the kitchen. Not necessarily a requirement in the Epic Makeover, but it’s totally awesome too. (Again, mess left for dramatic effect. I clean my house. I SWEAR.)
As you can see, Mandi, my room needs an EPIC ROOM MAKEOVER! Please show me some love and travel to sunny AZ to help me make my family/ dining room just as fabulous as you are! I would be the Happiest Camper ALIVE and Oh So Grateful! BTW-according to the timeline on Vintage Revivals, the makeover would take place over MY BIRTHDAY! Tell me it's not meant to be.

Luv your Guts! ;)
Ashley G

All Hallows Eve

After I dropped my 4 yr old off at pre-school today (tear) I took my 3 yr old to HomeGoods. I was looking for nothing in particular, but found EVERYTHING! They were setting the shelves with beautiful purple, green, silver, black and orange glittery everything for Halloween! If you know anything about my mother, then you know she kinda loves Halloween. shhh. Maybe even more than Christmas. GASP! I KNOW! But Halloween was totally fun at our house. Spider webs and witches everywhere. (Decorations. NOT my mother, 2 sisters and my pleasant self. Just to clarify. ;)  Not that I don’t LOVE a jolly fat man in a red suit with a fantastic beard that brings presents, but it’s really the Halloween decorations that get me really excited! So in honor of my totally awesome mom witch, hehe love you mom, here are some ultra fabulous Halloween mantels I searched crazily for stumbled upon. Enjoy!

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Am I the only one ready to bust out the Halloween décor even though it’s only August!?!

Call of the Wild

Anyone that knows my husband AT ALL, knows that he has a obsession passion for hunting. (Yes we eat what he kills and I’m a friggin good venison cook) Because of said obsession passion, I’ve started looking for ways to incorporate deer into our home design tastefully. I feel like I’ve been fighting this call of the wild since we bought our house just over a year ago thinking, “Now that we have our home and he has a man cave, the animals don’t have to be in here. right?” Wrong. It’s a part of our family. Our first born child is named Hunter for Pete’s sake. The mounts we have even have names and have traveled in the front seat of my car buckled in during our 7 moves across country. The obvious choice would be to just stick his mounted deer/elk on the wall above the TV. Besides, then he would have empty spaces on the walls in his man cave. Until after hunting season this year. So here’s what I’ve found scouring through blogland and I’ve got to say, I was pleasantly surprised and am enthusiastic about incorporating some deer into our present décor.

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What do you think? Will you answer the call?