Dream Homes

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Mary from Little Red House did a post yesterday about McMansions and her dream home. I thought that would be a fun post so here's some pictures of what I consider my dream home. These first two pictures I took while on vacation on Martha's Vineyard. Look at the brick sidewalk...that was all over the town of Edgartown ~ I loved that! There are blocks and blocks of homes that look like these. Almost every home in the town is white with black shutters. Now you know why I'm obsessed with Martha's Vineyard!

These houses are way too big for me but I love that classic Cape Cod style.

The house above is from the movie Father of the Bride. I watched this movie so many, many times!

I love picket fences and a rose arbors too.
I also love homes with turrets and widow's walks...

I love the home from the movie Practical Magic too. I've found that a lot of bloggers share this love. I still remember when Victoria magazine did a spread on it before the movie came out. I watched Practical Magic so many times the tape broke inside my VCR and I had to throw it all away and get a DVD player and new DVD of Practical Magic. I still watch it alot.I've always known that I like white houses and as I was searching for pictures for this post I thought I better look for some other colors so I did a Google Search under Images for "elegant yellow home exterior" I got to page 4 and was I shocked to see a picture of my dining room! I didn't find any cute yellow houses so I guess I just have a thing for white houses!

Does anyone else want to join in and show their dream homes?

Autumn

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Autumn, originally uploaded by Romantic Home.

I'm ready for cooler weather. It was 85 degrees here yesterday and I'm so tired of it. It's supposed to start cooling down today and by next Monday the high is only supposed to reach 69 degrees...yay! Here are some beautiful photographs I found on Flickr. The sunflower in the top right corner is my daughter's. When she was taking that picture I asked her why she was taking a picture of the dead flower when there was a beautiful one right next to it. After we uploaded the pictures I was really surprised to see how nice this looked!

Some new things

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My mom and I love the same things. She has been passing down some of her things to me over the last few years. Lucky for me, my brother and sister don't like the same things that my mom and I do! Last weekend my mom brought me some more goodies from her home. Here are just some of them. This beautiful old linen and lace table cloth and the pitcher and glass set.

My mom bought this pitcher set at a flea market when I was little so I remember it always being around our home when I was a kid.

The glass is all crackly and it is so beautiful! This table cloth is beautiful too. My mom doesn't remember when or where she bought it, but it was probably at a thrift store or a flea market. She has drawers and drawers full of vintage linen and lace, one more beautiful than the last. She said she has 3 similar to this one. One of them has large grape clusters on the lace trim.

I have my mother to thank for my love of these types of things!

Romantic Country Party!

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I'm joining in on Karla's Party (click here). What I love about my home....

I love that even though I live in a rental apartment that I have made it my own by adding things I love. I love that I have things that my dad has made for me over the years. I love that when I look at some of my things, they bring up memories of walking through the flea market with my mom. (my mom is still alive just not able to get out very often now because of her health)
I love that I have decorated my home on a budget. It has forced me to be creative!
I love that I was able to find an apartment with a little bit of a backyard!

I love my bedroom. This furniture was in my family since I was a kid and with some white paint I have given it a new life!



So go visit Karla and take a peek into some beautiful Romantic Country Homes! This is my second post today so scroll down to see the lovely gift that Fifi sent me....

A gift from Fifi

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I'm sure you all know who Fifi is...if not, click here to see her beautiful blog, Chez Fifi. She doesn't just have a beautiful blog and home, she seems to have a beautiful heart! She said she had something to send me and yesterday the package arrived ~ on my birthday ~ although it was not planned as a birthday present...just good timing! It was beautifully wrapped and as much as I wanted to rip open the package I grabbed the camera first.

Inside I found this beautiful painting. Aren't the colors perfect for my home? I love it! I now have to find the perfect spot for it. I have it in my bedroom now but I think it will be moving downstairs so it can be enjoyed by more people.

Thank you Fifi! I love it!

Wow, I'm 47 today!

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Today is my birthday and I cannot believe I'm 47! Please don't say I look good for 47 because the picture on my profile is from my 25 year High School Reunion and it's 4 years old already. I haven't taken a decent picture since then!

The great news about being on the very front page of HGTV yesterday was the best birthday gift ever. I woke up this morning to see if it was still there and it was gone ~ oh well, at least I saw it and I got a screen shot of it and I will never forget how great that felt. Thank you all for the nice comments!

I CANNOT BELIEVE IT!

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Remember how happy I was when my dining room was on the front page on HGTV's Rate My Space? Well, HGTV has now put me on the front page of their HGTV main website! Go to www.hgtv.com and scroll down! I really was doing the happy dance today!!!

They even added "This single mom on a budget has perfected the look of shabby chic"

Okay, I need to come down a little bit and go grocery shopping now!

Wallpaper for my powder room?

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Click to enlarge

I heard wallpaper is coming back in style! I found this wall paper and I love it! I'm thinking about wallpapering my powder room with it. When you walk into my entry way the kitchen is on the left and the little powder room is on the right. Straight ahead is the dining room/living room. Trying to make all these rooms flow together but not look all the same is challenging. Blue toile seems to be the one thing tying them all together but I hope this won't be too much! This pattern is Waverly Harlow Toile. I love the rose arbor, the urns and the birdhouse on it ~those are all things I love! Hmm....I wonder if it's too cutesy though...I don't want cutesy....I want elegant, romantic, etc.

Look at all these blue toile wallpapers (click here)! You'll see the one above is very light blue compared to the others. There are pages and pages...they have 101 different kinds of blue toile wallpaper just at this one place! How will I ever chose!

I like this one too but it may be too busy for such a small powder room. It's called Geneve from Just Toiles.

My Mirrored Staircase

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I've added a couple more mirrors to my staircase since the last time I showed you. Most of these mirrors were under $5 and were found at thrift stores, and garage sales. A lot of them had gold plastic frames that I've painted white. I always use different shades of white or antique them a little differently so they aren't so matchy. I still want to get more so I'll keep you updated. If you want to see a beautiful staircase of mirrors go check out this blog that I just found yesterday. The mirrored staircase is at the bottom of her post. That staircase is much more grand than mine! I love it!

I took these pictures last night which is why it's so dark!

Toile and Kitchen Redo Help Needed

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I love toile and have so much of it around my home. Sometimes I wonder if I've overdone it. I bought the toile pillow above at the flea market. This would be really easy to make. It's like a little slipcover with ties on the side. The toile throw next to it is from Marshalls.
I also bought this toile table runner from Marshalls. I love the look of toile and transferware together. Yep, you guessed it, this pillow is from Marshalls too! I have 3 of these. They are nice heavy feather stuffed pillows.

I even have toile in my kitchen. I made the little valance when I moved in this place over 3 years ago. I usually don't show pictures of my kitchen on my blog because it needs so much work but I'm going to start this project next. I'm going to repaint the cabinets white (they are a bland off white now) and paint the walls. What color do you think I should paint them? I'm thinking a gray-blue but I'm undecided. There is a soffit that runs above the cabinets (where I have the plates hanging) ~ should I paint that the same color as the walls or should it match the ceiling? Or, should I paint the ceiling the same color as the walls too? What would you do? Remember I just rent so don't tell me to rip it all down. Edited to add: The other rooms downstairs (living & dining room) are painted yellow.

Here is the other side of the kitchen (it's an L shape). I've thought about putting plates all along the soffit, do you think that would be too much?

A note to the anonymous person who left a comment on my "Painting Furniture Step by Step" post: I'm sorry that you think painting wood is a "crime" and that I "screwed them up good". I, along with many others like painted furniture. People have different tastes and the world would be really boring if we all thought the same way.

My Patio Garden

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Fall is in the air today in Silicon Valley. It's only going to be 69 degrees which is really low for this time of year. The flowers on my patio are blooming like crazy so I thought I would share them with you.

Thank you all so much for the very nice comments yesterday. I have some more good news....I now have two rooms on the front page of HGTV's Rate My Space under "Today's Most Viewed" (my dining room and bedroom) and I probably should thank all of you for clicking that link, I'm sure that had a lot to do with it!

I'm doing the "Happy Dance"

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I'm so excited! One of my dear blog readers just emailed me to let me know that my dining room is on the MAIN PAGE of HGTV's Rate My Space "Today's Most Viewed Rooms"! I can hardly believe it! YAY...I'm doing the happy dance! I'm so excited I may not be able to sleep tonight! Who would think that a 1960's rental fourplex decorated with thrift store and flea market things could compete with all the beautiful homes on there! Click here to see it (although it may not be on the front page for long) If it's not on the main page, click here for the link to all my rooms. I hope this post does not come across as bragging....I'm just so excited (and shocked beyond belief) that I just had to share!

Updated: If this wasn't enough excitment for one day... I just hit my all time high visits to my blog too! 600 people have visited my blog today and I want to thank all of you! 600 visits in one day! WOW!

Shells

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Remember my garage sale glass house? The ferns I had in it died shortly after they were put in there and I grew tired of it in my living room/dining room so I've moved it upstairs into my bedroom. I decided to put all my shells in it for now. I still would like to get some large ones to fill it up a little but I like the way it looks...for now anyway.

When I was looking back through my old posts to find my original post about this glass house, I saw that I had already done a post about Claire Murray and her magazine La Vie Claire in May, I can't believe I repeated myself. If I haven't already told you, I have a really bad memory! Sorry about that!

Claire Murray and La Vie Claire Magazine

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La Vie Claire ~ The Clear Life ~This is one of my favorite magazines. I have every single issue ever published! It is such a beautiful magazine. It's just so Nantucket/Martha's Vineyard and you know how I'm obsessed with those wonderful places! Below are some of the images from the magazine taken from their website. Click here to see more about the magazine.

I've loved Claire Murray's things for a long time. I visited her shop when I was on vacation in Martha's Vineyard last summer. It was FILLED with her rugs. They are so beautiful you hate to walk on them. This one with the nest below is one of my favorites! Click here to visit her website and see more of her beautiful rugs.

She even sells kits (needlepoint, counted cross stitch and rug hooking.

You can read more about Claire Murray here.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!