Dream Homes

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

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

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!

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

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!

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!

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?

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

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

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

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"

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

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

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!

I Met Elliott Yamin today!

I couldn't keep you all hanging any longer with my tease I left this morning! I met Elliott Yamin (former American Idol Finalist) today at work. Not only did I meet him but I hung out in a conference room alone with him for about 35 minutes! He had a meeting at my company today (sorry I'm not going to say where I work). The first part of the meeting he was here to attend was with our people and his people so I had to keep him company while they met. I thought it would only be about 15 minutes but it was 35 minutes at least! I took him on a quick tour upstairs and a bunch of girls recognized him...all I could hear is giggling when we walked away. We went back down to our little conference room which was so HOT! I was talking to him and all I could think about is how hot I was (and not because of him, he's way too young to get me hot in that way). I really thought I was having serious hot flashes! I felt so relieved when he said it is hot in here and took off his jacket! Next thing I know a bunch of the giggling girls from upstairs come to the conference room (the door was open) and asked if they could get pictures with him. They were prepared with the camera phones in hand. They left and another guy came down and wanted his picture taken. It was fun. Amazingly I was not as nervous as I thought I would be. He's a really nice, down to earth guy and easy to talk to. I asked him about all the places he's been since American Idol and he said he really likes visiting new places. I asked him about his mom...if you watched American Idol, she was always there in the audience.

The picture above is Elliott leaving our company. The picture below is him autographing a photo for my daughter. I also got an autographed CD. I had my picture taken with him but it is too bad to even post here. I look like an Amazon next to him....he's really short and I had heels on. I also had a double chin somehow appear in that photo...yuck, it's one of those photos that you just want to trash.
I was a Elliott fan before I met him but now I really like him! NICE, NICE GUY! The type of guy that when he shakes your hand he looks into your eyes! I was VERY IMPRESSED!


Here is his video just in case you don't know who he is (I can't imagine that though)!

Something exciting is happening today!

Something really exciting is happening at work today! A celebrity is coming in and I get to hang out with him alone for awhile in a conference room before he gets introduced into the meeting he's here for. It's so exciting but I'm really nervous too. I just hope the conversation keeps flowing. I'll tell you who it is tomorrow! I hope to get some pictures to show you too!

Pasta Pomodoro

I have so many ripe tomatoes from my garden so I made one of my favorite light dinners last night....Pasta Pomodoro. It's so simple...fresh tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, fresh basil and kosher salt. I don't use a recipe but if you would like one, this recipe looks very close to how I make it.

Carmel-by-the-Sea

Last week I was reading Barbara Jacksier's blog and she said she was getting on a plane from New York to San Francisco to go to Carmel for a photo shoot for her book. My thoughts then turned to Carmel...I love Carmel. I couldn't get it out of my mind. I only live an hour away from Carmel and I hadn't been there for a few years. So, Saturday my daughter and I drove to Carmel. We packed a picnic lunch and ate on the beach, walked around town, drove around to take pictures of some cute cottages and then went on the "17 Mile Drive". We even took our dog Beau because Carmel is a very dog friendly town. A lot of the shop owners put bowls of water outside their doors for the dogs. We had a great day and I took a lot of pictures to share with you.

There are a lot of cottages with beautiful wavy roofs like the one below.
It was a really overcast day so the pictures aren't very clear. It was about 68 degrees.

When we were on the "17 Mile Drive" we turned a corner and saw and wedding taking place on the beach (below).
Isn't this full size bronze park bench with an elderly couple cute? Look at her purse sitting next to her.
These white and green hydrangeas were so beautiful. I would have got a closer picture but we were in the car driving by.
Tree art...
If there are hydrangeas in the yard I have to get a picture....

The yard in the picture below was so beautiful.
At the end of the "17 Mile Drive" you come to the Pebble Beach Golf Course.
I think this was a tea room.

There are lots of streets with these little cottages. There were so many for sale, I couldn't believe it. These sell for multi-millions though...even the small ones. If you don't believe me, click here.



There are so many beautiful places in Northern California. I'm going to try to get out more and enjoy them.
Here's Beau on the beach.

Click here for more information about Carmel.

My Window Frame Mirror

One of my dear readers asked if she could see some closeup pictures of this mirror. I sent them to her through email and thought I would share these with you also. My dad made this for me many years ago. He started with an old window frame which was very plain. He added the top and bottom portion. I added the mirrors and painted it blue and now it hangs in my dining room. I've thought about painting it white but I'm not sure if I should.

Coffee or Tea? and I've been tagged!

Teacups...they're just so feminine aren't they? I'm a coffee drinker and I prefer to drink my coffee black in a mug but when I drink tea, it must be in a teacup with cream and sugar! It's hard to do decorative things with coffee mugs but teacups are like little works of art.

I really need to get more teacups in my collection they are just so much fun to decorate with!

I've been tagged twice this week. Once by Amanda, The Cottage Contessa (I love that name) but Amanda, I can't figure out how to get to your blog. When I click on your message it brings me to your profile page but there isn't a blog listed. Amanda gave me a "Nice Matters Award" I've lost count on how many of these I've received but I always say you can never be too nice! Thanks Amanda! Updated: Here is the link to Amanda's blog

I was also tagged by Priscilla, from Priscilla's cottage for the name game.

Here are the rules: Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had. When you are tagged you need to write your own blog post containing your own middle name game facts. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

My name is Cynthia Susan...

S - Sumatra Coffee from Peets. My son just sent me a pound of Aged Sumatra from Peets...LOVE IT!

U - Understanding...something I always try to be.

S - Single...but wish I was married to a wonderful guy.

A - Affectionate...Hug your kids! I love to hug my kids!

N - Nutella...love Nutella and I'm really hungry right now so I wish I had some!

I'm not going to tag anyone but if you want to join in please consider yourself tagged!

Another Project

I found this sconce at the thrift store for $3. It was ugly, ugly, ugly. I was trying to explain it to a friend and I said, "it's gold plastic, very ornate with crystals hanging down" She raised one eyebrow and said "Plastic with crystals? hmmm sounds interesting" but her facial expression said "how tacky can you get?" Once I painted it white put some silver Rub N Buff on it, it now looks like it's carved wood not plastic.

I put it up in my dining room but I'm not liking it next to the little cabinet my dad made. My plan is to get a china cabinet or hutch which will be just to the right of this cabinet and then this cabinet will be moved somewhere else in the house.

If you noticed something silver behind the sconce, it's an old telephone jack. Remember when telephones used to be on the wall? I need to paint it yellow so it blends in with the wall a little better. I wish I could just rip it out but then I would have to learn how to patch sheetrock.

A Little Project

I found this cute little tote box at the thrift store awhile ago. It was cute as it was but it was a little dirty and the price sticker had discolored the paint on the top left side. Also, it was the wrong colors for my home but for $3 I didn't want to pass it up because I knew all it needed was a little paint. I added a rose applique to each side and painted it white and distressed it a little.
I'm going to use it for buffet style meals to hold the flatware wrapped in napkins.

Someone asked about the bluebird plates on my last post. They are made by The Salem China company. Click here to see my post about them last February when I bought them. I've never been able to find out any more about them.

Edited to add: Since every time I put a picture of my quilt on my blog,
someone emails me and asks where I got it so I though I should include it
here. It is from Summer's Cottage. You can find a link to
her on my sidebar under "My Favorite Places to Visit"

More Thrift Store Finds

I found some more Noritake China at the Goodwill a couple weeks ago. It's not the same pattern that I found before but they are all mixing and matching together quite well. There were only 3 dinner plates, 99 cents each, 3 salad plates, 79 cents each and 3 bowls, 99 cents each. Below you can see my different patterns together. The bluebird plates aren't Noritake but I think they all go well together.


I also found this tureen for only $5.99. It only says Austria on the bottom so I don't know much about it. It's missing the ladle so I'm going to look for a pretty silver ladle to use with it.

I also found this cute Bunnykins mug for $2.99
I hope everyone is having a great Labor Day weekend! I wish every weekend was a 3-day weekend...this is nice being home on a Monday! I'm going to work on a small project today so hopefully I'll have some pictures of it to share later in the week.