Living Room - 2012 Show Us Your House Series

Welcome to our 1892 Colonial home in Maine!  Come in and make yourself comfy but don't mind the dog hair.  Our two pups like to help whenever the camera comes out.  

We're lucky that several period features were retained over the years like the pressed tin ceilings and wood trim work.

I found the Capiz mirror and turquoise glass lamp at Pier One.  They sell a different Capiz mirror now but they're still selling the same lamp.

Brewster fell in love the moment this comfy rug was unrolled.  It's the L.L. Bean rectangular 5'x8' chenille rug in Blue Meadow.  We live within an hour of their flagship store in Freeport, ME.  I found it deeply discounted at their annual Home tent sale.  It pulls together all the blue and green colors that I love.

The two club chairs with blue ticking stripe came from L.L. Bean too.

I love the textures on the love seat...

But it's not too precious to use everyday.  Everything can be tossed in the wash!

A daisy chain quilt that I made last year was intended for the living room but it's still hanging out in my craft room.   This reminds me that I need to bring it down to the love seat.  :)

I participated in Kelly's Show Us Your House series in 2010.  You can go here to see what my living room looked like back then.  I also shared more details about paint colors and what not before.

Visit Kelly's Korner to see lots of 2012 Living Room Tours this week!

Work in progress

Hi there!  We're alive and well over here at Welcome Sunshine Home.  Just super, ridiculously BUSY with our day jobs and this ol' blog is our hobby.  We'll soon be back to sharing projects regularly so don't give up on us yet!  :)

I'll be sharing some more gifts that I sewed for Christmas 2010 soon.  I started a king sized quilt but haven't had time to work on it since January 9th.  Ok, my memory isn't that good.  I only know the exact date because that's the last time I watched anything instantly through Netflix (British series Monarch of the Glen) and I noticed when I logged into my Netflix account earlier.  :)  Any way, that king size quilt isn't going to sew itself and I'm hoping to get back to it soon.

How many craft, sewing, and house projects do you usually have going at once?  I always have different projects started and even more in mind (heck, I have a fistful of paint swatches in my purse right now).  Here are some projects that I already have all (or most) of the supplies necessary to complete the whole project.

Sewing

• Quilt to be completed before winter 2011
• Top Secret Christmas 2010 Birthday Gift for Melissa
• Apron using fabric received from Laura in Fall 2010
• Purse fabric and pattern purchased Fall 2010
• Aprons using fabric and patterns purchased April 2010

Home*

• Master Bedroom closet purge/organization started September 2010 - It is thisclose to being done!
• Finish staircase renovation started March 2010 (um, yeah, 2010)
• Kitchen pantry purge and organization started Fall 2010
• 3rd floor office to craft cave started Fall 2010
• Transform back room off kitchen into new office

*Lesson learned:  Fall is not the time to start new home projects!

Crafts

• Spring mantle and more...Jeez, I can't give away all my secrets and plans at once!

Recipes

• Pineapple Fried Rice 
• A whole bunch of stuff that I know I took photos of and can't think of right now...

Just for Fun

• Concerts, baseball, board game parties, vacation, home show, etc

Books
I recently started rereading George R.R. Martin's The Song of Fire and Ice series since the long-awaited A Dance with Dragons is coming out July 12th!  I've only ever read books 1-3 so no spoilers please...  I'm also planning to reread the Harry Potter series in 2011.  What's your favorite book series?

Are you familiar with the 'Gitter Done' party at Songbird?  Donna from Funky Junk Interiors used to host it.  It's a place to share anything that you've finished.   It doesn't have to be pretty, cute, or even be a project.  It can be as simple as finally getting caught up on all your shredding.  Which I had done but now it's piled up again.  Grr.  Considering all the different things I listed above that I have available to work on, I'm hoping to have at least one thing a month to link up.  :)

So, what's happening at your place?  Have you marked anything off your to-do list in 2011?  Jake said my to-do list for 2011 must include "Get longer to-do list."

Favorite House Projects of 2010

If you're new to this blog, welcome to our home!  We started Welcome Sunshine Home in May 2010 and it's been a fun hobby for Jake and me to share outside of our full-time office jobs.  If you're a faithful reader, I hope you don't mind me gushing about our house.  Again.

In August 2005, Jake and I bought this 1892 colonial in southern Maine.  Our home has five good sized bedrooms, great closet and storage spaces, lovely moldings, and ONE bathroom.  Sigh  Gotta love the charm of older homes, right ?  :)  When we purchased it, every single square foot was screaming for TLC after surviving many years of rental abuse and neglect (chain smokers + absentee landlord = lots of damage).  We've used up gallons and gallons of paint, repaired broken windows, done painstaking wallpaper removal, removed nasty carpeting, overhauled the kitchen, updated the bathroom, and on and on and on.  So many projects that I can't even remember them.  All done before we became bloggers so we didn't think to capture 'before' shots of the house's pitiful original condition.

Ok, let's move on to my three favorite house projects of 2010...

Front Porch Makeover  

Before

After

Bedroom Switcheroo

We bought a king size bed then decided to move from the house's master bedroom (it has a walk-in closet but no bathroom) into one of our guest rooms.  Here's the guest room...        

Former guest room BEFORE (crummy cell phone photo from 2007)

New guest room AFTER (different room in our house)

Gift Wrapping and Ribbon Organization Wall

My absolute favorite!  Inexpensive, functional, and pretty.  Thank you, Jake! :)

Before 

awkward third floor half wall

After 

Wicked!  You can't see me but I'm behind the camera doing a happy dance.

Honorable Mentions

Our Living Room and Dining Room.  I appreciate their versatility and love how they've stood the test of time.

I hope you enjoyed seeing this peek into our home.  :)  Now, I'm off to see what everyone else picked!

Meet Me Under The Mistletoe Mantle

Jake and I are hosting a holiday party for a diverse group in a couple weeks.  We thought it'd be fun to mix it up and do something a little quirky with our holiday mantle.  We decided that a mistletoe and peppermints theme would be fun.  By "we decided" I mean that we talked about it over dinner at the Olive Garden last Saturday night while he was my captive audience.  :) 

Grab a mint and come on in!

 Max is ready for the holidays too in his little striped sweater from Target.  We picked up our cute initialed stockings there too.

 Here's a detailed look at the right side of the mantle.  If you look closely at the background of this photo (click it to enlarge it), you can also see some of the subtle damask texture of our living room walls.    

The red lantern was on our front porch all summer but I knew it'd be perfect on the mantle filled with ornaments we already had, some extra filler ornaments from Target's dollar spot, and clear Christmas lights.  I picked up the 'J' ornament at Hobby Lobby (50% off!) during my recent business trip to South Carolina.  The tall cylinder vase is filled with wrapped Brach's Star Brites peppermints.  Gotta love edible decorations!

Here it is at night.  So pretty!

Let's take a look at the left side next.

These glass hurricanes are simply inexpensive vases.  I nestled battery operated tea lights into unwrapped peppermint puffs.  How stinking cute is that?  The tall cylinder vase is stuffed full of wrapped candy canes.  


Click here to read about how I made the kissing silhouettes.  It was really easy and no cricut or silhouette machine is required!  The girl has a ponytail like me.  :)   It's hard to capture the twinkling of this red glittered paper on camera but I love it in person.  We found the mistletoe at Target after wandering around several other stores.

A little tip... Glitter was flaking off the paper like crazy so I sprayed it down with aerosol hairspray.  It didn't completely stop glitter from falling off but it helped a lot.  The same trick is used to set charcoal and pastel artwork.


Click here to read about the 'Mistletoe' banner I made for zero dollars this morning.

I love how fun and festive this area of our home looks.  Maybe we'll get a Christmas tree next!

Leila and Kevin from The Lettered Cottage are hosting a holiday mantle party November 30th.  Go join the fun and take a peek at holiday mantles all over the country!

  

Click here to see some of the parties we'll be mingling at this week.