Houndstooth - How I Love Thee

As I was reading through my WONDERFUL AND AMAZING comments that I LOVE SO DEARLY - I read a comment from my cousin, Jana, that made me remember when I was telling her about my bench project - she didn't know what houndstooth was.  GASP. 

A better view for you. 

So I googled it...I googled it a lot:

"Characterized by broken checks or abstract four-pointed shapes, often in black and white, although other colours are used." 

And boy, does it come in a lot of other colors.  Some of my faves:

     Of course I am going to put green first!

      There are a ton of different pink shades

        I really like this soft grey color. 

"Houndstooth checks originated in woven wool cloth of the Scottish Lowlands"

I love it so much - it's such a classic look. Big Thank You to the Scottish!!  

It's great for clothing

      Ummmm, can I please get this????

In the home

          This is adorable.  I have a set of twin beds that I've been hoarding in my storage room.  I've been looking for something to do with them. Perfect.

Accessories

This would motivate me to play golf with Brian this summer

       Howie and Patterson could be stylin to the vet in this!

       And let's not forget something for my puppy (any day now, Brian is gonna cave - I hope)

Houndstooth for my hound

Ok, you get it.  I love Houndstooth.  And I'm ALWAYS on the lookout for it. 

Geez, It's About Time!

I've had a basket sitting outside my door for 2 months now for the mail man/woman to place our mail during the winter. 

I've taped our mail slot up to keep the cold draft from coming in. I've even stuffed it with a foam piece.

But somehow, everyday, he/she manages to STILL get the mail through the slot. I even taped an index card to the mail slot that read, "MAIL" and an arrow pointing down. That didn't work. And the card went missing.

FINALLY!!!

Oh look, the newest Martha is in, I know what I'll be doing tonight =) 

And the January issue of the Junior League "Bloom" - which Junior League is one of my New Years Resolutions- to actually be involved and go to meetings.  Please fellow Junior Leaguers, drag me even if I am kicking and screaming and saying that I feel a sudden flu coming on. 

A Lil Hope

I have an old hope chest that my mom used to store her winter sweaters.

It's cedar on the inside and a very sturdy piece of furniture.  But the oak wood on the outside isn't my thang.

Brian wanted to put it on the curb, but I just couldn't let it go.  

I got a lil slap happy and started painting BEFORE I got a good before pic. Sorry. 

I bought the paint & primer from Home Depot.  There was NO WAY I was sanding this!!

I stapled tons and tons of cushioning to the top.  (By the way, a staple gun has probably been one of the best purchases ever).

I don't have a THANG for oak...but I have a BIG THANG for houndstooth.  I LOOOVVVEEESSS IT!

I got 2 yards of some houndstooth fabric for $10 at JoAnn's.  Stapled some more...

  And made a bench!  The pillows came from Garden Ridge for $9.99 each.  I had good intentions of making these myself.

This was the space before...

And after...

No joke, Patterson tries to get in EVERY picture I take.

Can you tell I painted the front hall as well?? I'll blog about that a lil later though.

I need a smaller, more colorful pillow to put in front of the black pillows.  Something that makes it POP!

Well thats my bench.  We love it, on a normal basis, we throw our shoes in here when company is coming over... but I accidentally locked the keys inside the chest.  Oops.

I LOOOVE comments almost as much as I LOOOVE houndstooth,  hint hint...

Oh, and I was just informed by my best friend that she reads everyone of my blog posts but she has yet to leave a comment or become a follower.  Shame on you!  (pointing my finger in the air) 

Happy Tuesday,
Joy D.

I've posted my project here, check out some other fantastic projects by others and get inspired!

One Man's Trash is...Now in my Dining Room

Brian is ALWAYS on the prowl for a good deal.  And he loooves looking for junk  treasures.

Here is my analogy of it:

Facebook to Joy is Craigslist to Brian.

No joke, when I'm bored, I just hop on FB.  When Brian surfs the internet...he goes straight to Craigslist.

Last week Brian showed me an ad for 30 Real Christmas trees that someone needed to get rid of.  Brian thought there was an opportunity in this.  I quickly shot it down.  Brian can come up with some pretty crazy ideas....

So when he came home one day with a mischevious grin on his face and told me to jump in the car cause he said he had something to show me, I was nervous.  And a lil scared. 

We pulled up to a house down the street that looked like it had just done some fall cleaning.  A huge pile of trash was piled on the curb and Brian had his eye on 3 chairs that laid in the rubbish.  But this time, I didn't shoot down his enthusiasm. 

Yes, we salvaged this chair (2 to be exact) from the trash, to the garage.  Where it waited, and waited, and waited. 

See where it was super frayed on the cushions??
The wood had leftover particles of dried up food on them, dust, grime, the works!!!!

The third chair has a rattan back that is somewhat similar to these guys.  I haven't done anything with it yet so it's still in the garage just waiting...waiting...



With the same fabric I used for the dining room curtains, I used for the chairs.

I first CLEANED THE HECK out of the chairs and gave them a good polish.  I love orange glo wood cleaner.  I drown a paper towel in this stuff then wipe down the wood, making sure to leave a lil excess on the wood for it to soak up. 

Only the top cushion popped off, NOT the base, so I measured the whole thing around, traced the top cushion onto the fabric and added a few inches to the trace. 

I put padding in between the cushions so the fabric wouldn't hug into the crease. 

And then I stapled the ba-geebers out of this thing to get the fabric to stay in place.  Don't worry, we've tested it and nothing has ripped...so far.

With some extra fabric, I made a border to go along the bottom so it covers up the staples.  This is a pic of the border pinned on. 

Used some fabric glue...(still drying in the pic)

Total cost of the project: $12.99
I used 2 yards of fabric for $5.00 (it's usually $9.99 a yard but it was on sale) and $2.50 for fabric glue - I estimated the tax, I'm prob a lil low.

 Without the new chairs on the side... oh and the super small dining room table we had before

And Now...

I have some leftover credit to the Keeneland Gift Shop, so I might go this weekend and see if they have any needlepoint pillows with horses on them.

Like my project?? Leave a comment - I promise, I get a BIG smile on my face everytime I see I have a new one =)

We Hope To See You Next Year!!

There are 2 Christmas decorations still up that I have been completely procrastinating taking down. I love them both to pieces and don't want to see them go =(

I mentioned in this post how much I LOOOOOOVVVVVEEEEE Christmas cards, well here is the Christmas Card Tree with all of your FABULOUS cards

I thought of this idea a few years ago, I loved getting Christmas cards, but I didn't have a good place to put them. So I bought a lil tree and started using the cards as the tree's decorations. Where do you display your Christmas cards?? Do you see your Christams card on our tree??

I love seeing the reminder of all the friends and families who thought of us during the holiday season. I'm such a pack rat too, I never throw Christmas cards away.

We had so many precious Christmas cards this year that Brian, and I quote, said,"We might just have to get a bigger tree next year." You heard it!! I got permission to get a bigger tree =) He'll regret it later when I actually go out and get a bigger one.

We hope we get to see you next year on my even bigger Christmas Card Tree!!! Looks like I'll be needing a few more cards to fill the tree, newcomers are ALWAYS welcomed and adored!

The next decoration I don't wanna take down (throwing a fit, kicking and screaming) is the Boxwood garland that is wrapped around all 3 sets of stairwells in my house.
With the lights on...

Now with the lights off...

ISN'T IT B--U--T--FULL (spell that out in your head very slowly, for the full affect of the way I'm saying it).

Do you think I could pull this off year round?? I'm a tad bit obsessed with Boxwoods. Really nice fake Boxwoods can be kind of pricey.

Our wedding reception site has a gorgeous stairwell in the front hallway. I couldn't just leave it bare for the reception, so I found this to be the PERFECT opportunity to buy some Boxwood garlands. I found some really reasonably priced ones here. I bought 5 of them and still have one in the packaging that wasn't used.

My florist did a great job sprucing these up:

Oh gosh, will you look at the time?!? It's getting awfully late, guess I'll just have to take down the tree and garland tomorrow. Darnit ;)

Joy D

P.S. I love reading comments almost as much as I love getting Christmas cards. So if you want to put a smile on my face, comments are greatly and happily appreciated.

Dining Room Project, Part 3: The Jockeys take their Mount

We have tons of wall space and nothing to cover them with. And for Christmas, Brian specifically asked for Art. That didn't quite fit Santa's budget, but he improvised and made brought us some great stuff to hang on the walls.

I've had my heart set on these Jockey prints from Keeneland for the LONGEST time

There's about 5 of them, and at the time they were $132 EACH framed. That was def not in my budget. I check the Keeneland gift shop website about once a week for good sales, and finally a few weeks ago, the prints went on sale....to $80 a piece. This still was not in my budget. But the actual prints were on sale, for $12 each. That was a lot more in my price range. You can get them here but hurry, they are going fast!!!

I went to Michaels and got 4 wooden frames. They were $35.99 each, but every other week, Michaels picture frames go on sale for 50% off, so I got them for $18 each. I also picked up 2 sheets of background paper for $2.50 each.

Sorry, before pics were taken on my iphone before I found my camera charger.

Took the glass from the frame and traced along the paper

With lots of patience and strategic planning, we taped the prints EVENLY in the center of the background paper. Check the fellas out

I was so proud of these bad boys that I couldn't stop looking at them and getting super giddy.

Left Side

Right Side

And all together

I know, the China cabinet gets in the way of one side.

So 4 of these already framed from Keeneland would have cost me $320
Total Cost of my project: $125 and a super proud giddy feeling.

Project Dining Room, Round 2: A Silver Display

I inherited a bunch of BEAUTIFUL antique silver trays. These bad boys are huge. I really wanted to find a way to display them but wasn't quite sure how.

The lil boy I used to nanny for had a white bookshelf that was mounted to his wall...it was almost like a nice wooden magazine rack. This is the best and most similar picture I could find to his bookshelf.

This was exactly what I wanted to display my silver trayson, the problem was that I searched EVERY.SINGLE.WEBSITE.POSSIBLE to find something like his bookshelf...but found nothing. (I actually just found this pic on Martha's Website).

While searching on my CraigsPro one day (Craigslist app for my iphone), I saw this...

We drove all the way out to Nicholasville to check it out. The previous owner had rooster plates displayed proudly on it. I told her what I was looking to use it for and she thought her plate rack might have been a lil to "red" for me, but it was just what I was looking for. It was also my first Craigslist purchase.

Well almost what I was looking for. It was still too small to hold the really big silver platters, but I have some up for display.

See my new dining room table? That was my 2nd Craigslist purchase. I'll show you a better pic when I unveil the dining room.

I love that I was able to display some of my horse themed items to it as well.

I'm still keeping an eye out for a bigger plate rack, but for now, I'm perfectly content!