Who’d Believe It? Another Tureen!

I certainly don’t believe it.  Usually when I decide to look for something to start a collection, that’s when I don’t find them!  I just posted last week about how I lucked out and found a tureen at Goodwill.  The other day, I decided to stop at the local antique mart since I hadn’t been in since November.

I found this tureen as I was doing my peeking into booths to see what was what.  No price, but the booth vendor was there and said $5.00.  Sold!  It was filthy, but a run through the dishwasher cleaned her up nicely.  Here is how the collection looks right now.

As a bonus, I found these two Friendly Village dinner plates.

I wasn’t even looking for these, but I thought I saw what looked like transferware peeking out from dishes that were on top of these.  When I moved the other dishes out of the way, I saw these. 

I’ve been looking for some Friendly Village dishes since their scenes are so pretty.  Finding two worked out well for me, since it is just the two of us now.  I try to just buy two plates if I see a dish pattern I like.  For $3.00 a piece they came home with me, too.

Pretty good for a spur-of-the-moment stop and $11.00!  If my luck holds out, I might be able to get the last tureen I need within the next few weeks {instead of months}.

Linking up with

Nifty Thrifty Tuesday at Coastal Charm

Treasure Hunt Thurs. at From My Front Porch To Yours

Be Inspired at Common Ground

New Blog Header!

Some of you may know that I won a giveaway for a new blog header from Sonny at 155 Dream Lane.  There it is ~ right up there!  Didn’t she do a fantastic job?  The great thing is she used pictures from my blog and captured my likes in the design.

I’ve been wanting a new blog header for awhile now and, not being tech savvy, this recent one {below} was the best I could do.   She also did a button, which I will get up and have as an option for my other button.

A big thank you to Sonny for such a great job!  I just love it!

Guest Bedroom Decor For Spring/Summer

I’m trying to plan ahead for a few things I’d like to do in the guest bedroom.  Here is how the guest room currently looks.

One of the things on the list is to paint this armoire in Old White chalk paint.

While it worked fine black in a guest bedroom in our old house, I’ve been thinking for awhile now that it would look better, in this room in our condo, white.  Keeping with the lightening up, I found some bedding at Ikea that I’d like to incorporate.

This is the Alvine Kvist bedding.  I figure if I pick up a couple of pieces a month, it won’t be a budget breaker.   Then in Fall/Winter, I can go back to the darker {warmer} feeling with the blue and brown.  I’ve never bought bedding from Ikea before, so if you have any experience with it, I’d be glad to hear about it.

One Down, Two To Go

I went to drop off a few things to Goodwill the other day and went in to look around.  You know when you are looking for something specific you never find it?  Well, that’s how I felt about tureens, since I mentioned it in this post.  I haven’t seen any there in the last few times I was there, so I was pleasantly surprised to find this one.

After washing it I added it to the other three up above my one section of cabinets.  I moved the biggest of them to the middle, too.

That was the only thing I found this trip, but I was more than happy with my single purchase!  Two more to go!

~ Office Bookcases ~

I may have mentioned that the home office is the husband’s domain.  I have a small desk that I keep my laptop on in there, but otherwise this is his room when he is working from home.  Part of the office is a pair of bookcases that he made for me as a Christmas gift one year {when we were in our old house}.    The bad habit of just sticking things on the shelves in here had gotten a bit out of hand.

These are mostly all my books, except for stuff on the bottom and top shelf of one bookcase.  It would be fair to say that most of the crap collectible mish mash that has accumulated on here is mine as well.  I started out by emptying the shelves and getting rid of stuff ~ either garbage/recycling, donate or to be stored.  Then I took all the paper covers off the books.

I made quite a mess with them, but it was easier for me to do them this way and get the books organized.  I liked to read and reread a lot of my books, so while they are not organized prettily by color, they are organized by author.  

This was more of a functional organizing than a design one, although I did add a few decorative items in there.

The wire baskets hold my Romantic Homes magazines and other magazines that I’ve felt were worth keeping.

No, he won’t let me paint them.  He was okay with me applying gel stain to darken them, but there are so many coats of polyurethane on there, I get tired just thinking about stripping and sanding that off. 

I felt good once I completed this {even though it took me about 2 1/2 hours}.  It may not be pretty, but it looks so much better than it did.  I actually wound up with some extra space, too, so I’m  ready for the next library book sale!

Linking up with

Make It Pretty Monday at The Dedicated House

Winter Blues Wednesday at DIY by Design