Easter's On Its Way

I finally feel like I can say that with some confidence! Warm weather is here and Easter is just around the corner, so we've done a little holiday decorating to get ready for the bunny. I always loved Easter as a child, and not because of the bunny--my parents broke the news to me at age 6 that there was not actually a friendly, oversized rabbit who delivered treats to children. I'm glad they didn't fess up about Santa, but kind of wished they had told me before 4th grade that he wasn't real. I think I was the last to know, and I only found out because my dad accidentally left a signed receipt in a gift box. Anyways, here's what we've got going on around the house.

This Pottery Barn wreath adorns the door that you enter in from the driveway (don't fret, we will replace that door some day).

And this is the table in our foyer. What's Easter without a few ceramic bunnies and fresh flowers?

And I have to zoom in on this precious wedding gift we received while mentioning the entry table--so special (Aly Bolin, show Tiny!)!

And this is a sweet little bunny that my mom gave me a few years back. This year he is a door stop, but some years he sits on the kitchen table.

And sometimes there is a sweet wooden bowl with eggs and moss as our centerpiece.

But this year, I created an Easter tree for our centerpiece. We had an Easter tree each year when I was growing up with tiny wooden ornaments of carrots, chicks, and bunnies. I couldn't find any ornaments this year, so I made these egg ornaments with eggs that I already had and a little hot glue and raffia. I bought the moss, some foam, and the flower pot at Wal-Mart for about $5. The "tree" was free, of course! And I already had white spray paint from another project. A very inexpensive centerpiece!

These salt and pepper shakers are from the Pottery Barn outlet.

I bought these placemats this past weekend at Crate and Barrel with some leftover wedding credit--our table was bare for quite some time before now! And the napkins are, surprise, from Pottery Barn (again, wedding credit!).

So that is all of our Easter decor. We are actually going to be in Houston for the holiday visiting my parents--the "bunny" still comes to visit, despite my unbelief of 18 years!

Friday Finds and Hallway Updates

Thank goodness it's Friday and thank goodness the sun has found her way back! Our office closes at 1 on Fridays (best job ever?) so I decided to swing by Habitat to see if there was anything new. And look what I found:

Once again it was 50% off (I don't think our Habitat is ever full price) so I got 6 yards of fabric (3 of each kind) for $9 (regulary priced at $3/yard). I swear one of the fabric bolts in the bin said it was from Ballard--can't beat fabric finds at Habitat. And I thought my husband would enjoy the little fish prints. We are currently working on painting our office/other guest room so they may end up in there!

Fabric close up--I'm thinking this may be pillow material in the living room once we get our new furniture.

And I have no clue what I'll do with this one--I just love it so and couldn't pass it up for $4.50!

In other news, we've had some updates in the hallway since this last post. We were going to wait until the walls were painted to start hanging anything in the hallway, but at the rate we are going that could be a while. So we hung 2 framed prints from where Stuart and I went to college (Go PC!) in the hallway. One over the chest:

And the other in the hallway. This picture is taken with my back to our bedroom door facing the stairs--the chest is located in the small nook on the right at the end of the hallway.

And just because it is my blog and I can:

We really love PC -- can you tell?

Happy weekend!

Can It Be?

Oh but it IS--back to back blog posts, just when you thought I would never do it. I've been working on our master bedroom since November. We've dewallpapered, primed, painted, hung crown molding, bought a new bedspread, and a dresser. I haven't blogged about it yet though because I have 2 more darned window panes to tape off and paint and I just can't bring myself to reveal an unfinished project. However, I can reveal some lamps that I've been working on for the room. I bought a pair of lamps at Habitat one weekend back in December. Didn't know what I was going to do with them, but couldn't pass up a matching pair of lamps for a grand total of $3 (that's right, $1.50 each). They didn't come with shades, which is just as well because the shades usually aren't all that great. I wanted drum shades, so after some searching I purchased a pair at Target for $7.99 each. Here is a picture of the before:

Not terrible horrible, but could definitely look better. I bought some white spray paint to give the bases some new life. I chose a white with some sheen to match our molding. I taped off the parts of the lamp that I didn't want to be painted (and I swear these lamps were $1.50 each, despite the $3.00 mark--it was 50% off day at Habitat).

After painting the bases, I used a hot glue gun to cover the shades in a fabric that I had from another project (see previous blog here
for more on covering shades). I wanted to add a trim along the top and bottom, but didn't want to go out and buy anything. We had some pretty ribbon from Pottery Barn leftover from wedding gifts and it matched the shades really well. It was a little wrinkled, so I pulled out my iron:

And got to gluing. Here is the final product--a project that cost me $20 and 2 hours.

Notice sneak peek of our new duvet in background! And some closer pictures:

Also see those blasted window panes that I've been ranting about...

And a shot with the lamps turned on:

'Tis all for now as far as master bedroom updates go. My brother is spending the night with us on Wednesday and I may or may not have bartered me cutting his hair for him painting the hallway downstairs!

New Addition

That's right, there's a new addition 'round the Mull Mansion. Stuart and I are the proud new owners of a beautiful bow front chest. We've been perusing local antique stores for any furniture that might work in our house and finally found this piece at Ruby Jo's Antiques (no joke people, that's the name of the store--only in the South!). If you're local, we found this store in Conover. Some antique stores in this area have a lot of what I think of as country looking pieces, which don't interest me much. This store, despite the name, has more timeless and chic antique items and the prices are very fair. Here's our little beauty in her new home (and as you know by now, disregard unfinished walls in background):

We decided to put the piece in the little nook area at the top of our stairs. It's an awkward space because it's not quit big enough to make into a sitting area, but is definitely too big to be left unfurnished. She takes up just the right amount of space and is providing us with lots of storage, mainly for our linens and my fabrics (they just didn't think to build linen closets back in the '20s).

Stuart's favorite little feature is the built in change holder in the top little draws.

I personally like all the detailing on the face of the chest.

There was a little damage to the front veneer.

No worries--I pulled out my handy dandy stain pen and it's as good as new (almost).

The lady that we purchased the piece from (Ruby Jo, I presume) was very surprised to see such young antiquers in her store. But we both love old things--I think things like furniture are way more special when they have a story. And not just furniture. I was folding these sweet little pillow cases from my great grandmother to put in our chest:

And found my mom's maiden name stitched into one of them. I love finding little details like this.

Anywho, there she is! We moved the piece that was in the nook area down to sit under the staircase:

Another inherited piece from my parents--and don't you just love those red bud blooms in the clear vase, courtesy of our front yard.

And just because....

My sweet, pitiful husband who is recovering on the couch (MUST buy new living room furniture immediately--this couch is not cute, I know) from poison oak after doing yardwork on his day off--the pits, for sure. He keeps wandering around the house muttering "woe is me", I kid you not. His furry kids are keeping him company though!

My New Pen Pal

Pun intended (and you will understand the title if you read on!).

When Stuart and I first moved into our 2,000+ sq ft home with newly refinished hardwoods in (nearly) every room, we carefully put tiny little pads on the bottoms of all our furniture in hopes that we would not scratch the floors. After coughing up a lot of beans (this sounds gross, I realize) to have our floors refinished, we were determined to keep them in pristine condition. However, it's just not possible to avoid scratches when all the floors are wood, particularly with an energetic pup. Thus, I starting seeking a solution to our scratches. And low and behold...

This pen has become our (cheap) solution to those scratches. They can be purchased at Lowe's or Home Depot and come in various stain colors to match your floors--ours are red mahogany.

This morning Smyth jumped off of our bed and made a large scratch--perfect opportunity to show you what my pen can do.

See scratch:

See stain from pen on scratch:

See scratch no more (and see Smyth's paw where she is was admiring her work before I fixed it):

Amazing, right? I highly recommend!

Sprucing for Spring

Here at the Mull Mansion we are getting ready for spring! It's not often (have I ever?) that I blog about the projects going on outside of our house, but we've got a long list of things we'd like to accomplish on the exterior of our money pit home over the next few years. This winter we have been pruning things back, as noone lived here for 2 years before we bought the house and our yard had become a little overgrown. After a neighbor came over and asked if we would mind her trimming back some of our tree limbs that were hanging into the road (embarrassing), I told Stuart we better jump on it. So here are some pictures of what's going on so far. We're no pruning experts, by any means, so we watched some YouTube videos to learn how to properly cut things back--you can really hurt your bushes and trees if you don't do it correctly.

My mom and I tackled this bed over Christmas. We uncovered some old limestone rocks that we suppose used to enclose the bed. Stuart and I plan to redefine the bed with flat stones, plant grass outside the bed where there is soil, and plant some low bushes and flowers in front of the crepe myrtle.

We also trimmed back these little ladies. (I know they look pitiful now, but they will come back healthier and more full in the summer!)

Stuart completely took out this brush over the weekend. While it's pretty in the summer (above pic), it don't like too purty in the winter. And was WAY overgrown. We are going to rent some equipment (Stuart tried to explain what we need, but I just don't get it) and kill the root systems so that we can completely start over here.

With the help of my family, we also took out this entire bed of brush (see below). Sorry--don't have before pics but imagine extrememly thick, overgrown brush that was the first thing you saw when turning into our drive. Now there is a great view of the house! We are going to use the same equipment here to kill the roots and then plant grass so that this area will be a part of the rest of our front yard.

And here are some signs of spring in our yard:

We are looking forward to warmer weather--Smyth is on her way to becoming an outdoor dog once it warms up and we set up her wireless fence. Until then, our yard is hole and poop-free.