Sunday Favorites-My favorite room

Chari over at Happy to Design is again hosting "Sunday Favorites". I love this party as it let's us post something we shared in the past that you may have missed the first time around. Be sure to visit Chari (she is a hoot) and you will also find the list of this weeks participants.

Now when I originally started this blog it was for my extended family only. I tried to get them all involved in blogging by having my own weekly parties. I started one called Monday Show & Tell. Each week I had a different theme that I wanted everyone to participate in. Unfortunately I was the only member of my family that participated. So I thought I would share this particular post with all of you now since you have become part of my extended family. And you all "get" this blogging thing.

This post I originally wrote on 9/28/08. Since I originally posted this, our bedroom has changed slightly. But you'll have to wait for another "Sunday Favorites" to see. I even enjoy reposting as I can see how I've changed things up.

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Welcome to the first edition of the Monday Show & Tell. This week we are showing our favorite room in our home.

My favorite room in my house is my bedroom. I love my bedroom as this is where I get to relax & sleep. I love black & white, especially toile. And I love Paris, so most everything in my room reflects this.

I just got the netting for my bed. Came from ebay. Isn't it romantic? It was Mike's idea. He was watching some show on the travel channel & saw a bed in a hotel in the south pacific with netting on it like this & thought it would look great on our bed. And it does!!!



In the summertime I use this white matlasse coverlet. But in the winter, I have a heavier comforter that is black & white toile that matches my pillow shams.

I love my monogram pillow. I usually wouldn't splurge on something like this pillow, but it was on clearance!!! No I did not get it from ebay, but from JC Penney.

This old dresser is Mike's. I love antique dressers. I love my plates above the mirror and of course my black & white toile lampshade. Mike lets me put one of my jewelry boxes on his dresser. I didn't take a photo of my dresser as I didn't have time to clean off the top of it. I have a stack of papers a mile high.

Mike made this window using bevels & glue chip glass. In fact he made 2 of them. One for each side of the bed. He is really good at making stained glass. I love anything french, so I love the fleur de lis.

I took an old window & put a black & white poster of Paris from the early 1900's behind the window. I put it on the wall next to my bed. So this my view when I first wake up in the morning.


I love mirrors. I have alot of them around my house. Probably got that from my mom. I guess I am vain in some respects. Or I like to know that I am still around.

These are the french doors Mike put in our room this past year. I love them!!! Lets in so much light & great to have both of them open on hot summer nights. We do have screens so the bugs don't get in when the doors are open. But not very safe. Good thing we live in a safe neighborhood. I still need to put up my drapes. Notice our ugly teal blue carpet. We have this throughout our whole house. That is why all our walls are white, I don't want to paint until we get new flooring.

This is my favorite Shabby Chic pitcher. I use it alot in my ebay photos as background. I collect pitchers. Mostly white, but I do have some with roses. I love pink roses & I love shabby chic.

These are my Joseph birthday girls. I got both at a thrift store for less than $5.00 each. I love them. I wanted to collect them when I was a little girl, but didn't. I got the "7" one for Taylor (Eric's youngest daughter) when she turned 7, but I loved it so much that I couldn't part with it. Sorry Taylor.

I got my Avon Eiffel Tower perfume decanter off ebay. I use it in alot of my ebay photos & people are always asking me where I got it.

I love Paris!!!!! Want to go back some day.

I also collect white vases. Here are some of my white pitchers & vases together on top of my armoire in my bedroom. I'm going to paint this armoire black someday. I'm always going to do something some day. My house is full of unfufilled dreams & gotta do someday.

Well there you have a sample of my favorite items in my favorite room in my house. As you can tell, I love black & white toile, Paris, pitchers, white vases, roses, antique dressers, mirrors and Joseph birthday girls. What do you love or collect?

Next week's topic: Backyards. Submit photos of your backyard. What are your favorite things in your backyard?

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So now you know a little more about me & my favorite things in my favorite room in our house. Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to leave me a comment & let me know what the favorite room is in your home, and/or what you love or collect.

Lampapalooza Party Part II

Earlier today I joined in on The Nester's Lampapalooza party. You can see part 1 here. Since I was at work when I posted part 1, I could only use photos I already had on my work computer. But since I am now home I decided I wanted to share some more of my lamps (since I have a lamp obsession). So I hope that you don't mind.

This lamp is my favorite of all our lamps. It is in our living room. I know I showed you this lamp in part 1, but I wanted you to get a better look as it is so beautiful IMHO.
Isn't this sea goddess beautiful. My hubby says she has a name, but has forgotten it.
The dust comes with no extra charge. lol.
This is hubby's salt lamp. It stays on all night as a night light. Can't say that our health is any better having it around. But we still love it.
This is the lamp over our dining room table in our living room area. We got this on clearance I think for 1/2 off. I had eyed this lamp everytime we went to Lowe's & wanted it so bad. But we already had a new light that we put in 4 years ago (also on clearance at Lowe's). So I couldn't justify getting a new light unless it was on sale. So I did the happy dance when this finally went on clearance.
Since all the furniture in our living room is Mission style, I thought this lamp was a better fit than the old one.
Hubby made this little stained glass lamp. I showed it somewhat in part 1, but thought you might want a closer look. It goes great with our dining room light.
This lamp is in our hallway. It makes a nice night light. We bought this at an antique auction. But I am pretty sure it is not an antique. We got caught up in the auction & paid way too much for this. I hope I never fall into that trap again. But I do love this lamp. It is painted on the inside & the flowers in the glass bubble out. The photo doesn't do it justice.
This rooster lamp has a story. I originally bought it at the Welcome Home store quite a few years back. I paid $24.99 for it. I got tired of it & listed it on ebay a year or so ago. It sold for $75.00!!! Can you believe that? But when it arrived at the new owners house, it was broken into a bunch of pieces by UPS. I offered to refund the $75.00 right away but that I would need to make a claim to UPS in order to get the shipping cost back for them, but that would take 10 days. I wasn't going to make the buyers ship back the broken lamp (to save them shipping cost back). The buyers didn't want to wait for UPS claim to get all their money back so they made a claim against me with Paypal. The Paypal claim took 30 days & in the end, Paypal made the seller ship back the broken lamp to me & they had to pay the shipping cost. So insured got their $75.00 back plus the original shipping cost, but had to pay shipping back to me that they didn't get reimbursed for. I got paid the $75.00 from UPS plus the original shipping amount. So I ended up not losing any money on this transaction & the buyer ended up losing money on having to ship back the item. If they had just waited the 10 days for UPS to pay on the claim, they would have gotten all their money back & they could have kept the broken lamp & try to fix it. But I ended up with the broken lamp which hubby carefully glued back together. He used epoxy sculpt to fill in the parts that were missing. He then painted the lamp & ta da, it looks like new. You can't tell it has ever been broken. My hubby actually thinks that the lamp didn't get broken during shipment but that the buyers husband threw it on their tile floor once he found out how much she paid for it (they had a tile floor in the photos they emailed us). He said that is what he would have done. Just kidding. It really did get damaged by UPS or they wouldn't have paid the claim. This lamp is in my family room. My plan is to move it to the kitchen sometime.
This floor lamp was a thrift store find. I didn't take a photo of the entire lamp as I didn't want to move a bunch of magazines on the floor by it. I'm too lazy. The glass shade came from the thrift store as well. Too bad you can't crop out dust. This is in the family room.
This little lamp is a thrift store find. I paid $5.00 for it. And it came with the lamp shade. I actually found 2 exact lamps at different times. I sold the twin on ebay last year. Family room again.
And this chandy is in my family room. I bought this off ebay a couple of years ago. It was brand new. I paid less than $50.00 including shipping for this. I need to find lamp shades, but it is hard to find 9 lamp shades all the same at the thrift store. I did find 9 matching shades at Ross tonight, but 1 of them was smashed. Otherwise I would have purchased them as they were only $1.49 each. My plan is to add crystals to this (I already have them, just too lazy to put on). I'm also thinking about spray painting this black. And again, I didn't dust on your behalf. I wish I had a housekeeper. My blogging life would be so much easier. I wouldn't have to hide my messes & I wouldn't have to apologize for dust.
This lamp is in our bedroom. I showed it in part 1, but thought you might want a better look. It was a clearance lamp from Target for $15.00. The shade was on clearance at Ross for $3.00. I love this lamp.
And we can't forget my bathroom. This lamp originally came from Walmart & had a dome shade with dangling beads (like the stand up lamp in my work office in part 1). It used to be on my dresser where the above lamp now sits. I accidentally knocked it off one night & broke the shade. I had this glass shade in my stash. I always pick up glass shades from the thrift store that I like. The top is a bit large, but it still works. I love having a little lamp in the bathroom at night.

And last but not least, the lamp in our backyard. This is a Scottish cast iron street lamp from the 1830's. The top is copper. It was originally gas but hubby converted to halogen electric bulb.
Here is a photo taken 2 months ago showing the ladderack & the lamp top. We had just planted the flowers in this photo.
And here are the baskets tonight. The flowers look fabulous!!!

So there you have the rest of the lamps in my house that I love. I have other lamps, but these are my favorites. Thanks for taking a look. Now be sure to check out all the participants at the Nesting Place. And be sure to leave me a comment & let me know which lamp you like the best.

It's a Lampapalooza Party!

Here it is 1:00pm on Thursday. I'm tired of being sad, I need to get my mind off of my sadness, so what better way than to join in on The Nester's Lampapalooza party. But I didn't take any photos of my lamps at home. So how can I join in on the fun when I am at work? Well guess what? I just realized that I have some photos on my work computer of some of my lamps at home & I have lamps in my office at work. So I can join in on the fun. Even though I am late to the party.

Better late than never I say. So here we go. I love, love, love lamps & have quite a few. But since I didn't plan for this party, I didn't take any photos of the ones at home. So the photos I am showing you of some of my lamps at home were not taken specifically for this party, but they will work just the same.

This lamp is in our bedroom. I actually have 2 of these in our bedroom. I don't have a photo of the other one on hubby's side. The one pictured above is the one on my side of the bed. This lamp was part of a 4 piece set of lamps that I got from ABC Distributing catalog years ago. It came with 2 buffet lamps, a small table lamp (which you will see below in my work lamps) & a floor lamp. The buffet lamps I use in our bedroom, they originally came with plain white shades, but I have added the black & white toile shades (clearance from Lowes). The floor lamp I use outside on my patio (not pictured). All the lamps in this set were originally a cream color. I wanted them whiter so I sponged on the white paint. It gave it more of a mottled look than just spray painting them white.
The lamp on my dresser came from Target. I got it on clearance for $15.00 when they moved the Target to it's new location across the freeway. The black shade I got on clearance at Ross for $3.00. I love, love, love how this looks lit up at night. It is not very bright, just gives just the right ambiance for the bedroom at night.
This Eiffel Tower lamp is in my family room. I got it at a thrift store for $7.00. I think they originally sold at Target. The lamp shade was another clearance shade. I think it came from Home Goods. Did you notice the remote control sitting under the lamp? It's for our lights outside. Hubby is totally into remote control lights.
These 2 lamps are on our buffet in the Living Room. The lamp on the left came from Walmart on clearance years ago. I think I paid $5.00. I wish I had gotten 2 of them. The lamp on the right hubby made. He loves making stained glass things.
This lamp is also in our living room. Hubby bought it on clearance at Bombay years ago. This is one of my most favorite lamps. I wish this was a better photo so you could see the detail. But remember I didn't take these photos for this party.


When I get tired of certain lamps at home, I bring them to my office at work. Here are the 3 lamps I currently have at work.
This floor lamp originally came from Walmart many years ago. I love Victorian, so I love this floor lamp. I love all the hanging beads.
This small lamp is part of the lamp set from ABC Distributing like the buffet lamps used in my bedroom. This is the original white shade they came with. I added the crystal dangly.
The final lamp sits on my desk at work. This also came from Walmart years ago & sort of matches the floor lamp. They are both the same style, but this glass shade is different & doesn't have the dangly beads. I hung an Eiffel Tower Christmas ornament.

I love to turn on these lamps in the fall or winter instead of using the overhead fluorescent lights. But in the spring & summer we get enough light in from the windows that I don't need any lights on.

I hope that you have enjoyed my lamps from work & the few at home that I had photos of. Now I guess I better get back to work before I get into trouble.

Don't forget to visit the The Nester & check out everyone who is participating.

Thanks for stopping by & don't forget to leave a comment, or just say "Hi!" I need some cheering up.

Kim

edited 10:12pm. I have posted a part II for the lampapalooza party. You can catch it here. I posted more of my favorite lamps from home & better photos of a few of the lamps in this post. So be sure to check it out as well.

I'm so sad

My heart is full of sadness right now. My wonderful boss Norven Storrs passed away yesterday. He was not only my boss but was also my friend. I have worked for Norven for almost 16 years. But I have known Norven and his family for a bit longer than that, as Norven & his wife are in my parents ward at church. So I knew him from church before working for him.

Norven was the best boss anyone could have. He is not only my boss, but Mike's & Brandon's as well. We all work for Norven. So we will all miss him terribly. The world will not be the same without Norven. My life is better for knowing him and not just because I worked for him. I only hope that someone can say that about me when I die.

My heart aches for Norven's family as I know they loved him so much & he loved them. Family was so important to him. So I know even though I am hurting, his family is hurting more. Please keep the Storrs family in your prayers.

At least as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints we know that families are forever. Marriage and families don't end at death if you are sealed in the temple. They are eternal. So Norven's family should & will take comfort in that. As they are an eternal family.

I know that we will see Norven again and I know that he is in a better place, and I can take comfort in that, but right now there is a giant hole in my heart.

Take care Norven, we love you & we will miss you. Till we meet again.

Love,
Kim

Sunday Favorites-Personality Test

It's Sunday so do you know what that means? Ok, It is really Saturday evening but let's pretend it is Sunday. And if you are reading this on Saturday night, don't you have a life? Why aren't you out having fun? (Did you notice that I am not out having fun?). So it's Sunday (wink, wink) and that means it's time for Sunday Favorites hosted by Chari at Happy to Design. This is the blog party where we repost something we had posted at one time that maybe you didn't get to see the first time around.

Since I have been blogging for over a year & most of my posts weren't seen, I decided I would repost something from a year ago. I originally posted this on 6/10/08. I decided to post it again as it gives you some more insight into ME. And I thought you might have fun doing this little personality test. Be sure to come back & leave me a comment when you are done & let me know what color you are and what characteristics were most correct.

Oh, and another thing. Since I first posted this I would say that I am now 100% addicted to blogging.

I found this fun website from another persons blog. It is a personality test that assigns you a color for your personality. If you want to try it out go to http://www.thecolorcode.com/abouthartman.html & click on "Take the color code personality test. Let me know what color you are.

I am WHITE.

WHITES are motivated by Peace. They seek independence and require kindness. They resist confrontation at all costs (definitely me). To them, feeling good is more important than being good. They are typically quiet by nature (OK so I am not always quiet), process things very deeply and objectively with great clarity. Of all the colors, WHITES are the best listeners (Were you talking to me? lol). They respect people who are direct but recoil from perceived hostility or verbal battle.

WHITES need their "alone time" and refuse to be controlled by others (I hate when people try to tell me what to do, ask my mom or ask my hubby). WHITES want to do things their own way and in their own time (This is me!). They ask little of others and resent others demanding much of them (This is me big time!). WHITES are much stronger than people think, but are not often seen for their strength because they don't easily reveal their feelings.

WHITES are even-tempered, diplomatic, and the voice of reason, but can also be indecisive (I can't decide if this one is true, ha ha), unexpressive, and silently stubborn (me again).

When others interact with you, as a WHITE you respond to them best if they are kind, accepting and supporting of your individuality, and if they look for non-verbal clues to understand your feelings.

I am definitely a WHITE. It was a fun little test & a little insightful as well. The test is free, you answer about 45 multi choice questions based on when you were a child. Takes about 5-10 minutes.

Take the test & then let me know what color you are & qualities for that color. You can tell that I spend way too much time not working. What can I say, I'm a WHITE!!!

Kim

It's Thursday! Let's do a thrifty tea party

It's Thursday so it's Tablescape Thursday time. This fun even is hosted weekly by Susan at Between Naps on the Porch. This is the 39th edition. Wow!!! Can you imagine putting together 39 tablescapes? Well there are some who have. Not me though, this is my 14th time. I'm pretty impressed that I've done that many. And I have so many more running through my brain. I just need to get all the little things together and find the time to do it. I'm trying to use stuff I have around the house, but I can't help it if I buy a little something to use now and again.

This week I am also participating for the 1st time in Thrifty Thursday hosted by Leigh at Tales From Bloggeritaville. A lot of the items I used in this week's tablescape came from a thrift store. Or I got a thrifty deal.

Now I don't have any daughters (boo hoo) or any grand daughters (we can always hope). But I do have 2 nieces who I call my faux daughters. I'm lucky that my nieces only live about 15 minutes from me, so we see each other quite a bit. I decided that we would have a tea party. Only problem is, I forgot to invite them and we don't drink tea. But I love tea cups, tea pots & everything else that goes with a tea party, so I thought I'd throw a faux tea party for my faux daughters Danica & Taylor.

Since the weather has been beautiful here in SoCal aka: Southern California, we would have our little tea party out by the pool. Oh, oh, looks like someone forgot to put away the extension cord & hose as well as sweep before taking the photo. Men!!! (Did you notice that I'm not taking the blame?)


Here is the tablecloth I started with (I really took this photo when I was putting everything away, but if I hadn't brought it to your attention that the cement is now all cleaned up, you wouldn't have even noticed. Would you?) I got this tablecloth at a thrift store when I lived down in San Diego county. Don't remember how much I paid for it, but knowing me, it wasn't over $5.00. Most likely only a couple of dollars.
Then I used my Bordallo cabbage plates. I only have 3 of the dinner plate size. That is why this tea party is just for 3 of us. The plates came from Ross back in Jan or Feb. I got them on clearance for I think $3.50 each. The silverware is new!!! I got it at Ross a few weeks back. $12.00 for a service for 4. I love the dark color of the bamboo.
Next I layered on my thrift store china salad plates that I got a few weeks back. I paid $2.00 for 4 of these plates plus 2 smaller plates in a different pattern. I love the pink flowers with the green cabbage plate underneath.

Here is a close up of my new silverware.
Then on top of the salad plates I put a different tea cup at each place setting. This is for me. This is my favorite tea cup. It is by Lefton. I got if off ebay. I may have splurged & paid $10.00 for this. I loved the green color with the pink roses.
Here is the tea cup for Danica. This came from ABC Distributing catalog. The bottom says "Formalities". I paid $4.95 for this tea cup. Again, I love the pink roses.
And the tea cup for Taylor. I used a Royal Albert American Rose tea cup but put it on a completely different saucer called June Bouquet by Duchess bone china England . But I think it goes together as they both have pink roses. Both the tea cup & saucer came from the thrift store. Most likely paid less than$1.00 each. I then attached little vintage napkins along with a reproduction vintage print as a name card to each tea cup handle with a drapery ring (in this case it is more like a hook). I love the medallion that was on the ring. I think it looks vintage. I'm finding that drapery rings work great as napkin rings. And they are cheap. I got these at Ross & paid $2.99 for 7 or 10 of them. Since they are actually hooks, they will come off easily from the cup handle. The napkins were part of a lot of 40 vintage napkins that I won from ebay for $9.99. I also put a packet of flower seeds (25cents each from Dollar Tree) at each setting as a little take home gift. I have them on forks bent to make easels (forgot to take photo). Here is my place setting. I love Shasta daisies. They were my favorite flowers when I was a teenager. Now my favorite flowers are roses or hydrangeas.

Here is Danica's place.
And Taylor's. Don't you just love the basket on the napkins? For the centerpiece I started out with this wooden basket that says "Fleurs" on the side. I got this at Costco at the beginning of the year. They originally came with succulents in them, but they were dying so this was a clearance item. I got it for $6.00. I think they originally sold for $20.00 or so. Since I don't like succulents, I didn't care if they were dying as I was throwing them out anyways. I only wanted the wooden basket.

Then I added some silk peonies. I thought the color of these flowers matched the pink in the flowers on the tablecloth.
Next came a birdhouse. I got this a few years back to use in my wedding. Can't remember where I got it from though. I just love this birdhouse. I sat it on a vintage napkin inside the box.
Then I added this little birdie & bird nest. This came from Michael's last year on 50% off sale.
And then I added this iron candelabra. I got this at a trade show in Vegas a few years back. I paid $2-3.00 for this.

I love how this turned out. I guess I should have lit my candles. Oh well, just pretend they are lit.

My tea service items all came from thrift stores, ebay or were free. The pink & white pitcher was an ebay find I'm sure I paid less than $10.00 for it. The tea pot was a freebie from my niece Danica. She had bought it at a thrift store to use for a friends Mad Hatter birthday party. She gave it to me after the party. The sugar & creamer came from a thrift store.

I just love my tea pot!!! I normally collect china that has roses, but I love how this pot has little blue flowers. Something different from what I normally collect.


The goblets are my Libby glasses from Walmart. I think they were like a dollar a piece.

I love how each place setting is a little different. But they all still look good together.

One final look at the table. Did you notice that the concrete is now swept? Isn't hubby a doll for doing that for me? Thanks for joining my faux tea party. Now I guess I better invite Danica & Taylor over for a real tea party. I know they will be asking for one when they see this.