Decorated "Girl" Bedrooms...Parade Of Homes (Part 2}

Here are two of my favorite "girl" bedrooms from the

Salt lake Parade Of Homes, which ended last Saturday.  There were so many great homes this year, I thought I'd break it up into a few posts.  You can see Part One HERE.

This room is from house #22 built by Silverhawk Enterprises.

 It was kind of like it's own suite upstairs.  It was so bright & roomy!

I LOVE the shape of the ceiling & the built-in window seat.  The shelving they added just finished it off perfectly!

Another one of my favorites was this one...

It was adorable!  

I love decorating with birds, so this one definitely captured my eye!

This headboard made out of an old door is perfect!  

I love the garland too...I'm definitely going to do something like this for my daughter's room when she moves into a big bed.  You can see her nursery here.  We also did a "bird" theme in her room.  

The bedding with the ruffles was the perfect addition...Ruffles seem to make everything cuter!

This room was also from my "favorite" house by Rainey Homes, which was house #14.
My last post was all about it!

My next post will be about my favorite "boy" bedrooms!  
I'm sharing with:
I Heart Nap Time
Home Stories A to Z
Savvy Southern Style
The 36th Avenue
52 Mantels
At The Picket Fence
Kristen's Creations
Chic On A Shoestring
Craftomaniac
The Sasse Life 

Parade Of Homes {FAVORITES} Part 1

One of my favorite times of  the year is in August when I get to feed my addiction....touring houses!  

The Salt Lake Parade Of Homes just ended on Saturday & there were some amazing houses this year.

We have attended it almost every year for the last 11 years. 

 I always go with my husband & my mom.  

My dad was sweet enough to watch our kids so we could enjoy it!

I took plenty of pictures!  Unfortunately, they were with my phone so some of the pictures are a little blurry.

I will have to break this down into a few posts because there were so many great houses!

My absolute favorite house was #14 by Rainey Homes...talk about CHARMING!!

It was so open & spacious!  It doesn't look really big, but it was actually over 5600 square feet!

It had such a great porch too!!  

I love the windows, woodwork & colors...it was perfect!

My favorite part had to be the kitchen though.  If you've been dreaming of a white kitchen (like I have), this one will take your breathe away!

It is beautiful!!

I LOVED the large island!

It had a farmhouse sink...which is something I would love to have in my dream kitchen!

My dream kitchen would also have the built-in desk & a double oven!

The best part of the kitchen was that it was so open & this was the great room connected to it!

  I absolutely LOVE the built-ins!

My husband & I decided this was the perfect house for us...A girl can dream right? 

You can see a list of all of the houses in the parade at www.SaltLakeParade.com

I'll be back with a few of my other favorites!

Sharing:

The 36th Avenue

At The Picket Fence

Kristen's Creations

Chic On A Shoestring 

Home Stories A to Z

Exterior Paint {Reveal}

We hired a company to paint our house & after a complete nightmare it is FINALLY over!  

This was such a frustrating process & it took over 2 months for them to finish.

We started out with this...

Which I actually loved, but we had some stucco cracks in the back & decided it was time to fill them in & paint.

Then  the nightmare began & we went to this...

Not only was the door ruined there was paint over spray EVERYWHERE...on the brick, porch, eves, fence, & the back deck.  It was overwhelming. Needless to say, the first crew was fired by the company and we had over $500.00 of reimbursement at the end for the door & the tiles they cracked on my patio furniture. 

Here is the AFTER...

The paint was from Kwal Paints & it is a liquid vinyl paint.  The color is called Wicket.

It was SO hard to pick a color! 

It seems like a lot of them can turn a really purple or green hue...we kept changing our minds right up until the morning they started painting.

We really like how it turned out & were thankful the next crew of painters knew what they were doing & finished it up nicely!

We kept our trim white & painted the shutters and front door black.

They even repainted my deck...

Now that summer is almost over, we feel like we have our house back again!

If you'd like to see some of the changes we've made over the years, you can find it HERE.

I'm sharing with these blogs:

Home Stories A to Z

My Uncommon Slice Of Suburbia

Savvy Southern Style

Organize & Decorate Everything

Fireflies & Jellybeans

The 36th Avenue

Kristen's Creations

At The Picket Fence

Chic On A Shoestring

Finding Fabulous

My 1929 Charmer

Craftomaniac

52 Mantels

You Are Talking Too Much

Beneath My Heart 

The Girl Creative 

Thrifty Decor Chick

The Sasse Life

One Project Closer

Domestically Speaking 

Birthday Traditions {Recipes}

My daughter is a 4th of July baby!  

This year she turned "11"...It's gone WAY too fast!

She is also my "dessert" girl!

She LOVES cheesecake...

We make this fruity cheesecake EVERY year for her birthday, it's her favorite!

It's actually a recipe from Kraft Foods.

It always tastes good & it's serves a large crowd.

You can find the recipe HERE.

The only thing I do differently is DOUBLE the crust!

This year she also requested that I make her "other" favorite dessert for her party!

It's called Eclair Cake & it tastes just like an...Eclair!

Here is the recipe:

CRUST:

1 stick of  butter

1 cup water

1 cup flour

4 eggs

Place the butter in a saucepan & melt it on medium heat. Next, whisk in the water & then the flour.

Then add eggs.  Mix well.  Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray & bake at 375 degrees for about 23-25 minutes.

FILLING:

2 small packages instant vanilla pudding

8 ounces cream cheese (softened)

3 cups milk

Mix all the above ingredients together & let it set in the fridge for 30 minutes.  Then remove & place on top of the crust.  Then top with cool whip.

CHOCOLATE TOPPING:

1/2 cup chocolate chips

3 tablespoons milk

2 tablespoons butter

1 cup powder sugar

Place chocolate chips & butter in a microwave safe bowl.  Microwave for 30 seconds & stir.  Repeat until they are completely melted.  Next, stir in the milk & powdered sugar.  Once it's all mixed well, drizzle on top of the cool whip.  Then place in the fridge for at least an hour before serving.

ENJOY!!!

It's DELICIOUS!!
I'm sharing with these blogs:
The 36th Avenue
At The Picket Fence
Kristen's Creations
Savvy Southern Style
Chic On A Shoestring
Tatertots & Jello
Under The Table & Dreaming
Craftomaniac
Home Stories A to Z
Fireflies & Jellybeans
The Sasse Life 

Cleaning Out The Junk...

How can it already be July??  

We've been so busy lately that I haven't blogged for a while!

Can you believe it's almost been a month since they started painting our house & it's still not done! 

My last post showed you what they did to the door.  They tried for 2 days to fix it, but it still didn't work.

It is driving me crazy....so to deal with my anxiety we have been working on cleaning the inside of our house.

We have a few areas that constantly collect...JUNK!  

That would be closets, the basement & our garage. We have conquered 2 out of the 3 this week.

We did the kids' closets & the basement .  I am proud of my kids...they were so good to get rid of things they don't use anymore!  We filled the WHOLE car full of donation items...there wasn't any space left for passengers!

We started out by emptying the entire closet & separated the stuff  into 3 piles:

   -Garbage 

     -Donation

-Keep

Then we organize the "keep" pile where we want it to go.

It's a MESSY process, but it feels so refreshing when you are done!
This is from my 10 year old's room....

There was so much junk it started overflowing into the hallway...

We actually filled 2 bags of  just garbage!

It always amazes me how much STUFF can fit in a small space!

We decided to really clean & move her whole room around...this always makes it feel really fresh when you are done!  The way we arranged it actually makes it feel more spacious.

My daughter actually has a great sized closet, so we change it into a reading/music/clothing room.

  She LOVES it & so does her little sister...can't keep her out of there!

We pulled all of her American Girl posters & toys out.  You can see the before HERE.  Then we put her chair & bookcase in there. Her clothing hangs on the other side of the closet.

 Next, we decided to hang her own artwork & will be displaying more of her art on the wall...she was excited about that!  

We just moved her bed, dresser & vanity around.  Then we took her "name" letters from above the window & put them going down the wall.  It's amazing how just moving around the stuff you already have makes it feel like a new room!

It feels so good to get rid of JUNK!

At least this frustrating painting process motivated me to clean out some of our problem areas!

I hope the painter's finish up this week & I can post pictures soon!  They have repainted my deck, the back door & they've removed the paint off of the brick & lights...which I'm thankful for.  We did have to order a new door & hardware & have decided not to let them paint it.  

I can't wait to have our house back so we can enjoy the rest of our summer!!
I'm sharing with these blogs:
Not Just A Housewife
The 36th Avenue
52 Mantels
At The Picket Fence
Chic On A Shoestring
Thrifty Decor Chick
Organize & Decorate Everything

Painting Nightmare...

My last post was on front door love...

Unfortunately,

We've encountered a front door 

NIGHTMARE!!

This is why we usually just do things ourselves...

Don't you hate it when hire someone to do a project to eliminate the headache of doing it yourself, but then you are left with a much larger problem?
I know every time we start a project there is a good chance of a few problems, but the painters we hired were so MESSY!
It's kind of a nightmare!

They will be back to fix quite a few of the problems, but just to give you an idea of what we are dealing with: They ruined both doors, paint is all over the porch, on my door hardware, on my deck (that I had already stained for the summer), on our light fixtures, they put all of their equipment on our outdoor furniture & cracked the tiles in the table & the list goes on & on...

The paint job itself looks great from the road, it's just a few of the little things that seem to add up to quite a lot when it comes to fixing them!

Here is my house...

Before

After

Not exactly the after I'd hoped for :(

I'll keep you posted & hope this painting nightmare will soon end!

Sharing with these blogs:
The Sasse Life 

Front Door Love...

We will also be getting our front door painted with the rest of our house.  I've always had a white door & can't decide if I dare try something new.  

Here are a few of my inspirations from Pinterest...

source

I love the color, hardware, & numbers on this door...so cute!

source

This one is so bright & fresh, but I love the molding around it the most!

source

I also LOVE the molding around this door.

I will probably be painting my door black.  If I don't like it...I  guess I can always paint it again!

The problem I'm having now is that if I don't like my house it's a little harder to fix.

I've had the hardest time picking out paint colors!  I hope the one we picked isn't too dark...it's so hard to tell what it will look like on the house.