My Living Room Ta Da! Moment

My living room is almost completely done (I still have to fix  a small window, touch up paint and get the floors waxed)-- a triumph in blue and white, I think.

This is one side of the room before, when the former owners lived here:

This is the after:

This is the other side of the room before:

and after:

These are some closeups of some of my favorite things in the cupboards:

Mountains of Prims to List

I have a table full of little Christmas trees in all sorts of antique containers awaiting time for photographs and listing.  The girls are helping me with samplers and fabric boxes too, here are a few:

A Little Time Travel

Walked up 3rd St. in Muscatine yesterday, and actually had my camera to record.  I'm sure there are other towns with amazing old houses out there, but I haven't seen any to match these Mississippi River front homes of the 1800s.  Most of them are so large, it was hard to get them in the camera frame.  I added a few odds and ends of pretty windows and iron fences and flowers.  It was a most beautiful fall day here in eastern Iowa.

The Tiny Bathroom is Finished

We just finished the smallest room in the house, good to have at least one thing complete!
White is before and aqua is after.

A Mustard Day

The latest works, done in mustard milk paint...

An Early Start to Christmas

I collect containers all year just for Christmas trees, and am ready to get them listed.  Here are the first few that are ready, most are $45, set of blocks $38, skittles $75, plate at auction starting at $9.95.

A White Milk Paint Day

I've had these done for a while, just can't seem to find the time to list them, we'll see if I have better luck this week.

I spent last week in Clarinda trying to finish all the work on that house to be able to sell it, then come home to more and more work, sure hope I see the light at the end of the tunnel soon.  While in Clarinda, I found the flooring I want for the kitchen, which is the old 1950s style linoleum blocks that have color all the way through the tile--we are going to do a blue and white checkerboard.  The kitchen is evolving every day, we have completely changed from our first plan of new white cabinets.  We found an antique bakers cupboard in Kalona and it started the ball rolling on my old dream kitchen with all antique cabinets and no fitted cupboards.  So far, cost has dropped from $25,000 for the new cabinets to $5000 we've spent so far, which is how we are able to start the remodeling.  Still hoping to find an antique sink and base cabinet and I really really want blue Big Chill appliances, but they are crazy expensive, I imagine those go on the wish list--this is what they look like:

This is a Scandinavian kitchen I found on Pinterest, it is the closest I can find to what I'm trying to do--mine will be less frilly and have lots more blue.