Decorating

Fall Decorating 101…….

September 24, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 24 Comments

Start by baking some pumpkin bread (use your favorite pumpkin bread recipe) and then add one cup of butterscotch chips per loaf of bread. It’s to die for….and then your house smells nice and ‘fall-like’ while you decorate……
Recruit your small children to paint pumpkins for you using apples…..
and flour sacks and plenty of creativity……
Jazz up your breakfast table with black and orange……
Put your daughter’s witch hat from last year on a pretty white pumpkin……

And if you don’t have a pretty white pumpkin…..spray paint one white and add some spook. Just a ‘peek-a-BOO’ into our fall fun. More to come soon! For other great festive halloween ideas, go the Kimba’s sight. This post is part of her fall halloween party and there are many more great ideas to peek in on. For now, we’re off to paint some birds and ferns black…..oh, and to do some latin and memory work, of course.

If I had to describe my decorating style as a person, it would be…….

September 17, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 16 Comments

an eclectic shabby-chic Texan meets a cozy, cottage porch sittin’ Tennessean. I love mixing old with new, color with neutrals, traditional with distressed and elegant with casual….kinda like wearing a beautiful black wrap dress with riding boots. Maybe I just like being unpredictable. At any rate, I follow the Nester’s recent advice pretty closely and would only add that I teach my children from a young age that they are never under any circumstances whatsoever to turn on an overhead light. Lamplight is not optional, it is the absolute final rule of the house. No discussions. All this decorating discussion has been sparked by a new blog post I just found called Kari & Kijsa in which there is a fun “share your decorating style” link party. I couldn’t decide on just one room like they suggested, so I thought I’d bring you on a tour to show you some of my favorite things:

My daughter Caiti’s room with faux painted walls, stars (which she hopes to be someday with her singing), adorable homeade burlap bedskirts, and the most splendid animal print chair.

My dining room where I feature a beautiful original abstract oil painting and robin egg blue linen “tablecloth”– a piece of linen fabric that I frayed the edges and otherwise left in its natural state.
The upstairs bathroom that had a recent makeover and of course features lamps, black distressed cabinets, and a loosely arranged container of grasses.
Now on to where the Texan meets the Tenneseean. I love this grouping. I bought the dresser at a yard sale for $25, painted it and paired it with the appalachian-looking homestead sign.
Then, there’s quite possibly my favorite ‘spot’ in the house. A black bombay chest that features an eclectic array of things I love…..books, pictures, paintings, candles, a lamp and a hope for a simpler life.
So, there you have it. A peek into how I decorate and who I am: a heap of contrasts and contradictions; where you’re just as likely to find 67 tubes of lip gloss as you are almost every good piece of classical literature you can think of. And a scary number of lamps and boots.

Shhhhhh………

September 15, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 8 Comments

Be very quiet. I’m in the middle of covert operations the likes of which you haven’t seen since Jack Bauer took the Chinese consulate. I was having a fine Sunday watching the Vikings get beat and reading “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” when I came across this section in the book

“To do justice, she had, at irregular periods, paroxysms of reformation and arrangement, which she called ‘clarin’ up times’, when she would begin with great zeal, and turn every drawer and closet wrong side outward, on to the floor or tables, and make the ordinary confusion seven-fold more confounded”.

So, as soon as I read that, I began “clarin’ ” things up in the girls’ room and decided to get rid of some stuff they no longer play with. I’m no rookie at this either, so I did it while they were at a friends’ house and I used BLACK garbage bags……’cause we all know how crazy a girl can get when you threaten to take her half-naked, matted hair barbie to Goodwill….the one she hasn’t played with in 4 years. You’re dying to know what I put in the black bag aren’t you? Well, I’m gonna show you but let me first say that when I bought the items you are about to see go into Witness Protection, it was Christmas, I was hormonal and at an all time low in my mothering skills…..I’m gonna say rock bottom even. And most of it was that Jamie Knoxville’s fault, who just happen to call me three days before Christmas to tell me about the Cheetah’s Girls’ Tour Bus. So, here’s goes nothing.

The Hannah Montana Stage…..equipped with roaring crowd noise and spinning ‘Hannah’ holder which allows her to ‘mingle’ with the crowd while performing…..

The Hannah Montana dressing room……which we happen to have caught her in…matted hair and all…..(sorry for the intrusion, Hannah)

And finally, the HM tour bus. This thing is pimped out to the max. I actually secretly like it. I think I may be the only one who has played with it with any regularity. So, never mind the fact that these are not the most edifying, educational toys out there, why……I ask you why do these little girls not play with them? Are they having secret conversations about how I’ve hit rock bottom and succombed to cultural influences? Do they see through purple and pink plastic crap and feel they are somehow ‘above’ this shallow form of entertainment? I do not know the answers to these questions, but I do know that I would have bet a million dollars back in December that these not-so-cheap, made-in-China toys wouldn’t have lasted ’til March. I was terribly wrong….they’re gonna last forever because they never get touched. Now, all that said, if those two girls happen to ‘see’ these items in the Goodwill pile, they would go completely nuts……crying, screaming, you name it. Hence the need for the covert operations. I’ll have to sneak that bag to the car in the cover of night and I’m not gonna lie…..I’m a little scared…..who knows what’s liable to happen when they realize that Hannah has taken her ‘tour’ to another city. They really shouldn’t care….I’m the one who’s dressed her, combed out that matted blond mop, and I’m the one who’s put her in the tour bus to lounge in the garden tub. But I digress. Meanwhile, we will keep playing with our Legos and Lincoln Logs and American Girl dolls…..toys you don’t have to be embarrassed to say your children own. Hannah will do well in witness protection….she’s got that whole Miley thing going for her.

What I Love About My House……

August 22, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 3 Comments

this old antique-ish desk that I bought for $25 and redecorranged…..
all things monogrammed…..
my eclectic collection of boots and purses….
the upstairs bathroom that recently had a makeover…..I painted and distressed the vanities, took down hideous medicine cabinets and added these mirrors from Hobby Lobby, changed the faucets out for these beautiful bronze ones and spray painted the rest of the fixtures (towel rack, towel paper holder, etc) to match the faucets…

Caiti’s Room(16yo) with homeade burlap bedskirts…when its’ clean….which is rarely….
this cutest picture of Emme at 3yo……
my most precious macbook pro….once you go mac….well….you know the rest…..
the security of the fact that this guy will sit in this chair every. single. night….
the vanilla ice cream colored walls in my dining room with accents of plum and robin-egg blue…
these wall words….this particular one is situated above the baseboard in the downstairs bathroom, directly across from the “potty”. Captive audience.
our newly finished schoolroom….clean, modern, vintage, IKEAesque.
ballerinas in the ‘soussus’ position. How do I know that’s what it’s called, you ask? Because I am now taking an adult ballet class on Wednesday nights. I know, I should have warned you to sit down and swallow the drink of tea in your mouth. Why not? It seems to be the year for new things. If you can’t stop the comedic visions of me in tights and a tu-tu, don’t worry. I showed up in yoga pants and a tank top. The real ballerinas in the class were likely slightly offended at the many ways I butchered their “sport”, including my attire. It was a great workout though and I think I really like it.
my humble collection of C.S. Lewis books….my favorite of which is Mere Christianity. His preface to this book is nothing short of genius.

Hope you enjoyed the tour.

Three Things….

August 7, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 7 Comments

Number 1 is……that previous plate wall picture does not do this pretty little wall justice. So, there is pretty plate wall…..in all her glory. Thanks to the “Nester” for plate wall inspiration.
Number 2 is…..I love this grouping. This is my foyer and unlike most spaces in my house, this one has been the same for I’m thinking 2 years……unbelievable. I think it’s the frog playing the banjo that I love so much or maybe it’s the sketchy little “tapestry” that I conjured up from a $5 piece of fabric from the antique store downtown and hot glued and pinned til’ my heart was content(or till the thing stayed up). I don’t know…..I just like it. Still.
Number 3 is…. this is a fantabulous work of redecorranging if I do say so myself. Any self-respecting blogger would have taken a before picture…..but I’m a loser. So just imagine the ugliest little duckling chair you’ve ever seen at a yard sale followed by some black paint , vintage fabric and a little fairy dust later and voila! I adore it. It is going to be my desk chair in our homeschool. The desk is another redecorranging project that will follow shortly. Leigh Anne is gonna be mad she sold me that desk for $5.