Preparing for winter... let there be light

So about the family room tweaking... There are now 3 floor lamps in the room. The shorter days of winter are rapidly approaching and I will definitely miss the l-o-n-g, sun-filled days of summer.

Therefore, I want to make sure the room is nice and bright, especially when it will be DARK at only 5 p.m. (how depressing). So the first is the floor lamp behind the sofa. It has always been there but it now sports the prismed lampshade that Patience once wore. The second floor lamp sits over by the window and bookcases. It's the one I got for FREE on the curb a couple of years ago. Love it!

The newest lamp in the family room came up from Courtney's bedroom. She didn't want it anymore so I gladly took it. It's a combination marble table & floor lamp. And although the pink, green, & white striped shade looked great down in Court's room...

... I decided to use just a plain white shade up in the family room. (It's so nice having a table next to the wing chair!) Anyhow, I replaced the striped shade with the white shade from the lamp behind the sofa...

...which then left me short a lampshade which is what led me to steal Patience's prismed shade.

And because I put one of the floor lamps over by the window, which is where the white bird cage & stand was located, I had to move the cage to the other wall by the slider. (Why does one simple change always result in multiple changes???)

And after moving the birdcage with the heavy cast iron cat sitting inside of it, I decided it was just too top heavy and unstable with all that weight in the cage...

...so I replaced the cat with a nice lightweight fabric pumpkin...

...and Mr. Cast Iron Kitty got moved to the top of the television (next to yet another birdcage!)...

Phew! Done!!! So that's the "getting ready for the shorter days of winter" tweaking that's been going on in the family room. I hope those 3 floor lamps are a sufficient substitute for the daylight I will be longing for! (Oh, and please excuse Courtney's pile of clothes and shoes next to the wing chair... Lots of sorting and minimizing going on) ........... Donna (who is very frustrated because it's impossible to edit this listing - it won't allow me to edit the spacing, make paragraphs, or even do simple line returns ... grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr)

Someone's nose is out of joint...

Since yesterday, there's been some tweaking going on in the family room....


... and someone is none too happy about it. She won't even throw a glance in my direction.


See what I mean? Just look at her back there. It all started with this lampshade, which is now being used on a floor lamp next to the sofa. Up until yesterday it had been a spare lampshade, but oh-what-a-lampshade! Much too pretty to be hidden away in a closet until needed.


So with its cream-on-cream pattern and dangling prisms, it became Patience's favorite 'hat.'


Last year she even got festive and topped it off with a fabric pumpkin for the fall season. But with yesterday's tweaking, I wound up with an extra lamp in the family room... one that needed a shade. That left Patience rather bare on top.


So I searched through my stash and found this adorable pink fedora for her. I even spruced it up with a little autumn flower, but she is having none of it...

Come on, Patience. You can't give me the silent treatment forever...

In my next post I'll show some of the family room tweaking that put Patience's nose out of joint!

Donna

I found the perfect manger!

Last month I showed you these sweet little white nativity figurines that I found while out shopping.


I liked them so much that I bought one for myself ...


...and one for my Christmas giveaway.


So how lucky was I when I spotted this vintage manger for $3.50 at Goodwill in Boston a couple of weeks ago! I couldn't remember exactly how big the nativity figurines were, but it looked like it might be a good size for them.


It's better than good - it's almost as though they were custom made for each other! As a finishing touch I set a mini ornament in the manger's loft - the Christmas star.


I placed the manger on a small table in front of the family room windowseat.


As it turns out, the table is also the perfect size for the manger.

I love it when all the pieces of a puzzle fit together so easily because sometimes in our little house, and in life in general, that's not always the case!

And over the past 24 hours we got socked with a good amount of snow here in the northeast. I'll try to share photos soon - freshly fallen snow is so beautiful (even to me, who is longing for spring!)

Donna

Herbs and Orbs....

On Thursday I took advantage of our 70 degree weather to wash windows (if the slider looks dirty to you, it's because I didn't get to it yet!). I started in the dining room and since I had to remove the herbs from the DR bay window in order to Windex away, I decided to just move them into the family room.


I brought this old carpenter's bench in from the deck (and none too soon! Just look at the rainy weather we're having today! That deck was swept clean yesterday and just look at all the leaves that came down overnight!)

I've had this rustic beauty since my prim decor days, and it's always been used out on the deck... To say it is weathered is an understatement.

I'm using a piece of old Battenburg lace valance as a table runner... There's something about the look of crisp white Battenburg lace paired with old, distressed wood that makes my heart skip a beat...

There's also a handy little shelf section on the bottom - just the right size for the basket that holds peanuts for our Sammy's, Chips, and birds (this basket is a treasured gift from my awesome friend, Jill, who got it in Amish country just for me!! How luck am I??)

So after I took my closeups to share with you, I stepped back to take some shots of the herbs in front of the slider. I usually take 2-3 shots of everything now that I blog, just to make sure I get at least one good one!! Okay, so this is the first shot....

(click photo to enlarge)
And then I took this one. Now I sure didn't notice anything unusual in the viewfinder when I snapped, but when I loaded the photos onto my computer there was no denying that I captured something in the above photo! Above the rosemary on the right is either an orb or the biggest flying dust bunny I've ever seen! I may not be the greatest housekeeper, but I'm not that bad!! At first I thought it might have been something flying by on the outside (big bird maybe?)... But it's definitely on the inside because it's blocking my window grids...

So... any experts out there who can help me figure out what I captured here? I've heard that experts can tell the difference between dust, glare, and real energy/orbs! (Oh, and I wasn't using a flash, so it's definitely not a reflection from that)...

And stay tuned for my upcoming posts (which are perfect for the week leading up to Halloween!)... I'm going to share another post just about orbs as well as my awesome day trip to historic Concord, Mass, on Friday (which included a visit to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery!)...

COMMENT UPDATE #1: Our house was built in 1981, so it's not what you'd consider an 'old' home; also, we're the only ones who have ever lived here... And yes, we have had a couple of things happen here but I've just mentioned them to family and friends for fear of what I must sound like when sharing these stories!

COMMENT UPDATE #2: I'm getting chills!! The carpenter's bench is very old. I purchased it many years ago at a junktique shop and it was quite old and weather-worn even back then. I never even thought of there being a possible connection between the bench and the orb! It might be going back out on the deck very soon!!

Donna

Patience is a virtue...

And luckily for Mrs. Birdie...


... Patience is also a great place to nest!

I first introduced Patience here (when she was an outdoor planter); and when she moved inside for the winter, she modeled several new "hats" here...


Since she's made herself so comfortable here in the family room, I don't think she'll be going back out to the garden this year...


I loved all the comments as to where Mrs. Birdie might have built her nest! So many great ideas (that I may use in the future!! With all my bird cages, you'd think I would have thought of that myself!)

And oh, how I'd love to have a guest bathroom for Mrs. Birdie (We have one bathroom on the main living level and one downstairs in the finished basement. The #1 thing my husband would change about our house, if he could, is to have a master bathroom.)

And the mention of a kitchen window(sill) for her to nest on sends shivers down my spine! (That would be the #1 thing I'd change about our house... to have a window in our kitchen!! Yes, you heard right... not one single window in our little kitchen!)


The family room was mentioned in one comment, and Patience herself was mentioned in two comments, so those three entries went into a hat..... and the winner of the little birdie and quilted tote is...............

Jean Tuthill at A Romantic Country Home!!!

Just e-mail me with your mailing address, Jean, and I'll get the quilted tote and birdie right off to you!

Donna

The family room balance beam...

I was asked where the treadmill (that used to sit in front of the TV like this) ended up...


(click any photos to enlarge)

It's now tucked behind the sofa, a perfect location - it's out of the way, it faces the slider (great for Sammy Squirrel and bird watching), and it faces the TV! (I think I need to pop in the Mamma Mia DVD I got for Christmas to get me motivated to start walking!! I love that movie!)


See the beam way above the 7' tall bookcases in this photo from yesterday's post?


Flashback to 1994 - Tiger, then just 1 year old, on the family room beam
(Do you recognize the valance and curtains? Yup, they're the same ones I have now... and that's the corner TV hutch that I painted white and moved to the living room)

Look at what a wild woman our little Tiger was! She used to love to get up there and walk back and forth across the beam, or plunk herself down and watch the world below! And here's how she managed to get up there... If you look at the first photo, you'll see that our FR closets have flat tops ceilings on them.


Back in '94 (our prim days), there was a hutch right behind the sofa, where the treadmill now sits. Tiger would jump from the back of the sofa to the top of the hutch... then onto the top of the closet... and then onto the top of the beam...



Now that she's a sweet little lady of 15-1/2, she prefers to sun herself in the living room window...



... and when she gets tired of doing that (yawn.......), she heads down to Amanda's room...

... where she gets cozy on her green furry blankie...

...or her soft blue blankie... (She is a very pampered girl!!!)

I thought I should share some photos of her since she doesn't get as much 'blog time' as her brother, Spotty! (She's very shy and spends most of her time in Amanda's bedroom, so she's not available for photo shoots like he is!!).... But isn't that just the sweetest little face? We sure think so!!!

Donna

Organization is the key!

Oh my gosh, it feels so good to be organized!! I'd love to have a room completely lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Not only do I love the look of bookcases, but I have so many more books than this (not to mention all of my girls' childhood books), so I'd have no trouble filling them up!


(click on any photos to enlarge)

I love having the bookcases pushed together on this wall (why did it take me so long to do this?)... And although I hated having the TV and/or treadmill sitting in front of the bookcases (this post), I think the chair looks right at home in front of them... A cozy little place to sit and read (recognize the free reading lamp I found this summer? Perfect for this spot!)...


I used to be so embarrassed by these cluttered, messy bookcases (previous post), but not anymore...


Oh, I know, they're probably still too "packed" with books and such, and there's probably some perfect "book-to-knickknack-to-basket-to-dead space" ratio that I'm way out of whack with, but they're so much more organized than before!!!


(It wouldn't be fair if I didn't let you in on a little secret though... the wing chair is conveniently hiding the shelves that still need some organizing... so don't look behind it!!)



But the rest of the shelves got tidied up... I've started organizing old photos in storage boxes, and I picked up these great woven baskets at Home Goods. That place never lets me down - I take my measurements with me when I go and I always find exactly what I'm looking for! (Remember the vintage chenille scatter rug storage baskets I got there that looked like they were custom made for what I had in mind?)

I also did a little shopping for the top of the bookcases at Home Goods... I fell in love with these garden rabbit statues. I'm really trying to incorporate a year-round "garden room" feel for our family room, so these were perfect! I must have put them in my basket (and taken them out) about 3 times... My daughter, who was with me that night, said, "Mom, you're really going to be sorry if you don't get them." I'm so glad she gave me the nudge I needed because I really do love them! I already had everything else... it was just a matter of pulling things from different places and then arranging it all. (The little resin fox in the birdcage might go back to the garden come spring, but he likes being inside for the winter!)

The tall bunny sits on an old copy of The Wizard of Oz that was mine from childhood. (As a child, I was apparently quite worried about losing all of my books because I wrote my name in about five different places in each one!)

In keeping with the garden theme, a little birch tree birdhouse sits between books and little stone birds...

My bluebird music box and Mellen Infant Formula bottle (thrift finds I posted about over the summer) are on another shelf...

And here's another little garden bird statue, as well as a closeup of the beautiful woven baskets...

I also spotted this little "bookend Scotty Dog" at Home Goods and, since I was picking out a few things for my bookcases, he came home with me as well...

I like this view toward the sliders so much more than this..... What took me so long to rearrange this room???

(P.S. We had a beautiful New England snowstorm today... I'll share some photos tomorrow!)

Donna