MLS House Tour: Venice CA Castle

I like to look at these cute canal homes in Venice Ca. On one of our trips we took the kids over to walk around the canals and visit a playground. This area has some very interesting homes in styles that range from beach bungalow to modern and some are very creative cottages.Venice is also a frequently used filming location. I recognized the are when it was used in "Because I Said So" as the location for "Johnny's" bungalow. It can be seen here,Hooked on Houses: Because I Said So

So I was looking through listings in the area and found this pretty little castle.




Love the pretty teal door!!






This courtyard is just perfect..


Master bedroom looks over the courtyard.

Listing details HERE

Enjoy!

MLS Tour: Coupeville Wa Waterfront Heaven

Ok..with this house my jaw dropped. "Hello Beautiful!"
I love everything about this house. The shingle style with wide bright trim, cottage round top door, the paint inside looks great! I love the furniture and the homey feel...and well the view is fab. This property even has a super cute guest cottage.




Isn't this door great!




I really wish I had the color of these walls..it's a perfect green.





I would be sooo late getting anywhere when I can stare at this water all day..and in any weather. The house is actually close enough to the water that you can probably still see it when it's mist and rainy.



Where the kids and dogs would live!

More photos are on the listing HERE. Enjoy and try not to drool.

MLS Tour: Madrona Seattle

Kids Shirt to Pillow Project

I admit I have a hard time parting with the super cute little shirts my boys grow out of. I had these two shirts that we used in some photos, they of course grew out of them almost before we even did the shots.

I held on the them and couldn't let them go. I decided to make something out of them instead of boxing them up.

I had a couple of plain white pillow covers from Ikea.


After cutting the front off of the shirts I trimmed them into shape and used the back side of the shirts to frame them.


I zig-zagged the front to the back rectangle.




I straight stitched the whole thing to the pillow leaving a bit of edge to curl up. I didn't want it too perfect.. after all it's for a little boys room.

Here are the pillows all finished. My oldest loves his, his brother...well he is three, so could care less. It' dosn't have "Cars" on it. LOL

Linking to

Master Bedroom Update

I wanted to put up an update on our bedroom. It's only a partial update...as if I showed you the other direction you would see the room has no closet doors. You can also see that this room, like all the others, needs bottom trim.

Here is the room when we first moved in, with the old white carpet.


We pulled up the carpet and had the wood floors refinished.


After paint, a new area rug from Lowes, Ikea bed, my chalk painted nightstands. You can see the goodwill dresser a bit. My husband put in the built in dressers..made from inexpensive Ikea dressers.


The bedding is Pottery Barn but the pillow covers (Southern Living Home via goodwill) and a vintage patchwork quilt. Lumbar pillow is from Target.


The curtains are actually Target shower curtains. I loved the print but walked away due to the price. Then one day I found one at goodwill..that allowed me to buy the second new and keep my cost down. Shower curtains hemmed work in this space because the window is lower than a normal window.




Enjoy!

Halloween at Our Cottage.

My Halloween decor this year was pretty simply outside. I threw some lights into the garden, put out the big blow up thing and decorated around the door with our pumpkins from our trip to the patch and spiders and garland we already had. My favorite is the sign that says "An old witch lives here with her little monsters"

Yay for an upstairs bath...

We have had the upstairs bath torn up from the time we moved in. It had yucky carpet...when we pulled that up it reveiled the orginal formica floor. Pink, tan,brown specks with gold glitter. Very 50's Vegas..but not what I wanted to go for. This powder rooms is very small with a sloped celing. Mike pulled up the floor, I removed wallpaper and painted it a grayish blue. I also hung blinds to allow light to flow through..but hide the fiberglass skylight. We went flooring and sink shopping at HomeDepot. We picked simple stick down tiles and the sink is Marth Stewert Brand. The color is actually a creamy gray. I like the details on the side. That it's very tall is a plus for us. We didn't buy the matching mirror and opted for a simple medicine cabinet. We also bought the coordinating Martha Stewart faucet and wall hardware. We still have to trim out the floor and replace the door..but it's so nice not to have to stumble down the stairs to the full bath in the middle of the night.

In case your wondering what the bath towels are doing in a powder room. We found that we would wear the towel up from our shower...but then have a wet towel we would forget to take back down. Now we have a place to hang them up upstairs too.

The before and after: