So my sewing has been a little scarse (read nonexistent) the past few weeks since I finished my Vintage May outfit. And I am so excited to show you the reason why! To preface- my brother just recently got engaged and it worked out for him to come home for a week in May and introduce us to his fiancée. Three weeks before they were to come visit, my mom realized this would be the perfect occasion to throw a bridal shower…at my house. Yeah, so I am not the world’s best housekeeper (who has time with two toddlers and sewing? 🙂 ) and my house was in no condition to host a bridal shower, but we decided to use this opportunity to get our bums in gear and finish up a few house projects languishing on our to-do list:

• paint the dining room white and redecorate it,
• give the entire house a good purging- specifically our den/junk room and back porch,
• finish up some landscaping and, of course,
• spring cleaning

a view of the green dining room- also before we painted the china cabinet so you get a sense of how much better it looks now!

Well it was a crazy few weeks especially since part of it was spent at the beach but it’s done and I got all the important things finished! Whew…now I just wanna sleep for weeks..and show of my house while it’s still clean. LOL.

It feels so good to have a freshly cleaned house that is empty of a TON of useless clutter. I took several car loads to Goodwill and several more to the trash! So much that we were just holding on to for no reason. We are trying to live a more minimalistic life and it is so rewarding and freeing to move toward that goal. Also my dining room is now a soothing white instead of its previous bright green. I am definitely in a “paint all the things white” mood right now. I love the calming influence that white paint has on things.

So let’s talk about the dining room projects a bit. I recovered the dining room chairs in this awesome Lotta Jansdotter Canvas print from her Glimma line (I got mine from Pink Castle Fabrics and they don’t carry it anymore but I found some on etsy here) that I’ve had sitting around for several months for this very purpose. Easiest DIY project ever: 1. unscrew the chair cushions from the chair 2. pull the new fabric over the cushion tightly and staple in place 3. screw cushion back on chair and enjoy! Make sure you pull the fabric tightly or it will wrinkle as the chairs get used.

Blue cart is the Ikea Raskog that so many other peeps have. It’s currently housing our cloth napkin stash and some pretty dishes. I’m still waiting on my light gray curtains for the windows but I have some family members making an ikea trip soon so they are going to pick them up for me. The 2 landscape wall prints are by Emily Jeffords (who happens to be local to us right now!) and I highly recommend them for their high quality! The prints actually look like originals. I love how peaceful her work is also. Please forgive the wonky look of the large one- we just got the frame for it and need to go get a new mat for it since the current one is not the correct size- which is why I don’t have a close-up of it.

Here’s some fun pictures from the bridal shower. The bride-to-be loves burlap, mason jars and roses so we took those things into account when decorating. My sister in law made the awesome bunting for the mantel by freezer paper stenciling onto drop cloth.

Hope y’all enjoyed a little trip around my newly-redecorated house. I always like to see other’s house projects and so I thought I would share a bit with you. Plus I needed an excuse to show off all our hard work! 🙂