Found the Christmas Ornaments!

Okay, so with four months between posts, I’m sure it seems like I died. I’m still alive and kicking–just too busy with family and homeschooling to keep up with the blog. But I did want to come out of hibernation to post a follow-up to last year’s Christmas decorating post!

Several of you asked where we got our Christian symbol ornaments, and I was unable to provide any links or information, because I could not find the book that came with the ornaments. I had no name, no ISBN, no nothing. I Googled and Googled to no avail. I hoped I’d find the book when we moved, but no success there, either.

Then, today, reader Jen M. dropped me a line to say she thought she had found them. Sure enough, she did! The ornaments are called “Adorenaments” and are available from the Christian Stories website. They come with a book that explains the illustrations used on each ornament–symbols that teach us about Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection.

So, thank you to Jen for letting me know she’d found these. We’ve enjoyed them since they were given to us several years ago. They are on our tree now!

Blessings to all of you for a wonderful Christmas and Happy 2010!

The Contest Results!

Thank you all for your patience during our busy weekend and the crazy ER trip day! It has been really fun to see your budget remodels — you beat DIY all hollow! A few ladies didn’t post their entries as comments but emailed them, and, though I wrote to ask them to post, they never got around to it. If those of you who emailed want to repost even now, you’re welcome to do so. It’s just fun to see what you’re able to do!

Rather than forcing you to go back and find the posted re-dos in the comments, I’ll put them here so you can see them all in one place. First I’ll share mine:

• Knobs – $4.36 (4 @ $1.09/ea on eBay)

• Cup pulls – $15.42 (6 @ $2.57/ea on eBay)

• Light fixture – $39.99 (on eBay)

• Faucet – $24.99  (on eBay – Someone bought it after I saved the link, though!)

• Frame – $24.95  (on eBay)

• Paint – $27.48 (Behr at Home Depot)

• TOTAL: $137.19

I didn’t include shipping, nor did I expect others to do so. If I added in all my shipping, I’d come right in around the $190 mark, though. Now, here are the other entries…. First, the winner!

Sibyl’s $160.47 remodel:

• framed mirror from Craigslist 25.00 (http://houston.craigslist.org/fuo/1106897243.html)
• New bathroom faucet on Craigslist 15.00 (http://houston.craigslist.org/hsh/1090431280.html)
• New light fixture on Craigslist 3 globes 60.00 (http://houston.craigslist.org/hsh/1105445083.html)
• Knobs (http://www.myknobs.com/hok101pc.html 4 x 2.34= 9.26)
• Cup pulls (http://www.myknobs.com/hok107pc1.html 6 x 3.04 18.24)
• Behr interior paint 1 gallon 32.97 (http://www.homedepot.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CatalogSearchResultView?D=938917&Ntt=938917&catalogId=10051&langId=-15&storeId=10051&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntx=mode+matchall&recN=118572&N=0&Ntk=P_PartNumber) – Note: Sibyl forgot to pick bathroom paint, but it would have been even cheaper than what she got, so she still stays in budget!
• My total is  $160.47

Congratulations, Sibyl! That was almost $30 under budget — and almost $740 under DIY’s budget! Woo-hoo!!! You’ve won a year’s subscription to Mary Jane’s Farm!

Now for our second-place winner:

Sandy’s Redo:

• 1 gallon bathroom paint 34.40 … 4 x 8.60 tintable white (4 quarts) (https://www.cornerhardware.com/permawhite_satin_bathroom_paint/6746_6927/16377)
• 6 Drawer/4 cabinet pulls: 3.40 … 4 x .85 cabinet knobs (http://www.dlawlesshardware.com/wiglbrnikn13.html); 12.42 … 6 drawer pulls @ 2.07 (http://www.woodworkershdwe.net/servlet/the-424/Amerock-Cabinet-Pull-Satin/Detail)
• 3-light fixture $39.95 (http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Avion-Brushed-Nickel-Bathroom-Vanity-3-Light-Bar_W0QQitemZ170318026102QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item170318026102&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A5)
• Vintage-style faucet $60.12 (http://orangecounty.backpage.com/FurnitureForSale/_60_12_satin_nickel_4_center_set_hi_arch_bathroom_faucet/classifieds/ViewAd?oid=3841627)
• Frame$20 gold “antique-looking” (http://bham.craigslist.org/hsh/1114678041.html)  Would have been $12 if I’d documented the frame in the 90% off bin at Hobby Lobby!
• My total is $170.29 (or $162.29 if I used the Hobby Lobby frame + spray paint for the frame)

Great job, Sandy! This comes almost $20 below my top end and $730 under DIY’s!

Finally, here’s our third-place winner, who would have come in first except that she linked to a quart of paint rather than a gallon — multiplying out the quarts is what killed the win. OUCH! Still, this remodel is almost $14 under my $190 limit and beats DIY by almost $725! Fantastic!

Michelle Z’s $176.23 bathroom redo:

• Paint $55.80 ($13.98 per quart times four quarts):   http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=132643-4-132643&lpage=none
• Light $44.65 (light fixture plus shipping): http://tinyurl.com/d73sbj
• Hardware $15.78 (these are all from one ebay seller, and shipping is free):
• Cup pulls: http://tinyurl.com/damxu6
• Knobs: http://tinyurl.com/dhmkpg
• Faucet $20 (not exact, but close and I’ll keep looking): http://kansascity.craigslist.org/hsh/1096057021.html
• Frame $40: http://kansascity.craigslist.org/hsh/1107423608.html
• Grand total: $176.23

This was so much fun, I think we’ll have to do it again sometime with another remodel challenge! Maybe a kitchen refresh on the cheap? Thanks so much for participating!

Another quickie from Country Living!

I just love Country Living’s online features. This link came in their e-newsletter today.  Check out their Small Space Solutions.  I’m not crazy about all the color schemes, but the ideas for arranging furniture and making the most of tiny spaces are great. I especially loved this bed nook, which reminds me of the one my mother created for me in my small room when I was growing up:

Mine wasn’t nearly this fancy, and it wasn’t literally a niche’ in the wall, but it was heaps of fun. My room was 9×12, so my bed went at one end of the room, framed by bookcases at the head and foot and a wooden “valance” connecting them with a curtain rod behind. I had white ruffled curtains that made the nook feel like a storybook princess’s bed. I loved that spot! It wasn’t expensive to create, and it made my cozy little room very special.

There are so many good ideas for using small spaces — post your favorite links in the comments if you have some fun space solutions to share!

A quick link to share…

I get Country Living Magazine’s email newsletters, and they always have something fun to click on and explore. I thought this piece on renovating a small country cottage was charming: Country Cottage Small Budget Makeover — Easy, affordable updates give a characterless country cottage an inviting new attitude, both inside and out.

Scroll through the slide show to see what a huge difference paint can make! You’ll see that the kitchen cabinets were repainted rather than replaced (and look totally new and different!) and that the owner used vinyl sticky-tile on the kitchen floor, just like I did. He also tiled over old kitchen counters to cover them inexpensively.

It’s so inspiring to see how much can be done with very little money. Just roll up your sleeves and get cracking!

A No-Cost Room Redo!

Those who know me well know I have a real thing for rearranging. It happens at least once a year in almost every room in the house, wherever we’ve lived. One day I wake up and just feel the urge to move things around in a big way. It’s like nesting syndrome–even when I’m not expecting! I just love to try the furniture in different places. If you ever start feeling the redecorating bug hitting when there just aren’t funds to do anything big, then rearrange! It’s every bit as gratifying, and you can get really creative by rotating photos, knick-knacks, wall art, lamps, and more.

My rearranging bug hit the evening of New Year’s day this year. I walked into the living room and said, “I really want to get the couch out of the middle of the room. Who wants to help Mommy?” My oldest son, who has a tendency to think everything should stay exactly where it is, gave me his quizzical raised eyebrow look. “Why do you want to move stuff, Mom? I like everything this way!” My second-born son, who is always ready to dive into anything no matter how crazy or spur-of-the-moment, said, “What do we move first?” My toddlers, who thought this was all fun and games, ran around the front of the couch to help push. And that’s when the real fun began!

Our first discovery was this lovely stash of missing books, socks, toys, and, yes…that’s an old, dried-up apple core next to the sock:

Oh, joy. No matter how good you may think you are at keeping house, you just never know what’s lurking under the couch. Or the big blue chair, for that matter:

Okay, so that one wasn’t quite so bad. But we decided to keep going and pull out the jelly cupboard (which we use for school books) in the dining room to see what might have ended up there. Hmmmm….

So that’s where all the missing fridge art went! But when we swept everything out, still more was hiding beneath the pile of drawings and school papers:

Crayons and pencils and hairbows, oh, my!

This, folks, is real life in my house! Ever notice how the beautiful photographs of inspiring home makeovers and remodels rarely ever show actual human beings in the rooms? That’s because people are messy. People drop things behind furniture and under the table and in that hard-to-reach spot between the fridge and the cabinets. It’s fun to take pictures of everything pretty and neat and nice, but just remember to enjoy the 2.5 seconds it actually looks that way and then go back to living in your house! That’s what makes it home.

So, back to our no-cost makeover! After we pulled the furniture out into the dining room, the children did a big clean-up, putting away the things we found under the couches and chairs and cupboard. We looped up the living room curtains and washed the windows. Then we gave the rug (a gorgeous hand-me-down from my father-in-law) a thorough vacuuming:

Now we were ready to put the couch in its new place in front of the window (where the round table with lamp used to be):

You can see the big, blue chair back in its regular spot on the right-hand wall. It just really fits there very well and would stick out too far moved elsewhere. (It’s a good idea to measure things before moving so you know what can fit where. I’ve done the foolhardy thing in the past and moved something only to find out it wouldn’t go where I thought it would. Oops!) We moved the lamp that used to be next to the blue chair over beside the couch, where it fit perfectly and had an outlet waiting for it. Next we put the rocking chair and the wing chair directly across from where they used to be, meaning they basically traded places with the couch:

At right you can just see the round table and lamp that used to be in front of the window. They fit perfectly beside the big, blue chair. Here’s another view, this one from the front door:

And, finally, here’s the view from the kitchen:

This arrangement makes the room feel so much more open and easy to move around in. The original arrangement was definitely cozy, and I enjoyed it, but we’re really liking this new layout–even my oldest son says he likes it better now, so it must be good! 

Rearranging really is a way to get a quick fix when you don’t have the funds to repaint, reupholster, or do other large projects.  It’s also a good idea just to move things periodically to clean (as we found!), even if you don’t want to move furniture permanently. Finally, you can be really inventive and bring in furniture that would typically be used in a different room and repurpose it. A dresser makes a great entry table and can also serve as a storage spot for CDs, books, magazines, table linens, and the like.  A bedside table can serve as an end table. Play “flea market” in your own house and go “shopping” from room to room, seeing what you can move and use more effectively in another spot. It’s a lot of fun and gives your home a completely fresh new look without spending a dime. Have fun, and if you do any rearranging, come post a comment with a link to your own pictures so we can all be inspired!

In the bleak midwinter…

When the chill days of winter arrive, I’ve always recalled and savored the lines from Shakespeare’s sonnet 73:

That time of year thou may’st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold;
Bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

“Bare ruin’d choirs” — the phrase sent delicious shivers through me when I first read that sonnet, and it still evokes the grey, quiet feelings of this time of year. I thought of those words again today, looking through my kitchen window into a gloomy winter’s sky.

It has been one of those days when everyone wants to huddle inside, get the fire going, and read books. Which is fine by me. I love days like this. But today we decided the best way to keep off the chill and gloom was to decorate the house for Christmas, break out the Christmas music, and sip some egg nog.

We had quite an adventure yesterday finding a tree. At first we’d thought the woods behind the house would oblige us with a small cedar, but the trees were decidedly too prickly for little fingers, so we gave up on that idea. I figured we’d easily find a local tree lot and just get something small for the living room, but, long story short, there wasn’t a tree lot anywhere to be found in an hour’s worth of driving and three small towns! Unbelieveable. So we headed down another road where we’d seen a tree lot on our way to get the milk at the dairy on Tuesday. Why I didn’t just stop on Tuesday and get a tree while I was at it is beyond me! When we finally reached the lot, it was already closed. Don’t tree lots usually stay open after 4pm?

At this point, the children were rather antsy and not wanting to sit in the van any more, so we headed over to the gigantic nearby Wal-Mart (sigh), which–sure enough–had live trees outside of the garden center. We picked a cute, plump little spruce (soft needles) that smelled faintly citrus. By then, rain had started spritzing down, so our tree had a shimmering mist added to its charms. Amid cheers and squeals of delight, we hauled the tree back home and squeezed it through the door. By the time my oldest sons had wrestled it into the tree stand, they were too exhausted (and covered with greenery and sap) to do more, so we saved decorating for today.

We had no trouble finding the ornaments, as we now have so few boxes in storage (wheee!). The children quickly pounced on their favorites, and everyone had an opinion of what should go where.  We have a neat little set of ornaments that functions as a sort of miniature advent calendar. Each ornament has a picture representing what we’re celebrating–the coming of Christ–and contains a description of His attributes.  This one here shows a loaf of bread. When you open it, there’s a story inside about how Christ is the Bread of Life. Each ornament contains a story, and we will be reading a different one each day over the next two weeks. The children enjoyed placing (and re-placing) ornaments on the tree, then stood back to admire everything all lit up. My oldest son was horrified when I told him that, before electricity, people used to put real, lit candles on their Christmas trees. He said our trailer would burn down for sure if we did that–LOL!

After finishing the tree, we created a simple wreath for the front door, and I gave my girls the leftover ribbons to decorate their room with. My four-year-old came out ten minutes later sporting two stuffed animals with new bows around their necks. My older daughter led me by the hand and showed off her own decorations, which included her pajamas neatly folded into a “present” and tied with a bow — and two bows on either end of her bed. Ah, girls! The boys all wanted to head out into the woods and cut down some boughs to decorate the mantel and front deck railings, but the wind had really started to pick up, and the rain was coming down again, so we decided to put that off ’til another day.

I’m now sitting in a quiet house, the only sound the ticking of the clock and the click of my keyboard. All my “mice” are snug in their beds, and I’m enjoying the warmth of the Christmas lights and some soft Christmas carols playing in the background. This is one of my favorite seasons, and we’re going to enjoy staying snug inside our little cottage while the winds blow outside.

In the kitchen, the tea kettle is calling me for a nightly cup of Earl Grey, so I’ll head in there and fix it by the warm light of the countertop lamp (one of my all-time favorite thrift store finds!). I hope wherever you are, you’re enjoying the season and finding time to reflect. When I look outside at those “bare, ruin’d choirs,” I’m all the more thankful for a place to be at home with my family–a place to focus on what’s really important. The economy may look grimmer by the day, but we can hold on to what really lasts–and what Wall Street can’t take away–can’t we? Gather them in close–family, friends, neighbors–and tell them how much they mean to you. These are the riches God gives us all.

Fall flowers on the front deck!

Last time I showed you my sad-looking front planters (the day I mulched the garden). A week later, they looked even more pathetic, as the summer petunias had almost completely died out. It was time to put some color on the front deck! The first order of the day was to pull out all of the dying plants, making sure I got all the roots. The pot on the right-hand side in this picture is quite deep (about 16″), so I intended to leave some of the original dirt on the bottom third, adding new soil to the top and mixing it with the old before adding plants. The day I did our grocery shopping, organic potting soil was on sale at two 10-pound bags for $5, so I grabbed two bags. Wal-Mart had a good selection of fall annuals on sale (I started rather late, so many of the annuals were half off).

Here’s a picture of the plants I got, along with the two bags of soil:

The fiery orange flowers at the back are snapdragons (a favorite with my children). The deep fuschia flowers did not retain their little identifying tags, and I am not sure what they are, unfortunately! They look like miniature asters. The two pots at the front contained a mixture of trailing plants and one tall, spikey flower that I also cannot identify. Anyone who knows what I have, post a comment! I love to learn!

Here’s a closer shot of the snapdragons and the deep fuschia flowers. I love these!

Here are two of the pots cleaned out and ready for new soil. You can see that one pot is a wire basket with a liner. It used to be a hanging basket, but I don’t have anywhere to hang it. I was tickled when I found two black iron stands for these pots in the clearance aisle at Wal-Mart for $3:

Here are the pots with the new soil mixed in. Rich!

I placed the deep fuschia flowers in the center of each iron basket , then surrounded the edges of the basket with the snapdragons. In this photo, you see the plants still in their plastic containers. I did this just to see how many flowers would fit comfortably. I had some snapdragons left over, so I planted them in my front rose garden. I’ve discovered that snapdragons are actually perennials in my region of the South because of our long growing season. At my old house, they came back yearly, bigger and brighter every year. I can’t wait to see what they do here!

I placed the mixture of flowers into the larger pot all together. They’d have more room for their roots and could stretch out a bit. Here are the two pots finished and full of beautiful fall flowers:

And here are all four of the pots next to the front door. Cheerful!

It’s amazing what a little bit of foliage can do. These should last us through November and even early December, depending on how cold it gets. Then we’ll have a month when everything just dies or goes dormant, and I’ll be back at it again in February when the pansies are out and the daffodils are thinking about popping up. I love a long growing season!

Livening up the front door

First coat!

While I don’t mind white in my kitchen (where soap and water are always handy for clean-up), I can’t stand a white front door. It always looks dirty, particularly with little hands (and feet!) constantly on the door. So with the approval of our landlord, I got a pint of “Spanish Red” (like a dark mulberry) from Lowe’s. On a day when the humidity wasn’t as extreme, I gave our front door a quick makeover!

The first coat of red over a non-primed surface is always scary. It looks hot pink (no matter how dark that color sample appears). If you opt for red on anything light, be prepared for at least three coats, if not more. If you prime first with a dark grey, it will still take at least two coats. This door took four coats before it finally looked solid and beautiful, as you’ll see in the photos below. I used a high density foam roller–the same kind I used on the kitchen cabinets–to get a nice, smooth finish with no visible “seams” or bubbles. If I’d been aiming for a totally professional look, I would have removed the door hardware or at least masked it off with painter’s tape. I did neither, as this was one of those spur-of-the-moment redos. The nice thing is that latex paint peels easily off of stainless steel, so I had no problem cleaning up the door knob and deadbolt later.

Here’s a close-up of that first coat of paint, plus a shot of my roller so you can see what it looks like:

Here’s the door after one coat of paint (looks frightening, I know!):

The second coat started looking better, but it was still “choppy” and pinkish in tone:

By the third coat, you start breathing easier and feeling like this is going to be a beautiful front door!

With the fourth coat in place and nicely dried, we have a beautiful, deep red front door. I love it! This exterior Latex is washable and weather-hardy. Best of all, it really doesn’t show handprints like the white door did. This door makeover took about an hour total (because the day was warm, each coat dried enough to paint over in about 20 minutes). It’s so easy to make a quick change without the cost of replacing a door!

Ta-da!

Come into my living room!

Just a quick post tonight to share a few pictures of my cozy living room. It is my favorite room in the house and is the best living room arrangement I’ve ever had. I am absolutely tickled pink with how it turned out!

I wish I had a better camera so I could capture the ambience of the room with its warm lighting, but when I tried photographing things with no flash, the pictures were just too dark. So you’ll have to settle for “flashy” pictures and just imagine the warmth and comfort of this cozy room!

First, here is the view from the inside wall when you stand with your back to the dining room and kitchen. The corner cupboard that used to be in the dining room of my old house now has a place in the living room due to the corner fireplace in the trailer dining room. I really love it in here, though, because it adds a lot of cottage character!The rocking chair was a gift from dear friends when we had a new baby, and I never seemed to have a place for it in the old house (in spite of its being a larger home!). It works so nicely in this room.

As you can see, we have  French Country color scheme going here with the reds, blues, yellows, plus black accents. I hung the curtains right at the edge of the ceiling (about a foot above the windows) to give the illusion of greater height. The curtains are a mixture of ones that were in my old dining room (blue) and ones from my old bedroom (the sheers over the windows). I love the soft, flowing look. The overall effect of the room is so homey and cozy that I find myself using this room far more than I ever did a formal living room in the past. The children and I love to cuddle up on the couch and read together.

I pulled the room together with a wonderful oriental rug we received from my father-in-law. This creates a defined area for the rest of the furniture. At first I was afraid it wouldn’t fit without blocking some of the air vents on the floor, but my husband figured out the best placement, and we just love the look. At right is the view when you first come in the front door. You can just see the hallway and the end of the dining room behind the couch. We have lots of artwork from our old home, and we’ve managed to find space for almost all of it. We figured we’d just imitate the British and cover the walls with paintings, prints, and photos! The red couch is probably my favorite piece of furniture in the room. I have plans to slipcover it so I can change its look from season to season. I have about 12 yards of a blue and creamy yellow Waverly stripe that I found on eBay for $41 — that’s 12 yards for less than the retail price of two! Gotta love it. Don’t know when I’ll get around to that project, but I’ll be sure to blog about it. I’d love to have the cover made by next spring, since it will make a nice change in the room and will make things seem cooler when the hot weather rolls around.

Finally, here is the view of the entry wall with the plates over the table that I’ve shown in a previous post. I still have plans to make the table skirt, and now that I’ve found the fabric, I hope to get that done in the next week or so. It will really soften up that wall, which has a lot of hard lines with the long painting, the table, and the bookcase. You can see a hat in the upper right-hand corner of the photo. That’s hanging on a hall tree stand that my husband loves to use for his own hats. Now they are right within reach when he goes out the front door! I put one of my favorite hats there as well. This is just a really wonderful room.

I’m filing away mental notes for our future dream house (the one we hope to build ourselves one of these days!). I’ve learned so many things from the various houses we’ve lived in, and I’ve got a big folder of notes about what has worked and what has not. Some of the things that work so nicely about this house are probably the very things that would make a double-wide unappealing to some folks. Yes, this is a fairly small house, but the smaller size makes housecleaning a real breeze! It takes half the time to clean this house than it did to clean the old one. I also love the fact that the kitchen, dining room, and living room make up a friendly triangle where I can be with my children and easily carry on conversations with family and friends. The walls are thin, yes, but that makes it easy to hear my children and speak to them without having to raise my voice as much as I did in the old house with all its far-flung corners!

Just before bedtime tonight, the children and I sat together in the living room, tired but happy after a long day. I looked around at all the smiling faces and said, “Children, don’t you love living in this cozy cottage of ours?” There was a loud chorus of “YES!” followed by lots of grins and comments about how great it is to live in the country and have plenty of room to explore and play together. Have I mentioned that I love this place?

Lighten up that living room!

When we started out with beige vinyl wallcoverings and brown wood trim, the living room was rather dark. I knew this large area was going to take a tremendous amount of time to redo, so I yelled for help and brought in a dear friend who has assisted me with countless home dec projects. We’ve painted more rooms together than I can count! The first order of business was to remove all the switch plates and outlet plates and thoroughly wash down the walls with warm, soapy water. That done, we laid our drop cloths carefully to cover the carpet and pulled out the five-gallon container of Zinsser’s Bull’s Eye 1-2-3 primer I’ve written about before. Before it was all over, we’d primed the walls and trim three times to thoroughly cover both (that dark wood trim especially needed all the coats). This process took about three days total, but we did this over a couple of weeks as we had time, allowing each coat to thoroughly dry.

Once the primer was dry, we pulled out the white semi-gloss interior trim paint and put two coats of it on the crown moulding and beadboard. When that had dried, I taped off all the trim so I could paint the buttercream color on the walls without ruining any of my previous work. It took surprisingly little paint to do that, even though I needed two coats for a nice, solid finish. You can see the amazing difference! The room is now light, open, and cheerful. In this photo you can also see the white ceiling fan my husband installed. The only tricky part in painting this room was keeping paint off the carpet at the bottom of the beadboard. Neither of us thought to just tape off the carpet (I figured that out later in the office!), so I used a wallpaper squeegee to help me keep paint off the floor. I’d just push the squeegee up against the wall on top of the carpet and paint the section immediately above it. It worked well, but it sure was labor-intensive! Taping off is far easier. Below are pictures going around the rest of the room so you can enjoy the full effect:

It was so exciting to see this come together so beautifully! I’d already brought over some furniture from our current home, so I decided to set up an entryway table and hang some plates. This is my inspiration photo from Country French Decorating. Obviously, this is in a much more formal, traditional home than a double-wide trailer (!), so I’m toning it down just a tad but keeping the inspiring colors and basic design idea. I found fabric nearly identical to what was used for the tablecloth in this photo, but I don’t have time for sewing right now, so that’s a project that will have to wait. This time around, I simply wanted to get the plates up on the wall with the table beneath. I don’t have wall sconces, and those would be a bit over the top for our living room anyway, so I left those out as well. Below is a picture of the area in the living room where I decided to place my entry table and the plates. I’m using the area between the batten strips, which will nicely frame this arrangement:

Since I don’t have a tablecloth or table skirt now, I went ahead and placed a favorite basket of lavender on the lower shelf and set my silver tea service on top:

Next, I measured between the batten strips so I’d know how much room I had and could make an estimate of how many plates would fit nicely. Then I laid out my plates on the floor, experimenting until I came up with the arrangement I liked:

Now it was time to place hanging hooks for the lower two plates. I wanted to hang them first so that I’d be sure the plate arrangement hit the wall above the tea set. I set the first hook by eye, then measured the distance from it to the nearest batten strip:

Now I knew how far from its batten strip the second plate needed to be, but I wanted to be sure it was even vertically as well, so I measured from the top of the first hook to the chair rail:

The spot properly marked, I tapped in the second hook and hung both plates:

From this point, it was not at all difficult to find the center and eyeball the spots for the remaining platter and plates. I did use my tape measure a couple more times to make sure plates were level (a laser level would have been a wonderful help, but I managed!). In the end, I had a pleasing arrangement of china on the wall over my entry table:

At left you see the edge of the white bookcase I’ve since placed in the room.

When I get around to making the table skirt, I’ll be sure to take more pictures. Oh, and after I snapped this one, I ended up swapping the smaller, dark blue plates with the lighter, larger ones just above them! It’s fun to play around until things look right.

Next time I’ll be sharing the adventures of tiling over laminate countertops in the kitchen. It’s much easier than you’d think, but be prepared for a bit of a mess!