Paint Job 1

This weeks jobs around the house included painting the bathrooms. Jasmines bathroom had been painted just before Christmas but the other two hadn't been painted since we moved in so were still builders magnolia.

Before.

We always seem to have an abundance of half used cans of paint in the garage so i knew we could mix a colour up to get our en suite done.  Our bedroom is painted in Farrow and Balls 'stoney ground' and I knew we had some of that left over so planned on using that. When I looked inside the can there was less than half left so knew I would have to mix it. As stoney ground is quite a dark colour this would not be a problem as I planned to mix with some white and this only slightly lightened it as you can see in the above picture. Unmixed paint above the door ,lightened paint on the side.

After.

The job took a little longer than anticipated as after mixing the paint I realised that the white paint had lots of little lumps of paint in. No matter how much I mixed the lumps would not disappear so it was a case of picking all the lumps of paint off the wall as they were rollered on!!!! There was no way that I was going to waste Farrow and ball paint!! 

Paint job 1 complete ,today's paint job is the family bathroom. While Mr J and I were at the DIY store yesterday to pick up a new roller we noticed that some of the paints were on offer. Brilliant this meant that I could get both paint jobs done in one week.  I wasn't quite sure what colour I wanted to do the family bathroom so it was nice to get Mt J's opinion . Mr J is very good and leaves all the decorating choices to me. Although he has said NO black wallpaper in the downstairs WC!! We have been looking at show homes over the last week or so and I saw this fantastic black bathroom in one of them .  However I do agree that it would not really look right with the rest of the decor in our house. 

This was the colour we chose for the family bathroom. Off to don my painting attire and get the job started.

God Bless You.xx

Like mother like daughter.

Read Jasmines blog today and it just made me smile so I thought I'd share it with you.
 Jasmines blog
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
God Bless You. xx

sew sew sew!

Just one of those days where I have a bazillion things do but decided I would get one of my sewing projects done.  It was on my list of things to get done at some point but not quite at the top of the list!!

The above chair was originally purchased for Arianes bedroom but she soon fell out of love with it so it was relegated to our bedroom. Black is not in our colour scheme so a white baby shawl was covering it. The shawl was a little to beautiful to be used as a chair cover so I decided that a slip cover was needed.  Had looked at buying one but there was no way I was going to pay that kind of money when I knew I could make one myself.

Old pair of curtains from Jasmines fabric stash and we were up and running. Didn't have a pattern so I thought I'd just pin everywhere that needed darting and dart it!!

Quite pleased with how 'almost' level those join lines are.

A hand gathered skirt for the bottom of the chair. Note to self get a gathering attachment for the sewing machine!!

One afternoon and one and a half pairs of curtain later, job done. Finished off with a crochet pillow.

The crochet pillow was going to be a blanket when I started but soon got fed up with having to change wools to often so a pillow it became. Sewing project 1 complete now for project 2.

This was what project number 2 started life as. A pure wool cardigan that I had managed to shrink in the wash and a blouse that had a hole in the sleeve.

Now little rectangular cushions for our bed.  Used the blouse to make the back of the pillows and the little rosettes and the cardigan including the frill on the cardi became the front of the pillows.

Some vintage buttons added to the look , just used the already made holes in the pattern of the cardi as button holes.

In place on the bed.

Pillows always look lost on our bed as it is a super king size bed and in this country you cannot by king size pillows. In the picture they all look uneven as Mr J likes big fat pillows and I like  thin feather filled that you can fold down to the size of an A4 piece of paper. Opposites attract but don't make for pleasing symmetrical pictures of your bed.

The painting above the bed was a blank canvas that I decorated to bring the colours in the room together.  I used gold paint for the words and then a gold coloured sharpie for the scripture words around the heart.  When I have more time I think I will paint over it and start again, have got some ideas for a subway art scripture word picture for there.

Something like this one that I found on pintrest from a blog called http://tangiebaxter.com .

 I will be using the same words as in the picture that I already have but will use this style as a template.  Now to get back to the jobs that I should have been doing. Ironing mountain here I come.

God Bless You.xx

Funny Finds.

Just a quick post with the rest of the rearranged furniture pictures and a couple of quirky shopping finds!

Above is the finished look to the tree trunk table. I made a curtain from some fabric that Jasmine uses to make her vintage bags from. We have a whole bolt of this fabric which we bought at one of our local vintage and pre loved shops, a bargain that could not be passed by. We usually only buy small amounts of vintage fabric so that the bags that are made are much more unique. Check out Jasmines handmade vintage bags at Shambags

A close up of the fabric.

The next job was to move the pine chest of drawers that was in the dining room. I had planned on trying to find a small dresser/hutch to go in this area of our bedroom (thanks for the idea romantic homes magazine) but as I am trying to cut down on buying more furniture for our house ( will be buying furniture to restore and sell though ) I decided the pine drawers may look OK there.

Before!

Please excuse the state of the top , not looking at all at it's prettiest. The cross stitch picture that is placed above these drawers was only there to replace the huge mirror that now hangs over the tree trunk table in the hallway. It looked so bare without the mirror.

After!

Cross stitch picture back where it belongs and now the pine drawers have a new home and I have more storage space for clothes. The dark wood drawers were so shallow that the only thing they really stored were boxes of jewellery and cosmetics, nearly all of the stuff from those drawers fits in the top three drawers so loads of extra storage.

The oak mirror seems to fit rather well with the drawers considering they are different woods. The mirror was a steal at only 2 pounds from a local charity shop.

Again re-purposing items, an old glass sugar bowl displays jewellery and a 1950's lipstick stand and vintage linen finish the look.

Now for my quirky find!

Found this at one of our local charity shops today. Had gone in looking for furniture to restore but this was all I came away with. Knew immediately what I was going to use it for!! Not a plant pot!!

Don't worry it was well cleaned before she drank out of it, not that that would  have bothered her as this is the dog that has no problems with drinking stagnant water out of the bucket in the garden!  Had been looking for a bigger water bowl for Bonnie for a while but was not willing to pay ridiculous money for one from the pet store. Had thought that maybe an old vintage crock pot or saucepan would be good but then I saw this. Job done!

 My next funny find were these apples.

Now as you know our youngest daughter is called Ariane. Named after the space rocket ( Mr J was working in the space industry at the time of Arianes birth) not the apple, although she is the apple of my eye.

God bless you all. xx

New Year ,New Decor.

I know I know blogging on two days consecutively you will think I have nothing else to do.  Have been busy since the return of our Bavaria trip thinking of ideas to make changes around the house. Think I have that itchy feet feeling again. Being a military wife and spending the 15years before we bought this house moving from place to place every 2 years, you seem to get used to gigantic changes in your life and then when you actually purchase a house and don't get that buzz and excitement from the impending changes anymore you miss it. I get this overwhelming feeling probably every 12 to 18 months that some big change needs to happen.

Change needed to happen!! While away on our winter holiday I had lots of time to think about things I would like to do with the house, bearing in mind this is definitely not my forever home I do have to be realistic.

Just before we left for our trip Mr J and I went over to the new housing estate that is being built just to take a look a what was happening over there,(yes we were being nosey!) We couldn't resist a look around the show home and were very impressed by the open plan kitchen,dining and family room. Now when we bought our house we bought off plan as you are lead to believe you then have control to a certain extent of how your house will look. That is as long as you don't want underfloor heating a built in water softening system or want them  not to  put up the wall between your kitchen and dining room!! You were not aloud to think outside of there box.

Anyhow while Mr J and the kids were out skiing one day I decided to redesign the down stairs of our house, on paper of course!  This did involve knocking down walls and moving doorways so not a task I could do as soon as I got home. Something for the future depending on cost and how long we will be here for. Mr J is still changing jobs every 18 month/2 years so who knows where we could be in a years time. A change was needed so it was furniture rearranging time, most of the house has been painted over the last year or so so I really couldn't justify repainting again. My dining room was the start of the rearranging as we had a lot of mismatched wood furniture in there and it was just one of those rooms I didn't really like and struggles to work when we have lots of people around the table. As per usual I jumped in with both feet and forgot to take pictures before i started moving stuff, and when Ariane asked me half way through the process I hadn't even measured to see if there was room to pull off my idea!!

The hutch and the tree truck side table both look the same colour in this picture but they aren't and the chest of drawers in the back ground is an old pine piece that I picked up at an auction a few years ago, none of this matched. Now I don't mind an eclectic mix of styles but this just didn't seem to work. The tree trunk side table had actually been in our lounge room until a few months back ,when I felt the need to rearrange that room the table then didn't have a home.

My plan was to remove both the side table and the drawers and replace them with two sets of book shelves that we had elsewhere in the house. One book shelf was upstairs with all of our old children's books on and the other was outside being used in the garage! I planned to make them look more dresser like by putting curtains over the bottom 2 shelves and to also disguise these areas where I would store less attractive pieces.

Shelf one was emptied and dragged down the stairs as a test piece. The one in the garage was still oak coloured and I knew I wanted to lighten up the room so wanted to see how the white would look. I quickly whipped up a curtain for the bottom and was pleased with how it looked.  Outside to paint the one in the garage and then leave that to dry over night.  My kids are so patient when they know I'm trying to create, they didn't get their dinner till 9.30 pm that night!! 

Breakfast the next morning was a calorie filled affair as we all needed some energy to get us moving. The best croissants ever (from aldi) with speculoos filling and a steaming hot peppermint mocha coffee. When is the UK going to catch up with the whole convenience of American food . Flavoured coffee creamer ,Genius!

For any of you who don't know what speculoos is , it is a creamed version of those nice caramel biscuits you get with your coffee  when you go to nice restaurants. It is so delicious. Note to self, stop eating it straight out of the jar!!

Decided that I was going to use my collection of tea cups and china to decorate the shelves and put the more usable items onto the bottomed covered shelves. This picture makes it look a bit sparse but I think that may have been the angle at which I took the picture.

All of the items I used where bits that I already had around the house. Most of the teas sets were actually stored in our glass fronted bookshelf in the lounge. Two birds with one stone, now I have more space on that bookshelf for books.

Old napkin rings and some mis matched silverware given a link by embellishing with a pair of vintage clip on earrings.

 

odd cups always look pretty when displayed together.

Pine cones real and fabric ones. I made the fabric ones as autumn decor a few years ago,even got the kids to make some as well.

How the dresser looks now.

Garage book shelf painted white and turned into our bar area. Not that we are big drinkers but as wedding presents we had an abundance of crystal glasses. This is the first time in 19 years they have ever been displayed. Urm just noticed it looks like someone has been at the Jack Daniels!!!!

How the whole wall looks now. The wine rack at the end may have left a few scratches on the skirting boards as that was pushed into place but it all fits.  Phew.

The bookshelf that was upstairs obviously needed replacing with something so Ariane and I moved the tree truck side table upstairs. That is one solid and heavy piece of furniture.

How the bookshelf looked on the upstairs hallway.

How the tree trunk side table looks in the hallway. The mirror above it does actually match the table and they were bought together to look just like this.  Some of our beloved handmade furniture pieces we bought while living in Madrid. The mirror has been used in our bedroom since we moved in so I will need to replace that but have got some ideas of what it will be replaced with. More on that later.

Again bits from other places in the house were used to dress the table top. By the way I will be making a curtain to cover all the books on the bottom shelf of the table.

Have seen lots of mirrors on blogland with  wreaths  hanging over them,i liked the idea but felt the need to keep this so you could still use it as a mirror. Old picture frame rescued from the bin at work and a love heart bought for me for my birthday by Jasmine and there you have it. Now I'm off to make that curtain and to sort out where the chest of drawers from the dining room will go.

God bless you all.xx

Inspiration found!

It seems ages since my last blog and so many events seem to have passed by way to quickly. CHRISTmas was a very quiet affair in the Johnson household this year. Nobody was up at 5am opening presents and it was me that woke the children at a very civilised 8.30am. Tea and croissants were served and the present opening commenced.

CHRISTmas eve

CHRISTmas Day

Once the presents were opened it was off to church for our CHRISTmas day service and then home again for our steak and frozen dinner!! Because we had already had our huge CHRISTmas dinner earlier on in December I decided I was going to take it easy for the day and with us all leaving for Bavaria on boxing day there was no way we wanted loads of leftovers, so frozen roasts,parsnips and brussels with chestnuts it was. Mr J cooked big fat juicy steaks on the bbq and we were done.  I personally wouldn't say no to frozen CHRISTmas again it worked out very nice.

The car had already been packed on CHRISTmas eve, Thanks Mr J! So when 5.30am arrived on boxing day we started out on the long journey to Bavaria. With leftover steak and stuffing sandwiches made we were ready for the 9.30am  ferry crossing.  This isn't something I look forward to as I am usually feeling ill before we have even left the port however we managed to get right at the front of the boat and it was a very calm crossing. Praise God!

Jasmine had bought herself a little present before we went on the journey, a Go Pro camera. Check out there website for what you can do with this little piece of kit Go Pro  It was mainly going to be used to do video blogs of our holiday and to get footage while they were all skiing. As most of you know I don't ski , don't like the cold and don't like the snow unless I'm sat indoors  wrapped up in a blanket watching it fall. I know I know but I'm out numbered !! One day I will get my beach holiday and have a tan again.

My holiday is usually spent reading, knitting and spending time with God. This year I decided that I was going to do some cross stitch so had taken a few pattern books and materials and would decide when i got there what I was going to make. We had decided that this year we were going to drive straight through to Bavaria, usually we stay the night at Ramstein both on the way there and on the way back but not this time.  We did stop off on our way down at our good friends Andrea and Scott's house where as always a warm welcome greeted us and so did some of Scott's amazing chicken chowder and pumpkin pie.  We finally got to meet the newest addition to the family baby Brayden who is a year old already. He is just too cute for words and both Mr J and Brayden seemed to be smitten with each other. :-)

Supplies were exchanged namely twizzlers and Romantic homes magazine Romantic. Twizzlers were for the kids by the way! 

The cross stitch I decided to do was inspired by the t shirt that Scott was wearing when we called in on the way down. ' I Love my Wife'  I thought it was the coolest shirt ever. So Scott cooks, not only owns, but wears a I love my wife t shirt ,oh did i mention that he is amazing at DIY too. Mr J only got to hear about the tshirt a few times during our holiday!!! Love you Mr J.XX

Below is a day to day of the cross stitch progress. Three days and it was finished.

After leaving the house at 5.30am on boxing day we actually got to our bed at 3 am the following morning having had only a 2 hour break at Ramstein with our friends. We were all up by 10ish as skiing had been planned for that afternoon. This was the  view from the cabin window on the first morning. Glorious blue skies and snow underfoot.

The rest of the family went off to the local ski run just to get familiarised with their ski's and snowboard as we hadn't been skiing last year. I do think this may have been our 5th year at the cabin though.

This was how my afternoon was spent!

 I do think I may have the coolest family on the slopes. See below!

For the first few night we ate in the cabin but decided it was schnitzel time by about day three. So we all got dressed up and walked down to the restaurant, only probably about a 100 meters from our cabin door but still a trek for me who seems to turn into an old granny when walking on snow/ice. Very little steps and very slowly!! Well worth the trek as the food was amazing,as always.  I partook in Bauern Schnitzel, which is breaded pork topped with bacon and cheese and a side order of bratkartoffeln. Delicious.

 

Mr J went for the currywurtz mit pommes.

Jasmine had the plain schnitzel. When her plate arrived it had 2 huge schnitzel along with a massive pile of fries. After watching many episodes of Man v Food   Jasmine was sure she was up to the challenge. This was a challenge as before her main course had arrived she had loaded up on two bowls of salad.

Woman V Food, Woman wins!!

Ariane looking very pleased with herself as she also ordered plain schnitzel but  from the section ' for those with a smaller appetite'. A regular portion of food for most normal people!!

Aynsley also ordered the Bauern schnitzel, the look just says it all.

The restaurant had some simple but beautiful decorations.

The snow started to fall on day three and didn't stop until the day we were leaving. Only one near death experience for the skiers as they managed to spin the car on one of the main roads and that was with the snow chains on !! The 30 minute journey from the slopes took them nearly 2 hours that night!! Thank God they got back safely.

Evenings are always spent together playing games our favourites are Dutch blitz dutch blitz and music quizzes from our Ipods. It all gets very competitive and one afternoon the dutch blitz game lasted for 5 hours!

Our Cabin

Snowing again!

Handsome Mr J with his beard. I Like! Unfortunately it had to be shaved off when he went back to work.

New years eve are always a crazy affair in Germany. Usually the Germans are very sensible, clean living, rule abiding people, that is until new years eve! They all go crazy with fireworks no health and safety or risk assessments at these events, oh no you just light it and hope you don't either shoot yourself with it or anyone else!!  There is always an outside bar with gluhwien and champagne is handed out to anyone who wants it in the run up to the big count down. Then its off with the fireworks.

We  already had the car packed on new years eve so we could make an early start on new years day on out return trip. We were however staying overnight at Ramstien this time.

Whenever we drive past this genius piece of engineering it always gets a comment.  See for yourself. This is the airports multi-story car park. Built on a bridge crossing the motorway! Genius use  of space!!

After a night at the hotel and some serious shopping we were back to visit with friends Scott and Andrea for the whole day. This is the highlight of my trip, getting to spend time with Godly friends and just talk and be inspired.

Andrea is my design hero, when Brayden arrived she gave up her job as a nurse and became a entrepreneur. She travels all over Europe buying unusual pieces of furniture and then either repaints or re purposes the items. Take a look at her house and you will see what I mean. Check out her blog at Chloes Couture .

Those of you who read my previous post about whitehall garden centre whitehall Well this family live in the real deal not some set made especially for the season, and they have 4 children!! How she has the energy to maintain all this, run a business and look after 4 kids is beyond me. I am officially renaming her 'superwoman'.

In good ole American style we had a TThanksgiving feast. As we Brits don't do thanksgiving this was another opportunity for us to live the American live we dream of. Smoked turkey was a taste sensation, wish we could get it here in the UK. Then there was corn casserole, sweet potatoes and marshmallow( a particular favourite of mine) mash potatoes made with milk butter and cream!!! Even I tried them! the list could go on and desert was amazing too with brownies,pumpkin pie,cool whip and ice cream. Thank you so much to Scott , Andrea and the Children for such a fantastic time together.

Even their daughters room is a design inspiration.

The less said about the ferry journey back the better!! Lets just say we were on the last ferry to cross before they stopped all ferry crossing due to the bad weather!!!

When we got home we quickly emptied the car and rolled into bed about 5am.  We were up about 9am as we had to collect Bonnie from the kennels.

A quick look at the stash we bought home with us. I must say that alot of this was in our goodie bags from Scott and Andrea , Thanks once again how would we survive without kool aid, twizzlers,lucky charms and a mountain of toll house chocolate chips.

More Gifts from Andrea a gorgeous basket filled with candles and decorations. The little clock you can see now lives on my mantle and has an amazing ticking noise. I loved it but Ariane could not concentrate on the TV because of the noise it made. So no more winding up of the little old clock.

and an apothecary jar full of marshmallows. Fabulous.

Back to reality now and this is how we started the next few days after the trip.  Cinnabon cinnamon rolls and coffee with gingerbread latte creamer in it. Bliss!

God bless you all. xx