Doorway to ... my back yard?

This was the sight of my back yard on Saturday:

One of the projects I took on shortly after we moved into this house, and shortly after Chris started school, was painting all of the baseboards. We were so fortunate that this house already had the large baseboards in the ENTIRE house. Our luck ran out there though...the previous owners GLUED all of the baseboards on instead of nailing them, so those bad boys aren't coming off in one piece.

Which means I spent numerous evenings while Chris was watching class or doing homework down on the ground with a bucket of white paint and my paintbrush.  I took the yellowish dirty dingy baseboards (and door trim) and made them white again.

Which was great, minus the fact that our new shiny white baseboards did not look so good up to the old, yellowy doors. Boo.

Lucky for me, my step-dad is a painter and loves me enough to do some work on his r&r time with his spray gun this past weekend while he was over visiting!  He sprayed on Behr's interior / exterior high-gloss ultra white, and the doors look amazing!

We removed every single interior door and closet door in the house and removed every single piece of hardware (hinges, knobs, etc) too.  Stay tuned for another post later this week to see the final product and her glory shiny whiteness in the house.  It makes me smile.

New Look!!!

Don't leave...you're in the right spot!!! I've been working on coming up with a new look that's not so... juvenile-ish for my blog, and today's my big reveal. I'm nowhere near finished (isn't it always a work in progress?!), but I like the clean crisp feel of this new template.

I've been working on this for a few weeks now...what do you think of my big reveal?! Do you like the crisp clean look or is it too boring? I'm trying to come up with a subtle background that still pops, but I'm not there yet. It's just like everything else...the last 10% is the hardest!

Please bear with me while I get all of the old stuff up and running correctly!

Thanks so much for reading...I appreciate every single one of you!  I've got lots of projects to post on this week, so please stay tuned!

Flower Power : Welcoming Guests

Today, my D. Mom and Step-Dad are heading over for a fun-filled family weekend. I love flowers in my entry way vase, but didn't have time to run to the store to get some, so I brought the outside in and got creative.

I absolutely love these little pink flowers that bloom on our tree in our back yard, so I cut off a few branches, and added some of another tree that blooms and smells oh-so-sweet to my vase.

A nice, easy, freebie way to spruce up and welcome our guests when they come in.

Do you have any creative, fun, and easy ways to spruce up a bit before company?  

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!!  I'm linking up to these parties...make sure to check them out!