The Gallery Wall - Take Two.............

Still not able to upload my pictures from my camera the "normal" way, but The Man

was kind enough to walk me through it - again, so this time I took "notes".

Hopefully, I can do this! Wish me luck!!

I've been tweaking the gallery wall, plus I was able to find enough "stuff" around the house

to decorate the bench below the gallery.

So here it is...........

 I'm sure I'll continue tweaking it,

'cause that's just how I am and I'm not sure I'm happy with the bench now.

I think it may be "too country" for me. I want rustic, farmhouse, french country,

but not necessarily "country".  I know there's a fine-line between them,

(and I think I crossed it!!) but I'll keep looking at inspiration photos 'til I figure out

what can stay and what needs to go!!

I'm totally open to suggestions!! Help a girl out, friends!! I lose sleep over things like this!! 

 Everything on and under the bench is either from the antique store or thrift store,

with the exception of the glass pitcher and the dried leaves.

The pitcher is from Pier One and the dried leaves are from a flower arrangement

that my co-workers sent to me two years ago after I had surgery. Such thoughtful friends!!

Lots of vintage books, cigar boxes, small metal tacklebox, vintage baby shoes,

more cigar boxes and books, and a vintage glass door knob.

a vintage picnic basket, more books, a new burlap sack tucked inside the basket.....

I'm linking up to another party I found..........

Go check out the awesome ideas over at this linky party!!!!

Wow Us Wednesdays at Savvy Southern Style

Thank you so much for stopping by and checking out my blog!!

It truly is amazing to me that y'all want to see what I'm posting about!!

Thank you so much for your support and fun comments!!

What I Wore Wednesday

Sorry for the lack of posts lately! Camera difficulties!

Not sure what the problem is, as I'm not very tech savvy, so I think the solution

to the problem is --- a nice, new camera!!!

It is Wednesday, so I'm participating in What I Wore Wednesday,

but let me warn you, my photos are a little sad.

Not only do I have camera problems, I've been extremely lazy lately.

I don't know what the deal is - but I need to snap out of it!!

Of course, I'm linking up with The Pleated Poppy for some fashion inspiration.

Maybe you should just head on over there now and forget about the photos below!!

I only have one full length photo and no photos of what I wore for Easter!!

Running errands and taking my son to the ortho....

my new skinny jeans - gap

cardigan - old navy

scarf - jcp

white ruffle shirt - gap

bronze flats - marshall's

Grocery shopping (woo hoo!)

I wore my favorite boyfriend jeans - gap

white v-neck tshirt - gap

gray/black scarf - kohls

black flats

 Me with a little bit of an attitude!! Not sure what's going on here!!

This was Saturday - running errands with The Man.

Wearing my favorite OU tshirt (boomer sooner, baby!!) - jcp

black cardigan - old navy

hat - kohl's

boyfriend jeans - gap

black flats - even though you cant see them - Target

Lunch with my mom, my sister, and my aunt. 

white button down shirt - kohls

I wore my dark skinny jeans - gap

big hair - my hair stylist says it's making a comeback - so I'm embracing it!!!

necklace - steinmart ($20) - love, love, love it!!

flats - target

So, there you have it - my lazy version of What I Wore.

It's a rainy, dreary day here in Oklahoma - so I probably won't get out of my pjs today!!!

But I'll try to take better photos starting tomorrow!!

Hope you are having a wonderful day, my friends!!!

The Gallery Wall

As with many design ideas, Pottery Barn was definitely my inspiration for

creating a gallery wall or wonder wall in my hallway. 

I've been collecting items for a few months to create this wall, but was a little nervous

 about actually hanging the items on the wall and actually liking it

AND doing it without putting a million nail holes in the wall.

The following three photos are from Pottery Barn.

In the photo above, I like how the bench is used in place of a table,

(and I happen to have a bench!)

I love the stacked books and the potted lavendar plant.

I really love the mis-matched frames, photos and artwork.

Same with this one. I'm really drawn to the mismatched frames, photos, and artwork.

Love the wooden signs at the top.

This photo also uses a bench below the artwork. I love this, but I don't know how

practical it is to stack firewood in my hallway.

While I do like the photos and artwork in this one, it is a little too "matchy-matchy" for my house.

The plank wall had me at "hello" - now if only I can convince The Man to let me have a plank wall!

Well, here is how mine started..........

I put all my items out on the floor in the entryway to get an idea of the layout.

I wanted to incorporate family photos, random destination pictures/artwork,

a number sign, and the letter D.

 It took me a couple of hours to be satisfied with the layout and

if you'll notice I didn't use all the items I had on the floor - I found other things

laying around the house that I liked better. 

Looking into the hallway from the entryway..............

This is a chalkboard from Hobby Lobby that I painted and

distressed - then tied on a photo of my kids using jute.

I made the 1510 sign using house numbers and an address plate/board from Lowes.

I just painted and distressed it, then tacked on the numbers. Cheap and easy!!

Did you notice the farmhouse picture??

1510 and a farmhouse - love it!!

The long narrow sign says "in everything give thanks".

I'm not sure about the brown frame on the bottom right hand side.

 I tried a black frame, but didn't care for it either.

Maybe a wood frame?? What do you think????

I'm happy with how it turned out and I think I ended up with only 900,000 nail holes.

Still though, The Man doesn't need to know!!

 Now I need to work on the bench. Maybe a potted plant, some candles, and a stack of books.

Any suggestions??

Have a great evening my friends!!

Dream Backyard - Part Three

Hey Friends!! Glad you stopped by today!

I have a few more photos of the backyard to share with you.

I hope you're not bored with this!!

It is still - and will probably always be - a work in progress - but that's ok!!

I would probably get really bored if I didn't have projects to work on.

Looking for patio furniture was an adventure!! We've never owned patio furniture, so we

really weren't sure what to look for, or even what we would need. 

Due to the lovely Oklahoma wind, we knew we needed something heavy!!

Of course it had to be pretty, but not "too pretty" - that's just not us

and it needed to be comfortable.

Most of what we purchased is wrought iron - but even that can end up in the pool

as I learned Sunday afternoon!!

This is our main seating area and I love it!! It has back cushions, but again due to the wind,

they are usually in the pool storage box. But they are still comfortable without the backs.

We spend many evenings sitting in these chairs, just talking, about life.  It's wonderful!!

 The Alaskan Weeping Cedar tree was transplanted from our front yard. So far, so good!!

I hope it does well back here! I love the way it looks!

For now, we have two chaise lounges. I want to get cushions, but not sure what color.

Red seems to be what I'm most drawn to - but we'll see.

Friday these flowers and basket blew into the pool, so I'm not sure I'll be able to leave them in this spot,

but I sure do love how they look sitting next to this bench and I love the red against the blue of the pool!

I love burlap, so I lined the basket with a burlap sack and just set the flowers in the basket.

Easy and pretty!!!

The bistro table on the back side of the pool was on my front porch, but I really like it back here,

so this is it's new home.  I'll have to find something new for the front porch!

 Oh darn, I'll have to go shopping!!





We still need to plant three trees, add a few more plants and flowers, then mulch it all.

After that, I think we will call it done for this year!!

The grass is finally starting to get green and the plants are starting to fill in more so it looks

prettier each day.  I'll post a few more photos later this week or next week, then I'll move on

to the next project!  Thanks for hanging in there with me!!

Have a lovely week, my friends!!

Dream Backyard - Part Two

Here it is!!

~ Midnight Blue ~

Isn't it dreamy?? Isn't it relaxing?? Isn't it glorious??

I.love.it!!!!

It was probably the toughest design decision we had to make regarding the pool

and it turned out better than we could ever have envisioned!!

But - it took a few days to get there!!

Once they applied the color, which only took a few hours,

they immediately started filing it with water.

Here it is the day they applied it -

It had a chalk-like appearance - oh but don't worry -

we get to brush it all off -

twice a day

for 7 to 10 days.

Quite an upper arm work-out!!



Baby boy checkin' it out - he couldn't wait to get in!!

He didn't care it was only the second week of March

and still cold outside or that the water was maybe 55-60 degrees....

He got in! He got out!!

While all that was going on, we had to decide what to do with our 16 dumptruck

loads of dirt.  What did we want the landscape to look like??  Where do we have them put that dirt??

We had an idea of what we wanted, but due to the size of our yard, we had no idea where to start!!

So, we called in the professionals!!

We actually tried to call several professionals, but they either weren't accepting new clients,

were too expensive, or didn't return our phone call timely. But I think it was meant to be!!

We called Foster's Nursery & Tree Farm and it was a match made in heaven!!

We knew we wanted to do the work ourselves, we just needed some guidance - a plan!!!

So, Jim from Foster's came by our house, took notes of our ideas, took some photos of the yard,

took some measurements and headed back to the nursery. 

A few days later, we anxiously went by the nursery to check out the design plan 

and look at the actual plants and trees.

To say I was excited, would be an understatement......

This after all was the final piece - the decorative piece -

"the pretty" that would pull it all together!! 

Here is our awesome design plan!!

Jim designed our yard in a way that I never could have imagined.

Flowerbeds in places I'd never even considered!

It was beautiful - but a little overwhelming at first!!

What are all those lines and drawings?? How about all those colors??

How did he get it to scale?

It took a couple of days of me staring at the design plan, holding it up, looking out to the backyard

and trying to acclamate the drawing with our yard. 

But once I got it - I really "got it"!!!! 

I knew our yard had potential - but this was beyond my wildest dreams!!!

If you need to purchase plants or need a landscape design or landscape advice,

I HIGHLY recommend Foster's!!

They are nice, knowledgeable, and it is a locally (okc) owned family business!!

Now that we have the design plan, we need to have the dirt moved!!

A little here.................

a little there.......

While they were moving the dirt, we also had them put a couple of boulders in place.

The large rock on the right, is the "dive" rock. 

Instead of a diving board, we opted for this large boulder.

Once the dirt was moved, we outlined the flowerbeds with the waterhoses and began

placing the plants........

The Man - my pool boy, my yard boy, my love!!!

We think we have it where we want it - now we have to plant it all!!

oh my!!! That's manual labor!!

Well, we also need some new grass!!  Bring on the rolls of sod!!

The sod is all down, the plants are all planted,

now let the watering begin!!

Bringing in some more boulders for the landscape!!

Love this moss rock!!!

The Man is creating a rock border for my roses.................

The mounds of dirt are for trees.........One or two will be transplanted from our front yard,

the others will be purchased later on.

The landscaping has been alot of work, and we have so much more to do,

like the edging, planting trees and annuals, adding mulch, etc.....

and patio furniture!! That was a fun purchase!!

If one was rich, you could seriously make your backyard more comfortable than your living room!!!

These pictures were all taken a few weeks ago, so it has changed quite a bit -

I'll get more pictures posted soon!!

We are so in love with this and so excited to get it completed

so we can share it with family and friends!!

This is truly a dream come true!!!