Porch Party/ Or Spring has finally arrived in Wisc.!

Welcome to the Porch & Patio Party! Our hostess is Barb @ Grits and Glamour, be sure to check out her beautiful blog@ http://gritsglamour.blogspot.com/ and more of the participants.

Things were looking pretty drab and dreary around here. Even Cocoa was feeling down. Well, in Wisconsin we have to wait a little more patiently for Spring to really arrive. Last week-end , the weather guy finally gave us a green light for planting. Hooray! Today was a sunny and warm 70 degrees.

Looking rather drab and needing some TLC with an itty bitty budget.

The reveal! There are still things to do but I had to bust butt to get this ready.

A different angle.

Hubby painted the old bench red.
Our cushions, recovered with a half yard of outdoor fabric on sale for 4.00/yard. New pillow made by yours truly.

The other half yard of fabric and a garage sale pillow for $2.00.




Same fabric as pillow used to make cover for the bench.

Geraniums newly planted.


The tea-cup planter is from Wally World and the chair was a previous purchase.


Home Goods and a few daisies thrown in.



Hubby painted the old red bench and I added an apple for Applestone Cottage. The yellow wicker holder was in the free box at a garage sale last week-end.



Found the chair at an Auction and hubby painted it apple red.

Even Lily, our high strung kitty looks content. Thanks for stopping, Cindy

MET/MONDAY or the Living Room floor

Welcome to the 2nd Sunday Favorites! This is the wonderful and witty not to mention creative Chari's brainchild! To see more wonderful posts that you may have missed go to http://happytodesign.blogspot.com/ My post today was originally posted on Susan's Met Monday. Thanks for coming by and all the birthday wishes you sent to my daughter Katie Rose. She smiled and smiled and giggled when she read them! Happy Sunday Favorites! Cindy

Welcome to another Met Monday, sponsored by our lovely hostess Susan. To see other wonderful transformations visit http://betweennapsontheporchblogspot.com/ . When we moved from town to our country cottage the living room was the first thing we needed to tackle. The living room had old white dingy carpeting, off white walls and ugly brown curtains. We decided that hardwood was the way to go! My talented DH and I picked out hickory to go with the somewhat rustic look of the room. I don't have a lot of before pics, but here he is starting to lay the floor. He had already pulled out the carpeting and put down and underlayment.

Here he is hard at work! Each piece has to be laid out in a pattern before he starts working on that section. My in-laws and I would be laying out the hardwood and try to stay a little bit ahead of him.

About 1/4 way done. You can see all the various equipment needed.

There is a special compression nailing machine he uses.

Oh yes, Looking good and about 3/4 way done.

OOPS-- same pic again. And Mega hours later. The labor is quite intensive. Marrying a Building Construction/Woodworking Teacher certainly has it's perks!!

Finished product. We painted the walls a butter cookie and got rid of the ugly brown curtains.

Another view, I am so happy with the way it turned out. I think that hickory was the right choice for this room. Thanks for stopping by, Cindy