Spring Decor Options

I thought I would share a few Spring decor options with you.

Before we left our first home behind I had added a few Spring touches.
I added Spring in our home a bit early this year because we were leaving.

 In my opinion it's never too early to add those touches that simply make you feel at home.

These elements & textures are some of the ones I love & could keep up year round.

Here are some of the touches I added to our dining room cabinet.

I love to use this piece to change out my decor.

The shelving gives me the perfect place to display a few seasonal accents.

As you can see I love the addition of green moss.

I always like to use moss balls throughout different seasons to bring the outside in.

They are a fairly inexpensive way to add natural hints to any space.

If you follow along on our blog you know I absolutely adore fresh Hydrangeas.

I couldn't resist adding these Nikko Blue Hydrangeas for a classic nod to Spring & Summer.

The Nikko Blue Hydrangea is one of my favorite varieties of Hydrangeas.

I plan to incoporate them into our landscaping at the new house.

That way I have an endless supply to bring indoors from time to time.

As you can see I added a touch of fresh green to each shelf.

Here I added a simple succulent to the small white vase.

Dwellings carries some fabulous succulents.

They look so real!

Then I added a simple filler to the glass apothecary jar.

~ Tip ~

Try using a bag of chick peas as vase filler.

The avacado green is the perfect Spring color.

It's a great affordable option for a vase filler & it looks great too.

I hope you enjoyed some of our Spring decor.

To see more of our Spring Cottage dining room check it our here.

Have a great week!

Carrie

linking up to

The Lettered Cottage

The Shabby Creek Cottage
Savvy Southern Style
Funky Junk Interiors
Between Naps on the Porch
It's Overflowing

Bidding Farewell Part 3 ~ Our Dining Room

It's official we have left behind our first home.

We are saying goodbye to our first cottage bungalow.

So to continue on with our tribute to our first home & all the projects we did,

we are bidding farewell room by room.

If you missed Part 1 & Part 2 you can see them here & here.

Part 3

 ~ Our Dining Room~

We updated the dining room in stages to save on our budget.

In time it came together just as I hoped.

If you would like to see the before (or somewhere in the middle) you can go here.

If you go...beware....it was in my early blogging days & those photos are not the best!

Come on into the dining room & enjoy good food, family & friends with us.

The dining room & kitchen for me are the heart of the home.

In this house our kitchen was a little tiny, but the dining room was the saving grace.

This is the view from the quaint cottage kitchen into our dining room.

Directly off the kitchen & dining room is our 4 season back porch, this is the view from there.

You can also sneak back into the living room through the door in the corner.

The dining room turned out to be one of my favorite rooms in our first home.

I will always remember the first time we had our family over after all the updates.

It will be one of those cherished memories that will last forever.

I finally had a dining room that reminded me of home.

Growing up the dining table was where it all went down.

My family always had Sunday dinners at my Mom & Dad's.

Anyone & everyone was always welcome...the more the merrier.

We shared so many memories at my Mom & Dad's dining table.

Boy, I bet that table could tell some stories.

My Mom LOVED to entertain!

The table was ever changing with the season.

We shared good food family & friends.

We laughed & sometime cried & sometimes laughed so hard we hard cried.

Had family game nights.

The dining table was where I can remember planning our futures.

And ultimately bringing home the perfect guy to meet the family.

Then one day soon after, knowing that guy was the perfect fit at the dining table.

So, for me the dining room & dining table really are the heart of the home you see.

Where would all my memories have occured if it weren't for that dining room?

I think those memories helped to mold the person I am.

I hope one day my dining table has that effect on someone.

What is your favorite room in your home?

Is it the dining room?

What do you like most about your dining room?

Do you have a room that speaks to your soul the way my dining room does for me?

Hope you all are having a great week!

I promise, soon I will be posting the first progress pics of our new home

& our next major renovation journey.

I hope you will join us this year as we take on our biggest renovation yet!

Carrie

linking up to

Miss Mustard Seed

The Shabby Nest

Remodelaholic

Funky Junk Interiors

The Shabby Creek Cottage

Savvy Southern Style

Thrifty Decor Chick

Remodelaholic Dining Room Link Up

{Moving Day} Recap

Well...
We Survived!

Moving Day!!!

Saturday was the big day!

We packed up our things and we left behind Our First Home.

It is bitter sweet.

We love our little cottage bungalow.

It was a good starter home.

But it's time to move on.

We loaded up the U-Haul and headed back to our hometown.

I was a little busy...sorry no moving day pics to speak of.

We could not be more exicted to begin the next chapter of our lives.

We our moving to LeClaire, Iowa.

It is a charming little country town nesteled on the riverbanks of the Mississippi River.

It is "Our Town"

You can read more about our town here.

We have a crazy road ahead ahead of us.

We are about to begin the biggest renovation we have ever done.

We will be completely remodeling our next home from top to bottom before we move in.

Here we come new home...we have lots in store!

So, look out Mom!

Your guests have arrived!

My Mom is graciously letting us stay with her while we complete the renovations.

Good times I tell ya!

Good times!!!

I hope you will follow along on our new renovation journey!
Tons in store for our new home!
Check back later this week to as we continue to bid farewell to our first home.

Also ~ this week I will be posting the first glimpse on the progress at the new place!

Carrie

linking up to
Savvy Southern Style
The Shabby Creek Cottage
Remodelaholic
Funky Junk Interiors

Bidding Farewell Part 2 ~ Our First Home the Living Room

Hey there! 

Guess what???

Tomorrow is our big day!

Moving day is almost here...

So, tonight in between packing final boxes I thought I would continue on with our Farewell tour.

Come on inside to our Living Room.

If you missed the first part of the tour you can check it out here in Part 1.

For those of you who haven't heard, we are moving out of our first home.

We are moving back to the small country town of LeClaire, Iowa nesteled on the

riverbanks of the Mighty Mississippi River.

We are so excited to start the next chapter of our lives back in our hometown.

This is our living room of our first home.

While there are certain elements I love in this room, the room has definitely taught me a thing or to about

what I want and do not want in our next home and the mistakes I have made & will learn from.

 Goodbye dark Haybail walls!  Sorry to say, you will not be missed!

I love all of the natural wood vintage farmhouse style furniture that we have acquired.

All of these charming pieces, full of character will definitely be making the move with us!

I love all the bright white trim in this house and the large windows that let the sunshine in.

 Definitely a top priority for the remodel in our next home...LOTS of natural light!

I love this little nook in our living room.

It was the perfect space for our gallery wall.

You will be missed!

I will definitely have to find a space in our new home for a gallery wall.

I have a thing for photos.

I always will require a space to display our most cherished memories.

So that is it for our Living Room.

Goodbye cozy comfortable living room.

I know that Travis will miss you the most!

Stop back by for more of our Farewell Tour of Our First Home.

We hope you'll join us as we say goodbye.

Don't forget to come along on our renovation journey of our next home.

Have you left behind your first home?

Were you excited?  Sad? 

I would love to hear about it.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Be sure to stop back to watch for the progress on our new home.

Carrie

linking up to

Funky Junk Interiors
Savvy Southern Style
The Shabby Creek Cottage
Remodelaholic

Bidding Farewell ~ Our First Home ~ Part 1 {Front Porch}



For those of you who follow along you may know it is time for us to bid farewell to our first home.

Saying goodbye can be bitter sweet.

We have had many firsts in this home of ours.

This was our first home we bought together.

It was the first & last home that my Dad got to see of ours.

It was the first home we came home to as Mr. & Mrs. Corson.

It was the first home that we updated together.

It was the first home and last that we refinished hardwood floors in.

It was the first home that we shared many family dinners & holidays in.

And now it is the first home we have SOLD together.

This home will forever be in our hearts & memories as Our First Home.

Well, this week is moving week!

Agh! 

 I can't believe it's finally here!

On Saturday we will be packing up the moving truck & heading back to our hometown LeClaire, Iowa.  Returning to the small rivertown in the country on the Mighty Mississippi River where we grew up.

We have been looking forward to this day for a while now.

It's funny how you begin to really "find" yourselves & figure out who you will be together as

a couple in the first few years of marriage.  This is who we are.

We are small town couple who enjoy and appreciate the simple things in life.

We enjoy the community of small town living.

We happen to like knowing most of the people in town.

We like that we can walk down main street of our historic downtown and shop locally.

We can go to a nice restaurant with beautiful river views for dinner.

We love that we can drive on the outskirts of town and take a drive through the old country roads.

Anyway........ I could go on about how excited we are to be heading back to LeClaire.

But, I will save that for another post.

I promised we would be doing a recap of our first house this week.

So, come on in!

Here is what our front porch looked like just a few weeks ago.

Summer 2011

Summer 2011

Summer 2011

Stop back! 

We have more on the tour to say Goodbye to.

Carrie

linking up to
The Shabby Creek Cottage
Savvy Southern Style
Funky Junk Interiors

A Tiny Cottage Kitchen

I know I've shared a few peaks of our kitchen before.

Today I thought I would share why I love our tiny cottage kitchen.

our kitchen and dining room

Our kitchen is the smallest space in our home.

But it works.

Luckily we have 10 foot ceilings, or I'm not sure I could deal.

I wish I had a few before shots I could share. 

Unfortunately it was BB (Before Blogging.)

Our kitchen cabinets were a lovely pale shade of seafoam green.

The trim was lavendar.  (Yep, I did say lavendar.....in a kitchen.)

There was pretty floral wallpaper that brought it all together quit (uggghhh) nicely.

So we updated it.  On a budget of course.

We painted the kitchen cabinets.  Lowes Valspar Brilliant White high gloss finish.

We painted the trim in the same.

Ditched the wallpaper.

We painted the walls.

And as always, added a few simple touches of good old cottage charm.

a peak into the dining room from the kitchen

Thank goodness our dining room is directly off the tiny kitchen.

It makes the space functional when having guests over.

I think my favorite part of the entire kitchen are the little nooks above the cabinets.

They add some of that character and charm I love about living in an old home.

I filled them with the seagrass baskets $9.99 each from Michael's to add some texture.

I love layering some natural elements of texture to each and every space.

So that's it folks. 

No fancy carerra marble.

No custom cabinetry.

No stainless steel appliances.

Just our little tiny cottage kitchen that we have grown to love because it's ours.

Carrie

Linking up to

Between Naps on the PorchCottage and Vine

Living Room Before & After

Today I thought I would share our living room before & after pics with you all.

This project was just slightly outside the scope of my handy man's talents.

So, we called in reinforecements!

Enter my Uncle Jeff.

Luckily for us Jeff had his own carpet laying business for years.

Now he just helps out with the occassional family favor.

Thanks Ucle Jeff!!!

before

during

This photo reminds me of my Dad.
He would of loved to be there right in the middle of this project.
Jeff and my Dad were always the handy man pair in our family.
Now it's Jeff (right) and Travis (left).

during

after

We actually chose carpet for the living room because our
 hardwoods underneath were just in too bad of shape to refinish. 
So, saving time and money we opted for carpeting.
Not necessarily our first choice, but considering we are selling it would work.

before

The living room paint is Haybail from Ralph Lauren.  While I like the color. 
Had we been staying.......I would have went with something a little lighter.
This room was the first room we painted 3 years ago right after we moved in.
Again....since we are selling.  It stays!

We also updated our sofa temporarily. 

We had an old worn out PB  basic knock of from Penney's.

It had seen better days to say the least.

My little brother was storing this sofa at my Mom's.

So, thanks to Matt we are borrowing this for the time being.

It looks tons better than our old sofa!

And we did not have to invest in a new sofa that would work in this house

and may not end up working in the new house.

Let us know what you think of our transformation.

We love your comments!

Carrie

Linking up to

Between Naps on the Porch

Thrifty Decor Chick

Life Made Lovely
The Shabby Creek Cottage