Mellow Yellow

There is a room in our house that has been moved around so many times that it must suffer a bit of an identity complex!
next door to our kitchen is what i imagine is were the original kitchen was but somewhere along the way a little extension was built onto the back of the house and the kitchen was put in there..
leaving us with what i grandly call "the morning room!"
what i would really like to do is know down the dividing wall and make a nice spacious kitchen but apparently the way it was built it would need pillars and stuff to strengthen it.basically i cant knock the wall down myself!!..
so since we moved in Ive faffed around with this room ..changing it and adding things to it constantly!
at the start of the year we again changed it and i went for a whole different colour on the walls...a colour that Ive not used for the main colour scheme before..Yellow !!
and its thanks to my mummy who gave me the idea and even bought me the paint "thanks mum!"..

this room is now the tv room, or the snug as i affectionately like to call it !!

here's a few shots of what it has been used as in the past few years

i don't have any pictures of what it first used to look like when we first moved in.. it was cream and green..
a dark brown wooden desk and a green cupboard.. and beige carpet.. it was very "home office at Argos!"

the top picture was its most recent identity that of the dining room but once the hubby got it into his head that he wanted to make a big ol dining table then we realised that the dining room would have be moved !.

so we moved the big ikea flowery sofa into this room and i really didn't think it was going to fit or that if it did fit we would be squeezing our way past it and it would look monstrous.. but you know i actually think it looks better in this room than it did in the larger room .. i think its because it fits into the corner so looks more compact than sitting in the middle of the room..

so here goes a little tour around the Mellow Yellow snug!! (am i pretentious or what!!?)

i finally got some of my thrifted plates up on the wall.. i have a cupboard full of plates waiting to be hung up but its a job that i never get round to doing .. think its the whole buying plate holders and never knowing what size i need to get that usually gets in the way of this job!
so i have tried to stick to a mainly pink and yellow scheme with the plates, we moved the little corner cabinet from the other side of the room and i bought some cute little hanging candle holders off eBay.. i bought floral to keep in with the floral theme of the plates ..these give off such a lovely pattern on the wall when they are lit so pretty

these two shelves were already up so i just swapped the bits and bobs that were on them and hung a little lantern and some bunting...

the sofa fits!!..I'm much more happier with the sofa in here now ..  i never sat on it when it was in the other room.. a real waste as its sooo comfy!!

this little sofa was one of the first things i had from Freecycle..and it used to be in this room when we first moved in, i put it away after a while as it didn't fit in with my colour schemes but i got it back out of storage and made it fit in this scheme.. my youngest boy loves this little sofa.. he would lie on it all day if he could .. its like a little day bed to him!!

there had been a skip at the top of my road for weeks , one morning i was walking past, the skip was gone but this had been left behind on the grass.. it had no sides and broken glass doors and shelves..i brought it home and the hubby used the left over wood from our table to make the sides and fit the shelves and sanded it all back..its perfect for all our dvds!!

a sweet little picture from B&M's

this rug came from the charity shop the other week it was only £4

more candle holders off ebay and dangling hearts also off ebay.. its like i cant have anything simple..i have to hang things off everything!!!

i loved this sweet hanging house and bird mobile..i should imagine its for a little girls room but i thought it tied all the colours in the room together ..again another hanging thing.. to go with the two hanging lanterns already in the window.. do you think im obsessed!!

another view of my little sofa, the actual upholstery is pretty tired so i have just put some throws and cushions over it until i can get it reupholstered..
next to it is a plant stand i bought from ikea as there just didnt seem to be enough furniture in here for my liking .. i like having surfaces at every turn to put down cups, candles and whatever little pretties i might find along the way..
oh do you like the pretty doily on the stand my mum bought me that the other week pretty isnt it !..
the hubs cant believe we have doilies in our home.. he doesn't get it at all really does he!!


hope you enjoyed having a look around ..have you done any decorating lately that we could have a nose i mean a look at !!..

bathroom window mini makeover

on my bathroom window i have the same lace drops that i have on virtually every window in my home the ikea lace drops.. .these are around the £9 mark and are so amazingly good for the price as they look really expensive and you get tons of material for your money...

now as i say i had these drops on my window and i had the two that you get in the set..this is only a little window and the height from the curtain rail to the floor wasn't that long so there was always lots of material wafting around...when i originally put them up on the rail it was in typical pretty vintage slapdash style so there was no tie backs for them it was simply me tying a big knot in them ..terrible really!!

after about a year this had started to get on my nerves  as there was far to much material and they just lay on the floor getting dusty and i felt looking a bit scruffy until the other Saturday when i was in the middle of cleaning the bathroom and moved the curtains to mop the floor .. suddenly the creative urge came over me and i decided to take both drops down and just put the one half back up.
i thought i would drape it from one side and tie it at the side using some ribbon i found in my messy drawer!

.. do you do mini makeovers that make you feel like that!!! but the window looked unfinished so i had a root round my linen cupboard and came across a white cotton runner that i had bought from a pound land shop no less which had never been used  and decided to use as a pelmet ..
very simply i pinned it around the curtain pole to give it the shape but it has remained in tact and i feel looks very effective
this took me about five minutes but its one of those mini makeovers that has really made my day as now when i walk into the bathroom i see a tidy pretty window instead of a messy one and its a little bit new so I'm still loving the novelty factor!!

i also bought a new candle holder from the chazza shop the other day as well so this has found a new home on the bathroom window sill along side one of my vintage looking ikea candle holders which has a gorgeous smelling candle in and my mini pewter petal looking candle holder that I've had for a while now it gives me something new to look at now when I'm brushing my teeth!!

a little bit of a tadda moment!

well Ive been off the blogging radar for a while again.. its really not intentional .. its the fact that our camera is broke so i have to rely on the hubby's camera on his phone.. so by the time he gets in from work and I'm pulling my hair out with the boys the last thing on my mind is setting up and taking pretty pictures.i really should just buy a new camera shouldn't i !!..

anyways i took a few minutes the other day to take a couple of pics of some of my latest projects...

now remember the sweet little tea trolley from my last post..

well i found some pale pink gloss lurking in the back of my cupboard so i slapped that on it the other day .. i forgot to put an undercoat on, instead i just sanded it down a bit and painted on two coats of the paint

id forgotten how long gloss actually takes to dry.. remind me never to use that again !!..

it is a bit patchy but that's the beauty of the "shabby chic" look isn't it.. it doesn't have to look perfect !! ( luckily for me!)

i had seen on the Wilkinson's website under children's storage this rather cute box which i think is meant for toys for a little girls room .. but i just saw the tea cup and tea pot design and the fact it was pink blue and yellow and knew it was meant for my kitchen !!..


i bought it and it now holds my tea towels.. which is great because the drawer that did have my tea towels in is now officially my "messy drawer!".. you know the drawer that holds takeaway menus and unwanted bills!!..

i bought this lovely shelf the other week from the charity shop.. it was orange wood so i just knew it was going to be painted but couldn't think of what colour to do it..then i did my post asking for ideas on what colour to paint my dresser and a couple of you said to paint it yellow.. well i loved the idea but knew that i couldn't face a whole dresser painted in yellow.. but that the shelf would be perfect in that colour.. so i was talking to my mum and i said oh I'm going to get some yellow paint for that shelf.. and guess who had two un-opened tins of yellow satinwood in just the right shade .. but mummy of course.. honestly that shed of hers is amazing.. its like a mini B&Q without the annoying orange aprons asking if you need any help!.

so out came the paint brush and i painted up the shelf.. silly old me didn't get a before pic of the shelf but let me assure you it was very orange!!..

i think my little spice tins look very sweet against it.. and it really cheers me up seeing this burst of sunshine in my little space...


what else have i wielded the paintbrush over.. oh yes.. remember my garden bench that i got from freecyle the other week ..

well with a swish and brush of cuprinols "forget me not" and some "moonlit white" on the arms its a lot brighter and cheerful than the mouldy old green bench that i picked up don't you think..



i painted my other bench in the same colour as well which last year id made over in red



.. remember this was also a freecycle find so for the grand price of 10.98 ( i had a 20% voucher to spend at homebase!) i have two new benches!

and finally i got round to painting my kitchen dresser and i used my Johnson Bros "green cloud" gravy boat as the colour inspiration!! i took it with me to get the colour matched up to the paint i was getting mixed!!. so i painted this last week as well ( no wonder I'm shattered this week.. Ive been blaming it on the low cloud its more to do with the fact i was painting everything in sight!)..



at first i thought it was disgusting.. it actually made me feel sick when i looked at it.. the green was all wrong it was to sickly and just didn't feel right ..


but then once i popped all my goodies back on the shelves and put the little yellow shelf up along side it..

the colour has sort of mellowed out and Ive just got used to it!!..

so its been the longest day today and we've had rain this evening.. i had planned on sitting out this evening and enjoying the summer evening.. it wasn't to be.. so instead I'll just stand in my kitchen and look at the primrose yellow shelf.. i think that's going to be my summer!!

freecycle strikes again

ahoy there...!!

feel like Ive not posted in ages and ages.. i have had things to talk about but i think because Ive been sooo cold Ive just ran out of motivation !!

anyway i thought i better get into gear because the oldest boy breaks up on Friday so theres no way I'll get that much of a chance to blog with the whirlwind around!!

just thought id show you my newest freecycle finds..honestly Ive had some good stuff from it. but these do really come at the top of me list i think!!

in the summer when i knew i was being made redundant i said to the hubby that i really wanted to get a new cooker with some of the money i got.. but then because money does actually burn a hole in our pockets we ended up buying other things ( really should have put it in a savings account but that would be what sensible people did!!) like hiring camper vans for the weekend.. or going out for tea twice a week you know that type of thing!!

anyways we really did need a new cooker though as ours was battered.. but it wasn't meant to be..until one fine morning when i opened up my emails and there was an offer of a cooker.. didn't really read the post properly just replied and asked if we could have it..

we got it... and the cooker that we got was exactly the same as the one i had wanted all along!!!!!!!

a big ol silver range cooker.. can you believe that!!..

anyways we had to get a little converter kit as it had been converted to a different type of gas ( didn't realise there was more than one me self!) and then get a friend of the hubby's to install it and check it wasn't going to blow the house up.. but all is fine.

here she is !.. we just need to stick some tiles alongside the existing ones as they were obviously only the width of our previous little cooker we were offered the hood as well but our kitchen is quite small and i thought the huge silver hood might be a bit much in there!!

so because the cooker was bigger than what we had before we had to have a shift around with the cupboards to make space.. i was looking through one of my old country homes and interiors mags and something just jumped out at me on the page.. someone had Incorporated their welsh dresser into their kitchen cupboards..i asked the hubby if we could do that.. he looked at me with that weary glazed look he gets from time to time when it comes to me and diy.. but worked it out and reckoned it would work

we took the retro cupboard off the wall that never held that much inside just junk and did a bit of banging and knocking and measuring and voila.. i now have my dresser from this post.....

http://charl-prettyvintage.blogspot.com/2010/09/dresser-makeoverdone.html

now in my kitchen!!

it has meant that the freezer is now under the stairs in the pantry and he had to build me a wine rack from the old kitchen cupboard which still needs painting but i feel like i have my very own country kitchen at last!!!

a dresser and a range cooker in a 1970s extension of a terraced house!!!!


.. i make myself laugh actually!

it has made a difference though the room feels a lot wider now the big cupboard has come off the wall .. it really is in need of a paint now and hole filling were the cupboard was but i have tried to take pics were you couldn't see that bit!!

anyway on to my next freecycle find.. lately i have been trying to make some money by finding cheaper bits of furniture .. making them over and putting them on Ebay.. so when someone posted that they had a sideboard to offer i thought ooh yes I'll get this ..give it the pretty vintage treatment and make a quick bob... until the lady sent me the picture of it and i thought..that's going no were but my house!!

well the hubby and the bro in law went to pick it up in the snow.. ( don't think they were best pleased with me on this occasion!!) brought it home and it was HUGE!!... i thought i would pop it in the alcove were the dresser had lived in the living room but it was far to big.. after trying not to look to much at the hubby as he asked if i had asked for any measurements at all.. i had a light bulb moment.. the bathroom!!..

it could act as a sort of wash stand and a towel cupboard all in one!!

so up they took it ..it is very heavy oh dear!..

this was Friday evening .. Saturday morning i was up with the birds... sanding and painting.. dedicated or just plain freakish ..you decide!!

anyways its mostly done..


I'm going to sand the top down to make it a lot lighter so you can see the gorgeous detail around the mirror..

there was a bit of beading lost off the door in transportation but just adds to the shabby effect me thinks!!

so what went in the space were the dresser was originally then.. i hear you ask!!

the cupboard that had been in the bathroom holding my towels!!..
the hubby took out the glass shelves as they were pretty lethal.. made some new shelves from mdf and then i gave them a slap of paint!!
I'm still figuring out how to dress this cupboard this is a work in progress!! but it fits the space just right!!

I think this house will never stop moving round!!

mini makeover !!!

well its an extremely mini makeover... when you read all the beautiful blogs out there and you see the talent that people have.. this is a laugh really...

but its recycling and looking a little bit pretty at the same time so here goes!!

take one largish empty coffee jar

shove it in the sink and give it a quick rinse to get all the sticky bits left off the label off the front

take some ribbon that I'm sure your bound to have lying around...

tie it round the jar, add some nice candles.. and voila..


your very own pretty glass candle holder

and then at night pop in a tea light or medium size candle and enjoy the flickering light...

see told you it was a mini makeover..!!

The Snowman

last year i found an old bureau in a skip, it was from the 1930's i blogged about it here

http://charl-prettyvintage.blogspot.com/2009/10/skip-find-suprise-and-charity-shop-buys.html

anyway i lived with it for a while as the dark oak but to be honest it just wasn't me. the wood was to dark for me, i found it to be quite ugly ..

so i slapped a bit of classic cream satin wood paint on and it was so bright..so i bought a darker cream ( or so i thought) and this was the same.. so i ended up consulting the farrow and ball paint chart and picked "Clunch".. ( which incidentally is the same tin of paint i used to to paint my new fire place) well it really didn't make any difference.. in fact it came out the same colour ( whereas on the fireplace it is darker.. strange hey!) ..

id taken the handles off and it kinda lived like that for a while. .i really lost interest in this piece of furniture which really isn't like me..

we started to refer to it as the snowman.. because looking at it with its roundness it really does resemble a snowman!!!

especially with the bun feet haha..

anyway last month i bought some glass lookalikey handles from Homebase.. popped them on and i think although it still does look a bit snowman'sh ( we also referred to it as a SMEG fridge and a photocopier!!) it looks much prettier than it did before and the handles do finish it off..

so there you go in the pretty vintage household we don't need to wait for the snow to have our very own snowman!!