Karla’s Cottage is a blog new to me. I saw a link to it from ArtsyMama’s, telling about a “What do you love about your home?” party that Karla would be hosting today to celebrate being published in Romantic Country magazine. I loved perusing Karla’s lovely decorating featured on her blog, and looking around at just a few of the party entries, I’ve found a couple of new blogs to subscribe to already and have been inspired by the beauty and creativeness.

The link to the party post is here, and anyone who participates or comments is eligible for a drawing.

I have to admit there is a lot I don’t love about my home. When we found we would be moving here for my husband’s job, we made a whirlwind trip to look at houses and interview at Christian schools for my sons. This house was really the only one that had the space we needed. But after we got here, there were a few problems we hadn’t noticed when we first looked at the house. Plus we knew we wanted to change a lot of the wallpaper, paint, and carpeting, but that just takes time — both time to work on it plus time to spread out each project to be able to handle it financially. So there are things I have chafed about while trying to remind myself to be content with such things as I had. Over the past 9 1/2 years we’ve lived here, we’ve redone the living room, kitchen, family room (still a work in progress), one bathroom, and one of the boys’ bedrooms. There are still a few problems with the layout that we can’t change without mega-bucks and time and frustration, so it’s still my hope to move some day. But as far as the basic “look” inside goes, I am enjoying it a lot more and feel more at home in it.

This is our living room from different viewpoints:

If I had it to do over again, I think I’d mostly paint the walls and maybe have a rosy border along the top. But I do love the muted tones and colors, the roses on the wallpaper, in the pattern of the sofa and curtain fabric, and in the accessories. Overall it is a cozy room that I love to be in.

Here is the kitchen from the doorway between it and the living room:

I should have straightened that picture, eh?

This is the dining area:

This is taken from the far corner of the dining area showing the other side of the room:

As you can see, this room has a little bit more of a “country” feel to it. The previous owners had peach and blue wallpaper in this room with pink and blue diamond patterns on the floor. I don’t know why. It drove me crazy. 🙂 I was so glad when we could get rid of the peachy stuff. Again, if I were doing this over I think I’d stay with just the pink and white stripe all the way up — I think that would be a little less “busy.” But overall I do enjoy the look of it. This area is the one that is till the most problematic with the layout, kind of small and crowded with not enough cabinet space or room to have guests. We thought it looked cozy at first — the previous owners were retirees. But we weren’t thinking about having growing boys and their friends over through the years and family coming in from out of town, etc. But we’ve learned to make do.

This is our bedroom, which we haven’t redone yet. I hope you’ll overlook the pile of books there — I’ve finished them and need to send some to my mother-in-law, who reads as much or more than I do!

One thing I just love about this bedroom is the carpet with its bouquets of flowers:

When we do redo this room, I don’t know if I can let myself take this up, even though it’s discolored and worn in places.

This is our most recent project, the upstairs bathroom. We needed to replace the broken tile with a shower surround and ended up taking down the old wallpaper and painting (I say we — husband and two of three sons did):

I figured the menfolk needed a break from all the pink and florals, so this room is blue, tan, and beige with lighthouse accents. I just love the color of this paint. I wish I could remember the name of it so I could tell you!

One of my sisters made this:

I think those are all the rooms I’ll show — some are still a work in progress. 🙂 But I also wanted to show just a few of the little touches I love that help personalize a house and make it at home. Some of these have been gifts, some have been collected over the years, some have been made. Most I’ve mentioned in previous posts, so I’ll just show a representative photo with a link to the rest if you’re interested.

One of my most recent prints is this one, which my husband bought for me, the story of which I told about here:

This hangs in our family room (still a work in progress, which also has blue, tan, and beige colors). But abundantly more than the colors, I love the representation of the Good Shepherd finding His lost sheep.

I love pink roses and showed several of them here. Here are a couple of my favorites:

I also loved heart-shaped things. One of my favorites:

I found when we moved here I had several small houses: here are a couple of favorites:

Finally, I have been collecting Boyd’s Bears figurines for years. Most of them were given to me by my husband and my mom. Since my mom passed away almost two years ago, the ones she gave me are a special remembrance of her love. I posted some of my collection here, and then some from a division of Boyd’s figurines called Dollstones here. Here are a couple of favorites from those:

Thanks so much for coming by to visit. Enjoy the rest of Karla’s party, and always feel free to stop by any time!

(P.S. If you stop by for the party I’d love for you to leave a comment and let me know you were here. 🙂 )