More photos from our home...
This small lamp & bear sit in the corner of our Grand-girls' room
The lamp cost $10.00 years ago & Ms. Bear is a thrift-store find with plastic pearls

I think I have Bears in most every room of our house

This chair is in the corner of the Girls' room ... I bought it for twenty-five cents at a yard sale a few years ago. It's solid oak and had been painted black. The older gentleman who owned it said it had been used in one of the elementary schools. It took me a while, but I finally sanded most of the black off, painted it a cream color and then stenciled roses on it. My Fred thought I was out of my mind when he first saw it, but once it was done, he approved of the purchase. I dearly enjoy bargains!

This bed is over a 100 years old now. My Mother-in-law gave it to us over 25 years ago. It is one of the old iron bedsteads used in the south long ago; now they are treasures if you can find them. It was a rusted color and had belonged to my husband's grandmother. We sanded it and my Fred painted it and I just enjoy looking at it, knowing it's been in his family for all these years.

See the quilt hanging on the rack behind the bed? I'd like to say that was homemade, but it wasn't. It came as part of the comforter/shams/bed skirt deal I found at JC Penney's. My Fred did make the quilt ladder. Once he painted it, I stenciled tiny roses up the sides of it.

Lying on the foot of the bed is a white, hand-crocheted tablecloth. It took me two years to make it, way back in early 1980. A friend (Jean Vallis) was a woman who loved to crochet and I took on this task after seeing her work. I was making it for a specific table we had back then, but by the time it was finished, we no longer had the table! I use it as a throw, as seen here, and sometimes put it on an old, antique fold up table that we have in the dining area. It's made out of white crochet thread, not yarn, and has butterflies on four sides.

The small table under the window was given to me by my Mom...the lamp is a thrift store find and there's a small jewelry box underneath the tiny picture. The box too came from the thrift store. I refinished it, added stenciling & now my girls keep their special things in it when they spend the nite.



This old dresser also came from my Mother-in-law. My Fred thought I was looney to want to bring it all the way from Kentucky to MI long, long ago. It was painted a not-inviting blue color, with many layers of paint underneath it. Fred said "And just what are you going to do with this thing?" And I said "One day I'll have enough money to have someone strip this paint off and you'll see what's underneath." It took quite a long time before we had it re-done. Our boys used it as it was for years, they didn't mind ugly blue. A friend took it to his home and spent quite a while uncovering the beauty of oak wood that had been covered with paint all those years.

He called one day to tell me he had taken the back off the mirror and had found newspaper articles, faded and falling apart, behind the backing. He brought them to us when he finished the dresser and we caught glimpses through torn paper of what the world thought of Teddy Roosevelt way back then.

The old lamp that sits on this dresser was bought from a friend about 30 years ago. She loved antiques and sold it to me for a reasonable price. At one time it had been a gas-fired lamp, but someone had converted it to electric. It still works! See another bear sitting up there? I love them. The angel hanging on the side of the mirror came from my Mom. Our youngest son Shawn has made me promise that this dresser will be his one day. And it shall be.

Hope you've enjoyed another look at where I live and what is in our home. I so enjoy the older pieces that hold family history and I'm thankful our son wants to carry part of that on in his own home one day. It's good to take stock and remember where we've come from and what it's taken to get us to where we are. It's also good to invest in things that will last longer than we will, even if they are already old. By today's standards we've not spent much money at all on furniture. When it's well built and comfortable, why get rid of it just to keep with what the world tries to convince us we need? As I've heard for years "If it's not broke, don't fix it" and "Make do with what you have and be thankful you have it".

I find myself wanting to make some quilts and have been pulling out fabric that I've had stashed. Lo & behold I found a quilt top I made ....when? How long ago? I don't remember! But it's there. A simple, patch-work quilt top that I can now finish. I've also put together some fabric that I can piece together to make more tops. I was going to go to JoAnn & buy more fabric, but those words "Make do with what you have and be thankful you have it" stopped me from doing that. I want to use up what I have before buying any more. They won't be fancy, but they'll be made by me and I'll put my name & the date on the back and perhaps share them with my sisters, nieces and grandgirls. Heaven knows I have enough girls in this family to keep me busy a good long while.

I shall go for tonight & get ready for bed. We're going to church in the morning, Lord willing.

May your Sunday be blessed and may all be kept safe through-out this season of colds & flu.

Blessings!