More Bang for Your Buck: Garden Stools

I've been pretty lucky in finding great deals on garden stools twice... The first time was last year at an estate sale. The last day of the sale I was able to negotiate this blue & tan garden stool for 50% off... grand total: $30.

Compare this to:

Floral Blue Chinese Porcelain Stool at Overstock for $102.99

Garden Stool with Flower Design at Target for $219.99

Hand Painted Garden Stool on eBay for $188
Then yesterday, I reread this post from Bryn on garden stools for $30 at TJ Maxx. I noticed that someone left a comment that Big Lots also had them... but for $20! As extra icing on the cake, High Heeled Foot in the Door posted about these around Christmas too.

I called several Big Lots in the area, finally found one with some actually in stock, and took home a carload! Yep, I purchased 4 garden stools... one in white for my bedroom, one for my mama, one in red for my ma-in-law, and one to grow on!



All 4 of them were purchased for less than 1 of these...

Chinese Garden Stool at Wisteria for $129

Drum Garden Stool at Target for $189.99

Ceramic Garden Stool at Pottery Barn for $159
Needless to say, you can find these at several places for much less than at chain stores (or even eBay)! I never would've thought about Big Lots on my own, but it ended up being a great deal, and left me feeling pretty good about my Monday purchase!
P.S. - Karen & Sophia, let me know where you decided to place your garden stools in the house!

Married Mathis'

We had a jam-packed weekend, and enjoyed every minute of it! On Friday night, we celebrated my dad's 70th birthday with a surprise party. My siblings & I have been planning this for the last few months, and I'm so glad to report that my dad was truly surprised!

We gathered a few of my dad's oldest friends along with our family... and had tons of food, a picture slide show, and the card below that my brother John created for everyone to sign. Overall, it was a great night and I know it meant a lot to my dad!


On Saturday, we celebrated the marriage of our good friends, Jason & Lindsay (I'm throwing out this post title as their possible blog name... Wedded Whittaker and The Married Mathis' works right?) Lindsay was gorgeous, and the reception was so much fun! We had the best time celebrating with the bride & groom and lots of good friends!


Lots of love and best wishes to the new Mr. & Mrs. Mathis!

We topped the weekend off with a day at the lake for Jeff, while I enjoyed a bridal shower for Amy at Nolen Kitchen! Unfortunately, I forgot to bring along the camera for this event... But you can be sure that I'll have one for the wedding (in less than 1 month!)
Sunday night we welcomed Jeff's dad and brother back from a spring break trip to Spain! Now it's back to work, after a weekend of celebrations!

329 days

On Saturday, we'll be celebrating our friends Jason & Lindsey's wedding here...




















This will have extra special meaning for us... Their reception is at Byron's... where Jeff & I celebrated our wedded bliss 329 days ago!


Can't wait for all the celebrations this weekend & a chance to remember...



Happy Weekend!

Bedroom, part 3

Here are the final pictures... I really wish I had some 'before' shots. It sounds strange, but swapping the wing back chair for the old tv stand really brightened up the room... not to mention making it feel much larger.




I keep going back-and-forth on whether to hang several pictures on this wall 'gallery' style... I like the simple look of just the signing board from our wedding, but also like the more eclectic looks of several frames in different sizes & shapes clustered together.
I've temporarily borrowed this garden stool from our living room, but eventually want to get a white one to replace it with (word on the street was TJ Maxx had some for $30! but I couldn't find any at the one near our house) I like having it to double as a nightstand and small table by the chair.

I'm also considering a white slipcover for this ottoman and adding this light blue Greek key trim with some Fabri-Tac to soften the look a little. I tried to have this nightstand double as a dressing table.

So there you have it! Originally, I planned to add some light yellow or white curtains to the windows, but with everything in the room, I feel like just the wooden blinds work for window treatments... What do you think? Do curtain panels overwhelm a small room or add a soft touch? Any thoughts on my other comments above?
We still have a few final details to complete, but we're pretty excited about the impromptu progress on the room!

Bedroom, part 2

After my recent post on spring bedding, I took a trip out to TJ Maxx... And of course came away with a great set of yellow & white sheets.

Then I decided to really make Jeff proud and instead of purchasing a new quilt, I went with the Crate & Barrel quilt we used all winter with our duvet. It's reversible, so I just went with the white side. I actually think this will work out better, since we can easily flip to the beige side when Miss Ellie decides to take a nap (yes, I am terrible at doggie discipline & she gets on the bed whenever she feels like it)

Finally, I hit the jackpot at the Target on South Boulevard and picked up this very cute throw pillow from Dwell for Target that Jenny recently used.

As a side note, I also scored some pretty nice baskets for our bathroom on this bargain shopping excursion. Remember this idea to go with an open concept for our bathroom shelving? Here is the almost final product...

We obviously still need to remove the hinges, and I'm thinking about painting a slightly darker blue inside the shelves. But overall, I like the way it's coming together.

Bedroom, part 1

It started out as painting 2 pieces of furniture, then turned into rearranging the room, then turned into spring cleaning, then turned into new spring bedding... And now we have a new look for our bedroom!

So to start from the beginning, I originally planned to paint our Ikea 3 drawer nightstand...

  With this as my inspiration, one of the best Ikea hacks out there...




I left the dark wood as is and just painted the fronts of the drawers Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace. I also used that color to paint our old yellow desk/nightstand.



I painted both pieces following these instructions from Bryn (if you have any furniture painting projects coming up, definitely check these out). I used a few different products, but most importantly ended up wiping on the poly, instead of using a foam brush, to avoid any brush marks.

Here are the finished products... The Ikea dresser is still missing these brass ring pulls, ordered this week (note that there is a 12 order minimum, so please let me know if you're interested in the 6 extra)


For the desk, I bought brass cleaner at the grocery store to attempt to polish up the hardware. It's not great, but I kind of like how it contributes to the look.

Easter Fun

Hope that everyone had a wonderful & blessed Easter weekend! We enjoyed the beautiful weather and time with family. As always, it went by too fast.

I did a little antique browsing at the Metrolina Expo with Sarah, and we had the best time! She left with a few amazing finds for her upcoming wedding and her beautiful home... I left a tiny piece of my heart with this incredible set of 4 bamboo chairs...

Reupholster the seats, and the question is really what couldn't you do with these?! Use the set around a kitchen table, or one at your office desk... But I knew the hubs wouldn't approve, especially since he told me he thinks I am a furniture hoarder (pretty sure he was only partly kidding too).

On Saturday, I spent the day in the mountains with my dad and Jeff. I can paint and stain, without taping, with the best of them these days... The mountain house looks great, and I'm starting to think that we could start the cutest husband & wife painting/staining/general small-scale remodel and DIY side business.

After our annual church picnic and Easter service, I finally finished my bedroom painting projects... We're rearranging a few pieces of furniture tonight and will hopefully have some pictures later this week. Jeff says the refreshed furniture looks "hip" - Can't wait to hear what everyone else says!