What I'm doing with my "spare" time this weekend

Let's see.....
1) Halloween decorations down and safely stored away until next year? Check.
2) Corporate job under control until Monday? Check.
3) Custom Order Christmas Ornaments Complete and delivered for Sale at Kane County this weekend? Check
4) Dear Friend, Ann's visit to help decorate for Christmas now 5 days away? AW GEEEEZZZZZ!

For the first time in my life, I'm going to have the luxury of having a girlfriend help me decorate for Christmas!!! Don't get me wrong, having to coerce two adolescent males and a husband to haul boxes, hold ladders and be an extra set of hands (or three) while I decorate certainly does exude SOMETHING...although I'm not certain that I'd call it "holiday cheer".  Imagine it, having someone who shares my love of all things "repurposed", vintage lace, a good curbside "pick", cheap wine, pizza, shopping, etc. Top that all off with the fact that we've known each other for most of our lives and she's coming to spend the night!?!?  THIS, to me, is BLISS!

So, with only the garden to cut down, leaves to rake and figuring out how to get my hair cut and colored to cover the gray that has recently begun to appear enhance my skin tone, am I spending my time pulling out the boxes and planning clever vignettes? Am I prepping any number of potential craft projects that we could get accomplished during her short stay? Nope...I'm not...I'm painting the living room.

My house was new 10 years ago. I had the good fortune to be able to choose the very first coat of paint that went on the walls and I still LOVE the color.  It's just that after 10 years raising 2 sons who are now in high school and college as well as a now 13 year old yellow lab who spent her "younger days" jumping up to sleep on the window seat, my living room is, although still pretty, a little "tired". 

My decorating is going in a slightly different direction these days and I've decided that with little more than a gallon of wall paint, a couple of quarts of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and a few things that I'm moving around from other rooms in my house,  I'm going to give my livingroom a makeover (quickly, before Ann arrives at the end of the week).
Here's what it looks like now:

The sofa and chair belonged to my great grandparents. They spent years in my parents basement and I loved them even though they were dusty and covered in rose colored, torn and missing upholstery filled with what appeared to be a combination of horsehair and dryer lint.  I was THRILLED when my parents gave them to me, 22 years ago and immediately had them reupholstered in their current ivory cotton pin dot fabric.  That fabric has survived two boys eating ice cream and a dog so it's not going anywhere. 

The tables and lamps are a combination of things that I inherited or found along some roadside on trash night.  The piano belongs to my sons, it came from their grandfather when he died...because he knew that music was important to them and wanted them to have something more than the Best Buy keyboard on which they were learning piano.

The drapes and Rug are going to stay as well....so I guess that this will be a "not so extreme, makeover" but I'll leave that judgement  up to you.

Hopefully, there will be "after" photos next week.

Have a glorious autumn weekend! I've got the paint....and after a trip to the hairdresser and Kane county flea market, I intend to paint!

xo,

S