Hello, My name is Lee Laurie and I am a pack-rat.

I know that Halloween is officially over....but I just had to show y'all something really REALLY scary! This is my son's old bedroom. It became a storage room after he moved out 2 years ago. Things just got thrown in there and forgotten, UNTIL....my daughter came for a visit the other day. lol (Don't zoom in too close...no telling what you'll see.) She couldn't believe her eyes! After hearing her threaten me over and over that she was going to call the hoarding police on me...for the 10th time, we decided to get to work cleaning it up. You see my precious little girl (that used to have a messy room when she was a teen) seems to have turned into a "Say No To Clutter" kind of gal. LOL

She got a garbage bag and started throwing stuff away! Me, being the pack-rat that I am, almost started having a panic attack. But she was gentle with her Mama and asked me before she put anything into the bags. :) We took out 4 of them so far and still have to finish tomorrow.

Have you ever seen so many Belk bags in one place....besides at Belk? That's the joy of working retail. Anyway, we got a lot cleaned out and I filled up my booth at the vendor's mart with goodies. I hope I sell it all 'cause it's not coming back to my house and every time I sell something, I'm putting something else in the booth to replace it. I'm gonna keep it full and my daughter is going to help me.

This is my booth. I packed it full. They are having 'Open House' this Tuesday night and I wanted to be stocked up. (I forgot my wet washcloth in one of the bowls!) lol

I'm so excited and it feels so good to have that room back....almost. Got a little more to clean out. I'm gonna make it into a den. Can't wait to get my paintbrush out and pull up that awful looking carpet. I haven't decided on colors yet. Maybe Khaki or Olive Green.

Hope I didn't scare y'all too much. I'll post more pictures soon. I know with Christy as my motivator it will be really soon!

In The Garden

I haven't been on here for a while. We have been through a lot over the past few weeks. Our sweet grandmother passed away on October 9th. We all knew that she didn't have much time left here with us. The doctors all told us that she didn't have many days left. We all spent as much time as possible with her in the nursing home and the hospital. My daughter and youngest son and my dad and I were with her the night before she went to Heaven. She and my daughter sang songs together. Her favorite ones. "In The Garden" and "When They Ring Those Golden Bells" and "Amazing Grace". Daddy says that he will never forget them singing together. These are the songs that we played at her funeral.

Me and my daughter.

Me and my oldest son

My three precious children.

These last few weeks have been so hard but only for us. Mamaw is in Heaven and her 'hard' days are over.

My favorite time of year

I'm linking this post to the 'Hook up your Hutch Party' at Jennifer Rizzo and "My Romantic Home" for 'Show and Tell Friday' and "Cottage and Vine" for the 'Falling up party'. Go see all of the other participants if you get a chance.

I was so excited whenever I looked at my calender this afternoon. I had today circled as the first day of Fall. My favorite time of year. I ended up staying home from work today...something that I try not to do. I woke up with a bad sore throat and my body was aching all over. I was afraid that I was catching a bug that my little grandson has. We spent most of the day yesterday with him at the ER. They said that he has a viral infection and both ears are infected. Poor baby. I don't like it when my grand babies are sick.

I stayed in bed most of the day and took medicine and tried to rest. After I started feeling better, I decided to do a little Fall decorating around my cottage. This is my hutch in the dining room with my white Wedgwood dishes. I guess you can see that I haven't gotten around to painting the bottom of my hutch yet. It's still just primed for now. Gonna paint it creamy white when I have time. This use to be my old bedroom dresser...and it was dark cherry. :)

I found the little white pumpkins at The Dollar Tree last year. They were perfect!

I thought I would pull out my spiced pumpkin diffuser too that I bought last year on clearance. I love the way it smells.

I decided to use my salad plates from my everyday dishes to add some color. I love color. My little boy noticed this first thing when he got home from school. He said "Those are the dishes that we eat on!" I thought that was so funny.

These salad plates are called 'Victoria' and they are by Sakura. I love the colors and I love the fruit. My glasses are by Denby.

My white dishes are Wedgwood and the pattern is called "Strawberry and Vine".

Different fruit on each salad plate.







I bought the little black wire candle holders from a thrift shop last year. The pumpkins fit perfect on top of them.

I added some flocked wine colored fall leaves for more color.

I think I got really into Fall on this vignette. I decided the piano needed some sprucing up. I draped some valances that I picked up at a thrift shop over my mirror and one on my piano for a scarf. These were handmade too.

I hung my Fall wreath from last year on my mirror. I used it last year on my front door. My daughter bought me the beaded lamp several years ago for Christmas. She was just a teenager. I love it.

I love all of these warm colors. Makes everything feel so homey. Thank y'all for taking the time to look at my Fall decor. Maybe I'll get to my kitchen next.

Think Pink...Something Old, Something New

Years ago, back in 1994, I managed a gift shop in our mall called 'The Mole Hole'. It was a beautiful store and we had so many unique things. I worked there for eight years. My boss and I would go to market twice a year to order beautiful things for the store. I picked this tea set out one time at the Atlanta market. My boss, Mrs. Dean bought it for me for Christmas that year. I have so many things that she gave me over the years and I cherish every one of them, because 'she' gave them to me. See, I even loved 'pink' and 'roses' back then too. I always have for as long as I can remember. This pattern was by a company called 'Omnibus' a division of 'Fitz and Floyd'. Back then we didn't have big stores in our town that carried 'Fitz and Floyd' so we were the only ones here that sold it.

The name of the pattern is called "Love Notes". Isn't that a pretty name? I have six cups and they have little postage stamps on them. The teapot has a stop watch on one side.

I decided to get it out of the china cabinet and start actually using it. Besides, I needed a little sugar and creamer for my bedside table...

Isn't the little tray so pretty? It says 'Thinking of You" on the bottom of it.

Now for the 'something new'. Look what I bought yesterday. Isn't it so cute? Perfect for my bedside table. Perfect for when I just want to reach over and push a button and have my coffee ready for after I've hit the snooze button for that last time. :)

I love my new little coffee pot.

I've been reading so many blogs and so many of you are decorating for Fall. I love Fall...my favorite time of year. I just haven't started yet getting ready for it. Maybe this week-end.

Remember that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Be sure not to forget that mammogram. I'll be getting mine this month.

Love Y'all,

Sister Time

My little sister's birthday was August 26th. We decided to spend the day before her birthday together because I had a bridal show at work on her birthday and had to be there for that. We had a great time together that day. These pictures were taken that night at her house after we got back home from a long day of shopping. I was so exhausted. She thought it was so funny that she actually wore me out. She took me to so many stores...that when it was finally time for my store that I had been needing to go to, all of a sudden she was so tired and her feet were hurting, and her back was killing her...etc. We stayed in Hobby Lobby about 20 minutes at the most. lol What? You can't just shop there for 20 minutes! Anyway, she laughs about it now because she says that it was pay-back for all of the times that I pulled her into every store that I could squeeze in.

We had a great day together. I helped her pick out curtains and accessories for her new shop that she is about to open. She just finished school and is opening her own nail salon. I believe a pedicure and manicure are in order for me for all of that walking that she put me through! :)

I forgot to take pictures of the birthday gift that I gave her. I had bought a beautiful comforter set and pillows, etc. for myself right before I bought my little cottage. It was way too fancy for my place so I put it in storage. Melinda and Steven built a new house and I knew it would be perfect for her new bedroom. I had never even taken it out of the package. We were too tired to fix it up that night but as soon as we do, I will post it on here. By the way, she loves it! It even has flowers on it (not roses) and she usually doesn't do flowers.

These pictures have nothing to do with the above photos, but I just had to post them. Yesterday when I was outside cleaning out my car, my little boy decided to play in the old mud puddle by the driveway. lol He even asked me first! My first thought was to say 'No' but I thought about it for a minute and decided...why not? Let him be a kid! Let him get all muddy! What will it hurt?

Nasty mud! He was making an army fort with rocks. He had a ball!

I'm so glad that we live out in the country and he can play like we all did as kids. Those are my best memories when I was a little girl. I made countless mudpies! We would play outside from early morning until it started getting dark. Mama would have to call us in to get cleaned up for supper. Sometimes it seems like yesterday....

Now...I gotta get that driveway fixed!

Hope y'all have a great day!

A new guest room

This has been the busiest couple of weeks for me. Between getting Garrett back in school....he is in the 4th grade now, how can that even be possible?...to cleaning out closets around my cottage and helping my friend fix up her guest room. I guess I could call this my first real decorating 'job'. One that I got paid to do! I would love to do this for a living...maybe one day. This top picture is the finished bedroom. She wanted a 'shabby chic' guest room for when her mom comes to stay during the holidays. We were trying to use things that she already had because we were working on a tight budget. I think it turned out very pretty. She already had the quilt and throw pillows...so we went with those colors. We used paint that I had left over from my recent bedroom make over in my cottage. I love that color. It's so peaceful. I love waking up in my room and looking around and seeing that pretty 'sage' green. The room was dark brown paneling....yuck!

We painted this little desk that was sitting out in her garage...for years! lol It had so much dust and grime on it that I wasn't sure if we could salvage it. lol Not really, good old primer always does the trick. The wicker furniture was sitting on her little side porch and never was being used...so we gave it a fresh coat of white paint and it looks brand new again. I had the old mirror in storage and it was UGLY gold, so we gave it a couple of coats of paint too. It looks so much prettier now. We even painted a little wicker trash basket from the thrift store to put beside the desk. Now her mom can sit here with her laptop.

She looked around her house and found these frames that were already painted shabby white. The little wicker end table came from a garage sale. She already had the two lamps and they were perfect for this room. I tried not to get the door in the picture that we had not painted yet...I see it peeking in the picture a little bit. :)

One of the hardest parts of this make over was getting those doors painted white. They were dark brown and it took two coats of primer and 2 coats of paint to get them white. The little dresser was brown too. It originally had handles on it but one was lost. She had a bag of wooden knobs that she had picked up at a thrift store so we decided to use them. A little paint and the holes were already in the dresser so it was an easy fix.

The headboard was actually a wall decoration that was a bronze color...a little white paint and it looks perfect. The curtains and the green bedspread and shams came from the dollar store. I think she said that she got them at Fred's. The quilt went perfect with it. We didn't have a whole lot of money to spend but I think it turned out so pretty. Her mother will feel so welcomed here...she may not ever wanna go back home. :) Thank me for that later Amanda. lol

I'm linking with My Romantic Home for "Show and tell Friday" and The House in The Roses for "Show off your cottage Monday".

My new "OLD" bed.

I thought I would show y'all my new "OLD" bed that I finally got around to finishing. I actually finished it a few months ago but I wanted to wait until I had my new quilt and shams before putting it on here. I was looking back through some older posts and saw the one where I had posted my little grandson Jason and my son, Garrett sitting in front of my bed and it dawned on me that I had never done a post on it. This is what it looked like whenever I first bought it. I loved the color that it was however it wouldn't go with my bedroom wall color which is a green too.

First, I primed it with two coats of primer. This was after the first coat. I love all of the detail. Then I painted it with my favorite color...Heirloom Lace. A creamy white. I might add some rose decals in the center later on.

Look how pretty it turned out. So pretty and so dainty. I have a small bedroom and my king size bed was taking up almost my whole room. When I saw this bed, I knew it would be perfect.

I now have room on each side for my end tables that I recently painted.

My room feels so much bigger now. I also love my new quilt and shams. I waited until they went 'clearance' before I bought them. That always helps. lol I love quilts....they bring back happy memories for me. I bought the scalloped valances at a thrift store a couple of years ago and they just happened to match.

Even the foot board is detailed and so pretty. I love my little bed.

I love my little bed and my little bedroom. This is my space where I can relax from the outside world. I love to just sit here and relax and visit my 'bloggy' friends. I picked this little wicker bed tray up at a thrift store years ago. Perfect for my laptop.

Thanks for stopping by and letting me share with you my little treasure. I'll have more pictures soon of my dresser and chest of drawers that I am working on.

I'm linking to "Show and Tell Friday" with My Romantic Home and to Miss Mustard Seed for "Furniture Friday" and also to The House in the Roses for "Show off your cottage Monday. Please go by their blogs and visit the other participants. So many beautiful things to see.

Hugs,