Master Bath Mini Makeover

Hello everyone! I'm here today to share my mini bath makeover with you. I mentioned before that this makeover didn't cost me a penny! Yep, didn't cost me a thing. I sold back some of my son's old college textbooks and used the money for this makeover. And just in case you're wondering...WE pay for his books to begin with, so WE get the buy back money. ;) I'll share what websites I used to sell his books back along with a couple of other "college savings tips" in a post coming soon...

Okay, you know the drill...first I show you a sneak peek of a pretty "after" pic, then all the "before" pics to refresh your memory, then we end it with lots of pretty "afters." So, let's get started!

First, a pretty "after"

We didn't do much...just replaced the rug, bath mat, and towels. Then painted a couple of things grey and recovered the vanity stool.

Here's what it looked like before. It's funny because that rug never did match in here. We had the same valance in here that was in our bedroom (which was kind of orange and green and matched our old bedding) and this rug always kind of clashed. You can see before and after pics of our bedroom HERE. I guess I just decided to live with it for the 14 years we had it. Lol! After we redid our master bedroom to include more whites with bits of light blue, the rug REALLY stood out as an eyesore. 

I liked the rug on its own, but not with the new color palette we had going on in the bedroom. The material on the vanity stool never really matched either. You'll see how I recovered it in a minute. 

Here's a closer look at the old green material on the stool. See that white smudge? That was the only painting mishap we had while painting the kitchen cabinets white. I was standing on this stool to paint the cabinet frames and spilled a little. :) You can see the newly painted kitchen cabinets HERE if you're interested.

I bought this metal piece at Michael's years ago. The top part is kind of orange colored glass and went well with our old bedding in the master. You'll see a little farther down, how I just painted right over the entire thing with some grey paint. 

I still liked this print, so I kept it and just painted the frame grey. 

And here are more "afters."

You can see the new rug and grey towels in the background. The rug is a lot lighter in real life. You can see below that we have pretty tall ceilings throughout the house, which I love. 

Here's the metal piece I painted over. 

Here's a closer look. I even painted the picture hangers grey so they wouldn't show as much. I was a little worried about painting over the glass part, but after Painting And Staining Our Kitchen Table, I'm not afraid to paint anything. :)

Here's the grey rug. It's so soft and comfy! 

You can get a glimpse of the new grey bath mat here too. The rug, towels, and bath mat were all purchased at Target, so all the greys match pretty well. Since our bedroom and bathroom are connected, I wanted to be sure they flowed together. Our bedroom is mostly white with a touch of light blue, so I think the grey and white bathroom goes nicely with it. Once again, you can click HERE to see the bedroom makeover. 

Here's the stool I recovered. 

And here's a closer look at the frame I painted grey. I actually like this print a lot better with the grey frame. 

I love this material I found at Joann's for the stool. 

So, here's a cost break down and how I got everything for free:

I ordered the rug and towels (four of them) online at Target. The book buy back money covered all of that and I got free shipping. 

Target had a special going where if you ordered $75 or more online, they gave you a free $15 gift card. Our rug and towels qualified for this, so we used the gift card to purchase the bath mat. 

The cost of the material for the vanity stool was only about $4, and the book money also covered that. 

I used my free sample of grey paint from Lowes to paint the metal piece and frame. 

 So, that's it! I love when I can make changes like this, especially when it's free! :)

~Lisa

New Throw, Restyled Mantel, and Ladies Home Journal

Hello! Happy Monday! Remember when I got my new chair for the living room and I said I wanted to find a throw to go over it? 

Well, I found one! (I know this isn't the best pic...sorry about that) I picked this one up at Target. It looks kind of brown in these pics, but it's a nice grey color. 

Here's a close up of it...

I just ordered a grey pouf for in here too. I found it on the Walmart website, but they've been out of stock for over a month. I kept checking it every day, and finally they had it in stock again. It should be here Thursday. I'll share a pic when it arrives. 

I restyled my mantel too. I took the candle sticks from the end table and added them up here. I also added a couple of my mom's china plates. She gave me all her wedding china recently and I wanted to display some of it. 

Here's a close up of the candle sticks. Holly kept jumping on the end table and these would wobble around, and I didn't want them to get broken. I thought they'd be safer on the mantel. 

Here's a closer look at the china. It's called "Wyndcrest" by Lenox.

This Chinatown entrance pic used to be on the mantel. I just swapped the candle sticks for this pic. 

This is off the subject, but my hubby was recently in Minnesota on business and he stopped by the Peeps Store in the Mall of America. He picked up these Peeps for me...

Party Cake and Bubble Gum flavors! The bubble gum was my favorite!

Oh, one more thing...do any of you subscribe to Ladies Home Journal magazine? Well, you probably know they are no longer publishing their monthly magazine. I think the July issue was the last one to go out to subscribers. I had already paid for my subscription through June of 2015, so I had almost a year left. I just assumed they would let me choose from any of the other magazines Meredith publishes to finish out my remaining (already paid for) issues. 

Wrong. They chose for me. I recently received a "Parents" magazine with a letter from LHJ saying they hoped I would enjoy it as a replacement for LHJ. 

What?!?! Y'all...my boys are in high school and college. I stopped subscribing to Parenting magazines years ago. But, here's the good news...I emailed them and told them my dilemma. They emailed me back and said I could choose another magazine if I wanted. They included the list in the email. It wasn't a huge list, and several wouldn't appeal to me at all, but I did end up choosing "Midwest Living." I've heard good things about it, so I hope I enjoy it. They promptly switched out my Parents subscription for Midwest Living. Which is weird because I live in Texas. :) 

So, if you're a current LHJ subscriber and aren't happy with your replacement magazine, it doesn't hurt to email them and ask. :) They were very willing to help. 

~Lisa

A Tassel Bracelet and the New Kittens!

Hi everyone! TGIF! I'll get to the kittens in a minute, but first, I wanted to share this tassel bracelet I made the other day...

I love it!!! I've wanted one for a long time and found the best tutorial over on Kris' blog. You can find the tutorial HERE. It only took about 15 minutes and the supplies were about $5. 

Speaking of tassels, I've also wanted a tassel necklace for awhile. I know I shared this on IG, but can't remember if I shared it here. I found this one at Cato for $3.99! I always go straight to the jewelry clearance rack when I go there, and almost always find something great for under $5. 

Okay, now for the kittens. For those that are new here, a couple of (very hungry) stray cats showed up in our backyard awhile ago. We named them Gladys and Rocky. After a few weeks, Gladys started looking pregnant. Then she disappeared for a couple of days and when she returned, she was skinny again. We never knew what happened to her kittens. We looked all around the backyard, but never found any. We figured she had them somewhere else, but kept coming back here for the food and water. 

Then, a few weeks later, I was looking out the window and saw Gladys sitting in front of our deck, surrounded by kittens!!!

We watched the kittens go under the deck and come back out again. Even Gladys could fit under there. We're not sure if they were under the deck the whole time or if she just recently moved them there. Anyway, our backyard is now home to 5 sweet, adorable little kitties. :)

Just look at those blue eyes!!!

Gladys has proven to be a great mama. 

We named this one "Paris" (as in Hilton) because she LOVES the camera! She's very interested in the clicking sound a camera makes. 

How cute are these three peeking out from under the deck?!

Gladys used to keep a really close eye on the kittens and wouldn't let them venture any farther than a few feet from the deck. Recently though, she brought them up to our patio.

This cutie pie is named Seinfeld (because he's funny and we laugh at his antics) I think he's also the runt because he's a lot smaller than the others.

This was taken through the glass, so it's blurry, but you can see they're learning how to eat real cat food now. (which is probably why Gladys brought them up to the patio) This is Howard and Stacey. I have no idea why my son wanted to name one Stacey. I wonder how my friend at Poofing The Pillows feels about that??? :) The only one I didn't get a pic of is Dale (as in Dale Earnhardt Jr.) 

Again, sorry for the blurriness, but I had to zoom WAY in with my phone to get this pic. This is Gladys and Howard (as in Hughes). We named him that because he's very reclusive. He's always the last one to emerge from under the deck, and the first one to go back into hiding. One thing is for sure though...Howard LOVES his
 mama. :)

So, that's the latest from the House of Cats. :) Hope y'all are having a great day!

~Lisa

Daily Life

Hello, and happy Wednesday!

I feel like I'm behind in sharing some IG pics with y'all. I post daily on Instagram (@texasdecor) and sometimes forget to share the pics here too. So, this post is a compilation of some recent IG pics. 

Aren't these drawstring burlap bags cute? I got them in the dollar section at Michael's. I thought the "Believe" and "Wish" would be perfect for Christmas.

The other side is blank, so they could be used anytime. 

I thought they'd be cute to put silverware in for Thanksgiving, so I played around with this little tablescape. It's kind of the same way I use mini stockings to put silverware in at Christmas. You can see my Christmas Tablescape post HERE.

Have y'all seen these "Black Diamond Crape Myrtles?" I saw them at Lowes recently. The leaves and stems are very dark (almost black) and the blooms are a bright white. The contrast is stunning! 

I picked up this almond croissant at Fresh Market the other day. Oh. My. Goodness. SO good! My hubby laughed when I reached WAY into the back of the case to get the one with the most powdered sugar. :) Such a deal for $1.29.

We make frozen hot chocolate all the time in the summer. This time, I added Princess Flavoring to mine. It was really good! If you missed it, you can get my Frozen Hot Chocolate recipe HERE.

If you're local in Texas, you should try this Texas Pecan coffee from HEB. I usually stick to tea because I don't have a gall bladder anymore, so I can't handle a lot of caffeine...sorry if that's TMI :) Anyway, my son made this the other day and I couldn't resist a small cup. It really has a good pecan flavor to it. Even my hubby (who thinks flavored coffee is too "girly") likes this one. 

So, the other night around 9:30, after I had cleaned the house, scrubbed the shower, done laundry and worked out, I had just settled into the couch to watch a movie when my son asked if I would please make him a chocolate pancake. This is what I came up with...

#momoftheyear  Lol!

I bought some pretty fabric the other day for a few projects around the house. I love it, but my son said it was "grandma-ish." I'm using the one on the left to recover my shade on the backdoor. The shade was one of the last dark colored "tuscan" things I needed to replace so it would go with my new lighter, brighter look.

What's funny is that as soon as I held up the new, lighter fabric to the backdoor, my eyes immediately went down to the brightly colored doormat below. It was such a "give a mouse a cookie" moment. :) I realized right then and there that I also needed to replace the doormat with a softer, lighter colored one so it wouldn't clash with the new shade. It's never ending, I tell ya. :)

As luck would have it, I had just gotten an email from Ballard about their rug sale going on. I hopped over to their website and got a pretty (light colored) doormat for only $14!!! That's like Walmart prices, y'all!! It can't be shipped until August 1st, but that's not too far off.

I ordered some things to do a mini makeover in my master bath, and was so excited when they were delivered. Here's a peek at some "happy mail" I got the other day. :)

BTW, the mini makeover in the master bath is going to cost me absolutely NOTHING! I found a neat website that will buy back college textbooks (even ones the college WON'T buy back). I sent in a handful of old textbooks from my son's sophomore year of college, and got a nice fat check in the mail for them. The check more than covered my little mini makeover. :) 

Speaking of that, I'm working on a "college tips" post to share some ways I've found to save a little money. I'll be sharing the website I mentioned above, as well as others. College is expensive, so every little bit of savings helps. 

Y'all have a good day!

~Lisa