If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Stories from the heart

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Stories from the heart

I recently moved a chest in front of the stairs in our great room which meant I needed to style this piece with them in mind. Only one new item was bought for the piece.
It's a Royal Stafford and I love it because of the sheep in the scene.
I thought it would look nice centered between these two little lambs. 
So.... this plate reminded me that I have three plates with a winter scene on each that I hadn't quite known where to place.
I decided to add them here following the line of the stairs.
A close up of one of the plates.

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Stories from the heart

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. We had a fun one in Chapel Hill...although I would like to change that Tarheel score! 
I thought I would share a few pictures of the touch of fall at our back gate.
A few mums, pumpkins and pine cones which literally were picked up at my feet were added to a chair.
The lantern has small pumpkins and candles and sets by the gate to light the way.
The bittersweet berry wreath was purchased at my favorite produce stand.
The lady who sold it to me said, "If you spray it with a good quality hairspray it will last for years".  Have you heard this before?
Welcome, fall! Please come and spread your beauty in our back woods.
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Stories from the heart

Well, it takes some of us longer than others to get our decorating mojo going. The console in our foyer is always a place of decorating  joy and frustration for me. That's kind of like most things in life... the things that bring the most joy usually bring a little frustration at times too (the image of me sheepishly trying to get a moon pie open at midnight when everyone else is asleep comes to mind). Sometimes with decorating you know the "feel" you want, but the elements to bring that feeling about just don't seem to fall into place. And then you find a picture frame that you love and you know just what picture you want to put in it.
This is a frame that I found in Davidson, NC and knew this picture of my husband's grandmother (Mama Hazel) with some of her cousins was just the picture to place in the blue and ivory washed frame. The picture was taken in the mid 1920s. Mama Hazel is the sweet little girl on the far left.
Then I found these vintage books at The Depot antique mall in the colors I love.

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Stories from the heart

I love Autumn! It's my favorite season of the year. I love the cool, wear your sweater, drink hot cocoa weather that we enjoy in North Carolina. We always head up to the Blue Ridge Mountains and take a ride on the parkway so we can enjoy the brilliant hues of orange, red and yellow.
Those are the colors of fall...orange, red and yellow.  I love those colors and use them in fall wreaths on my porch and outdoor fireplace. But.... I go a little softer inside. I painted our dining room a powder blue a while back.  When I began decorating our dining room for fall, I decided to incorporate that color in our decor.
 I'm not sure if you can tell here, but leaves and pumpkins were given a wash of blue (a watered down version of our wall paint) and added to grapevine pumpkins and a wreath at the base of the centerpiece.

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Stories from the heart

But first, a little background to some of the items in the vignette. The door in the background along with the book came from my husband's grandparents home. The vintage sewing machine table belonged to my paternal grandmother. My husband's maternal grandmother was the owner of the typewriter.  She worked at the post office in our hometown. The eyeglasses were my great grandfather's. Finally, the pipe belonged to my husband's paternal grandfather and the pocket watch belonged to his maternal grandfather who owned a jewelry shop in our hometown.  Whew! That's a lot of background, huh?

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Stories from the heart

Hi all! I wanted to drop in this afternoon and share a few pictures of my grain sieve or sifter wreath.  I purchased this at a local antique mall for a steal and thought I would incorporate it in to our fall decor. 
All the fall elements added to the grain sieve and mantel were waiting for me in our storage room. The burlap ribbon seemed to me the no fuss touch needed for this primitive style wreath.
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Stories from the heart

I've been thinking a lot about apples lately.
At first it was just, "I want to create a vignette with apples, real apples and I'm not going to add any artificial elements this time and then I could..... blah, blah, blah."  Every home decor blogger reading this knows that train of thought. 
During all these visions of apples dancing in my head, our youngest got sick with strep throat and some kind of upper respiratory virus on top of that. Nothing that can't be handled with antibiotics and some tender love and care...but no mom likes to see her little one (she's still my little one even if she's 3 inches taller than me) sick.  
Because of this, all through the end of last week and the beginning of this week the old adage, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," kept running through my mind. 
And then, at 1:00 this morning, I did what I always do when I can't sleep. I scrolled down the pictures on Pinterest.  I stopped scrolling when I saw a particularly appealing outdoor fall tablescape. "Gotta see who created this eye candy," I thought and so off I went to visit the creator's blog.

Think twice before you throw something away — it could be made into something even cooler. There are plenty of ways you can upcycle something old into something useful and entirely unrecognizable. Here are some of the best new uses for old things.

World inside pictures

19 June 2026

Renovation Insider

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