Container Gardening For Dummies

I'm sure I'm not alone in having friends who have green thumbs.  Actually, they have green hands - magic powers - when it comes to gardening.   They seem to put together beautiful floral masterpieces like this, almost effortlessly.

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Or this...

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Or this...

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I am not one of those people.  Lucky for me, the world doesn't have to know that.  It will be our little secret.

So, what do you do when you don't have natural gardening skills?  You fake it.  You heard me.  Fake. it.  That's what I do.

How?  There are great tools out there for those of us who are gardening-challenged.  One of my favorites, that I reference year after year, is the Proven Winners Container Design Book.  First off, it's FREE.  FREE, people.  It's like paint by numbers, for planting beautiful flower container gardens.  Seriously, they totally dumb it down - in a good way.  There are lots of catalogs to peruse too  - take a peek.

Here is an urn that I planted one year with their help:

Inspired by this in their catalog...

Proven Winners Container Design Book for Gardeners

But do you see the little cheater-guide at the bottom?  It tells you what plants to buy and takes it to the next level by showing you where to plant them.  Their ideas are serious eye candy - eye-deas, if you will.  (That's lingo thrown about by the gardening-challenged.)

Proven Winners Container Design Book for Gardeners

I'm all for things that enhance the curb appeal of a home, which beauties like these definitely do.

Source: google.com via Jenny on Pinterest

That, my friends, is the secret to looking like you know what you're doing when it comes to beautiful container gardening.  No more excuses.  It's literally as easy as 1-2-3.  You can find even more Container Gardening for Dummies ideas from Better Homes & Gardens.  Great stuff.

As a side note - I am in no way compensated by Proven Winners - I just seriously love these catalogs, and thought you might appreciate them too!

The Sectional Has Landed

It's been a busy weekend, and the game of musical furniture has begun.  The sectional has finally arrived!  Everyone loves it, and it fits into the space beautifully.  Can you guess the spot of lounge-y loveliness that everyone is fighting over?

Now that we have it, it is making my goldish comfy chair look tired and sad.  Not to mention that from a style perspective, I don't think it "fits".  But, I'm not going to banish it to the basement just yet.  With a new slipcover, it might still work. 

I'm also noticing the need for a new coffee table, and side tables.  But, again, patience, patience.    It seems as though new things just spotlight other changes that need to be made, doesn't it?

But wouldn't one of these look lovely as a replacement for my now dwarf looking ottoman?

Awwww yeah.

I still haven't made up my mind on throw pillows yet, but I will say that I am so happy that I didn't paint the room beige, brown, grey, etc...  Not that I don't love those colors, but if I had done that, the room would have been a total Sea of Beige.   The Palladian Blue really is a great backdrop for the new furniture, and I love it.

It has definitely kick-started me into action and I did some more painting in an effort to finish this massive painting project.  It's coming together - more on that later.

So really quick - let's look at how far this room has come.

Mapping it out...

And it's finally here...

Hope you have a great week!

Not Just a Housewife - Show Me What Ya Got
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia - Tuesday Treasures
Savvy Southern Style - Wow Us Wednesday
Chic on a Shoestring - Flaunt it Friday
Remodelaholic - Remodelaholic's Anonymous
Green Door Designs - Saturday Spotlight

Window Box Wonderland

I am not naturally gifted in the gardening area, but I know enough to be dangerous.  One look I have always loved on a house is window boxes.  They just scream charm and character, don't you think?

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We added window boxes to our old house, and I loved planting them each year.  Here is a picture of our old house before we added the window boxes:

And then after they were installed and planted:

Some close ups...

It's the one thing I will definitely miss, this first year in our new home.   Might have to add them to my project list...

Sorry I have been so sparse - my hubby was out of town last week, and it's baseball season, so that means I've been spending a lot of time at my second home:

Check out that awesome bunt by my #5

You moms of baseball players know what I mean.  And I have two of them in baseball.  It's madness I tell you.  Madness.

Linking to:

Centsational Girl - Outdoor Ideas

Pfister Faucet Winner

Thanks to everyone who entered the Pfister Faucet Giveaway! I let Random.org select a number and Barbara is the winner!

Congratulations Barbara!

Barbara said...
Hi, Michelle,
I am SO glad to see you starting to post a little - welcome back - you were missed! Hope that you will be all better very soon!! If I win the faucet, I would like to give it Lynnette's daughter as she lost her home in one of those horrible tornadoes.



Barbara please email me so I can get your information to Pfister.

*Edited*

I am such a dope...... I misread Barbara's comment and she intended for her winning to go to another commenter Lynette (her daughter suffered loss in the recent tornados). What a wonderful gesture Barbara! I was truly touched and I know Lynette and her daughter are! This is a prime example of how wonderful this community is! Thank you ladies!

2 day Hot Tub Sale $500 off PN8, $300 off PN7 or Sgn up 4 r HT Webinar

A Virtual Before & After

I survived the half-marathon, and let's just say it wasn't my prettiest race, by any stretch.  But, I finished, and the whole goal was to get some of my running mojo back.  And, as an unexpected bonus, I beat my husband. :-)

I recently posted about my family room painter's remorse, and am happy to report that I am no longer remorseful!  The paint is staying, and I have been working on a second coat.  I have mentioned that we're planning on redoing our kitchen cabinets, and painting them white.  Originally, I was going to hire this out, but now we're considering doing it ourselves, starting with a small section of the kitchen.  The understanding is that if it's a huge fail, we will hire it out.  A friend has a heavy duty paint sprayer, and I've been researching it, so we're going to give it a try. 

I want to do a glaze of some sort too, and we're going to paint the island a different color.  This is kind of the grand plan at the moment.  We want to use the black on the island and the cream color on the perimeter cabinets.  These are the samples I'm using.

As for paint colors, in the entry, great room and connecting hallways, we're going with Benjamin Moore's Palladian Blue.  I gave a sneak peek of this color on the in our family room here.

Mountain Laurel is in the color we're going to put in the kitchen, and have already put in the adjoining nook that I blogged about here.  LOVE.

And Aegean Teal is the plan for the dining room.  While going through the color selection process, I just found myself picking this color over and over without even realizing it.  So, I decided it was a must-have.

So, I'm hoping to see this sort of transformation in the dining room when I take down the dreaded wallpaper.  Here is the dining room as it stands...

And here it is with my attempt at using Benjamin Moore's Personal Color Viewer tool.

If only the transformation was this simple.

I decided to try to simulate painting the kitchen cabinets as well, to get a feel for what it would look like.  Here is the current room:

And my attempt at a virtual"after".  (I know, Layla is all that and a bag of chips with her "Pick My Presto" talents.  She has skills.)

Ok, so the end of the island looks cut off, but you get the idea.  I tried to add the paint color to the wall, but it just didn't look right.  At all.  So, you'll just have to wait for the actual, real-world reveal to see that.

At any rate - I'm digging it.  What do you think?

In other exciting news - the sectional is being delivered next Saturday!  Yippee!!

Pfister Review And Giveaway

Do you remember the Kitchen Facelift that I conquered at the beginning of the year? If you do, than you also remember the list of things that I had on my wish list.....back splash, counter top, sink and new faucet. Well, I get to mark two of those things off my list, thanks in part to Pfister Faucets.

When they wrote to me and asked if I would do a product review, I gladly accepted, knowing that this opportunity was really a blessing, a new faucet was not in the near future for us. Just to give you an idea of what we had before.....A cruddy, leaky faucet and a stained and chipped sink.....hello reality! :)

....and this is what we have now. A beautiful new sink and beautiful faucet to match. A new faucet deserves a new sink right? :) So we went shopping for a new sink. Pfister gave me a choice of four faucets to choose from and I chose the Elevate model. Not too modern and not too traditional either.

We have lived with the Elevate for over a month now and there are two features that really stand out to me. First of all, my favorite feature is the pull out sprayer. I can't get over the ease of use and the button easily switches the water from stream to spray. I guess I like the integration of it, it's extremely functional, and it has a toggle so it moves around easy too. So now instead of looking at a sprayer head on the side of the sink, I get to enjoy the convience of the hand soap dispenser instead (another nice feature).

Of course when Logan found out about the sprayer, he just thought it was fun to press the button!

The second thing I like about the Elevate is the location of the handle. I can't really explain why it's much more functional on the side, but it is just easier to use. Maybe it's because you're not reaching over the faucet to turn on the water, at any rate, who ever thought of putting it on the side is genius.

This is another interesting feature the Elevate has (though I keep it on the lowest setting) you can adjust the height, if you are, say, filling large pots, or need the faucet up out of the way. It has a button on the front and you just pull up on it, but like I said, I have hardly used that feature.

I am tickled with the new additions to the Kitchen Facelift and I want to thank Pfister Faucets for giving me this opporutinity to use and review one of their faucets, it is top quality!

Wait, don't go! It's not over yet! Would you like a chance to receive an Elevate Faucet for yourself?

Pfister Faucets is sponsoring a giveaway too! I think this is fantastic, I can recall from reading some of your comments (from the facelift) that this kind of upgrade would be a dream too. As you might know, I am still recovering from my recent surgery, so I want to keep this super simple....leave a comment on this post. Yep, that's it, I don't feel like running around so I don't want you to have to either ;) But, if you would like to become a follower, that's great too, no pressure. :)

If you want your name in the hat, just leave me a comment. Just to be clear, the giveaway is for the faucet only. I will let random.org select a lucky name next Monday (May 16). I'm going to leave this giveaway open all week, join in!

P.S. Have a wonderful Mother's Day!