Welcome to the Bowry household

I think I have an obsession with wreaths. I'm always making new ones even though I still have ones from last year. Maybe because they are easy and cheap! This one only cost $8. I found a grapevine wreath on sale and bought the letter B and some ribbon in my new favorite shade- mint green. The flowers were left over from our wedding. I think it's a perfect summertime wreath and a wonderful way to celebrate my new last name.

I panicked!!

As I mentioned before, I am painting those $4 chairs I found at a garage sale. Well today, I messed up...big time. After priming and 2 coats of paint I decided to start antiquing them using a dark stain. Every tutorial I read said to work on small sections. So I started with one leg then the other. It went well so I did the details where your back goes. Again no problem. All is well. At this point I think I got a little over confident. I applied the dark stain to the entire back and the back legs. When I go to wipe off the stain it has already started to set.

I panicked! Total Allie moment. The stain was trying too fast I couldn't get it off fast enough. I had 2 sticky hands and both gloves were sticky. I was getting finger prints everywhere. I'd wipe one section and dirty up another. I needed to scrub harder to get the tacky stain off. I didn't have good leverage, so I laid it down on the ground and went to work scrubbing as fast as I could. Mistake. The driveway and my scrubbing totally scratched up my chair. Now the chair needs to be sanded and painted again :( See.

Garage Sale Finds

I love garage sales! I'm all about a bargain and what better place to find one. I usually have good luck, even when I don't have something special in mind. The Westchase Community Garage Sale was this past Saturday.Community garage sales are the best, you're pretty much guaranteed to find something. Because Westchase is a ritzy neighborhood, you're more likely to find higher-end items. I found this to put on my piano for $15 (originally marked at $30). It was little more than I usually spend for something that small, but I liked it, it was in good condition and the colors matched the room.

I also found a palm tree picture (that isn't too cheesy) for the front bathroom.

My mom got a cabinet for her kitchen. It was originally a child's 
wardrobe, but you can't tell. Its has a light wood top and beadboard frontwhich is perfect for the feel of her kitchen. It looks like it was made to 
go with her kitchen table.

The week before, I got these chairs at a garage sale. Four for $15. That 
works out to be $3.75 a chair- a steal! Just want I've been searching for. Going to paint and reupholster them to go in my kitchen. More on that 
coming soon...

Look who's driving!!!

Allie finally got behind the wheel today! She was VERY reluctant. We went to an empty parking lot. I think our top speed was a whopping 7mph, but at least we didn't hit anything.

New kitchen table

Check out our new kitchen table !!!

We decided to use some of our wedding gift money to buy a new kitchen table. Our old table wasn't totally bad...just not my style. Too country for me! We bought it off the people who lived here before us. We needed a kitchen table and we couldn't beat the price they were offering. As time passed I found that I didn't like that is was sooo busy. I couldn't put any type of centerpiece because it was just too much. Even flowers from Dedee had to be put elsewhere. Here's the old table.

See what I mean. I wanted something simple that I could dress-up and change-up with place mats, runner and centerpieces. I'm so happy with what we decided on! I love the butcher block look. We don't have any chairs yet. Spending $80 for an ordinary kitchen chair wasn't in the budget, so I'll keep my eyes open for something. Until then, we'll eat dinner on the couch ;)