Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Five Faves: Home Edition


Linking up with Hallie over at Moxie Wife for this week's Five Favorites once again. I've spent a considerable amount of time bemoaning what I'd like to change about our house. I thought today, I would, instead, share what little touches I love about our home.

1) Our Blessed Mother Statue

This is made by Roman, Inc., and I actually picked it up at Family Christian years ago with one of my fantastic 33% off coupons. It was a steal, and still one my favorite statues of the Blessed Mother I have ever encountered. Who of us have not looked upon our own child with those eyes? She did unfortunately take a spill a few years ago, so there is a little chip of resin missing around the waistline, but I was luckily able to put her back together pretty solidly. Phew! [Interestingly (at least to me), this statue is very similar to the image of the Blessed Mother used in the logo for Mary's Mantle.]



2) The Kids' Rooms

I may have gone a bit Pinterest crazy with some of the details...I may or may not have been nesting a bit at the time... Li'l G's room has a yarn covered letter on her door, a wall of crosses and inspirational plaques, butterfly decal spray on the ceiling around her fan, my "tiffany" lamp with stained glass decal on the window, my old chest that I refinished for her room, coke-bottle-bottom flower canvases, and a fabric headboard attached to the wall (it's basically a light comforter with duvet from Ikea folded in half, hemmed to appear piped along the edges and then nailed to the wall).

Li'l G's Big Girl Room
J's room has fewer touches since there was much less wall space once all the furniture got put in. The wall quilt was the biggest project, or at least equally big with the Contact Paper tree on his wall. I had seen a wall painted with a tree and a shelf branch, but I didn't want something as permanent as paint on the wall (or at least something less time consuming to remove). I haven't gotten around to turning one of the branches into a shelf just yet, either... The "J" for his door I found at resale and then glued buttons around. Super simple!

Baby J's nursery

3) Our Dining Room

We don't have a grand dining room - it's pretty small actually, but I love the throwback paneling and the little edits I made to the look. The walls used to be buttercream yellow and there was an old lighting fixture. I found this "Tiffany-esque" light at Home Depot and matched the walls to the little bit of green in the fixture. The wall art is all from our honeymoon. I got a Groupon for photo to canvas art and put it to good use! (Left to right: Florence, Rome, Assisi) Now to clean it out and actually use it regularly!



4) Family Story Wall

Remember how I put those Groupons to good use? Continued good use here. This is what you see when you walk up the stairs to our upper bungalow level, which is now our master bedroom/storage. One note on the photo-to-canvas Groupons. Read the fine print! I got an unexpected shipping charge with one company because I assumed it would be the same as another one. Wrong-o! My recommendation, if you use Groupons for this type of work, is to stick with Canvas on Demand. Shipping is included and delivery was exceptionally fast. Many stores now offer this service at a pretty reasonable cost, so stopping by a Meijer or Costco does the trick as well. If we have more children, though, I'm going to have to rethink the story wall - we are almost out of room!

Top: Li'l G; Middle: Wedding (duh); Bottom: J Dawg)

5) Prayer Table

This concept was the Hubbers' brain child. He wanted some type of home altar where we could place a Bible (go figure...Bible guy wants a Bible on display in the home? Positively shocking!). It's grown into quite a little collection, with medals, relics, statues, etc etc etc. In talking to others about creating a strong Christ centered family, one of the components I like to talk about is making sure that the home reflects your faith. If you cannot visibly see things that remind you of your faith, it slips the mind more quickly. Besides, most people have images of their loved ones all over their house, and we're to love Christ above all things, right? I love that it brings my focus back to center on Christ, and that it visibly affirms our faith to anyone who enters our home. 


So there you have it - five things I actually love about our home besides the people in it! Really hoping to have a five favorite projects post one day soon, too... For more favorites this week, visit Hallie at Moxie Wife!


8 comments:

  1. Love the family wall, and we have that same statue of the BVM. So pretty!

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    1. Thanks, Lisa! I'm so glad she didn't break into a million pieces and I was able to put her back together.

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  2. Wow! I love how comfortable your home looks and how creative you were in the kids' rooms. And I lOVE LOVE LOVE your home altar! I've got a real thing going for home altars and yours is super cool with the bible on a book stand.

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    1. Thanks, Anna! The home altar was completely my husband's genius.

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  3. I love how creative you've been with the kids' rooms, and I REALLY love your home altar. I've developed this thing for home altars - I'm developing my third one right now - but I'd never thought about putting the Bible as the centerpiece. Great idea; I'd like to see the stand more clearly so I can copy it.

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