Sorting. Packing. Shopping? uh oh.

Project HOMEWARD  - our new house - continues to move forward, 

with lots of visible progress on the job site and also with our packing.
oh, Lord, the PACKING. Mom's been in this house 36 YEARS. I feel like this photo most days.

I promised you that I'd show you the FIRST thing we purchased for the new house...
Be patient... there's a story there!

I am totally into vintage industrial style. LOOOOVE it.
One day about seven years ago, I got a huge vintage scale FREE on Craigslist.
please don't hate me. she nearly broke my arms carrying her, if that helps!
She lived in my little seasonal store for awhile, and then we moved her into my kitchen:

Four years ago, I left my dream home and my island, and came back to SoCal.

 I've admired industrial style decor from afar since then,
because it's just not something I can do while living in my parent's home.

Well......... that's changing!
Mom has been watching HGTV's Fixer*Upper with me. And it's rubbing off on her!

Like so many of you, we love JoJo's style. 
It's very much like my own, and Mom has seen how I decorate my houses over the years...
 but honestly, when it comes to making design choices for the new house, 

Mom is amazing me by broadening her views to include a more industrial, farmhouse style!
We won't have a house that looks like Joanna decorated it, 

but similar components - like the white cabs and wood flooring and stainless appliances

and vintage accessories that tell OUR story - will certainly be part of it.
Shiplap? Maybe ;)

so...
Back in January, we were at a flea market (Trading Post 1908 here in Southern California)
and as we perused the vendor booths, we saw a few scales for sale...
we found a scale that was actually exactly like the one on Joanna's kitchen counter.

But we kept walking. I wasn't 'feeling it' and Mom wasn't, either.
We knew we WANTED a scale for our {{huge}} new kitchen island,

but it had to be the right scale and look.

Then we headed toward the last booth at the show
and all of a sudden Mom started walking faster.
She was makin' a beeline toward something, and I just tried to keep up.

She went to the far back corner of the booth and stopped, and then I saw it...
and I gasped. Really. Because I knew it was perfect. And so did Mom.
It was sitting there holding a ceramic bowl of bright yellow lemons
and had us at hello:

We can just picture it in our kitchen, 

holding a stack of vintage cookbooks and a jar of cookie cutters, 

or a terra cotta pot of basil - or a bowl of lemons.

Honestly, it's a smaller twin of the one that I used to have!

And the BEST part? the story.
 That's what homewardFOUNDdecor - and project homeward - is all about:
Telling our own stories through the way we decorate and celebrate!

Like what you see in my photos?

Learn about those FREE shelves made from upcycled cabinets !
Make your own giant chalkboard using my tutorial!

Movin' On!

Have you ever moved to a new (to you) house?
Have you scratched your head and wondered 'How am I gonna' make THIS work there?'?

Have you had nightmares about what you need to buy for the new place?
I have a plan to help you with that!

I hinted in my first post last month that there were some big things ahead this year...

things that spurred me to come out of my 'Blogging Break'. (missed that post? it's here ) 

Mom and I have been working on something since October

that will take a huge leap forward at the end of March.
So huge that EVERYTHING will change for us...
we're moving on into our future!


What's that? You wanna' know what this huge thing is?
Oh, okay, sure.... it's.....

After relocating from Orange County to the Temecula area at the end of March, 

we'll be taking on the utterly exciting task of decorating a brand.new.house!

We've got Pinterest boards and file folders and brains overflowing with ideas.
We've got color palettes and landscaping ideas and wall treatments inhabiting our dreams.

Our plans mix Mom's style with MY style, to create 'our' style...

which is a little bit farmhouse, and a little bit beach house,

a little bit contemporary, and a little bit industrial, a little bit rustic, and a little bit feminine!
 

Here's where homewardFOUNDdecor comes in:

I'm going to be sharing our process of
* making design choices for the house
and what inspires us as we mix our two styles

* deciding what furniture to KEEP and what to let go

* how to re-think, re-design, and re-use items in new spaces
* giving an empty, new builder home a vintage vibe with easy projects

 My goal is to inspire you and give you ideas for your OWN home - 
whether you move to a new location or you just rearrange what you have where you are!

Yes, we'll be buying a few new things...
but our plan is to re-use, re-purpose, and re-design as much as we can.
It's about inspiration, and ideas, and hands-on fun.
You've seen my Mom's house in the Thrifty Tropical Weekend Makeover series,

and now you'll be able to see how we totally change the look for the new house!

We're calling it 'Project HOMEward'...
and hope you'll join us here each week... we've got a lot to share with you!

(Yes, I'll still be sharing my seasonal decor ideas and projects, too!) 
Coming up next: the options/finishes we chose
and the first thing we bought for the house!

the Language of Love

 Contrary to just about everything I share here on homewardFOUNDdecor, 
the truly important things in life aren't decorating or crafting.
The decorating and crafting have always been - for me, anyway -   
the way I show people that I love them...

The kids' rooms were always cute and fun and bright and happy, with handpainted furniture and murals that expressed their own style. The house was always clean (ish!) and decorated because I wanted my family to be proud of where they lived. The birthdays and special days of the year were greeted with simple decorations and fun food at the breakfast table (like pink milk and pancakes on Valentine's Day). The 'big' holidays like Halloween, Christmas, and Easter were celebrated with fun traditions and decorating.

ALL of those efforts on my part resulted not just in happy moments and lasting memories, but in a deeper meaning that leads my now-adult offspring to do the same things for their own kids.
This has become a 'language of love' for our whole family,
and nothing could make me happier.

My Mom started it all when I was a girl, and I added to it... as have my kids. It's not about money - because we've never had a lot of that - but about using what you have, being creative, and investing time and effort into doing things for those you love. For me, the BEST gifts ever were the handwritten, handpainted, handdrawn cards made for me  by my children and grandchildren.

Sometimes, the simplest things can mean the most.

 There's another 'hand made' gift that is the very best one I ever received:

Valentine's Day 2015 came in the midst of some very hard days.

My Dad was fighting the battle of his life - FOR his life - against cancer.
He was weak, and tired, and spent a lot of time in his comfy chair downstairs. He wasn't going out of the house anymore, so I asked him if I could find a card for him to give to my Mom on Valentine's Day... he said yes, and I did. (I ended up overwhelmed by tears in the card department of the local CVS store, on the phone with my little sister to give me the strength to find a card expressing the love of a dying man for his wife of 35 years...) I gave him the card, he signed it, and gave it to her a few days later. 
She loved it. She still reads it from time to time.

And then, when I awoke on Valentine's Day, I found little notes taped to my bedroom door, my office door, my bathroom mirror, and my laptop:


... little love notes for me, from my Dad. 

He had written them on scrap paper and come upstairs to tape them where I would find them.

Handwritten love notes from my Daddy...
there isn't anything more precious to me now,
no other Valentine that could mean more than these.

Just a few short weeks later, on Easter morning, my Dad passed away.

I moved those notes to the back of my bedroom door, and I see them every single day. They are a constant reminder of his love, and of the effort it took him to climb the stairs to put them there for me. 
He gave me all he had to give... his love. And it is more than enough.

The language of love is time. It's effort. It's thoughtfulness.
Maybe to you, it's a cupcake, or a card, or a perfect door wreath and mantel. Maybe it's a date, or a diamond, or chocolate and champagne. We all want to be shown love in the way that makes us feel special and loved, and to show love to those who are special to us.
For me, it's the little things done with a caring heart that mean the most

 Whatever you do to show your love this year on Valentine's Day,
may it be from the heart.

Even if it's simple post-it notes... because you just never know.

 .

Lampshades to LOVE

 I just can't leave well enough alone...

 I usually buy my home decor items - like lamps - at thrift stores and garage & vintage sales,
and they usually come with lampshades.
Thing is, I never like them! 
I love the lamp base, which is why I buy it,
but then I always have to add something or deconstruct something to do with the shade
to make it something I can live with... or sell.

Like MOST of my projects, it's not really complicated...

The lamp on the left has a perfectly acceptable shade, right?
I thought so too, but when I sat it in the vignette in my vintage decor booth*,
all of the lovely detail of the three 'candles' beneath that shade became invisible.

I knew I had to do something, so I looked around me to see what I had to work with...
and my eyes stopped on those rusty, crusty wire garden baskets 
hanging from a chandelier over the table.
There was one more of them sitting under the table, and I grabbed it,

flipped it over, and sat it on top of the lampshade (shown on the right).

The wire brought out the metal tones of the three 'candles' under the shade,
and the whole thing looked a lot more 'vintage' - easy-peasy.

This lampshade started out as a simple wire frame from a thrift shop.
I tore strips of red ticking cotton fabric and found some vintage red velvet ribbon,
and simply tied loops of each around the frame.
I think it took me a whopping 15 minutes from start to finish.

I like my projects to be 'Fast, Cheap, & Easy'TM!

MORE inspiration:

view more of my lampshade transformations

a super-quick lampshade treatment

one of the most drastic lamp transformations ever

I've used chandelier crystals, metal shoe trees, wire waste baskets,
aprons, vintage piano player music rolls, belts, stencils, sheet music,
vintage linens, wallpaper, vintage ceramic tea cups, and more
to 'foof' up lampshades over the years...

a few that I gathered up in 2013 to share here on HWF:

 I hope you find inspiration for your own unique lampshades here!
Have fun creating!
...we'll leave the light on for ya'... ;)

shared online:
one project closer | creativity unleashed

shabbyfufu | share it one more time
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