Thursday, November 20, 2008

Let The Party
Season Begin!
Not since the last party we had
has this house been so clean!
The last party The House of B's hosted was the 2007 Ugly Christmas Sweater Party . We were due for hosting a party just so we would get some projects done and crap cleaned up around here. In true House of B's fashion we procrastinated as much as we could all year long. Seems we work better under stress, freaking out, and down right mayhem and chaos.
Three weeks before Laura's party (we actually didn't know for sure we were going to be hosting it then) we decided to update our downstairs family room. It could have been done this summer (we talked about it) but we were busy camping and doing nothing. Three weeks seemed like plenty of time. Right??????
One forgets about all the other preparations that need to happen to prepare for a party. It's not just painting, staining, getting carpet laid, baking cupcakes, cleaning bathrooms, and just general mess cleaning up. There is food prep, table cloth ironing, gifts wrapped, seating figured out, table planning, making sure there is enough of everything (beer and propane) as well as ..................just the everyday stuff that has to be done. Then there was big fat messes I shared with you on August 13th that still weren't cleaned up. I had been working on it but they weren't all done. Your starting to get the picture right? I think they call it biting off more then you can chew. That's me!
So with that said.................I'm going to display my hard work proudly today! I crammed 6 months of work in to 3 weeks.
First up the living room
I love this room. I love it when it's clean, slip covers washed, dusted and ready to receive visitors. This room has a lot of stuff in it because it's easy to find things for a room you love. I've had so much fun decorating this room. I always find something new for it. I'm hoping the other rooms become as easy to decorate now that I have fallen in love with them too. Everything in my living room and dining room is second hand. I either bought it at a garage sale, thrift store, off Craigslist. Even the slipcovers are made out of second hand bedspreads.


I keep trying to bring in another color with the black and white. Green, pink, blues are the colors I lean toward. I still find myself always going for just black and white. The lime green does look great in there. So does the pinks.
Ohhhh what's a girl to do?


Nice pile of hamburger buns in the dining chair. You won't see that in any magazine! That's my original idea. It's called REAL LIFE.
Guess Cottage Living won't be calling me anytime soon.

Every thing was dusted, Windexed and ready for visitors.


I'm not a collector of anything. I buy things I like but I don't collect anything. This however is something I have started to collect. I picked all these little dog figurines up at garage sales, thrift stores, and antique (Annie's) stores. They just make me smile and I think I'll keep my eyes open for some more of them. The Wired Haired Fox Terrier are my most favorite of course. They look like my little buddy Charlie. The Boxer was for The Hubs. He wants a boxer and this was the best I could do for him. I'm not ready for that big of a dog yet.


The dining room all ready. Love this room too but we never use it. Maybe that will be one of our New Years Resolution this year. Use the dining room more.


I won't bore you with anymore pictures of the new downstairs family room. I have posted enough of them. We love this room!
Just know it was clean and ready too.

Even the sun room got a cleaning.
Windows washed, slip covers washed, vacuumed, dusted, and furniture rearranged for a party.

We enjoy this room so much.
We use it all the time during the spring and summer but this year we decided that we would use it for the party and extend the party out to the deck. Which is new this year too. Well, we had it last year but it wasn't finished (bad contractor story that I should share with you and bad mouth the contractor in public, but I won't) so we could never use it. This year it's done (Thank you Brian from Quicksilver Construction) so we put up tents over the deck and used it too.


This is the deck. We put tents up over the lower part. The weather is too unpredictable around here. However on Laura's birthday we had
B E A U T I F U L weather.
I laid out an outdoor rug, put the vintage wrought iron furniture out, and set the beverage table up outside. The Hubs also had he BBQ set up at the other end of the deck by a fire pit.
At night we had some small lights on that were strung up on the railing and candles burning. It really looked great. I was so happy with the way everything turned out.
I really wanted it to be special for my good friend Laura.
She threw me the most special party of my life a couple years ago. She had an afternoon tea party for my bridal shower. It was so lovely that people are still talking about it.
She really is the master party planner!
Having her 40th at my house was such and honor. I wanted everything to be perfect for her.
Now for the best ZERO cost idea I got while trying to get things ready for the party.
I was at Annie's last week (making sure she didn't have anything I couldn't live without. Of course she did) talking with her about the party. I mentioned that I had all these urns that I needed to fill with something. I didn't want it too be too fall and I wasn't' ready for Christmas yet either. Any suggestions?
That Annie, she's so freakin brilliant! She said "go out to your cedar tree, pick up the branches that came off in the last wind or cut some and stuff those branches tight in to all your urns. " "Put a bucket with water in the urn and then fill up the bucket with branches."
Perfect! We have 3 huge cedar trees in our back yard and a holly tree. That will be perfect and FREE!
Look how damn fabulous that is! It looks great on the front porch with my black door.

Franklin checkin it out. It's his new favorite place to hide under.

I loved the look so much I filled up 2 more urns and put them in the sun room. They smelled wonderful! Now for Christmas I'm going to go cut some more holly branches and stuff in there. Maybe bet some large Christmas ornaments and shove in there too.


Well that's it! Everything is cleaned up and ready for the next party.

We will be hosting the 2nd annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party on Dec 13th. I'm getting ready for that. I'll keep you posted and I'll find last years pictures to share. It was a great time.

I have to get everything ready and set up before I leave. I 'll only have a week when I get back to get ready for another party.

Where am I going you ask????

NEW YORK CITY!!!!

I'm so damn excited I can hardly stand it. I have been to New York once before and loved loved loved it! The Hubs surprised me last week with a phone call telling me to get myself a ticket and go with Laura and the girls.

Love him!

So stay tuned for more chaos and mayhem from The House of B's!

6 comments:

the said...

I have one word for those pics:

BEAUTIFUL!

You have a simply amazing home :)
~Stephanie~

Anonymous said...

Timi, it's all so beautiful and calming -- and clean! Clean hasn't happened at my house in awhile.

I absolutely love the cover on that chaise. I really want to copy that.

New York! I wanna go! Can I go, too? ;-) I know y'all will have a great time.

Laurie Anne said...

House looks great. Almost enough to inspire me to clean mine. I said almost :0)

Unknown said...

Your home is beautiful! I love the chenille covered lounger on the porch. I would love to spend lots of time there, also.
;D Tammy

adozeneggs said...

your home looks great. I love the dessert spread in the dining room.

adozeneggs said...

How do you keep the white so clean with pets? I must have messy animals because I don't think that would last more than a day in our house!!