Shopping Fun

Hello Everyone.
Just checking in to say Hello and share a cute little place I went shopping.

I spent the day with these two sweeties.  My daughter Jen and granddaughter Charlotte.


This wonderful place was called Avant Gardens and is now called the Shops on 71.  It is three wonderful vendors that rent this place and sell the most amazing things.  I was here the other day with a good friend and she spied something she just loved so my daughter and I took a ride back to pick up this wonderful gift for my friends birthday. 

Now these next three pictures are for you Texas gals and southwest girls.  One of the vendors takes cowboy boots and stuffs them full of wonderful fall decor for front door decor.  Loved these.





Look at these sweet chippy hangers.  The cloche on the left my daughter bought to put on her dining table.  She will add fall decor under it and make it pretty.


All the vendors are starting to bring out their fall decor.

I loved the faux fall flowers this vendor has made into many cute centerpieces.

Loved this guy he just made me smile.

One of the vendors had a whole lot of "Kris" things.  White, chippy shabbies galore!!!!

Swooning over these white corbels.

Loved this sweet little kitchen island.


Lots and lots of farmhouse decor.

Look at this cute lamp!!!!  This would be so cute in a laundry room.

I of course needed one of these sweet shirts!

Sweet overnight bag.

I am thinking about this lovely piece.  This armoire has hanging on one side and drawers on the other.  I am thinking of getting this and putting it in our bedroom or the guest room of the new house.  Our 1949 cottage we bought does not have big closets so this would give us some more wardrobe storage space.  Of course it will be painted white!!!!  It has really cute feet!!!  The price was really good on this piece and they are having a grand opening sale on Saturday so I think it will be even less.

Progress is continuing on the new house.  Hoping the basement stuff will be done this week and then the garage all done by the weekend.  Then we can start to think about setting up our move in.  Ahhh a girl can dream!!!

Have a lovely rest of the week and wonderful weekend.
xoxo
Kris

Garage and Walls and a New Table and Cuteness Overload

Happy Sunday Everyone.

We finally have a Garage YEAH!!!!

Garage Yes!  Driveway NO!  Boo!!  Hopefully we will be seeing a driveway soon and that load of dirt and wood removed from my sight forever!!!!  We still have some finishing to the garage but hey the structure is finally pass inspection and up!!!!  I feel excited we might actually move in to this house in the next few weeks.


Boring for you to see these mudded walls but so exciting for us.  We have walls and ceilings in the basement.  They will finish these this week with some sanding and primer.


The basement is coming together nicely to give us extra living space in this tiny cottage home.  There will be a family room fireman cave, a office area for Terry, a storage/bedroom, a full bathroom and a huge laundry room with storage.  Ahhhhh I am so excited.  Terry and I will do all the finishing touches like painting of the walls and installing floors ourselves.   We will also finish the bathroom ourselves.  Doing some of the finishing work ourselves will save us money on an already over budget renovation.


I ordered this console table after seeing it on Kim Savvy Southern Styles Blog.  Just love the chippy goodness to this piece.  Kim ordered hers from Houzz.  I found it for less on Overstock.com and had a coupon and free shipping.   The first piece arrived in pieces so Overstock.com sent me a brand new one.  The replacement arrived without any damage.  Yeah!


I was going to put this console table in the living room entry but it is too big for the space so no worries Terry has tools!!! This beautiful piece is going to be made into a dining table.  Since I have another top from the first delivery where the legs were busted he will have enough to make a nice square table top.  He will bring the chippy legs closer together and make this long console table into a nice and sweet little kitchen table.  That is the plan anyway.  So stay tuned I cannot wait to show you how this will be reloved into a new kitchen table.

Here is a preview of the new kitchen chairs.  I took these gray slipcovers and sent them to Lisa Harmon that has worked on other slipcovers for me.  I also sent three matching fabrics to make these ruffles on the chairs.  Lisa does the best work.
Here is her website and I will have more on her when I do a final post of the kitchen when done.  As you can see I am adding some sunshine yellow to my cottage kitchen.

Now for some Cuteness Over Load!!!!

As most of you know we are adopting this sweet little Miss in a few weeks.



So far it looks like a lot of you voted on her name to be Lucy.  I think we will get her and then see what name will fit her personality.

A few new names I am favoring is Belle and Daisy.  We cannot wait to bring her home.

OK on to the cuteness:

The breeder keeps in touch with me and he sent me some pictures of one of "Lucy's" daughter's pups.  One of her pups named Lemon Drop had her pups that are ready to go to new homes.  These sweet little fur bundles just make me smile.


This is Lemon Drop and her cute pups that are all red except for one red and white.  Lemon Drop and her pups are on the other side of the fence.  The little pups are from another basset hound named Belle.  They still have a few weeks before they will be going to their forever homes.



As you can see the one and only red and white is singing and showing off.  I guess when you are different in looks than your brothers and sisters you have to sing to stand out.  Lemon Drops pups are going to their forever homes now.  They are just sooo cute.





This is Boris the father of these beautiful puppies.  As you can see he is a big lug of love.
I cannot wait to get little Miss Lucy, Emma, Belle, Daisy soon!  She will be a wonderful addition to our family.

Have a great new week.  I cannot wait to get moved in our home in the next few weeks and start to unpack my chippy decor items for the new cottage.

Hugs,
Kris

More Progress. New Floors and A New Front Door.

Happy New Week Everyone.

We have progress on the garage build.  They put the roof on yesterday and will be putting up the siding this week along with the garage door.  We are in the home stretch hopefully now with this garage.

We have had a few set backs this week with the contractor using the wrong wood in the ceiling and  the inspector shutting down any more building until that was fixed.    Ughhhhh!
I cannot wait for all of these crews to leave our lives.  I will not miss any of this!

Once the garage is done hopefully this week we can set up for the move in.  We will not have the drive way done until after we move in.

They do not want us putting the heavy POD with our stored stuff  on the new drive.  We will have to wait on getting the new driveway done until after our stuff is moved in.   At least we are moving closer to moving in.  I am almost afraid to type that statement!!!!



The new floors  have wide planks and a real wood feel.   Gives a nice cottage feel to the rooms.  This floor is easy peasy to clean.  Just swifter them and it is all good.   I have these new cottage floors throughout the house.

This is our old front door.  While it was ok I was not into the gold hardware and gold running through the window in the door.  A little dated for me!

I got this craftsman cottage door at Home Depot.  It was on sale and would give the house a more cottage entrance.  Terry had to make a few adjustments with the hardware not lining up from the old door to this new one.  Of course it did not line up no shocker there with how things go for us.  It was all ok, Terry has tools and could make this all work!!!


Since we are over budget with the set backs on the garage and basement I did not have any money for new door hardware.  No problem just took off all the old hardware and used this spray paint with primer to make all the pieces look new.

It worked pretty good.

This door has a better curb appeal and cottage feel.

Have a great new week ahead.  Wish us luck on getting the garage done without any more road blocks and the basement walls and ceilings in this week too.

PS...!!!!!
On a sweet note before I close this post.  We are going to adopt this sweet little girl.  Thanks for all your positive input on us adopting this sweet fur baby.

Her given name is Rosa and she is 6 years old.
It looks like her breeding days are over so that is why she is up for adoption.

While the breeder takes good care of his dogs they still are in a kennel and not in homes to be loved.  I wish I could take them all.  I am just glad this sweet girl has stopped cycling so she can now become a pet and loved in our home.

Rosa had a rough start to life in a home where she was not well cared for so the breeder took her back to breed because of her family line of show quality dogs.

Unfortunately for the breeder he only got one litter out of her and she has not cycled anymore.
I feel she is not cycling anymore with the stress of being pulled out of a home and put into kennel life.
 This is a business to him and he has no use for her once they cannot breed anymore.  This is why he is looking to place one of his prized  breeding dogs into a home.  Unfortunate for him but soooo fortunate for us.  We will take her in and love her like we did Cooper.

Now for a little help from all of you.

The breeder has not called her by her given name in the 2 years he has had her.  She will come to just about any name she is called.
We thought about leaving her name as Rose instead of Rosa,  but since that makes no difference to her what we call her we want to rename her.

Cooper's Name was Roscoe and he never answered to that and took to his name of Cooper that we gave him.  So we hope that Rosa will do the same if we change her name.

Here are the top three names we have picked out for her.  Would love for you to leave a vote for the one you think is a good one.

Emmy or Emma
Lucy
Peggy

Have a great week.
xoxo
Kris


Day Out, Crossing State Lines, An Adventure and a Possible Life Change

These are my Bestie's!  On Sunday we decided to go on an adventure together.  This adventure consisted of crossing state lines!



We crossed over from Illinois to Indiana and made a pit stop at the Fair Oaks Dairy Farm.  Oh my this place is amazing.  I learned so much about cows and pigs.

They even have a barn where you can see a new calf being born.

This is also where my favorite Milk comes from.  Fair Life Milk is amazing if you have not tried it.  It is ultra filtered and has a 2  month shelf life and is chocked full of protein and less sugar than regular Skim milk.  It is a pure and delightful milk.  I love skim milk and love that this does not have all the sugar and has 50% more protein.

Then we had lunch. Oh my the best grilled cheese ever!!!! Yummy ice cream at the Cowfe too.
The best Ice Cream is made at this farm from their own wonderful cows raised there.

LOL! They have a milk carton climbing wall.

A bus takes you out to see the cows and they show you how the cows are milked and the process of how they make milk and yogurt and cheeses right on the farm.  It is amazing.  They also have a pig barn where you can learn about pigs.  Just was a fun way to start our adventure today with Abby.  



Next stop on the trip was to a farm of sorts!!!!  I recently got an email from a basset hound breeder that has a 6 year old female that is being retired from breeding and needs a home.  

She was rescued from a home a few years back by this breeder and she become one of his breed dogs these past few years.  

He said she had one litter a few years ago and then the second time she was impregnated she did not have any pups.  He said it has been over a year and she never has cycled again so he is pretty sure she is done.  

She is a very petite sweet girl.  She reminds us of Cooper in looks.
So now we have to decide if we want to adopt another little basset hound to love.  We have really missed Cooper.
Here she is with a couple of the puppies that the breeder has right now.  I have never seen an all red basset before so these new pups were just adorable. 

Terry thought this little guy looked a lot like him.  His words not mine LOL!!!!  Same Wrinkles!  This is such an adorable breed.  We have always loved basset hounds.  We have had red and whites and lemon's which are primarily white with some red that turns to a lemon color as they age.  This all red breed is so cute.


I was not even sure I wanted a new dog to love after losing Cooper.  So we are giving this some thought.  The breeder said he is good with keeping her until we are completely moved into the new place so it will be less stressful and confusing for us and her.

Cooper.  Oh how we miss this sweet boy.

What do you guys think?  I really had made up my mind that I was done with having another dog after losing Cooper.  Then this sweet little one came to my attention.  



We are not really rescuing her the breeder did that a few years back.
  It would be more like adopting her.  This breeder is very well known and takes very good care of his dogs.  He is known in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan for his beautiful puppies.

 His bred dogs are clean and well cared for.  The sad part for me is that they are a business for the breeders and these girls and boys are not pets but more a part of a business.  

So I am really inclined to save this sweet one from a life of being a breed dog and letting her have a home to be loved in.  Hoping this will work out for her and for us.

Now if we can just get a garage up and built and a basement finished up in our house we can move in and get settled and possibly have a new fur baby to love again.

  Garage build did not happen on Saturday as promised and has been promised to be started tomorrow.  Oh the joys of renovations! NOT!
Have a great start to the new week.
xoxo
Kris

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