Our house

Karrel's - Designing Your Lifestyle!
(This page has the most pictures & takes the longest to load - please be patient & make it through - you won't be sorry!)
Do you know what the decorating trends of the decade are - share them with us!
I want to show you some of the things we have done with garage & flea market finds, as well as just plain old handiwork.

I wanted a swing so Jeff built this one from scratch and I painted it. Tori loved it when she came down to visit Nana & Papa for Christmas 1996. You may notice that the paint is peeling - the reason is my fault - I water sealed the wood BEFORE I painted it. You can bet next time I will water seal AFTER.

This is our fire place. It started out flat red brick from hearth to ceiling. The people before us had painted on it with white spray paint. Jeff used plywood, aggregate marble, molding and beveled mirrors (yard sales!) to make this beautiful show piece. Isn't it wonderful!

This is the same corner. A day or two apart. (I have more things on the walls now.) This was the best room - wall wise in the house when we bought it. Our bedroom. See what a little colorful paint can do! The lower wall is forest green and the upper wall is Silver Roses. The lamp in the corner cost me $3.00 at a yard sale. The chair was another yard sale find - I painted it black & made a cushion. Almost all of my pictures are from yard sales & the frames. I just buy them all the time.

The window seat. It was my dream to have a window seat & a yard. Not for me but for my dogs. As you can see - Jeff made my dream come true! The bay window was here - the former owners used it to park their Harley in! My daughter gave us the $$ to make the bookshelves one Christmas and since then we have gotten new chairs - Jeff a black leather recliner & me a teal leather chaise. My friend Virginia made the antique lamp shade. The lamps came from garage sales. As did most of the pictures, all of the brass & baskets!

This is my hall bath - it was awful when we moved in (half of it still is-but that's another story-someday to be changed!). I sponged the wall a mauvey pink over white & then stenciled on the palm & planter. I love pictures with views, it's like adding a window. For the door I took the trim color of a light green/blue & ragged it over the door which had already been sponged with the pink. These colors are all in my wall paper which I have in the hall, the kitchen and on a small wall in the bathroom. Really I have no full wall with it. The colors run throughout the house, just different patterns & intensities.

This is the master bath - one of the walls. The frames with our pets pixs - garage sale!

This is a pix of one wall in our dining room where I sponged the trim paint over wall paper to make it look like leather.

This past Christmas Jeff laid ceramic tile on all the floors & vinyl on the kitchen. The wall board has been put on yet. We also got a new front door with beveled glass which I pickled green (the picture didn't come out). We are redoing the whole house - I will tell you more as time goes on. Be sure to check out my other pages so that you can see what we have done in the garden and with the ponds. Right now to learn more about decorating follow me.

A map of all my DECORATING pages