Today Wren, my Mom, and I went out and did a little shopping, mainly looking for a couch for her living room, but of course checking out our favorite stores in between (aka Home Goods).
I had my eye on these enamel pantry shelf organizers a few weeks back and was happy to see them on clearance for $10 today so I grabbed a couple. They are great since you can easily read the labels when they are on high shelves, and of course they look cute!



My other, and perhaps my favorite find, were these bird portraits. I am not a fan of the gold trim on the frames so we will probably just touch them up with some black paint, but these might just be the pieces I was waiting for in the powder room. If they don't look great in there I may put them in along a hallway:



All in all, a pretty successful day!

Give away Winner~

Ahhh so sorry we have been leaving you all on the edges of your seats as far as our give away is concerned! Wren's immunizations went as well as possible, but still took a couple days to get back into our normal routine (her poor daddy had to hold her during the shots and I think it scarred him for life...).

Anyways, without any further delay, here is our winner:

Drop us an email Emily and we will let you know what to do from there! We are sure they will look awesome in your entryway~

Because we moved in late last summer we really didn't put any thought or effort into our yard.

This year it is staring us straight in the face. At one time I am sure our yard was an orderly, tidy, beautiful place. The previous owners hired landscape architects and really did a wonderful job on laying out the plants and shrubs, however these owners only lived here for 2 years and then sold the home to a couple who lived here for close to 30 years and really didn't keep it up. The lucky part is that we still have the original landscape blueprints so even though it may be unsightly now, we can easily prune it back to it's former glory. The other lucky lead we got was from my Aunt Carol who just so happens to be a horticulturist and has offered to lend her green thumb this Summer. We are eager to get started and thankfully the first signs of spring were long in arriving, but starting to show.

The vines are starting to spread on the little hill up to the waterfall:

The pond is in desperate need of cleaning, we want to completely empty it this summer and power wash the rocks. The juniper over hanging the water here also needs a good trim:

Finally the moss is greening up along the path to the pond:

We were surprised to see crocusses poking through the dirt last week!

We have been out of the blog-loop since our Grandmother flew in to visit for 4 days last week and then we were dog sitting up until today. Hopefully we will be back into our usual routine in the next day or two, but that may be wishful thinking since Wren and I have our New Mom's Network meeting tomorrow and Wren has her first immunization shots on Tuesday. As usual, I am looking forward to our group meeting that we have every Monday with all the new moms in our neighborhood, but I am looking forward to tomorrow's class even more than most since we have a dentist coming in and speaking to us about teething (yikes!!! I am REALLY dreading that whole stage... so it will be nice to get some expert advice). Anyways, we hope everyone had a great weekend!

credit

While recently watching a program on Feng Shui we learned that is supposedly bad news for your finances to keep your toilet seat lid open. Besides being good manners, keeping the lid down reportedly stops your money from "being flushed away" and improves the homes Chi.... I am not sure whether or not it really works, but it must have made an impact on Sean because today I came home and saw that all the lid in our master bathroom was down for the first time I can remember!

No harm in seeing if there is any truth to it I guess. Has anyone had any success with it? Let us know!

Another Rockin' Give Away!!!

Because we are so in love with Katie's Sa-Sea pillows, and because she bestowed some good Karma on us we are happy to announce our latest give away: 3 16x16 inch pillow covers of your choice!!!!

You can choose to get 3 different pillows (it is pretty hard to choose just 1 or 2!), or go with 3 of the same... whatever your heart desires! All you have to do is leave a comment here before next Tuesday at 8pm pacific time and you are entered to win 3 of these gorgeous pillows:

Here is a steal of a deal for anyone in the market for a new light fixture! This chandelier is currently on clearance at Urban Outfitters for a mere $49!!! We are obviously big fans of this piece since we used it in our living room at our first house, and again in our new master bedroom!
(if I did this correctly you can click this picture to go directly to UO, if not, I apologize)

I have to thank my friend Katie at SaSea Boutique for absolutely making my day, week, maybe even my month!!! I went out to our mailbox yesterday and was thrilled to see that my order from her boutique arrived (can't share what I picked out yet since it partially involves a Mother's Day gift shhhhhh!). I opened the parcel and along with my pillows I found this adorable baby onesie staring up at me, along with a little pillow for Wren and this Paris pillow!!! It is all absolutely gorgeous in person, and such wonderful quality.

Katie, thank you SOOOO much. I have a special little parcel on it's way back to you as well *wink wink*



Because Katie was so sweet to send Wren and I such a special package I want to send on some of the good Karma that Katie has shared with us, so look out for a blog giveaway in the next couple of days!

As I mentioned earlier, Wren and I hit up one of our favorite stores yesterday: Chintz & Co.

We made the trip to look for some powder room accessories as well as upholstery fabric for our upcoming chair makeovers, but I ended up browsing through the linens as well. I have been on the hunt for nice down filled euro shams for a few weeks now so I was excited to spy these GIANT, 36 inch pillows!!! I have never seen such huge pillows before, so I had to have them. When the sales lady rang them in we were even more delighted to discover that they were clearance priced at $32, a savings of $70 per pillow!


They are the absolute fluffiest, comfiest pillows. And as some one who loves to read in bed every night I am so happy that I no longer have to pile 3 pillows up to get good support while I lay back and enjoy a good book.

Sorry we've been MIA the last couple of days. Sean works weekends and Wren and I have been busy with our New Mom's group and some errands. But we have much to share!

We are done with the main floor powder room! We are still looking for some artwork, but we want to wait until we see the perfect piece(s), whatever that may be. I also have yet to paint the frame on the new mirror. I am thinking of either doing grey or perhaps a celadon green? who knows. but otherwise we can check that room off our list.

Since it is a small room it is very awkward to snap good pictures, so bear with us LOL.

I found these metal starfish at one of my favorite stores yesterday, aren't they cute???


This is the wall in desperate need of some character:

I also decided that the old table at the foyer was getting boring so we moved our old dining room buffet over here. I think it grounds the area much better (ignore to black scuff I need to touch up on the front of it).

Today we went to a furniture warehouse sale but unfortunately the dining room table of my dreams was not to be had... so Wren, my mom, my aunt and I went over to Starbucks where we encountered an old neighbor and a rude old man who insisted that he couldn't spare 1 of his 4 chairs. I guess even babies can't melt some hearts!

Today our little old blog was featured over at Get It Girl Style (click here to read)! Thanks so much to Tam who is an awesome blog friend and a true "Get It" Girl!!!

Today Wren and I enjoyed a "girls day" while Sean was at work. We went to a couple outlets, did some shopping, then gossiped and hung out on the couch for a bit. The downside? our night wrapped up at 6:30 pm... yeah, I totally need new friends.

Good dogs, great dishes

I am really in love with the new dog dishes I bought for Mung Kee and Rosy. They have been so wonderful with all of the changes around here so what better way to remind them of how we feel than letting them read it everytime they go in for a snack or meal (assume dogs can read of course...).

And the best part? They were only $7 at Home Goods!

Flower Power

We absolutely love to entertain. Whether it is 1 guest or 10, there is something about having someone over for dinner that really encourages you to put a couple extra cute touches in the dining room, or try a recipe that otherwise might seem too challenging. Last night Wren had one of her Grandma's over for dinner, and while she was not really in the mood to visit (she refused to nap all day and it basically boiled over into a full blown melt down around 6:30 last night...) we all had a lovely time.

I was so excited to see that daisies are finally in season at the grocery store because that means they are only $5 for a huge bunch. I love daisies because they seem to last for weeks and feel really cheerful.

This Spring I am all over the color orange when it comes to accents. It just pops right off the white and it kind of unexpected, so a pile of oranges were a pretty obvious accessory for the table along with some sparkling water with white and orange labels that I found at our local Italian Market.

A picture of the little birdie post-meltdown.

Cost effective ways to update your bathroom

We are just putting the final decorative touches on the powder room (the first bathroom out of 3 that we are renovating) and were very surprised at the hardware you can find at places like Home Depot that looks super expensive but is unbelievably affordable. The first thing we found exciting was the new styles of paper holders. Gone are the days of spring loaded plastic tubes! We went with a pivoting piece like this one from Moen ($27) that you simply just lift the bar as it pivots on one side.

Another fast and easy update is to take your toilet from basic to beautiful by just updating the lever. We had no idea how much of an impact this little switch would make but it really adds a finishing touch that we had never even thought of until we found them at Home Depot! (this model is by St. Thomas Creations for $59)

If your powder room is like ours, it is probably far too small to put in a table or cabinet to use for storage or to display accessories. I am also not a fan of placing anything on the toilet tank lid so we opted to go with a glass shelve for above the toilet. This is the perfect place to pile additional soaps or a decorative plant to add some extra character. Surprisingly you don't have to spend a fortune at stores like Restoration Hardware to get a really high quality glass shelf, this little guy is only $22.50 at Home Depot!!!

We have shown you a couple pictures of our progress in the powder room, but the final and finished room is coming soon~

Light Bright

We were browsing around at a local decor store yesterday and saw some amazing light fixtures. We really adore this Robert Abbey pendant

But in this Nickel finish.

It is the perfect size at 43 inches high, not including the chain.

But then on the way out of the store we saw this guy and Sean decided he preferred this one:

And now I am sitting at home browsing the website and discovered this little gem:

We will have to meet in the middle somewhere, and all 3 options are in the $1,000 price range so it will not be an immediate purchase, but now I am a little torn as to which direction to go....

What do you think would look good?

new addition

Whew, what a busy couple of weeks we have had. We had a great Easter and hope all of you did as well~
If you look over to the left hand side of our blog you will see a new addition! We are going to be linking all our finished rooms, and once there are too many to list we will just combine it into one house tour link. Our first link is for Wren's nursery, so check it out.

Happy Easter!

A very special house tour

To celebrate our 150th post we want to take you on a very special house tour. Now keep in mind that you will not see this anywhere else on the web, this is a Life in the Fun Lane exclusive! The very unique home you are about to visit is the vacation residence of 2 of our best friends. It is small, but cozy. They have some wild taste in colors and a strange sense of humour. The home you are about to tour is known only as "Cat House".




Here I am being greeted at the door.



Mung Kee flashes his killer smile as he invites us in for tea.


Rosy is shown demonstrating the unique door/window design.

I have no idea why but my mom bought this at Ikea for her dog, Deedee, who is not a fan (long story involving Sean tipping the house over while she was in it...) so Rosy and Mung Kee have claimed it as their hang out over at their Grandma's house.