The Mantel In The Roger Raglin Room

Catchy title, eh?

I'm linking this post up with Beth's (The Stories of A to Z) Vingette Party! I have a whole folder saved on my computer of vingettes I've found around blogland that I love so I can't wait to check out the party!


 Hi friends! Can you believe this month is almost over? We're experiencing awesome weather here and have been for a few weeks now. It's so unheard of for our area in Northern Ontario to not be buried under snow but I was just outside repotting some flowers into larger containers. I was wearing flip flops and a tee shirt and it felt so wonderful to have the sunshine on my arms. I'm so anxious for the summer to be here!

This past weekend was spent working at the artesinal craft show that my hubby and I help work twice a year. Even now, a couple of days later, we are still unwinding from the show. It's so much work - but it's great to see the different vendors each show. My hubby, his sister and I all work the show doing various jobs so it's fun to all get to work together. Plus most of the vendors give a few perks so we usually walk away with discounted products and some freebies. Can't beat that!

I'm busy finishing up "my project". I've got some spray paint drying as we speak. Until I can post about it, I wanted to share with you my mantel in the Roger Raglin Room. It's a MAJOR work in progress as there are a number of things about the fireplace area itself that bother me - but I sort of am enjoying the placement of things on the mantel right now.

See how the fireplace blends in with the brick? Debating on painting the fireplace but am just not that sure. It's electric. Any advice?

I think my Ikea enamal pitcher needs some blooms in it!

I'm off to go see if my spray paint has dried. Then off to see my hubby about using the drill. See you soon!

Putting Together The RR Room

We have this room off of our kitchen that we call the Roger Raglin room.

Roger Raglin is this hunter who has these videos that my hubby loves. Roger has this funny laugh that makes me laugh. Can I admit that I enjoy watching these videos because Roger is so animated?


Well, Roger has this room that is full of mounted animal heads.

And that was sort of my jumping off point for this room.
Two years ago.


My thought was that it would be a room for my hubby - full of moose motifs, plaids and a really rustic kind of decorating. But after living here for awhile and putting this room on the back burner, it's just not going in that direction anymore. It's still sort of my hubby's room - his desk is in there - but I haven't been too sure where I am taking the direction of this room. Despited all of this, we still call it 'The Roger Raglin Room'.

I decided that I would give it a go and start putting the room together. I showed you a corner of it not too long ago. Well, here is another area.

I purchased this bookshelf on Kijiji for $50. It a HEAVY solid wood piece and nearly as tall as me. I used my free Glidden paint to give it a fresh new look. (Sugarpuffs! I had a before photo taken but it's not on my laptop. Imagine a golden wood color.)

Now, I hate the look of books. I know that they are hot in decorating - but I can't quiet stand the clutter-y look of them. I'd much rather they were behind closed doors. But until my money tree grows, I have a giant bookshelf. And I decided to turn the books on their side. This has a two-fold purpose. First off, the pages are pretty much the same color and that's more pleasing to my eye. And secondly, my hubby is always getting into his books. And it's sooo much easier to just plop a book back on top of the stack than to try and set it back on a neatly organized shelf. Piles work for us.

The barnwood is actually an American flag thing that I've had for a number of years. But the flag wasn't going with the look of the room. So I just flipped it over.

The star wreath is from a store here called Canadian Tire. It was a Christmas wreath - originaly reddy orange. Heirloom White took care of that. Ya'll know I love stars!

And I'm not shy of mentioning my love of fruit jars. Here are two blue Ball Mason jars and a clear Canadian Crown jar.

A clear glass Canadian Crown, a green Canadian Crown and a large blue Ball Mason. I bought all three blue Ball Masons in a set for $6. I love being from an antique-y area in PA!

Okay, how about a look at this area one more time. :)

A Tiny Corner

This week I have been hard at work putting together one of  the rooms in our house. It's our second living room...or den...or dumping ground. Whatever you want to call it. For the past two years that we have lived in our house, we haven't used this room. Unless you count throwing in whatever and anything that didn't have a home in our house. Ground Zero. A nightmare. I hated this room. And still sort of do. The layout is AWFUL. It's a long, narrow room - with a nine foot window on one end. I think the room is 10 feet wide. I'm 5'3". Two of me couldn't lay end to end in this room. There are two doors - one leading to the garage, another to our back deck (that got ripped out last summer and never replaced - so basically the door leads to air.) There are two entranceways into the room as well as a giant cut out sort of "window" into our kitchen. Also throw in a brick fireplace and hearth, another window and registers along each available wall space. It's a nightmare to decorate around. You'll see some photos of what I mean as I finish different parts of the room.

I finally got my gumption together and put together a corner of the room that I am completely satisfied with. Okay, mostly satisfied. All right, I probably won't change it in the next month. So here it is!

The smallest area of the room to decorate! It's where I keep a number of our dog "parphenalia". I think I'm leaving the stool there - but I may change it. Who knows!

Can you believe I actually bought that sign for my husband? Clearly it was before we were married and clearly before we had a home of our own. Before I had a sembelance of style. Or wanna-be style.

The curtains are the most luxorious silky fabric you've ever touched. I bought it for $2 a meter - WOW! All of the women in the fabric store were oohing and ahhing. I knew that I had picked up the right bolt of fabric.

There are real doggie treats in that jar. Though our pups rarely eat them. We had a friend over this past weekend and he tried to give our dog, Jake, a treat. And Jake had no idea what to do with it! The wicker balls are from The Dollar Tree and the lantern was $2.94 on clearance at Walmart. Don't think that while redoing this room I didn't break another lantern. Shattered glass everywhere.

Want to know what's in the baskets? Well, the top one is holding extra dog dishes and their water bottle. The middle on holds bumpers and dummies. They are for dog training purposes. They help teach the dogs to retrieve. The bottom basket holds their first-aid kit (in the blue lidded box), grooming tools, a pink collar (they don't wear collars either - we are rebals) and two small books on dog first aid.

I can't wait to show you more of this room. Let's just say that some frames need painted, then put on the wall. Some other things need a coat of spray paint. I need to take a few trips to the thrift store to drop off some junk and then tidy tidy tidy. I've been working like a mad woman. Look for more soon!

And P.S. I apologize for the quality of my photos. My camera is dying a slow, miserable death. My birthday is in two weeks and I'm hoping and praying by some miracle that I open a gift and a new SLR will be in it. It's not in the budget so let's just say it would be a miracle. Until then though, I apologize for the quality of my photography.