Know & Tell Friday: Decorating Edition

The Decorating Edition...this one is going to be fun! It's going to be a stretch for me since I'm not in my house yet, and I won't get to take pictures of all my pretties. But before it's all said and done I'm going to do as many internet searches as possible for the things I can.

Now before we get started I have a little business to take care of. Last week you might have noticed the absence of one of our Kicking It In Crazyville Know & Tell Friday Corporate CEOs. You'll remember that I'm just the little mailroom clerk that's helping out for a few weeks. The CEO that was conspicuously absent was Heather. Now why didn't Heather participate? She said in an email to me on Friday night, when we were corresponding about a book we both disliked, that she was going to do it later that evening or on Saturday. But she was a no show. RSVP'd but didn't come to the partay.

Well, I know that Heather has been busy with her work, and her kids are hogging her computer at home, and she's just generally stressed out and tired. That's part of the reason that I've been helping out. That and Reese is stressed out, too.

So just to be different this week, let's have a pre-question, which really isn't a question, but more of a comment. If you want to do it, just number it zero. Then you don't have to mess up your numbering if you don't want to do it. Because I'm all about orderliness, but you already knew that, didn't you?

Enough mumbo jumbo - let's get on with it!

0. If you want to, leave a comment for Heather to let her know how much you missed her last week and wish her well.

Hello, Boss. I hope you took everything I said with the proper respect in my typing voice. I missed you last week and I hope to see you here this week. Maybe you'll beat out Boss Reese and be number one on Mr. Linky, assuming he's agreeable again.

1. Do you have fake plants in your house? Do you like them?

I have fake plants in the apartment we're living in right now, and I don't particularly care for them. This one has a Mr. Potato Head accessorizing it. He's a little nekkid and embarrassed right now so he took off his face. That's naked for Southerners. See that phone? He was going to call 911 and report me for his nekkidness.

This one got moved from somewhere else to the top of the entertainment unit to get it out of the way.

This is a big tree in the corner of the living room. This is as much of the tree as I could get in the picture. That's how little the room is or how big the tree is. You know on those staging shows on HGTV how they tell you to stage a room and a house to make it look bigger? Well, somebody didn't teach that to the people who put the things in this corporate apartment. Our dining room table would be another example, but that's another post.

This is on top of one of the kitchen cabinets. I moved it up there from one of the countertops along with some of the accessories that are up there.

It's not that these fake plants look super bad. It's just that I'm not a super big fake plant person, and considering that there really isn't room for them, I don't like them.

2. What is the oldest piece of furniture you have that is not an antique? Describe it.

Our piano is the oldest piece of furniture we have that is not an antique. It was the one I had when I was growing up that my mom bought when I was about five and started taking piano lessons. It is an upright Everett piano. This is NOT my piano, but it appears to be the same style as mine.

3. Do you have any antiques?

We have several antique pieces we bought before we had children. We have an antique sideboard which is probably our favorite piece, a lowboy, and a secretary. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures right now.

4. What type of dishes do you use? China, stoneware, Corelle, Tupperware, paper plates?

We use a combination of stoneware and melamine/Tupperware. For lunchtime or casual we use the melamine/Tupperware. The Tupperware square plates can go in the microwave. The melamine are three-way divided plates the kids use. My stoneware are "spongeware" in several different colors. I went online and copied some pictures to show you.

I have blue spongeware:


I have salad plates only in this spongeware pattern:


I have a few pieces (these aren't mine) in blue and green double spongeware:


I have cranberry spongeware:


Can you tell I'm kind of a jewel-tone, Americana-color girl? I love my stoneware. I have no china. Since we got married young, when we registered for things, we picked out towels and appliances and obvious items, not china. We didn't even pick out glasses or silverware. I had used Betty Crocker points and gotten myself some Oneida Community Stainless. I also think I've done my usual and digressed, so I'll get back on track and go on to the next question.

5. What is your favorite thing in your house?

Hmmm...I'm not in my house, I'm in an apartment without my own things, so this might take a minute for me. I would have to say it's a toss-up between my antique sideboard, my Nancy Drew books, and my stoneware. I have already bought two "nightstands" for my master bedroom in my new house along with lamps and shades. I got them at Target. They may be my new favorite things. The tables are actualy black round footed tables and they were exactly what I was looking for. I can't wait to show you a picture of those in my house someday!

6. Do you like to use lamps or overhead lighting?

I like to use lamps unless I need the overhead lighting for the brightness.

7. Are you a pristine white wall person or do you love color?

Well, since we've almost always lived in military quarters or rentals, we've pretty much lived with pristine white walls. In the first little house we had in Mississippi, which we only lived in for about nine months, we repainted the entire inside white to brighten it up. The morning we sold the house in Mississippi, we drove to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and bought our house there that evening. That house had fairly pristine walls, except for the master bedroom. It was pink. Yep, pink. At least we had some pink flowers on our comforter so it matched, because in the two years we lived there we never painted it.

We painted the girls' room in our rental house in Illinois. We painted it a very light pink. Sounds like we have a thing for pink, doesn't it? We painted it back the pristine color before we moved. Other than that, I've had bare colored walls. We'll just be consistent for the day and call them nekkid.

When I get in my new house, I want to paint my bedroom Cloudy Day by Behr. My friend in Virginia had her living room painted that color and I loved it. It's a very light blue. I'm a blue girl.

We are going to paint Sparky's headboard wall a green color to match her duvet cover and the other three walls a blue color, again to match the blue in the duvet cover. You can't really see the lime green that's in it, but it's there. Sparky's all about green.


Chatty wants her walls to be some type of stripe with light pink, light orange, and yellow. We're still looking for covers, so that could have a slight change, although she seems pretty firm on that.

I want to paint my other walls, especially in my living room, dining room and kitchen, but I don't want to pick the wrong color. I'm wondering if the Nester's Tobacco Road would look good. I'll have to see because of my cabinet colors and everything. I keep telling myself I have time to decide.

The funny thing is, I'll probably get there and be scared to death to lift a paintbrush. I've lived with pristine white for way too long.

Hope you had fun this week! Link up your post with Mr. Linky so we can come find you, and leave me a comment if you'd like. Be sure and come back next week, because since it's my last week of guest hosting I'm going to be a rule breaker!

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