Tiny Home Improvements

This morning Lily and I went shopping! And when I say "morning", I mean morning. Lily woke up at 7:30, which is kinda early for her. So we got up, ate breakfast, got ready and headed back to Downtown McKinney since I needed to return one of the valances I got. I've never really had to think about what time stores open, since I am not a morning person and never get there too early! Well, today we got there at 9:55 -- 5 minutes before the store opened! That was crazy to me, I mean we usually have a hard time making it to playgroup around the corner at 10am!!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I bought some new valances for the living room to replace the plain white ones that came with the house. The funny thing is that neither me nor my Mom could recall if the back door had a valance on it, so I wanted to get 3 just in case and inquired about the return policy. The owner of the store told me that since it is such a small little store, it costs too much for them to process sales and returns on credit cards, so she gave me the third valance to take home and try out and if I wanted it, I just had to call her and tell her to charge it!! How nice and trusting is that?? When I got home I discovered the door did not have a valance on it (I only look at the door all day, everyday - how was I supposed to know? I am SO bad at remembering details, if I ever get mugged the guy will never be caught on my description!). So today I brought it back to the nice little store. Here is a before of one of the windows -- no wonder I never really noticed the valances, they are so white and plain:

Window on the left has a new valance, as Chip is taking down the other old one.

It was hard to get a good picture this afternoon with the sun shining in, but here they are! The red matches the couches and the kitchen and I liked the stars. It is kinda country, but seems to mesh well with all the other random stuff I have.

I also got this new star for over the entertainment center:

I actually bought 2 other plain iron stars to hang on either side of this one. But once I got this up, I felt it was enough and the extra 2 may be too much. The plan is (and has been for nearly a year now) to paint that wall a neutral earthy tone color. But just the star will have to do for now. It was fun buying some new things for the house -- haven't really done anything new since the first couple months we were here!