My thrifted stuff put to use.

I think I'm broken.
I wanted to say this was an "after". Done. But then I started putting things together and taking pictures and before I knew it, I had a new list of projects in my head to make it even better. gah! No wonder I never get anything done. Maybe there is no "done". Maybe "done" is just an illusion to keep me doing things.
Anyway, remember my thrift store goodies from a few weeks ago? I put most of them to good use right away.
Most of these...

plus a couple of cheap-o flower vases, got a coat of spray paint and became top 'o the cabinets decor.
I go back and forth on whether or not I ever want stuff on top of the cabinets. On one hand, I hate that it collects dust. Especially kitchen (greasy) dust. Blech! But on the other hand, I think it looks so empty and blah up there without anything. So, we were here for a year without anything up there and now we have stuff up there. Who knows, I might decide to take it all down in another year. But for now, I like it.

That rectangular platter is new. I felt like I needed something white-ish as a back drop to the colorful stuff and I couldn't find any DIY ideas that I liked. So I ordered this platter from JCPenney with a coupon deal. I paid about $15 for it out of pocket. And about $15 total for ALL the other stuff for this project. In the end, I call that a frugal solution.
The jute wrapped bottle is an old pickle jar.
The bird was purchased from Tai Pan Trading a few months ago. Our realtor gave us a gift card at closing when we sold the old house and one of the things I bought with it was that little bird for our front porch table. I brought him in for the winter. He seems happy there. :)
The fruit plaques on the wall are from the old house. I forgot all about them till I started digging around for stuff for other projects. So they went up as part of this project as well.

I don't love the skinny purple vases. But I really felt like there needed to be a third something on each of those cabinets. So I grabbed some cheap-o clear glass vases and spray painted them.
I'm keeping my eyes open for other options (something shorter and maybe square) but these will do for now.
I like the colorful thing we have going on in here now with the plate wall and these new additions.

What do you think? Colorful, fruit sort of theme. But not like a tacky granny. Right?
(Please pay no attention to the fingerprints and counter top flotsam in that picture. Thanks!)
And the stack of picture frames from that thrift store trip?

I spray painted all the non silver ones and finished the gallery wall in the family room. Finally. Almost a year later. And now it looks like this...

I filled the empty frames with scrapbook paper that coordinates with the family room, until I get photos to put in them.
Now I just need to get the dresser that goes below these frames painted.
You can see a high tech mock up of the dresser in it's future home here.
But my friend Sharon has given me new motivation to get it done soon. Spray paint! You know I love me some spray paint. :)
New ideas:
~Spray paint the knife block in one of the colors of the cabinet stuff.
~I might spray paint that orange-y red tea pot. I like the darker red better.
~Add lights above the cabinets. There is an outlet inside the cabinet above the microwave. The other set of cabinets will be more tricky. But I think we could do it pretty easily. It will involve cutting holes in the cabinets, which was too scary to think about when we first moved in. But not so scary now.

In case I haven't rambled on enough...here is where I got the inspiration for the top of the cabinets stuff.
We went to the Parade of Homes in our area last August. And decor-wise, my very favorite house was actually one by our builder. Here are a few pics. See if you can guess why I loved the decor so much. :)

 PURPLE!!! LOOOOOVE!

 See the big chunky stuff on top of the cabinets? Love it!

 Look closely at the picture below. I thought this was GENIUS! They filled the tops of the cabinets with big pebbles. It matched the backsplash in the kitchen. But you could use something else.
When we were house hunting I noticed that in some open floor plans you can see the tops of the cabinets as you go up stairs. And it bugged me. Not pretty. I think this is a great solution!
They had some kind of foam or something below the pebbles. Probably because just filling it with pebbles would be a heavy load for the cabinets.
If we had ended up with a floor plan like that, I definitely would have done something like this to hide the exposed cabinet tops from view.

Can't get enough purple!

P.S. As I was writing this post, I received a phone call from Heather. She and David made an offer on their first home and the offer was accepted. They are under contract! Hooray for them! 

I'm so proud of them for all they have accomplished in the past few years.

Maybe they'll let me spray paint some stuff for their house. ;)