A House Full Of Joy!

I first met Joy about a year ago as Marty and I were preparing to do our annual trip to Toowoomba for Easterfest – a large Christian music and arts festival here in Queensland, Australia. Joy works in the office for Easterfest and was chatting to me via Skype about my role at the festival, which had to do with social media (another hat …).

We somehow reached the topic of furniture restoration and all things vintage, and before we knew it, our Skype meeting turned into a full blown restoration-workshop-tutorial, thrown in with a virtual tour of my work space and furniture I’ve restored, followed by lots of chatter about the exciting new venture Joy had just embarked on – the purchase of a little old country cottage home which she was about to renovate!

You may remember I posted about one of Joy’s furniture makeovers HERE. A lovely old dresser that she painted in Miss Mustard Seed’s Linen.

So it’s now one year later, and I drove to Toowoomba this morning for the big Easterfest production meeting. Joy asked if I wanted to drop over to her place after the meeting to check out her renovations – um, YES! So here are a few pics I took of her gorgeous little home. I only had my iphone on hand, but I’m sure you’ll see and appreciate the lovely taste and styling that Joy has brought to her place.

We took the little steps to the front door which opened up to her lounge room. The vintage ottoman she scored from her sister is in perfect original condition – and that blue ties in fabulously with the map.
I love the VJ walls throughout the house. Here, Joy is showing me her black & white print collection she has begun of bridges from cities she’s been to around the world.Joy and I both found out that we lived in Nashville for a year or so – many years apart, mind you, but was good to reminisce.Bedroom with her dresser that she restored on the right.and these cute lace doilies hanging on the wall…A gift from a friend who made this fun wall art with a collection of vintage teaspoons:Before we step in to the kitchen, here’s a “before & after” pic that Joy took of just one of the major renovations they did in the house:

Joy painted these yellow chairs with Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint in Mustard Seed yellow, and her beautiful farmhouse table and white chairs in Blake & Taylor’s Furniture paint. You would not believe how rickety those Bentwood chairs were when she got them. She’s done a fantastic job of restoring them.Here’s a snap of the Bentwood chairs before their makeover:I love this little nook at the end of the kitchen where an old fire stove used to stand near this little window.Joy totally refurbished this old kitchen island bench, complete with a marble inlay. One thing left to do in the kitchen is to paint those laminated cabinets, so we chatted about the options of doing this. Painting them will give the whole kitchen a lift, without the expense of doing a whole kitchen reno, which can be done further down the track.This huge pantry cupboard was given to Joy and she fully restored it and painted with Blake & Taylor’s furniture paint.The second bedroom features a beautiful antique bed with canopy that came from a family member. I fell in love with that quilt and the pretty colours.