Emily:

I am so fortunate to work with and be inspired by an amazing friend and artist named Bonnie. I like to call her “BonBon” and we have had many fun adventures together scouting for vintage finds around Southern Maryland. As a bonus we both find the same things funny (more on this in just a moment). Sometimes I will go to Bonnie’s house and help her with projects and some times she comes over to my house and does the same. We usually have a minimum of four kids running around playing while we do this and there is always coffee involved.  It’s nice to get a fresh perspective and new ideas—even if it’s just rearranging stuff you already have.

Back in February we were both in a is-spring-ever-going-to-come rut and Bonnie invited me over to help put some spring into her dining room. She still had some holiday stuff out and she was ready to bypass late winter altogether and spring forward.

Bonnie is the mother to four fabulous kids. This means a busy household of course and working on one room of the house in a focused manor means some other areas of the house must suffer. I know this and I only have two kids. Our crafty friend Shay stopped by with her two little guys and in between moving furniture, drinking coffee and swapping ideas we managed to spring up the dining room. We cleared out the clutter, brought in some of Bonnie’s art from other rooms and spruced things up with some live plants. Simple, inexpensive and beautiful.

Meanwhile, we weren’t really paying attention to where we were putting the clutter (which included but was not limited to holiday decorations, dishes, art work, and Bonnie’s collection of random things like ceramic clogs). Oh and at this point there were four kids under five zipping around the kitchen having a jolly time. Morning gave way to afternoon and an impromptu lunch was prepared for seven people (more dishes, sippy cups flying and food items strung about everywhere as the three grown-ups attempted to accommodate various lunch requests). I was taking photos of our progress and at some point I accidentally snapped this photo of another view of Bonnie’s house:

Reality

We parted ways later that afternoon and I felt like we had accomplished something. But when I got home and looked at the photos I realized what an epic mess we had made and I felt bad that we had left things in such a state of disarray (in pretty much EVERY room of the house EXCEPT the dining room). Later that day Bonnie asked me to send her some of the photos I took of our progress. I sent her the one above and then she called me and we both died laughing. Thanks for another good laugh BonBon.