Allow Me to Introduce You to Lani from Simply Fresh Vintage

Hi all! This is week 2 of the Guest Post Fun series and today, Lani from Simply Fresh Vintage is guest posting. Her blog is absolutely awesome and you will LOVE her house ~ check out the tour...the kitchen is absolutely amazing ~ the refrigerator and stove are phenomenal {I want them....BAD!} ~ I'm guest posting at the fabulously talented Gwen's blog ~ The Amazing Abode~ and I hope you'll drop by over there to check it out!

And now ~ allow me to introduce you to Lani!

Thank you, Mary Beth, for giving me the opportunity to share a bit about myself and my blog.

Hello Cupcakes & Crinoline readers!
My name is Lani ... short for Leilani ... and I blog at Simply Fresh Vintage.

My blog is pretty brand-spankin' new ... so new, in fact, that I haven't quite grown out of my newborn onesies yet! But I've been having a blast getting to know so many new friends and faces and enjoying incredible talent in home decor, gardening, cooking, baking, cleaning, organizing, crafting, and so much more.

I've been married 32 years to my best friend in the whole world. We are the proud parents of five ... boy-girl-boy-girl-boy ... all "A's." We are also blessed with a son-in-law and a grandson.

In 2011 my husband and I and our three youngest made a bi-coastal move from central California to central Virginia. Our two oldest stayed in California. My husband is an automotive mechanic by trade and retired from his job right before we moved. I've been a homemaker for the last 26 years, doing part-time administrative jobs here and there, volunteering at our church and serving on the board of my daughters gymnastics parents club. What a privilege it has been to be able to stay home and raise my children. We were a homeschooling family for many, many years and loved every minute of it. Our move to Virginia ended our homeschool adventure. Our three youngest are now attending a wonderful Christian school, with our middle son graduating from high school this year and heading to Liberty University in the Fall.

Simply Fresh Vintage was born on the one-year anniversary of the purchase of our home in Virginia. Finding the "perfect" home was quite an experience. You can read all about it in my post "A Very Good Place to Start."

God so richly blessed us with this beautiful house. It was truly a gift from Him, because without His working in all the details, we would have never been able to purchase it. The very first day I walked in to see this beauty, my first thought was that it would be a perfect house to blog about. We have fondly named it "Sunnyside Manor," not because it sits on acres and acres of land (we only have one) but because it is bright, bright yellow and to us it is huge! And it has a nice ring to it 🙂

Our New House

I've put together a 3-part series of posts introducing our house. You can find them all here ...

Sunnyside Manor ... Part 1 ... featuring the exterior and basement
Sunnyside Manor ... Part 2 ... featuring the upper level
Sunnyside Manor ... Part 3 ... featuring the main level

When we made our big move, we brought only the bare essentials with us. We really wanted to start all over. The title of the blog is really a reflection of where we want to be with the decor of our home.

Keep it simple.
Make it fresh.
Pepper it with some vintage not only for style, but as a way to remember our heritage and our upbringing.

It's taken us a good year to really get to know the house and for the house to get to know us ... know what I mean? Now that we are settled in, we are starting to make changes ... a little bit of paint on the walls, some furniture re-do's, some fun Pinterest remakes, a whole lot of landscaping and gardening ... ah yes, we're finally putting our fingerprint on it.

One of my favorite posts is about a re-do of a vintage dresser that belonged to my husband and his older brother. You can read about it HERE.

You'll also very quickly figure out that one of my biggest passions is quilting. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to make quilts. I recently finished a postage stamp quilt for our guest room that I started last summer. Well, actually, I started it back in January of 2011, before the move. But you know how moves go ... things get packed away sometimes for a very long time. Now it's all done and rests at the foot of our guest bed. You can read all about it in my post Never Too Late For the Party.

I would be absolutely honored if you would stop on by the blog and say Howdy! If you leave a note, I promise to write back. I love spending time chatting with my readers.

And, of course, you can follow me on all the major social media locales ...