Saturday Spotlight: Life Behind the Blogger

 Saturday Spotlight: Life Behind the Blogger is a feature done each Saturday that introduces you to a blogger you may already know or a new blogger for you to get to know. This feature gives you a peak into the personal life of the blogger.  Getting to know the special person behind the beautiful blog.

There is so much talent and inspiration in blogland so enjoy getting to know these talented bloggers each Saturday.

Lisa from Texas Decor

Happy Saturday.  This week I am introducing you to Lisa from Texas Decor.  I have just recently met Lisa and just fell in love with her sweet Texas personality and her DIY skills.  The minute I found her blog I knew I wanted to get to know about Lisa.  Please enjoy getting to know Lisa then hop over to her blog to see some of the Wowsie DIY projects she shares!

Hello! My name is Lisa and I blog over at Texas Decor. Kris was so kind to invite me to participate in this fun series. Thank you, Kris! I thought I'd just kind of start at the beginning and move forward. 

I'm a native Texan, born and raised in the Houston area and I've lived here my whole life. I have one sibling, a brother two years older than me. 

I married young, at age 19. We had a lovely wedding in 1990 surrounded by family and friends. I loved planning my wedding and I couldn't wait to become a wife and mother. I can't believe we've been married almost 25 years now!

Here's a never before seen pic of me on my wedding day...

My husband is a deputy fire chief. He's been a fire fighter for a little over 25 years. 

Here he is getting ready to do a presentation in my son's kindergarten class, many years ago. 

Right after we married, I worked for a home builder doing data processing, then later on I moved to the accounting department. After that I worked in a bank for a short while until we decided to start our family. I was very much looking forward to being a stay at home mom. 

Our first son was born in 1994. We didn't find out the gender and it was fun to be surprised at the birth.

Our oldest son at one year...

Then almost exactly 5 years later, we welcomed our second son. 

Our youngest son, age two...

Our oldest is now 20 and is a junior in college getting his bachelors degree in business (supply chain management, to be exact).

Our youngest is now 15 and is a sophomore in high school. He's interested in all things computer related and also movie production. It'll be interesting to see what kind of degree he wants to pursue. 

  We've lived in three homes since we got married. These are some pics of our second house. This was when I first became interested in gardening. 

See those yellow flowers below surrounding a purple plum tree? That all happened because of a Target ad. You see, I was browsing the ads one day and Target had an advertisement of some outdoor toys in a backyard. In the pic, there were a ton of yellow flowers surrounding a purple plum tree and I thought it was so pretty, I recreated it in my own backyard. :) 

These were taken before digital cameras, so I had to take a picture of the pic in the photo album, so the quality isn't that great. Sorry about that. :)

Below is another pic of that same backyard.

My mom is a Master Gardener for the Houston area. She's the reason I got interested in gardening. I remember she used to have tons of yellow lilies lining our back fence and she would clip some for me to take to my teachers at school. 

Below are some pics of my mom's gardens.

And here are some pics of my own backyard...

I've always been interested in interior design too. I have kind of an interesting connection to Frank Lloyd Wright. You see, my great grandmother met Frank's sister when they both attended the Chicago Art Institute. They became friends and after my great grandmother got married, she and her husband moved into the house next door to Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio in Oak Park, Illinois. 

My grandmother was born while they lived at this house. Although my grandmother was quite younger than the Wright children, she was still invited to parties at their home and she remembers going to a recital in the music room at the Wright house once. 

My great grandmother was a very successful illustrator and was even named top female artist one year. Once, Frank Lloyd Wright's sister needed help to finish illustrating a book she was contracted to do (I think she became ill) and my great grandmother finished it for her with no credit. My great grandmother did a lot of advertising illustration too. 

Anyway, after the Frank Lloyd Wright foundation took over Mr. Wright's home and studio, they eventually bought my great grandmother's house next door to use as their offices. 

My grandmother was always interested in design (maybe she got that from living next door to Frank all those years ago) and she passed that love on to me. I remember how I loved watching shows like The Brady Bunch and Bewitched, not so much for the show itself, but for the design element. I loved to study their houses and gardens. I was always interested in how they arranged their furniture and how they landscaped their fake backyards. Remember Alice's red kitchen and those striped awnings in front of Samantha's house? Those are the things I recall about those shows. 

I remember the first thing I did when we got our very first computer was to print out the floor plans for Samantha's house on Bewitched. Funny, but true. :) Some website had all kinds of simulated floor plans from famous TV shows and I loved browsing it! I could spend hours pouring over floor plans. 

I recently had fun re-doing our master bath in soft grays. You can see that makeover HERE

We also did a big makeover on our master bedroom. There used to be a huge computer desk right in front of those windows below. I figured out a way to move the computer inside that cabinet and the printer went into a night stand. I was so happy to finally get rid of that big desk in there! You can click HERE to see the whole bedroom makeover. (including how we hid the computer and printer)

I truly am doing what I've always wanted to do, be a wife and mother. I really enjoy being home more than anywhere else and I love decorating my home.

I've been reading blogs for about 6 years now. I knew I wanted to start my own when I kept catching myself saying things like "If I had a blog, I'd talk about this home improvement project we just completed" or "If I had a blog, I'd do a post about this great sale going on." I've learned so much from reading blogs and I wanted to pass that on to others. I absolutely love to share money saving tips on my blog. We do a lot of do it yourself projects and I'm always willing to share how-to's and sources.

We just recently painted our kitchen cabinets and everything we learned came from reading tutorials on blogs. It amazes me how generous bloggers are in sharing their techniques and skills. 

Below is a "before" pic...

And here's the "after"...light and bright! You can click HERE to see the big painted kitchen cabinet reveal, along with a link to the tutorial.

I love to blog about home decor, holiday decorating, recipes, household tips, gardening and our pets. I recently put my home tour up on my blog and installed a little button on the sidebar so it can be viewed any time. It took me a year and a half to get that home tour button up, but I'm so glad I finally did it. 

I love to share steals and deals on my blog too. If I come across a good deal while out shopping, I can't help but share it with the world. Sometimes I'll stop right then and there and snap a pic of a good deal and post it to Instagram (you can find me on Instagram @texasdecor) or my blog, so others can get in on the deal too. I love when readers email me to let me know they got a great deal because I blogged about it.

Of course I can't leave out our sweet little Holly cat. She's two years old and is the cutest little thing. She has us laughing daily at her antics. :)

I grew up with cats. I got my first one at age 4 and took him with me when I got married. His name was Mitten and he was 19 when he passed. Here's a pic of our last two cats, Caesar and Chelsea...

They were 16 and 15 when they passed. They were indoor/outdoor cats. Holly is our first totally indoor cat. Holly makes it onto the blog every now and then and she even pops up on my Instagram feed. :)

Well, I hope I didn't totally bore you with all this! Thank you again, Kris for including me in your blogger spotlight. I feel honored to be included with all the other bloggers. :) 

~Lisa

Thank you Lisa for sharing your home, blog, and wonderful family with all of us.  This was a fun feature to get to know you better.  Have a wonderful rest of the week end everyone.  Thanks for stopping by for another fun Spotlight this week.

Kris

:)