Welcome Home

That nasty 80's dresser is now an awesome media console!

2012-01-19T22:04:00.000-06:00

I looked for MONTHS for just the right piece of furniture to put our tv on. In the past, we used an armoire that we loved a lot (and that I was really proud of getting at a garage sale for only $40) that was a perfect fit for our thick old non-flat tv. But before we moved to Colorado, we gave away the tv knowing we would bite the bullet and buy our very first flat screen.

So bye bye armoire. You were too bulky for our sleek new tv. And you wouldn't fit in the moving trailer. Hello temporary small cabinet. When we moved, we went through a 7 month period of temporary living in a VERY small apartment. I didn't decorate, I didn't look for any new pieces. So when we moved into our current townhouse, I knew the first piece I wanted to find was a large, long 'something' to put the tv on, that had storage underneath.

I found many pieces that would work. Ikea has some nice things. So does Pottery Barn. But if you know me, you know that there's no way I'm spending money on something new when I could find something second hand that I can make perfect!

Enter the 1980s. This dresser was found at my local Goodwill. When I first saw it, I wasn't convinced that it was what I wanted. Plus, it wasn't on sale. Seriously. How cheap am I that I won't buy something from a thrift store if it isn't on sale. It's sad, really. Anywhoo, the next time I went back to the store, it was half off. I stood back and imagined it with a few tweaks and realized it was perfect! So for $15 (yes, $30 was too much to pay), I took it home. Let me tell you, this chunk of wood is HEAVY. I injured my neck trying to lift just one side of it. It was a job for strong men.

When looking for a piece that you know you can paint and do minor alterations on, don't get distracted by the lipstick and eyeshadow. Meaning, surfaces can be changed. You can strip it. You can paint it. The important thing is if the piece is the right size, shape, style, and if it is well made.

Here's what I liked about the piece:
1. It was exactly the right size.
2. It had interesting hardware.
3. It came with two mirrors that I could use elsewhere.
4. It was sturdy and well made.
5. It was a straight, clean-lined style.
6. It had really good storage.
7. It was dirt cheap.

I decided to jump on the chalk paint bandwagon that I have read so much about in blogland. Of course, I made my own. Cheap, remember? I used this recipe, and it seemed to work just fine. I did fill in chips and lightly sand every part that was getting painted, but I did not prime, and I used wax instead of a poly coat. I have to say that I really like the feel of the finish and I will probably never do a poly coat again (unless it's kitchen cabinets).

The paint color is Benjamin Moore's Coventry Grey. I read somewhere that was the color closest to A.S. Paris Grey.

The top three drawers came out, and I painted the inside a mossy green that I already had. Maybe someday I'll repaint that part with peacock blue or something intense. Someday. I'm just happy that this piece is finished and in place. Oh, and one of the mirrors is hanging over our mantel, horizontally.

The gallery wall behind the tv isn't finished (and after looking at this photo, apparently I don't know how to level), but still, it's much better than nothing on the wall. The tv blends in really well. I'd love to paint that wall a dark grey, but we're not allowed to paint in this place.

I have since swapped out the end unit of our sectional for an armless version,
so there is an unobstructed view of the console.

After almost a year of packing, moving, temporary living, moving again, and now settling in, it's nice to have our place looking more like a real adult house.

Now I need to turn my attention to the decidedly un-adult looking wasteland around my desk. I'll get there. Eventually!

Today I'm partying with Miss Mustard Seed and The Shabby Nest. Head on over to both of these fantastic blogs to see what creative things others are doing!

I want this house. But I can't have it.

2012-01-03T12:32:00.000-06:00

For Sale: fairy tale cottage with mountain views

I want this house. It's listed for sale in Denver. The listing says that it was built by P.T. Barnum and he lived in it after his mansion burned to the ground. The actual provenance is a mystery, but I don't care. I still want it. I wish I could take a tour and get better pictures (these are from the listing), but a sale is pending. Bummer.

legend says that this house started out life as a barn.

Living room. The ceilings are low because the second floor was the hayloft (legend again). Love the coffers.

The entry way is visible on the other side of the fireplace.

What's that room off of the living room?

It's an amazing sun room! Until recently this room sported an original Tiffany stained glass window, sold for $25k. I'll have some of that coffee, thanks.

Stained glass on the ceiling and intricate plaster work.

I have a round table ready to live in this room. It would go perfectly.

Ah, the kitchen. Look past the floors, wallpaper and yellow counter tops. What you should look at is the dutch door. I've always wanted one!

It also comes with a funny little corner sink.

And a fancy range hood!

I wish the sink was under the window, but you can't have everything.

It just gets better. A breakfast nook? Sweet. And you can't read it in this photo, but the label over that doorway says "SCULLERY". Seriously?

The "scullery" must be where all the dishes are washed and kept. This room would actually make a great laundry room with under counter washer & dryer.

The doors!! Now let's go upstairs...

Master bedroom. Love the iron stretchers on the ceiling.

It has an inglenook with a fireplace! And the little random doors are supposedly remnants of the hayloft.

I would most likely paint something other than pink. :)

The second bedroom, a little nook that would be perfect for a kid. There are two other bedrooms - on on the main floor and one in the basement. Speaking of the basement....

The basement! The built-ins and hardware in this house are amazing.

Main living area of the walk-out basement. See the square piano by the windows? I wonder if that comes with the house?

I don't understand what's going on here. Are these two fireplaces?

This door (fairy tale cottage door!!) goes outside to the back patio.

Brick covered patio. I could hang out here. couldn't you? With some vintage patio furniture and plants in the planters?

And last of all, a bevy of out-buildings! One is a playhouse, I think one is a chicken coop, and the larger one in the back is the garage, but I think there's a little living area attached to the garage. Guest cottage? Art studio?

Can you see why I want this house? It's so DIFFERENT. And different in a good way. You can't buy character like that new now. The house is 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom, over 2,300 square feet. Too bad we 1. Recently signed a 1 year lease, 2. Didn't see this listing before a sale was pending, and more importantly, 3. Don't have the $$ to buy it. Oh, well. It's fun to look!!

Making a sweater stocking

2011-12-21T15:09:00.000-06:00

It was time for new stockings! The ones we've been using don't match, plus one of them is red and green and I'm not so big on decorating for Christmas with those predictable colors. :)

So, you know me, there's no way I'm going to the store to buy new stockings. Not when I can make them for super cheap! Here's the lowdown:

I found this vintage sweater at the thrift store with this amazing pearl collar. It even has a label that says "The Denver" (where we live). I've never made a stocking before, but I have made pillows out of sweaters before, so how hard could it be?

I traced the outline of one of our old stockings onto the sweater turned inside out, making sure to position it so that the collar is at the top.

I also made a liner out of some scrap material, again using the old stocking as a guide.

I had to cut off a bit of the top of the liner so it wouldn't show on the finished product. I didn't really know what I was doing with this liner, so it looks a little funky. I pinned it onto the sweater, both inside out, and just sewed around the outline.

The first cut of the sweater:

Almost done:

Done!

Finishing touches: I cut some of the finished seam off of the extra sweater pieces to make a loop. Just hand sewed that on. Then I turned the stocking right side out and hung it on the mantel. Success! I love how the label is part of the design!

The next day I made on for my man out of a more man-ish sweater. It's still a woman's sweater, but has a nice chunky cable knit and no beads. :) I used the same technique but didn't put in a liner and I used the waist band of the sweater as the top of the stocking.

Looks like I need to vacuum up those fabric scraps!!

Pay no attention to my hand. I couldn't get the stocking to hang the right way for the photo.

Now we both have stockings that fit our style and our home's decor. If I decide so in the future, I can add decorative doo-da's, but for now, I'm happy. Now let's fill them with stuff!

The great rental mantel slip cover

2011-12-16T12:00:00.000-06:00

There are certain pros and cons to living in a rental. No yard work. That's a pro. Someone else pays for stuff to get fixed. Another pro. Dated 80's architecture. That is most definitely a con. Case in point, this lovely fireplace:

Now don't get me wrong - we love having a fireplace. A wood burning one, too. It's the placement (right by the front door), the tile (mottled brown & black), the diagonal wood surround, and that miniscule little rounded corner excuse for a mantel. Even our key bowl hangs over the edge a bit.

So I got an idea in my head that my dad could build a slip cover for this thing that could be removed when we leave. You know how much I love the idea of a slipcover!

I emailed my dad a picture of the mantel then a photoshopped version of what I wanted. He likes a good problem to solve. He was a math teacher. :)

He had some barn wood laying around so he brought it with him when he and my mom came to bring a bunch of our stuff from storage (THANK YOU!!!).

I should have taken during shots, but I didn't. My mom and I went thrifting. Anywhoo, the barn wood he brought was WAY better than I had expected. He let me choose between the weathered grey side or the weathered white painted side. WHITE PAINT. It is a super nice contrast with the stained wood surround. And here's the finished product:

Isn't that SO much better? And it's removable! Now I can experiment with styling the thing. It's deeper, so more stuff fits on. He made it thick enough so that it just hits the top of the light switch by the door.

I LOVE the weathered paint. This is the real stuff, no faux here.

Before:

And after:

Much better! Oh, and pay no attention to the ~~crap~~ stuff reflected in the mirror. I'm still working on that area. And I plan to paint the mirror frame the same color I painted the bathroom vanity in our Nebraska house.

More on that pearl embellished sweater stocking to come...

Today I'm participating in this excellent party:

I got the headboard I wanted without forking over lots of $$.

2011-11-08T18:12:00.001-06:00

This is the headboard (and base) I wanted:

This is what I had to work with:

It was labeled "room divider" at the local thrift. They were using it as a display for random doo-dads. The burlap-ish covered part is some sort of really hard foam or something that you can stick pins into. This piece was in a back room sitting under a roof leak. It smelled a wee bit musty.

So here's the deal. I really didn't want to spend buco bucks on the Pottery Barn version. I measured the room divider and found that it was EXACTLY the right size for a queen size bed. And I had a coupon for one purchase at the thrift store. How cheap am I??? I bought it for $12. Other materials for the project: a curtain, also from a thrift store, that I paid $10 for. I was not happy about that - I thought it was too much, but I had already talked them down from $12 since there was only one curtain. I didn't mention that I only needed one. :) Also, I used an old egg-crate twin mattress pad and an old blanket for padding. The paint I already had on hand. Tools: something to pry off the inside quarter-round, staple gun and hammer. Oh, I also bought a waterbed base on craigslist for $10 and painted it the same white. Wish I would have taken "during" pics, but you're all out of luck.

And here's the finished product:

I'm pretty happy with the results. I hope to someday (soon) replace the base with this plan from Ana White. The waterbed base is one of the cheapest, most poorly made piece of furniture I have ever owned. I'm looking forward to replacing it with something more permanent and sturdy! But as long as we don't move the current base, it works. :)

These photos are all from our house in Nebraska. More in the future on fixing up the ~~larger of two~~ master bedroom at the townhouse in Colorado!

New (to me) home, new place to reinvent!

2011-11-04T15:06:00.000-05:00

I'm back. I've been in a funk lately. No motivation to blog, or read blogs even. But now I'm back. For six months we lived in a one bedroom, one bath apartment. All our cool stuff was in storage, and since we were there temporarily, I had NO desire to decorate. But now we're in a new place. New to us. It's a townhouse, which is one step closer an apartment to a house. We were planning on buying a house here in Denver, but we didn't sell our house in Nebraska (renting it out) so no cash for down payment. I expect we'll be renting for at least a couple of years. Which is just fine with me, because we are really done with moving for a while. Moving from Nebraska to this townhouse took a four part effort, spread out over 8 months. See why we're done? My parents are probably done, too. They helped with every part. I owe them a kidney or something. But back to the townhouse: it's two bedroom and two bath with a fireplace, upstairs laundry and a half-covered fenced in back patio. Oh, and a two car garage! It has more square footage than our house in Nebraska.

SO...here's the new place. These photos are from the online listing, so they're pretty poor quality. Consider them the "before".

the front door - looks very mountain-ish!

living room and front door

kitchen - the biggest we've ever had

bedroom with amazing windows

I have ideas! And now that we have all of our stuff, I can get to work. Here are the parameters: We are allowed to paint the kitchen cabinets (I'll match the white that's already on them), but we are NOT allowed to paint the walls. The carpet and counter tops are new, but pretty much everything else looks like it's original to the 1980s when this place was built.

Game on!

How do you make a boring apartment kitchen not boring?

2011-06-24T00:50:00.000-05:00

First, yesterday was my mom's birthday. We will be celebrating sometime next week when she & my dad come to Colorado! Yay! I've missed you both! Happy birthday, Mom!

Ok. This is our kitchen.

Well, not literally our kitchen. I got this photo off of our apartment complex's website. I Photoshopped out some of the unnecessary frou frou that some "stylist" put on the counters for staging. I've got my own frou frou (my wooden kitchen angel I bought in Kenya, the "VINO" sign that sits next to her on the back of the stove), but my kitchen isn't camera ready right now. Just know that this is pretty much what it looks like. It's not the worst kitchen in the world, as apartment kitchens go. It's not a tiny galley kitchen. It's not closed off from the rest of the apartment. It's not hideous colors. So no complaints there.

If this were my very own kitchen to do with as I please, I would paint the walls, paint the cabinets, replace the counters, replace the floors... But this is not my very own. And I'm not allowed to paint. At all. And as it turns out, we will not be selling our house in Nebraska that we've had on the market for a few months. We will be renting it, which means that we will continue renting an apartment here in Colorado until we can save a hefty down payment for a house. Thus the very average kitchen. And I don't think I'm average, when it comes to my home. For some reason, I always have to do something different.

So here is the challenge: make this space not boring in a way that is in no way permanent. My solution?

Contact paper.

Yes, contact paper. But not the orange & yellow & avocado floral variety from the 70s. Not the typical "wood grain" variety, either. Have you heard that they're making the stuff in Chalkboard?? Chalkboard on a roll, with a sticky back! It comes 18 inches wide and 6 feet long. As long as it doesn't damage the walls (I've been researching in blogtown), I'm going for it.

But wait...did I forget to mention the stainless steel look contact paper? They make that, too! Oh, the possibilities. Both of them you can get all over. For sure on Amazon. I saw the stainless steel stuff at Home Depot today.

I've been kinda inspired by this post from apartmenttherapy.com about fridge modifications.

I took the liberty of mocking up several combinations of chalkboard/stainless steel looks in this kitchen.


original - no modifications

Chalkboard back splash ( added at utensil rail over the range. Can I do that??)

Chalkboard back splash and cabinets

Stainless steel back splash and chalkboard cabinets

Stainless steel back splash and chalkboard fridge

Stainless steel and chalkboard back splash and chalkboard cabinets

Stainless steel and chalkboard back splash and chalkboard fridge

Too much chalkboard!

Thought I'd try another style of contact paper...

You know, I wouldn't necessarily have to attach the contact paper directly to the wall. I could use luan plywood or some other light-weight surface. Maybe I could attach that with sticky tack. Is that tacky? ??

Or I could use these wall panels from Ikea. They are supposed to go up with a rail system. Not sure if that would work in this kitchen, but I'll see - when Colorado's very first Ikea opens in July! I'm a little giddy about it.

What do you think? Which one do you like best? Or should I scrap the idea all together? What are your ideas for non-permanent changes??

Back to España

2011-06-11T14:40:00.000-05:00

Plaza Cervantes, Alcala de Henares

No, we're not moving back to Spain. But I did get a chance to go back for 2 1/2 weeks. I went to teach a Photoshop workshop with the ministry we used to work with when we lived there before. It was like old times! I started this blog when we lived in Spain (from 2007-2009). You can go back to the beginning in the blog archives and read about it if you have a hankering. Good times.

Although I was there for "work", I arrived a few days early so I could hang out with my good friend, Loida, and her family in Zaragoza (half way between Madrid & Barcelona). It was SO good to see them all again. It made me realize how much of my Spanish I have forgotten, not that I knew a whole lot to begin with. But Loida had mercy on me and spoke English or VERY slow, basic and enunciated Spanish. Thanks, Loida! :)

Loida and her Spanish horchata (which is VERY different from Mexican horchata).

Her sister, Eli and her brother, Javi, also speak English very well, so I wasn't completely in the dark. But when Grandma or their parents spoke to me in fast Spanish, I did a lot of smiling and nodding.

Loida, her cousin Olga, and her grandma.

Eli in her purple room.

Such a great family.

I had missed so many things about Spain. Of course I missed our friends. But to be shallow, I REALLY missed the coffee.

My first Spanish coffee on my trip back to Spain - one of MANY.

Loida also took me to an incredible gelato place. We can get gelato in Denver, but really, does it compare to actual European made gelato??

All natural gelato place in Zaragoza.

Really??? How am I supposed to choose??

But I did choose. "Pistacchio Sublime" and Amaretto.

Before.

During.

Loida during.

After.

Seriously, this place was over the top cool. The gelato was super delicious and the decor was something I wouldn't mind adapting for my own kitchen some day. Lots of natural wood and black accents. I probably wouldn't wear the cute puffy black chef hats the gals working there had on, but maybe...

We walked back home that evening, so that we could work off a little of that gelato. I snapped this photo of the amazing cathedral of Zaragoza while standing on the bridge the spans the Ebro River. So beautiful.

I left the next morning to go back to Alcala de Henares to start the "work" I came to Spain to do (it just doesn't seem like real work!). More about the rest of my trip later...

Hope you enjoyed!

Death of a Godly Man

2011-04-28T18:11:00.000-05:00

Have you ever read the book "The Cross and the Switchblade"? Or seen the movie? It was written by the Reverend David Wilkerson, and is about his ministry to gang members and drug dealers in New York City. His method of ministry: just to love people and speak truth to them. And trust God.

Rev. Wilkinson was killed suddenly in a car accident yesterday. Here is what he wrote on his last day of life. It speaks for itself:

WHEN ALL MEANS FAIL
by David Wilkerson | April 27, 2011

To believe when all means fail is exceedingly pleasing to God and is most acceptable. Jesus said to Thomas, “You have believed because you have seen, but blessed are those that do believe and have not seen” (John 20:29).

Blessed are those who believe when there is no evidence of an answer to prayer—who trust beyond hope when all means have failed.

Someone has come to the place of hopelessness—the end of hope—the end of all means. A loved one is facing death and doctors give no hope. Death seems inevitable. Hope is gone. The miracle prayed for is not happening.

That is when Satan’s hordes come to attack your mind with fear, anger, overwhelming questions: “Where is your God now? You prayed until you had no tears left. You fasted. You stood on promises. You trusted.”

Blasphemous thoughts will be injected into your mind: “Prayer failed. Faith failed. Don’t quit on God—just do not trust him anymore. It doesn’t pay!”

Even questioning God’s existence will be injected into your mind. These have been the devices of Satan for centuries. Some of the godliest men and women who ever lived were under such demonic attacks.

To those going through the valley and shadow of death, hear this word: Weeping will last through some dark, awful nights—and in that darkness you will soon hear the Father whisper, “I am with you. I cannot tell you why right now, but one day it will all make sense. You will see it was all part of my plan. It was no accident. It was no failure on your part. Hold fast. Let me embrace you in your hour of pain.”

Beloved, God has never failed to act but in goodness and love. When all means fail—his love prevails. Hold fast to your faith. Stand fast in his Word. There is no other hope in this world.

You can find this devotional posted here.

Open House

2011-04-15T17:18:00.000-05:00

I don't even want to know how long it's been since I've blogged. We have moved from Nebraska to Colorado and have been in a small one bedroom apartment for a month and a half. It's not decorated very much - we brought a very limited amount of stuff. Our house is staged for selling, so most of our decor stuff is still in Nebraska. The rest of our stuff is in storage. I haven't felt much like blogging about decor or home stuff since I'm not doing any decorating or crafty things at the moment. We're in this apartment for 6 months, then hopefully by that time our house will have sold and we can buy a house here in Colorado. THEN I'll be motivated to blog blog blog!

But in the interim, I really need to find a creative outlet, so I'm hoping I can do stuff in the little apartment that we can take with us, and, as always, doesn't cost much money.

One of my goals in this time is to make at least half of the slipcovers for our 6-piece sectional. We have two of the armless pieces in our apartment, so I have those to use for my pattern. More on that later...

The open house!

This weekend we're having our very first open house. Our lovely realtor, Mary, who also has a home staging business, will be hosting from 1-2pm. Here's a link to the listing, for those of you in Nebraska who want to ~~snoop around the place~~ attend the open house!

Here are some of Mary's photos that show what the place looks like now.

So I've heard a lot about staging your house to sell. I've seen the shows on HGTV and read blogs & stuff. And my own realtor is an expert herself.

This being our second house that we've staged for sale, I feel like I have a little bit of a grasp on what to do. I asked Mary her opinions and from that, HGTV and personal experience, here's what I know:

1. Clean. Clean like the wind. Clean like you've never cleaned before. Then clean it all again. If you have a grimy house, prospective buyers will assume you don't do other maintenance as well.

2. Remove all of your personal stuff. Put away photos of family & friends & yourself. Put away all of your bathroom stuff. Find some closed storage to put them in. Take all of that stuff off of the front of your fridge. All of it.

3. Don't declutter SO much that you take all of the personality out of the house. Leave tasteful decor items in logical places. I put some real looking hydrangeas in a vase on the dining room table. They won't die while we're gone, and they look nice. Also, use decor that enhances the architectural style of your house.

4. Remove all unnecessary furniture, baskets on the floor, etc. You want to show as much of your house as possible - people want to see the house, not your stuff. They want to be able to picture themselves living there. Mary suggested that we leave only two pieces of the sectional. I thought it would look really bare, but she was right! It makes the room look bigger, and you can see more of the nice wood floors we had refinished.

5. Don't expect your house to be perfect. Do to it what you need to do, but be satisfied with it when it's done. You can paint, clean & declutter. You can have things repaired. But there will always be imperfections - ESPECIALLY with an older home. You have to draw the line somewhere. Potential buyers know they are buying an older home with older home issues expected. Especially when they see that you still have the original windows. :) You don't need to put sticky notes labeling everything that bothers you about the house, but you also don't need to be deceptive about anything. People can see what they're getting. And hopefully they'll like what they see!

What are some of your secrets to staging? Do share!

Sorry I've been away for so long. Hopefully soon I'll have an update on my slipcovers. I also hope to let y'all know that we've sold our house!

Our House is Listed!

2011-02-22T15:43:00.000-06:00

We've been busy. Really busy. I didn't realize how many projects we still had to do. I guess when you live with something long enough you don't see it anymore. :) It's an old house and will ALWAYS have projects, but for now, our projects are complete. Thank you so much to my sister-in-law, Doreen who came from Colorado to help us out and to my Mom & Dad who have put in many hours helping us with the house.

Here's the listing!

We move this weekend. I'm not freaking out. Yet.

We're moving! Again!

2011-01-26T21:04:00.000-06:00

I've been absent from my blog for a little bit. Wanna know why? Oh, you already read the title of the post? It's true! In a few weeks we will be moving to Denver. Denver! My fella landed a good job, so we're takin' off. So at the moment we are packing, fixing stuff on the house & getting it ready to put on the market.

Anyone out there want to buy a cute little cottage in Nebraska???

I hope to be posting off & on about the move. I might miss this little place, but I'm looking forward to the future...finding new restaurants & shops, a new church, new parks & places to run, new neighbors and a new (to us) place to fix up and make our own.

Are you ready to join us on that journey? Should be an interesting ride!

Christmas: Cramming it all into a TINY house

2010-12-17T13:51:00.000-06:00

I was pretty excited to decorate for Christmas this year. Our decorations have been in storage for 4 years, since we sold our house, moved overseas, moved back and bought another house. This is the first year since 2006 that I've been able to break out this stuff!

My goal this year was to buy as little as possible and make use of what we already had. The only things I bought were 2 tiny bottle brush trees, 2 candle stands/holders for my bell jars and a small artificial tree for the front porch. All said, those items cost me LESS THAN $4. Sweet. Thank you, local thrift!

I had one problem, though. I couldn't think of anywhere in our hobbit-sized house to put our full-sized Christmas tree. No worries. It is possible to decorate without one. :) Here's my solution:

Living Room:

I appropriated this tree from my Mom. She usually sets it up in the kitchen. Afterward I felt a little guilty. I kind of strong-armed my way into getting it for the month. But not guilty enough to give it back. :) As you can see, though, the lights on the top half of the tree aren't working. They work maybe 30% of the time. That's what I get, I suppose. Anywhoo, as you can see, it's a pretty narrow tree, so it works to put it on the console thingy behind the sectional.

Candles on the piano - I should probably put something under them. The frame usually lives on the piano, with a family photo in it. For the holidays, it holds a Christmas card someone sent us years ago. Free art.

Wrapping paper & ribbon I already had.

Back to the tree: It's decorated with my mercury glass ornaments that I LOVE. Also, it has the ornaments that my Mom gets for us every year. For several years she's been getting us sparkly, shiny ones with not a lot of color. I think they all look great showcased on the tiny tree!

No mantle for stockings, so this is where they go this year.

I think I need one more fake amaryllis. And I wish they were white instead of red. But I already had them and I still like them. The vintage village is also my mom's, but she gave it to me this year with some other old decorations. I remember this town from when I was a kid.

More of the village, and my vintage stamp holder. I really should figure out something cool to do with it other times of the year.

Dining Room:

More village! This time under the bell jar my sister bought for me for me last year. I wish I had more surfaces for more bell jars. The one with the bottle brush tree under it isn't actually a bell jar. I'm pretty sure it's upside down & goes in a candle holder. Actually, that, and the white candle holder under it and the tree are all from the local thrift and cost less than $1. That makes me happy. :)

And those are the vintage glass Christmas balls that were damaged with water in poor packing. I think they look like bubbles.

And my angel, who was also damaged. I really should glue her hand back on.

I don't have a stable for my nativity scene. That's ok. This year they are hanging out on a street somewhere in South America.

Complete with "flying" angel. This one is from Kenya and made of banana leaf and is the only surviving one of a whole choir of angels, again, from poor packing. Mice like banana leaf.

Bathroom:

I remember taking these crocheted snowflake ornaments with me to Kenya 13 years ago, so I guess I've had them for a while. The pot was free from a pile of clay pots found in a barn. I like that the paint finish was already like that & I didn't have to be crafty or anything.

Our other nativity, still with no stable. They don't seem to mind. I should put some sort of background behind them, though. Maybe next year.

Front Porch:

This is the little tree I got at the thrift. Only $3! It's decorated with stuff Vino went out and bought one year. I think I like the decorations better on a small tree than a large one. They look more substantial! I raised the tree with one of my plethora of vintage suitcases (I have an addiction). The burlap "skirt" was a remnant I had leftover from a project. And the GIANT stars can have a light inside. Again, maybe next year. I'm all decorated out.

(notice how I angled this picture so you only see the parts of the room I want you to see?? Except I really should put a shade on that bare bulb!)

And there you have it. I had plans to go out out and cut fresh evergreen boughs so the house smelled Christmas-y (SOMEONE won't let us have a real tree!) but then it snowed and got really cold and I didn't know where I'd put them since I decorated first. NEXT YEAR.

So this proves that you don't need a spacious place or a bunch of new, expensive stuff to make your home Christmas-y. Even if you just light a few more candles than usual, play Christmas music and simmer a pot of water with orange slices, cinnamon sticks & cloves. That's enough. You don't even need to go broke on gifts. Fragrance, warmth & twinkly lights can go a LONG way.

Merry Christmas!

Erin

Before & After: FREE Record Cabinet Saved from Dumpster

2010-11-19T12:21:00.000-06:00

Out for a run one day, I saw this little gal sitting forlornly in front of a dumpster. I thought "How sad." Then I kept going.

I thought about her over the next two days. While it rained. I considered driving the truck over to see if she was still there, but I didn't know how badly she was wounded or what I would do with her when I got her home. But I finally decided to see if she had been picked up yet. I drove over, still in the rain, & there she was. A little worse for the wear. You see, this little record cabinet has a wood veneer. It does not play well with lots of water. I looked her over, looked around to see who else was looking, and when I saw that I was in the clear, I hefted her into the back of my truck. Sometimes I wonder if Vino sees me as the little kid who brings home injured birds & frogs in my pocket because they need "rescued". But he never complains. :) Here's what I did to this gal:

The veneer on the top was bubbled & peeling off. I peeled off the rest of it, and was glad for the rain that softened the glue. Underneath was the wood planks of the top.

All it needed was a good sanding, then some stain & poly. The rest of the body needed a little more work.

The veneer on one side couldn't be saved, so I stripped that off, too. It was stuck on good on the rest of the body, so I just patched the chips with wood filler. A coat of primer & a couple coats of creamy white paint, and she's as good as new! She is missing her drawer, but for a temporary fix, I'm just using a tray that fits the spot.

She is now living as a night stand in our guest room. Happy in her new home!

She & I are participating in some parties today. You should head over & check out the creative things that other bloggers are doing around their homes!

The Extent of My Fall Decor

2010-11-15T10:10:00.000-06:00

This is it. Two fall-ish colored old books and a fake pumkin.

The dish filled with candy corn was my first variation. It was a bad idea. I had to eat some of the candy corn to get the lid to shut, but even with the lid on, I still knew they were there.

(By the way, if you get just the right ratio of candy corn to peanuts, it tastes just like a Salted Nut Roll. That tidbit was free. You're welcome.)

They didn't last long. Thus, the fake pumpkin, which was not tasty in the least.

Have I told you that vintage books are only $1 a piece at our local thrift? Thank you, church ladies. I could probably fill the built-ins with old books from there. I have to restrain myself from buying some every time I go in. I look for cover colors I like, catchy titles, illustrations and things stuck in the pages (personal notes, newspaper articles, leaves, etc.)

Back to the fall decor: I also threw in some bittersweet and a berry branch snagged from the neighbor's bush that grows over our fence.

I don't get into fall decorating so much. Now, I will decorate for Christmas. I'm looking forward to dragging out our Christmas stuff that's been in storage for...what? 4 years? Wow. I'm excited to use my mercury glass ornaments and put evergreen boughs on our built-ins and the piano. Still haven't figured out where a whole tree will fit in our little house.

But for now, this is it. And it's enough. :)

What the...Pottery Barn???

2010-11-05T10:16:00.000-05:00

I know I already posted this morning. This is unheard of. Two posts in one day. But this will be short.

So I was tooling around Pottery Barn yesterday. Not to buy anything, mind you, because I'm cheap like that (as you all know by now), but to get ideas. Usually PB has great stuff to copy, even in their displays that have stuff they don't actually sell at the store.

But these pillows really got me worked up. Seriously.

I touched them. They are BURLAP and UPHOLSTERY WEBBING. Why would you pay $29 for something that you could whip up in 10 minutes for less than $2?? Ok, I will admit that there was a zipper, which I haven't figured out how to do yet, but really. I mean, REALLY? (SNL Weekend Update reference!)

Project: Pillows from Discontinued Fabric Samples

2010-11-05T08:20:00.001-05:00

Good morning! I'm sitting at a really fantastic little restaurant in Lincoln, NE called Bread & Cup, and the atmosphere seems like something you'd get in a big city. In honor of my sister Shelley's birthday today, here are some snaps I just took with my webcam. I wish you could be here to have breakfast with me! But happy birthday anyways, and I hope you get my package today. :)

The oatmeal is delicious.

But I'm getting distracted...This is about pillows! Particularly, those pillows on my porch sofa:

So easy to do. The actual pillows came with the sofa (vintage mahogany cane-back sofa found at a garage sale on someone's porch covered in leaves, dirt & Big Wheels, not even for sale, but I bought it for a mere $25 - one of my favorite purchases!). The easy part was covering the pillows.

You'll notice that each one is different - on the front & back, so they are reversible, even! Each piece of fabric was a $2 discontinued decorator fabric sample from Joann Fabrics. Have you, also, discovered Joann's discontinued fabric swatch rack? Love!

I looked for fabrics that fit my vision for the porch - beachy, stripes, cotton, canvas, texture, not a whole lot of shimmer. There are a couple of pieces that are more "fancy" silk-looking, but they fit in. I especially like the pale blue velvet one and the paler grey-ish striped one next to it.

So I'm not going to do a super detailed tutorial - how hard is it, really, to sew up 3 sides of 2 squares of fabric, stuff your pillow in, then hand sew the 4th side? And there you have it, the tutorial. If your pillows are less dense and fit better in your fabric squares than mine, you can get away with sewing up a little bit of each edge of the 4th side, but mine are SUPER dense. Not sure what's in them, but they could probably take out an intruder if used to whack him upside the head.

Oh, the gold tufted pillow in the middle isn't part of my home-made collection - it was thrifted years ago. I lurv it. One more thing, the ticking fabric on the seat cushions is really just a large remnant I got at the local thrift for $1, then I wrapped it around the 3 cushions. Done.

I'm quite happy with this porch room. It's almost exactly how I pictured it would be when we first toured the house. It's great for having coffee & doing my Bible Study in the mornings. I'll post on how I put it all together on another day, 'cause I gotta tell you about he turquoise table...and the pendant lamp...and the chairs...

Today I'm participating in the Air Your Laundry Friday party over at the Freckled Laundry. I hope you crash the party to see what other textile projects people are doing in blogland!

Have a great weekend!

House Tour, The AFTER (for now)

2010-11-01T15:43:00.000-05:00

Our old house will never be finished. But really, if it ever was, I would probably want to move on to another house that needed help. I have that sort of sickness. :)

But for now, we are at a point in our fixin' up that I'm not embarrassed to have people over anymore. I still see the things that need done, but I can see so much more that has been finished. My mom's Bible study ladies came for a tour a week and a half ago, which prompted a flurry of projects & stuff to get the place ready. Thanks for coming, ladies! I had a great time showing off our second-hand home!

I gave y'all the BEFORE tour here. Take a look for a reminder of how bad it really was. You can also read about stuff we've done to the house if you click on the "house" link under "Labels" on the right hand sidebar of the blog. Oh, and just a reminder, probably 95-98% of the stuff in our house is second hand or gifted to us. I'm cheap like that, too. :)

So, after over a year of "fixin'" here's our AFTER (for now):

The front porch:

(corner of shame on the front porch)

Living Room

Dining Room

Kitchen:

Bathroom:

Guest Room:

(corner of shame in the guest room)

Our Bedroom:

(and me...oops!)

So there you have it. I've posted a lot of photos of projects that I will be blogging about in the near future. So much to talk about! And my "corners of shame" are becoming fewer & smaller. That always makes me happy. Less shame, more show!!

Little things...

2010-10-14T15:55:00.000-05:00

Found these little shelves at the local thrift on 50% off day. EVERYTHING in the store was 50% off! So, $2 for the pair.

I didn't have to do anything to them except hang them on the wall.

I also picked up the shabby bird on the same day. I believe she was 25¢. I thought about painting her white, but she was all the right colors already.

I'm not sure what I think about the canisters being there, but there they are. Happy thrifting!

The Hutch!

2010-09-30T11:09:00.001-05:00

So as I said in my last post, I was finally able to get my hutch open. It was the paint that had stuck together on the door & frame. Silly me! Here's a recap of the history of my hutch:

It started out as two pieces, starting with a buffet that Vino got for me second hand for my birthday.
I painted it black.
It sat in storage for almost 3 years while we were living overseas.
It came back out of storage and the doors didn't close anymore.
I looked high & low for a hutch to put on top because I had no place to display my good dishes.
I found the second piece, a hutch that was FREE.
It was not pretty.
I painted it white, using leftover paint from our trim. I painted the inside back aqua, using leftover paint from our porch ceiling (it's paper & not perfect, but it works for now).
Back to the buffet: I peeled off the poorly done paint job on the top only. I sanded, stained & sealed the top then painted the rest the same white as the hutch.
I put the hutch on top of the buffet in our dining room. Finally.
I couldn't open the hutch door. It sat that way for a couple of months.
My mom suggested that I use a saw to get the door open.

Now that you're caught up, we move on to the present! I couldn't imagine using a saw to get the door open and not damaging the piece, until I found this pumpkin carving tool in storage:

It worked. And the only damage done was to the paint. I'm thinking about leaving it the way it is. It goes well with the rest of the distressing!

Oh, I also used a couple of pieces of wood and some braces in the back to attach the hutch to the buffet. Our house is rather flexible (you may have noticed the shims under just one foot of the buffet) and moves when people walk heavily. I didn't want to worry about the hutch falling over filled with dishes. But that's boring so I'm not going to show pictures.

And speaking of the dishes, these came from my Aunt Jean and Uncle Ken. Uncle Ken bought them for my grandmother when he was stationed in Korea and visited Japan. Aunt Jean gave them to me, and they came in the original boxes (including all the stamps!) that Ken shipped them in from Korea. I grew up eating Thanksgiving dinner on these dishes and I'm so thankful to be able to display them. They really are an heirloom for me!

I will add more stuff to the hutch over time - I have a set of good all white dishes that are still packed. Some of those will go in the hutch but the rest will be stored in the buffet.

The buffet was $60, but I'm not sure I should include the price of that since we've had it for several years & it was a gift from the man. So I won't count it. The glass for the shelves in the hutch were $26. The stain, seal & paint I already had from other projects. The hutch was free.
Total cost: $26

Things happen in our house gradually. After so many months of picturing our dining room like this in my head, I'm really thankful for one more thing completed! Well, mostly completed. Is anything really ever fully finished in an old house??

I love a good road trip.

2010-09-19T23:24:00.000-05:00

So some of my friends have once again not so subtly reminded me that it's been a long time since I posted anything. I kind of get in a funk sometimes. I haven't even been reading blogs lately. No reason. But I started back up in the last couple of days.

Here are some updates about the doin's at our house:

I FINALLY got my hutch open. My mom gave me a brilliant idea. She suggested that I saw through the paint that had sealed the door shut. At first I thought it would cause too much damage, but then I came across my pumpkin carving tools, which includes a very very small saw. It fit in the space at the top & bottom of the door, so I just sawed down through the paint & it opened LIKE MAGIC. Thanks Mom. So I should be posting next week about the hutch and it will be filled with DISHES!
We're getting an estimate on our roof soon. When the roof is done, then I can paint the outside of the house and it will no longer look like it's abandoned. I'd like to do a little more planting, too, and rip out those giant shrubs in the front.
I'm having a garage sale, so I'm in organizing mode. I'm tired of moving junk. And living in a small place, we really don't have a lot of room for stuff we don't use.

But on to the subject of the post! We went to Dallas/Ft. Worth over Labor Day weekend to visit friends & pick up some of our stuff that we had left in Spain. We went to some great restaurants & saw some fun stuff on the drive. Here's a gallery of our weekend:

Our dear friends Christopher & Ragna

We had a great time in Dallas with our friend Jessica. She took us to this great restaurant called Park. I loved that turquoise fireplace with the stacked firewood and horizontal wood planks. This was outdoor seating.

This restaurant had a California beachy 60s flea market feel to it.

This was inside.

This was some of the yummiest pizza we've ever had: dried apricots, proscuitto, boursin cheese and basil.

The counter at Pinkberry (super tasty yogurt place), view from our table outside.

More spying on Pinkberry patrons. This was Vino's yogurt: mango flavored with berries and fruity pebbles.

So a big part of the whole road trip experience is stopping at funky places along the way. I'm glad Vino wants to do things like that.

Saw this place in Oklahoma. We thought it was an icecream parlor. We thought wrong.

What??

Seriously. I think Vino wanted to take this one home.

Why would anyone think this place had ice cream?

I peeked in the window of that pink camper. It has cheetah print carpet!

I asked that green guy permission first. He didn't care.

Of course there were singing metal frogs with GIT-tars.

I'll take one of each, please.

More than anything else at this store I wanted that soda bar arrow sign like nobody's business. Who cares that I have absolutely nowhere to put it right now. Lucky for me, it wasn't for sale. I really don't need a giant red arrow in my tiny house. But if I lived in a cool urban loft...

Pretty jar of ribbon on spools.

I was laughing at a shelf that had a giant head of the Burger King and one of Ronald McDonald on top.

It looks like I'm wearing a green chandelier hat.

Pink bike fencing.

Creepy doll-head fencing.

Last stop on the way home. Breakfast at this "famous" cafe in Oklahoma.

They were really nice to us, even though I was wearing my Husker shirt.

It was the only clean thing I had left in my suitcase. :)

This week I vow to return to the land-o-blog. I've missed it!

Painting the World Glossy White, One Tacky Accessory at a Time

2010-07-27T13:18:00.001-05:00

Bought these for a buck/pair at the local thrift:

Not lovin' the 70s ceramic class look. Before I walked out the door, I picked up these, half off that day because they had a blue tag ($2.50):

Not my style, too traditional or something. Enter: glossy white spray paint.

Ahhh, much better. The guinea fowl are no longer foul (sorry, I had to go there - tacky accessories call for a tacky play on words).

And the magnolias are much better. More contemporary yet still fit into my urban cottage-ish wanna-be house.

I don't think I've found the perfect place for the birds yet. Decorating is always a work in progress, though...isn't it?

What do you think? Do you have stuff that could use a clean coat of solid white? Or black? Or turquoise? Whatever fits in your decor. It's good to see beyond what things are to what they could be.

Oh, and by the way, I was a featured guest on www.remodelaholic.com for my buffet/hutch post. How cool is that??

Don't Hate Me Because I Inherited Awesome Flour Sacks.

2010-07-19T13:30:00.000-05:00

Everyone seems to be looking for grain sacks - French with faded black French text, American with classic Americana images. Guess what I have? My dear grandma (my mom's mom) was one of those thrifty women back in the day who saved flour sacks & used them like fabric from the fabric store. My mom remembers in the 40s & early 50s that my grandma made all sorts of things with flour sacks - skirts, dresses, tea towels, aprons. She even made my mom a swimsuit from a flour sack. But these flour sacks had prints on them such as floral or geometric shapes. Not what I'm used to seeing in vintage flour sacks. I can imagine that she used all those styles of sacks for sewing that that's why she didn't have any in storage years later. But she did have these!

Lucky me. I was trying to decide between the rooster & the flamingo for my dining room wall.

The rooster definitely belongs in a kitchen or dining room and is probably more fitting for the midwest, but I love the colors in the flamingo better. And you know I don't like to do what's expected. :)

Of course I didn't go out and buy a new frame for the flour sack. I found this bulletin board at a local thrift shop for $2. It was just about the perfect size, and I didn't have to do anything to it. I like the black frame and the fabric.

All I did was iron the flour sack & pin it on with pearl pins. I used those because I already had them. I didn't want to drive all the way to Walmart just to look for other pins. Lazy or frugal? I don't really care. I like the pearls!

So this is now the new artwork for the blank wall in my dining room. What do you think? I'm saving the rooster for somewhere else, probably my next house since I'm just about out of wall space in this tiny little house. But as much as I'm about sharing, I'm not giving it up. Unless my sister wants it. She doesn't seem like the rooster type, though. She probably wants the flamingo. :)

Marrying Together Mismatched Furniture: The Buffet & Hutch Story

2010-07-15T22:41:00.001-05:00

I have a buffet. It was a gift from the Mr. for my birthday several years ago - and it was second hand. Does he know how to make me happy, or what??

There it is back there, in our old house.

Back in the day, I painted it black. Loved it. I paired it with a large mirror hung vertically & two buffet lamps. It looked so very Pottery Barn-ish.

My tastes have changed a bit. No more buffet lamps. Too ornate. Sold them on craigslist for a little more than what I bought them for several years ago. No more mirror. It's in storage. I may or may not keep it. No more black. I'm all about painting EVERYTHING white. Well, a few things will end up aqua, but mostly white.

So I scraped the black paint off of the top of the buffet. Fortunately my previous paint job was pretty poorly executed and it came right off! A little sanding, a little cleaning, then I stained & sealed the top piece. I think it looks pretty good! I've never stained anything before. It always scared me. Not anymore!

I also primed & painted the rest of the buffet. I used leftover paint from the trim in our house. Since I'm not the best at painting, I decided that a nice distressed finish would be just the thing for covering up my mistakes. Something always peels when I paint furniture. A corner here, a leg there - but if it's distressed, it all blends in and looks intentional!

So after about 3 coats of paint, I fired up the palm sander & went to town on the corners & raised parts. Then a couple of coats of non-yellowing sealer. I love how it turned out!

I have decided that I want a place to display my china and the cherished china my Aunt Jean gave me (I'll save that story for another post). So I started looking for a hutch to put on top of my buffet (thus the reason for not using the mirror). I blogged a little bit about it here.

Free hutch. Can't beat it. So this is what it looked like before I painted it. No wonder someone gave it away. Gross.

And this is what it looks like after. Nice!

You'll notice, though, that it's not completely painted on the inside and the light at the top is still covered in newspaper. Silly me, I closed the door after the paint was dried. It was dried & cured. Really. But the hutch sat in a corner of our living room for a long time. Summer came, with all of it's humidity. Wood expands.

This is the embarrassing corner of the living room that never made it into
photos until now. Thankfully it doesn't look like this anymore!

SO....I can't get the door open. I don't know if it will ever open. It's wedged so tightly that I can't get a razor blade in between. I was hoping that once it was in place it would acclimate to the air conditioning & open again. That hasn't happened. Last resort will be to remove the back of the piece and work at it from that angle. I'm having a similar issue with the buffet.

The doors won't close. It was in a non-climate controlled place for three years, poor warped baby. I may need to do some tricky carpentry work on them. For now, picture it complete.

Look for new artwork on that blank wall next week...

The hutch with a pale aqua backing, glass in the shelves and white china displayed. It will be just what I imagined it to be. Or...still imagine it to be.

But for now it's in place, and that alone makes me happy.
I can fill it with stuff later.
Baby steps.

Custom Bathroom Vanity Made with Salvage Pieces

2010-07-06T23:48:00.001-05:00

I have a bathroom sink! It's taken a while, but I'm SO happy with the results. It's pretty much exactly what I wanted. And it's "green" because the sink and the table were salvage. I blogged about the bathroom all the way back in January, when the table had been in for a while, but no sink.

Remember my inspiration photo?

I think I actually like ours better, minus the staging. Here's how we put the whole thing together:

I bought the "rustic pine potting table" on craigslist. It looked like this:

You can read about the purchase and how my mom prayed I wouldn't buy it here. After cleaning it and removing the rusted zinc top, I sanded & clear-coated the top, then dry-brushed the rest with a 50 cent can of mis-tinted paint (that I'm really in love with and might take with me to the store sometime to have more mixed!) to make it less "rustic".

The sink was from a local salvage place, Scherer's Architectural Antiques. Thanks, Manuel! He has a great selection of old stuff - sinks, bathtubs, doors, windows, lighting, hardware, marble slabs, pediments...I could spend all day there digging through the cool stuff. If any of you are in the Midwest (particularly around Lincoln, NE) and in need of anything old & architectural, you should check it out.

We replaced the faucets with a one-hole number. We had to buy it new, but sometimes one has to compromise. :)

I also added trim all around the bathroom to top off the tile. It's that stuff that's pretty much foam wanting to be wood. It's awesome. What I didn't cut with my little hand saw & miter box, I used scissors. And lots of caulk.

As I am easily contented, it makes me rather happy that not only the el-cheapo rug I bought matches the mis-tinted paint/original finish combo perfectly, but so does...the soap. Vino bought the soap. Good job!

Vino was also the one who did most of the work after I prepped the table. He (and our fine friend Scott) attached the table to the wall, cut the hole for the sink and did a lot more caulking. Vino did the plumbing part himself. So proud.

The final touches were adding a towel bar & toilet paper holder to the front. Love. It. I originally wanted to put a shelf underneath but it seems like it might be too much of a bother to cut out space for the plumbing, and I think it would look weird.

One more look at what the place looked like when we first bought it:

before

after

So there you have it. A finished project. :) And can I tell you, I feel so civilized...extravagant even...to be able to brush my teeth in the bathroom instead of the kitchen. Not to mention washing our hands....!

Random & Unfinished

2010-06-01T11:51:00.001-05:00

So the title of this post describes my projects right now, and a bit of my life. But that's another story. On to the projects!

My sister so delicately reminded me that I haven't posted in a while. I was waiting until I had something to show for all the time I've gone between posts. But, alas, (Vino makes fun of me when I say "alas") nothing is finished. Here's what we've been working on lately:

1. Installing the bathroom sink.
We are SO close! We would have had it done a couple of days ago except that we got the wrong water line hoses. Hopefully we'll get the right ones today so we can brush our teeth in the bathroom for the first time tomorrow!

The bathroom as it looked when we first bought the house

mid-way to completion

My inspiration photo (Cottage Living)

2. Finishing the enclosed front porch.
Here's what it used to look like.

I have since painted the walls the same gray as the living & dining room, the floors white (same as before but cleaner!) and the ceiling Tiffany blue. I LOVE the look of a light blue bead board ceiling on a porch. It's tradition! The porch will eventually be a great introduction to our home, but for now it's a storage place for stuff I'm trying to sell on craigslist and the place where I'm working on my next project...

3. Painting the buffet.

Sorry for the bad photo of the buffet - this is in our old house. I painted the buffet & mirror above black.

My cherished buffet has been in storage for about 3 years and we finally brought it home a couple of weeks ago. It was painted all black, but I decided that for this house I want light colored furniture so I'm painting it white. Except for the top. I peeled off the black paint, sanded off the old stain & did my very first stain job. It was really easy! I'll post about that process when it's all done.

Inspiration photo (Miss Mustard Seed blog)

One thing I have learned about myself: I am not good at painting furniture. Even when I prep like I'm supposed to (light sanding, priming & then paint) the final paint almost always peels in some spots. And doors don't always close. My solution? Distress. Take a sanding block or a palm sander to the corners, edges & raised parts & take off a bit of paint. It looks intentional & naturally worn & takes care of any painting gone wrong. :)

4. Painting the "new" hutch to go on top of the buffet.
As you probably know about me now, I have issues with buying new stuff for my house. I can't do it (unless it's on major clearance).

I forgot to take a photo before I prepped it for painting. But it wasn't much better.

This hutch and the accompanying tiny tiny little buffet were free. Someone else didn't want them, and I did! I'll post on the little bottom piece later, but just know that the whole thing was fairly top-heavy.

You can see here the porch mid-paint. The walls are primed.

Notice where the original finish just peeled off. Instead of doing the right thing & peeling it ALL off on that one surface, I peeled off what came easily & then sanded down the edges.

So I'm painting the hutch to match my buffet. It's not the best quality piece - the decorative details are plastic (shhhh!) but no one will know after it's painted. Except me. And you now.

What?!? Is that a hollow plastic crown moulding? Yes, yes it is. And those are Vino's "Hulk Hands" in the background.

I really hope this thing looks good on top of my buffet. I've only seen it in my mind, not in real life.

6. Rescuing a desk.
We don't have a desk. A few weeks ago I noticed that our neighbors a couple of houses down had put some furniture out by their trash can in the alley. Every time I drove by I thought about how sad it was to throw away wood furniture. If only we had a use for it. Then one day I walked down there (when they weren't home) to take a closer look. Some pieces had been destroyed, probably when they had been thrown out back. But this desk & the hutch that goes on top were in really good shape. They are real wood. The drawers are dove-tailed. I carried each piece down the alley myself. Shameless. I was REALLY hoping no one saw me.

Not sure what will happen to the hutch. I'll use it for something! I think with a coat of creamy white paint & some new drawer pulls this desk will be perfect on our front porch. I need somewhere to sew and this will be perfect. But for now, it sits in our garage.
5. More projects that are finished IN MY MIND ONLY.
I have made an upholstered headboard. It looks exactly like this:

Pottery Barn

IN MY MIND. And it won't cost me $500 +$75 shipping. There is a room divider at a local ~~junk~~ second hand store for only $15. I've measured it. It's perfect for a queen sized bed. And when it is painted & upholstered with something linen-ish & nailhead trim, it will be perfect. I really need to go buy it but it will just go in the basement or garage with all my other unfinished stuff.

6. Last but definitely not least, I've started running.
I have never liked running & I don't like it yet, but I need to get in shape. Vino is a good running coach. He has taught me the correct way to hold my hands, roll my feet heel-toe, pace myself, etc. Last night we ran 2 miles. A month ago I couldn't run 1/4 of a mile. What I'm most proud of was running a 5k only 2 weeks after I started running.

I ran VERY slowly, but I didn't stop or walk the whole run. I will not quit running now that I have started. I am getting in shape, which I like, but what's more, I bought running shoes. Since I'm so cheap, there's no way I'm going to stop running & waste the money we spent on the shoes. :) Sneaky!

So that's it. My dining room has a mattress & boxspring leaning against the wall, my front porch entry is full of stuff piled on stuff and one corner of the living room, which will someday have a piano, is stacked with frames & artwork to hang on the wall after everything else is in place. Random & unfinished. What projects are you working on that seem like they will never be complete? Do share!

How I Met My House

2010-04-22T12:51:00.001-05:00

I'm going to a party today! AnNicole at Our Suburban Cottage is hosting. We're all going to sit around on the virtual front porch telling the stories of how we met our homes. I call the porch swing.

Last year at this time we were living in Spain. I know, fantastic. We were there for two years doing missions work. Loved it. My posts from 2007, 2009 & early 2009 are from that time. Check them out on the sidebar!

Before we went, we sold our 3+ bedroom, 2 bath house. Granted, it was a small starter house, but it was big enough for us & our frequent guests. We actually made a good profit from the sale of that house (which is a whole other story about God's grace in allowing us to sell in a pretty scary market). We used a little bit of it to live on between the time our jobs ended & we moved to Spain, but the rest we saved. No touching until we could buy a house again.

So here is our list of living arrangements after selling our house: 3 months in a 5th wheel, 6 months in our boss's basement (one big room), 1 1/2 years in a tiny one bedroom apartment, then another 5 months in the 5th wheel. All this while the majority of our belongings are in storage. Being a homebody, I really (hope I) learned that home is so not about the stuff you put in it or how big it is. I can make a comfortable, relaxing home for us just about anywhere. It doesn't have to look amazing.

So starting about fall of 2008, I began stalking real estate websites. We didn't know what we would be doing or where we would be going after we left Spain. There was even the possibility that we would make Spain a more permanent home. But there's this part of me that needs to have something to plan for. Thus the stalking. I ended up focusing on the city we had lived in before and the surrounding small communities.

I'm cheap. Thrifty. Whatever you want to call it. Not knowing what our incomes would be when we moved back to the States, the crazy cheap part of me started looking for houses under $50k. "What??," you say, "You wanted to live in a shack down by the river?"

Let me just say that after months of searching real estate sites in our area, I am confident in saying that it is absolutely possible to buy a house in that price range (or less) that is NOT a dump or in an area where you need bars on the windows. First, we are in the Midwest, so house prices are lower. Second, smaller towns close to cities have great options for lower priced homes. We had to decide what our priorities were. Were we ok with a 30 minute commute to the nearby city? Were we willing to pay more in gas and less in mortgage? Yes.

Ok, enough jabbering from me. That was a long intro. Meet our house:

Yes. It's not a lovely little cottage. In fact, "cottage" is a generous description. But here's the deal. When I found this place online (on a local real estate site, while we were still living in Spain), it was listed at $49k. It is in a town that is about 20 miles from our city. It had 2 bedrooms & one bathroom, which honestly, was enough for the two of us (especially after living in such small quarters for almost 3 years). I checked it about every week. When we moved back to the States & contacted our real estate agent, Mary, I had narrowed the search down to this one town. We spent ONE DAY looking. We saw about 5 houses that day, 4 of them complete dumps that would have taken LOTS of money to fix up, not to mention the MOLD. Gross.

When we walked into what is now our house, it was not what I expected, in good ways & bad.

Bad news: it was a foreclosure, sold as is, which included a house full of trash - furniture, dirt, leaves, mud, poo, pizza boxes, dead plants, etc. The smell was...not pleasant. The paint colors were...bold. Good news: it was bigger than it looked in the photos. The structure was sound. The character (built in bookcases with columns, french doors, thick baseboards) was intact. The kitchen & electrical had been updated a couple of years before. Honestly, even though this house was the dirties & cheapest, it was the BEST house we looked at that day. And by that time, the bank was so desperate to get it off of their hands that the price had been slashed in half. We (& Mary) believed that this house was truly a blessing from God!

Take a tour of our house as it was the day we met it!

It's much better now.

Not finished yet, but is a house ever finished?

Here is our plan for this house: make it not only livable, but lovely, add function (paint the exterior, put another bedroom & bathroom in the basement, rebuild the enclosed back porch to include laundry, office space & mudroom, build 2-car garage), pay it off in 5-7 years and live in this house as long as we can. This is NOT our forever house, but it is a tool for us to get our dream house. We don't have a lot of money, but we don't think we NEED a lot if we use what we have wisely.

My self-imposed rules for decorating this house is to use only second hand, things on major clearance, things I make, or things we already have. I don't look at it as a negative. I love the challenge. Maybe because I'm UberCheap, but my preference really is older stuff with a unique history. And there are so many other things we could spend our money on than lamps & furniture & doodads. Game on!

This house has a history. It was built in 1913. It has been loved by many who have put their own stamp on it. It has been unloved by a few. We are happy to be a part of this house's heritage. Sometime in the future, someone else will live here. They might make snarky comments about things we chose to change (like I have about the smurf & turquoise paint combo!), but I hope they love it and even more, that they contribute to the good things that happen in this house. I hope that it is a place of peace and joy. I hope that this house is home for many to come.

How did you meet your house? Come hang out with us at AnNicole's place & hear everyone else's stories. Tell your own!

Little spring things that make me happy: turquoise & fringe

2010-04-07T12:14:00.000-05:00

thrifted fringy turquoise table cloth

Not much blogging going on here. Too much work...and flu-ish yuckiness...

But Spring is here!!! The daffodils and hyacinths are coming up all over town. The snow is gone. That's the best part. No freezing cold, dirty, wetness.

I don't know why, but this table cloth brings a smile to my face. It's a happy color and I like the thick fringe. I know it's nothing important in the large scope of life. But when I see things in our house that need to be done that I don't know when I'll get to, when I think about unencouraging issues with infertility & adoption, and any number of other stupid things I could fixate on, seeing something that brightens my day helps me to focus on things that I really am thankful for - the things that do matter. My faith in God, health, family, friends, the good man that I married.

I know it's just a table cloth. I'm not going to get dramatic about it. :)

What kinds of things help you to focus on what's really important? There's gotta be something.

Before & After: Re-Covered Dining Room Chairs

2010-03-12T13:49:00.001-06:00

I have this great table & chairs set. They belonged to my grandma, then my parents, and now me. They are painted an olive green, which I love. I suppose some day I could strip them or paint them a different color, but for now I love exactly how they are.

Except for the seats. Gross.

They are ancient, cracking vinyl. And they are really hard. No cushion for the tush.

So I've actually had these chairs for several years and never done anything with them, even knowing how EASY it is to change them. Lazy.

So I was at our local little thrift store the other day and found this fabric:

It was only $2 for 1 3/4 yards, more than enough. I'm not sure how it will wear over the years as seat cushion fabric, but seriously, does it matter? They are so easy to recover that I can replace them when I want.

Bad blogger, I didn't take during photos. But just so you know, I unscrewed the seats from the chairs, set them on the floor over the fabric and cut the fabric with a few inches extra all the way around. I also got a 4-pack of 1-inch foam & cut those the same shape as the seats. I made a sandwich - fabric, foam & seat - then stapled the fabric to the back, stretching as I went. Then I screwed the seats back on and...

New chairs!

Are they perfect? No.

But are they better? Yes. Much better. And much more comfortable.

And just to keep it even more real, that little coaster on the floor in the above picture is there to mark a spot on the floor where a wood splinter needs glued down.

We're pretty casual here.

Thanks for stopping by!

I love you, Craig. You and that list of yours.

2010-03-02T16:35:00.000-06:00

I think I'm doing pretty good with my self-imposed rules of decorating our house in nothing but thrift, gifts & what we already have. I'd like to add major clearance to that list. You should see the lamp I just found on clearance from TJMaxx. But that's for another post.

This one is all about Craig and his magnificent list. Since we returned from overeseas last summer I've discovered the thrifty joy of craigslist! The bathroom vanity that's still in process was from the list, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

Our living room is...petite. The giant sofas we had in our last house probably won't even fit through the doors of our little house. Knowing that we would need flexibility, I started lurking around on Craigslist weeks before we bought our house.

I was specifically looking for a sectional sofa that could be moved around however we wanted. Stop picturing that giant hunter green pit group in your best friend's basement that you spent hours on watching MacGyver. Sectionals now-a-days are streamlined and contemporary, and they are perfect for small spaces! I was inspired by this photo from Brooke over at Velvet & Linen:

Except on a rather less grand scale.

After viewing lots and lots of horrid puffy 1980s sectionals, I found this:

What? You don't think it's fantastic? Have a little imagination. Picture it in a home with beautiful hardwood floors. Throw some pillows on it. Add a nice coffee table. And eventually a neutral slipcover. Trust me. It's fantastic.

It has clean lines. It's quality construction. It is in pristine condition. It doesn't smell.
I'm not super wild about the flame-stitch, but I don't absolutely hate it. I googled "flame stitch" and found that it is making a comeback in interiors. Yay for me!

Bonus: look what you can do with it!

Talk about pit group.

There are six individual pieces that can be arranged lots of different ways. Three corner pieces and three slipper chairs. I'm not sure what decade this thing comes from. Anyone know? If it's from the 80's, I'm impressed at how streamlined it is. I'm thinking 70's, but it's in such good shape!

And best of all, it was only $150.

Seriously!

When our floors were finally finished, this was the first piece of furniture we moved it. Here it is as it looks currently:

It's really comfy & lets both of us stretch out & still sit together. We have one of the slipper chairs in the guest room and one in the corner of the living room. I have no idea where that one will go when we get our piano in... But when we have company & we all want to watch a movie, we just add in a chair to expand the sectional.

Since I bought a new sewing machine, I've started the long process of making slip covers for all six pieces and the cushions. Daunting! But since the lines of this piece are straight, and I'm not using piping, I think it will be pretty easy (famous last words). I've made slipcovers before here and here, so I know what a pain it will be.

I'll let you all know when the slipcovers are finished. I'm using natural cotton duck. I'm excited to be able to replace the winter-y sweater pillows add summery throw pillows with pattern!

I'm currently trolling Craigslist for the perfect daybed with a pop-up trundle bed for our guest room. I know he won't let me down.

So, all my love to you, Craig. Thank you for making a list.

Oh, The Carnage of Poor Packing!

2010-03-01T16:42:00.000-06:00

So as many of you know, we spent two years living in Spain doing missions work. While we were gone, all of our possessions that we didn't take with us sat in storage that whole time. Some things lived in my mom & dad's basement (thanks!!) and the rest lived in a storage trailer behind their barn (thanks again!!). It was a great option for us because we didn't have to pay for storage, but the trailer wasn't climate controlled. As you can imagine, we've had a few casualties of storage.

Some of those unfortunate losses were because of moisture or varmints that we tried our best to prevent, but you can't stop everything. However, I recently found a tub of carnage that was completely my fault.

NEVER, and I say NEVER, pack a SNOW GLOBE to be stored in a non-climate controlled environment. Water freezes & expands. Then the glass breaks. I knew that. Now I really know it.

These were iron reindeer. Now they are rusty reindeer.

This gal looks more like a mummy than an angel.

These were olive wood bells from Israel that have been in our family for years.

My collection of vintage glass Christmas balls were all wet inside & out.

But there is hope. Some things can be salvaged...

She looks disgusted with me, as she should be. But look, lady, now you have a lovely "patina".

This is probably why she's ticked. Nothing a little glue won't fix.

The bells have their own patina now. They look like they've been in our family for centuries!

And after washing the vintage glass balls, most of the paint came off. I kind of like them now, though. They look like bubbles.

Something that seems like a disaster doesn't always have to turn out that way. I may have lost a few things, and I had to put some elbow grease into cleaning up my mess, but it's not the end of the world for the things that were damaged. The scars can give them character that may end up being appreciated more than a flawless finish.

Got disasters? Got flaws? Find the value in the scars. It's there. Trust me.

More El Cheap-o Decor: Thrifted Sweater Pillows

2010-02-23T13:22:00.001-06:00

Do you ever page through the Pottery Barn catalog or website and covet? I do. But, as we all know, I'm cheap. The only things I own that actually came from Pottery Barn were either gifts from someone else, or purchased on major clearance. I, like many other cheapies, use Pottery Barn for inspiration rather than actual shopping. Sorry PB.

One of the blogs I read regularly is Homebody Holly. Holly is the queen of thrifting creativity. Recently she posted a series on gifts you can make from thrifted items. And they're not stupid cheap looking things you wouldn't want for yourself. Genius. The one I decided to try for my self was her sweater pillows. These were inspired by Pottery Barn's Sweater-Knit Pillow Covers, retailing for $39, and that doesn't include the inserts.

I like these, but we can do better, my thrifty creative friends!

A trip to the Salvation Army scored me these $2 cable knit sweaters. The darker one is 100% wool and the lighter one is 100% cotton. I really wasn't interested in using acrylic (like the PB ones that are a cotton/acrylic mix).

The wool sweater had a couple of holes in it, but after I washed it in hot water & threw it in the dryer to tighten it up, those holes were easily fixed with some brown thread. Just don't look super close at the finished product - my thread doesn't match perfectly. But who's really going to be looking that close? Not me.

My parents gave me money for my birthday, and this is what I bought with it. I've wanted a real sewing machine for a years. I bought one at a garage sale several years ago. Bad idea. This one works so smoothly - I didn't know that's what sewing machines were supposed to be like! I suppose I should take the Project Runway sticker off. Looks a little ghetto. Thanks, Mom & Dad!!

For the innards of the pillows I used some old pillowcases that were either stained or ripped. I cut them down to squares, filled them with fiberfill & sewed them closed. You could use store bought pillow inserts, but why, when I can make them with stuff you have around the house? If you don't have stuff around the house, you can also buy throw pillows at the thrift store that you can use as inserts.

For the sweaters, I cut them to use the most of the sweaters as possible. I'm left with sleeves & weird looking v-neck sweater dickies.

Remember turtle neck dickies? I never had one, thank goodness. Hmmm. What do do with those...you know I can't throw away something that might become craft fodder in the future.

Anyways, back to the pillows. I sewed up three sides on each, stuffed them with the homemade inserts & sewed up the fourth sides by hand.

What do you think? I'm pleased. Please at how they look and pleased that they cost me $4 in materials.

Are you taking time in your day to be creative? It doesn't have to be something that takes hours and hours and lots of money. Maybe it's just rearranging some furniture, or moving artwork around your house. Or maybe it's finding a way to repurpose something you've had laying around for years (like your 1990s sweaters!).

There's something therapeutic about finding a creative outlet during your day, don't you agree?

What to do with your paint chip collection: El Cheap-O Art!

2010-02-19T17:30:00.000-06:00

I'm getting tired of having no art on our walls. We moved into our house right after Thanksgiving, but a lot of our stuff is still in storage behind my parent's barn, being held hostage by SNOW and MUD. I just can't get myself to do any real decorating when I don't have my whole stash of decor items (& furniture!) to work with.

But forget that. Last night I decided to do a little art project. Seriously, it took me maybe 10 MINUTES to assemble it. Prep took a little longer, but that doesn't matter. :)

Remember this barn wood frame I picked up at the local thrift for a mere $1?

I used that + an old piece of cardboard + a scrap of burlap + an old family photo of some gals I wish I could have known + a bunch of butterflies I punched out of paint chips from the home improvement store.

Punching out & folding the butterflies took the longest of anything, but I enjoyed it. I bought two different sizes of butterfly punches from Michael's & used paint chips that were all similar but not exactly the same.

I laid out the burlap & the cardboard on the floor, then cut the burlap out with about 2 or 3 inches extra on each side. I folded it over & duct taped it to the back, making sure that the fabric was pulled tight but not too tight. A little more duct tape fastened the burlap covered cardboard to the back of the frame. Lovin' the duct tape. Kinda like fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants crafting. Know what I mean?

Don't these ladies look like they've had a fun day? I have no idea who they are, but I think I'm related to some of them.

Laying out all the butterflies and the photo on the burlap before I attached them was really helpful. I moved them around a lot & removed a lot of the butterflies before I was happy with how it all looked.

I bought my first glue gun ever! And it was from the Dollar Tree. Extra nice. I discovered that I need to work on my glue-gunning technique. The butterflies were covered in shiny webs of glue when I was done.

I must admit that I didn't come up with this idea myself. I've had this photo in my idea folder for a long time.

I have no idea where it came from, but I like it. I have more burlap left, so I might look for a smaller shadowbox frame (with glass so the butterflies don't collect dust!) and make one for my office.

What do you think? Have you made anything cheap/free & crafty lately?

So is it still creativity if you ~~steal~~ use someone else's idea??

While you're in blog land, check out my friend Mary's new home staging blog! Mary sold our last house for us and helped us get our current house. She was one of the few people who saw potential in this little place. I love her style. She's a realtor but also a home stager.

Have a great weekend!

Bathroom Vanity Sneak Peek

2010-01-28T14:47:00.004-06:00

I love me a good before & after, especially when the after involves using stuff that doesn't cost a lot of money. Don't you get more useful ideas from something you could actually reproduce yourself than something that would require a second or third job to finance? Me too.

Remember this table? My mom described it as "hideous, nightmarish, ugly, worthless..." She went with me to buy it after I found it on craigslist & prayed that I would just walk away.

It was quite rustic, but exactly what I was looking for. You can read my first post about it here.

Well, the bathroom isn't finished yet, but the table is prepped for the sink & ready to go. I cleaned it really good, then dry brushed it with some pale aqua paint that I found for 50 cents in the mis-tinted section at Lowes. Perfect! I also took off the rusted zinc top & my dad & I sanded down the wood top so it was nice & smooth. With several coats of polyurethane, it has a nice slick finish that repels water. Then I added some extra feet to raise it to a better counter height. Here's what it looks like currently:

Much better! Before:

After:

Layla & Kevin from The Lettered Cottage have been remodeling their guest bathroom & are using a similar farm table. The top looks almost exactly the same as ours. They are using a more modern sink than ours, but it's the same concept.

Guest Bathroom, The Lettered Cottage

I love the way their bathroom has turned out. I hope I love ours when we're finished. We are waiting to put the sink in until we can get the outlet moved. We realized AFTER tiling that if we center the sink under the mirror the sink's back splash will cover the outlet. Oops. So we'll get that moved, replace the three tiles where the current outlet is, then install the sink.

Other projects in the bathroom: fix the gap between the wall tiles & the horizontal board that goes all the way around the bathroom, install lights over the mirror, install transition between bathroom tile & hallway wood & paint the inside of the built-in cabinet & the back of the door.

Always something to do. :)

Score! at the Thrift Store

2010-01-20T16:11:00.003-06:00

hand painted wooden mexican bowl: $1.99

I'm sick today. I feel like poo. My head is full of marshmallows & feathers & dryer lint. I'm sure of it. And I have that deep baritone thing goin' on today. The weather is nasty, in honor of my achy bones & rattly cough.

vintage green writing table: $2

embroidery hoops (to be used as wall decor with cool fabric): $.50/each

But there's always something that will make me feel better.

No, not ice cream. But that's a really good guess.

It's thrifting! There's something so satisfying about finding that one great thing before someone else does. It may be something I've been looking for, or it may be something I didn't know I wanted until it sang out to me. There's an art to thrifting. You have to be willing to be let down. You may paw through every item in the store & find nothing worth buying. But the payoff comes when your trained eye finds that treasure among piles and piles of worthless crap.

reclaimed barnwood frame: $1; new beechwood frame: $3

Liz Claiborn round table cloth: $4

My goal for our little house (which, in a way, was thrifted!) is to buy nothing new for decorating. I will use what I have or I will make stuff or I will buy it second hand.

vintage chenille bedspread, no holes or stains: $5

sweet little limited edition letterpress owl print: $4
(if anyone knows who created this, I'd like to know!)

Here are my rules for thrifting:

Don't be afraid to get your hands dirty. They will not smell good when you get in your car. But you can't dig if you don't touch. Carry nice smelling hand sanitizer.
Don't buy everything that catches your eye. Think about what you'll do with it. Will you wear it? Do you have a place to put it in your house? Will you craft with it sometime down the road? If you're going to take it home & put it in storage or in a pile in the corner indefinitely, don't get it. It's not a bargain if you're not going to use it.
Don't spend more than $5 for small stuff & $50 for furniture. Of course there are some special cases, but they are rare.
Imagine an item in a different atmosphere. Think of alternate uses for items. Be creative. That tacky ceramic bird figurine might be really cute & current spray painted white & displayed with a few other white accessories.
When you're looking through a lot of junk, have something in mind for your eyes to be drawn to - color, texture, shape, etc. Then you to be able to quickly rule out things that don't fit the criteria. For example, when looking through bed linens, I usually look for white pillow cases that have that vintage super-soft high thread count feel. I can quickly scan past all the forest green & mauve pill-y linens without wasting my time.
If you love it & it's a good price & you'll use it, buy it. I've had regrets before when I haven't bought something used. You don't always get a second chance at second hand.

new mailbox (which we needed!): $3

wooden lamp (pre-painting): $5

official reproduction of Ansel Adams photo "Georgia O'Keefe & Orville Cox", matted: $4

I went to our local thrift store two days ago & found some goodies. I had to stop looking when I had spent all of my cash. But I found some good treats for our house! I also thrifted last week at the Salvation Army in the city close by. Those are the stores all this cool stuff came from. Happy happy bargains!

Help for Haiti

2010-01-18T13:16:00.003-06:00

Like everyone else has been saying lately, the old bog seems pretty insignificant when you watch or read about news stories coming out of Haiti. The need seems so incredibly overwhelming. Yet in it all, God is in control. I'm not quite sure what He's doing or why, but I know He can be trusted. I also know that people will turn to Him in times of trouble, and I pray that many, many hearts will be open to His love, peace & salvation.

Yesterday in church, we learned that Convoy of Hope, a compassion ministry with the Assemblies of God, has a warehouse in Port-au-Prince that had just been filled with food before the earthquake, and was undamaged. Convoy of Hope feeds 7,000 children on a daily basis, and the food for that feeding program has been being used to feed thousands & thousands of people who are in desperate need. They will run out of food in 12-14 days and need financial donations to continue feeding & caring for those in need. Convoy of Hope is a reputable ministry that is considered a “first responder” organization in disaster relief. If you would like to donate, click here. Donating money is essential, but even more than giving of our finances, prayer is of the utmost importance. Yes, it seems like a hopeless task to restore Haiti, but we do serve the God of the impossible.

The Beautiful Wood Floors Hiding Under The Glue

2010-01-16T20:01:00.006-06:00

They're finished. Finally. After weeks & weeks, our floors are done. The company we used was not big on speed, communication or customer service, but they really did an amazing job bringing the beauty back to our pitiful hardwood floors. Remember this?

Our first time in the house. Carpet in the living & dining rooms, linoleum in the kitchen & hardwood everywhere else. So I tore up the carpet & we did this for 2 and a half days:

We breathed in toxic fumes. Lots of them. The floors looked like this when we were done:

Notice the rectangle in the middle of the floor? At one point there was a giant register vent there. That needed fixed. So here's the before & after of the floors:

Didn't they do a great job of fixing the rectangle in the middle of the floor? You'd never even know anything had been there.

It's beautiful when the sun hits it.

Here's the dining room & kitchen floors. We'll be putting the transition pieces in soon.

The bedrooms & hallway all have painted white trim & I love the way the dark floors look with everything else light!

The only problem besides the time it took to get it done was the baseboards. We painted them before the floor guys came, but apparently not soon enough for the paint to cure completely. Plus, the tape they put on the baseboards was on for around 4 weeks. When I took it off paint flaked off on every single baseboard. I'm assuming they left it on because the didn't want to deal with the flaking paint & have to answer for it! Looks like we'll be doing a bit of touch up.

Honestly, though, at this point, fixing that paint is the last thing I want to do. I'm thinking the tape on the guest room window will be there until spring. I'm just all painted out right now.

On the other hand, I have a dilemma. A paint dilemma. You may have noticed that the dark wood floors do not match the unpainted woodwork in the living & dining rooms. I did that on purpose. Not because I didn't want them to match, but because I don't like the current stain color on the woodwork. It's orange-y and not in very good shape. However, it really is nice woodwork. Here's where my problem comes:

I love painted white woodwork.

I really do. In fact, when we were looking at houses, I was hoping for one where someone before me had already painted the woodwork white so I wouldn't have to deal with the guilt of "ruining the wood." Every room in shelter mags or design blogs that I love has painted woodwork. I love the fresh, clean, bright look of it. With dark wood floors. So when I chose the floor color, I really had it in my head that at some point we would...please still like me...paint the woodwork white. Like this:

Isn't it lovely & fresh & beachy? Vino was iffy about painting until I showed him this photo from This Old House magazine. So I'm taking a poll. Who thinks we should throw caution to the wind & paint the woodwork white? Who thinks that the original wood should be cherished & left as-is? Keep in mind that this is a very small house. We won't be living here for years & years, but we do want it to be "ours" while we're here and not the future buyer's. So please leave me a comment with your opinion about painting the wood. I could really use some good advice!

People think I'm crazy.

2009-11-29T22:18:00.004-06:00

I bought this table on Craigslist. It has a rusted zinc top.

The paint finish is...rustic. My mom went with me to look at it and she sat in the truck praying that I wouldn't buy it.

But, as with our currently "rustic" house, I can see the end product in my imagination.

Here's the plan:

These two bathrooms, I think from Cottage Living? have been my inspiration, especially the first one. I have this sink:

That will go on top of the table. I'm taking the zinc top off, cool as it probably once was. I'll touch up the paint & leave the top unpainted. It will go here:

White subway tile, white mosaic floor tiles, pale grey walls, white painted medicine cabinet, clean toilet & no boxing glove in the corner. It will be fabulous. I've said that before, haven't I? One of these days I'll show you all the fabulousness for real instead of just talking about it.

Oh, and Vino doesn't think I'm crazy. He likes the table. That's two of us!

Family...Food...Football...Caramel Corn

2009-11-27T13:52:00.004-06:00

We are at my sister & brother-in-law's house for Thanksgiving this year. It's not as exotic as spending Thanksgiving in Tunisia where we were at this time last year, but we're thankful to be with family! This is the first time we've been to their house (they moved here a few months ago). I really like it! I'll include some photos of my favorite decorating ideas that my sister has done.

My mom & my sister making stuffing.

Brother-in-law, Brad, cutting the bird.

Niece Julia.

Nephew Evan.

Nephew Isaac.

Niece Emma.

My sister Shelley and I have similar but not identical design taste. We both like rustic, but I like more of it than she does. She goes for more new furniture & house while I like old & worn in. We are both currently into the same color scheme, though. Neutrals with beachy muted aquas & greens. We're also both into cheap or free.

She has cottage style in a distinctly non-cottage house. I really like the way that she has combined vintage & beachy pieces with her newer stuff & home.

In the living room she has hung another one of the windows like I used in my parent's basement. I think it looks great on the big expanse of wall over her sofa.

She rescued this "O-So Orange" pop-bottle crate from my parent's garage & filled some of the cubbies with shells she collected on beaches in North Carolina. Perfect. And absolutely free.

I made that bowl in college. It's very thick & heavy. I was painfully unsuccessful in my pottery class but I really enjoyed it. I think I gave all my pieces away!

Shelley said that she wants to replace the chandelier with a large outdoor looking lantern, like the ones currently being sold at Restoration Hardware, but not like the prices. Oh, I got that birdcage for her years ago at a thrift store.

Love the ladder. She picked it up at a little antique store in the town where we bought our little house. She dry-brushed it with a little aqua paint (which doesn't show up in this photo) before she hung it.

I want a sea fan. Shelley brought this one back in her carry-on from a trip to North Carolina. I tried to take the photo without getting a glare. I was not successful.

It's now the day after Thanksgiving. The house is full of friends & family watching the Nebraska/Colorado game. The Huskers are currently ahead 13-0. Yessss. Vino is making caramel corn. We're all looking forward to that. It's the best ever. I'm not biased. You can watch his tutorial video here.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We'll be back working on the house next week and will hopefully be able to move in before the first blizzard of the year!

Tiling the Bathroom

2009-11-01T10:39:00.004-06:00

We've been putting some work into the bathroom lately. Remember this?

You can't see very well on the photo, but the floors are in pretty rough shape. You can't smell the photo, either. After we hauled all the trash out of the house, most of the stink leftover was in the bathroom. Specifically, IN the floors. I am a hardwood floor lover, but these HAD to go (along with the wallpaper, border, green paint & cheap-o vanity.

As Vino ripped up the floor boards the stink stank worse.

The hardwood flooring AND the diagonal sub-floor boards had steeped in liquid for a long time. And not just water. Some of it was rotten.

The toilet had been in peril and we didn't even know it. The sub-floor boards in this area were short & one even fell out into the basement.

Voila! New sub-floor over the old to stabilize the surface for tile. Backer board on the wall for the new subway tile. I know, white subway tile is like Starbucks. Everyone does it and thinks it's cool. It's on every shelter magazine street corner. Figuratively. Now it's old hat. But I don't care. I've wanted a bathroom with white subway tile for a long time. AND, it goes well with the age of our home. What does old hat really mean, anyways??

My dad was a huge help to us putting in the tile, since neither one of us had ever done it before.

We sure learned a lot. Tiling doesn't scare us anymore. Maybe the time & sore muscles do, though...

Vino did a great job laying the floor tile in a house where hardly anything is square. We discovered that white grout with white tile camouflages a lot of imperfections!

There's a pretty big height difference between the bathroom floor and the hallway floor. We'll have to get a substantial transition piece. It would have been higher if Vino hadn't torn out the old floor boards. By the way, he drilled holes in the sub-floor from the bathroom and from the basement ceiling. Whenever he did that it smelled like burnt pee, the sub-floor had been so saturated. Don't ask me how I know what burnt pee smells like. We will be Kilz-ing the basement ceiling.

Oh, look. I actually did some work in the bathroom, too. I cleaned off all the grout from the tile surface, painted the upper walls & trim and sealed the grout. I'm ready to take a bath in here. Problem is, though, the tub isn't ready for me.

Neither is the toilet.

We're getting close, but it's taking longer than I want. I'm SO ready to settle in. Have I said that before?

The Place We Didn't Buy & Another That Was SO Much Worse

2009-10-14T20:38:00.004-05:00

In our search for a house, we spent only one day actually looking at houses in person. I think there were five that we toured. Because our budget was so low and we knew that we wanted to buy in one particular town, the pickins were slim. The house we eventually chose to buy was the least expensive by thousands of dollars, and it was also had the least amount of problems to fix. Yes, it had the most trash, but trash can be picked up and thrown away for free! Take a look at one of the houses we toured.

View from the living room looking into the dining room. That's carpet on the dining room wall, too.

Our realtor warned us before we went in that there was a lot of shag carpet but nothing could have prepared us for the reality. Who puts shag carpet on the walls? In several different colors? Then we went into the basement to be greeted by this:

Why? Why? Why? I'd be surprised if this house sold. The smell of mold was so overwhelming Vino was sure he got lung cancer just walking in there.

By the way, I found a before & after recently on design*sponge. Our house was a museum compared to this place. Kudos to the people who could see past that bathtub. I've tried the link to more photos but it doesn't work anymore. I would have loved to see more!

Transformation: The Miracle of Paint!

2009-10-08T17:52:00.003-05:00

This is my 50th post! I could have passed that milestone months ago if I'd blogged regularly, but it is what it is. Happy 50th to me! :)

Thank you friends old & new who have given me encouragement in comments! This house renovation is not for the weak willed or olfactoraly sensitive. I believe I made up a new word. Anyways.... Remember this?

It has now become this:

Ahhhh. Grey. That's Vino's sister Renita who came to help us paint one day. Our friends David & Treva came the day before, but I wasn't there to take photos. Thank you to all of you!! Especially for painting the ceilings, the most dreaded of painting duties. You all did a fabulous job! Here's another view:

And a close-up of the paint against the wood trim (which could stand to be re-done, but that's a project for another lifetime).

The cutting has been done in the kitchen, now it needs a couple of coats on the walls, then the trim:

Remember this room (front bedroom)?

The accessories are gone (except a giant tv which has become a resting place for small tools), and the walls are primed for paint:

The back bedroom has lost its 80s wallpaper border and is in the process of being primed. Can't wait to paint the trim white! This room will one day be a nursery. We have great hope of that one day!

The paint is all from Behr. The wall paint is Behr Flat Enamel. I love it because it goes on smoothly & dries with a velvety finish that minimizes the flaws & bumps in the plaster walls. The trim paint is a Behr semi-gloss. I don't have the colors available right now, but I'll post them later.

Vino has been documenting this whole process on video that he will one day put on his YouTube account. We trade off being host. Doesn't he look cute in his bandanna? Kinda gang-like cute? :) He's worked really hard on this house while fitting it in with his job, too!

We are liking this house more and more every day. I'm getting antsy to be done with this phase so we can move in and enjoy it. I lay awake at night picturing us sitting on our Craigslist sectional (to be featured in a later post!) with a cozy throw & cushy toss pillows. Jane Monheit or Stacy Kent are playing on the stereo. We're sipping hot tea & reading under the soft light of floor lamps (yet to be "found"). It will be lovely. I promise!

The Transformation Begins: Hidden Hardwood & Heavy Lifting

2009-09-22T16:46:00.004-05:00

This is what was hidden under the vile carpet. I know, it doesn't look very pretty now, but IT WILL. Refinishing the floors is the only thing (besides a few small electrical things) that we will hire professionals to do. I may be cheap & unrealistic about my own abilities in renovation, but refinishing floors is NOT something we want to tackle on our own. But I can wield a utility knife. Which is what I did to the carpet. Cut it in strips, rolled it up & threw it away. Bye bye nasty carpet.

Unfortunately, the carpet pad had been glued down. Like, seriously, the most glue that could have been slathered on those planks. I had to use a heavy metal blade thingy to scrape up as much of the crumbly pad remains as possible.

I know there is beautiful wood under there somewhere...and fortunately I don't have to do anything more to it. The refinishers will get rid of the rest of that pad & glue. Yay!!

Now on to getting rid of more filth. In one day, Vino & our nephew Evan hauled out 2 couches, about 7 recliners, a giant 70's wooden headboard, a king sized bed and boxes & boxes & bags & bags of trash.

Evan saved our behinds. We could have NEVER hauled all that stuff out by ourselves, especially the heavies. Thanks for loaning us your giant muscles, Evan!

Vino cut out the huge pillow stuffing in the pet hair covered couch on the front porch.

Here they all are stacked up.

And the couch gets hauled away. Vino & Evan swore that as soon as the sun hit this furniture the smell factor increased tenfold.

This is the dumpster we rented. By the end of the day it was completely full and then some.

And here we have the fridge. Our home inspector warned us not to open it. After having been turned off for months, whatever was in there had time to rot itself into a powerful death smell. So we believed him and duct taped it shut before moving it out.

Even with all that, it still smelled pretty ripe when we stood close.

Good riddance!

Every day the house smells better. Minus the carpet. Minus the upholstered furniture & trash. We Febreeze every time we come to work but that only goes so far. Next on the agenda: paint. First a coat of stain & odor blocking primer, then paint in soft greys. I can't wait!

Our New Old House

2009-09-18T16:08:00.004-05:00

How's your imagination? Mine is pretty active, which you will see shortly.

We knew even before we returned to Nebraska from Spain that we wanted to buy a house, but it was going to have to be a CHEAP house. I tentatively set the budget at $50k - that is, $50k to buy & make the house habitable. I stalked realtor websites for close to a year just to see what was actually feasible in the areas we were considering. Fortunately for us, we are from Nebraska, where housing prices are typically lower than other parts. My other criteria was that it had to be within 30 minutes or less of a city and had to have at least 2 bedrooms. And not be gross.

That's where my imagination comes in. :) We found & recently purchased a house that fit all that criteria (and came in WAY under budget), except that some have argued with me that our house is indeed gross. But imagine with me, if you will, a 1913 cottage with original oak floors, 10-inch baseboards, original built-in glass-fronted oak bookcase dividers, original claw foot tub, enclosed front and back porch, a full basement and a garage. Got that picture in your head? Good. In the spirit of Ultimate Thrifting (which should be a real sport, by the way), come with me on a tour of our new old house and keep an open mind!

So the bushes will most likely be yanked out of the ground in favor of something that doesn't need constant trimming to keep the place from looking abandoned. I'm thinking a row of lavender flanking each side of the walkway. We'll replace the shingles & paint the siding grey with white trim.

This is the enclosed front porch. First impression for guests! Right now it gives, well, the wrong impression. I've got this area decorated in my head really cute. Trust me. You'll love it. Just don't breath through your nose right now. It's not pleasant.

Ah, a breath of fresh air. Kind of. The original oak craftsman style door. Lovely.

This is what you see when you walk through that lovely craftsman door. Please look beyond the nasty, nasty carpet. See the built-ins! They really make the house. You're standing in the living room looking into the dining room and beyond into the kitchen.

Now we've walked into the dining room and turned around to see the living room. Like the glossy paint colors? Neither do I. They have inspired me to choose a calm grey palette for the whole house. I want to relax in this place, not be jittery all the time from color overload. I don't know if you can tell, but the previous owners PAINTED the glass on the french doors in the living room. Thanks. Fortunately, it peels right off.

Now to the kitchen. Oh, hello. There's Vino & the leg of Mary, our lovely realtor (who reads this blog - hi, Mary!). Stop looking at the floors, all of you. It's all getting ripped up. The kitchen will be tiled and the living & dining rooms will have refinished wood floors that are currently living under the carpet-o-filth.

Under that trash is a cute little enclosed back porch with original beaded board ceiling & little closets. This will be a mud room/pantry. It WILL be cute. Very cute. Let's keep moving. It creates a slight breeze that makes the smell more bearable.

This is the back bedroom. Not much to say here. It was really clean compared to the rest of the house. Not being a fan of wallpaper borders, this one will go. It's also around the top of the wall just under the ceiling.

Just down the hallway we encounter the bathroom. Someone put a lot of work making this room homey. Hunter green faux woodgrain wallpaper & double outhouse borders. It has been loved & served it's purpose and is no longer in good shape. Filthy, actually. AND since it's not anything close to my taste, it also will be coming down. I hope it goes easily. Same with the rose stencils on the tub. Side note on the tub. I'm a bath girl. Since we have been married, 8 years, we have NEVER lived in a place with a tub. I am ecstatic beyond words to have a deep soaking tub. And yes, I will clean the living daylights out of that thing before I set my body in it!

Here we are in the front bedroom. Oh, look. The previous owners left us some electronics, several cassette tapes from the 90s (Cher's Greatest Hits!) and a stained king-sized bed. Anyone need a scanner? The sponge painting, sadly, will be going bye bye. I'm not super big on faux finishes myself.

So that concludes the tour of the main floor. But what about the basement, you say? Are you sure you want to go there? If not, stop reading right now. If so, put on your haz-mat suit.

This is our intro to the basement stairs, from the kitchen. Nice. I think we're safe to assume that there were large dogs living here at one time. They have left other clues besides this.

That's Vino back there checking out the toys on the floor. That's the part about this house that makes me sick. Adults, I suppose, have the right to live in their own filth & let their pets do whatever they want in the house, but when children are involved, it's really more than sad. Enough said.

Like my laundry room? Even my imagination can't come up with something cute for this space. I think that to start with it will be basic, clean & utilitarian. I'll work on cute later.

And now for some shots of the Special Things left behind for us to clean up.

In the living room. Hiding in a dark corner. Cat? Raccoon? Very small dog? This, for sure, is gross.

I found a pizza in this pile. Just keep in mind that this house has been vacant for 5 months.

I told you not to look at the floors, but I wanted to show the full heinousness of the carpet & linoleum before I rip it all out with my carefully gloved hands. Those would be pet pee stains, not oops-I-spilled-the-apple-juice-stains. And one of many cigarettes. The man of the house apparently lives on these with a Mountain Dew chaser, as evidenced by the plethora of bottles & butts around the place.

This is a sad little vignette.

Well, thanks for sticking with me to the grisly end. Hats off to Mary (pictured above with Vino) for trudging through this place in her cute little kitten-heel sandals. You deserve an award. Funny enough, though, of all the houses we looked at this day, this one was BY FAR the best. Not the cleanest, but the most potential. Thank goodness Mary & Vino have as much imagination as I do! Stay tuned for updates on the house progress. We want this re-do to be nice but inexpensive. We want to think outside of the box when it comes to fixtures & furnishings. You might be surprised when it's done. You might just think it's a place you would actually want to live. I hope I do!!

Thanks from Erin's mom

2009-08-31T15:31:00.002-05:00

Hi, this is Erin's mom. Aren't I just the luckiest - no, blessed - mom ever? I let Erin loose in that dated basement and she created a beauty. Not only was I surprised when I saw the room for the first time, I was overwhelmed and thought about crying. However, Vino was taping the whole reveal and I didn't want to do that on camera. I think it's just wonderful, and I am so grateful, I have no adequate words to express myself. Thank you, sweet Erin!

Family Room Makeover Projects

2009-08-26T21:29:00.003-05:00

This is my third & final post about my mom's family room makeover. You can see the other posts here and here. To refresh your memory, here's the before:

And the after:

I want to talk in this post about the on-the-cheap projects that I did in the room.

slip covers
ottoman & coffee table turned bench
giant lamp
tchotchkes
old windows on the wall

First, slip covers. They're not actually as cheap as I would have liked them to be. If I had the time, I probably would have custom made them myself, but they are rather time consuming. Plus, my mom wanted the SureFit ones. So we ordered them from Overstock.com. Here's what's really covering the wingback chair:

And here's what it looks like covered. Major change that took about a minute to make:

The next few projects used items I found at thrift stores & Hobby Lobby. Here they are in all in all their pre-makeover glory:

Let's talk about that ottoman/coffee table! Forest green with a not so lovely pleather upholstered top. Bought for $45 at a thrift store. All it needed was a coat of paint (leftover from another project) and some brown burlap. Good as new! Now there is a place for everyone to put a beverage, store the remotes and rest their feet.

I also painted the coffee table that was originally under the entertainment center. This is a piece that I grew up with. It used to be in the living room. Memories! But...it wasn't so sacred a memory that I couldn't alter the piece. I painted it & took the decorative 70's wood molding off the front & replaced it with lattice strips to look like a shaker style. I used some caulk on the edges of the lattice strips after I glued them on & before I painted everything. They're not perfect, but no one here really cares that much. :)

This little vignette is one of my favorites. That lamp really makes the space. Here's what it looked like before I painted it white:

What's up with that? It's got some sort of Asian looking house motif at the top, bald eagle & American flag crest in the middle, and French fleur-de-lis. Huh? Anyways, I spray painted the whole mess white, hoping that no one would look too closely at the designs. They're still there, but don't look quite as bad in white!

The huge burlap drum shade was the whole reason I bought the lamp anyways. That, and because it was half off that day at the Goodwill! I got two lamps that day for $6 in total.

To balance out the lamp I hung three ironstone plates that also came from Goodwill.

These are the two things I found at Hobby Lobby at 80% off. I think each was about $2. The thing on the stick goes in an open frame. So this is what they looked like before I painted them white.

I ran out of spray paint before I was done painting the artichoke thingy, so I touched it up with white primer (the only white paint I had on hand).

Here's the thing on the stick, painted white & in the open frame. It fits Perfectly on the ledge, and I didn't even measure! It looks nice between the giant windows. Speaking of those windows...

On the long wall, I wanted something BIG to break up the space. My parents had these windows stored in their barn. Lots of them. My dad pulled down two of them. They were covered in inches of dust, dirt & grime. I hosed them off in the yard, let them dry over a few days, and brought them inside to hang.

I screwed eye hooks into the tops of the windows (actually, the bottoms - I hung them upside down so the handles wouldn't be a temptation for the grandkids to hang on), then I screwed long hooks into the wall at the same distance as the eye hooks. In this particular room, there is 2x4 running the entire length of the room at the top of the wall, so I didn't have to look for studs. If you do something like this yourself, make SURE your hooks are screwed into studs. If I were to do this over again, I would have put the eye hooks in the wall and the long hooks in the windows. Take my advice! They would have been MUCH easier to hang that way. As they are now, Vino had to help me and it was pretty awkward to hang them.

Thanks for staying with me through this whole family room makeover tour! We're already on to the next big thing...

We bought a house! It needs "some work". We've already done a lot of work on it and there is SO much more to do. So, that will be the next huge project and most likely the subject of the majority of my blog posts for a while. Can't wait to start posting about our new old house!

Family Room Makeover AFTER

2009-08-25T17:50:00.003-05:00

I finally uploaded all of my family room makeover AFTER photos, and here they are! Remember, my mom asked for warm & cozy in this bland, windowless space. You can see the before photos here. The budget was $500-ish. I ended up spending about $520. The money was spent on paint, accessories, slipcovers & one piece of furniture. Everything else was already in the room or shopped from other rooms in the house (and the barn!).

My mom was SO surprised with the results. It wasn't anything like she expected. She was at Tuesday Morning when I picked out the throw pillows, so she knew the palette. She also had an idea of the wall color, but didn't realize how bold it would be. We picked out the slipcovers together. She had originally wanted red but I talked her out of that. :) My reasoning: if she had neutral slipcovers, she could change the rest of the color scheme & style for a small amount of money. They are from SureFit, but we ordered them from overstock.com because the price was cheaper & the shipping was only $2.99. They don't fit as well as the photos on the packages, but they're better than the befores!

The biggest, most dramatic change is the wall color. It is Behr Mulling Spice. I did two coats of Behr's Flat Enamel. Being a flat paint, it has a velvety texture & hides flaws in the wall better than a more shiny surface. And unlike other flat paints, it's scrubable. I'll definitely use it in my own house!

The second biggest change is the furniture arrangement. Before, the sofa & love seat faced each other with a narrow glass table in between. The tv was in an old entertainment center that was sitting on top of another old coffee table. I moved the entertainment center onto the floor where it belongs, but kept it on the same wall. The sofa & love seat are now in an L-shape. This opened up the tv area & allows people to watch tv sitting front-ways on the couch instead of sideways.

I moved the cedar chest to serve as a sofa table. All of the accessories on the chest were found in the house.

I found a box of old books in storage & stacked them throught the room. I picked them for their color!

These two old windows are from my mom's high school. My dad has lots & lots of these stored in his barn. They have been up there for years, and they were NASTY. I hosed them off & cleaned them up before hanging them on the longest uninterrupted wall. Now the room has windows! That thing in the middle has some utility stuff inside. I decided to make it a pedistal for a sculptural element I got at Hobby Lobby 80% off. Score!

The big pillow on the sofa is what I used to create the color pallete. I took it to Home Depot to find a wall color to match.

I painted the old entertainment center with some leftover wall paint from a different room in the house. There was more than enough to paint three pieces of furniture.

I purchased the big artichoke looking thing, also 80% off at Hobby Lobby, and spray painted it white. The white ironstone bowl is from Goodwill.

More books, and the paintings were already in the room, done by my grandpa.

Love this rug. I think it's too small for the space, but it was the one that went best with our color pallette. It is also from Tuesday Morning, and was the most expensive item in the room at $199.

I found the ottoman/coffee table at Savers, another thrift store. It was not very pretty - dark green with tan pleather upholsery. I painted it & re-upholstered with brown burlap.

I love this vingette! The furniture piece is an old radio/record player. I don't think it works, but it looks great! The plates & the lamp are from Goodwill. The lamp was hideous before I spray painted it white. It was the giant burlap drum shade that called to me from the thrift store shelf.

Here's a little reading nook right at the bottom of the stairs. The wingback chair has an unappealing floral brocade fabric under the slipcover. The lamp was only $8.99 at Walmart!

This is the old coffee table that was originally under the entertainment center. It looks SO much different painted! I pried off the 70's wood detail on the doors & replaced them with lattice strips to give it a shaker style. I should have spent a little more money on a cushion for the table turned bench. As it is now, it's just a body pillow cover stuffed with two bed pillow. Very ghetto. I'm not proud of that detail. :)

This corner didn't show up in the before photos. I moved the bookshelf here from the other side of the room, but basically everything else is the same as it was before. It just looks better with the warm wall color and a little lamp!

I love this collection of photos, medals & certificates from my grandpa Irl's time serving in the army during WWII. The flag over the desk is from his funeral. He's the same grandpa who painted the pictures over the entertainment center.

I worked for several days on this project, most of it painting! I did spend a lot of time shopping trying to decide what I should & shouldn't get. I did a lot of projects that I will detail on another day, hopefully soon.

Do you like it? Have you done a makeover lately? Do share!

Family Room Makeover BEFORE

2009-08-22T20:40:00.002-05:00

My mom has good taste. Her house is very homey, clean & restful. However, even though she enjoys decorating herself, she has asked my sister & I to re-do three of her rooms. She give us her preferences & a budget, and then she doesn't see the room until we're finished. First was the main bathroom, which I re-did in a cool, bright spa theme. Then was the upstairs guest room, which my sister & I re-did in a warm, British colonial style. Well, that was our starting point at least. It turned out warm & cozy. She loved both rooms!

The most recent makeover was the basement family room. For years it was a hodgepodge of leftover furniture pieces from days gone by. She wanted another warm, inviting, cozy room. The challenge: it's huge! LOTS of wall space. $500-ish budget. She also requested SureFit slipcovers for the couch & loveseat. Here are the before pictures!

And here's a sneak peak at some of the things I bought for the room, pre-transformation:

Another sneak peak - wall color! It's BOLD, and I worried a bit if my parents would like it. The rest of the walls in the house are very pale. Risky!!

I will post the AFTER photos soon & talk about the projects I did & how I saved as much money as possible. I love how it turned out!

My Foray into Senior Photos

2009-08-15T12:02:00.004-05:00

This week I agreed to take senior photos for my niece & nephew. I wasn't sure how they would turn out, since I have no idea what I'm doing with my camera. But I'm actually pretty happy with the results. All of the photos were taken on their farm. They both compete in horse shows, so their horses had to be included!

This is my favorite shot of Keisha with her horse, Twister.

I was very happy with the angle of these shots.

I was experimenting with back lighting. Don't know if I was completely successful or not. Again, not quite sure how to use my camera!

I LOVE the photos with the grain bin. I'm really drawn to the horizontal lines. AND, the shape of the bin gives the illusion that I have a wide angle lens. :)

This is our tongue in cheek version of the senior portrait with the fancy car. Keisha was recently in a roll-over accident in her Jeep and was VERY blessed to come out of it with only minor injuries. I told her mom that this is her miracle shot!

I studied the sites of two photographers I know. I love their styles & used their photos as inspiration. Becky Novacek Photography in Omaha, NE & Khara Plicanic @ Kabloom Studios in Lincoln, NE.

This shot was a direct rip-off of Khara's shot in this blog post, although hers is much more dynamic!

I had so much fun, even though I was nervous that nothing was going to turn out right. Thanks for giving me a chance to take your photos, Randy & Keisha! Check out the rest of my favorites from this photo shoot here. What do you all think? Suggestions for what to do better next time? Comments? Let me know!

Welcome, new life!

2009-08-11T23:12:00.005-05:00

I had an amazing opportunity a couple of weeks ago. I witnessed life. And I got to cut the cord. On July 25th, late morning, Mateo Asher Rodriguez, coming in at 7 lbs. 5 oz., made his big entrance. He's my nephew. His mom, Teliza, is Vino's sister. When she asked me a couple of months ago if I would be in the delivery room with her, I had an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. Having struggled with infertility for six years, I thought that I may never have the chance to be a part of the experience of the miracle of birth. Let me just tell you, it was incredible. Teliza was amazing - she showed much grace in a difficult circumstance. After 2 hours & 30 minutes of pushing, when it seemed like the only option would be a C-section, we gathered around & prayed that this little one would come quickly, and he did, just 15 minutes later. It was a messy, beautiful moment!

He has a FULL head of black hair. Lots of it. It's silky soft. He's a sweet boy, not very fussy. Very snuggly. So tiny.

That first day his hands & feet were so wrinkly, almost like paper. His hands looked like he was wearing gloves. Look at those long toes!

For the past several days I've been staying with Teliza to help her out with Mateo. When I hold him I pray that God will protect this sweet baby boy. That he will grow up to be a good man. That he will love Jesus with all his heart, and that he will have a kind, humble & gentle spirit.

So, Mateo, from your Auntie Erin, whom I am sure will be your favorite, welcome to the family. We've been waiting for you. You're even better than we hoped for.

Cheap Dork

2009-06-29T07:58:00.006-05:00

(photo by PACOBP)

I'm a dork. A cheap dork. We went to El Rastro this weekend. It's said to be Europe's largest flea market. It started in the middle ages and has over 3500 stalls.

(photo by subcomandanta)

It's open year round every Sunday morning. You can buy just about anything there. Lots of imported stuff from India & Africa. Cheaply made tourist crap-ola. Second-hand junque. The old stuff is what catches my eye.

(photo by ma vie en rouge)

Here comes the part where I'm a cheap dork. I was Specifically looking for a vintage seltzer bottle because I'd seen them there before, and I've seen them all over blogland in photos of Paris flea markets that people drool over. AND I think they look cool.

(photo from Buenos Aires San Telmo flea market by fakeamerica)

So I find a guy in one of the side plazas that is selling a bunch of old stuff. While Vino is asking him about some really old Italian daggers (expensive, but cool!) I spy a crate of 6 seltzer bottles, one of them blue with 8 sides. It looked almost exactly like this one from Ruby Lane except that the writing was in Spanish. I would post the photo, but it's copyrighted. If the link is no longer active when you read this, just know that it is VERY COOL, and originally $125, on sale for $95. Our friend who brought a camera with her had no battery left, so I don't even have proof of the one I found. None of these are even my photos that I'm posting. Loser.

So we ask the guy how much and he says 15 Euros, which is around $21. I was prepared to pay 10 Euros, but the guy wouldn't budge. So we walked away. Apparently he wasn't desperate to sell that day because he couldn't have cared less. And we kept walking. Now I'm wishing I hadn't been so cheap.

(photo by mazingerin)

We're moving back to the States for a couple of years - this week. That was my last chance for a while. One of these days I'm going to learn some type of lesson from this...

Create...Breathe

2009-06-21T13:41:00.004-05:00

I have this friend, Miss Lynn. She is ridiculously creative. When I was home for Christmas, I told her that the world (well, me for sure) needed her to start a blog or an etsy shop or something. She said that she's not a computer person and would rather just make stuff with paper, notions & junque. But, happy day! I don't think she's started a shop, but I just found out today that she has a blog! Her blog name is Create...Breathe, which is the name of her crafty business.

She sells at craft shows and stuff like that, but not online yet (that I know of). Check out her blog and leave her a comment. She's a sweetie pie. I can't wait to see her this summer!

My Handy Man

2009-06-11T03:45:00.005-05:00

I'm one of those girls who is lucky enough to have a multi-talented fella. It seems like he's pretty good at most of the things he tries. He cooks & cleans, makes videos, cycles, runs, trains people to do stuff, re-mixes benign music & voice-overs into cool hip-hop beats, and he can throw a pretty good punch, whether it be wii boxing or real-life martial arts. Oh, and he can break up fights in Madrid & subdue the drunken aggressor. But that's for another story.

Recently he disappeared for a few hours into the workshop to make something that would make organizing the equipment for the ministry we work with MUCH easier. He had already organized & labeled the entire equipment storage room, but still had to contend with heavy & awkwardly shaped "C-Stands". They're the things used on a video shoot that hold reflectors & pretty much else you would need to hold in one place. Using a router & some scrap wood, this is what he came up with:

He routed out the shape of the handles...

so that each stand would fit perfectly.

He also used some big nails to hang other pieces of the stands.

I, for one, think it's an ingenious solution. Before, the C-Stands lived in a corner on the floor. Difficult to get to, messy, unorganized. Now with one glance, you know how many we have, where they are, and where they go when you're finished with them.

People, you don't always need to make things difficult or expensive. He didn't go out and buy anything special for this project. Scrap wood. That's what he used. Granted, this is not a public place, so it's not painted pretty or anything, but that doesn't matter. Effective storage can be cheap or free if you use your noggin. What do you have lurking in your garage/shop that can be made or re-purposed into useful storage or organization? Be creative!

My Mom

2009-05-10T16:40:00.003-05:00

So today is Mother's Day, and I'm a couple thousand miles away from mine. I just called her, though. I love technology!

My mom is one of the kindest people I know. She has a very tender heart. She is one of the few people I know who has seen a lot of the heartache in the world yet has not lost her innocence.

I love spending a day with my mom tooling around town. Neither one of us get bored with each other.

She also has a lot of "mom-isms" that my sister & I regularly find coming out of our own mouths. She has a song for everything. Vino says that I do, too. Must have picked that up from her. :) She will talk to anyone in line at the grocery store. It used to embarrass me, but I've grown out of that.

I have such good childhood memories, and most of them are because of her. I couldn't have picked a better mom for myself.

I love you, Mom! Happy Mother's Day!

Thriftin' Spanish Style

2009-05-07T04:56:00.001-05:00

Ok. I can breathe.

I've been gone from this blog for ALMOST a month! We've had one thing after another, including two out-of-country trips, and I can finally get caught up - clean my house, organize, catch up on blogging.

So to celebrate my return to the blog, I'm participating in another Thrift Store Thursday over at Holly's Homebody blog! I'm glad I'm not the only one who takes pride in a great bargain. "You like this dress? Thanks! I got it for only $3 at a consignment store!" I have no shame. And I'm ok with it.

I've been wanting to show what I got the last time I went to Segundo Manos, my favorite store in our town. Of course, I didn't take my camera with me. One of these days I'll learn. But until then...

I found some painted ceramic pieces that I really like. They are simple, and one of the bowls has some chippy bits on the rim, but I still think they are charming.

I don't know if they are old or not. I can buy stuff similar to this in cities known for their ceramics - Toledo, Sevilla, Talavera - but these were much cheaper. :) It doesn't really matter to me if they are old or not. I just liked them.

I also picked up a small pitcher that was on the same shelf.

It will make a great water pitcher, and will look fabulous with my Fiestaware. This one is for sure from Toledo.

And here they all are on our kitchen table.

They go nicely with the little crackled pot that holds the miniature rose plant Vino bought for me, and with our Christmas tree. That's it in the white pot behind the walnuts. It didn't hold garland well, but we were in the States for Christmas, so I didn't go all out. The one gift I put "under" it was bigger than the tree.

So that's it! 2 Euros for two bowls and 2 Euros for the pitcher. Have you found any thrifty treasures lately? If so, you really should participate in Holly's party. All the cool kids are.

...And every knee to Him shall bow

2009-04-12T17:34:00.003-05:00

Maker of the universe,
As Man for man was made a curse.

The claims of Law which He had made,
Unto the uttermost He paid.

His holy fingers made the bough,
Which grew the thorns that crowned His brow.

The nails that pierced His hands were mined
In secret places He designed.

He made the forest whence there sprung
The tree on which His body hung.

He died upon a cross of wood,
Yet made the hill on which it stood.

The sky that darkened o'er His head,
By Him above the earth was spread.

The sun that hid from Him it's face
By His decree was poised in space.

The spear which spilled His precious blood
Was tempered in the fires of God.

The grave in which His form was laid
Was hewn in rocks His hands had made.

The throne on which He now appears
Was His for everlasting years.

But a new glory crowns His brow
And every knee to Him shall bow.

-F.W. Pitt

I hope you had a happy & meaningful Easter!