Restoring the Farm

After countless years of trying to remodel rooms in our home and "update" them, I have finally come to the conclusion that I live in a Farmhouse. So, let's make it look like it is suppose to look. Like a Farmhouse. It sits in the country, there is a magnificent barn out back with horses in the pasture and cats in the hay mow. Making it look like a townhouse or bungalow just doesn't work. So my handy husband and I headed upstairs to the part of this old house that needed the most love. Our youngest had moved out and her room was a good place to start. I REALLY wished I had before pictures but I never think to do that. I'm too anxious to dig in! We started with a piece of trim we found in the cellar that must have been around the windows at one time and took off for the Amish neighbor to see if he could recreate it for us. Original Trim Check!
We dug out grandma's bed she slept in when she was a little girl and threw on a chanille bedspread and added the pillowcases grandma embroidered. I refuse to put anything new in this room! We then added favorite family photos and writings of our daughters above the headboard.

It took me months to find the perfect little accessories and I found this great little shelf for her favorite clock at a barn sale for $1.00. It's her favorite thing in the room.
We also added planked hand hewn looking wood flooring that was pretty close to what the original looked like. I purchased a quilt at an auction last summer too that had all the perfect color to match the robin egg blue. Now on the lookout for a quilt hanger so we can hang it on the wall. For now it sits on the leather chair I found at an auction with all the perfect cracks in it.
The dresser is all chipped up in the perfect way and the window is all trimmed out with the headers and wood blinds. Wow! What a difference and I am kicking myself for not having a before picture. Off to the room next door with the same layout. Let's make it for the boys!

What Have I Done?!

This seems to be one of the busiest summers of my life. I'm not sure why, but it seems to be running away at sprint speed. With the 4th of July week-end at hand, I didn't want it to get away without feeling I had accomplished anything. I bet you can tell already that I have a hard time having fun and relaxing on holidays. It seems all I get done on the week-ends is cooking, cleaning, weeding and just catching up. No projects ever seem to get accomplished. So this week-end I set out to make sure I did something that made me feel "accomplished". I'm not sure what spurred it on. I think it had something to do with our youngest daughter Regan getting me hooked on "Pinterest". If you don't know what that is, don't feel bad, I didn't either. You really should check it out though. You just may see my new project on it someday. Maybe under the search of "what crazy women do on week-ends". Enough! This is what I set out to do... We have a little well house that has been on our farm for many many years. It used to be at the front of our house and there was a pump inside that pumped water. It has since been moved to the back yard. Here is our little well house:


My husband Terry and I set out for Menards to get some paint. To my surprise, he was about as excited as I was to get started on our little project! Does that mean we have lived together so long (36 yrs. 8 mos.) that we are both starting to have the same crazy thoughts? Somehow we got one quart too many of a different color. If anyone needs a funky green for anything, let me know. We started painting our little well house and we knew that if we had our grandaughter Nora over, she would be delighted with our color choices and wouldn't try to talk us out of it. She must be getting older though because she kind looked at us and rolled her eyes when she saw what we were doing. She had lots of fun help ing though. It wasn't at all boring for her. At least for the first 20 minutes. Here she is working hard:
With a little help from my husband on the high spots we got the front finished and did a tour of the farm to gather up some cool junk to make my little house into an assemblage/collage. I'm not sure I picked the right colors and when I look at it, I feel a tad bit embarrased but at the same time get a little tickled inside. Here is the finished project. I feel as though I have accomplished something and have also developed a little more NERVE!
We had to make sure that his DeKalb weathervane had a spot of its own along with his rebar cornstalk that he got from Jessica for fathers day. We got the front finished, stepped back and didn't know what to say. What do you think?

Happy Birthday to Me

It seems it has been a very long time since I have taken the time to blog. Maybe it is because I have had a very uneventful winter. As I think back about what I have done all I can really think of is my birthday. My husbands birthday is March 2nd, Mine is March 13th and our youngest daughter Regans is March 20th. So we decided to celebrate all of our birthdays in the Music City where she lives.

Most of our time was spent looking for a place for her to live. Her rent is very high and we explored the options of her buying a starter home. This is a sweet little house that we found for her in a not so sweet little neighborhood. The closer to the hot spots, the higher the price. I liked this little home but she won't be buying it. She's just not ready for it.

We also spent a lot of time looking for a car for her. She had a little bit of an accident that pretty much totaled her car (she was fine thank goodness). We had a few stops to check out Auto trader and catch up on a plan since there must be 2 million car dealers in her area (exageration). This just happened to be one of my favorite stops. I'm sure you must know why. Beautiful!


One great part of our week-end was the dog park with Molly. Molly used to be our dog until Regan came home and fell in love with her and couldn't live without her. We were happy to pass her on since she had way more energy than both of us together. There is just no wearing the dog out. The dog park was, I guess, something I had never been to before. I'm really thinking Bremen needs a dog park now. It's fun to watch all the dogs socialize. It was nice to have her go back to Regans and relax a little too.

If you ever go to Nashville you MUST go to McDoogles. I am not a fan of chicken fingers, but I would hurt someone for an order of these. They are so good that you can hardly stop eating them. Jace and Regan treated us to dinner there (mostly because you eat there free on your birthday) Just kidding guys. I would rather eat there than anywhere on my birthday. It's a crazy little joint. Happy Birthday to Me!