Spring Changes

It is finally starting to feel and look like Spring here and as I was Spring cleaning I did some rearranging too. I recently acquired this adorable little table, yet another hand me down from my sister.

I painted it Glidden's "Bisque" that I had picked up on clearance (it turns out it is a great off white) and then placed my cubby piece on top, I could never find a good place for this piece but I think I have found it for now. And with Easter coming I thought what would be better inside the cubbies than eggs?

I just found the two pieces of ironstone at the thrift store on Monday, 2 dollars a piece, can't beat that!

I love the change in seasons, it always inspires me to rearrange and rethink the way I have things. In the process you get to clean and clear out the past seasons clutter, it is so cathartic.

And speaking of decluttering I have been going through a lot of my things and many of them are going to end up in my Etsy shop....here are just a few of the things that I have decided to let go of and already listed.

A beautiful rustic wooden bowl

Oil painting "The Boy Blue" 

Primitive wooden tools

Ironstone Hutch

When we took down the wall in our kitchen we had to move the big antique hutch that we had in there. We moved it into our dining room and you have seen it in lots of my blog pictures but I thought it deserved it's very own post.

This amazing hutch was in the house when we bought it, screwed to the wall in the room we are now renovating. When we first walked through the house before purchase I spotted it and was beyond excited to find out that yes it would come with house ( I had decided I wanted the house already, I actually new when we pulled in the driveway). All of the houses contents were auctioned off sadly before we even knew of the place. But since this beauty was screwed to the wall it was all mine.

Definitely hand made, original blown glass doors, what is not to love? I always dreamed of having an old cupboard full of ironstone and this one couldn't make me happier.

I painted it Martha Stewart's Bedford Gray on the outside. And I have always liked when people put white dishes inside a dark cupboard, like this....

Nancy Fishelson Designs 

However.... I think I am going to paint the inside of this. The wood is dark but it has a 1970's shellacked look to, plus a musty smell that I can't get rid of no matter what I scrub it with. I am in the middle of painting the giant cupboard that goes into our kitchen/great room right now so it might be a week or two till I get to it. Or while I have the paint brush in my hand I might just do this too.

We got six inches of snow here yesterday...that's Edinboro for you:) Okay by me though lots to do inside. I hope to have some pictures of the kitchen/great room progress for you by the end of the weekend. I don't know about you but I am glad it is Friday!

It's The Little Things

One of our local churches has a rummage sale every Tuesday and Saturday and I just love going because I never know what I will find. I just recently discovered it and I hate to think what I may have missed out on all the time that we were living here...but better late than never I guess. Yesterday my son and I quickly ran through to see if there was anything good, I found a duvet cover and he found a toy front end loader (his favorite) and we paid. As we were headed out the door I saw a little handle sticking out from under a shelving unit...could it be a cutting board?!
It was and it was priced at a $1!

I love the pale wood color and the fact that you can see that someone burned it a time or two. Also it was great timing because I just bought a new table runner and wanted a rustic cutting board to place on our dining room table.

The candle holders are recent thrift store finds, and I just love them. And my hydrangeas are blooming and couldn't make me happier when placed around the house.

Don't you just love it when things come together, especially if you didn't have to spend a lot to get the look you were going for.

Third Installment

So are you sick of seeing my dining room yet, because there is still one side of the room that I haven't shown in the reveal.

Yet another cupboard, shocking right? I change this one up quite a bit, depending on the season. It is from Ikea and I had my husband put beaded board in the back to give it more of a farmhouse feel.

Flea market finds cover the shelves.  

And I wanted to show a before picture of this room.....

This was a couple days after moving in, we had already ripped up the nasty rug when I took this picture.

What a difference right? The room has changed quite a bit but that is still my cats favorite spot! 

And I know that Christmas is over but I just had to show the new stockings I purchased from Mountain Momma Designs on Etsy. Aren't they perfection? 

Part Two of Dining Room Reveal

First I want to start by saying THANK YOU all so much for all of the wonderful comments on part one of my dining room reveal! You gals have truly made me feel embraced by the blogger world!

Okay on to the second part of the big reveal!

The above picture shows the entrance into the living room from the dining room. That was one solid wall when we bought the house. At one point our big old farmhouse had been converted into two residencies, we had to make it into one house again for our mortgage to go through,which was our plan anyways. My Dad and husband had to connect the two residencies, but we didn't even own the place yet. I thought long and hard about what would make sense and flow design wise. I am glad to this day that I choose this wall for the passageway. I love the way the rooms lead into each other, I am on the search for salvaged french doors to put there.

The original passageway which had been closed up, is in the room behind the closed door below, which is now our guest bedroom. Most of the walls in our house were in good shape when we removed all of the paneling but the one seen below was in awful shape. I had to drywall it and then skimcoat over that. I am not a fan of drywall but sometimes it is your only option when renovating. To make it match the original plaster and lathe walls I always do a very heavy skimcoat with light weight plaster. I had no idea what I was doing when I first started but I learned as I went. I am all for diving into something. It all comes down to the sanding, lots and lots of sanding. Its so messy but so worth it.

As you can see I am not quite ready to give up on the greenery from Christmas. Our winters here are very "white" and I just love that little bit of color that natural things like garland and little pine trees bring to the room.

My mom gave me the cupboard pictured below, she had to get something bigger to hold my Dads very large collection of books. It is from an old shop and my mom snagged it for a song. I love it and was so excited when she passed it onto me, and it is just the right size for some of my ironstone collection.

I wallpapered the back of it with some French toile that my mom had leftover from a bathroom. It is very subtle and adds the perfect backdrop to the white ironstone. It wouldn't stick however, so my sister told me to try mixing flour and water. Worked like a charm!

Below is a printers box that hold things I bought at flea markets as a little girl. My mom started taking me to flea markets at a very young age, and I loved them from the start!

And to answer some questions about the pillows on my couch...

The smaller ticking pillows on the ends are actually vintage Italian military pillow cases that I just folded over. I bought the cases from Spring Hill Farm on Etsy, it is a wonderful shop.

 And the larger striped pillow is from Big Lots! I just found it the other day, they had red too! I was so excited I wanted to walk around and say to people "Look they have grain sack inspired pillows, for $15"!

A big thank you to Melanie from Rusticfarmhouse.blogspot.com and Linsey from Farmhouseporch.blogspot.com for featuring me on their Facebook pages!