Viburnum Snowballs, Springfield Recap and Shop Updates

I am so sorry it has been so long since my last post but you guys know how busy Spring is for us! Between getting ready for the Springfield Show , getting everything moved out of what was to be our shop and all of the yard work that needs to be done this time of year we haven't had a spare moment lately. I have so many things I want to share with you and just never enough time!

Our yard is alive with spring blooms and my viburnum is bigger than ever this year and covered with snowballs. I love these flowers so much that I can't help but put them literally everywhere.

I also wanted to share our new sign that I hung on our front porch. I have a running search on ebay for antique signs and when I saw this one show up in my email I knew it was just perfect for the front porch. I love the way it looks with the black writing on white and what it says makes me giggle when I see it.

Decorating the inside of the house is so easy this time of year...a giant jar or vase of flowers and you are all set.

I also wanted to share with you guys some pictures of our booth at the Springfield, Ohio Antique Extravaganza. I was so busy this time I hardly got any pictures with my camera but if you visit my Instagram Stories you can see many images of our booth.

As usual we had the most wonderful time and it was our most successful show to date! I absolutely love getting to meet all of you that come to say hi and shop and catching up with all of you that come every year! Sooo many of you went out of your way to give me your condolences about the shop and also your encouragement in finding a new one, that means more to me than you could ever know.

As far as finding a new shop location, it is not as easy as one would think. We can't find anything that fits our needs that is already deemed retail.  PA Labor and Industry laws are very strict regarding retail shops and as I mentioned in my last post we have found a building that we are trying to make work. It is an early 1900's general store and it goes without saying it is my absolute dream shop. It is only 30 minutes from our house and I never even knew it existed until we started searching for old buildings that could be commercial. Just as I expected we are being faced with one obstacle after another and I have to be realistic about the fact that it just may not end up working out. That being said I just honestly can't believe this building that is everything I ever dreamed of is sitting there empty and that it is not meant to be ours.

It is a hard thing to explain but I was always very careful of letting myself think too much on the whole shop thing until I knew it was something I actually tangibly had because I knew it would be so painful to let myself mentally plan it all and have nowhere to put those plans. Well after thinking I had one I did let myself start to imagine exactly how I wanted it all to look and now there is no going back. Raising my children has always been my number one priority and I put a lot of my dreams/goals on the back burner so that I could do it properly but lately I have been feeling it is time for me to start working towards some of my own personal career goals. Also, Millie will be starting pre-school in the fall so the timing seemed right. I had finally decided to take that leap and then it was all taken away from me so now I am left feeling sad and lost in a way I have never felt before. I am sure some people wonder why this is all such a big deal to me but it is my passion and I love bringing beauty to people with my images, ideas and hopefully some day soon housewares from my own shop. I truly feel like it is what I am meant to do.
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I bought lots of goodies at the Springfield Extravaganza and have been listing them in my etsy shop over the past week. I came home with tons of ironstone, there is always so much of it there and no ones seems to be buying it, fine by me. My friend Kristine (@farmhousegreen) and I spend every spare seconding running around looking for it! I still have a lot more to list and will hopefully get to it all next week before we leave for our annual schools out camping trip.

Thank you all so much for your continued support and for listening to me vent...hopefully greener pastures are just around the corner.

Springfield Recap, Viburnum and Porch Reno Start

The Springfield, Ohio Antique Show  was a big success and we had such a wonderful time! Thank you to all of my followers that stopped in to say hello and shop!

We are definitely learning more each time we go, we didn't have any of our tents fly away this time thanks to the awesome weights Neal made.  And I am starting to get the booth looking more the way I want it.  I found some really awesome pieces at the show to use in my booth each time, like the door pictured above. I knew I wanted a door for the center of our booth but it had to be just the right one. There are thousands of old doors at the Springfield Show and I figured I would find one eventually. Ironically the perfect one, with chippy creamy white paint, was two spots down from us and I spotted it on Saturday morning. It was the exact height I needed it to be too, I love when stuff comes together!

Most of the bigger pieces I took sold first thing Friday morning, like this adorable dresser, I had so many staging plans for this piece too! Neal had to run out and find me another table because so many of our pieces sold quickly, hey I'm not complaining!

We had so many people that wanted to buy our aprons, which my sister makes,  so we will definitely be selling those at the fall Extravaganza!

I can't thank my family enough for being so awesome and for being SUCH a giant help!!! We have the best time together and I feel so lucky to have them.

The Farmhouse soaps were a major hit and we sold all of the ones we had with us. We will definitely have way more of those for the fall show. The fall Springfield Extravaganza dates are September 16th, 17th and 18th...so make your arrangements now!!!

I sold enough stuff at the show that you can actually see the floor in my work area again. My work/etsy area seen below with the sink is off of the guest bedroom and was originally built as an in-law suite. It is where I store all of my inventory so it looks a little bit like "Hoarders" sometimes but I definitely hope to take some pictures of the whole space and show it to you sometime soon (something I promised a long time ago I know).

This room with this amazing old sink is one of the reasons I fell in love with our farmhouse. Eventually this will be our master bathroom (the guestroom will become our master bedroom) but the ductwork in this part of the house needs to be redone so until we can afford to redo that we have to patiently wait.

My viburnum bush produced more blossums than ever this year and they look just perfect in big ironstone pitchers don't they?

As far as the house goes we started work on the front porch this week!!!

This smoke covered eyesore has been driving me crazy for 7 long years now and I couldn't wait to get my crowbar out!

Good news is I found the original clapboard completely intact under the aluminum siding, the bad news is that I found crumbling plaster and lath under the aluminum ceiling. I was really hoping to find some original beadboard or just old wood planks of wood, oh well. We hope to get all of the plaster and lath down this weekend. We are going to finish taking off all of the siding along the front before we decide what kind of ceiling we want to do. 

Stay tuned to see more of the progress and to see all of the awesome things I bought for the house at Springfield!

I Need A Clone

I think I said the same thing last year at this time but Spring always makes me wish I had a clone. That way one of me could work outside and one of me could work inside. There is always so much to do this time of year and just not enough hours in the day. I LOVE working out in my yard and have spent the last week edging, weeding and mulching. What I don't love is coming in at 7 in the evening and having all the dirt that was tracked in stick to your feet because you haven't had time to wash the floor in the last couple of days and having the piles of stuff you bought at the flea market scattered all about. Needless to say I don't have much time for blogging in the Spring. And I wish I did because I have found so many great things over the past couple of weeks that I am dying to share with you guys. I have really lucked out at estate sales and the flea market, lots of stuff to sell and lots of stuff to keep:)

Here is some the stuff I bought at the flea market yesterday.

When I am not working outside I have been working on getting Eli's new room painted so that I can start the baby's room. In the meantime I have a huge pile of stuff accumulating outside the nursery and I can't wait to get started on it!

Here is a sneak peek at some of the items I have for the baby's room.

My viburnum is in full bloom so I made sure I found the time to take some pictures of the beautiful blossoms. 

I am also making some finishing touches to my sewing/craft room so that I can share it with you sometime soon so stay tuned for that! 

And MANY THANKS to Jennifer over at Town and Country Living for featuring our home in her Charming Farmhouse Series! What an unbelievable honor!