Autumn Guest Room Sneak Peek

Making some little changes to our guest room....stay tuned!

A Productive Weekend

Thanks to some absolutely beautiful weather here this past weekend we were able to accomplish quite a lot.

I finally got the porch painted for one thing.

I had picked up two different "Mistint/Oops" clearance stains that I thought might work. I knew I wanted the color to compliment Neal's stone work so it needed to be a grayish tan. The one stain I bought was too gray and the other was too tan...so I mixed them together and came up the color you see on the wood below.

The color is sort of sort of gray, sort of blue and sort of green, just like stone can be and I love the way they look together.  I plan to show you the whole thing eventually but keep in mind right now this part of our house is covered in Tyvek...not picture worthy. I sit out here quite often though and can't help but make things cozy...Tyvek or not.

I am trying to save every penny for the Siding/Fireplace fund so the fact that everything out here was super cheap is a major bonus. The Pottery Barn pillow and lap quilt were both a dollar, yes a dollar, at the rummage sale I go to all the time. The tote with the pumpkins was $2 at Marshalls, probably because it was an awful purple color, and I painted it Whispering Wheat. The bushel basket was $1 at the flea market, along with the red watering can. And being married to the assistant principal has its perks because you get the left over mums from Homecoming:)

Another thing I accomplished was covering the cinder block foundation with a mortar compound. We really want to put up a stone veneer but that is not possible right now and the three different types of cinder block, some painted and some not, was driving me crazy. My goal is for this back part of our house to look cohesive because due to many additions and different owners "ideas" it did not when we purchased it.

Here I am with my mortar, this was quite a fun process I must say...and it was the most beautiful warm day, not a cloud in the sky, one of those days that makes you so thankful for everything. Six hours later my back was a hurtin' but I got it all covered.

 My son was also busy at work putting mortar on his own little house:)

While we did that Neal planed the floor from the back room/kitchen. 

150 years of grime and paint....

stripped off with a 12 inch Planer.

The wood looked like this before...

and like this after 4 or 5 times through the planer. I will be staining it to match the kitchen floor.

Hopefully it won't be too long before we can lay the floor back down and get the dry wall up. Stay tuned!

Farmhouse Autumn Continues

The autumn decorating continues...hope you aren't sick of it yet!

Yesterday I got the most wonderful package in the mail from Sun Prairie, an Etsy shop that I ordered some wonderful closeout sale items from. Everything was beautifully wrapped with hand made tags describing the items, I love attention to detail like that. The beautiful butter mold and the white tote full of pumpkins are two of the three things that I purchased. Old, simple, primitive items...nothing makes me happier!

And I finally had the time to scrub (although they already have cobwebs on them again, its that time of year) and bring inside two amazing chairs that I picked up at the flea market this summer. I bought them from one of my favorite sellers and he said that he found them in a barn in pieces and put them back together...aren't they beauties? I always bundle with this seller because he always has so many amazing things so I am not sure but I think the chairs were less than $10 a piece.

This little white chair is a $2 thrift store find and is the perfect size for my son, or a pumpkin depending:)

A mostly ironstone and natural elements mantle seemed the way to go this year. My pin oaks are just starting to change color so I cut some yesterday and placed them in an ironstone pitcher.

And I just can't get enough of the little white pumpkins! 

A Farmhouse Autumn

No time to talk:)

This perfect for autumn sconce is available for purchase in my Etsy shop.

Hope you are all having a great autumn so far! 

Baskets

Isn't it funny how sometimes you can run into one of your favorite stores and not find a single thing and then another day you come out with a cart full of goodies? This happened to me the other day when I ran into Gabriels, a discount department store in our area. I only ran into look for one thing when I spotted this basket...

with a $5 price tag! I was so excited!

And then I rounded the corner and saw this basket...

a reproduction primitive basket in the most perfect blue/gray color and a french ticking inspired lining!

They had three sizes but I had to draw the line somewhere so I only bought the large and medium size ones. I knew the large one would be just perfect on top of our step-back cupboard.

And as I was trying to make my way out of the store I saw this beautiful $12 blanket sitting on an end cap, still with the original boutique hand written tag on it! It is perfect for those chilly autumn nights and is also that perfect blue/gray color. I placed in a thrift store find antique basket on a flea market stool.

You should have seen me trying to juggle all this stuff, since I thought I was just running in I didn't get a cart, I should know better:) I also bought a giant $7 red ticking stripe pillow that I will show later.

I have started to add some autumn decoration to this room and this antique footed bowl, which is also a recent thrift store find, is the perfect contrast for some white pumpkins.

I am tickled with all of my recent finds and excited that is officially autumn. What I am not so tickled with is that our tractor, dryer and just as of today my vacuum are all broken! I guess bad things do happen in threes!

HAPPY AUTUMN!

Fall Dining Room

It definitely feels like fall in our neck of the woods, the leaves are falling and the nights have been in the 30's, so I thought it was time to add some touches of fall to our dining room.

I started the table with 3 yards of off-white burlap that I simply just folded over. I then found this beautiful buttery yellow heavy weight fabric at Walmart for $2.50 a yard that I thought would add the perfect amount of color to the table and also give it a layered look at the same time.

I then added lots of little pumpkins placed in ironstone dishes, some golden rod and candles, as I wanted (as usual) to keep it simple.

I bought the rusty sap bucket at the Brooklyn Flea for $5 this summer and it is the perfect size for holding more golden rod. One of my favorite flea market finds from this summer is the large basket with the white pumpkins in it that cost $8, what a steal!

I also wanted to share some of the very thoughtful presents that my family got me this year for my birthday. My husband and son bought me the adorable shabby carrier that I just happened to have the perfect size glasses for. My parents bought me the cute little rustic bucket, and I recently found the tea leaf ironstone platter at the thrift store.

We have made great progress in our kitchen/great room renovation in the last couple weeks. This past weekend we got the sheathing and house wrap up and put our new windows in! I am so excited to be able to see into our back yard from the kitchen now! We changed our minds about the wood stove though, we are going to have a real fireplace installed instead. It will be the first thing we pay someone to do since we have lived here.  It will take lots and lots of saving though so that won't be done until next summer at the earliest. But my husband and I want more than anything to have a real wood burning fireplace so it will be worth the wait.

And I wanted to a say a HUGE thank you to my sister-in-law for designing my blog banner! You are the best Em!