Autumn Guest Bedroom

I wanted to share with you some recent changes that I made to our guest room. I'll start with the amazing doors seen pictured below. I bought them at the flea market this past summer and Neal is going to make a cupboard for them but for now I just have them propped against the bookcase in here. They are just too pretty to be hidden away until the day Neal will actually have the time to make the cupboard. To say I LOVE them would be an understatement!

The mirror is a thrift store buy from years back and has been in our garage up until two days ago. I just never liked it, it was brown with pink flowers and I tried selling it multiple times to no avail.  I thought people loved these kinds of mirrors, but I guess not around here. Anyways it worked out because I needed something long for above the bed and I painted it "Bone Folder" by Martha Stewart and now I actually love it.

I folded an antique piece of French ticking over and placed it at the foot of the bed. I just can't get enough French ticking....why is so hard to find reproduction French ticking!!!

I wanted to cozy up the bedding a little bit and wanted some linens that had a little bit of tan and red in them. I found the plaid sheets and pillow cases at Walmart actually, they are sold individually so even if you just wanted to add some color with your pillow cases you could.

The 100% linen dust ruffle was a $1 at the Goodwill...I am quite excited about that find! And the wooden bed frame was recent yard sale find. You can see it pictured below in all its beauty.

It had this hideous center panel that was faux wood but the rest is solid wood and super well made (and super heavy, I had to carry it quite far to my car). I figured I could work around the faux wood and bought it for $8. Turns out it was attached with screws so I just unscrewed it and had Neal cut a piece of scrap wood to fit in place of it.

I then painted it Martha Stewarts "Bone Folder", it is one of my favorite go to whites.

I found the wicker hamper at Letchworth Barn Antiques on a recent road trip...it is the perfect hiding place for my husbands dirty work shirts till I can get to them. I stacked some of my slow growing collection of red and white linens on top.

Not much different on the other side of the room, I changed the mirror and placed some ironstone and an antique basket with French linens on the dresser. I feel I achieved my goal of cozying it up in here. Who says autumn has to be orange?

*** I have been getting lots of emails about my wall colors, in this room walls and floors are painted "Sisal" by Martha Stewart available at Home Depot.

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!