Farmhouse Inspiration ~ Monograms And A Touch Of Fall

Hello friends and happy September! This post is about two of my favorite things that I absolutely love incorporating into our farmhouse... monograms and fall decor.

 I have been adding some subtle touches of fall to the house in the hopes that the cooler weather will soon make it's way to us! Yesterday and today have been on the chilly side but otherwise we have been in the high 80's and 90's as far as temperatures go and I am just really ready for those cool windy fall days!

Antiques with monograms, especially linens, are something that I always search for when I hit estate sales, flea markets and thrift stores.

This pillow that my talented friend Mel from Rustic Farmhouse Wares made is one my new favorite monogrammed pieces. I love thinking about the women that sat and made these pieces and wondering what their day or life may have been like.

Of course monogrammed antiques are something I will try to keep the shop stocked with as well!
And speaking of the shop we officially have a GRAND OPENING DATE....OCTOBER 13TH!!! Because of the age of the building we are not going to have to do quite as much work to operate as originally thought, which is what we where hoping for. If there is anything I hate it is when people buy a historic building and then take all of the history out of it! We actually aren't allowed to make any changes to the building, not because it is historic or old sadly, but because it would put us in different permit category according to the state. Good for us though, and good for the building!

We have been working day and night at the shop to get it ready for the big day! I absolutely can not wait to share with you guys what we have going on behind these doors! Hopefully many of you will be coming to see for yourself! So many of you have messaged me already that you will be there! Doors will open at 11 AM! Please visit our Facebook page or farmhousesupply.net for store hours and other details! Also, if you would like to be on our mailing list please email me (link in sidebar) with your address and I will send you shop information about when we will be having events and open houses.

I know I will be seeing many of you this weekend at the Springfield, Ohio Antique Extravaganza! And then after that we have the Vintage Market Days Nashville "Spirit of Christmas" Show Nov. 30th, Dec. 1st and 2nd! We have been wanting to do a Christmas show for many years now so we are soooo excited about it!


Hopefully I will be back on here soon with some images of the inside of the shop...thanks for following along and stay tuned!

Springfield Recap 2017 and Some Fall Touches

Greetings! I am sure that you can tell from my absence here in blogland that we have been quite busy. If we aren't working on things for all of the antique shows we have then we have been busy trying to get our master bedroom done (more on that in another post). The Springfield Antique Extravaganza was a blast as usual and we didn't have any rain for the first time ever!

We had quite the turn out and sold so much but of course we came home with some goodies too. I bought the gorgeous hutch top seen below and once some of the furniture we took sold we put it in the booth for display. I also bought tons of linens, lots of ironstone and a beautiful quilt for when our master bedroom is done. Hopefully I will eventually have the time to share what I bought in another post.

Between the work we are doing upstairs on what will be the master bedroom and all of the stuff piled up for our upcoming antique shows the house looks like a bomb went off and it is driving me a little crazy, who am I kidding it is driving me nuts! These are the times that I hope nobody stops by...I would be mortified! Our dining room literally looks like a storage unit! This seems to be a reoccuring problem for me every fall because we are always doing major reno this time of year on top of everything else we have going on! You guys know how much I hate clutter...but I keep telling myself that without the money I make from the antique shows I won't ever be able to afford the workshop/storage area that I dream of so I just have to grin and bear it for the time being and stick to my goals!

Despite the state most of the house is in I have started to add some little touches of fall in the areas that are some what neat.

Our next antique show is Antiques On The Lake right here in our home town Edinboro, PA this Saturday, September 30th at the Taylor Antique Mall in the Lakeside Commons on 6N. The antique show will be outside and it is the one year anniversary of the antique mall so there is an open house inside. I hope some of you can come and shop, there are so many goodies in this antique mall...I think I end up buying as much as I sell there!

Then after that we have The Vintage Market's Hocus Pocus Show in Monroe Michigan Oct. 7th and 8th!! We are super excited about this one as it is our first Michigan show!! I really hope some of you can make it to that one, there will be lots of goodies, great food and live music!!


Make sure you are following me on Instagram @Farmhouse5540 for daily inspiration, videos of our booths and videos of our renovations!!

Polder's Giveaway Winner, More Farmhouse Autumn, and a Porch Sneak Peek!

A big thank you to all of you that entered the Polder's Old World Market giveaway!!! I don't blame you guys for being so excited about this one, these handmade utensils are just sooo beautiful that I could photograph them till the cows came home.

Something that is so beautiful and that can be used on a daily basis is exactly what farmhouse style is all about in my book. Soooo....onto to the winner of these gorgeous utentsils.....

Mary (with username JeannieKay) you are the winner!!! Congratulations and please email me at MSBrokman@gmail.com so that Polders can send you your winnings!!!

Thought I would share a couple more pictures of the farmhouse decorated for fall. In the family room I have kept things simple with white quilts, some fall stems in a crock I just bought on recent shopping trip and lots of white candles.

And here is a little sneak peek of the front porch!!! We have worked tirelessly on it the last couple of weeks, even in the rainy 40 degree weather. We still have some things to finish and I have to do about 3 more coats of paint on the original clapboard siding but I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am to finally after 7 years have a cute front porch!!! Now that is not to say that the rest of the exterior looks good, because it sure doesn't at this point, but at least this little area does!!!

If it ever stops raining I will take photos of the whole thing and do post about it all!!! In the meantime stay warm and cozy friends!!!

Clapboard Siding

Oh happy day! We have one little section of our house sided with clapboard!

Neal and Eli worked hard all fall to get the siding up on this section of our house.

We are using cedar siding intermixed with pieces of the original clapboard siding that we have been trying to salvage as we go. Sadly the original clapboard is so old and brittle that most of it breaks as we remove it from the house so we only get a good piece here and there.

I filled the holes in the original clapboard (the blue pieces) with wood filler and then sanded them. Once I had it all painted with Glidden's paint color "White on White" you could not tell the difference between the two types.

The above picture shows why the original clapboard is in such bad shape. Unfortunately it was covered not only with one layer of fiber cement board but then aluminum on top of that trapping inside years of water damage that lead to moisture build up and rot. Oh how I wish that the previous owners had just left it wood siding. The worst thing you can do to an old house is put layer upon layer of materials because you will inevitably cause moisture build up. On top of it you can't see what areas are being damaged or rotting. Both the inside of our farmhouse and the exterior had that done to them. You can see the new wood that we put up on the right side of the above picture. The day that we have all of the aluminum and cement board siding off of the house will be the greatest day in my book.

This little side porch is all we can afford to do for now though. I promise to show this side of the house in it's entirety at some point but right now it is a work in progress. This is not our front door but it is the way most people come in because it is where our driveway comes up to.  This whole area was a rotting screen porch that we tore off. I will show before and afters someday and you won't believe the difference.

Just like everywhere else we have renovated so far we tried to save every penny possible. The door was free from a family friend. I  painted it "Porch Gray" by Better Homes and Gardens. To me it is the perfect door color because it goes with everything. Right now it looks great with the pumpkins but come Christmas it will go nicely with green and red and then come spring it compliments all of our purple bushes and flowers.

The window was $20 at a garage sale and matches with the rest of the double hung windows we have put in. And the light (from Walmart)  is just like the one in our bathroom but only made for exteriors and comes on at dusk and goes off at dawn. Isn't that genius! No more coming home to a dark house!

I was so excited to have a cute porch to put pumpkins on this year. As I explained the exterior of our house is in rough shape and I always felt like any seasonal decorating I did out here was like putting lipstick on a pig. But now at least I have this one little area that I can make cute.

Sadly when it came time to do the trim work out here we had nothing to go on because almost all of the original trim has been removed from our house. And when I went to research what measurement pre-1900 farmhouse trim would have been I found almost nothing. I wanted it to look substantial but not too bulky so we went with five inch casings around the windows and door. Then Neal added a drip edge to the tops of the trim to give it that authentic old house feel.

We don't have railings up yet but definitely by next summer because our little Millie will be learning to walk by then!