Ironstone and Tyvek

I am trying to build on my ironstone collection without spending lots of money...and that takes patience. Well it paid off because I recently found two great deals. I bought the bowl shown above at a great price at an antique store in Corry Pa. And the tureen I found at a thrift store for only $7!

I like discolored ironstone pieces better than the pure white ones. Both of these pieces have a wonderful discoloration.

As far as renovations go we are making great progress on the screen porch. We have the Tyvek up and Neal started removing the roof today...hurray!

Don't worry it will not be this ugly for much longer.

Some Things Pretty Others Not So Much

The hot weather is officially here...which means I spend just about all of my day outside (even as I write this post I am outside). Evenings are absolutely beautiful here and I love to set up a pretty spread to take outside and enjoy.

And on the not so beautiful side of things we took out the ugly kitchen windows yesterday!

I can not even begin to tell you how happy that makes me because I have hated those windows from day one of owning this house! There are a lot of things that I am obsessed with making better in our old farm house but I have a "must address soon list" and those were at the top of it! Don't worry they were not original windows, they were ugly 1970's windows that were painted shut. Another must address thing is that screen porch roof you can see in the picture above, but that can't come off until we get the side of the house covered in OSB and house wrap. Neal, my husband, got the new windows in after buying them, returning them and buying them again. Why you ask...because when I opened the box I didn't see any grille/mullion holes. And we bought the kind of windows that the grilles snap onto. I absolutely did not want windows that did not have grilles or mullions on them. I was dissapointed enough that we couldn't afford the special order windows with the muntins actually separating the window panes. So Neal headed back to The Depot to return the windows and buy the ones that do have holes for snap on grilles, just to find out that you can put grilles on the ones we had already bought. See this is how things go for us, we never get through one project without a hitch! But all is well that ends well.  Pics of the new windows to come!

Old windows exterior view

My Parents Beautiful Yard

I wanted to share my parents beautiful yard with you.

It took many many years of them working very hard....

but clearly so worth it!

Repurposed

From when we first bought our house I knew that I wanted to use salvaged materials as much as possible in the restoring process. Whenever I find something that we can repurpose I buy it even if we are no where near renovating the room that I have it in mind for. The light below is a good example of that. I bought it at a yard sale for $5. It is truly a beauty and they just don't make things like this anymore! If there is anything I hate it is having to go to a giant home store and having to buy a cheaply made expensive cookie cutter light. This light had to be rewired but my husband was up for the challenge.

We also made our closet doors in the mudroom out of salvaged materials....the falling down chicken coop we tore down last summer provided us with some awesome 140 year old plank boards. We couldn't afford to buy wood to make the giant closet doors so my husband built plank doors with it.

Another repurposed item in this room is the awesome basket that I found at my favorite shop Yesterday's Best. It was only $15 and I use it to stash all those plastic bags that one accumulates. It is a great place to store them until I get them to the recycling.

  Below is the shelf that my dad built..I attached lots of hooks so that our  guests have a place to hang their coats.

Screen Porch Demo

Okay don't be scared but this is what I am currently working on. I have spent a good portion of my spring demo-ing this badly built and very rotten screen porch. I could go on forever about why this area drives me crazy (too many angles, crooked chipping concrete floor, moldy roof and beams, ugly, etc.) but I won't. Clearly I need my husbands help to remove the roof...hopefully soon.

But it is not all bad...I did find the original blue siding from when the house was built in 1867! We will have to remove it but don't worry I will repurpose it somehow! One of my recent obsessions is The Bronson Pinchot Project on DIY. Aside from the awesome ideas I get from him, he makes me feel like anything is possible and that I am not the only person in the world obsessed with saving old farmhouses!

I will post more pictures as we progress.

I also wanted to show my newest fabric finds!

Good old fashioned blue and white ticking, linen, and french inspired ticking. Head to Ikea if you are looking for some really beautiful french inspired fabrics at a great price!

Good Day!

Old Trunk New Storage

The last time I went to the flea market I found some really awesome deals on things that I have been on the search for lately. I found a beautiful old trunk for $10 which I had been looking for to use as a coffee table in my living room/dining room. I was making my third round through the flea market when my eyes spotted the trunk.  How had I missed this the first two times through? Maybe because the lid was upholstered in the most horrid material that smelled strongly of smoke...yuck. But I could see that the trunk had true potential and the seller only wanted $10 for it, which was all that I had left in my wallet, it was meant to be! I couldn't say that I would take it fast enough!

As soon as I got the trunk home I started ripping off the fabric (two nasty layers of it) and what did I find but old writing! Its actually an address....

I can't tell you how excited I was because I didn't know what I was going to find once I took the gross fabric off. Inside the trunk was also upholstered in the same gross fabric and underneath that I found newspaper from 1912! I scrubbed the whole thing multiple times and let it air out on my porch. It has finally found its new home as our coffee table. I was looking for a trunk for this room because our furniture has to do double duty as storage since our old farmhouse does not have many closets. And it came on casters so I can move it around easily.

I love the way it looks in the room. My sister bought me the beautiful chicken wire basket for Mother's Day and I got the shoe form at the flea market for $1. On the back of the couch is the antique french linen sheet with my initials on it that my sister bought me at the Country Living Fair. Yes my sister buys me lots of very nice things.

I really love the way the wood tones, off whites and blues come together in this room.

I am on the quest to find the perfect blue and white quilt for napping on the couch, in the meantime I have some beautiful window pane fabric from KittredgeMercantile, one of my favorite Etsy shops.

Hope this inspired you!