Warming Things Up

I like to wait until after Thanksgiving to decorate for Christmas but Novembers here feel like winter so I like to add some warmth to each room with blankets, candles, warm lighting and subtle touches of red here and there throughout the house.

The cold weather and snow always gets me in cleaning/rearranging/make things cozy mode and so I have been doing just that. I moved the big card catalog that my Dad gave me out of the dining room (I will share where I put it in another post) as I was wanting something with more height to hold some of my ironstone. Then I remembered that I had just bought this beautiful hutch top from my friend Kristin. I had been planning on using it for a display at the shop but when I went out to look at it in the garage where it was patiently waiting I knew it would be just perfect for the dining room.

I painted the outside Behr's Cottage White and left the inside the original paint. I love the way it turned out and it is the perfect size for some of my bigger ironstone bowls.

You would never believe with all of the sun that pours into these windows in the morning that it was so bitter cold out there!

I am loving the new vintage style dish rack that I recently got from farmhousewares.com. With all of the baking that I do this time of year it really has been coming in handy! I love that I can have stuff drying on the top and on the bottom.

In the master bedroom I added a down comforter to the end of the bed (a must this time of year) and a soft monogrammed grain sack over a king size down pillow to cozy it up. It sure is hard to get out from under that down comforter on these cold mornings though! The rug on the floor helps with that a little bit... keeping my feet off of the cold ground until I get my slippers on.

I hope this post finds you well and that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving if you live in America!

And don't forget our shop Christmas Open House is Saturday November 24th from 11 to 5! The link to our shop website is in the sidebar and it has the shop address and regular hours information!

Farmhouse Supply Opens and Is On The News!

Well you guys the last month has been an absolute dream come true for me!!! The grand opening of our shop on October 13th was a huge success and from that day on I have had to pinch myself every time I get there and turn this OPEN sign around. I just truly can't believe it. A year ago if you had told me any of this I would have never believed you.

I am so thankful to my hard working and supportive family for helping me reach this life goal of mine.

So many of you have driven many miles to come visit the shop in the short amount of time we have been open and that means the world to me. Equally heart warming is the amount of amazing feedback we have been getting from the community. The many people coming in to share their stories and what they know about this historic building are blown away by what we have done inside to restore it back to what it would have looked like originally. So many of them think that it is the original counter and everything...that makes me think we must have done a good job!

I have been thoroughly enjoying working on all of the displays and moving things around as stuff sells....I lay in bed at night my head swirling with ideas and I can't tell you how good it feels after a year filled with a lot of tears and depression to finally have a place to make all of these ideas come to life.

I also have a list about a mile long of the things people have come in and asked me to find for them! What a lucky gal I am! I have dreamed of this all for so long and I have to admit it feels amazing to actually be doing it.

I was pleasantly surprised last week by the local news calling and saying they wanted to do a follow up story on us! They came out that afternoon and the news story actually aired this evening while I was writing up this post! If you would like to see the story and some more of the shop here is the link to the story  http://www.erienewsnow.com/story/39421046/linesville-retailer-opens-following-removal-of-massive-beehives

Our next big event at the shop will be our Christmas Open House on Small Business Saturday November 24th from 11 to 5! We will have refreshments, snacks, cookies and Christmas goodies galore! For more information such as address and hours please visit our website farmhousesupply.net or our Facebook page!

And don't forget if you live in the Nashville area we will be at Vintage Market Days Nashville November 30, December 1 and 2nd! I hope to see some of you there! Many thanks to all of you that have been following along for so long now, I know you know how much all this means to me!

Springfield Recap and Shop Pictures

Wow you guys time has been flying by...more so than ever!!! I guess because we have been spending every minute working to get the shop ready. I wanted to share some of what we have been working on at the shop but first I thought I would share some of our booth from the Springfield Extravaganza this year.

As always we had such a wonderful time and it was great to see so many of you and catch up with our Springfield friends. This was the first show we have ever done there that it didn't rain one time!!! It was so weird to walk back into our booth every morning and have everything be dry! I am sure it will never happen again so we really tried to enjoy it! It was unbearably hot though, so hot that I could hardly summon the energy to walk around and shop. I did walk around a bit on Saturday though and found some wonderful goodies. It is even more fun to go out look for goodies at flea markets and antique shows now that I have shop to bring everything back to!

This gorgeous white cupboard filled with farmhouse goods made for one my favorite displays yet.

As soon as we got back from Ohio it was straight back to work getting the shop ready for the big grand opening October 13th!!! Here is a peek at some of what we have been working on!

The front is coming together just like I envisioned. This historic building sat vacant for so long that I think a lot of locals had forgotten the beauty it held so I wanted to add bright vibrant colors to the porch to catch people's eye again as they quickly drove past. I also want the community to know that it is a store once more and feel a warm welcome as they come in.

Inside you will find the calm creamy whites that I never tire of as I find they make the perfect backdrop for all of the seasons while making things cozy and cohesive at the same time.

I chose to leave the floors as is...100 plus years of scratches and all. I love thinking of the things that people would have bought that made those scratches or the store owner that moved heavy barrels here or there.

I am thoroughly enjoying the fact that the shop is large enough for me to create fun set ups like this kids bedroom I made in the one corner. I have to admit it has been hard for me to sleep lately with all of the ideas I have swirling in my head...and trying to remember where I put this or that that I know would be just perfect here or there in the shop doesn't help!

The railroad use to run through this tiny town (which is just houses now as everything else has been demolished) and this was the place to stop and get any of the essentials/general goods needed. This week we are working on recreating the shelving that would have originally lined the walls and held those goods. Luckily enough we found the original drawers upstairs in the building and were able to bring them back downstairs.

Recreating the store shelving is probably the project that I am most excited about here at the shop. I have dreamed of having a shop in a general store for so long but I honestly thought we would just have to find a generic looking shop and then make it look like a general store. Never would I have imagined that we would actually find a general store and I feel beyond blessed and fortunate to have this amazing opportunity to restore it. So walking in now seeing these grand shelves that I get to fill with all of the goods I search high and low for is a really big moment in my life. I am still waiting for someone to come knock on the window and say we aren't aloud to operate or something!

A little peek at the counter...more pictures of it soon.....I absolutely love the way it turned out. Pretty soon it is going to be lined with big glass jars filled with candy...Millie can't wait to help me with that part!

My drive to the shop seems to just get prettier and prettier as the leaves have started to change color. The road I take there is lined with one Amish farm after another and I am continuously inspired by the gentle and utilitarian beauty of their homes and farms. I am so excited that we are having our grand opening in the fall...it just seems like the perfect timing.

Also on the to do list this week is getting our shop name and our hours on the window, putting many pieces of big furniture in place and getting the goods on the shelves!!!  There is a lot more that I would love to have done before we open but there is just no way we will be able to get to it all! That's okay...I am just beyond grateful to call this little peace of heaven ours! I know many of you are planning on coming for the big day and I absolutely can't wait to hear what you guys think about this amazing building and all that we have done to it!!!

GRAND OPENING
Saturday October 13th 11 AM to 5 PM
5750 West Center Road
Linesville, PA
16424