Home Tour

Hello every buddy!

Recently Laura came over and did something I've been wanting to do for a very long time - took pictures of our home!

In the past I've shied away from this.  Even taking the "before" pictures so I could have "after" pictures just felt so pretentious to me.  Why?  I don't know - I'm overly cautious and sensitive at times.  I thought if I did this, it might act as some sort of shrine and testament to our work...  It might seem like I'm trying to boast in any "decorating skill" I have...  I didn't want to give people the wrong idea that I fancied myself some sort of house artist that was keeping a portfolio...

And then it came to me:  I needed to seriously take some sticks out of somewhere and lighten up.  It's just a silly house and some stupid pictures.

So here they are guys!  We'll start out with the living room.

Come on in - you can crank the old doorbell for fun, but it doesn't work anymore.

You saw that top picture yesterday.  (And to see before and after pictures, visit yesterday's post)  That is the view looking in from the window.  The color of this paint is "Pale Honey" - I have joked many times before that it is easy to remember because it reminds me of my husband - he is my pale honey.

If you can see it well enough in the picture, that hook below the mirror is a hand coming out of the wall.  I have been asked many times before where we got it - and it's from Urban Outfitters.

This mirror (above) was taken from my childhood dresser.  You do not want to know what kind of massacre is behind that mirror to get it up there.  It is very heavy, and thus, harder to mount.

I was teasing Laura that the collage up there is a shrine to her photography.  Every picture up there is one she took.  The painting is also from a dear DEAR friend, Holly.  The plaque that hangs from the shelf sat in my grandparents house for many years.  Needless to say, this is a very special and cherished collection to us.

If you're wondering, I'm not a huge fan of ALL the turquoise anymore.  The shelves used to be an olive green, and they really are worlds better than they used to be, but if we were staying in this house, I think I would have painted them white eventually.  I am always trying to strike that balance between having color and character but also class/minimalism.  I think if our walls were white, this turquoise would not have been an overkill, but so much yellow and so much turquoise together, I'm just not sure of.  For me, the white would have given it that more "classy/simple" look I am really searching for.  Minimalism is truly an art - one that I have yet to master.  For our new home, I have goals of making it a tad less romantic and girly, and a little more simple and classy.

But you know what?  It IS really easy for me to obsess over the details and the "should be"s and "coulda beens".  It IS really easy for me to look at Pinterest pins of houses and think about all the things other people thought of that I didn't, or want to emulate them precisely.  But this is us - these are the things that were given to us lovingly from other people, or the $1 finds I just happened on at the yard sales.  I've always loved French design, and that means to have curves in things and scrolls and chunky frames - and if that changes on Pinterest tomorrow, it will still remain true in this house.  And those are just a few of the things  that scratch the surface of what makes a house a home.  It's taken me a while, but I have peace with that now, and though things will almost always be in rotation, and I will continue to be inspired by other homes and Pinterest pins - some things will still remain with that special Wilson family seal on it that we have come to be comforted by.  "And that's"...(best Stuart Smalley voice) "O-kay."

Just be cool and pretend like that white slipcover doesn't have chocolate fingers all over it.  Thanks guys.

Do you see that green dragon above the large turquoise shelves?  It's one of my favorite things.  I saw it in a guy's yard as he was closing up his yard sale the day after.  I slammed on my brakes like a mad woman and shouted out my window if he would take a couple bucks for it.  He did and I've never regretted the way he backed away from me and his hands shook with fear as I ran up with money waving wildy and frothed at the mouth as I took his dragon and handed him the cash.

My precioussss....


Well, that's the living room area.  As I said before, tomorrow it's on to the kitchen!

DIY Sliding Barn Door

Hello everyone!  The post you're looking for is below.  When you're done checking out this post, please visit my Etsy Shop with completely unique illustrated cards designed by myself and using a fine natural laid paper! 

I'm sooper excited to show you this sliding barn door project!  Check. It. Out.  That's it down there. 

Okay that's a bright picture, but it's all I gots!

So, our funky old house has so. many. doors.  Out of EIGHT rooms, only ONE has one door.  TWO rooms have TWO doors, and THREE rooms have........THREEEEEE doors!  Granted, it's a little bit of a different way to live always zig zagging through this maze, (but I am always comforted that should there be a fire, there's almost always three exits).  One of these days I may figure out why this old house was designed like this, but as for now...I dunno.

My point is - with all those doors moving in and out, one finds it hard to make the space for them to swing open and closed.  Most of the folks that own houses around here utilize the pocket door; I, however, fell in love with this sliding barn door I had come across photographs such as these below and knew it would be a great alternative to a pocket door:





  

















But upon looking into the price of sliding barn door hardware - I thought it would be wishful thinking swept under the rug.  I mean, that's not even a, "Well, maybe someday" investment.  That's more of like a, "Somebody put me out to pasture if I'm crazy enough to spend $300 on one door" investment.

And then, comes Country Living magazine to the rescue - they posted a lovely tutorial on how to DIY this here.

We already had a door lying around that we had taken from another area, so the whole project was done for around $40 using this hardware:

Okay, I goofed on the street elbows, and instead picked up  REGULAR 90° elbow pieces.  What you want is a 90° STREET elbow - and this means the threads will be on the outside of one side of the pipe, rather than the inside- to fit into those floor flanges you see there.

Once we got the hardware  home, it was just a bunch of measuring, drilling, screwing, and fitting the puzzle pieces together.

Can you look at it and see where everything went?  I will not post a detailed step-by-step tutorial, if you want that, got the link provided above.  I will; however, give these notes:

**It's a little bit tricky drilling into the side of a door - it's pretty thin - so take your time drilling and be careful not to split your wood.  Be mindful to go straight in, lest your drill angle out and make a hole through the front or back of your door!

**Make sure you measure the extra room for your eyelet hooks.  Your pipe will not be fitting directly above your door - I left about 1 1/2" extra for the pipe to go through the eyelets.

**When we first started moving the door around, it made an AWFUL squeaking noise.  I oiled mine up (with PAM. hehe), and it has worked just loverly ever since!

There we go!  That's the DIY sliding barn door for ya.

And, just FYI, this is what this area of the kitchen looked like shortly after we bought it.  This is NOT what it looked like WHEN we bought it.  Actually, I wish I had taken more pictures the day we stepped into this house...but just take it from me, there was a crazy black UFO lookin' fan/light in here, and the walls were dingy gray.

Pretty cool, huh?

And here's another photo, just for funsies:

Instagram, Mostly

Hi everybody!  /hihi

I talked about satiating an instagram lust here, and often post instagrammy type pictures, such as here.

Well, recently I got on instagram using our Kindle.  It's really quite exciting for me.  I love this resource for tracking memories, and I can just imagine at the end of the year, it will be a wonderful way to look back on the year, and ooh and ahh, and "Oh, I almost forgot about that..." at all the pictures.  Here are a few of the pictures taken over the past several weeks, in case you're interested.  (And if you're not interested, I recommend Ashley Ann for something interesting.)

This is a little bit of the work that's being done on the craft room. 

This guy is a robot I made for my nephew some time back.  He's been loved  enough that he needs some stitches.  I get to play doctor.

Installed a doggy door this week.  It started out very "girl power", ended...well, DUST...just, DUST.  But hey, it's in, and it is gloriously helpful.

The weather is nice here!  The girls and I started putting the old trampoline together.  Looking back, I see now that I probably should have put the camera down and disciplined the gladiators (or at least acquired some popcorn or something....)

I can take pictures, too, mom.

That's probably just about the best ones. If you would like to follow me I am...you guessed it, figmilkshakes.

All the Cool Kids Got the Katie Daisy Art

So, I wrote this post yesterday:

I have long watched television shows about home renovations.  I remember one show in particular where a homeowner took on a little more than she bargained for. The renovation was long and arduous for her - with so much of her blood, sweat, and tears having gone into years of this renewal.  At the end of it all, she really did have this beautiful, unique home that she took comfort in.

I remember very clearly - to sum up her experience, the tv show host asked, "Was it worth it?"
I'll never forget the homeowner said, "Yes.....but just."

364 days out of the year, you could ask me about our home, and I would absolutely call it a labor of love, - worth every creak in the floor, and every ancient cockroach carcass hiding behind the appliances...but today is that off day.

I feel if I get one more splinter from our *gorgeous* 100 year old original hardwood floors....or try to plug one more three pronged electrical cord into a two pronged electrical socket, I just might cry out of the left side of my face.  /omg

*le sigh*

...and that was all, but then I hesitated to publish it. (I guess I didn't want my friends and family that read the blog to be concerned.  I knew I must lay my burdens down at the throne...)

But then, today, I met a most wonderful man who came to work on the framing in our attic.

As he was walking out the door, he turned and said, "Hey, let me show you something."  He pulled out a picture of an old home he had renovated in South Dakota (a vacation home to him and his family now).  He explained it was 108 years old, and he talked about hunting in the neighbor's rubble for siding and other home renovation parts.  He said most days he felt like a rat scavenging for parts, and we both understood that it was much fun.

"We share a love of fixing up old houses."  I said, "Yes, 364 days out of the year I will tell you it's a labor of love, but there is just about one day out of the year that I think I will cry if I try to plug in one more three pronged outlet..."

And then he joined me, and we said, in unison,

"INTO A TWO PRONGED SOCKET!"
"INTO A TWO PRONGED SOCKET!"

And we laughed at how we both understood.

There's something about knowing you're not TOO crazy, not SO stupid (just the healthy amount of crazy and stupid).  There was something about how he saw fit to store that photograph in his wallet next to the photos of his family that I found encouraging...

I knew we would be just fine.

And so today, I am resting into the larger part of the pie chart - the 364 days I feel grateful.  It certainly helps that I received this in the mail today:

If you're not already familiar with this artist, this is Katie Daisy.

It was hard to pick one I liked the most.  There are those that say, "You Shall See Wonders", and "Be Filled with Joy" - which I wrestled over because I feel those sayings speak to me more - but in the end, this won out because it matches the bathroom. 

Happy Valentine's Day to meeeeee!  (And to youuuuuu!)