DIY Sliding Barn Door

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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.

A Walk Around the Block

Let me tell you, I could take you on a walk about three blocks from our home that would make you feel like you weren't in the desert anymore.  You would see houses with Southern style wrap-around porches, evergreen trees as though they had traveled from the forest, and even stone cottages with brightly painted doors reminiscent of England. (And then there are some things that remind you exactly of the desert...and I love that the best.)

On days when I feel my identity is the "to do" list, and I lament the feel of wetness around my belly from the dishes splashing up on it -  I get out for a walk, and look at much of this beauty.  There's something about this neighborhood that inspires me, there's something about the quiet walk that reminds me to count the ways I love thee - and after these walks, I find it is not only easier, but I am grateful and happy to get that bless-ed list back in hand. 

And sometimes I take a camera.... 

The picket fence.  A "dream home" staple, but also good to be readily available for killing vampires.

And guess what?  Somebody was throwing these out, and I grabbed them up.  Not sure what to do with them just yet, but hey...free..........................oh, and sodium.

Christmas Mantle

Hi guys!

Well, I did mention here I would post our Christmas mantle once the rain went away, and the sun came out to help my little (but trusty) camera along. 

And then life happened, as life often does, and it took me a while to get this thing photographed, but here we are now. Christmas "Mantle" time. (Of course, I say "mantle" in the quotes because, as you can see, this is not a literal mantle.  It's just a shelf with ambitions of being a mantle...well, little guy, here's your big break.)

You can't see it in any of the photos, but for the branch with the frames, I cut pages from an old dictionary using words that reflected Christmas: stable, Mary, manger, etc., then I wrote the lettering on top.  In retrospect, I wish I would have planned out my lettering better, but it's alright in its own flawed way.

I wanted something that made me think of poinsettas.  I love poinsettas.  I added these flower cutouts just by using a piece of double sided tape stuck to the shelf.

 

Well, all in all the "mantle" makes me very happy.  I feel it expresses the true meaning of the season coupling thoughts of "God with us" and family/friends -  I cherish all these when I see the stockings grandma crocheted, the painting my dear friend made, the photographs my other dear friend took, and of course, "Emmanuel", the reminder of the sacrifice my Savior made.

Does it get any better than that?

----

On another note:  Thank you so much to everybody that voted for our Christmas tree photo at the Country Living contest!  It didn't win because of cheaters there were so many great, inspiring photos out there... but it really does sincerely just mean the world to me that so many of you would care about little ole' me and my lil' ole' family having a chance to win a silly thing like a Kindle!    /blush

Thank you! 

Money Shot

Hello hello!

Just a quick post to link up with one of my favorite bloggers (top 3 for sure!), Flower Patch Farmgirl.  She does this thing called Money Shot Monday, where you take a picture from your day on Monday and link it up.  I keep wanting to link up with her, but don't usually have much going on on Mondays.  Monday is always grocery shopping/dishwashing/chore doing/trying to clean up the wreckage from the weekend day.

But yesterday had a little extra in it.  Yesterday had some victory.  Allow me to sum up the day in two silly memes:

ME:

MAGGIE:

And here's my "Money Shot", complete with 30% off jar and dragon plushie:

God bless your Thanksgiving if I don't talk to you before then! 

Little Bit O' Progress

So, some of you have asked if I'm making progress on the craft room. 

Of course, those of you who haven't actually voiced your curiosity, are undoubtedly on the edge of your seats.   :D

So, here's a little picture of some of the progress being made.

I was excited to find the thread organizer at a thrift store for half of what Wal-Mart was asking.  Plus, I picked up those great jars for $3 each. The filing box is another great find for $12 at an antique store.  I really geeked out about that, and still get weird looks from people every time I get overly enthusiastic about a box.

Unfortunately the drawers will have to stay that way for a while.  It will be a bit of an investment to paint them and buy new hardware.  I don't mind - it will give me something to look forward to.

This little painting is what Maggie created here.

I probably just need a little more thread to fill in my organizer.  I'm sure it'll fill in as I go.  Any suggestions on other things that might fit nicely on those little wooden rod dealies?

All right, I'm going to go get back to it.  You lovely folks out in that thar cyber world have a good 'un!

Delightful Day

Hello all.

We had a delightful day yesterday.

It rained lightly all day, and the atmosphere was just too nice for working - so I took a break from organizing the craft room, tried out a new pumpkin spice latte recipe (Holly, you must come over and have these with me, dah-ling.), and Maggie and I sat down to create some art for eventually putting in the craft room (she used this flower for her inspiration).

 

I'll keep you guys posted on what we created!

10 on 10

I recently read about this project called "10 on 10" , and thought it'd be a lark (and also a cheap and easy stab at getting more traffic on the blog...).  You can read more about it in the link provided, but the idea is simple.  The gist of it is to take 10 pictures out of 10 hours of the day (yes, on the 10th of the month), specifically targeting the fun and beautiful things. 

Well, I spent the whole day doing this; but when I went back to the website to join the link party, the party had been CLOSED and I felt like this:

And yet I still felt consolation in knowing that I could still force you guys could still see them. 

It was a fun day.  Some of these images happened quite naturally as I was going about my day, and others I spotted before my hour was over, and thought to myself, 'I'll come back to that when my hour is up' - so, not so natural. 

I think some of them are obviously beautiful, and others I just enjoyed the way the light came in or they speak to me personally, and you might not particularly find them beautiful.  Suffice it to say, I had a hard time picking JUST 10, and ended the day feeling very grateful that things didn't get ugly while I was "finding beauty".

Do you see him?

And finally...the REASON projects like this exist.  Because as all this was going on...THIS was going on:

And this...

But those are KID-made messes, right?  They're almost whimsical messes with all their bright colors and fun toys taking you back to your carefree childhood.  Did you see through my rouse of showing you my messes without ACTUALLY showing you my messes?  Well, here you go, you bloodthirsty troll!

Oh yes.

Phillipians 4:8