European Inspired Home Gym With RitFit Smith Machine
Welcome to our European-inspired home gym in the middle of rural New Jersey. Are you more surprised that a home gym can be European-inspired or that part of New Jersey is rural? New Jersey is used to being the subject of many jokes, but this home gym we created is no joke. It’s our new favorite place! We converted a room in our 250-year-old Carriage House into a European-inspired home gym because that made the most sense, right now, for how we could utilize this space. It started out looking like this. Then we made it look worse when we decided the stone walls needed repointing because no one wants…
A Haint Blue Porch Ceiling Of My Own
Why did I wait so long to paint my front porch ceiling haint blue? No, really. Why? If I had known what joy this simple change of a haint blue porch ceiling would bring me, it would have been much higher on the priority list. Maybe not higher than replacing rotten siding, but higher than planting those boxwoods that may or may not be growing. Here’s how our porch looked in the fall of 2023. Perfectly delightful. Nothing wrong with it. I love, then and now, sitting out here with a drink in the early evenings and watching the world go by. Pictured below is almost the same view now.…
Happy List: #361
Hello! Welcome to the Happy List. I’m glad you’re here. This week on the blog was all about Halloween prep. I shared our Halloween mantel complete with a cute BOO sign I painted. I also wrote about the Halloween shirts that would be fun to wear as a group costume. If you do dress up, send me a picture so I can celebrate how awesome you look! As always, thank you for being here today. It makes my day to share things with you that interested me, made me smile, or made me think this week. I hope it makes your day too. If you want to connect, and I…
In Praise Of: Group Halloween Shirts
You can thank Handy Husband for this Group Halloween Shirts blog post because he got me so good the other day. I told him I had found the perfect Halloween couple’s costume for us and showed him the below picture of these salt and pepper shirts. (image: Boots Tees via Etsy) He glances at the picture and without missing a beat says, “Are these perfect for us because you’re so salty?” “No, It’s because of how much black pepper I put on everything.” I think we all know who the salty one is around here now! Hahaha! It has been a week and that whole conversation still makes me laugh.…
Boo! Halloween Mantel
It’s a boo-tiful day to share my Halloween mantel with you! That ghost pun was cheekily intended because the boo sign I painted is the centerpiece of this year’s Halloween mantel. It is simple, playful, and won’t take up hardly any space in storage! I enjoy the fun of Halloween and, let’s be honest, the candy too. I don’t do scary though. Nope. Not my thing. I’ll pass on the haunted houses. I don’t even like going into my attic after dark. I’ll stick with a sugar rush and leave the adrenaline rush to the rest of you ghouls. Speaking of ghosts and ghouls, I have heard some stories about…
Happy List: #360
Hello! Welcome to this week’s Happy List. It is fantastic to see you here. This week I shared the reveal of our Carriage House restoration. If you enjoy stone buildings, this post will tickle your fancy. I also shared the reclaimed wood bench we made. We’re using it in our home gym and it’s the perfect addition. As always, thank you for being here today. It makes my day to share things with you that interested me, made me smile, or made me think this week. I hope it makes your day too. If you want to connect, and I hope you do, you can always comment on this blog…
Reclaimed Wood Bench With a Story
I love when old pieces of furniture have a backstory and this reclaimed wood bench we just made has the neatest origin story. The benchtop came out of a 250-year-old carriage house where it had been a windowsill for possibly centuries. A windowsill! Whoever thought a windowsill would have the starring role in a reclaimed bench story? It wasn’t on my bingo card, that’s for sure. Did you notice that I used the words “possibly centuries” to describe how old the windowsill was? Gold stars for paying attention. It’s tricky to put an exact date on lumber in this situation. I do have a few clues. According to our local…
Stone Carriage House Restoration Reveal
It took five solid weeks of near daily work to complete one portion of our stone Carriage House restoration. All of that work was done on the walls. We didn’t even touch the floor besides cleaning it up. Five weeks to redo four walls. That’s some messed up math. I think it’s way past time for the grand reveal. Here’s a photo taken approximately 30 minutes into the restoration. To be fair, it looks more like destruction than restoration. It has to get worse before it gets better. You can see the potential, right? No? Well, I don’t blame you. This was definitely a squint and “trust the process” kind…
Happy List: #359
Hello! Welcome to this week’s Happy List. It’s so good to see you here. This week on the blog I shared the gorgeous floor we uncovered in our Carriage House. I wish the rest of the building had that floor. Hubba Hubba! I also wrote about the way I “fixed” a cracked wood bowl that I found on the side of the road. I love a good trash find, don’t you? As always, thank you for being here today. It makes my day to share things with you that interested me, made me smile, or made me think this week. I hope it makes your day too. If you want…
Creative Way To Fix a Cracked Wood Bowl
Let me show you a creative way to fix a cracked wood bowl. If you’re still reading (thanks!), please note that there should have been air quotes around the word fix in that sentence. There’s no real way that I know of to restore to a baseline of normal a wood bowl that has cracked as badly as mine had. It was barely hanging on. This cracked wood bowl was a free roadside find, and you can bet I was giddy to have stumbled upon this treasure while on my daily walk. I can see why someone thought this bowl was unusable and wanted to get rid of it. It…
