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…
Check Out The Terracotta Floor We Found
I frequently joke that I’ve been searching for hidden treasure since we bought our circa 1780s home five years ago. I only joke to downplay the fact that I am a grown adult who thinks this could actually happen to me. Crazier things have happened in New Jersey. I grew up reading books where the plot lines contained treasure maps and old buildings with secret rooms and hidden passageways. My imagination runs wild but it’s not implausible to think there are gold coins or Prohibition-era liquor buried around here somewhere. Unfortunately, I haven’t found anything newsworthy yet but it turns out a treasure of sorts was hiding underneath a bunch…
Happy List: #358
Hi! Welcome to this week’s Happy List. I’m delighted that you are here on Friday the 13th! This week on the blog I shared an epic stone fireplace transformation. I still can’t believe the difference a little (okay, a lot) of elbow grease made. I also shared the tiny makeover I gave to our exterior lights this summer that made a big difference! Those lights look much more expensive than they actually were now. 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.…
How To Add Copper Accent To Exterior Lighting
Plain to pizazz! Let me show you how to easily add a copper accent to exterior lighting that will take those lights of yours to the next level. All you need is a little hammered copper paint. Any copper paint would probably do, but I’ve been using a quart of Rust-oleum’s hammered copper paint on everything I can get my hands on. It has a gorgeous finished texture courtesy of some magic I don’t quite understand the hammered effect. Plus, I tend to think brushed-on paint lasts longer than spray paint when it comes to outdoor applications. Here’s how the porch light on our Carriage House started. I bought it,…
An Epic Stone Fireplace Makeover
I have an epic stone fireplace makeover to share with you. The fireplace makeover to end all makeovers. Nothing will top this. If you can’t tell, the whole reason I have a blog is to be able to make ridiculous declarations. Haha! But this stone fireplace makeover IS really, really good. As is the running theme with this fixer upper of ours, most of our makeovers involve removing the unnecessary layers to reveal the beauty underneath. The unnecessary layer in this story is the two inches of lime mortar that was skimmed over the fireplace. Eventually, given enough time and exposure, the lime mortar will start to flake off the…
Labor Day Break & Fall-Inspired Reads
Happy Labor Day to those in the U.S. who are enjoying the day off. I’m not just enjoying one day off. I’ll be enjoying the rest of the week off! I like to take time away from the blog when Handy Husband and the kids also have some time off from work and school. To those of you with kids going back to school this week, I wish them all the best! I hope they aren’t too nervous and that they have the nicest teachers. If you want something to read, check out one or all of these fall-themed blog posts. Fall Mantel With Leaf-Stamped Wood Rounds Vintage Toolbox Fall…
