Navy Blue Sunporch Reveal
One of the most charming exterior features of our Colonial Farmhouse is the sunporch. There’s just something about a sunporch that gives an old house some added character. It’s probably all the windows. Here’s a refresher on what the exterior of our Colonial Farmhouse looks like with the sunporch. Ignore the landscaping for now. This is an improvement from when we moved in. From the inside of the house, there is nothing charming about our sunporch. Zip. Zero. Nada. It has cracked windows. The windows that aren’t cracked look like someone let a toddler finger paint with window glazing. Some of the window grids are askew. There are rotting tongue…
My Thrifted James Peter Cost Art Is Worth How Much?
A few weekends ago I was browsing the art section at my local Habitat Restore. By art section I mean stacks of framed art haphazardly leaning against a wall. All art in this particular Restore is $2 unless otherwise marked. I found a large painting of a barn for $5 by an artist named James Peter Cost. I don’t know how long the painting had been there, but it was quite dusty. I stood there staring at it for several minutes trying to decide if I’d regret not buying it. I know $5 isn’t a lot, but I’m still intentional with how I spend my five bucks. It is less…
Happy List: #141
Happy November! Welcome to this week’s Happy List! How was your Halloween? Did you eat hand out lots of candy to trick-or-treaters? We experienced epic rain all day yesterday, but thankfully, there was a break in the storm around 5 p.m. and we dashed out the door to trick-or-treat. We live in a rural area, so we drove a few miles to a historic town. The residents there were SO into the Halloween spirit. Most of them sat out on their gorgeous covered front porches and handed out candy to the kids. It was small town America at its finest. At the beginning of the week, I shared a picture…
In Praise of the Ceramic Colander
Ceramic colanders might seem like a funny blog topic. Are you wondering if I’ve run out of things to write about? Is this my ‘jump the shark’ moment? No, I have not and I certainly hope not. I just really, really like my ceramic colander. And I almost threw it away. The ceramic colander was in a box of jumbled junk in our garage. (In case you are new, we bought a house and the seller left a ton of belongings behind.) I remember picking through the box and finding a bunch of planters for houseplants and then the ceramic colander. I didn’t know what the “bowl with the holes”…
LED Candles for the Master Bedroom Fireplace
Our Colonial Farmhouse has three fireplaces and a wood stove. You’ve already seen the fireplace in our dining room and the one in the living room made an appearance in this post. We aren’t going to talk about the wood stove today because it is the bane of my decorating existence. Today I’m going to show you the fireplace in our master bedroom, which is located directly above the living room. The master bedroom fireplace is not working because our boiler is venting through that chimney. Honestly, we wouldn’t use it even if we could. Can you imagine carrying firewood all the way through the house, up the stairs, down a…
Happy List: #140
Happy Friday, everyone! Any early Halloween plans? If the weather is nice we are going to a Halloween Parade in Pennsylvania. You know I LOVE parades and I’ve never been to a Halloween-themed one. Well, I take that back. I was in Las Vegas on Halloween one year. It was an interesting experience, that’s for sure. Do you know what else was interesting? This week’s blog posts! (I do love a good self-promoting segue.) On Monday, I wrote about our new sconces in the dining room that are working thanks to the Magic Light Trick. On Wednesday, I shared a dresser drawer organizing hack using wood soda crates. Here’s the…
Wood Crate Drawer Organizer
There are a million and one products you can buy to organize your dresser drawers. I own some of them! Unfortunately, these organization systems are only as good as the person using them. Have you ever met a 9-year-old boy? Organizing is not at the top of the to-do list for my 9-year-old. I’m sure there are 9-year-olds out there who could make Marie Kondo herself weep with joy at the sight of their neatly folded shirts and pants. But again, that’s not my child right now. Maybe someday he will turn over a new leaf and his spouse will thank me for raising him up right, but let’s not…
Magic Light Trick
Have you heard of the Magic Light Trick from Brooke at Nesting With Grace? It! Is! GENIUS! Almost every person has, at some point, a need or want for a light in a certain place in their home where they can’t have a light. At least, not without getting an electrician involved. Maybe there is no outlet. Maybe the light needs to be hard-wired in an area where there are no wires. In the case of my Colonial Farmhouse, both of those options are true – at the same time. Throw in some stone walls and it becomes the trifecta of major lighting headaches. Ibuprofen can’t solve this problem, but the…
Happy List: #139
Hello, hello. I was feeling kind of cheeky when I wrote this Happy List, so be forewarned. On Monday I wrote about our visit to an arcade museum. It will bring out the kid in you! And then you’ll end up feeling really old when your kid asks if you “were alive” when this game was made “back in the olden days.” Totally worth it though. On Wednesday I shared big news…that I’m keeping the ruby glass chandelier in our house. Given how much I’ve tossed, ripped out, and painted-over since we’ve moved in that was earth shattering news. If you want to see what the chandelier looks like with…
I’m Keeping the Ruby Glass Chandelier
I had zero pleasant feelings about the ruby glass chandelier in our living room when we moved in. In fact, I loathed it. Have you ever heard of the red light district? Don’t worry! This isn’t a story about that. Unless you drove by our house at night when the ruby glass chandelier was turned on and saw the red glow emanating from our home. Then you might think it was about THAT. Our living room quite literally glowed red. It was almost comical. It wasn’t even helpful in terms of illuminating the space. The seller had tried to sell the ruby glass chandelier at an estate sale before closing.…
