an old piece of furniture

I love old things. Old farmhouses, old quilts, old pottery, old paintings, and on and on. And I especially have an affinity for old wooden furniture. In fact, it's one of the main reasons I go to thrift stores and antique shops.

Being that our home is only 1600 square feet however, it's not like I have an endless amount of floor space to put all that lovely old furniture I find while thrifting. I do have to be quite choosy, and it often means leaving behind pieces that are very hard to leave behind.

I think that one of the reasons I want an old farmhouse so much is so I would have lots of room to fill it up with old furniture!

When Brad and I built our home, we were a mere twenty-two years old. We had just started out in our careers, and so we built what we could afford. It meant that I scrapped the first two plans I took to our builder because they were out of our budget. I guess that we were both raised with the wisdom of living within our means. Besides, my ultimate goal was to be a stay-at-home mommy once we started having children, and I knew that this wouldn't be possible if we were tied to an outrageous mortgage.

So our house was built nicely, but very simply and economically. And we basically picked the most affordable options when it came to cabinets, counter-top, hardware, lighting, doors, etc. And when it was all done it was a wonderful thing to own our own home, and we had done it in such a way that it wasn't going to overwhelm us every month when the mortgage was due.

Now that we have been in our home over thirteen years, we are beginning to do some updating here and there. Right now it's just small things. We have some other bigger goals in mind that we are striving for financially, so we're dealing with the smaller, more affordable updates currently, but, Lord-willing, will begin some bigger renovations over the next several years. Basically, we want to add the character and charm that we love so much in older homes.

But for now, I like to bring those older, charming pieces into our home by means of furniture pieces. We've bought many older pieces over the past several years. Some I have refinished and some I have left in their original state. And it has happened that these pieces bring me more joy than any new pieces of furniture we own. I think of the homes and the people that owned them before us. I wonder if they had children like we do.

Right before Christmas, I was in a consignment shop that I like to stop into frequently. Brad and I had been talking about replacing the hutch in our dining room with a larger buffet with the hopes of Brad eventually building some old barn-wood shelves to hang above it.

I found a large buffet at the consignment shop, got measurements, called Brad to make sure it would fit in the space we wanted it for, and then ended up buying it because it would fit perfectly. The drawer space is amazing, and I love the little white ceramic knobs and dovetailed drawers. The carpenter that built the piece had also used wooden dowels to hold the piece together rather than nails as you find in most furniture today.

So now that buffet sits in its designated space in the dining area. I changed out all of the hardware except for the ceramic knobs. It holds my extra dishes and has some of my favorite things displayed on top. But I think my most favorite part of this piece has turned out to be all of those little drawers. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with all of those little spaces when I first brought it home, but I've since decided it would make the perfect place for my note cards, stationary, stamps, and other writing supplies. It's become my make-shift lady's desk.

Up until this point, I have always stored my writing supplies in a plastic bin in my closet. I love how everything is so organized and looks pretty (I do appreciate pretty things.) Now I'm just going to purchase some charming stickers and maybe some nice pens to complete the collection. 


P.S. - I am having a 35% off sale in my Etsy shop. Use the code NEWYEAR35 to receive 35% off your total purchase of all of my listed items. The coupon expires this Saturday. 

my yarn storage solution

For those of you who do not understand my love for yarn, you may just want to check out here and move on to the next blog.

But for those of you who love yarn and are maybe looking for an appealing way to store it, read on.

I've had four big plastic totes stacked up in our master bedroom closet for the last eight months or so. And since our closet is narrow, every time I wanted to get into the bins, I had to pick a bin up and back out of the closet with it. And I repeated this, bin by bin, until I got to the bin that had the desired yarn in it.

It worked, but I knew I wanted easier access. It was hard to get to, and it wasn't very conducive to creativity. I also knew that I really loved the yarn-store look of displaying yarns ~ in the little wooden cubbies, stacked color on glorious color.

I've been trying to figure out a solution this whole winter. I needed something affordable and aesthetically pleasing since the only space I had to store my yarn was right smack dab in the master bedroom. Our house is smallish, and there's no room for an "art studio."

I was leaning towards a bookcase display. Brad wanted me to get something with doors on to cut down on the dust, but all of those options were too pricey. I was keeping an eye on Craigslist, but wasn't having any luck finding something that fit the small area that it had to fit in to.

And so I decided that sometimes you just have to go with what's affordable and available (and dust a little more often!)

While we were out over the weekend, I found this white bookcase at Target. It was on sale for $80! We snatched the last one up. In fact, I guarded it while Brad went to look for assistance and a flat to wheel it to the front.

Brad, the awesome husband that he is, knew how excited I was about this so he put it together late that night after we got home. Sunday was a family day, so I didn't get around to putting out the yarn until yesterday. And can I just say how much fun I had? Arranging. Rearranging. Getting it just right.

And now my heart goes pitter-patter every time I look at it. :)

So I know that some of you totally don't get this. You don't get why I would get excited over a bookcase stuffed full of yarn or why I would even want that in our master bedroom. But oh do I love it! And Brad even mentioned how nice it looked, all colorful and cheerful and happy-looking. But, of course, he totally gets me and knows what makes this girl happy.

The bookcase. {Just saw that the price is back up to $110, but it's still a good deal!}

What a week...

Well, now that it's over, I can say it. I've been husbandless this week. Yes, my darling husband has been out of state for training for his job. I didn't want to post that while he was away 'cause you never know when some weirdo might be reading your blog. Ya know what I mean?

So I had pretty high expectations for myself this week. Since Brad was away, I knew I'd be up late 'cause I have a hard time sleeping when he's not home. So I planned on having a crafting marathon. I also planned to get the closet organized. All this after the kids were tucked cozily into bed.

Well, although I didn't get all of my crafting done, I did do some of this...

And made a few more of these...

I also got the closet completely organized so our bedroom which looked like this:

Now is back to normal and looks like this:

(Notice my barren walls. This room is a work in progress. It has been a slow but progressive transformation. Hence the reason we do not have window treatments yet.)

Look at this, ladies. I'm super-excited about this one:

No more baskets of laundry in my closet waiting to be carried to the laundry room in the basement. Nope. It all goes into this chute and straight down to the basement to be laundered. The kids think this is so cool that they actually pick up their dirty laundry without complaining! Yay! (Wonder how long before the novelty wears off?)

I love my husband. He is talented in so many ways. He also built these built-in shelves for me.

My mom recently bought me a label maker 'cause she knew how much I wanted one (thanks so much, mom), and I went happy crazy making little labels for all my containers and drawers. That was so much fun.

Oh, and I did take one night to do this:

While watching this:

Anyway, I'm glad this week is coming to an end. I miss Brad terribly when he's not home with me. And did I mention that my kids are completely off sleeping schedule due to the time change? Yeah. So I was going to bed at 1:00am and Lily was getting up between 5:00 and 5:30am. So I'm currently a little sleep-deprived and looking forward to a good night's sleep tonight with my man cuddled up beside me.

Enjoy your weekend!

Pretty and Practical

I made this checkbook cover following a tutorial I found here. I love it. It looks so much prettier than the old plastic generic one I used to use. It wasn't very difficult either, which I absolutely love. It was one of those quick sewing projects that provide immediate gratification.

I think I might dig out some of that ribbon I have and pretty this up even more.

Oh, and I'm still digging myself out of my messy master bedroom. There's been quite a bit of progress though. Here's a small sneak peak...

Woo Hoo! It's Done!

Do you remember that little project I talked about here? Well, after much hard work on behalf of my wonderful hubby and moi, it's done. Wanna see?

Look how nice and organized these cans look. Did you ever know a can of beans could look so pretty?

This pantry must double as storage for my homeschool supplies. No, it's not ideal, buy, hey, you have to work with what you have! Since we do our book work at the dining table, I wanted my supplies and books within easy reach.

And now I finally have a home for my mixer and my glass serving dishes.

Quite honestly, I was a bit overwhelmed with all the extra space. I actually have bare spots in my kitchen cupboards and this pantry isn't even filled to maximum yet. I'm sure these spots will fill up soon enough.

My dear husband's next storage project is our master bedroom walk-in closet. Ya know how many homes have an extra room where the "miscellaneous" stuff is stored? Well, after we filled up all our bedrooms with kids, our closet became just such a room. So, we're getting creative and we're going to completely overhaul and reorganize. I'm so excited. I love an organizational challenge!

I have a really easy sewing project coming up. I'm hoping to do it tomorrow and post it Wednesday. Ever since I made my apples, I've been itching to use Ms. Singer again. Don't worry, my hot glue gun is definitely not being neglected. She's just on light-duty for now.

Until next time!

Amber