Old Window Photo Frame

I love to give old things new life!  I definitely like things that look a little rustic and well used.

A few years ago I used an old window as a photo frame and I loved the way it looked.  I wanted to do the same with our new family photos so I've been searching the local antique shops and classified ads for old windows.  I wasn't having much luck!

One day while digging through a pile of windows at the antique shop a lady come up behind me.  I thought, "here we go".  People always seem to be more interested in something when someone else is interested in it.  I didn't say anything at first and the woman finally asked if I was looking for old windows.  Um, yah.  (I really should be more friendly sometimes!)  Well, she went on to explain that she had 'a couple' old windows at her house that she was willing to sell.  She gave me her name and number and said if I ever wanted to come look at them I was welcome to.

After finding nothing at the antique stores I figured the only thing I had to loose was a little gas money.  So I called the woman and went to check out her 'couple of windows'.  Well, I know why I wasn't finding any windows at the shops.  This woman had a huge cache of windows!  She had so many I had a hard time deciding which ones I wanted.  I ended up getting 3 windows from her and will probably go back for more.

That will teach me to be so unfriendly to people who try to talk to me at antique stores!!

Anyway, here is the result:

The large family photo is in a window that came out of this very room.  I was so happy it worked to use it.  I ordered a very large print of the family photo and then cropped the top off so it would just fit in the bottom pane.  I also added the quote with vinyl.

The window below came from the woman at the antique shop.  It's sort of perfect that we have four kids to put in the four panes.

Windows are pretty easy to use as frames.  I always have a tape measure in my purse so I can measure things when I'm out shopping.  I look for windows that have panes that are about the size of standard photos just to make my life easier.  So I look for panes that are 8X10, 11X14, 16X20, etc.  These panes were about 11 1/2 by 13 1/2.  You'll almost never find exactly the right size so just get close.  I trimmed the pictures down and used a little scotch tape to hold them in place.  I put white foam board behind each photo and duct taped that in place.  If you look close you can see that the pictures were a little small going one way but the white foam board behind sort of hides that.  You have to be really looking to notice.  

The other way to do it is to matte the photos.  Any frame shop can cut mattes to fit in the panes.  They can even frame the photos for you.  I wanted to go inexpensive on this project so I just did it myself.

I think the windows look great in the living room and what a fun way to fill up that big wall.

Don't mind the boarded up doorway.  That will eventually lead to the new kitchen.

Living Room Finished!

The living room is finally done! We still need to hang the clock and dig a few more decor items out of storage but other than that it's done! I can't be more excited to have one room in the house complete.  I can actually let people in now!!

Just to refresh your memory, here is the before:

And here it is...drum roll please... (and just a side note, I'm obviously not a photographer, so please excuse the awful photos.  The lighting is terrible!  Sorry!)

Isn't that so much better?  It was a little challenging to decide where to place the furniture but I think we did ok.  There wasn't enough room for a couch and love seat so we opted for a couch and two chairs, which I actually like better.

 In order to get enough seating in the room I decided to float the furniture in front of the bay window.  This room will act as the living/family room for us so we needed to get a lot of things in there.  The entertainment center that houses video games, DVDs, CDs, and a host of other things was a must.  I can get so much storage out of that unit I was not about to give it up.

Those familiar with this room will notice the new doorway.  The boarded up door will lead to the new kitchen and the black door on the left leads to the basement.  You will also notice we opened up the original doorway to the mud room (better know as the 'tool' room).

 Also a must was the piano.  Originally we wanted a separate music room but we weren't able to fit that into the house plans so the piano ended up in the living room.  I think we found an ok spot for it.

You'll notice my new old chair found it's home by the sewing machine in the bay window.

One of my favorite things in this room is this cabinet.  I found it in a friend's garage.  She was having a yard sale and I spotted this cabinet and asked her about it.  She was willing to part with it so home it came with me.  I think I paid $10 for it.  It was off white and needed some work but I love old rustic things.  I took the handles off, fixed a few things, painted it black, and put the handles back on.  It looks cute sitting in the corner and who can't use more storage!

Another piece of furniture that I gussied up was this end table.  I've had it since I was a kid.  It was dark brown and I wasn't sure I wanted to use it in the new living room but I needed a little table and it just fit perfectly.  I decided to give it a coat of accent paint and I now love it.

I scuffed it up on the edges, ya know, because I can't leave anything alone.  So cute!

Anyway, a great big huge thank you to my hubby and father-in-law who worked really hard to get this project done!!  Oh, and my oldest son too!  Now, all my friends and family come on over and see me!!

My New Old Chair

So here is my latest project...a new old chair.  I found this old nasty chair a couple years ago at a thrift store in Omaha.  I loved the shape and style of it but it obviously needed re-upholstered.  It was only $10 so I figured some day I would scrape up the money and have it re-done.  I could tell by the way it was made that it was worth doing so I convinced my skeptical husband that we should buy it.  You should have seen the look on his face!  He must LOVE me because he went along with it and bought the chair.

It sat around our house in Nebraska for a while moving from spot to spot and never really finding a home or new fabric.  When we moved back to Utah it found it's home in our big bay window next to my antique treadle sewing machine.  It continued to deteriorate while the kids climbed on it and the dog adopted it as his chair to sit and bark at people out the window.

After finally remodeling the living room I decided my chair had to be done.  Now by this time, I had enough time to convince myself that I could do the re-upholstering myself.  Crazy, I know!!  I often found myself thinking about how it was put together and thinking that if I got in the middle of the project and was in over my head, which was highly likely, I could always give up and haul the pieces to a real professional and have them put it back together.  Good plan, I thought.

So, I headed to the fabric store for supplies.  I had done some simple re-upholstering projects in the past so I sort of knew a few things.  I knew I wanted gray fabric with the teal accent to match the rest of the room.  I found some beautiful gray fabric with this really cute circle pattern to give it some texture.  Just perfect!  All of the supplies cost about $125 so now I know why the professionals charge so much!

Little bit had to try it out while he was eating his fruit snacks!

I started by taking the old fabric off and taking tons of pictures.  I saved all the fabric pieces and labeled them so I could use them as the pattern for the new fabric.  I was shocked to find that this chair had been re-upholstered before.  Another testament to the fact that the chair was well made, stylish, and worth saving!  There were still pieces of the original fabric on the front fanned part of the chair that had also been dyed green.

I went to work using the old pieces of fabric as patterns for the new fabric.  I tightened the strapping on the bottom of the chair to hold the old springs in place.  I enlisted my hubby to help because that was a two man job.  I also painted the arms and legs black to match the new living room decor.

I made piping out of the teal fabric and covered the buttons in teal too.  That's the accent color I used in the new living room.  I've made tons of piping over the years to use on bridal gowns and historic costumes so that was a piece of cake.  If you have never made piping you could just purchase pre-made piping.

I was able to get it all put back together and I LOVE IT!!  It just looks so adorable in the front window.  It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be.  I'm glad I took lots of pictures to reference as I put it back together.  I always think I will remember how the corners were done, or how it fits back together but I don't.

Anyway, my advice is don't be afraid to try new things!  Jump right in and if you get stuck there is always someone to help out.  In the end, if things had gone horribly wrong with my chair I wasn't out much!

Funky Christmas Monkey

I just love the Christmas season!  It just seems like such a fun time of year to do special things with the family.  I love all the traditions and special time spent together.

This year has been a little difficult with our living room stripped to the studs and all our decorations in the storage unit.  We won't have a tree and there are no stockings hung so it's a little harder to get into the spirit of  things.  I almost had a melt down the other day when I called the drywaller and he said he couldn't come until after Christmas!  Oh well.  My kids have been such good sports about the whole situation and I haven't heard any complaining from them.

So, in an effort to get into the spirit Christmas, and an effort to teach my children to serve each other I have created the Funky Christmas Monkey!

"Why a monkey", you ask?  Well, it's a long story but what else do you have to do but read my long blog story?!  I went to the craft store to get supplies to make elves.  Of course, they didn't have anything I needed.  I wanted this project to be quick and easy.  So, as I was standing in the store trying to make my brain work I remembered my 13 year old son say a few weeks ago that he always wanted a sock monkey.  I know, weird!!  Don't know where that came from but it actually happened.

I have never made sock monkeys but always wanted to try.  I ran to the sock outlet store and grabbed some really cute knee socks.  I know, wrong socks but what did I know!?  Anyway, made another trip to the store to get the right kind of socks and the other supplies.

Here's the tutorial I used to make the sock monkeys.   This tutorial is fantastic.  It has very clear instructions with great photos!

Here's how my monkey's turned out.  The socks came in a pack of 3 for about $5 and the other supplies were inexpensive too.

Remember the knee socks I bought?  I used those to make hats and scarves for each monkey.

So each of my kids got a monkey and the idea is that each day the monkey does an act of service for someone in the family.  You leave your monkey where the service took place with a little note.  It's a nice way for the kids to think about someone else in the family.

We have only been doing it for a few days but it's been great.  There have been breakfasts made, laundry put away, and lots of bed making.  The Funky Christmas Monkeys have been hard at work.

So, I hope you each enjoy your Christmas season!  Think of me as you look at your beautiful trees.  I'll be dreaming of a drywaller this year and enjoying watching my kids make memories together.  (If only they were all nice memories, right?!)

Merry Christmas!!

Living Room Tear Out

We made the decision early on in the drafting process that one side of the house shouldn't be saved.  The east side of the home is not original and has multiple additions.  There is extensive termite damage and roof-line issues so that side of the house will be torn off next spring and rebuilt with a second story on top.

While waiting for the spring to come (and let me tell you it can't come soon enough!) we will spend the winter remodeling a couple rooms on the west side of the house.  First up is the living room.  Here are some before shots.  Please don't laugh, the last time it was remodeled was obviously in the 80's!

The above photo is of the beautiful bay window in the front of the house.  I have always loved that feature and it adds so much character to the house.  Excuse all the toys!  Can you tell we have kids??

Here's my hubby standing by the west wall.  You'll see a lot of him, never this clean though!

This is my father-in-law.  You won't see him this clean again either!  He volunteered to help gut the room.  I think we need to have him checked out.  Who in their right mind would volunteer to help with this project????  Anyway, we were so thankful for his help.  He worked hard and was so glad to go home when the time came!  He's standing by the wall that has the staircase behind it.

We began in early October by gutting the room down to the studs.  Not an easy task as the home had lathe and plaster walls.

You'll notice there were many shades of shall we say, interesting wallpaper!  We also found adobe used for insulation.  The hubby and father-in-law spent a couple days trying to decide what to do with the adobe.  Should they pull it all out?  Should they leave it?  If they leave it, how do you have room to put modern insulation in the walls?  In the end they decided to leave it and add extensions to the studs and put foamboard insulation on top of the adobe.  Nothing is ever easy in an old house!

Here's the stairway wall.  Do you notice all the dust in the air?  Ah, the dust!  We sealed off all the doorways with plastic and duct tape but I'm not even sure it made any difference.  Everything in the house had a lovely layer of dust!  It seemed like the more I vacuumed, the more dust there was.  It was AWFUL!!

We found little surprises along the way.  The house was built before there were any sort of building codes so we knew we would find some things.  We however, were shocked to find that the wall holding the stairs wasn't sitting on ANYTHING!  That's right, the wall of the stairway was just floating!!

We also exposed old knob and tube wiring,  We knew there was some in the house so that wasn't a surprise.  Here's some photos for those of you who have never seen it.  It's really not the safest wiring so I'll be glad to get it out.

Notice the paper wasp nest attached to the top wire!  Yep, we've been finding nests of things everywhere!!

Speaking of nests, this lovely nest was found in an interior wall.  How in the world did the hornets get into the interior wall?  See, my house is so wonderful, all creatures want to live here!!

The other shocker we found was that the bay window had no header so that wall was sagging.  Below is the hubby, father-in-law, and son trying to fix that issue.  Yep, we put the son to work!!  Quick, call child services!  Just kidding.

Ok, so we even put the little one to work!  Do you love how all my photos look like it's snowing inside?  I told you it was bad!

Anyway, the walls are down' the ceiling is gone' and the insulation is going in.  Progress!  I just have to keep telling myself that!

Here's the stairway opened up.  Yep, that's the hubby's backside.  Sorry about that.  No time for a photo break!  Work faster!!!

Ok, last one.  This is the west wall if you want to compare it to the before photo.

So the work is progressing and I can't wait to post after shots!  Keep checking back to see if I've lost my sanity.  

Maybe I should post a photo of the little sitting room that has become our living room.  Yep, I'll do it!

Here it is.  We were lucky the house had a sitting room right off from the living room.  We barely had enough room to get the couch in and still open the front door.  So, it's a little tight, and yes there is a giant hole in the corner, but hey, we're making progress!  Right?!

Drafting!

Silly me!  I thought the drafting part of our home remodel would be the easy part...NOT!  It has taken weeks, yes weeks, to come up with a plan.  Todd and I have disagreed on more issues than I thought we would.  We had the plans almost done and then it was suggested that maybe we flip things around and put the kitchen on the other side of the house.  Are you kidding me?  I could almost see the light at the end of the tunnel!  Start over?????

Well, I caved!  Want to know why?  Because it got me a bigger kitchen!  Yep, isn't that what life is all about, big kitchens.  Well, not really but if I have to spend countless hours in the same room I sure want it to be spacious and functional!

Our good friend Scott Gibby was our draftsman.  He is an aerospace engineer who does drafting on the side.  He's one smart cookie!  And talented too!  I'm happy to say we are still friends after the whole switcharoo!  We sort of just gave him a list of wants and needs and he fit it all in.  Amazing!

Todd and I spent many hours looking at the plans, asking questions like, "what if we did that?" "well then we would have to change that".  "That doesn't work...what about that."  Sometimes I thought my eyes were going to bug out!  We found that most of the time a good nights sleep solved the problem.

In the end, I think we came up with a great plan and I'm so excited to see it actually come to be!

We gave the plans to two different general contractors for bids.  In the end we choose one that both Todd and I thought would do a good job and be nice to work with.  

So why hasn't construction started you ask?!  While we took a couple days to choose which contractor to go with the one we chose was signing contracts with another family to build their new home.  Yep, we just got bumped to next Spring!

So, another winter will be spent in the cold drafty house, the baby will outgrow the kitchen sink for baths, and I may loose my sanity but who needs sanity, right?!

Tune in next Spring for major renovations and in the mean time we'll be doing some remodeling projects on the side of the house that won't be torn down.

Corn and Avocado Salsa

Corn and Avacado Salsa is one of my 'go to' potluck dishes.  It's one of those recipes that's so easy and looks yummy so people eat it.  Actually the only bad part of taking it to pot lucks is there are NEVER any leftovers so I never get to bring any home.

I always get asked for the recipe so here it is!  ENJOY!

Corn and Avocado Salsa

1 can corn, drained

1 can black beans, rinsed

4 green onions, sliced

2 avocados, cut into small pieces

1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped

2 jalapeno peppers, seeded, deveined, chopped

salt to taste

1/2 bottle zesty Italian salad dressing

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour.  Serve with tortilla chips.  I love scoops because you can get a big yummy bite of the salsa.

Anyway, take this to your next potluck or butter yet, make it for your family.  There won't be any leftovers!!

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