Shopping the farm

Yesterday's retail therapy was fun, but I didn't find anything all that fabulous. So today, I shopped the farm. Remember the cool thing I told you I found in one of our old outbuildings? 

 Gosh, why did I overlook it for so many years? 

Could it have been the 30 years worth of crap that was on top of it?

 That part on the bottom is what I noticed first. 

We cleared off the crap and about an inch of mouse poo

Only to find we (my son and I) couldn't fit it through the door.

My husband strong armed it through later.

LOOK! Look at those wide planks on top! And look at how the trestle at the bottom is fastened into place.

It might look like nothing but junk now, but I can't wait to get started on it.

I'm also totally taking this lamp.

How cool is that? It telescopes!

While we were carrying the table to the house, I found this in the pasture. 

(I swear, I'm not making this up!)

Who knows how long it's been laying there? And it only has one small chip on the bottom.

I also found an almost complete set of crystal glassware in that yucky building. It's plain, but nice. 

I have to shop this place more often! 

Have a fun and safe Memorial Day! 

And thank a Veteran~we owe them so much.

It's a gloomy Friday.

It's another rainy, gloomy day.

I went outside to take this picture, and the flash actually went off!

That's a gloomy day!

But everything is really green. Unusual for where we live.

 

I'm finding that paint isn't drying very well today.

I could make bread, but it probably won't turn out very well, either. (I don't know why weather affects bread but it does.)

I could clean my house. 

But what I really think I need is some retail therapy.

I'm going shopping! 

Hopefully, I'll have something to show you later today.

Patina=Grunge

I've had this old breadbox for a long time. 

I've liked it for a long time, too.

A friend gave it to me, and I think she got it at a yard sale.

Nice patina, right?

Well, in this case, "patina" is just a code word for grunge. (it might be in all cases. Maybe some antiques dealer way back in time was too lazy to clean something up before selling it, so he declared it to have patina and told everyone in his store that the light layer of grunge on said piece wasn't really grunge at all! No! It's patina and it increases the value of everything by 1,000,000%! Because you actually want other peoples sticky fingerprints, soot stains and sneeze residue all mixed with a light layer of beeswax polish on your furniture! It's a SCAM, people! Patina is a SCAM! Or maybe not.
It's just a theory.)

 I was getting itchy to paint something.

 Nothing in the kitchen was ready to paint, so I gave this little breadbox a face lift instead.

(I love spray paint. I feel so powerful when I use it. Like I can improve anything with just a few pulls of my trigger finger.)

 

  I replaced the back with some beadboard.

I distressed it just a little bit. Or a lot. I guess it depends on your distress tolerance.

I also replaced the hinges from some I had in my stash. They were really rusty and I wasn't sure I could use them. They didn't want to bend at all.
Then I remembered a trick I learned from my uncle and soaked the hinges in Pepsi for about a half hour. (Coke will work, too)

Good as new!

I wanted to put the word "bread" back on the little window with some vinyl, but when I got my Cricut out, I discovered that someone (and I won't name any names) had used it to cut out some really soft construction paper, so my cutting mat has construction paper fuzz all over it. It has no sticky left. And  since I really don't want to take a 25 minute drive just to buy a new mat, it will have to wait. 


In other news,
I was digging around in one of our old outbuildings yesterday and found something so cool! I don't know why I never noticed it before. When it stops raining, and when I get some more muscle to help me, I'll dig it out and show you. 
But believe me, it's cool!

What would you do?

I have this really cute ladder.

And it was FREE!

I'm not sure what to do with it. 

I know I want to give it a whitewash~I don't want to lose all the green, just tone it down a little. 

I thought about doing something like this.

 

Isn't Donna awesome?

But to be honest, I don't have room.

So then I thought "towel rack". A sort of modified version of this.

source 

But if you look, the rungs aren't really rungs.

They're 2x4's. (Maybe that doesn't matter.)

I really like the back of the ladder.

I like the crisscross detail. 

So, I know I want to use it somehow. It's too cute NOT to use.

And I know I want to whitewash it.

But I'm stumped. 

What would YOU do with it?

A) Let it be a ladder and keep it's dignity.
B) Burn it-it's really not that cute 

C) Something awesomely creative that came to you the instant you saw it because your brain has the agility of a Russian gymnast.

If your answer is C~What awesomely creative thing would you do?

What all the @$(*#%(^!! was about.

Saturday morning, this is what my kitchen looked like.

What kitchen, right? 

When we took out the old sink, we realized the cabinets around the sink would have to be re-built, they were so flimsy.

My husband worked at it all day. The floor is uneven, the counter tops were heavy, the studs were hard to find, and the poor man had to lift that huge sink in and out of place about eleventy million times.

But he came through!

 

My husband just built a frame out of 2x4's for the cabinet. We still have to finish that with something so it won't just look like 2x4's, and then the back splash. I want to put new trim around the window, too. 

But it's coming along. 

I love this sink!

 

I can fit a whole dishwasher's worth of dirty dishes in it!

(Maybe that's not something I should brag about.)

 

But I'll let you in on a secret.

This is the sink I thought I really wanted.

right here 

 But did you see the price? 

HOLY GUACAMOLE!

I don't know if I could pay that much for a bathtub, let alone a kitchen sink!

But, now that this one is installed, I don't think I could love the other one more. 

I'm really happy with what I have.

Thanks for reading!

Guess what!?!?

One of my projects is going to be featured at noon today at

 

Cool, huh?
I love this blog, so it's a real honor for me.

Also, I did something I shouldn't have done. I didn't give proper credit where it was due.

I got my idea for making my own Anthropologie light from Yanet at 3sunkissedboys.
This is her light~it's cute, right?

3sunkissedboys

Pop on over if you get a chance.

(I really don't want to be one of those bloggers. I just need to learn to slow down and think before I post.)

Good-bye

Good-bye hideous, shallow, inadequate sink.

Hello, beautiful!

I hope we can get this done without lots of @#!%$(%&#&!!!

Have a great weekend!

Yesterday's gritchiness

I'm over yesterday's gritchiness. 

It's because I got what I wanted.

(I'm kind of a brat like that.)

I wanted to make one of these.

Or at least something similar. Anthropologie sells them, but I thought I could make one. I already had this little basket.

(I got the idea~here)

I had everything but the electrical parts. That's what I wanted yesterday and couldn't find. 

I complained to my husband explained what I needed, and he got me something like this.

I didn't get a picture of the actual light, because I tore it apart before I thought about it. 

We used this for the face plate on the ceiling.

I spray painted it black, with alternating spritzes of a metallic spray paint. 

I also used some parts from the old light fixture that was there. 

This one.

 (please tell me we aren't the only family that calls them "boob lights"!)

So we ended up with this.

 The wooden handle thing is from an old rolling pin. We just threaded the electrical thingy through the basket and wired it into place.

I think it's the cutest thing!

At night, it throws shadows on my

(seriously in need of paint) ceiling.

You can kind of see the shadows in this picture.

I love this light! It's a little crooked and imperfect and I like that. And it cost about $11.

But what I really like is that I have a husband who knows I'd rather have a clamp on shop light than roses. 

Thanks for reading!

Small town blues

I planned on doing a project today that I'm really excited about. I thought I'd be all done by this evening, and I could show you. All I needed were a few parts.

Parts that apparently don't exist in this town. Even the guy who's worked at the hardware store for, like, ever looked at me as if I had two heads when I tried to explain what I wanted.

So I came home and stomped around for awhile. Cursed this three stoplight town under my breath. 

And glared out my window at the stupid WIND that won't stop blowing. 

(I heard today that it's supposed to SNOW here on Sunday. So I guess that means I can't plant this yet.)

My husband came home for lunch, and asked me if I wanted to go with him for a drive before he went back to the office. "Sure," I thought. "I'll go NOWHERE and look at NOTHING with you."

(but what I said was just "sure".)

See how cranky and gritchy I was?

But then we stopped along the way, and picked this.

Do you see it?

Lots and lots of this

just waiting to be picked for dinner.

Yum!

So, yeah. I can't get everything I want here without some exhaustive searching.

But I can get a really yummy side dish for the price of a short walk and just a little searching.  

This is the best recipe for hollandaise sauce, from The Encyclopedia of Creative Cooking. It's really good on asparagus.

Mock Hollandaise Sauce. 

(but it tastes real.)

3 T. butter or margarine

3 T. four

1 C. milk

2 egg yolks, slightly beaten

2 T. lemon juice

salt and pepper

Heat butter, stir in flour. Cook 1 minute. Add milk; whisk until smooth. Remove from heat. Whisk in egg yolks; cook 1 minute. Stir in lemon juice; season to taste. Makes about 1 cup. 

Or, just toss the asparagus with some olive oil, and place it on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle it with sea salt and Parmesan cheese. Roast it at 400 degrees until tender. I've never figured out exactly how long that is, so I just babysit it until I can stick a fork in it easily.

Thanks for reading! 

An $8 knockoff

  

Have you ever been to  Bobo Intriguing Objects?

They have some really great and unusual furniture.

I fell in love with this table. I didn't even look to see how much it was. 

I could just tell by looking at it that it's too much. 

Doesn't it look old, and really European?

Look what my husband made. (and I designed)

 I love it! He used a base from an old picnic table, and replaced the stretcher so that it's longer.

I traced the curves along the bottom of the stretcher and he cut it out with a jigsaw. He used reclaimed wood from an old shed for the top. 

This thing is 12' long! (have I mentioned we have a big family?)

I painted the base a turquoise color, then gray on top of that. Then I dry brushed it with a cream color.

It cost a whopping $8.00 for the stretcher. We already had the paint, the base, the bolts, the clear coat and the wood for the top.

It's not quite finished, but I couldn't wait to show you. I still need to sand the top and put a clear coat on it. It's going to stay on the patio.

Now we just need benches.


Thanks for reading!

Wired

I saw this a few years ago in a Room Service Home catalog. 

 It had me at "hello".

I love everything about it. The wire loops, the crisscross wire on the back~I think it's just gorgeous. 

But the price! $199 plus shipping. 

YIKES.

Plus, at 36" wide, I had no place it would fit. So I forgot about it. But still lusted after thought about it from time to time. So maybe "forget" is too strong a word. I even found the exact same shelf at Tai Pan Trading company for $50 less. But it was still too big. And still too expensive. 

One day I was in TJMaxx, and as I turned down an aisle, angels started to sing. My heart started beating faster. (I think my palms even got a little sweaty. Maybe the angels were making me nervous.)

I found this.

 It's a little different. Smaller, and that's a good thing. The crisscross wires on the back are spaced a little further apart. And it's white. I didn't care. Close enough. If I ever want it to be darker, that's just a can of spray paint away. 

And I like the little hooks at the bottom. I should find something to hang from them.
I still need to get some Plexiglas or something cut for the shelves, since the wire is so far apart things can fall through.

I read recently that the current home decor trend is metal.One psychologist theorized that it was because people are longing for things that are more permanent, and that metal symbolizes stability.
I don't think that deep when it comes to home decor.

I either like it or I don't. 

My kids got me these for Mother's Day.

(clearly, I need more alphabet balls.)

  (and larger eggs)


I'm loving the wire!


Thanks for reading, and thank-you for following.