Home Decor Swap Party

Somewhere around Christmas time, I was talking to a dear friend of mine about some home decor items I had around the house that I didn't quite have a place for in this new house.  I wondered if I should take a picture of these items and post them for free to my local friends on Facebook or just donate them to Goodwill.  As we were talking, the idea of some kind of in house swap meet with friends came up and it sounded like the perfect solution:  get together with friends + get rid of things I no longer had a use for + get a new (to me) thing or two to use as well!

A couple of weeks before the swap, I sent out a simple Facebook invite for a handful of friends.  I kept it semi small because my home is not large and the invite included friends PLUS their stuff.

I dedicated our dining room for all of the decor items.  I set up a long folding table long ways, butted up against our dining room table, for small items and larger items were leaned against the perimeter of the room.

As friends arrived that night, I invited them to write their name three times on three small pieces of paper and place them in a basket.  After everyone was settled in, I drew three names at a time to go into the dining room and pick one item.  I kept drawing three names, until all of the little papers had been drawn.

After everyone had their chance to pick three things, I opened it up for everyone to go pick whatever items they wanted that remained unclaimed.

We ended the evening with some refreshments.  I bought pies and placed small slices in individual small, white cupcake boxes.  I also provided tiny cups to scoop up some salty pub mix and made lemon water for us to drink.  This is probably the simplest I've ever done things, as far as refreshments go for get togethers.  It was refreshingly stress free, which is perfect when you're hosting.  I think I'll keep it this simple in the future too. :)

 

I think everyone went away from this party with things they genuinely were happy to bring back to their homes.  The best part was they were FREE!!!  One of the items I chose that night, was this runner for our laundry room.  Funny enough, I had just told my husband a few days before the party, that I wanted to buy something exactly like this for this room and lo and behold, it was one of the items that was brought to the swap!

This was such a fun night, that I plan on throwing another Home Decor Swap sometime again in the late spring and inviting even more people.  Have you ever thrown or attended a swap party before?

Modern Clementine Pillow Covers, Etc.

My husband has a dangerous job.  I pray for him daily and for those brave individuals he works with.  I have a special bond with many of the wives of the men my husband works with.  Our lives are filled with a medley of our husbands long and crazy work shifts, their stress from the wide range of things they have to deal with seeing on the job, and worry for their safety... often subdued with the faith that these are good men trying their best to keep the wolves at bay.   These wives and families of these men are sometimes the only ones who understand this kind of life and can completely relate. 

Nearly a year ago I met Cassie.  Our husbands work together and their family is one of the kindest I've met.  Cassie is not only a loving wife and mother, but an amazing modern quilter.  She sews beautiful quilted garlands and modern pillow covers.  She has an etsy shop online that allows her to work from home and spend more time with her two handsome little boys.  Her etsy shop is called Modern Clementine.  You can visit her shop at modernclementine.etsy.com

She also has an instagram account where you can get to know her better and see all the beautiful things she makes (@modernclementine).

Pictured here are a couple of her pillow covers that I have.  I love love love pillow covers.  They allow me to quickly alter the decor in any room when I'm feeling like I need a change. 

Cassie's pillow covers are modern and well made.  

My only problem is deciding where I'm going to put these pillows.  So many options around my house.  Bedrooms, entry way, living room.  I love storing extra pillows in a big basket too.  It's nice to have extra cushions on Friday movie nights when my kiddos have friends over.  If you're in the market for new pillow covers or other modern quilted items, like garlands, or quilts, be sure to visit Cassie's etsy shop.  (modernclementine.etsy.com)  Her shop just reopened tonight with new winter inspired merchandise.

Happy weekend friends!

Acre House Dining Room

The kitchen in this house opens up to the family room, but the dining room is completely separate.  My first thought when we saw this home was that we should tear down a wall or two to open it all up.  Then, within minutes, I completely changed my mind.  I know separate dining rooms are not what is "all the rage" right now.  However, separate dining rooms have their perks.  

Perk # 1:  No distractions.  No one is watching tv while eating and everyone can just focus on the food and each other.  I like that.  A lot, actually.  It simplifies meal time and I feel more connected to my family.

Perk # 2:  We can't see the kitchen.  I'm more relaxed when I sit down and eat with my family and I can't see the dirty dishes from meal prep, strewn across the counter tops and filling up the sink.

I know separate dining rooms aren't for everyone, but if you have one... enjoy it.

Above is the picture taken by someone within the realty company before we bought our house.  Great structure.  Love the archway going into the living room and I love the big window.  The cons for us were carpet in the dining room (I guess we're messy people) and the paint color and light fixture were dated and not my style.  

Here's another shot of the room from a different angle, about two days after we moved in.

This is the dining room today.

I know the quality of the picture above is horrible, but it's the only one I have, at the moment, of the whole room.  

These are the changes we've made so far:  

New laminate flooring (flowing into the other main living areas too), new paint, and new light fixture.  

There are a couple of things we still need to do in here.

We still need to finish the base molding and I'd really like a longer dining room table.  My husband and I saw a dreamy one at Costco yesterday.  It came with chairs and everything.  It was a fabulous deal, totally on sale, but when you haven't saved up for a new dining room table yet, a fabulous deal is still too much money.  Ugh!  It's hard to walk away from something you totally love when the funds aren't there.  But we did the mature thing and walked away. :(

On the Opposite wall of the window, we have this old dresser that we've had forever.  It holds some entertaining decor and other odds and ends.  I love that the top of it can serve as kind of a buffet table during big holiday dinners or other special occasions too. 

I bought this green metal container from a lovely gal on instagram.  It holds extra napkins and multiplication cards, which I know is random.  However, my youngest is in third grade and is learning multiplication in math this year.  Having these flash cards out and easy to access, makes memorizing all those facts a little easier, when all we have to do is sit at the dining room table and grab a few to memorize every day.  I'm all about making a space pretty, but even more importantly, functional and usable for my family.  This metal container is one of those pretty + useful pieces of home decor, which are my favorite kind.

While our current dining room table is feeling smaller and appears more dinged up, as the years press on,  I'm still trying to make the best of it.  I decorated the top of it with a scrap of black and white gingham material, some layered wood slices (from some trees around our property we had to cut down), and some white battery operated candles. 

Here's another angle of the dining room from the open kitchen/family room area.

Last weekend, I finally hung some framed pictures on either side of the arched doorway.  It's so nice to see them on the wall and not just stacked somewhere collecting dust (like they had been for the last six months).

Each picture holds a memory that has become a little conversation starter as we eat dinner.  I'd highly recommend hanging a gallery of family pictures somewhere near your dinner table.  :)  Most of the framed pictures are not fancy.  Half of them are printed from pictures I took on my phone.  It's awesome being able to see them in print everyday!

Last picture.  I know the quality is bad, but I love that big sign on top of the dresser, "gather."  It describes the whole meaning and everything that I love about this room.

Breaking Winter Records

Our "neck of the woods" has had more than it's fair share of freezing temperatures, freezing fog, freezing rain, and even snow.  So much snow that, even though we are just a few weeks into January, we've already broken the highest snowfall record from way back in 1955.  It's crazy.

But it's beautiful too.

The detail of each little snow flake is miraculous and so intricate.  It may have been in the single digits when I ventured outside to take these photos, but who could resist the icy beauty!  Well, that and the fact that, normally around here, the snow comes and then melts away in just a few days.  Locally, everyone knows you have to enjoy the snow while it's here because it won't last long at all.  This year, all locals are in shock at how long the snow has lasted this time around.  I think most of us are grateful for a white winter, rather than a brown one.  But our area is not exactly set up for this kind of weather. 

The roads have been down right treacherous.  So far, we've had six snow days since Christmas break ended and probably about that many two hour delays too.  Part of me has looooved all of the extra time I've had with my children because of the lack of normal school days and cancelled after school activities.  The other small part of me is beginning to feel claustrophobic.  Cabin fever is on the verge of settling in for all of us as we wonder if we are stuck in an eternal winter.  How do you people in snowy states handle it? :/

These breaking winter records have definitely toughened up our job of taking care of all of our animals.  It's involved early morning, pitch dark, you feel like your face is going to fall off, trips out back to defrost water bowls and keep animals fed.  A memorable daily adventure, for sure.

Only two more months till spring, right?  In all seriousness though, I am a bit of a home body.  So having a good excuse to stay home and warm with my family is pretty dreamy. 

How's winter in your neck of the woods this year?

Acre House Family Room Update

Most of the rooms in our current home are a little bit bigger than the rooms in our last house.  This is a picture of our family room, taken by the realtors selling this home.  The space is great.  We love the arched doorways and the carpet was brand new. 

This room has a skylight and I love the natural light it lets in.  While there's really nothing wrong with this space, we still wanted to make a few changes to add better flow and a bit of character.  To make this room flow with the rest of the main areas of the house, we painted all of the walls the same color (Dolphin Fin by Behr).  This is the same color paint I used in our split level.  The other thing we did was rip up the carpet (we gave it to some friends because it was still new) and we installed a water proof laminate from Home Depot.  This helped with the flow a lot because the hallway, family room, and dining room had carpet.  The kitchen had an older linoleum, and the living room and entry had a newer linoleum.  Now they all have the same flooring and it makes these areas seem bigger, even though nothing, as far as square footage, has changed.  

Here you can see the newly installed laminate.  In person, it has a lot of texture and a bit of that hand scraped look.  We're pretty happy with it.  However, despite new flooring and a fresh coat of soft grey paint, the room still felt very plain.  That long wall with the tv against it felt too long and open.  So we did what we've done in every home we've ever owned. 

My husband installed built ins.  We did them a little different than we've ever done them before though.  This time, instead of building the lower cabinets by hand (hard and time consuming), we found the idea to use stock upper cabinets.  My husband built a base, about six inches tall.  Then he added some stock upper cabinets from Home Depot to the base. 

Using cabinet grade 3/4 plywood, he built the shelves, with backer-board to give the back of the built-ins a nice smooth surface.  He used small mdf molding to finish each shelf out.  The molding gives the illusion that the shelves are made with thicker wood.  He also used wider 5.5 inch mdf molding to finish out the built-ins around the top and sides.

Every household has their own system.  The system that works in our household is that my husband does the building and I do the finish work.  So here I am calking every seam and nail hole.

Painting tends to be my job too.  As long as I have something to listen to, on this particular day - Gilmore Girls - it's a pretty relaxing task.

Again, here is a view of how this room looked when we first walked through it.

Here it is today, just peaking through the arched doorway.

This is mOst of the entire wall. It's so long that it's difficult to get the entire length of built-ins in one picture.  But that's a great problem.  These offer so much storage.  As soon as they were completed, I was finally able to unpack the last of the boxes from our move... The games, binders full of family pictures, books, decorative items, DVD's, CD's, etc.  All of that is either displayed on the top shelves, or neatly stored and happily hidden in the bottom cabinets.

This is the wall opposite of the long built-in wall.  Just a cozy corner for watching Netflix, hanging out with friends, or doing homework.

Here, again, is the far wall just to give you a bit of a before perspective of this side of the room.

Here is the after.  This corner is now the "office" space, with old metal file holders, spray painted and screwed to the wall and a desk, sitting nicely below the only window in the room.

The curtains frame this little area and make it feel cozy.

This is the rest of the wall between the window and the door leading to the back deck.

Just another side view of this whole wall.  

You know, It's funny.  (But not funny.)  No part of this room came together seamlessly for me.  Well, except for the flooring and the built-ins...  we had visions of doing those things before we signed on the dotted line to take ownership of this house.  

The hard part was that it was a different layout than the family room in our previous house that I was used to.  I found myself, at first, having no idea where to place furniture or how to decorate.  For the longest time, it didn't even feel like home.  As I just let things be for awhile, slowly our families routine and our needs for this room, shifted pieces of furniture and such to where they are today.  I was silly enough, at first, to think that I needed to get this room just right and perfect, all at once, without letting it just naturally evolve over time.  Too often I put unneeded pressure on myself about these kinds of things.  I wanted the transition of moving to feel seamless for my family and I.  In reality, moving and settling in just takes time.  After living here for seven months, this place finally feels like home. 

Acre House Entryway Before + After

I really came to love the split level home we fixed up before we moved here.  However, I was never very fond of it's entryway.  It was tiny and felt very awkward when letting visitors in.  One of the many pluses to this rambler is that we can invite people in with room to spare.  While this space may seem very common to some, the openness of this entry feels like a new luxury to me.

The existing flooring was made up of newer carpet and linoleum.   I know it totally looks like wood or laminate in the picture, but it's not.  The variety of flooring this house had, made it feel choppy to us.  So within the first few months, we tore out all of the flooring in the main living areas.  We replaced it with a water proof laminate found at Home Depot.  A couple of the other things we did right away in this area, was new paint (Dolphin Fin by Behr - still a favorite of mine) and we replaced the entry light fixture.

After fresh paint, new flooring, and a new light, my husband installed pine tongue and groove planking just to this one wall here. 

Okay, so this is real life when you're moving in and renovating at the same time.  It's a beautiful mess, but it's real.  I loved how the planking turned out.  So pretty.  I ALMOST considered leaving it raw and unpainted.  But I'm a white and gray decor kind of girl, so the final decision was to paint it white.

 Here we are today.  All moved in and this space now feels more "us".

Here's another glance from a slightly different angle.  Sorry for the blurry picture.  I got a new camera for Christmas and I'm still struggling with how to use it.  Sometimes what looks like a crisp picture to my eye when I'm taking the picture, isn't really so crisp.  I've got some learning to do. :)

I reused these hooks that used to hang in the entry in our old house.  They are the perfect combination of nice to look at and useful.  Lately I've been learning something about myself and decor.  If it can be BOTH pretty and functional, I love it!  Sometimes I have a hard time buying things that are just for looks. Not that I never do, but I like the simplicity of pretty + useful.

 

I recently purchased this jute rug from Rugs USA.  I love jute rugs for the entry because they can take a beating and this area gets a lot of traffic.  My husband built the bench out of some old wood we had and some industrial metal legs I bought on Amazon.  Another tiny update to this area was some paint on the front door.  I painted it black, but this section of the house doesn't get a lot of natural light.  So I may need to rethink the black and go with something a shade or two lighter.  We'll see.

 Hello!

I tried to be intentional with the things I hung on the walls in here.  We go in and out the front door several times a day.  The first things you see when coming in are a picture of Christ, a picture of the Prophet (Thomas S. Monson - President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and one of our favorite quotes from the Prophet. "May we ever choose the harder right, instead of the easier wrong."

 

I also placed a small clip board in the window sill, next to the front door.  I can clip different scriptures here throughout the year that we are trying to learn or memorize.

The last thing I hung in the entry was this oval mirror.  Just in case we want to glance at ourselves before we head out for the day.  This mirror has some sentimental value.  It used to be bright yellow and hang in my room when I was a baby.  It made it's way into my younger sister's room when I was growing up too and then finally landed in my lap again.

This house has really good bones.  We've only made changes to it that made it feel more like "us" rather than the previous owners.

Next week I'll try to share some updates we made to the family room.  Until then, have a good day and stay warm!  Our winter, so far this year, has been brutally cold!