Re-decorating

I love re-decorating our home....changing things up....moving things around.

However, on a budget, this is challenging to do - especially with my love of useful junk and antiques!

I was picking Jessie up from a friends house last week after a sleepover - this mom has the coolest house - lots of primitive decor but very sparse and not cluttered at all, but one thing I saw that I loved was in her entryway, she had an old bench with about 10 crocks on it.  And she had a buffet with crocks underneath it.

Now I don't have an "entryway" or a buffet, but I think I have the next best thing!

Our TV stand is actually an old desk that I brought off of my SIL many years ago - I think for around $25.00.  And for the longest time (since we moved into this house in 1998, I've had my Longaberger basket on the shelf....

But I just happened to have 3 large crocks scattered throughout the house.  They don't match in the least, but I'm thinking that is the charm here....

I'm thinking I need to find some sort of berry garland to place around them, and maybe some white lights?

But....I know I have several strands (if that is what you call them) of berry garland somewhere in this house, and I believe one of them is battery operated with lights, so I just might wait until I find them....

And in the meantime, I have something just a little bit different!  That also didn't cost me a dime......

I need an intervention......

Yesterday I had to go and get pig feed. We are going to a couple sales this weekend and will hopefully have 4 pigs for the county fair by Sunday night.

Of course, I drove past my favorite junk store and had to stop!

This chair was sitting outside for $3....

And this wooden rocking chair was $5.....

This rocker was a very pretty green, but I found some black spray paint in the basement and painted it right up.

And this ladder was $13.....

Yes....it's laying on it's side in our living room as it's too tall to stand upright in the corner like I had wanted. I should have known that might be a problem when it had to fit in my Durango from front windsield clear to the back window:) Todd says he can cut it down so it will fit.....

The metal chair is already in place on the deck. I do have this metal chair which is similar to it, and am going to paint both chairs the same color. Any suggestions? I was thinking black or red....

Of course, after I got done at the Junk Store, I had to take my finds home before I could actually go get pig feed. sigh. But it was a gorgeous day for a drive seeing as how it was in the low 80's!

Once I finally made it home, I put the wooden rocker on our walk-out patio. And then decided that I really should paint the table and chairs that are down there now. So the table and chairs now have 1 coat of black paint.... I've had the new umbrella for the table for a while now, so that came out as well:

Ignore the flowerbed behind the table which I haven't cleaned out yet.... and the siding hanging down off of the house.... It was all ripped off of the house in a big windstorm that we had in March - the contractor is supposed to be coming this week or next to put new siding on that end of the house...

Slowly but surely I am getting my flowerbeds in order. Last fall I killed a bunch of my flowerbeds...they were getting too overgrown and too messy. On Sunday we worked outside all. day. long. I cleaned out flowerbeds and mowed the yard while Todd helped me with the heavier stuff (like edging the flowerbeds) and hauling manure...And I'm about half done:

The chicken coop:

One of my beds along the driveway going back to the hay barn:

The first flowerbed I ever put in: This shed was the only thing on the property when we moved in (except for the house) and one of the first things I did was this flowerbed:

We had 5 yards of mulch delivered on Tuesday night....I'm sad to say it's all gone and I'm probably going to have to order about 5 more yards.....the skidloader is EXCELLENT for hauling mulch though....not very much shoveling by hand at all.....you can see in the one picture of the chicken coop the ruts that I put in the ground with the skidloader spreading mulch....I'm just so very thankful I didn't TIP the skidder.....guess when the ground is wet you can't turn very sharp....lol

And my deck.....with the hanging basket the kids brought me for Mother's Day!

So the rest of the week? We'll spend it finishing up the flowerbeds and getting ready for more 4-h pigs.....and I am determined not to go back to the junk store for the bench I saw there....but had no room in my Durango for:)

Wall of photos....

When we go to all of the bigger shows, the kids want to get thier pictures taken with their animals. And while it is expensive ($10 for 2 4x6 prints) they want them and so that is one thing we've tried to get every year - a good picture with each animal they've shown.

Then of course is the dilema - what do we do with all of these pictures. And then I found inexpensive frames at Wal-mart. The 5x7 frames are $2 each, and the 8x10 frames are $3 each.

Jessie's room is currently cotton candy pink. And her furniture is white. So I painted her frames cottage white by Behr. I figure the white will work with any color room she comes up with when we repaint her room in a few weeks....

Tyler's room is red, white and blue. But I went with leaving the frames black for him. Partly because I'm lazy and painting all of these frames has been driving me batty.

(one of his pictures that I took this past weekend before I put it in the frame)

I try to also print off pictures that I've taken of them actually in the show ring. Which was a challenge until recently when I got a new camera. Because usually in the showring, they are several hundred feet away from me. And my little point and shoot camera just doesn't zoom well that far. So I cashed in some rewards and got myself enough gift cards to Best Buy to buy a Cannon DSLR camera. I'm still learning it, but I do manage to get some good pictures:)


So I do have more pictures to frame and put up here. And then they both asked if I could print off some pictures of them showing pigs and frame them.



I think they are going to run out of room......

Thrifty finds

Yesterday I had to leave work early for Jessie's recorder/choir concert. And I had to drive almost to my favorite junk store to drop some papers off at somebody's house. So I had to stop in there.

Nothing really caught my eye until I saw this (which will be turned upside down to make a table out of):


And then I saw this:

And thought they would be perfect on our deck. I'm putting up the gazebo tomorrow (it is supposed to be in the high 50's and sunny, so I'm ignoring all that white stuff for the moment) so that we will be all ready to enjoy the warm weather. In years past I've put a table and chairs out there so we can eat, but it's rather cramped. So this year, I'm putting out chairs and a glider just to sit. Of course, I need to find another chair and the glider but.....I will. And if the chair is $12.00, I cannot leave it sit, right?

Then, as I was getting ready to walk out the door, I saw the most PERFECT thing for me. And it only had a price tag on it of $15.00. It has a couple small tears but nothing that can't be fixed. And the binding is rather frayed. But I'm thinking to set out on the deck - it's just perfect.

Jessie already tried to hijack the quilt for her bed. Which may still happen. If I'm feeling generous. Maybe.

It was the best $32.00 I've spent in a looonnnngggggggggg time.

And I've decided I'm going back there today or tomorrow. When you see a wooden medicine cabinet (with a mirrored front) and don't think anything of it, even though the price tag is only $5.00, and the sucker is HEAVY, and then you have a dream about that medicine cabinet in your bathroom, that is a sign, right????????

Hope everyone has a sunny weekend
Kris

Less is definitely more

Yes, I've been absent a lot lately. Seems like I had wonderful intentions this week having been off work since the Wednesday before Thanksgiving but....

I've been doing lots of work with the calves that we are showing next week, a fair amount of shopping with my Mom and my Grandmother, and TONS of knitting and quilting. I can say that I do have most of my Christmas crafting and shopping done (or in the case of the Christmas crafting, I know what I am making and have the supplies to make it). It's not going to be a lavish Christmas by any means but we will make some memories.

But today, I decided I had really better get it in gear and get out my Christmas decorations. Seeing as I have to go back to work on Monday, we will be at a steer show in Columbus next weekend Friday through Sunday and Christmas will be here before you know it.

This is about a 1/8 of the containers of my Christmas decorations (I have 6 big totes and about 9 or 10 copy paper boxes). I think I put out about 1/2 of this.

I decided this year I am ONLY putting out stuff that I truly love and that has special memories/meaning to us. As a result, what used to take me 3 solid days of putting out decorations took me about.....2 hours.

This Santa is supposed to sit on a vacuum cleaner ("Sweeper Santa"). However, due to the little people in the house, it is a pain in the you know what to have to take the Santa off the sweeper to vacuum every day. Or even several times a day on the weekends.

I decided to put some garland up here and there - if I can figure out how to attach it to the house siding WITHOUT putting holes in the siding, one of these garlands will go around our back door.

Normally I would have 3 shelves like this loaded to the hilt.

This Santa I made a few years ago - he just sits on a wooden dowl rod. Todd needs to cut the dowl rod shorter and put some sort of wooden base underneath him.

I still need to put out my life size Santa and hang 3 Christmas wallhangings that I have made over the years, and I am pretty sure the Christmas tree is going up this weekend. I have lights hung outside the house (I thought about hanging lights on the chicken coop and that may still get done but for right now, I'm doing good.

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend. It's been in the 60's here most days........

Kris

Spring

I am normally not a procrastinator - but it is turning out to be a very good thing!

Way back when (OK - the Saturday after Thanksgiving) I packed away all my "everyday decorations" in preparation of pulling out my Christmas decorations. Yes, I have 11 large Rubbermaid tubs of Christmas decorations plus the Christmas tree.

Well, the Christmas decorations came down the Saturday after Christmas, and I have yet to put back out my "everyday decorations." Todd asked me last night if I were "going Amish" in that there is not much of anything out on my shelves or hanging on our walls. My response - I'm thinking about what I want to put out and where to put it all.

Of course, it would help if I would actually remember what I have in the way of decorations. But he doesn't know that I cannot remember - so all is well on that front. So this afternoon upon getting home from work, Tyler and I decorated for Easter (I did bring that box upstairs oh.....about a week and a half ago......at least it's not still sitting here right?)

And here are a few of my favorite Easter things:



My $7 Jo-Ann Fabrics lighted 4 foot Christmas tree -

that I found rustic eggs for at the local junk shop - for $2 an egg.

I only brought 4 - figuring I'll go back here in a week or so and get another 4 or 5.

A wool penny rug table mat that I made oh.......10 years ago maybe?

Hopefully tonight (after the kids go to bed) I can get out some more of my favorite things again. Then this will lead to also having to clean the house.....we'll see how far I get:)

Kris