The Rest of the Room

It would be difficult to show you before shots of these same spaces because we tore down every single wall.  It's a totally different house now than what it was.  The dining space you see above use to be the old kitchen.

 

The vertical beam you see towards the left used to be under the old kitchen floor holding up the joists.  We recycled as many things from the demolition as we could.  We even made a candle centerpiece with one of the old floor joists:

 

 

The ceiling is made up of the old planks that used to cover the walls.

 

 

We initially intended to wall off the kitchen.  I kind of liked the idea of having a quiet kitchen to myself with maybe a helper or two and shutting the rest of the world out.  ;)  But we saw how much brighter the main area was with it opened up and we decided to keep it that way. 

 

Most decisions for the house were made on the fly.  The stairs used to go the opposite direction, and we had no plans to move them.  I went out for a day of errands and when I got back, my husband surprised me with "honey, we flipped the stairs!".  If I learned anything through this renovation process, it was to go with the flow.  I'm flowing still today.

 

 

Instead of a guest book, I made a "guest board" for our guests to sign their name.  It's a chalkboard, but I have our guest use a paint pen to write on it so it doesn't rub off.  The phrase "God Be With You Till We Meet Again" was taken from a favorite hymn of ours:

 

 

Moving on into the living room area... my husband built the built-in bookshelves on either side of our music room doors. 

 

 

                                     

 

Since we lack a coat closet, we desperately need a practical solution for our shoe storage when we enter our front door.  The cabinets at the bottom of the built-ins hold our shoes.

 

 

 

The paint color on the walls is "Seapearl" by Benjamin Moore.  The trim is "Clean White" by Valspar.

 

 

We used our antique barber shop mirror as a new mantle for our fireplace. 

 

 

 

I plan to show you a couple more finished spaces from the first floor in my next post.

 

 

 

Again, if you have specific questions, leave them in the comments box, and I'll try to reply.  Thanks for visiting!

 

 

 

 

Back Visiting- Our Craigslist Kitchen

 

I'm back for a few visits!  I've gotten so many emails from people asking for updates, so I decided to dedicate a few posts over the next couple months to show you what we've been up to.  We are still not completely finished with the house... it's been a long, laborous process, and I honestly wouldn't recommend it to anyone.  ;)  What we thought would be mostly cosmetic changes turned into a full-out rebuild.  Literally y'all... we've replaced almost every single wall and floor joist in this house.  Should you ever lose your brain and decide to undertake such a project, by all means, DON'T LIVE IN IT!  My advice... plop an RV on the property and call it home until the renovation's over. Hindsight.  *sigh*  

 

I posted a while back (here) about this unique kitchen set we found on craigslist.  It was made by the kitchen cabinet company, Smallbone, and came out of a fancy, schmancy house in a golf course community.  Here it was in the original house:

 

The beauty of English country kitchens is that they are usually free floating pieces, similar to  furniture.  So it was easy to reconfigure the pieces to suit this empty room in our farmhouse:



We kept the wood cabinets as they were, but repainted the painted pieces a creamy white for a more simple look:

 

 

The island came from our last house, where we had used an old buffet (also bought on craigslist!) and turned it into an island. We repainted it the same white as the cabinets to make it unified. The iron wall unit came from Pottery Barn. 

Besides the carrara marble counters and pendant lights, it's the only new thing in the whole kitchen.  Everything else came used and from craigslist, including the appliances.

 

 

If you look closely, you'll see we still have some painting touch-up to do, and the ceiling still has the old pop-corn.  We have plans to do a rustic wood ceiling one day in the future. 

 

I plan to show you our finished dining and living areas in my next post.  This kitchen opens out to both of them.  Feel free to ask me specific questions you have in the comments section, and I'll reply best I can.  Thanks! 

 

Moving On

Dear Readers,

After months of contemplation, I’ve decided to say goodbye to my blog.  *sniff, sniff*  I’m finding that blogging about design has settled further down on my priority list…if that’s not been obvious by my lack of posts.  My time is taken up more than ever before…three teens now in the house (delightful so far, but time consuming…lots of eye-to-eye conversations involved that I wouldn’t miss for the world),  ramping up homeschooling of our special needs daughter, and of course, I can’t leave out the two middle girls who need their Mommy’s attention as well. 

I’ll still be decorating obviously, and will forever be rearranging, tweaking, and will continue to be inspired by your projects and pictures.  You can still keep up with what’s going on over here at our fixer farmhouse via Pinterest and Houzz.  I still want to share, but just in a way that works better with my life.  Hopefully I’ll see you over there!  This blog led me into a fun, surprising journey, and I’m so glad you were all a part of it with me.  Thank you!

Love to all,
Rie

Secondhand Treasures Magazine

I just wanted to pop in and say thank you to the people from Secondhand Treasures for including me in their new magazine!  If you like antique stores and flea markets, you’ll want to pick this one up.  It has loads of advice and inspiration for thrifters!  Here’s a sneak peak:

They mixed up our two houses, and put some of our previous house rooms inside our new fixer farmhouse, which I find kinda funny.  I wish it were that easy to do in real life!  Shazam!! 

Alas, we are still plugging away on the house over here, so there’s nothing new to show on that front.  Sorry it’s been super slow on the blog.  Raising six children and gutting a house at the same time has a way of filling up the days.  ;)

Almost there…

I’m really not into posting “before” photos until I have some finished pics to follow them up with.  I personally like seeing a pretty picture after an ugly one.  But I figure with how things are moving along over here… it could be awhile.  ;)

A few months ago I posted about the English Smallbone kitchen we found on craigslist.  I posted about it here. 

Here’s the kitchen in it’s original home.  A little old school country, but with so much potential.

And here it is installed in our new-but still in progress-kitchen:

There were two painted pieces mixed in with the wood, and I decided to repaint them in a creamy white. 

I just love the look of wood and white.  Instead of subway tile, we’ll be installing wide horizontal plank boards on the walls of the kitchen, painted white.  I think it will give it a cozy modern farmhouse vibe that will feel warmer than tile.

We’ll be using honed carrara marble for some of the counters, including the island. 

The beautiful teak on the farmhouse sink counter will stay, as will the butcher block counter:

Does the island look familiar? 

We took it with us from our old house when we moved.  I painted it the same creamy white as the new cabinets and took the fabric off the back of the wire…just for a change. 

I also used the same Restoration Hardware drawer pulls on the new cabinets as I did on our island for a unified look:

By the way, we got our Jenn-Air stove on craigslist too for $200!  It was an especially good find, since we needed a downdraft stove due to the windows above.  Downdraft stoves are hard to come by, especially used. 

I have always loved wrap-around windows in a kitchen. 

The view out of our new kitchen is worth the lack of storage space from upper cabinets. Don’t mind the unkempt yard… that’s a whole other project.

I’ve gotten so much inspiration from so many places, it’s hard to narrow down one kitchen in particular that’s inspired the new space.  But here are some, which will give you an idea of what I’m envisioning for the walls, ceiling, and window finishings:

I hope by sharing these sneak peak pics, you can share in my vision (and excitement) for the finished product.  Almost there!