Our new coffee table - old warehouse cart!

Troy & I had the pleasure of buying an AWESOME old warehouse cart today. We will be using it for our coffee table in the living room. It needs some cleaning but we aren't going to refinish it or anything. We love it just like it is. Rustic and gorgeous. Probably will put a coat of something on the top so people can put their glasses down without having a ring. 

It really is a thing of beauty! 

We bought it via Cragslist. A businessman purchased a semi truck full of these from North Carolina. These are real warehouse cards, used. I love the nostalgia! & for the most part they are in pretty good shape - there of course is wear and tear but thats to be expected. & its CHARACTER! He's been selling them to anyone who wants one! The one we got still had writing on the side and the wheels have markings from whichever place they used to do their work. Such a cool piece of furniture! Its going to look pretty sweet in our living room. 

You can never go wrong with rustic furniture, it just can't be beat!

Rock me mamma like a wagon wheel

These are our wagon wheels. Obviously there is just one in this photo, but we have two on either side of the stairs on the walkway of the house. Im having a hard time deciding what to do with 1. the wagon wheels, which I adore and 2. the horrible bush that is taking over the wagon wheel.

This is a photo of what the bushes look like when they are flowered. This photo was taken sometime in September when we first looked at the house.

This photo can be kind of misleading because there is a tree growing right in front of the left bush. 

From what I can tell, the right bush seems to be doing better than the left. 

Either way, a friend pointed out that the roots were growing into the stairs which in turn means they will be headed into the foundation of the home. I think my plan is to remove the bushes and start over with that landscaping. They aren't really nice to look at, and we can put something really beautiful there to accent the house. 

The wagon wheels however, not sure about those.

The wood on the inside has for the most part all rotted out. Troy thinks that we can maybe get some wood and salvage the wheels, making them still able to stay in that spot (I mean come on they are really cool, it'd be great to get them in good shape) but I don't even know where you would START to get wagon wheels fixed? So thats another task in itself.

& for good measure here's a photo of the property in the Fall. 

I can't wait to see what blooms in the Spring - come on Spring where are you?!

Adoring the new door & a house ever changing!

Well look at that - we have a new front door! 

Isn't it a beaut? 

We will never buy another front door again (it's a real wood door. We couldn't in good conscience get fiberglass but have real wood throughout the entire house. It made no sense to skimp on a door). Its perfect and we love it. If you look closely you can see that the vinyl siding on the left front of the house (around the door and window) was removed & now the original wood siding remains. If you look to the right side you can see where the vinyl siding still is. I mean its laid completely different then the wood siding was. 

When the door was being installed and framed in they ran into some issues with space, hence having to remove the vinyl siding. It doesn't look pretty now but it won't look like this forever. & honestly I kind of dig the wood siding! Its dingy and dirty and looks its age but its still pretty sweet.

The wood framing on the inside will all be painted white.

The house is coming along pretty quickly now but there are still a lot of loose ends to tie up. We're thinking two more weeks and I really hope it is! I am so excited to move into this house. 

Some (most) of the equipment has been moved out of our living room so now its become, for the most part, a big empty space. I LOVE seeing how far we've come and I will do a before and after post soon, just so you can see how crazy the transformation really is. It looks like a HOUSE again. & I am blown away every time I see it, honestly.

but for now its time to paint moldings and get the floor done. We've spent the past few days taping all the molding and windows in the house. All molding on the inside will be painted white. It's pretty tedious work but we're always moving forward. 

Add baseboards, install carpet, paint. All our doors have been installed for the most part in the house. 

Like I said, just a lot of loose ends to tie up. 

Stop being so SAPPY.

While perusing the property today we found it weird that one of the trees in our yard was, well, dripping. Troy put his hand up to it and low and behold - sap was coming out of our maple tree!

Everything I have read has said that it is too late in the season to tap trees. Its generally done in mid-March. So we might have to wait until next year to pop some spiles in and make our own syrup. This tree has been dripping for two weeks already, I can't imagine how much syrup we could have had by now! Lesson learned. Next year its ON.

I CANNOT WAIT to live here. 

Fun with tiles & ink!

Since I've packed up what I can and we can't paint the new house for another few days I was getting SUPER antsy not being creative. SO I took the extra tile I found from our remodel and decided to get crafty. This is an easy DIY tile coaster idea. This is SO EASY even kids can do it. Seriously. It's REALLY hard to mess up! & yes, I found this on Pinterest. 

Things you need:

1. 4x4 tiles (they are $.16 a piece at Lowe's)

2. rubbing alcohol (mines from the dollar store)

3. alcohol ink (I bought mine at Hobby Lobby - $10 for a three pack. I got 2 packs so I would have more colors)

4. paper towel

5. sealant if you prefer (for when everything is DRY)

Let's get to inking!

1. Wipe some rubbing alcohol on your tile surface. You will not need much. The more alcohol on the service, the more the ink will spread. I got big circles because there was more alcohol. I think less is more for this project, but its totally up to you.

2. Start dropping ink. In the first few tiles I did I just starting dropping dots. This still worked and it turned out beautifully BUT I didnt like the unfinished (white) edges. The smudging is due to me spraying sealant on it before it was dry. Wait a few hours to do this for sure.

So this time around I blotted the ink and dragged it along the edges to fill everything in before starting to drop ink blots. You do not need a lot as the alcohol WILL make the ink spread out.

3. Drop your dots! You can do this in any way you want, using any colors you want. Be creative! I found that letting things dry for about 30 seconds before dropping other dots made a completely different results. Play around with it. 

4. Keep dotting until you're happy with the end result. If you are going to seal them, wait a couple hours. I sprayed mine too early and although it turned out OK, it made a difference in the look. 

The possibilities truly are endless. I am going to seal mine give them as coasters to friends. They make a great easy gift! 

I made a whole bunch of tiles tonight. They are each different and unique and I love them! It was just a fun little thing to do and play around with. 

Enjoy!

Our new well house roof

   The well house roof project was completed pretty quickly!

   The picture below is of the well house roof before any re-roofing took place. The color of the shingles was a reddish gray. As you can see there was definitely ware & tear at the bottom of the roof line, and some shingles were starting to come off. It was time for a face lift.

I LOVE the new shingles and am glad we went with that color scheme. Doesn't it look nice? 

As you can see in the above photo, we will be having some wood boards replaced that were rotted out. This ensures we can have the entire place animal proofed. You can't have an adorable little well house that doubles as a bat cave & raccoon party center. As the weather gets warmer we will be adding some mortar to some of the brick space just to ensure this building is taken care of to last. 

So happy Spring is here - projects galore & I love it!

Doors, windows & an awesome barn slider.

Unfortunately the need to replace all the old doors in our house was great. While they are still wonderful old doors, refinishing them wasn't a project we wanted to take on. We ended up installing two pocket doors to save space and getting new doors to match the decor of the home. So here we are, left with four old doors.

We also have tons of old windows from the installation of the new. Not really sure what you do with old windows. I suppose if someone wants them it could be a cool craft idea? Right now we have them all sitting in the garage. The metal frames ones I don't mind getting rid of but I have a soft spot for the ones that are old and have wood framing. Im keeping them for now. I will use them for something!

& last but not least - our amazing sliding door in the garage/work room. It's this beautiful old barn wood that probably at one point slid on the hinge. It can open up to let you come INTO the work room and then close, permitting the entire door to move on the slide. Unfortunately the bottom roller does NOT want to move so, once the weather gets nicer and every things melted, hopefully we can figure out what's causing the hold up and get that thing moving again. It's such a cool door!

Spring things!

This week we've been kind of cleaning up the property the best we can. Putting in the new septic tore up A LOT of grass, so right now its just really dirt and sand. Except for THIS!

Thats right! Plants are starting to sprout up from the dirt. This honestly is the exciting part to me. Seeing what kind and how many different flowers will com up. We know we have tulips for sure but we also think there are daffodils mixed in as well. With 4 acres of land it will be exciting to see what we have!


The driveway was grated out this afternoon (as you can remember from the pics, there was a lot of mud and a lot of deep grooves. We were one rain storm away from not being able to get in and out of our driveway. & with all the people coming and going lately, that wasn't an option) & now we have a wonderful gravel mixture that should settle in the next few days. What a difference it makes! Now when we leave the driveway we don't leave a half mile of mud behind us. Progress!

Our Michirondacks!

I'M ECSTATIC! My wonderful husband & my mother in law bought me these amazing chairs for my birthday. They have been hiding in the Farmhouse garage battling winter. Aren't they just amazing? I know some people find them to be cheesy but I think they are adorable. 

I cannot wait to put them on our front porch when the day comes!

The chairs were made by a great guy in East Grand Rapids. I know that some of you may be thinking "Whoa Kristi those chairs are pretty pricey!" but to that I say: 
1. It's a well made authentic real wood item
2. cheap furniture doesn't last (& why would you want cheap furniture?) 
and finally, it was bought local. & supporting local business is always paramount! 

& he is the ORIGINAL maker of these chairs, don't be fooled by imitators! michirondack.com 

The well house roof job

Hello friends! Today, it being a nice Michigan 55 degrees and sunny out, work started on the roof of our well house (at least we call it the well house. It probably was a well house? I digress). The well house itself is in good condition. I mean look at it - it's adorable.

The inside has a wood floor, a ladder to the second level which could at some point have held hay or water. We were told by the previous owners daughter that growing up as kids they loved playing in this building. & why not? Its awesome!

So anyway since the well house is in good shape we plan to keep it in good shape. The roof, however, has seen better days. Thankfully our good friend Eric can re-shingle so today he started removing all the old shingles, replacing rotted wood underneath and putting new shingles on. We are excited!

Big thanks to Eric and his skills! 

A pizza oven? A stove? A wood burner? WHAT ARE YOU!

We have this beautiful stone sort of fireplace grill on the property, next to our garage. It has "1944" etched into one of the bricks so we think thats when it was built. Unfortunately some people tried to burn something in it and bricks are now missing and it needs some repair, but we vow to make it pretty & able to use this summer!! It's just a really cool addition to have. Hopefully we can figure out what to use it for!

New windows! & a mud pit.

We had new windows finally installed yesterday in the house. They look AWESOME. We did not replace the West side of the house as in the future we will be putting on some sort of mud room addition, so replacing the windows there doesn't make sense. Also didn't replace the kitchen or the bathroom as we have to remodel those rooms (eventually). The house already seems quieter! I didn't know that could happen after the insulation and the walls but it's true!

Aren't the grates (I think thats what they are called? Could be totally wrong) beautiful? I love that we went with lines in both. Old farmhouse feel. Keeping it real!

& since the weather is getting warmer we had a TON of snow melt AND some rain which means our driveway is a MUD PIT. It's getting difficult to go in and out but hopefully next week (we are supposed to get rid of the dumpster Monday or Tuesday) we will be having it evened out and be putting gravel down. Can't have a driveway that doesn't function as a driveway.