Americana bench

I saw a bench painted up a few weeks ago and fell in love with it...It is the exact same bench that we have in our yard that is in need of a paint job. Needing a quick project and something to get me out of the funk I seem to be in lately I took Monday morning and painted it up.  I love it. (being 103 outside the paint dried really fast .)

Goofy

My husband came home a couple months ago with an order for a walking stick from one of his co workers.

Their whole family are "Goofy" fans...I had made them a stick before. (It was not one of my favorites)...Anyway I have been putting it off, just couldn't find a pattern and could not "see " it in my head. (I was thinking of doing it "in the round" but it just wasn't coming together for me...finally after slapping myself on the forehead it came to me to relief carve it using the turbo carver...This worked out great . I was able to finish it in a couple of days and I love how it turned out....Luckily the co worker loved it too.

Braided Rug

I saw, I pinned and then I made.  whew ! 

I stumbled on this beautiful rug on pinterest and the gal had a wonderful tutorial here so I will let you go there to see how it all comes together.   I really liked it and have been wanting one for our new wood floors. So we gave this a try over the "cabin fever" months this winter.  The braiding in kind of fun to do and it is fun to watch the braid get longer, however the sewing was a bit of pain.   I tried to short cut by using the sewing machine but it was a major fail . After a few rows it puckered up too much, so then I had to rip out the stitches and then resew it by hand...It was not as big as I was hoping for the floor but it looks adorable on the table..  Maybe next winter we will attempt a new one.

Walking Stick

A friend called the other day wanting  to know if I had any reject sticks .She wanted  a stick to give for her friends 60th birthday.  I do not have much right now so told her I would try to make a quick/simple walking stick . Luckily the stick I had worked up pretty quick and wasn't too hard to carve on. (Whew) . She seemed pretty pleased with it when she picked it up.  I hope her friend likes it as well.

grandkids pin board

I have been seeing the cutest board all over blog land and have been wanting to make one for myself for months. I finally took a day and worked on this little board .It is a  really simple project . I love how it turned out. It will make it easy to change out the pictures .  love it.

Santa ornament

our R.S had a white elephant ornament exchange this year for Homemaking in December. I took a day and worked on an ornament. It is carved out of cottonwood bark. It was a fairly small piece. I was pleased with how the beard flowed with the grain of the wood.

 

house fix up

WE finally have finished up the living room and dining room of the house. we patched holes took tack strips down ,taped, mud and sanded, painted and put wallpaper up and trim. Then had new carpet put down and flooring from the front door through the dining room into the kitchen and on to the back door. Whew are we exhausted and are ready to put remodeling on hold for a little while and catch our breath , or at least get out from under the dust for awhile.
     The house feels so different. seems bigger ( is that possible).  the kids came over and helped us move some the furniture around. we wouldn't have moved things there but we love what they did with it.

My husband putting baseboard molding up.

view looking to the back door

looking from kitchen to front door. we put a rug down for Jacob .he is not enjoying this flooring. 

a little bench we worked on together for putting shoes on and off.

a small ladder that we are using as a CD holder. 

we sewed up curtains . we couldn't decide on anything so went with some material we had on hand for now.

.

piano used to be where hutch is now. we now have a music room .

new curtains we ordered from pennies ,which were on sale.  whoo hoo.

tv has been moved into the corner or the room.

Add caption

made a little sitting reading nook by the fire for now.

remodeling progress.

moved the exercise equipment from the little bedroom to the bigger one.

moved the bookcases into the corner and added the desk.

made curtains .love how it ties it all together.

We have been hard at work on our remodeling project. We've been working on the rooms a wall at a time . after dinner we work for a couple of hours each night. makes for a long slow messy process ,but we are loving how each room is turning out.

finished the little room . that was easier ,just painted did not put the beadboard up in that room. Moved the daybed into that room ,turned the organ by the closets and then brought in the piano from the living room. We just wanted to get it out of the way and protect it from the dust in the living room and discovered it makes a really nice little music room. We just may leave it this way.  We'll see.

moved organ against this wall.

pictures are not up on the wall yet ,until we are done 

this is looking from the doorway. piano is opposite of the organ.

this past couple of weeks we have been moved to the entrance way hall and the dining room.
started on the rest of the room yesterday ,moving furniture out of the way and started taking down the wallpaper. Will continue to keep you posted as we work on this.

dining room

entrance way

bead board and trim

new walls/beadboard wallpaper

living room 

after 25 yrs in this house I am  really wanting a change . I would love to paint the walls, however being vinyl wallpaper it is not easily done. so we are starting small in the back bedroom which is our den/office/craft room and guest room.  the walls in the living rooms look like this. starting to feel really dark so we are thinking of doing this with it.
     so far we have two walls done and should be able to finish the other two this week. then new carpet before we start trying to put it all back.

     Should we keep going or stop while we are ahead...

"New cupboards"

coming along /new stove

desk after with new shutter doors from habitat store.

desk before

this spring I found myself with some extra time on my hands . When I came home from Utah after helping my parents for awhile I had taken a leave from work and when I got back found they were doing fine without me. (sigh) so needed things to keep me busy. I had been looking at kitchens looking for ideas to update our kitchen. My husband just wanted to take out the cupboards and gut the kitchen (someday at great expense in other words never gonna happen) . In looking around blog land I had stumbled upon Southern Hospitality beadboard party http://southernhospitalityblog.com/beadboard-wallpaper-party/ and I was in love. after  looking at the many linkups Iwent here to A country lady who had same wallpaper on her walls and cupboards as we did, and she just covered them up. SWEET. I can do that...just had to convince my husband. he agreed to let me experiment on the laundry room doors and if we liked it we could move on. Well it worked and it looks great and least to us. feels so fresh and clean. we painted the knobs  now hopefully it holds up. Someday maybe we will paint the kitchen walls but for now we are just enjoying the new look.
sorry the pictures are not in order but hopefully you get the idea of it.
 

doors before

doors after

progressing