Tour of Our New House

I thought I would finally post some pictures of our new house.  We found it through a friend and we are renting it for the next two years.  It was built in 1989 and is surrounded by ten acres of farm land.  We do not have to farm however! It is leased out to a farmer.

Two bedrooms and a bath at one end of the house.

Kitchen, dig the light blue tiles!

This is the furniture of the person who sold it.

This is one of the bedrooms, in process.  Boxes everywhere.

The other bedroom.

There is a cute alcove off the living room.  It is sort of a music room/library.  Our piano is on one side and a book shelf is hidden behind the stack of boxes.

Our  dining table and china cabinet.

Here is the living room. Lovely sliding glass door to the back yard flanked by windows.

Now starts the pictures of our rooms all put together.

The kitchen with our little house canisters and other goodies put away.

The living room, without boxes.  I want to do a sort of gallery wall here with the tv.

Opposite the tv wall is a bookshelf with all our memorabilia from overseas.

The alcove with bookshelf all arranged and the piano .

This is my craft/sewing room and my sons room when he returns from deployment.

Daughter's room that will become a guest room when she gets married in September.

Front door.

Our crazy huge bathroom.  It is large enough to put a queen size mattress in and still have some space for walking around. That door is one of the his/hers walk in closets.

You walk through the kitchen to get to the bathroom and through that to get to the bed chamber.  And I call it a chamber for a reason.  it is smaller than the bathroom and is a dead end at the back of the house. The wallpaper has to go.

Th view into the laundry room.  It is also a pass through to the garage, beyond the door.

Hope you enjoyed this little tour.  I love living out in the country.  No noisy neighbor parties or dogs barking or porch lights left on to shine in our eyes at night. It is a little further away from stores, but worth it.

Blessings, 

Jeannine

Paint Booth and Organized Workshop

Hello, all. 

I think I am back for some blogging.  School is out for the summer in our school district. I have spent the last two months substituting for a math teacher on maternity leave.  I'm happy to be able to sleep in. (Of course I still awake at 5:30 every morning and the sun is streaming in so it's difficult to get back to sleep.  I need blackout curtains!)

Now that we are moved in to our new house (rental) we have spent some time cleaning the garage.  The property we are on has ten acres, but Farmer John rents that so we don't have to deal with that, except for the dust when he plows.  

There is a four tractor farm garage on the property and we do have one section of that. We've turned it into a storage unit for our sons belongings (he is currently serving in Operation Enduring Freedom) and a workshop for me to refinish garage sale furniture.

Husband made a painting booth for me!

I finally got a chance to use the paint sprayer Husband gave me for Christmas!  I'll show that later when I get those black chairs finished. And the dining table they go with.

Here's a view down the length of the room.

Paint supplies on the right, Christmas in the middle, and yard care stuff on the left.  You can see our huge stack of used boxes in the back.  We saved those for the next move. We are only here for a year or two.

Stack of Son's belongings plus more furniture to refinish. 

Thanks for taking a quick look at our new digs.  I have been having fun painting chairs and a table and bedside tables.

Blessings, 

Jeannine

Retro Pyrex Mixing Bowls

I don't know if you are like me, but there are certain things that bring back memories from childhood.  These Pyrex mixing bowls do just that.  My mom had only the yellow and green ones left from her original set, but they were in constant use.  My sister and I learned to mix cookies and bread in these bowls.  They were just always in the kitchen.

This past year Husband and I found several sets of these at estate sales.  Well, not sets.  We picked up pieces over the past year to put together three complete sets, with an extra yellow bowl left over. All of them are in good to excellent condition.  I don't think any of these ever were washed in a dishwasher, unlike Mom's!

However, I do not have a retro kitchen, so these sets are for sale.

They are just so classic and fun to collect.  We can't help ourselves.

Hope you enjoyed this little walk down memory lane.

Blessings,

Jeannine

Estate Sale Finds

Happy May!  We are winding down the school year here in our school district.  One more week.  We have finals and graduation, then Summer!  I can hardly wait.  I am going to spend my time writing, painting furniture, and if I can swing it, sewing slipcovers for my sofa and love-seat.

Of course we will be spending some time planning Daughter's wedding.

Meanwhile, Husband and I spent some time at estate sales this Saturday. At the first sale I found this great pair of ;inking shears.  I have always wanted a pair but they are quite pricey.  This pair, by Wiss, was only five dollars.  I couldn't pass that up!

The little butterfly dish is a "butter and jam" plate according to the March issue of Romantic Homes Magazine.  We had just purchased our set of seven last fall.  Today we found number eight!  It is not exactly the same, but so close no one will know.  They will be featured soon in a table scape.

As will this set of china Husband purchased today.  It was originally a set for twelve, but now only has ten complete place settings.  But it came with serving dishes.  Stay tuned for a table scape!

Thank you for stopping by to see what I've been up to.

Don't forget to enter my giveaway in association with The Cottage Charm Giveaway.

Show and Tell Tables

These lovely inlaid tables are from Syria. I wanted the largest one but they wouldn't break up a set. And I certainly didn't want to pay the $200 the shop owner was asking for them.
We were on the third floor of a very little, crowded with merchandise shop. Because bargaining for price is part of the culture, and I'm no good at it, I walked away, down two flights of stairs.
Husband is good at bargaining. In fact he enjoys it. So when all the back and forth was done, we got the set of tables for $100. A much better deal. The employee finally decided that his boss would rather sell something than not.
We wrapped up the tables and took them home. They were my Christmas present that year, 2003.

Yes, that is a Turkish made carpet. We purchased that in Jordan. And the coffee set is decorative rather than usable but is very representative of the coffee sets used "min zamaan", way back when.

They told me all the different woods used in the table, but I can't remember any! It is real mother of pearl, though, not plastic.

I've linked up with Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home. Check out all the other offerings and say hello to Cindy while you are visiting her blog.
Thanks for stopping by,
Jeannine

Beachy Bedroom Finale

Last fall we redid our daughters bedroom, updating the color and making it into a beach retreat. You can see that here

Since then we put a different quilt on the bed and got some super feather throw pillows. I got these for $15.00 for the pair at TJ Maxx. They are great because you can squish them up while reading a book late at night and then they plump back to their original form. Not like fiberfill pillows and others.

On the shelf are the covered books I won in a give-away from Perfectly Imperfect. I love the way they turned out. Shaunna was super about emailing to customize the books to match the room. I've become a fan of Shaunna's and love to see what she's up to in crafts and furniture refinishing. Check out her blog to see what she's doing currently.

The mirror is a little beauty that Husband picked up at a garage sale, in a funky brown wood color. He spray painted it and Daughter loved it! I may still put a little gold highlighting on the flowers. Maybe not, I don't know.
Hope you enjoyed the finished look in Daughter's room. Next week I'll try an update on Son's room. We went beachy stripes there!
Thanks for stopping by,
Jeannine