Upstairs Switcheroo

July 1, 2014 By Leave a Comment

One of the mostly untouched rooms left in the house is/was our upstairs guest room.  We have two bedrooms upstairs, one that has been functioning as my office/craft room and the other which we used as a guest bedroom.  There were two major issues with this: 1. The guest bedroom was directly over the garage door (which is outrageously loud and our main entry/exit out of the house) and 2. The husband had no area for himself.  Up until now, this second thing hadn’t been much of an issue (I mean… not for me at least 🙂 ) But my husband and I are strongly considering him going back to graduate school in the spring and to do so, he’ll need his own space to study, work, etc.  So we decided to do a little switcheroo upstairs.  We moved the guest bed into the office and the single bed into what will be his study.

So the room that looked like this:

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Now looks like this:

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Obviously we are going to do a lot more to this room, I’ve ordered a desk for his birthday present (don’t worry he already knows about it, so no secrets spoiled here) but unfortunately it is backordered until August!! We will probably paint, get a new comforter for the twin bed, and maybe paint the red dressers again? Still trying to nail down my mental picture for how I want this room to look, but it will be more male oriented and definitely a nice calm place for him to study and write.

rpoffice2

I love this bed, it came from my grandmother’s basement and needed a little TLC to get it back up and going, but it is such a gorgeous piece of woodwork. And makes a perfect second guest bed to have (in case my grandmother and my parents come to stay or a guest has a child with them.)

We are also going to hang more of our diplomas in here and a few things that are meaningful to the husband, but I’ll keep y’all updated every step of the way!

rpoffice3

 

Stay tuned tomorrow for the update on the office.

Filed Under: Guest Room

Not your normal Farm Table

June 20, 2014 By 1 Comment

One of my aunts was recently switching up her house and my great grandmother’s table didn’t fit her needs anymore, so I jumped at the chance to have it.  My mom’s grandmother Nanny had this table on the farm in western Kansas (hence the blog post title).  And it is BEAUTIFUL.  It has been well taken care of over its years.

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The chairs are a little creaky, but I think that adds to some of the fun of having such a meaningful table in my house.

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They look a little more orange in the picture above than they are in person, and they coordinate well with the furniture I already have in there.  I have a few more plans for the hutch in the corner… so stay tuned for some updates for that.

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The fabric on the chairs is a beautifully textured champagne color that my aunt had chosen.  I love the fabric right now, but if in a few years I want to change it up, these are easy to recover!

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I love the way it looks! And it is pretty incredible to think about all of the people who have sat around it, or shared meals together around that table.

Filed Under: Basement Treasures, Dining Room

How to Put Up a Picture Frame

June 17, 2014 By 1 Comment

Step 1: Receive awesome picture frame as wedding present. (With a special meaning to you… totally unbeknownst to the gift giver… see story below)

Step 2: Approximately 2 months later find perfect location to place afore mentioned awesome picture frame. See this picture posted from November of last year? Yeah… picture frame is up with the standard black and white picture that was included.

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Or two weeks ago when I posted about our garland in the bonus room:

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3. Wait 2 months, need to order some pictures for a shower you are hosting,  and decide to add on a picture to put in this frame you have been nicely displaying of two total strangers.  Choose a picture and wait for the mail to arrive.

4. 3 days later, get mail, hurriedly open the package because you can’t wait to see your pictures. Set pictures on counter.

5. A week later get tired of moving the pictures around the kitchen counter where they won’t get bent or spilled on and add them to the pile at the bottom of the stairs to take up next time you go (which you rarely do because you are really in a hurry every time you run up and down the stairs).

6. Take picture upstairs and set it in front of the picture frame to ensure it looks good.

frame

7. Leave it this way for 5 months because for the life of you, you can’t remember to bring a screwdriver upstairs to unscrew the plastic covering to put your picture in… despite the fact that you had AT LEAST 2 screwdrivers strewn all over the floor in front of this shelf the entire time you redid the laundry room. 

8. And there you have it folks… your 1+ year process of putting up a picture frame… courtesy of yours truly.

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This is a totally true story. I was talking to a couple of my good friends about this blog and specifically the never-ending to do list of owning a home in general. And how everyone has those things that they walk by in the house a million times and they just never seem to get done.  This is a lot of how my spring has gone… And now we are venturing towards the halfway mark of the year and I’m not sure where the time has gone, or when I’ll catch my breath. (I’m sure never…) But its a great life, and I am grateful for all of the busyness that fills my days… even when (and maybe especially when) it takes me a year to put a simple picture in a simple frame.

And speaking of that frame, this frame has a story.  It was a wedding gift from a great couple in our church. I’m fairly certain they don’t even know how special this frame is to me. We opened it after we got back from our honeymoon, and I couldn’t believe the phrase on it: All my love, all my life.  You see… I have the greatest parents in the world.  And they have always shown me what it is like to truly love someone, how to be excellent parents, great friends and to love and serve others first. I have always been grateful to have been shown what an excellent marriage looks like. Yes they fight and get upset, but they love, REALLY LOVE each other. One of the things they have always said to each other is AML AML: all my love, all my life.  It is something I grew up hearing them say, write on gifts to each other and knew it was one of the ways in which they told each other they loved the other person.  I have never heard it anywhere else until I saw this present.

It was such a beautiful gift to be able to think about their life together and love for each other as my husband and I are starting our journey together, even if it did take a year to be finalized. But maybe that’s the point… we will love each other always, through the ups and downs, the busys and the not so busys, all my love, all my life.

Filed Under: Bonus Room, Life
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