City Chick to Country Chic: June 2011

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Shelves and Spice

I was wandering around an antique store in town looking for a chandelier to put in my kitchen, but instead I found a couple of glass bottles to put my spices in. I heart spices! Eventually I want to have enough bottles in my kitchen for my spices to be like this:

[caption id="attachment_44" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="from BHG.com"]

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Except for my bottles are going to be all different sizes and on an open shelf, like the shelves below:

[caption id="attachment_51" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="from BHG.com"]

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But longer. That's what we're shooting for anyway.

I also found these:

and I thought, how excellent would it be to use these for an extra design element in between shelves? I think most! Since we're only in the demolition stage I am putting off buying them. Just in case I change my mind.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Nineteen Forty Four

It turns out the SD cards have a little slide-y thing on the side that keeps certain computers (mine) from reading the card. All you have to do is slide the little gray rectangle and boom! Pictures all of a sudden show up on your computer that weren't there before. Weird. So I got our pictures! but then I totally forgot to bring my camera again last night, so I took some not so awesome pictures with the Iphone.

From two days ago:

[caption id="attachment_58" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="kitchen beforekitchen beforekitchen after--that cloudy stuff? it's all the nasty dust"]

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: you can tell what wall i did because after a certain point i'm too short to reach!

Yesterday we were blessed to have some helpers! My Honeypie's mom, sister, and brother, as well as my two youngest sisters, youngest brother, and my mom. I hardly had to do a thing!

[caption id="attachment_62" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption=""even you can prevent forest fires""]

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[caption id="attachment_63" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="yeah, the next couple pics are blurry for sure"]

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[caption id="attachment_64" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="she wouldn't hold still long enough for a decent picture"]

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[caption id="attachment_67" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Mom-in-law, sis-in-law"]

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[caption id="attachment_68" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="bro-in-law--didn't want his picture taken. too bad!"]

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[caption id="attachment_69" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="and the only picture i have of el madre"]

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Underneath the linoleum rug (yes, it's true. they are ugly as sin, but protected the wood very well) in one of the bedrooms we found old newspapers from 1944 and 1957. Here's a peek:

[slideshow]

Awesome, right? My mom's favorite was this:

[caption id="attachment_80" align="aligncenter" width="461" caption="Elvis reading his notice of induction"]

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Like every teenage girl she loved Elvis. Personally, I think his face looks too squishy. Ew.

So my plan with some of these newspapers is to frame them and have a wall with them all hanging up. Maybe in the dining room. They are a dream for sure.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Sad Face.

I figured out what happened to my camera: I took it outside to take a picture of this stool I'm *attempting* to strip, set it down...and left it out there. For two days. and two nights. Both of those nights? Yeah, it rained--like Tornado Watch rained. Soooo....I stuck it in some rice in an attempt to revive it, but I think it's time I officially pronounce it dead. So. My beloved camera of five years, has kicked the can. Sigh.

The great thing is that my darling has a "better" camera than mine "anyway". So we got to take some pictures of the demolition yesterday. We knocked out the kitchen walls (only 9ish more rooms to go!) and took a picture of our sweet work attire...but for some reason I can't get his SD card to work on my computer? So that's lame.

I don't want to leave you picture-less though, so I'll just share what I started working on yesterday while I was waiting for My Honeypie to come home. Yes, that's the husband's official name in my phone. Anyway, I have these clothes that I don't fit/wear anymore and I didn't want to give them away so I decided to make Baby a quilt! Out of some of my old clothes, yes.

[caption id="attachment_33" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="old skirt that is just too short. yes there is such a thing as too short."]

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[caption id="attachment_34" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Old flannel pjs from a thrift store"]

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[caption id="attachment_35" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="all of the other squares are from remnants at the store"]

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[caption id="attachment_37" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="the owl"]

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That's what's up. Hopefully I'll figure out how to get those pictures on my computer. Loves!

[gallery columns="4"]

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Demolition!

We started tearing apart the house last night but I misplaced my camera, so I didn't take any demo pictures. I did have my wonderful Iphone, but as much as I love that thing, it doesn't take the best pictures. Also, it turns out I'm a wimp when it comes to breaking walls and stuff. My husband, father-in-law, and bro-in-law do a much better job.

I have one thing to say about remodeling:

If you're going to make it pretty, do it right!

Seriously.

There are layers and layers and layers of peel and stick tile (which I loathe!), tiled walls on top of lath and plaster, sheet rock over the lath and plaster, then wood paneling and whatever. It's so gross! There is no cohesion. The nice thing is that we don't have to try and remove any of the wall paper because all the walls are coming down!

While ripping down the cabinets we found a mouse that savagely tried to kill me (actually my darling tried to murder it, but the mouse escaped and charged me.) For real. Then underneath the nasty, rusting, molding, metal cabinets we found these:

If we were in to smoking then it would be a dream! But to us, it's just trash. Some of the boxes were still intact though and totally sealed. Kind of interesting for sure. That's all the demolition turned up so far.

[gallery columns="2"]

Monday, June 20, 2011

Some Man's Trash...

Is bound to be another's dream! My husband and I have been married a little over two months and we just bought our first house! Yay! It is an old, two-story Victorian home on five acres, complete with pond, out-buildings, and party barn!

Our new home needs plenty of work...plenty meaning, "The house is a wreck" as quoted by grandpa. But. It is the most beautiful wreck I have ever seen! and we are in love with it. We both love to make "ugly" things pretty again and I think we should share it all with you!

side view of our lovely home

While taking some of our family on a walk through of the house I found this hanging from the ceiling fan:

It's so cute! and so dirty. and sticky. and that was gross. So I cleaned it up with some soap and water and a scrubbie brush:

Ta-da! Right as rain. I'm still trying to decide if I should paint it.

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