Thanksgiving

Hi all!

Just popping in to wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving!

We are having a few people over at our house, but nothing fancy this year.

It's easier that way- especially with really little ones. :)

Here is a quick picture or two of our fireplace-

it really feels cozy and it's nice to have it on during the holidays.

These were taken with just a few lamps on, so it's a little dark...but it creates a nice ambiance that way. :)

Happy Thanksgiving week everyone!

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Building A Shed

Hi everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Can you believe it's the middle of November already?

It really feels like I blinked and here we are in November...so close to Christmas! :)

Well, today I have an exciting project I have been waiting to share.

A month or so ago, my hubby and I decided to take the plunge and build our own backyard shed!

Yep! We wanted to build one for our family instead of buying a pre-packaged one at the hardware store. Besides, most of them are cheap and unattractive or really expensive...not what we were looking for.

A while back, I found plans to build a small shed here and my hubby found a plan that involved a larger sized shed. We decided to combine both plans we found in order to come up with one plan that would allow for a 6' X 8' shed.

Here is what we did in a nutshell:

We cleared out a space for where we would place our shed and then placed down deck blocks that would act as the base for our shed.

Then hubby began building the floor... 

I did help...even though it looks like he did all the work. Ha!

Our doggy had to make sure everything was level...

(well, not really of course, he just likes getting in pictures every now and then).

 Here is the floor of the shed all ready to go!

After building our wall frames, we got ready to place them up on the floor and made sure they were secure with screws.

 

 Once the frames were up, we built the doors.

Aren't they puuurrrty?!

The roof trusses were one of the last big parts we built and we had to make sure they were pretty sturdy so we added metal plates to the tops.

 Getting the wall frames up was pretty exciting. It was here that we began to see our shed come together!

Hubby got the roof trusses up which was pretty tough...I'm glad I didn't have to do that part! ;)

Then it was time for the siding to go up, which we made out of fence posts and just nailed into the sides of the shed...and then the doors went it!

YAY!

We decided to paint our shed to match the color of the siding on our house so we went with Navajo White by Sherwin Williams for the shed and Westhighland White, also by Sherwin Williams, for the trim.

We are waiting for the roof parts to come in before getting that installed and then we can start moving some lawn supplies in and other bins to free up space in the garage!

I'm actually really excited about that part because I can organize and clean things up a bit which is always fun!

Thanks for stopping by!

Wintery Front Porch- Simplicity

Hey there!

Don't you just love that Thanksgiving and Christmas are almost here?

I love this time of year, and while I admit that the year has been going by way too fast, I am glad that we have hit fall/winter season around here! I am not a big fan of the cold & windy weather we get this time of year, but I do love decorating for these seasons and it gets me all excited!!

I haven't done any Christmas decorating though because we want to get through Thanksgiving first and enjoy it without having to worry about putting up our tree yet. I know that some people have already started busting out their Christmas trees and other decor, but you won't find that in this house yet...not until the 29th. ;)

In other news, I recently made over our front porch AGAIN!
Our front porch once looked like this (click here to see). 

And now it looks like this:

I thought I'd do some in B&W because it was fun! :)

As you can see, I adding burlap fabric on our chairs to cover the existing yellow and gray fabric we had before to create more of a warmer look.

I also made these pillows out of cheesecloth that I purchased from JoAnn's a long time ago and added ribbon to one and used a Sharpie Marker for the other to write "it is well with my soul." I saw a pillow like this over at Dear Lillie's blog and really wanted to create my own.

And last, but not least, I added some burlap fabric to our front door wreath. That way everything ties in all together and doesn't feel too mismatched.

I am also thinking of adding some B&W canvas photos out here, similar to the ones I did here.
They won't be too fancy so it could work to have them out front. Plus, it is really inexpensive to do.

That would pretty much be it for our porch...except for the occasional addition of flowers and holiday decor.

Thanks for stopping by!
Enjoy the rest of the week.

"T" & "L" Burlap Pillows

I recently made some little navy pillows for my daughters for their play area in our loft.

I cut some burlap and glued it to the navy pillows with the letters "T" and "L" to represent our daughters initials.

I added a flower to one of the pillows and am thinking about doing something similar to the other one.

Our youngest loves playing with the flower. :) And our oldest likes pointing out the letters on the pillows. She is really into doing that now...and she is getting quite good at her alphabet!

Our girls have quite the collection of books, don't they?

And that's not all of their books either. There's of course more in the house...oh the joys of having been a teacher!!

Our oldest daughter LOVES the Olivia books. We have read almost every single one to her and her favorite is the very first one titled, "Olivia." It is neat to see her really get into books now and she has even begun reading with us and to her sister...of course since she is only 2 she is "reading" sentences she hears us say to her from the books. ;) But it is still pretty cute!

I like how they turned out, but I am thinking of moving them to a small reading nook I am currently working on in one of the bedroom closets. I'm hoping the small space will function both as a reading nook and a place to store clothes as well.

I also changed out the bench fabric that use to look like this.

I like the simplicity of the green fabric much better than the geometric print.

That's all for today folks!

Thanks for stopping by!

Burlap Covered Boxes

 I just love this project I am sharing with you all today!

It was one of those things where one day I thought, "I would love to have been able to purchase 9 burlap baskets for our upstairs landing!!" But knew that would be way too EXPENSIVE to buy.

Then it hit me....why not just buy burlap fabric and wrap it around some boxes which I bought at Office Depot (for about $3.00 or less a piece).

Here is how it all turned out!

Sorry for some of the poor quality in the photos...they were taken at night. ;)

I store children's books and novels in these baskets from back in the day when I taught elementary school.

Our kids will always have a plethora of books to read if they so choose.

Quick tip: To keep the burlap secured to the box, I just used some spray adhesive from JoAnn's and it stuck like glue!

To see how this space once looked, go here.

Overall, I think the total for each "basket" cost about $5 or $6...not too shabby I suppose!

If you are ever looking around for cheaper ways to have burlap baskets, it may not be a bad idea to make them yourself. ;)

Thanks for stopping by!

DIY Necklace Holder

I have had several attempts at making a necklace holder for myself and finally feel like this one is THE ultimate winner!

I used some scrap wood left over from that secret project I keep talking about and did have to cut the wood down to size, but that was no biggie.

Hoping to share that sometime in the next couple of weeks!!

I used 3 nails to secure it to the wall, followed by many little nails to display my jewelry.

After everything was in place, I just put my necklaces up for display and that was that!

It's a pretty quick DIY project...gotta love that!

I saw this idea in a magazine a few weeks ago and wanted to give it a try.

I ended up using a much narrower piece of wood than the magazine article used because it was what we had on hand but I am glad I did that because I think it turned our fantastic.

Don't you just love quick and easy DIY projects?

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend everyone!