Thursday, September 30, 2010

One Room House Tour: Dining Room

As promised, here comes the new dining room furniture, but I might as well show you the entire dining room since several people (OK, two) have asked to see more of my house. Brace yourself... this is a picture-heavy post.

We live in a cape-style home. The dining room is a separate jut off the back of the house. We moved into our current home a little over a year ago. The previous owners used this room as a family room (The room that they used as their dining room became our playroom). This is quite possibly my favorite room in the house. First, a view of each wall...


There's my little sewing corner.


Now a little more detail on some stuff around the room...



The two prints on the left side of the mantel are by a Vermont artist named Peter Huntoon (My husband and I both grew up in Vermont). The one on the far left is special because it's a painting of my father-in-law's feed store. The photograph on the far right pictures three men in front on a train engine. One of those men is my great-grandfather. The "Welcome Autumn" banner came from my printable.


My maternal grandparents were dairy farmers. They had cows until I was somewhere between 8 and 10 years old, then they retired. I grew up about five minutes from the farm, and boy do I wish my girls could experience growing up running through fields with cows, drinking milk right from the barn, and walking through the barn at feeding time. The sign over our mantel is something I found when we were cleaning out my grandparents' house. It was painted by the man who owned the farm before my grandparents. It's at least 100 years old. It is absolutely one of my favorite things that I own.


That enormous 25 gallon crock is the largest of several crocks that I own. I love them. They are sprinkled throughout my house. The toolbox also came from my grandparents' farm. Several years before my grandfather passed away he gave it to my husband. The old wooden level in front of it belonged to my husband's grandfather.

Now about that furniture... Last December we got a huge snow storm. After an hour and a half of shoveling snow, my husband hadn't gotten very far (we have a long driveway). I was over seven months pregnant, so I wasn't any help. He came in the house and said he wanted to go buy a snowblower. What's that I hear? Is that opportunity knocking? Well, a deal was struck that he could go buy the snowblower if I could get new dining room furniture within the next year. I figured we'd wait until after the baby was born to start looking, but we stumbled upon the table in January...



The top is made from reclaimed barn board. We fell in love with it immediately but didn't like any of the chairs that they had in the store. We decided to take the table anyway.

February came, a baby was born, and the chairs were put on the back burner for a while. About ten weeks ago we stopped back in at the store where we bought the table, but we still didn't see any chairs we liked. We started talking to the owner about what we were looking for, and she started showing us some pictures of chairs that she could order for us. We ended up ordering the chairs that day, and I am so glad they are finally here because I am loving them.


These are by far my favorite pieces of furniture in the house now.

The dining room is by no means "finished". I want to paint the walls... my entire house, aside from the girls' rooms and the guest room, is all the same color white. That's how it was when we moved in. And I want to get a braided rug for under the table. If I ever get around to any of this, I'll post an update. And I think I'll do more of these "One Room House Tour" posts on occasion so I can show you more of the house.

Hope you are still reading... there's a lot of stuff in this post. Thanks for stopping by today! On a side note... after I finished taking the pictures for this post, my three year old pointed to the trim boards in the dining room as said, "Don't they look shiny and clean?" To which I of course replied, "Yes, they're beautiful!" And she responded, "I just cleaned them with juice!" Reminds me of the time she told me she washed the windows with cheese. What's wrong with this kid?!




Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Halloween Pumpkin Pillow

I know I told you that I was going to show you my new dining room chairs today, but I'm putting that off for one more day because I received a special treat yesterday... the stars aligned and my seven month old actually napped while my three year old was at preschool. Woohoo! I got to sew in the middle of the day for the second time in three days!

I'm really into pillows right now, and when I made the Scrap Buster Fall Pillow for my mother, I knew I was hooked on envelope closure pillows. The pillow cover itself is so simple to make, and you can dress up the front as much or a little as you want. I came up with this Halloween pillow to put on the couch in the living room.


(If you haven't guessed by now, I love muslin, ric rac, and felt. I love linen, too, but I didn't get to use it this time.)

This pumpkin is similar to the pumpkin I used on my Halloween table runner, but I added a brown stem and eliminated the fabric from the very back of the pumpkin.


I added the green shell button detail with embroidery floss... I think it kind of looks like vines.


Again, a decoration that celebrates the spirit of Halloween without being too Halloweeny... just my style.


I also added a little tag with my name and the year.


This project seriously took me about an hour and a half, and part of that was spent cutting out three felt jack-o-lanterns that I decided against in favor of the one large pumpkin. I really love this pillow. I can't wait to make more of these for upcoming holidays.

Thanks for stopping by today! I promise I'll show you my chairs next time.



PhotobucketA Crafty SoireeShow and Tell Green

Monday, September 27, 2010

Halloween Table Runner

In my post last Friday I said it was time to move into Halloween mode, so here we go. We finally have new dining room chairs (more on that next time) to go with our new table we bought back in January. I was standing in the dining room drooling over admiring my new furniture when I decided that it needed something festive. With my husband watching football in the living room with the girls, I was free to actually make something in the middle of the day instead of beginning a project when I should be going to bed. Yippee! Here's what I made...


It's a Halloween table runner. I tend to like decorations that celebrate the spirit of Halloween without being too Halloweeny. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I didn't buy novelty Halloween fabrics with pumpkins and bats and candy corn and all that good stuff... I just used black and white fabrics and added my own orange pumpkins.


The little pumpkins came from this pillow post at Ameroonie Designs. Aren't they adorable?! She has great instructions on how to make them. As soon as I saw them, I knew I had to use them on something.


I used a 45" x 12" piece of linen, five different 12" x 3½" strips of black and white fabric, 24" of ric rac, and scraps of orange felt and orange fabric. I took the black and white strips of fabric and pressed the long edges in a ¼", then topstitched them onto the linen. Then I sewed a 12" piece of ric rac to each end of the linen. I flipped the linen over and pressed in all edges about ½", mitering the corners. I then sewed around the outside edge of the linen. You could stop there and have a really nice, simple table runner, but I added the pumpkins for a little pop of color... and you need orange for Halloween, right?


This was such a simple and quick project, and I love the way it looks on the table.



Thanks so much for stopping by today! I have another Halloween sewing project sketched out in my notebook, so be on the look out for that soon.
Keeping It SimpleThe DIY Show Off

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Get Your Craft On Tuesday

Sunday, September 26, 2010

What a Pleasant Surprise!

I received a blog award this weekend! The One Lovely Blog Award was passed to me (and four other bloggers) by Staci at Lizard & Ladybug (Thanks, Staci!). I’m thrilled!


One of the best parts of the One Lovely Blog award is that you get to pass it on! Here's how it works...
  1. Accept the award. Post in on your blog with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.
  2. Pay it forward to 5 other bloggers that you have newly discovered.
  3. Contact those blog owners and let them know they've been chosen.
Here are my 5 choices for the One Lovely Blog Award:
These are some really talented ladies. Please take a moment to check out their blogs… you’ll be glad you did!
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