Sea + Prairie

Estate Sale Finds and Random Thoughts

Hello friends.

Hope your weekend was a good one!  

It was warm here.  

Saturday morning we visited an estate sale.  There was lots to see, and much I wanted to purchase.  But I only came away with a few treasures.

I've been thinking a lot about need vs. want.  I seem to go through cycles of this.  My tastes change, so I get a few new things here and there to fresh things up a bit.  But then realize I need to purge some of the things I no longer enjoy or need.

I tell myself that because I shop mostly at yard sales or thrift stores (and sometimes Target), and never pay retail that it is ok.  But then still feel like at times we have too much clutter.  

Too much stuff is still too much stuff no matter how much you paid for it.

So, there has been some collecting.  But behind the scenes there has been lots of slow and steady cleaning out of closets.  Much going through and donating.

And our dirt finally arrived.  

Who gets excited about topsoil and manure?  Apparently we do!

Which meant all of Saturday afternoon was spent shoveling and wheel-barrowing loads of dirt from the driveway to the backyard.  The boys were troopers and loved every minute of it.

What was amazing to me was how we ended up with 5 other neighborhood boys helping shovel as well.  Thinking they were taking pity on my since S is away, I kept telling them they didn't have to help.  "No, we want to help" was their reply.  I only had 4 shovels and there was a line to take a 15 minute turn shoveling.

For a while now, I've had this thought that boys need an outlet and opportunities like this.  "Manly" kinds of jobs to make them feel strong, an outlet for testing out their muscles. I don't mean to say that shoveling manure is a "manly" job and women shouldn't be bothered with it.  Heck, I was out there too.   But boys need to feel like they are growing into men.  And my three sure were feeling like they were contributing to our family by using their growing muscles.  And that is the important thing to them.

I'm sure there is a book somewhere that supports this, some psychological study.  But as a mother of 3 boys I am really coming to realize this in a meaningful way.

In other news...

- We've been watching this owl cam, and this local eagle cam.  (More great bird links on TMG.)

- And the boys are now completely addicted to nutella sandwiches and would eat them every single meal if I let them.

- We saw Gnomeo and Juliette, would totally recommend it!  Loved it!

- Signed up for this little workshop.

- Have you seen the rugs Holly is making?  Amazing...all from this original tutorial.  Can't believe it has been more than 4 years since I posted t.  Makes me a bit nostalgic.  Maybe I'll use up some of the sheets I've been collecting.

Happy Monday friends!

A Quilt and A Life: Little By Little

Some projects come with initial idea and execution strategy all at once.  In a flurry I hit the sewing machine or grab the glue gun and in one evening the project is finished.

Done.

This quilt is another story.

I have been feeling guilty about not finishing it sooner.  But I got the message I had needing to hear today.

This quilt comes along in its own sweet time.

I first posted about it here...and how Carole was teaching me.

I did a bit more fabric cutting here.

And today I got a bit of time to begin piecing the squares together.  Now I have nice long strips that need to get sewn together...finally.

It is coming together.

This quilt just has its own timing.

I just couldn't make the bright blue work for me.  

The white fabric with the little yellow flowers on it was a duvet cover that I picked up a few weeks back.  A thrift find from our newly opened Goodwill store.  I think it lightens the whole thing up and I am liking it.  I think I'll use the rest for the backing.

I pick favorite "spots" on the quilt as it comes together.  Thinking that if this quilt were going to be mine, I would fold it so this "spot" showed.  My new favorite "spot" is the one shown in the top photo. I just love it.

Favorite spots.

Pieces coming together little by little.

I would love to say that it will be finished and ready to quilt by tomorrow.

But most likely it won't.

It will sit right where it is until the time is right...or company comes and needs the bed.

So much like my life these days.

Little pieces picked up here and there...a little vintage a little new.  Lessons learned along the way. Waiting for the right timing.  Getting up the courage to dig in again.  Not feeling guilty. 

And again...

I am so happy to have a friends along for the ride.

Making Quilt Progress

 

I'm working on finishing some loose end projects around here.

Remember the quilt I mentioned my friend Carole and I were making?

Oh, back in June?  Oh, you don't remember?

Well maybe it is because it was way back in June of 2009.

Like I said...I'm working on finishing things.

Well, I finally picked up the blocks Carole showed me how to put together and there are enough to start piecing the quilt together I think.

My most favorite thing about this quilt is that it is a joint effort.  We agreed on the color pallet, then both brought fabrics from our stash.  And luckily Carole likes vintage pieces like I do.

I've always loved group projects.

I think a bit of solid yellow and white in amongst the bowtie blocks will be pretty sweet.

Now that the Fall garden is in...the latest decorating project is completed, I don't have anything to distract me.

Yeah, right.

Vintage Inspired Playroom/ Family Office

I am so excited to finally be able to show you our new space.  Just a few short weeks ago this was my sewing room.  Remember when I shared that I was redecorating this room room and painting the yellow walls.  Yes, well shortly after I posted that little bit of news, right smack dab in the middle of the crazy phase of redecorating, it was clear that it should go upstairs and the playroom needed to come back down. That everything had to come to a complete halt.

And there it sat for most of the summer.

Until a few weeks ago when S left again on a trip...which is always my cue for "let's move things around!"

This room sits on the front of the house, just to the left of our front entry and gets the most wonderful morning light.

On the wall that used to hold my sewing machine table is now a great chalkboard wall!  (There is also magnetic paint under the chalkboard paint...more on this later.)  You know how much I love chalkboard paint.  You don't see the dark wall initially from the front door, so it is fun to see people walk in and then turn around to discover it.

I have had these MS flashcards for a year or more and I love the images.  So I hung a clothesline of jute twine with the first few letters that Wyatt is studying in kindergarten.  We will switch them out as he moved through the alphabet.

I have had the lamp for years - since I moved into my first little house after college.  And the chair used to be in the sewing room.  It just never made it up the stairs.  It is a most excellent reading chair and I love having a comfy place to sit while I oversee homework.  I see a little knitting basket next to this chair during the winter.

The round table and little wooden school chairs are gifts from our Oma (my mother).  They were in the upstairs playroom already so we just brought them downstairs and gave them a good cleaning.

 

The previous home owners installed floor to ceiling shelving on the back wall.  The shelving is just what we needed for our vintage kids' book collection, games and art supplies.  HEAVEN!  And sprinkled here and there are some of my favorite vintage toys and thrifted items.

Initially, I was going to move the dining room rug into this room.  But the boys have been having so much fun playing on the bare floors.  Zane told me the other day, the floors were the best part because his cars rolled so much better without a rug.  You got it buddy!  No rug.  We'll see if they still like playing this much on the floor in the winter.

I think this might be my most favorite part of the entire room...the family office concept. I knew I wanted a long desk from one wall to the other.  With our file cabinet(that curiously lived in the craft room before) and a metal shelf borrowed from a closet as supports for two large MDF pieces I had cut, it makes three work stations.  Perfect for the older two to have their own homework areas and a space for me to pay bills and organize school papers.

(The silver chair did not end up staying silver and the little wood chair eventually got a paint job.  See below.)

Just above the desk is a line of cork.  You can buy thin rolls of cork at craft stores.  It took three rolls to do the entire length of the wall and will be a great place to tack party invitations, school notes, artwork, pictures...anything!

A few years ago, S pieced together two computers from spare parts and hand-me-downs so that the boys would have a place to do their "research" - which apparently must include touching the screen.  Do you see how dirty it is?!?!

One of the bad things about this room is that there is no central light fixture in the ceiling, so I used three $9 desk lamps from Target on the desk for task lighting.  But I think on my next trip to IKEA I might pick up a few wall mounted sconces.

Above the cork strip is another shelf to hold an old set of thrifted encyclopedias - great for cutting and gluing projects.

Tin cans hold pencils, scissors, paperclips, thumbtacks, glue, etc. - any supplies they might need for homework.  Mason jars full of summer beach treasures from Maine serve as book ends.

I knew I wanted three matching chairs for the desk areas and the very day I began looking on craigslist, the boys found these three little chairs on the curb across the street.  Seriously.  It pays to have neighbors with good taste in junk.  I loved the shape of them, but she had obviously left them outside because the finish was coming off and they were pretty weathered.  But with a little sanding and a few coats of paint, they are perfect for this room...and free!

A few things I still have yet to do:

• Decide if I want curtains or not
• Recover the chair seats with fabric
• Move a stool from the upstairs bathroom down so that the littlest member of the family can reach the upper bookshelves
• Paint the file cabinet white
• Find flat screen monitors on craigslist or freecycle (those old one's sure take up a lot of space, don't they?)

I am so happy with how this room turned out.  Actually I am kicking myself that I didn't do this three years ago when we moved back from Chicago.  The boys have been playing in it ever since we started the project...which is always the case when you move things around.  Isn't it?

On Tuesday, the boys came right in from the school bus into this room, sat themselves down at the desk and started in on their homework.  We'll see how long that lasts. *wink*

Happy weekend everyone!

 

Playroom/Craft Room Swip-Swap

This used to be our playroom.  We called it the explore room.  It had a reading nook, bins for toys and an art cabinet.  The toys were upstairs and out of the way.  It could get messy and it didn't bother me.  We added two rebuilt desktop computers for the boys to play their jump start games and do their all important lego research.  It worked perfectly for us.

For a while.

But sometime around the end of the school year last year, it became clear that our use of the room was changing.  That our needs had shifted and a change was in order.

(Hmmm...maybe it was the boys search for star wars lego videos on Youtube that took them to a...ahem...less than desireable video that did it.)

One of the things I love most about out house is how versatile it is.  Bedrooms can become playrooms.  Guest rooms can become sewing rooms.

So one of the many summer projects while S has been away has been to swap my downstairs craft room with the upstairs playroom.

Part of me could not believe I was bringing the playroom back downstairs after I had just trained the boys to keep the toys upstairs.

But things are different now.

They only play with a few things...legos, action figures, animals, art supplies, puzzles and games for the most part.

Gone are the baskets of toys along the wall.  No more dress up corner (which makes me a bit sad).  They spend more time in their rooms when they need a quiet minute or two to play with a few select toys they keep there.

And homework is becoming a much bigger deal...do you know how big a 2 inch Social Studies binders is???

All of this to say...change was necessary.

In true Eren fashion, I began doing research.

I looked through books, magazines.  I put together a pin board at pinterest.

And have been eating away at the HUGE task of moving all of that fabric up, all of the legos and books down.

But it is almost finally finished!  I have to spray paint a few chairs today and fin three baskets for a shelf.

Can't wait to show you the full reveal tomorrow!

Friday Vintage Fabric Finds

This summer I had grand plans (as always) of making it to yard sales ever Saturday morning even if it meant bribing the boys with doughnuts along the way.

But like grand plans sometimes...that hasn't quite happened.

However, the few pieces I have found I am really thrilled with.

There is something to be said for the less is more concept - having a few pieces that you absolutely love as opposed to too many that you sort of like.

 
The fabric at the top of the post is my favorite.  It is a 3 yard piece of vintage printed linen.  I love the colors.  And the print reminds me of people raising their hands above their head in celebration...either that or it looks like a bunch of neckties.  Either way, I love this print.  There isn't enough of it to make two full curtains, but maybe pieced with another fabric it might work.

Next, the red fabric is a great oriental print I found at an estate sale.  These were shoved down in the bottom of a box that had been in the shed for Lord knows how many years. They were pretty stinky.  But after a good soak in my bathroom tub in woolite, they are much happier.

I have a use for two of the panels and a friend of mine wants to make some floor pillows for her playroom with one of the other panels.  That leaves three large panels left.  I would be happy to sell the last three if anyone likes them and is interested.

(Sorry people, Melissa snagged them.)

 

And lastly, I found this great wool plaid at my favorite thrift store a few weeks ago.  It has been hanging out on the back of one of our living room chairs.  I have been staring at the combination of prints in the curtains, the pillow and the plaid fabric.  Something about it really works for me.  I think the wool will make a great blanket for cozying up this winter.

We are doing a bit more thrifting this weekend...for school clothes.  And everyone needs a new pair of shoes too. 

Hope you have a great weekend!

The Patio...Finally

Sorry everyone.  I didn't mean to be away from this space for so long.

The patio project officially began two weeks ago and has been a huge exercise in delayed gratification.  It was supposed to be finished by Mother's Day.  But you know how construction projects go.  First the stone was delivered late, then the sand was late.  And then it rained for 4 days.

There were many nights S and I were up until midnight laying these huge stones (really more of him than me) with flashlights.  The boys helped fill in the cracks with sand and helped me plant the stepables that will eventually fill in and look something like this.  I can't tell you how much I am loving these stepables.

Our stepables include:

• two types of ajuga
• three varieties of thyme (my fave is wooly thyme with its pretty little flowers)
• golden creeping jenny
• irish moss and scottish moss (which really are not mosses at all since they flower)
• and sedum goldmoss stonecrop

We've also ordered some irish moss seeds to see how they will do.  They should be arriving via mail this week.

I know you all are wondering if the chairs got a coat of paint or not.  Well of course they did!  I had a hard time coming up with a color...or colors.  But I have loved this little succulent that sits in the middle of our patio table and thought it might be good inspiration for the chair colors.  Each chair is spray painted a different shade of blue/green.

*** I have to say it again...I love spray paint. ***

Zane was doing his homework at the patio table yesterday while I was putting a second coat of paint on the chairs.  He commented that I must really like spray paint since I had spent so much time with a can in my hand.  And after I explained all of the wonderful things you can do with spray paint and how much I loved it...in true 2nd grader style, he told me that if I loved it so much, I should marry it.  I told him to call the preacher then, cuz' Im getting married again.  He thought that was pretty funny.

The old metal glider got a fresh coat of black paint.  And new cushions found on sale for $10 each.  And the wisteria was repotted in pretty lime green.

Im really loving how it all turned out.  It was SO worth the late nights and juggling who was putting who to bed while the other parent worked outside.  We still have plans for a pergola or something to provide a little shade during the hot summers.

So if you need to find me, this is where I'll be...until...about...November.

Happy Thursday everyone...I just noticed the legs on the patio need a new coat of paint. *wink*

Decorating: In Need Of White Space

You know how it goes.

You paint one wall.  But then the wall next to it looks dirty in comparison, so it needs painting too.  Or you get new curtains, but then they don't really go with the throw pillows, so you'll need to make some new pillows as well.  One thing leads to another.

Well that's the way things have been going around here.

I love the new light over the breakfast table.  But there was just something not quite right about it.  I finally decided the green light (which I decided to leave green) and the yellow tablecloth curtain behind it was just a bit too much for me.  So I replaced the curtain with some really gauzy linen.

Simple is always better it seems.

I love it.

And I've been working on rearranging some pictures and framing some of our favorite photographs.  Since I switched to a digital camera, I never seem to get prints made and framed.  One day I looked around and all of our framed photographs were from at least 3 years ago.

I've been picking up random frames here and there.  The three cork board frames now holding photos from our Christmas vacation trip to TX now hang in the playroom.  

Finding good boy fabric is tough for me...meaning finding fabric that doesn't look too much like a baby and does not include a transformer or a star wars character.  Not that we don't play with those things.  I just don't want them on my curtains.  The vintage fabric above used to be two coverlets originally sold by SEARS.  They are now new playroom curtains.  I love the boats and compasses and eagles.

 

The boys have been bringing home some exceptionally good artwork from school as well. They helped me pick out their favorite pieces and we framed them alongside some other prints that are finally hung.

In looking at all of these photos, I can't help but think that there is a lot of white...and clean space that is a bit out of character for me.  Im guessing that my brain is in need of some clarity and white space as of late.  We are up for orders again and things have been a bit tense around here.  I don't really want to move again.  But you military wives know how that goes, eh?

I guess the way one decorates their house really is a direct reflection of the owner.

What do you think your decorating is say about you right now?

New *old* Light and a WINNER!

Here is a little scene from our kitchen this morning.  Some people have to have their sink clean and spotless before they go to bed.  But me...the dishes can be piled to the ceiling, but I have to have the kitchen table clean and ready to have breakfast.  

The little robin's egg vase arrived on Friday from Melissa.  And I couldn't get the box open fast enough to fill it with some of the wysteria that just started blooming.

I've mentioned the redecoration that has been going on around here, but I haven't shown many photos yet.  That's because its a little here in this room and another little bit here in this room.  Not one room is really "finished" yet.  

On Saturday after three soccer games, we all went over to our new favorite junk shop to pick up a few things we saw last week.  No, the boys did not go into the shop with us. We bribed them with a rare trip to a local drive in.  They stayed outside the shop while S and I tag teamed who went in to browse.

This vintage Benjamin barn lamp now hangs over the kitchen table...replacing a very deco modern number that just didn't fit.  It is amazing how just changing a light fixture can have such a big impact on a room.

We paid $15 for the light.  Compared to what they are going for on this site, I think we did pretty good.  If you have a minute or two, browse around the Original Barn Light site.  It is full of great ideas and photos.

Now I'm wanting to change the lighting in the dining room.

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Oh, and now for the winner of the Cath Kidson MAKE book!

The winner is...

#37...

natalie t. said...
 ooooo! Must. Have. That. Book. How fun it would be to win it:) If not, the local book store will have an eager customer. Have fun with the little boats at the game(s)!

Natalie, send your address to me at esanpedro1(at)cox(dot)net and I will send this great book your way.

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Thanks everyone for entering, I loved peeking at your pretty (new to me) blogs.  I hope you stick around.  
 There are more books to give away coming next week.
 Happy Monday Everyone!

Craft Room: Sneak Peak and Thrifted Treasures

 

 

Oh, the craft room.

A hodge podge of mismatched everything put together from pieces that just didn't go anywhere else?

I think I likened it to Punky Brewster.

Well not anymore.

I took a little thrifting trip...all alone (heaven)...last week to pick up a few fun extras guaranteed to make this space happy and fun.

You can see some of what I picked up in the photos to give you a taste of where Im headed.

I have one more wall to paint and quite a bit more fabric folding to do, but it's getting closer.

I'd like to say I'll have it all done by Monday and ready to share.  But I have to be honest. That is not going to happen.

 

Spring Break begins here tomorrow!  Woohooo!

Which means Im going to have to be on my game with regard to keeping three little boys busy next week.

 

We have a Christian seder to host on Saturday, Easter services on Sunday.  And then a three day camping trip Monday - Wednesday.

So, Im not sure when I'll be back here.

Maybe I'll make it in to share just a few quick photos.

Wonders never cease you know.