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Blooming Beauty Around the Gardens and Yard | June 2018

June 25, 2018 By Laura 5 Comments

Just a short but lovely post, to share with you all the beauty of the flowers blooming all around us, that we have been enjoying every day around here. We have a long list of vegetables growing in the garden beds as well right now, that most likely we will show you at a later date. This early in the season, however, they all have much more growing and producing to do, and they are hardly worth photographing quite yet.

But oh, the flowers blooming!

As you will see, this year we went crazy with Superbell – Calibrachoa hybrids, by Proven Winner. And we have to say, I think they are a favorite we’ll be sticking with, year after year, from here on out! They are so easy to maintain! They are tolerant of the heat, the occasions we didn’t get to watering, and there is never any deadheading to be done! We’ve got them in all kinds of colors, blooming all over the place, and couple of other kinds of flowers as well to let you take in, as well.
Let us show you!

This wooden bucket holds a bountiful spillage mix of Superbells in Plum and Chiffon, as well as some Snowstorm Giant Snowflake. So in love with it.

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Our New ‘Old Farmhouse Bedroom’ – A Bedroom Makeover You’ll Want to See!

February 5, 2018 By Laura 11 Comments

After a lot of dreaming, and then months of hard work by our own hands, an old farmhouse bedroom is finally a reality for us.

You should know that Michael’s and my bedroom is the very last bedroom we have finished in the house. Three of our kids’ rooms were finished from new construction when we had the addition put on, and the fourth’s was a renovation. Finally (after 11 years of finishing the rest of the house ourselves), it was time for our own room to be done. It’s a renovation and makeover all-in-one, and we are excited to show you all how it came out.

Now, it’s a medium size room, about 11×20’, so I hope we can all squeeze in there together. Let’s try!

COME ON IN!!

First things first! Any good room makeover reveal cannot be fully appreciated, without first seeing the BEFORE photos. Don’t you agree? So with that said, this has been our bedroom for the past couple of decades or so.

BEFORE BEDROOM PHOTOS

** A HELPFUL TIP YOU’RE GOING TO NEED: For all slideshow photos in this post, click on the thumbnail photos, use the arrows under the photos with the description to see the NEXT photo, and then CLICK ON THE LAST PHOTO to CLOSE OUT the slideshow. And also, be sure to read the descriptions of course, to learn all you can about what we did.

More BEFORE photos . . . .

So yeah, that was our plain-blah bedroom. I just kept the door closed all of the time, and especially if people were over. It wasn’t horrific by any means, but I wouldn’t want people to think that was my decorating style, or anything. LOL. It was simply a room not done. For just a few years (prior to our house addition), it was the triplets’ bedroom, as it was the only bedroom (of only 2 in the house then) that fit 3 cribs and then 3 toddler beds. During that time, Michael and I had no bedroom! We slept in the crawl loft of our living room on a mattress! We had to go up on a ladder to get up there, and all. After the addition on our house, as rooms were finished by us on weekends, we were finally able to reclaim our own bedroom. It was good enough, for the time being. We were saving all of our efforts for OUR bedroom, until it was our turn to renovate, after all of the kids’, of course.

That time came.

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A Few Handmade Farmhouse Signs for Our Home

January 22, 2018 By Laura 4 Comments

I really enjoy laying out designs for signs and making them myself. I’ve thought much about starting a small business of custom made farmhouse signs, but just haven’t. Yet. However, sometime early last Fall, I did make a few handmade farmhouse signs I had in mind for our own home. And today, I am getting around to sharing them with you. They are super simple and rustic in design, which is pretty much my style, and fitting for our home, where much of everything is made by us, in just that fashion.

I hope you enjoy checking out these farmhouse signs.

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Sewing Easy Pillow Shams – Tutorial

November 8, 2017 By Laura 4 Comments

“Someday, I’m going to learn how to do that.”
I’ve got a list of things I’ve said that about. Doesn’t everybody? Do you? As for me, some of those things I’m actually working on now and then, and some are still sitting on the mental ‘someday list’, completely untouched. But learning how to sew, and run a sewing machine, is something I’ve actually gotten to! Oh, there is always more to learn, and I will. But my main motivation was simple: Pillow shams.

This girl loves throw pillows, as part of our home decor accents, as well as comfort. That include seasonal and holiday throw pillows. But seriously, I’m sure you could agree that there is only so much storage room available, for gads of interchangeable throw pillows. And the perfect solution to that, as far as I could figure, is pillow shams. I could just change up the shams on the pillows with the seasons and holidays! They would take up virtually no space at all, just folded nicely in a pile somewhere.

But first, of course, I needed to learn how to sew.

And I really wanted to learn how, using my mother’s Singer Fashion Mate (Model 237). It’s old, it’s ugly, and I’m pretty sure [Read more…]

Fall Garden and Home Outdoor Decor

October 15, 2017 By Laura 2 Comments

Fall is here, and while nature readies itself to bless us with the year’s annual grand finale display of beauty in New England, our gardens had found it time to wither and fade, with an early prep for a long winter rest. Especially since we opted to not plant anything new for a fall harvest this first season in our new garden area. We still have lots of carrots in the ground, and we’re still picking peppers of all kinds. But everything else was pretty much done. So with a good wait in front of us before a pure blanket of white snow covers all that is post-life and ugly, we wanted to keep the beauty going a little longer, with some festive Fall garden and home outdoor decor. We thought you might enjoy seeing the photos of our efforts.

We worked with an abundance of the typical Fall elements: Glorious mums in a variety of shades, pumpkins of various kinds, straw bales, cornstalks, and gourds. But we also planted our first big arrangement in a huge whiskey barrel, and we’re excited to show you that!

We had started getting everything ready to go, but then Storm Jose’ was heading our way. So we put many plants out behind our house in a more sheltered area to wait. Besides, we were also still having some days that felt a whole lot like summer. The heat is no good for many of these cool-loving plants, so keeping them in the shade until things cooled down a bit, was the right thing to do, also. (Even though I was so excited to get working on making everything FALL TIME, like the calendar said!)
The days came where I couldn’t wait any longer. So we got to work over a weekend, and banged it all out.
Then we smiled.
–

Here’s an overvew of the fenced garden. We’ll give you a closer look around in a minute. But let’s talk about the fresh layer of straw over all of the beds first. We use it all gardening season long around the plants in the beds as a mulch, to protect the soil from the sun. It does a great job of keeping the beds moist, and not drying out to a dush in the heat. It’s important to be sure you are using straw in gardening though, as opposed to hay, because hay has seeds, and unless you are going for wheat fields, you really don’t want all these seeds falling on your garden soil.

The straw is not only a beautiful golden color for a Fall look, but throughout the bitter winter here in New England it helps protect any perrenial plants buried in the garden beds, holding in some heat from the earth. Come spring thaw, what is broken down can just be turned into the soil with other more enriching compost.

Ok, less talk, more photos, now.

Our garden-entry gates.
Come on in.
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But oh, the flowers blooming!

COME ON IN!!

BEFORE BEDROOM PHOTOS

But first, of course, I needed to learn how to sew.

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