Friday Fun Day: Surprise for our Readers

As promised, we have a surprise just for you, our loyal blog readers!

Tomorrow we'll be participating in the Paris Street Market for the very first time. We are so excited to be a part of this popular event and we're sharing the excitement with you...

If you stop by our booth and mention that you read the blog, you'll get 10% off any item we have for sale that day!

It's just our little way of thanking you for following along our journey and supporting our venture. The show opens at 8:00 am at Aspen Grove Shopping Center.

We hope to see you there!

Kandy and Karli

Busy Birthday Weekend

***pic heavy post!***

This past weekend was a whirlwind! Mom and Dad came up to Denver for a visit. We were celebrating my birthday and Mother's Day a little bit early. Mom also brought several pieces of furniture to store in my garage prior to the Paris Street Market. Dad wanted to pour a step in our garage and I wanted to refinish a few pieces of furniture of my own. It was busy to say the least.

I'll do a full post on the furniture pieces but here's a bit more about the step. The step leading out to our garage from the house had a problem....the floor below it had sunk, so there was a REALLY LARGE drop. Brent and I were sort of used to it, but everyone who stepped down got a big surprise. So we needed to fix it!

Eight bags of Quickcrete. Looked like a lot, but surprisingly we needed all but one of the bags.

 

My dad loves to study projects. He also loves to engineer ways to build things. He had been planning this for weeks.



 

Building the supports and the frame.

Here you can see the large drop off and the gap between the single step and the floor.

 
These were the ingenious supports Dad dreamed up for the frame. We needed something strong so the cement wouldn't just ooze out.

Some of the important tools. We were rocking and rolling at this point!

 

 

This was just a small part of the mixing process. Mom and I were the lucky ones who got to mix the Quickcrete and lug it over to the step. Dad took care of smoothing it out.

 

Working with Quickcrete was DUSTY. Thank goodness for masks.  

Here Dad is using a tool he built called a "darbie." It is very smooth and levels out all the concrete.
 

 

It is SO wonderful to have two easy steps into the house instead of one giant step.

PS...we tried to put Porter's paw print in the step, but we waited too long. It was too hard to make an imprint!

Saturday evening we went to one of my favorite local Italian restaurants to eat a glutinous meal. (Although Mom and I did share ours, so it wasn't quite as bad as it could have been!) Even if you don't like eggplant parmesan, I would dare you to try this one. It's been known to make converts of eggplant haters!

Sunday afternoon we smoked ribs and completed a few more projects. My dad proclaimed this would be his choice for a dying meal.

Now here's a little preview of the other pieces of furniture we refinished. I'll post more this week. I can't WAIT to show you how these turned out.

Hope you're having a great week!
Karli

DIY "Pottery Barn" Inspired Decor

I love Pottery Barn.............I love browsing through the catalogs, I love searching the website, and I adore shopping in their stores. 

Their style is my style.  I love an eclectic, collected look, mixing the new with the old.  I get inspiration seeing the way they set up rooms and displays, doing just that.  Being an antique dealer means I always have an assortment of collected items just waiting for their next location.

If you have been following our blog, you'll know that I have been working on my Master Bedroom Makeover for quite some time. Take a look at these posts.  Since I'm doing it on a budget, using some of what I already have, and only adding or replacing what I really need to, it is taking me a while to get it right.  I never just go out and purchase "a new look."  What fun would that be?  I love to try using what I already have (sometimes I steal from other rooms).

That said.........Karli took me to a Pottery Barn store just before Christmas and I finally found the bedding I had dreamed of for our bedroom.  I found their Pick-Stitch Quilt and Pillow Shams in white to be exactly the look and feel I wanted...... washable cotton with the look of a vintage quilt, yet stitched in a more modern design.  They were on sale so they went home with me.  The weight of this quilt is perfect too.  I could not be happier.

I am still trying to figure out what I want at the end of the bed, (a throw or quilt)  but I have not found it yet.  The final reveal of the Master Bedroom is yet to come.

But, I am moving on to a new look for the top of the armoire.  It used to look like this........

After the new gray paint, I changed it to the style shown in the picture below.  I was trying to add some white, going for a more feminine look.  This was OK but it really wasn't right with the more Arts and Crafts look of the armoire.

We'll call this Look #1: Shabby White Frames

Now for some new "Pottery Barn Inspired Looks."   I am taking things from other parts of the house and "trying" them out on the top of the armoire.....trying to get that "Pottery Barn" look.


Look #2: Ceiling Tin

Look #3: Framed Driftwood

Look #4: Framed Metal

        


Look #5: Vintage Landscapes

I actually love several of these "looks" and I am having a difficult time deciding which one is best.

I could use your help! What do you think? Leave me a comment and let me know which you like best. One winner will be chosen at random on February 1st to receive a $20 Pottery Barn gift card.*** (UPDATE---the winner was selected on February 1, 2014. The drawing is now closed)

I'll be waiting...Kandy

We linked up to Jennifer Rizzo's Fabulously Creative Friday!

Displaying Found Junk On A Patio Wall

You may remember in an earlier post the damage that was done to the roof of our garden shed when Dwight and I took down part of an aspen tree......well the weather has now improved so we decided to repair the damage that we caused.  We replaced a board and the roof shingles.  Fixing all of that meant that we needed to get to the inside walls of the shed, locating nails.  Needless to say, we found it necessary to empty the shed to get to those walls.

As we sorted through 30 years of stuff, I found some "junk" I had forgotten that I had.
It is all "family stuff" that I had hauled back from Oklahoma, knowing some day I would find a place for it.  Here is the saved stuff we uncovered in the shed.....


These are old cistern cups, used to bring water up out of a cistern or well. These were my Grandpa Ray's and had been used on the farm in Okla.

 

A rusty old saw blade and a gear.

                                     

These are a pair of rusty old hames, part of a harness which would have been used with horse drawn farm implements. These were Grandpa's too.

           

This is an old drawer front I found who knows where....... You can not see it but it has the letter "F" stamped on the front.
It will be great to hang BBQ stuff off of the handles, or not!!!

I hung all of this assorted "found junk" on the wall outside on the deck.  I already had the grapevine wreath hanging there, so I just incorporated it all for a unique display.

I bet I can truly say that no one else has a wall quite like ours!

           
I would love to add a pillow to the chair, but the squirrels have been known to destroy things on our deck.  I also need to re-stain the deck later when it gets a little warmer, but decorating this wall inspired me to look forward to spending time out here this summer. 

I want to try planting in the cistern cups, too......I think they would be great for succulent plants, like hens and chicks.  I have one more set of these that I'm saving for Karli.....she might want to do the same thing.  If nothing else, they are great conversation pieces!  Did you know what they were?

Happy Deck Time, Kandy

A Spring Antique Sale

As some of you may recall, in my former life, I was an Antique Dealer. When the store closed I took my inventory home. I have had one big sale here at home, but, for the most part, I have just been sitting on all that stuff.

I keep my "stuff" in my barn, where I have a showroom set up.

I did a show last weekend, a money-maker for a ladies organization raising funds to offer scholarships. I paid for an 8' space, set up my booth area, sold my antiques and vintage items, and then I donated 10% of my proceeds to the ladies club. It was for a good cause and a fun outing since I haven't been playing with "my antique stuff" for quite a while.

A good friend of mine, who is also an antique dealer, joined me in the venture. She brought her items to add to mine. Then another friend, also a dealer, gave us some of her items to sell as well. It was a joint effort!

We started setting up by creating walls with two sets of shutters.

Love using these to divide areas as well as hanging on.

  
The "girly" side of our booth was the perfect spot for hats and frilly feminine items just right for Mother's Day giftgiving.

Love the black and white

 This is a close-up of an old cabinet door. I painted the center with Chalkboard paint and added vintage hooks.

                        

 A broader view of the "girly" black and white side. You may recognize the chair from an earlier post.

           
The old metal display unit is perfect for hankies and gloves. I used this at the store for several years and people always wanted to buy it.

This metal rack was originally used for candy in General Stores.
You can see more white ironstone on this earlier post.

A closer look at one shelf. We even sold some of the burlap flower magnets. See our post on how to make these.

               
This part of our booth was dedicated to vintage gardening.

A potty chair from the 1950's holds a potted rose plant.

             
Layering on top of the enamel top table with an old wood box allows for more garden items.

Love the pink and green for Spring!

                              

The garden items even filled the floor.

                
It is still early for "real" plants in our area, however the silk ones made everyone think of Spring.

The little potted flowers were just too sweet!

                    

 The little watercan holds my business cards.

              

Would you believe we did not plan to wear similar jackets!

             
The sale was not quite the sucessful day of selling that we were anticipating, but we did have fun planning, hauling, setting up, visiting with customers, tearing down, boxing our stuff back up, and then hauling it all back home. (Really!!!)

That is the way it goes sometimes!     CARRY ON!!!

Happy Spring,
Kandy