Pinterest Project-Making a Spoon Ring

I saw this Pin on Pinterest a short while back and had to add it to my boards. I had been wanting to make a spoon ring for some time. There was an art fair in town last summer that had a booth with two women displaying spoon rings. They had all different sorts of designs and sizes and they had made them all. I had to try it.

So when I was camping in Pentwater at the end of the summer, I picked up some antique silverware from the local antique store.

I made a few mistakes along the way which may help any of you wishing to make these also.

Here is the original tutorial that I followed.

I found out halfway through the process, that my silverware was NOT real silver. I should have known because it did not contain any numbers on it. If it was real sterling silver it would have a number denoting the percentage.

And it should have been a lot easier to bend. It was not easy.

I used my trusty Dremel tool to cut off the end of the spoon.

 

Then I bought a butane torch at Lowes. It was around $15. I was a little nervous about operating it on my own. But I quickly figured it out and got comfortable with it.

Like I said, this process didn’t go too smoothly. I eventually had to get a hammer. I was using a wooden dowel to wrap it around to get the shape.

Here is the end product-

It looks better on than off!

I will be looking for some sterling silver pieces so I can try this again. Hopefully with more ease next time.

Thanks for looking!

Another Idea Post for Perry

Yes. I’m obsessed. What can I say?

If you have no idea what I’m talking about- this is the house we would like to purchase.

more on that here.

So far I’ve talked a little about the entryway and a tiny bit about the kitchen and dining room.

The room that adjoins with the dining room is this room-

(sorry, the renters had started moving their stuff in)

It has A LOT of built-ins. Which is strange for a living/family room.

It also has this weird/ugly, electric, fake-looking fireplace. I don’t think that is staying. Neither is that globe light hanging in the corner.

The stairs are located in this room, tucked away by the sliders.

Here are some of my ideas-

- Prime and paint all the paneling

- Prime and paint all the woodwork

- Continue the wood floors from dining room

- Maybe try to keep some of the built-ins (painted, of course) and remove the doors up top to have some open shelving. Not sure how I feel about that yet.

- Run the wood flooring up the stairs

- Open up the stairs (on one wall) and put in a bannister (if even structurally possible)

- Move sliders in place of the windows on the end of the room and build a deck. (turn old sliders into a wall)

Of course, these are some long-term goals. They are how I see the house looking after a long period of time. These aren’t changes that I plan to make before we move into the place or anything like that.

What do you think? See anything I should reconsider or change? Can you see the improvements in your mind?

I do, and it will be awesome.

I see a lot of painting in my future. Lots of white paint.

Tomorrow will be about a Pinterest project I attempted this weekend. Stay tuned!

Birthday Weekend

There were two family birthdays this weekend.

Yesterday evening we went to my sis-in-laws for her birthday dinner. She loves to make food for her own birthday. She’s crazy like that. It was DEE-lish!

Here’s some pictures of the delectable dishes-

She said she found all her recipes on Pinterest.

I made her cake for her though. Hummingbird cake.

It has crushed pineapple, chopped bananas, and chopped pecans. YUM!

Can someone come to my house and take the leftovers? I’m starting a diet today and can’t have this here. Thanks.

It was my mom’s birthday on Saturday.

(that’s my mom)

I kept thinking of it all day but never called her. I’m a bad daughter.  I did talk to her yesterday, though, and wished her a happy birthday and chatted a little.

We don’t have a very close relationship. I wish we did. She’s made some bad decisions in her life, but she’s still my mom. My parents divorced when I was about 19 years old. I’ll save that story for another post.

I just wish I knew her better, and vice versa. I love this old picture of her because I can’t imagine my mom EVER acting like this.

(my mom & dad)

Mostly, I remember her like this-

But she has taught me a lot and I’m grateful for how she raised me because it has made me who I am today.

How was your weekend? What did you do?

I can’t believe it is going to be March this week!

More Perry House pictures tomorrow.

Snow Day & More Ideas

I didn’t think we were going to get a snow day this year, but we did.

So this post is a little late because I went back to sleep when I got the news.

Here is what my dog had to endure this morning-

I’ve got no where to go and am sooooo happy about it.

I’ll probably spend the day pinning ideas for the new house. There is a lot to do, as I showed a little of here.

This is the entry room as you come into the front door by the garage. I have a lot of ideas for this room.

This is a room FULL of doors. There is a door to the garage, the basement, the half bath/laundry, the closet and then one into the main part of the house.

In the first picture, did you notice there is an ugly little bench with a cushion. I’d like to put something like this there instead.

via

This is the half bath/laundry room. First thing on the list for this room- take those curtains down!

And then looking into the house from the entry-

I’d like to remove that door and just make it a walk-thru.

I’d also like to-

- put down new flooring through out entry and laundry room. (maybe tile or something similar)

-paint all woodwork white

- get different closet doors

- get a new fun light

- maybe do a fun wall treatment

like this-

via

These are all just some ideas I have floating around in my head. Who knows what will happen. But I have fun designing the house in the meantime.

Thanks for looking! Have a great weekend.

The Master

On to the master bedroom. I’m not really sure it even constitutes as a master bedroom. It doesn’t have an en suite. It’s the same size as the other bedrooms. But, that’s what we’ve been calling it, so here ya go-

The closet space is awesome. Remember I talked about fixing the closet door here. Our bedroom set we’ve had since getting married (holy moly, 13 years!). That is something I’d like to change up when we move. Maybe do a DIY tall, upholstered headboard. Mix and match some dressers. I’ve got some plans.

That chair was free at a garage sale.

The bedding is from Wal-Mart. The curtains are from Target. That lamp is brand new. It was on sale at Target last week and I couldn’t resist it. It needs a new shade, though. That one is all wrong.

Can anyone go into Target and NOT spend money?

No flat screen in the bedroom. We might as well be from the stone age.

I made those jewelry boxes on the wall.

They used to be jewelry trays from back when I sold Premier Jewelry. I spray painted them white, wrapped the velvet burgundy pads inside with leftover fabric I had on hand, and screwed in some hooks. For the earrings, I bought some ribbon and stretched that across and secured it in the back. Sometimes (a lot) I get lazy and just set the earrings on the ledge of the box.

I tried to separate the silver and gold jewelry from each other. I’m a little OCD that way.

Our realtor called yesterday afternoon. We have a couple of things from the inspection we need to fix. Nothing too major. We do have to fix our chimney. Anyone know someone who does masonry work? I’m hoping it won’t be too much money to fix. I’ll keep you up-to-date on the progress.

Thanks for looking!

Reality Check

I apologize in advance. I wrote this post at a very late hour.

Have you ever thought of yourself as a certain way until one day you were faced with the reality that you are not that way at all.

I blame it on Pinterest. I’m on there so stinkin’ much that I believe myself to be some sort of artist.

I see something like this-

And I think how easy that would be to do. But then when I try it- it turns out like this-

Okay, so the picture I found was more artsy, serious, beautiful and mine is more quirky, funny, and ridiculous looking. But I love it and had fun with it.

Does anyone else suffer from this? Pinterest makes you feel like you have super-human powers. When in reality it is just a huge time-suck and a big contributor to flat-butt.

My Photoshop skills are not very advanced, but I sure do have fun playing around and learning how to get better.

No word on the inspection yet.

Happy Hump Day! Hope I made you smile.

House Inspection & Florida Plans

We received news late yesterday that the house inspection is planned for today around 5pm. We have to be gone for a couple of hours while it takes place. So….today I am planning to clean for most of the day. It’s amazing how fast our house becomes disastrous. Especially considering we were gone all weekend. But we come home and everything sort of gets dumped. Anyone relate?

A confession- I sat and read for most of yesterday. Scott had the day off and my oldest was home from school. I sat on my rear and finished my book club book – The Help.

I can’t stop thinking about it. Soooo good.

I guess it’s time to start making reservations for our trip to Florida. It’s coming up quick. We always go to Daytona Beach every year. This year we are going a little early to travel down to Tampa and go to Busch Gardens. We’ve been before, but it’s been awhile. My kids are so excited.

I love that this is one thing my family always did while growing up. We’d travel to Florida and visit some family and usually take a trip to an amusement park.

And now my family is carrying on this tradition. Scott would never let us stop. He says he wouldn’t be able to function without this break. We all love it and look forward to it.

I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything about the inspection. Thanks for looking!

The House on Perry

I’m probably being a little overconfident posting about a house that we haven’t even made an offer on yet. But my realtor has assured me the owner knows we want the house and we get first dibs once the renters are out.

Our current house is still in limbo. The counter-offer has been accepted but we are waiting on an inspection. Hopefully that will happen soon and everything will turn out good.

Here are some pictures of our hopefully soon-to-be house. My mind has been going crazy thinking of all the changes I want to make.

The view from the road-

The Dining Room-

The Kitchen-

My ideas for these areas-

-Take down wallpaper

-Hardwood floors throughout

-Paint all the woodwork white

-Take out peninsula & upper cabinets separating rooms

-Update appliances

-Order new doors for cabinets

What do you think about double ovens/cooktop vs. stove? Any experiences out there to help me know which is better? Do you have a preference? Do you see any other changes that you would make to the space? I’d love to hear it if so!

How was everyone’s weekend? Mine was great. I got to spend it with my family and we had a good time. Wish it could’ve lasted longer. Here is a view I woke up to this weekend.

School/Entry Room & Future plans

We use our side front door more than our front front door. Does that make sense? And today I’m talking about that first room you enter, when using our side front door. I featured the fireplace located in that room in this post.

We have done a LOT to this room. It used to have burgundy trim everywhere and coordinating carpet. The fireplace was disgusting and the walls were a weird off-white color.

After one-too-many accidents potty-training our dog, I ripped up all the carpet on a whim. Over top we installed some laminate wood flooring. I love the color.

The chalkboard shown here is real slate that was taken from the old Muskegon Heights High School that got torn down. My dad-in-law works there and brought home a few pieces. My kids love it (as you can see).

The change in flooring made all the difference. You can see some of the old carpeting in the picture from this post where I also talked about the lockers in this room in more detail. I painted the walls a teal color (sorry, don’t remember the name) that I fell in love with. All the trim got primed and painted white.

Here is the result-

(please try to ignore the dusty floors and cluttered shelves)

This is a catch-all room. It’s where all our coats and shoes go, but also where we do school. That table is an old dining room table. I cut the legs down, put wheels on it, and painted it. It’s perfect for the boys to sit at and do school.

The shelves were a garage sale find. I really, really wish I had a before photo to show you. They were plain shelves you put in your garage. They were dark brown and dusty, dirty. I cleaned them up and painted them white. We found some studs in the wall and screwed them in place. Then I cut some white shelving boards to fit in between the two and screwed them in place. I bought trim and nailed it along the top to make it unified.

The brown shelf next to the lockers was a $5 garage sale find. I intend to paint it white someday. The ironstone pitcher and bowl on top of it was an estate sale find. I collect ironstone pitchers.

The bench was a find from the loft in my dad’s barn. I will feature that place on here when the weather gets nicer. It’s a treasure trove. I gave the bench a slight white-wash and called it good.

 

As for our future living plans- We aren’t quite sure what will happen. The house I showed a picture of here is currently owned by a builder. He divided up the acres around this house and is selling the lots hoping to be the builder of the new homes. This house has much more space inside and outside than what we currently have. He knows we want it and our realtor tell us it will be ours.

The problem- The builder is renting out this house to a family that he is currently building a home for. This will take six to eight months from now. So, that means after we vacate our house in April, we wouldn’t be able to move into the new house for another six months.

We would be homeless.

Except for the fact that my in-laws live here in town and are very generous. They don’t have much room, but we can make it work for a short time.

So, that is the story. Next week I will talk more about this house we love and maybe share a picture or two of the inside. You will be shocked!

Have a great weekend! I know I will. We’re leaving for my dad’s tonight to spend a weekend with my family. YAY!!

Bathroom & House News

Our bathroom had been recently updated when we moved in. I loved it. Loved the bead board and the style. So we haven’t had to do much to it. I did re-caulk the tub and around the trim. The bad part of bead board is where it meets up with the trim around the floor. Dust settles in the little grooves and makes it quite difficult to get clean. Once I caulked along the top of the trim, it was great.

Here are some pictures for you-

Yes, people, I’ve had to share this bathroom with my husband and multiple little boys for six years. We have a second bathroom but it is, inconveniently, located in the basement and rarely gets used.

I am ready for more SPACE!

 

To keep you updated on house happenings- We signed the papers to agree on the selling price of our house. Everything is hinging on the inspection of our house that is yet to happen. Our realtor will notify us when the buyers have set it up. For now- we wait.

We have to be out of our house by April 16. Did I mention we will be on vacation from April 1st thru the 8th? I am already stressing.

More on our future living plans tomorrow.

Living Room & Chair Update

Did everyone get some sweet stuff from their sweeties yesterday? I got the new Breaking Dawn movie and a sweet card from mine. Can’t wait to watch the movie!

I thought I would share some pictures from our living room when it was primed for the showing.

Here’s the view from the dining room-

(p.s.- it no longer looks like this)

Couch- Ditto upscale resale

White bookshelves- Free from Grandma DeWitt

Basket- Clearance sale from Pier 1

Curtains and Rods- Ikea

Flowered Chair- $5 garage sale find

TV Stand & End Table- Wal-Mart

Espresso bookshelf- Meijer? I don’t remember.

I love my flowered chair. But I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it like this or recover it or slipcover it. It does look a little different than it did.

This chair had a skirt around the bottom. (yes, this is me holding it up for the picture because I forgot to get a picture before I started).

So I just started ripping it off because it was covering some beautiful legs.

In this picture it still had the cording stapled on. My tools consisted of a hammer, flat-head screwdriver and some pliers. I just worked my way around pulling out all the staples.

I know I said chair update….some may not consider this chair “updated” per se….but it’s a huge improvement to me.

Thanks for looking!

Come back tomorrow for Bathroom pictures and a little house news.