When I walk through the yard and smell the Confederate Jasmine….I know summer has arrived. This is our last week of homeschool…so next week will be the official start of summer around here! As I’ve been cleaning up I’ve also been clearing out and lightening things up to be ready for a new season. I’m so ready for summer….are you?
The first place I usually start when changing our home for the seasons…is the mantel.
We love to use our fireplace in the fall and winter….but in the spring and summer it ends up being a big, black hole. So, I like to fill it with something light….it makes a huge difference in our living room for the warmer months. My favorite thing to fill it with is stacks of vintage books.
When you change your home for a new season….with what space do you start?
Can you believe it is May? I thought it would be fun to do a roundup of some fun summer projects for your home and garden…..ones we’ve done in the past and are still really enjoying.
Love. this. Grain sack used as a stair runner. It’s really tough material and can handle it. I love this idea. {Hey, Handsome…how hard would it be to tear up the carpet on the stairs……?}
If I could have this pantry I would do a happy dance. I would even record it and post it here just for you guys. I love the organization, ease-of-use, accessibility of everything. This is pantry fabulousness. {When you open our pantry…things fall on your head. It was definitely not built by someone that enjoyed cooking at home.}
This tablecloth is the bomb! Tailored around the table…how cool is that. I think I need to make one. This would add so much character to any table…any size. Love this idea.
Shutters. Fun colors. Perfect. This is literally just shutters nailed to the wall. I am considering doing something similar in our bedroom…in lieu of a headboard.
Such a simple paint job on this chest….but what a great impact! {This piece if the creation of one of our lovely readers! Be sure to click the source and visit her blog!}
I really want chickens. I’ve been studying up….and planning. Tell me what you know about chickens……everything. Tell me everything you know……
OK..that has nothing to do with today’s post. I just needed to share. Thanks for reading my random thoughts and ramblings.
We have been wanting to put curtains on our front porch f.o.r.e.v.e.r. We’ve had them marked in catalogs and ‘on the list’. You know, The List. The one with all the wants and needs…the one that when you mark 2 things off, you add 4 more. Yeah. That one.
Outdoor curtains for our porch was going to cost around $300. {That’s why they’ve been on the list for a while…..too many other things that needed to come first!} BUT, a few weeks ago I went to an outlet sale. We live in the town that houses the factory for Hatteras Hammocks and Pawley’s Island Hammocks….and twice a year they have a great factory outlet sale.
I spotted them. My outdoor curtains. The exact ones I had marked in the catalog. For $10! SCORE! Needless to say, they came home with me.
I knew I wanted rope tie backs to hold them back when we weren’t using them. I had used rope tie backs on these curtains…and love them. I found them at some of my favorite places…..the cheapest being $89 each. ugh. I really wasn’t in the mood to make tie backs….but, alas, I did. And I’m glad. And they look just like the $89 Restoration Hardware ones. I spent around $8 and it took me all of 15 minutes. Here’s how to do it……..
You will need:
18″-24″ of large hemp rope for each tie back or whatever length you desire for each tie back
small hemp rope – usually sold in a package
thick twine
hot glue and glue gun
scissors
Here’s how ya do it:
When the store cuts your large hemp rope they will wrap the ends in masking tape to keep it from fraying….leave that in place.
1. Cut a piece of twine about 8″…or desired length for your hanging loop
2. Glue the ends on each side of your large rope
3. Begin at the bottom of the twine and hot glue the small hemp rope.
4. Put several lines of hot glue on the masking tape
5. Begin wrapping the small hemp rope around the larger one…covering up the end that you hot glued to get started. Keep wrapping until you reach the top of the rope, and secure with hot glue.
6. Repeat 1-6 for the end of each tie back.
Tah-dah!
I love rope. I love porch curtains. I love chickens. I love porches. I love having rope on my porch curtains on my porch. I love readers that read my crazy ramblings.
Quick Note….only two more days to enter the big Blogoversary Giveaway……be sure to head over to this post and enter!
We have a few ‘rites of passage’ for our family….and one of them is that you get to totally redo your room when you turn 13. Our youngest has been designing her new room for 2 years now…and the day has finally arrived! Over the past few weeks we have patched, painted, created, ordered, fluffed, shopped, and slowly, but surely we have checked off everything on her list.
This morning…possibly as you read this…the Pottery Barn truck is sitting in our driveway delivering her dream bed. She is about to come out of her skin! =)
When we began painting a few weeks ago I had never seen so many holes in a wall. Whoa. I think the spackling is holding the wall up now. Her room ‘before’ was painted a sage green and when she was little was a garden room. We painted clotheslines on the wall that held her artwork and fun creations; birdhouses with cats underneath, etc. It was the perfect little girl’s room for her.
There is an extra ‘space’ in her room that originally was a walk-in attic/storage area; but we finished it and made it an extension of her room.
She is moving on……and has gone in a fun, totally different direction. The walls are now painted a Caribbean Blue Water {Benjamin Moore}, her extra space is floored in a dark walnut wood floor {it was black and white checks}, and her extra space/room is painted a lovely Gleeful {Sherwin Williams}.
Caribbean Ocean Blue – Benjamin Moore
Gleeful – Sherwin Williams
Here’s a quick peek at the in-process redo. All painting is now done…a furrilicious couch sits in her sitting room beside her fridge, and the fun loft vanity bed is being delivered and set up this morning. She did all of her school work in advance for today because she can’t wait to get her room all set up and decorated.
She’s done a wonderful job…and I can’t wait to show you guys the finished project!
I was looking through HomeTalk last week and found so many other fun ways to use and repurpose old shutters. {HomeTalk is a neat site that is just for all things home. You can ask questions, find experts, find great DIY ideas and how-to’s….if you haven’t, be sure to go check it out.}
I curated a collection of these fun shutter ideas for HomeTalk ……..you can find it here. Head on over and check it out. =)
Hope you all had a super weekend! It was gorgeous here, so we got to enjoy The Nook!
I posted this project a few months after starting this blog……since I’m having trouble uploading pictures while the blog is being redesigned and updated…thought it would be fun to share this project from the archives.
++++++++
We’ve had a family mission statement for quite a while; but we wanted to post it in a prominent location….a place that we would see it each day and be reminded.
For many years we’ve had this great Pottery Barn banner hanging above our front door that said: ”Pick Up Your Toys”. It was fun, colorful, and could be seen from pretty much everywhere in our home. It’s also a part of the living room—and a perfect candidate for a makeover as we have been redoing everything else. {woohoo!}
When I had to take it down to paint the walls—it hit me! With just a little bit of redo we could use it for our family mission statement. So, I painted over the yellow with the same color as the wall paint—-but with the yellow underneath it gave it a bit of a different tint. {perfect!}
Then, with some primer I painted over the old words—-SEVERAL TIMES! Whew! Those words did not want to go away. But, alas, they did.
I left the wonderful little birds and outline just as they were–they looked great with what we were doing in the living room.
Then, on to the fun part—-adding our mission statement, which is:
Be true
Be you
Put love in what you do
We have long explanations for each of those statements—-that we have talked about as a family; but just wanted the main statement on the banner….without all the explanations.
So happy with how it turned out!
Do you have a family mission statement? If so, what is it…..I’d love to hear about it!
I did not use any wax on this piece, but I did slightly rough it up a bit.
We are loving it! It looks perfect in the dining room, and has opened up so much cabinet space in the kitchen when we took all the white dishes out of the cabinets.
Now…you know what I’m thinking.
Yep.
You’ve got it.
I want to paint the walls.
I have some fun ideas……
This may or may not be a form of insanity.
I’ve always thought sanity was really overrated, anyway.
A few weeks ago I shared how we were so very honored to be special Memory Keepers…you can read about it here.
If you follow me on Instagram you have been a part of seeing some of the wonderful treasures that we have been gifted with. {If you’d like to follow on instagram here’s my handle: cottageintheoaks}
We now have a huge storage room full of wonderful vintage and antique furniture and items that we have lots of fun ideas of what we’d like to do with……here’s a look at the first one that we’ve tackled.
Here she is…when we found her.
Forlorn. Standing on her head. Needing a bath and some TLC.
How do I know she was a she? It was the curvy legs.
She was missing her door…but that didn’t bother us a bit.
Here she is in her new home….the dining room. Handsome has repaired her badly damaged, curvy leg…and built her two new shelves, and a new bottom, since her original ones were missing.
We’ve scrubbed and cleaned her up….and was so happy to find out she has vintage, wavy glass! We’ve been letting her settle into her new surroundings for a few days now….and this week she will be getting a coat of Paris Grey. She’s excited.
And then she will be the keeper of all of our white dishes and serve ware.
Can’t wait to show you the finished product! {Actually, I can’t wait to see it myself.}
We don’t decorate a whole lot for Valentine’s Day…but we do have a bit of fun in little places around our home. I was in the mood to change the mantel a bit…and it was a tad too early to make it ‘springy’….so, I did a little impromptu Valentine Mantel.
I gathered up all of the grainsack and red French ticking sachets that I could find around the house and put them in a little wire basket lined with linen. They are all filled with lavender and smell soooooo goooooddddd!
With three violinists in our home we have lots of violin sculptures….I thought they were perfect for the Valentine Mantel……..
Then I just filled in the rest of the space with all the white pitchers that I could find in the cabinets and on the shelves! I think I will fill them with roses for next week.
For the garland I used trim and ribbon in pinks, reds, and whites.
It was fun to shop our cottage and pull this together. I love doing that. Didn’t spend a dime!
Do you do any Valentine decorating……or do you just sit back and enjoy the chocolate?
