From Magazine Cover to My Home

Hey there everyone!!
If you have the August issue of Southern Living magazine, you will see a table on the cover. Well, as soon as my husband saw this table, he took out pencil and paper and sketched out the dimensions and then proceeded to make it! The entire table was made from black walnut which he cut himself. He stained it using Special Walnut by Minwax, then applied a couple of coats of tung oil and voila! A duplicate that I think looks better than the one in the magazine. He is in the process of making another one out of river birch which he cut from downed trees in our neighborhood. I think he's a keeper!!

Please ignore the high chair in the picture. After all, grandma's house has to have all the essentials too!

It's pumpkin time!!

It is super hot here in North Carolina - 92 today - but I decided it was time to bring out the pumpkins! Maybe if I put out enough fall decorations, the weather will cool down!
I saw these cute pumpkin sets on Pinterest and decided to make a bunch using 2x6 or 2x4 lumber. I painted them with acrylic paints,

sanded them to distress the finish, stained them with dark walnut Minwax and then finished with a coat of Annie Sloan Clear Wax. This gave them a soft finish and really enhanced the staining and distressing. I then added those cute little curly q's that pumpkins have using green florist wire, added stems made from tree branches, and finished them with some raffia. Easy to do and fun!
Linking up to Coastal Charm Show and Share

I just returned from 4 wonderful days spent in Marietta, Ohio with girlfriends from high school. We graduated from a high school in West Virginia and we are now scattered over 5 states. We have met each year for a girls weekend since 2003. Every year we choose a new place to visit where we can tour historic homes or museums, do antiquing and just talk!! This year we discovered Henderson Hall Plantation across the river from Marietta, Ohio in Williamstown, WV. Everything in the home is original. It was such an amazing collection of history in one place. This is the picture of the winding staircase from the top floor. This isn't a DIY post, but it was a DIY project for someone many years ago! I hope you will appreciate the craftsmanship as much as I did.

Industrial Cart-Style Coffee Table

Hi everyone! I know it's been a long time since I posted but it has taken me awhile to figure out how I wanted to approach the blog world and what I would be posting. After following Miss Mustard Seed, Elizabeth & Co, and Coastal Charm, just to name a few, I am back to give it a go!

I am sharing a project that my husband and I completed in the fall. We decided to try our hand at a version of the popular industrial cart style coffee table for our home. We were in Waynesville, NC for a weekend trip and while traveling through Maggie Valley, I spotted a log home builder with a lumber yard. We made a u-turn and headed back to see if they would sell us some lumber. Well, it was wonderful! We walked the yard and chose some beautiful pine boards, had them cut so they would fit in my car and away we went! We love the table, have since made a second table for a family member who saw our pictures and immediately wanted one. That table is made with pine from a reclaimed lumber business in Beachton, FL.

I am sharing this today on Coastal Charm for Nifty Thrifty Tuesday.
Thanks for stopping by!!

Happy Trailing Wisteria

It has been forever since my last post, but I am back!!! I wanted to share with you the new garden trellis that my wonderful husband made for me. If you are anything like me, you have a stash of pages torn from magazines that have been waiting for project time! Well that came this week. I have a wisteria vine that finally bloomed this year after at least 8 years in the ground!! I had put it on a metal trellis that was way too small and flimsy so I went to my "stash" of ideas and pulled out the plans for this trellis. It is made of cedar. The plans called for using 1" copper pipe! Ouch! That would have cost more than the wood so we decided to use PVC and paint it with aged copper spray paint. We love the look and at $2.57 for 10' lengths of PVC, much cheaper. We (I mean he) drilled holes in the cross piece and I pushed in some blue marbles. My wisteria got a new trellis and my husband got to play with all of his power tools! I think they are both very happy!

I'm joining Nifty Thrifty Tuesday at Coastal Charm

Sparkling Color

Is there anything more beautiful than a collection of Blenko Glass water pitchers with the light shining through them? I grew up about 10 miles from Blenko and as a child my family and I would go to the factory. I could walk onto the factory floor and actually stand next to the glass blowers! I could even go to the scrap pile behind the factory and find treasures like bottle stoppers and chunks of scrap glass. I had quite a collection. Then federal regulators made that a no-no. Bummer! I love these pieces and use them frequently. This is the original design and Blenko still makes them today. Enjoy!!

Linking up here

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