When I was a newlywed and even when we were engaged and registering for gifts, I felt like our house had to be plenty masculine so that Seth would be comfortable in our space too. It’s kind of like how I thought I had to avoid cooking with mushroom, beans and olives because Seth didn’t love them (read: hadn’t tried them). Slowly,  ever so slowly I have allowed myself with each home to let it slide toward the feminine side. Not because I don’t want Seth to like it, but more because I realized that he really doesn’t mind either way. And it isn’t that I am not including the masculine into things,  but it’s more that in addition to those things I am not shying away anymore from the more feminine things!  As long as the house is comfortable. So just as the mushrooms, beans and olives have made their way into our menus over the years, so have the florals, paisleys, fru fru pillows. And I love it!  And if you ask Seth he would agree that olives extra pillows aren’t so bad because he knows I love them. Well, pillows are a bad example, he hates extra pillows but the other stuff has gone over well

Our bedroom was a major place I originally thought should be the perfect balance of feminine and masculine. We went out to a carpenter in Colombia and had a bed made from  a Pottery Barn catalog. We made sure it was big and dark and  masculine. It turned out twice the size we anticipated and in the right room (ie Rebecca’s farm house) it looks perfect but in a small space it eats it up! So when we moved here we bought a wrought iron bed.  Much lighter looking and I love it.  In terms of other furniture, we started with just the brown dresser but a girl without space for her clothes isn’t a nice one to contend with on say Sunday mornings when she has just dressed the younger half of the family and all she wants is to get dressed in peace with ACCESSIBLE clothes! So last week we pulled in my childhood dresser…which, bingo, adds the perfect feminine balance to Seth’s dresser. It has a hutch for the top but I decided against using that since the room is small and any spare space needs to be visible.

The bedding we picked when we got married was paisley but in rusts and browns and reds. I still love it but it is for sure more masculine. We have since gotten a lighter weight quilt that is all kinds of soft colors, paisleys and florals. We painted our room blue (see, there are boy colors still) and I tried my best to keep it super simple in there. For the walls we just put up things that were meaningful to us, engagement pictures, black and whites of our babies, our marriage license and a reading I gave Seth on our wedding day.  We also put up an old painting I found in a Swiss thrift store.

I found the curtains at HomeGoods. I wanted something with simple, neutral colors but some texture and paisley-ish pattern. I mean, I am not a very spontaneous person, I have yet to do all of those wild right of passage things from my teenage years but paisley, it’s my spontaneous. Cheery, unpredictable and just fun.  The chair was a Swiss salvation army chair that I had new cushions made for….very thrifty idea turned expensive project! It’s matching chair lives in our downstairs.  We are attempting to sit in the pretty chair rather than pile laundry on it. You’d be proud mom, the chair is on Seth’s side of the bed so 99% of the time it’s his clothes that are stacked on it, not mine.  The chair isn’t fitting quite so well with the addition of the dresser but we will see if she gets to stay.  The light fixture is a chandelier I found with my mom at the architectural salvage in Ft Worth!  It was new to the salvage store and they hadn’t priced it yet so I got a great deal!

The tricky part about our room has been training the boys that it isn’t their space and to keep out the legos, Noah’s million animals, and pirate ship pieces and other various toys! The minute I see boys run into my room, racing around like banshies and sword fighting with shattering lego swords, you will find me hot on their heels shooing them out. The kids can take over every last inch of the house, but not our bedroom!  Another blogger is blogging about hospitality this month and I am enjoying every single post. One was about hospitality beginning with your relationship with your spouse.  When Seth and I have time together and invest in our relationship we are better parents and are better equipped to reach out to others. When we don’t slow down on this marathon of life to invest in each other it shows, big time. I wanted our room to be a peaceful, tidy place where we can relax and not feel like we are tripping over legos!  In the past I have worked to have a pretty room but put so much more effort into other rooms knowing that those were the ones people used and would actually see. It took a few homes into marriage to realize that this is where I want to make beautiful just as much or more than the rest of the house!  And someday I hope this will be a room that involves full nights of sleep uninterrupted by wee ones. Until then at least it’s pretty!

Happy Monday! Whew. We made it through the laundry room project. Our dreamy Sunday evening took a bit of a turn when our friends got the flu but on the upside a yummy dinner was made, the house was clean and tidy and it forced us to finish the laundry room. For now, anyways. I have long term plans to refinish the cabinets but that might be years from now!! This week we have some fun peeks into friends nests. Today my friend Rebecca is writing for us about her humble abode in Purcellville, VA! Later this week we will get a peek into my friends home in Warsaw, Poland, and then on Saturday we will get to see my friend Annie’s home in Louisville, KY.

My friend Rebecca and her husband Blake have done an amazing job renovating an old farm house.  I think Rebecca is my most carefree, laid back friend and she has faced the house challenges with so much grace! She always has the ability to laugh through the challenges and keep her head on straight.  Of course that also means she brings home puppies unexpectedly and ends up with roosters instead of hens! PS- I think her Birmingham accent has gotten thicker since she moved to the farm 

So here ya have it, southern hospitality at it’s best!

Welcome to the Farm!

In the Fall of last year, my typically predictable and always cautious husband sent me an email link to a property about 30 miles west of us in Purcellville, Virginia.    I was thrilled of the opportunity to be spontaneous and throw caution to the wind and I jumped in right away.   After a long painful process ( involving many opportunities to grow in trust and faith ) we bought the farm and moved in to our home.   “Emerald Hill Farm” is the homestead of a dairy farm from generations past.  The home is circa 1880- 1900 and the property includes a bank barn, a dairy barn, a stone cottage and 2 ½ acres.

The past 10 months have been full of hard work – cleaning, painting, repairing, painting and more cleaning.  “Decorating” has just happened along the process.    We have found junk in the barns and turned them into home accents.   There is still so much to be done – I can’t even make a list b/c it makes my head hurt.    We have learned to prioritize and I have struggled to find the balance between what I want and what we really need.    We are still missing a front doorknob and one closet has yet to be drywalled.  But, we have a front door and the skeletons of a closet – so we’re happy.

Our first (and only) big investment in the house was a paint job this summer.  It took a professional painting company 7 weeks to powerwash the house and metal roof and the barn and its metal roof.    We changed the color and painted the doors and I finally was able to have my dream side porch!   The swing and bench are craigslist purchases I repainted and I love the look!

The kitchen was my first big project.   I took apart the cabinets and stripped, sanded, primed and repainted them white.   The look is so much cleaner and makes the kitchen bigger.    Some new appliances (thanks to home warranty) also helped with the look.   The door to the kitchen stairs we painted with chalkboard paint and have our monthly family calendar on it.   And, as you can see- the kids enjoy it also.  I found an old table and 4 rickety antique chairs in the barn.  I refinished them with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and upholstered the chairs with fresh fabric.   What a difference!

The den has an old woodburning stove – not the only source of heat , but the most reliable.   I love starting a fire first thing in the morning and snuggling up in front of it.    Our picture wall in the den includes an original window from the house with the old leaded glass and beautiful shape.   If you think the picture looks slanted – you’re right.  NOTHING is level in our house.   We just do our best and call it character!

At the end of the hall upstairs is my favorite little nook.   This is right outside our bedroom door and I call it my “quiet time nook”.   I can sneak out and sit here without waking up the kids as I walk down our very loud creaky hallway.

Last room –my latest and most painful project.   The before shot does not do it justice.   What it is missing Is the smell.   This room is above the kitchen and I ignored it for months.  When I finally got around to it, my goal was fresh and clean.   Thanks to friends for bed ( Kristen), mattress and coverlette, it was decorated quite cheaply.   The window coverings are roller shades that I attached material to with spray adhesive.

Looks beautiful Rebecca! Can’t wait until you turn the cottage into a B&B!! We want the first reservation….if our kids can stay in the barn that is!

Hope you all have a great Monday! You can hop over to www.worldmomsblog.com today if you have time for extra reading!  I’m on there talking about extending grace to other moms!

The before pictures don’t do this place justice, well except for the laundry room pictures. The laundry room was somehow used as a multipurpose room with a small kitchen in it, one that NEVER saw a sponge or Clorox. Seriously, not sure how we have continued doing laundry in there but the washer and dryer corner was seemingly unused compared to the other parts. Today we are dealing with the  mess and redoing the whole space. I can’t say I’m savoring it yet. In the end I hope it’s a cheery mud room that serves our family as we come in from days loaded with backpacks, bags, shoes, socks, etc. We currently have piles building around our entryway of shoes, etc and with a split foyer layout that means the mess in when you walk in the front door. I bought some cabinets at the Habitat for Humanity Restore (great place!!!) that we plan on putting up to act as our backup storage for every other area of the house.

So wish us luck, I am learning that part of savoring something is cleaning up the mess and clear the cobwebs. Here are some before pics…

Enough ignoring this mess!  Hoping to bring you some after pictures shortly!

ps- happy birthday to my little brother! while we paint today my mom is cooking him a Thai feast!! The smell of paint just won’t compare!!

Is it really Friday already?! The days sure feel long at times but the weeks are flying by!!  We have a packed weekend but today I have the entire day to conquer the house and get us all set for the busy!  And just a slight distraction, I am going to have Owen’s first day of underoos!! Let the potty training fun begin!  I seriously got tempted this time around to just let him potty train himself someday when he cares. But that didn’t seem so socially acceptable. My second thought was to wait until winter and pray that we get snowed in like we did when Jackson potty-trained. We were in the house for 6 days straight during Snowmageden and voila, he was good to go!  But being snowed in is so inconvenient so I will move forward and take care of this beast without complaining. Speaking of complaining…I was reading Little House on the Prairie last night with Jackson (no it’s not a girls only book) and there is a part where Laura is upset that they can’t camp yet.  Oh, heck, let me just share this passage with you.

Then Ma said, “Laura”. That was all, but it meant that Laura must not complain. So she did not complain any more outloud, but she was still naughty, inside. She sat and thought complaints to herself. ” Little House on the Prairie pg 15

Oh My! My kids have not learned the art of the internal complaint, I am pretty sure I hear them all audibly. So I might be good about not complaining to you all throughout the potty-training process but I might complain to myself!  And I will for sure complain to Seth out loud!

Back to savoring home…

Well, the boys get the prize. Their rooms are certainly the most fun!  Like the other rooms in the house they are primarily thrifted or gifted things throughout. When we moved in I spent the first few days putting the boys rooms together. I felt like it was really important for them to have the security of their own space with their own things after a ton of travel and uncertainty. It’s always been my goal for my kids rooms to have pictures of the people that love them, pictures of them as babies (so I can pretend they are still that little) and then I want them to be able to grow into their spaces (which just means there isn’t really a theme or age specific thing necessarily, just boy stuff.)

Owen’s room

Each room is currently sporting paper blinds! Owen utilizes his the most..can’t you tell?!

I pinned book shelves like these a year ago on Pintrest and had all but given up on doing them. Somehow my trips to Lowe’s with the boys to look for gutters to cut just got the best of me. I went to a little flea market with my friend Bonnie a month ago and happened upon these curio shelves for $1 each, with the drill holes already in them. Saved our marriage! I love the shelves that Leigh’s dad built but I knew we couldn’t pull them off and Owen’s space is pretty limited on that wall. so when I found these 3 shelves that fit perfectly in his space I knew it was a flea market miracle!

Owen’s quilt makes me smile. My friend Nina sewed it for him and it matches Jackson’s cowboy fabrics (just in case they share a room in the future). Reminds me of Nina every time I hop on Owen’s bed to read with him! If we are lucky Nina will share her sewing room in Poland with us!! Crackers the puppy and Owen’s bunny from Annie O guard the bed.

this is a significant decoration in Owen’s room. This clock is mom’s best friend!

if Owen’s room looks too clean it’s because we have actually limited his room to just books and a few toys that are tucked away. His little early bird self was pulling out the toys at 5 AM or earlier so we just keep it clear.

Owen’s room is painted in Sanctuary (I think it’s a Behr color from home depot…maybe a Martha Stewart from home depot) but it is a little darker than I had planned but still nice.

Jackson’s room

Jackson’s room is probably the most fun….he has the most unnecessary decoration in the house which is a real saddle (a garage sale find that made my husband wonder if I had lost my mind).  I said I don’t go with themes but Jackson’s room is kind of a cowboy room. Every kid that steps into our home hops on to that saddle and loves it.  Jackson’s room was originally a study so it has lots of built in shelving! I have tried to make a shelf for each place he has lived and then mix in things he likes, his artwork, etc. He has a few shelves that I “let” him do. Most of them are still a work in progress. The red armoire is the one we found on the side of the road in Switzerland and finished with maps on the inside.  And that Saturday Post print could not be more like Jackson!

Aunt Sue, can you see the calf on the shelf by his bed?! That is a mainstay, in every suitcase and on every trip!

Jackson’s room is painted Teatime by Behr at Home Depot, it too is a bit darker than I should have done for the room size but it is cozy. We call it peanut butter color!

I am definitely savoring the little boyness that is going on these days and I love that their rooms reflect that. I feel like the days are flying by right now and I just want to enjoy them while they are little. Just not savoring the potty-training. Ok, I complained to you. To my credit, his first pair of undies this morning lasted less than 5 mins. Less than 5 mins.