Wall Art

As part of my quest to DIY this farm house. I made some pretty cool prints to hang on the walls of the living room. We bought the wood at Home Depot for $16.00. 

First Core helped by cutting some wood for me. I then painted it with the same color as the chair. 

painted wood

 I blew up a few favorite pictures that I've taken over the last couple of years (they were $12.00 each ot have enlarged). This one is from the Cherry Blossom festival last year. I adhered it with the spray adhesive and then mod podged over it a few times. I also tried to add an antique look and used sand paper to rough it up.

This one got a little rough, I scaled back the sand paper effect on the next one

 I love how this one turned out and this is a picture that I took in West Virginia back in 2010.

I'm a lot happier with how this one turned out

 Now all I need to do is add some hangers onto the back and they are ready to rock the living room walls of the farm house! As I had most of the supplies on hand they each were only $20 dollars each. Not bad for 24"/24" wall art!

Toddler Stool- Will Style

Now that I've become a pro at shopping at second hand stores (visited two in the last week). I found this adorable little stool that needed some love. Another thrifty shopper was interested in this same stool but felt that it was overpriced. As a novice to this whole new world of buying on the cheap I was floored that he turned away from a $3 dollar steal. I was sold and with a quick paint job and some Will family fun, it turned out well (watch out Carlyle family, an art project with your pictures is in the works)

                                                                          Before

I used some white flat paint that I found in the basement and did a few coats on the exterior and only one coat on the interior top. I made my own mod podge by mixing half Elmers glue to have water. I copied some pictures of the Will side of the family and laid them out on the side. I adhered them with some adhesive spray (I wouldn't use again as it did discolor some), stuck the pictures and mod podged back over the top.

I used some gray paint that we have to write our daughter's name on the top of the stool.

Here is how the sides turned out after 3 coats of mod podge.

A new stool for the farm house. Total cost $3.00 as we had some of the supplies laying around the house.

Chair Makeover

We are attempting to furnish our new farm house spending less than $1,000 (excluding appliances). Here is my first attempt at taking something old and ugly and making it into something fun and usable. 

I found this chair at a second hand store and spent $40 dollars. I liked the material and have always wanted a wing back chair. 

 Next stop was Home Depot and I picked out a water based paint color that I liked, and spent about $15 dollars on paint and foam brushes. I then diluted the paint with half paint, half water. After washing/cleaning the chair I applied the painted the chair. I then used an old rag to blot the chair to make sure that the paint was evenly covering the surface.

It took several coats for it all to set. I have to admit that it's a little crunchy and I would use a paint medium next time. The next step was painting the legs (I opted for white) and added some furniture tacks.
Here is the final product! Total amt spent $55.00.

George and L had to try it out and gave it a two thumbs up!

House Tour

Here is a tour of the house as it is right now. Take the tour here.

The Now

Here are some before pictures of our farm house. I know in a few years that we will look back on this with a sense of accomplishment. As I look at them now I'm overwhelmed at what we hope to do and the length of time that it will take for us to accomplish this.

Kitchen- plan is to keep most of this room 

dining room-knocking out walls to open up the space

dining room looking back the other way--
hoping to expose the chimney brick and clear out the walls to the kitchen and
the stairwell, which is on your left here

bathroom -- functional for the most part -- not touching for the most part!

Living room -- glorious old fireplace

staircase -- this one abuts the dining room-to-be and will hopefully not have
a right wall after we're done with it

bedroom #1 at the top of the stairs

view from bedroom #1

bedroom #2 -- cozy!

bedroom #3 -- 1972 anyone?

bedroom #4 -- the grand fireplace extends up through this room

basement -- this is part of the original cabin, said to've been built in the 1750s
It may have once been slaves' quarters, but definitely was where the household
cooking happened.  This is the grand fireplace you see up through the house

lightning rod

How it all began

Over the last year or so I've been receiving weekly real estate updates and has closely watched houses go on and off the market in the West Virginia panhandle. A beautiful little (little!) chalet on a waterfall came up and I fell instantly in love. We went out that week put an offer and then lost it just as quickly as we found it.  This was a real setback, but it really got us going, including getting Cory to start subscribing to the weekly updates and scouring Zillow, Truila, and every other real estate website.

This whole process confirmed for us the  idea for us that we are at a place in our lives where we are looking for a new project and undertaking. Cory found a listing and insisted that we check it out. I was not as enthusiastic about the house, nor was our realtor, largely due to it's age and my perception of the amount of work that it would take to get it up to a "livable vacation property". After several visits--one with Laurelea (our 2 year old daughter) and one without--we made the decision to put in an offer. Now in just under a month we are set to close on our 1900 farm house in West Virginia.

Our budget is modest so we will be doing many projects ourselves, leaving the heavy lifting to the pros. Instead of incessant Facebook updates or group emails, we settled on putting up another blog so you can come and go as you please. So: here begin the adventures of the Carlyles and our quest for a comfy vacation property in Wild, Wonderful WV!