Where I Grew Up and Some New Farmhouse Art for the Living Room

It's no secret that I love farmhouse decor.

My childhood home

I came by my love for all things farmhouse while growing up on a little farm in the hills of Saratoga, a small town in Northern California near San Francisco. My family lived in a big three story country house with a wrap-around veranda overlooking Saratoga, the Santa Cruz Mountains, and the Santa Clara Valley all the way to the bay. 

My horse, Joey

We had a big barn and meadow where we kept horses, a cow, and a lamb, all looked after by our sheepdog, Lady. Rain or shine and dawn to dusk, when I wasn't in school, I was riding my horse, Joey, all over the Santa Cruz Mountains.

I can't even imagine a better way to grow up.

When I was ten, my stepfather took us to the dairy farm auction where we sat on bleachers and listened wide-eyed to the auctioneer calling out the sale of calves in the pens below us. We didn't know we'd be driving home with a little black and white not-quite-weaned calf in the back of our pickup. 

We called him Mr. McDougall and taught him how to drink milk from a bucket. He missed his mother and followed us all around the farm like a puppy, so I spent much of that summer sitting on the front lawn under a tree with his head in my lap.

These are my new cows. I haven't named them yet, but I will!

Let's go to a party!

Between Naps On The Porch
Cozy Little House
The Scoop
  A Stroll Thru Life
Elizabeth & Co.
Savvy Southern Style

Summer Barn Dance Chalkboard Art

When I was thinking of summer art for my chalkboard earlier this summer, I tried to come up with something that would celebrate our new farmhouse decor. 

Nothing is more symbolic of a farm than a barn, and what could be more fun in the summer than a good old barn dance?

 I decided to hang this chalkboard in a little corner of the entryway between two windows, and use it to welcome visitors into our home.

 

Do you remember this old chair my husband's parents gave us that I painted a while back, upholstery and all? (You can find the before photos and the tutorial here.)

 

I brought this old dresser home from an antique store twenty years ago. It was primitively made by hand, and I love every single mark and scratch on it. You can still see the remnants of green paint someone before me stripped off to the original finish.

  

 

The dresser used to be in our bedroom, but I'm using it to hold table linens now.

 

The large tray is from Antique Farmhouse.

 

 I think I'm the only blogger who shows a vignette with Reader's Digests that haven't been covered with beautiful paper or painted with an artistic faux process. (I think that's item #587 on my to-do list.)

 

I'm not sure if this is a brass sheep or a cow, but it was on the top of a 4H trophy I found at the thrift store. It's very solid and heavy. 

  

The old Elvin Bishop song is one of my all-time favorites.

 I bought this frame at a yard sale last summer for $5, and just painted the old scratched and faded fiberboard print inside it with black chalkboard paint. I've found that the store-bought black chalkboard paint holds up to repeated erasing with a wet rag better than my own homemade chalk paint. A complete tutorial for creating your own large chalkboard from a frame can be found here.

My SUMMER banner is card stock-reinforced burlap with the black letters transferred on using charcoal and then painted in by hand.

 

Bright flowers in antique bottles for a splash of summer color.

 

Autumn is just around the corner, but I'm squeezing every sweet moment left out of summer. I can close my eyes and still imagine the warm sun setting over a barn lit by fairy lights, full of laughter and dancing. 

We're gonna party till the cows come home!

Let's take this party to:

Vintage Inspiration Party 
Cozy Little House 

From My Front Porch To Yours
Rooted In Thyme
French Country Cottage
The Charm Of Home
Shabby Art Boutique
My Repurposed Life
One More Time Events

My Fabuless Life
The Life Of Jennifer Dawn 
 

A Remodel Update and New Neutral Decor

I'm super happy to tell you that our master suite remodel was finished last week! 

Yay!

You can't believe how good it feels to have our house back to ourselves after eleven long weeks of sharing it with a constant parade of subcontractors. It feels SO Good! Our new master bedroom and bathroom are so different now, moving back into them was almost like moving into a different house. I'll share the whole remodel story and all the details soon, but for now here's a quick before and after look.

Before

Do you remember this before picture of the hunter green faux marble Formica counter in the master bathroom?

After

Here's the new shaker style cabinet and gray quartz counter. What a difference, right? (Wait till I share the new shower with you next week. It'll blow your mind!)

Before

 Here's a refresher picture of our old ruby red and hunter green bedroom. Yikes! 

After

 And here's our new soothing neutral colored bedroom. Honestly, I'm in heaven every time I walk into this room, I love it so much! I have lots more to do in this room, and I'll be sharing it all with you as each project is finished. (Later this week I'll be sharing my DIY bedside lamp makeover.) 

Are you as bowled over by the difference in these two rooms as we are? It is so much fun to live in them, and we feel so lucky. It was worth every minute of living through the stress and saga of a remodel to have these perfect rooms, and I pinch myself each time I see them again. (Which I do about every five minutes because I just can't get enough of them!)

During the remodel I was busy redecorating our entry way and living room to be more in line with the new neutral color scheme and style of the kitchen we had redone last fall and with the rest of the house. Out with the bright jewel-toned traditional decor we used to have, and in with the new neutral-colored farmhouse theme. I had to do it all in my head and online because I didn't actually have access to the living room and entry area during the entire remodel. My studio was filling up with things I'd purchased and made, and I was pretty nervous to see if it would all work out. There were moments I really questioned just what the heck I was doing. 

Over the past couple of days I was able to put things in order, though, and I'm excited to share with you what I've done so far. I still have a lot to do, but I'm relieved to say I like the direction in which it's going. I've never tackled such a completely new and different decorating theme before, and I'm finding it to be quite a fun and interesting challenge.

Here's the entry way, which is actually just one side of our long living room that we've separated with this white homemade cupboard we placed behind the sofa. Lots of needed storage is here next to the dining room for linens, crystal, silver, and china. I considered a cushioned bench in the corner with baskets below and coat hooks above to define this area as the entry, but having the antique dresser there is just a more practical use of our limited space for us.

  

This is the part of the living room behind that white cupboard in the last picture. 

Our comfy new neutral sofa! 

(I need to make new pillows. Summer pillows, fall pillows, Christmas pillows...  I can't wait!)

The dining room and kitchen. 

I feel like all the rooms are finally starting to flow well and speak to each other properly, and this is what I hope they're saying: "I'm a one hundred and four year-old house, and I'm proud to show it!"

Thank you so much for stopping in today to see what's going on around here. I hope you'll stop back again later because I'll be sharing the details of our remodel and lots more pictures of all these rooms. I also have tons of fun DIY projects planned for all of our new spaces.

Have a great day, and see you again soon!

  I hope you'll join me this week at these wonderful parties!

The Scoop 
 Cozy Little House
Between Naps On The Porch
Mod Vintage Life
Elizabeth & Co.  
Homework 
Our Home Away From Home
Savvy Southern Style
The Charm of Home
From My Front Porch To Yours 
Shabby Art Boutique 
 

 

The Sofa Solution

Hi everyone, I hope your April is off to a great start! I'm so excited to share what came in the mail today. 

New England Home

 We're redecorating our living room from a vibrant traditional look to a more simple neutral farmhouse look like in this inspiration picture from New England Home. 
 

  

 We've been struggling with a dilemma because we're too cheap frugal to replace our perfectly good-in-every-way, but unfortunately very red, sofa. (Notice how I'm trying to hide that it's red here with a lot of big pillows.) Reupholstering costs almost as much as a new sofa, and I'm not a fan of hard to take on and off slipcovers. But the farmhouse look I love practically requires a white sofa.
 

Pottery Barn

 Pottery Barn to the rescue! When I saw that this drop cloth furniture cover was on sale and remembered I had a Pottery Barn gift card from last Christmas, I just had to give it a try.

  

When it arrived in the mail today, I immediately tossed it on the sofa and spent a few minutes tugging and tucking to see if it would work. 

I love it, wrinkles and all!

I mean, the way I figure it, I just saved us a ton of money and will still be able to have the white sofa farmhouse look I want without buying a new white sofa. For a cheap frugal person like me, that's like winning the lottery!

And please don't worry, I do plan on ironing out the wrinkles and spending some more time draping it just right and making some new pillows, too. But I snapped this photo on my phone and just couldn't wait to share my "new" sofa with you.

Thanks so much for stopping in to see!    

 

This and That and Some Farmhouse Art for the Kitchen

Happy Friday, everybody! 

It was spring here in Boise a few days ago, so my husband and I made big plans for spending the weekend gardening in the warm sunshine. 

Turns out spring was just having a joke on us, though, because this is what it's doing today outside our back window. Looks like the garden will have to wait a bit!

I was shocked to see it's been almost three weeks since my last blog post, so I'm checking in today to share what I've been up to lately.

First of all, you might remember I started a food sensitivity test awhile back and then kind of left you hanging about the results. I'm happy to report today that so far it's been a great success! So good, in fact, that I continued on with the other steps in the book and am still working on them. When I'm done in another month or so, I'll share the whole journey with you.

 I've also been working on designing our master bathroom remodel. We've picked out all the surfaces and finishes, and my husband is searching for a contractor now. We were hoping for our wonderful kitchen contractor, but he's too backed up doing other jobs. Contractors who are experts at working on one hundred year-old homes are not easy to find, so I'm not sure just when we'll be starting, but I'll share my inspiration photos and plans soon.   

 

I've been pulling my hair out trying to choose a paint color for the living room walls. I'll share a whole post soon just on the technique I came up with to make my final decision, but here's my pick: Benjamin Moore White Dove.

I had to squint and use my hands to block out the bright Stuart Gold that's on the walls now, but when I saw these neutral textures and colors framed by the white, I knew I had the look I wanted. I haven't had white walls since living in an apartment, but I'm excited by the new challenge! 

Painting swatches all over the living room walls isn't the only thing I've been doing with paint. 

We took a couple of the old cabinets from our kitchen remodel and made a new cabinet for the living room that I chalk painted and waxed. I'll share the tutorial for this penny pinching project in an upcoming post.

I've also been purchasing a few accessories to nudge my traditional decor towards a more vintage farmhouse vibe, especially in the kitchen. So, may I introduce you to my new barnyard friends? 

I love a touch of whimsy, and these barnyard fellas make me smile every time I walk into the kitchen.

Green mason jars are finally on sale to the public. Green is my favorite color, so I was super excited to see these on display as I was leaving Michael's Craft Store the other day. I don't even need to put anything in them, I just love the color on my kitchen window sill, the perfect touch of spring green. 

Hear that, Spring? Green, not white like snow! 

I'm so glad you stopped by today so we could catch up, and I hope you have a wonderful spring weekend! 

I'd love you to come party with me!

Rooted In Thyme 
The Shabby Nest
Jennifer Rizzo