One of my favorite things to think about when I'm starting to decorate a room is what details I can add to really make the room "mine". Today, I worked on the office nook. I would say this room is considered "finished", except for whatever I might find in tubs over the next few days. Hopefully I've got it organized enough now that I should be able to categorize any extra items and put them right away. Some of the details that I really adore about the new farmhouse office nook include the herringbone plank clothespin board, the Rise & Shine sign, and of course, the typewriter Scentsy warmer. I love the Farmhouse caddy sitting by my camera and the wire basket from Dollar General holding all of my Bible study items. My childrens' picture on the "love" picture frame along with the funky desk lamp are both details that I enjoy. Through the whole process of moving and planning and decorating, I'm trying to remember to take time for the details.
I wanted my office nook to be someplace that I can come each morning to spend time with Jesus. To be able to load and edit photographs for my clients in a peaceful environment. To be inspired in my workspace. To pay attention to the details as I mold the space to fit exactly what I am visualizing in my mind. I wanted to have a refreshing place to create. And I think this farmhouse office nook will be just that place.
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I've really tried to minimize belongings in our home over the last few years by using specific areas in the house for dual purposes. An example in the old house would have been our kitchen island. It had the dishwasher on one side and cabinets on two of the other sides. The top had a rustic-style organizer where bills, event invitations, and important papers landed. I had mason jars with pens and scissors in them. It was sort of the hub of the house. The problem is that it also became the "catch-all" a lot of the time. One of my goals for the farmhouse was to have locations in the house that would serve dual purposes, while making sure that these places didn't attract clutter. This is where I got the idea for a coffee bar charging station. As our girls have gotten older, they have started to spend more and more time engaged in electronics...mostly their iPads. We have rules for these and to be quite frank, they often end up on the refrigerator for a week at a time because the iPad is a privilege and when little girls make poor choices, privileges are revoked. I know that as they continue to grow, we will be dealing with other types of technology...cell phones, computers, and who knows what else. I knew I needed a central charging hub and I knew that this little space in the kitchen could be the perfect location if I would work it out right. I ended up finding a really well-made console table at a friend's garage sale in mid-June. I knew it would be perfect SOMEwhere in the farmhouse, so I bought it. We had several options for using the console table in this little nook by the basement stairs in the kitchen...a mail drop-off location, more counter-space for use in cooking, or just a decorative table. I knew that any of those three options could turn into clutter-central. That's when my sister-in-law mentioned putting our Keurig there. That really got the wheels-a-turning. I decided that having a coffee bar on top of the charging station would be perfect. And I decided to be very intentional about what I put there. In the old house, I always tried to hide the K-Cups.
Now, there is an outlet right behind where the wire basket sits.
Of course, there aren't enough plugs to service a charging station for the whole family...so I mounted a power strip on the wall behind the console table. Nothing fancy...I literally used thumbtacks to hang it (the farmhouse has plaster walls...have I mentioned that???). The girls picked out their own washi tape to identify their chargers and we fed them up through the drawer on the right. I plugged in my iPad and FitBit Blaze into the left drawer and we were done! A functional charging station inside and a beautiful coffee bar outside. Yesterday, we spent day #2 at the farmhouse. On the "to do list" was to finish painting the master bedroom and to get the kitchen somewhat put together. One of my former colleagues is an amazing painter and volunteered to come down and help me knock out the bedroom walls. She. Was. Amazing. She filled holes, painted the edges with her favorite fancy Purdy paint brush, filled in the middle with the paint roller, and even painted the whole closet by the time she left late into the evening. And now it looks wonderful! After the bedroom was painted, Mr. Farmhouse left and took the two younger girls home and Harlee & I decided to tackle the kitchen. My dad had gone to Lee's Summit to pick up our new refrigerator yesterday afternoon and it was now safely installed in the new kitchen, thanks to Dad, Matthew, & my brother-in-law, Colby. We had only three tubs of kitchen stuff to go through and put away, so Harlee and I decided to go for it. We went through the tubs and only ended up keeping one tub of kitchen items. We put those items away and made a plan for where we would put the rest of the goodies we have left in our current kitchen. I have lots of pictures for the walls, decorative items for above the cabinets, and other countertop accents. I'm looking forward to putting all of those things out once we get the final appraisal report back (today sometime!!!) and set a final "for-sure 100% happening" closing date. I can't wait to share the details of the kitchen project with you! Until then...here's a preview! The Pioneer Woman Utensil Crock was the very first thing I bought for the farmhouse & I got the clock today at WalMart for $14.97!
As I shared a while back, the thought of leaving our current home is bittersweet. We have so many memories in this home. It's strange to think of passing the keys over to someone else and moving on with our lives in a new home. We are excited and sad and overjoyed and even mourning a little bit. As we walked the property yesterday, Matthew and I visited about all the things we could do to the outside of the house. We were planning on new siding and windows right away, but due to the fact that we are wanting to add a second bathroom upstairs and still keeping on the straight and narrow with Dave Ramsey, we might have to put that off for a year or two. After we discussed the changes we needed to make on the outside of the house, we took his parents through the inside of the house. This was the first time we had walked through the house since the owners moved out. It was a blank canvas. Empty rooms. Empty cabinets. Empty closets. Empty. Mr. Farmhouse and my dear teaching partner worked to bring the very first load of our belongings in. We had been filling up an enclosed trailer with stuff ever since we thought we would be closing and moving on June 16th. While they delivered tubs and boxes, the girls and I worked to scrub the main rooms down. The men left to go get another load and the kids and I started sorting the tubs into the rooms they will be going into.
Mr. Farmhouse, along with a few of his friends, brought in the Craigslist farmhouse table I had been waiting for and brought a load of outside items. Our friends left and the five of us shared our first meal at the new table. Casey's Pizza. It was spectacular. Harlee prayed for our new journey in the house and for the pizza and for the appraisal results we are still waiting on. We stayed until 12:30 this morning, working and painting and enjoying each other. And when the girls get up, we're gonna go do it all again. After 11 years in one house, it's kind of difficult to think about filling a different house with everything you own. Difficult and exciting and fun. It's a blank canvas and we are already working to make it our masterpiece. Our mini-vacation to Oklahoma was so much fun. We leisurely drove down on Thursday afternoon. We missed a turn and kept right on going to find a new route instead of turning around. When we finally made it to Bartlesville, where we were staying, we found a Japanese Steakhouse and enjoyed supper together. No rushing around. No numerous bathroom trips with various children. Just peace and quiet...and my first experience with sushi. Still not so sure about THAT. We got up Friday morning and enjoyed The Pioneer Woman Mercantile and some boutique shopping in downtown Pawhuska. I made a few purchases for the farmhouse. We laughed a lot. Enjoyed some nice food. And did some serious walking. We dropped Mom off to get some work done at the hotel and the three of us girls went to the mall. By mid-afternoon, we were ready to head back to our room.. We spent some time resting and relaxing, watching television, reading, and visiting. It was strange not having the seven grandkids running around between the two hotel rooms, visiting with Grams and playing noisily. It was so quiet. Almost TOO quiet. That evening, after a quick trip to WalMart, we came back to the hotel to sleep. "I wonder if they would let us check out a day early." Mom said. "Maybe. We can always go ask." So we did. And they did. Yesterday morning, we woke up and got around slowly. We stopped and did a little more shopping (yay, Hobby Lobby!). Besides the canvas United States map I picked up at the Mercantile, the galvanized metal distressed Farmhouse sign was definitely my other favorite purchase. You can see how wide it is right now, sitting on my piano music stand just waiting for its new home when we move into the farmhouse. It will be the perfect focal point in the new living room (I think...if that's where it ends up). I got the other three tin quotes on clearance (along with about 5 others) to round out some various gallery walls I have planned for the house. Acts 2:46 will hang in the dining room, "I choose fabulous" will (of course) be in the Claire Bear's room, and Jeremiah 1:5 will hang in the playroom to remind the girls daily that they are set apart for Kingdom work! After the "brief" Hobby Lobby stop, we loaded the van up and headed home. Mr. Farmhouse and the kids didn't know we were coming home early. The kids were out at the annual antique tractor show in our town and Matthew was putting up hay. So I leisurely unpacked and soaked up a little more of the peace and quiet before I went to pick up the girls from my in-laws. Three big hugs from three little girls. Smiles and dancing from the three-year-old. "I missed you so much," from the older two. We probably won't have a chance for another "girls' trip" like this for another year or two, but that's okay. There definitely is no place like home. We'll be closing on the new house in a few short weeks.
We are looking forward to the memories to be made at the farmhouse, but also excited for the couple who will be purchasing our current home. Our stories line up pretty perfectly. We've known these "kids" for several years and we've always joked with them about how their relationship has really mirrored ours. They were high school sweethearts. They got married young. We share a lot of the same hobbies and our tastes in decor are very similar. So when they contacted us with aspirations to purchase our house, we felt very "at peace" about the whole situation. We decided to pray about it and look at the budget, as we discussed all the possibilities of where we might end up. One possibility was my parents' house, staying in their basement. With three kids. And three dogs. And cows. And chickens. We also talked about buying some land and building a house, but there was the issue of going from a house with three nice big established outbuildings to a property with none. For most of the land we were looking at, we would have to fork out about as much as we will be spending on the farmhouse for the land alone. And we would still have the expense of a house and shop added on top of that. Plus, we have really loved taking this old house we live in now and loving on it to make it our own. The thought of starting with something brand new just didn't really feel like "us" at this point in our lives. We both love the character of older homes, so we were trying to build that character into our house plans which can get pretty costly. So when I was sitting at Claire's softball practice one night and my sister-in-law mentioned her neighbors getting ready to put their house on the market, my heart leapt and a smile began to form on the corners of my lips. After practice, the girls and I drove out there and we fell in love. That's when the dreaming began. The "Bungalow" Pinterest board was created. I started sketching ideas of how to divide up the pasture and yard. I emailed the realtor and set up a showing. I began praying that if this was the house for us, that God would work it out. And He did. In a big way. But that's a story for another day. ❤️ |
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