THE laundry room door

I really like this door, and it's in our house!

It's the pocket door in the kitchen that goes to the laundry room - (obviously)

It used to be the 'front' door of the house.  My in laws had most of the original doors of our 1918 farmhouse stripped when they owned the farm and they are just too beautiful to throw out.  

When we renovated the front part of the house we planned on removing the closed in porch on the front of the house to replace it with an open veranda.  Since this door would no longer be "inside" the house we needed to replace it with one that was more weather tight.

There it is in its original location.  

There are not a whole lot of windows in our house so we want to take advantage of all the ones we have.  If we put a solid door in the laundry room we were going to lose all the light from the window in there when the door was closed, so we decided to reuse this door.  

However, it's a laundry room, so we wanted a way to block the view.

There is the door in place with the glass still clear, letting in all the light - and the view.

(how do you like our tin ceiling?  I'll post about that later)

My sister-in-law and brother own a sign company and I worked there, getting to know about the many vinyl products available, one of which is 'etched glass' vinyl.  I designed this for our door, cut and applied it myself, (which makes it special to me) but anyone could have this done by a sign company.

We saved some money by reusing the door, but more important, we preserved some of the history of our house.

Have an abundant day!

Diana

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old glass jar solar lights

I had seen diy "sun" jars on the internet and wanted to make some for myself.

I followed the instructions at apartmenttherapy.com for jars that looked like this:

photo from apartment therapy

They turned out pretty nice, but it was not fun spray painting them with the frosted glass paint, it took a fair number of coats.

I put them outside on my patio table and enjoyed them - for about a month, then they started to fall apart :( .  The paint scratched and the silicone I used failed, causing the light part to separate from the jar lid.

So I called this a lesson and started over.  This time the only thing I bought new were the solar stakes, they had them on sale at Canadian Tire for $0.99. 

They were just the right size to fit the glass insert part of old canning jars.  You unscrew the top part and silicone them to the insert, like this:

Not wanting to use the frosted glass paint again, I decided some velum might work to diffuse the led light.   I cut a piece to form a tube that fit just around the outside of the light part and inside the jar height then taped it in place.  

The best part is I used these for the rest of the summer and they still look like they did when I made them, except the rim on the jar, which turned rusty.

Perfect.

Have an abundant day!

Diana

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Le Chateau de Fleurs

butter box {cooler} build and a STORY

This is a table, with very special storage!  I built this table for a reason, I needed it...

You see, we live on a farm, a nice one, but we do have some special needs once in a while.  Like how to keep boar semen fresh for the little ladies in the barn.  Yup, that's what I said - boar semen.  It is exactly what it sounds like, the seed of the male hog.

Some years ago, we went from using actual boars to buying the swimmers instead.  In order to keep them fresh they needed to be kept at a relatively stable temperature.  The deliveries were usually quite late at night, and in order for us to get to bed on time we would need a place that the delivery person could access without getting too close to the barn - and the house was the most practical solution.  

So we put a beer cooler in the front entrance way of the house for some temporary storage.  Although practical, it was not very attractive and it was a pain to keep putting away and remembering to take it out again for delivery night.  Also, the floor in our entrance is heated, so the cooler needed to be elevated, away from too much heat.  And I really wanted to use the cooler for beer or food once in awhile but was put off by the thought of you know what!  You can see I had a bit of a dilemma.

Then I thought of this butter box I found in an old house my parents were taking down.  It was the perfect size for a sack of boar juice and I thought if I lined it with some 1" Styrofoam it would make an adequate cooler.  Since I needed to have it raised off the floor I went scrounging around in my attic and found the parts of an original banister from the house.  This old house of ours just keeps coughing up treasures - having been built in 1918 and renovated a few times, there are a few leftover parts still hanging around.

The banister parts included enough boards and spindles to make the stand for the bottom as well as a lid for the top.  I added a few hinges and some jack chain, finished the old wood with some leftover ebony polyblend and called it done.

The delivery guy loved it and people always notice and ask about this odd piece of furniture - but I don't always mention it's purpose! 

This is a picture I took a few years ago when it was still in the front entrance being used for it's intended purpose.  Much prettier than that blue cooler I was using.  However, we sold our hogs almost two years ago and this little cutie is no longer needed for keeping the swimmers swimming.

Now it hangs out in the kitchen.  I even considered using it for beer when we are entertaining - now isn't that ironic!

Because I used all found and leftover items, including the hinges, chain and Styrofoam this piece cost me a little bit of sweat - but no actual money was harmed.

Good for you if you read that whole thing without saying eeeeww a few times, {sigh} The stuff was triple bagged, by the way.

Do you like my Laundry room door?  See more here.

Have an abundant day,

Diana

Update:  Our youngest reminded me (after reading this post) that she can remember calling out "the semens here" when we received deliveries, like this was a normal part of every ones life!  Farm kids got it good. 

a working girl's makeover

I found this hardworking little girl at the Salvation Army. She was looking a little tired and worn, so I took her home to give her some love.


She was stripped naked then brought out to the shop for a lube job, making sure everything was in good  order, after all she is a working girl ;)

Her entire metal frame was given a new coat of paint, to give her that fresh (old) industrial look. I especially wanted to take the shine off those sparkly wheel covers.  Her new clothing is old grain sack, tailored to fit her unique shape.

I think she's pretty cute and has a lot of years left in her yet! 














Have an abundant day!
Diana






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{upcycled} first aid box

Easy and quick access to first aid supplies is important. I know this from experience.  They are never good experiences.

My husband seems to think I am some kind of nurse (I'm NOT), so comes to me when he or anyone else has had an unfortunate run in with a sharp object on the farm.  Said objects are usually dirty, being from a farm and all. 

I used to keep my first aid supplies in a plastic box in the downstairs bathroom, fairly close to the front door of the house (aka the emergency triage area). Unfortunately there was no sink by the door for washing wounds, so if there were any bloody injuries there was usually some kind of trail left from the door to the bathroom that any CSI would love! {I know- ewww - sorry about that.}

Which brings me to this beauty:

Well not in this picture.  This is how I found it, at auction, for $2.  It was also FULL of an assortment of vintage coat hooks and cabinet hardware - which is what I really wanted ;)

It looks like it contained "electric" at one time.  This is one heavy box - made of steel in some kind of army color, and it was dirty!

After much cleaning, some sanding, and a couple of coats of this paint (from the surplus store, $3.50)...

...it was looking much better!  To clearly mark what was in the box, I glued on the international symbol for "Help me I'm bleeding to death!", the red cross.  It was not red to begin with, just a wooden cross I picked up at a thrift store for 50 cents, then painted red.

That little black box on top contains a working vintage otoscope, also bought at an auction. {shocker!} 

Here it is with all the supplies inside, they fit nicely in these (washable) boxes from the dollar store.  As you can see there was a divider in the box that made a handy shelf too!  Now that I see this, maybe I should have painted the inside too - I'm optimistic I won't be looking at that a whole lot!

I hung this beauty right by the sink in the mudroom/laundry room, which we renovated last year.  (You can see pictures of the reno at Hometalk for now - I plan on posting them here sometime) 

So there it is, now hopefully I won't need it :0

Have an abundant day,

Diana

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Wire Wreath Card Holder {Upcycled}

This was a super easy project using an old Christmas card holder I had purchased years ago from my nephew as part of his school fundraising project.  I think it was from Regal gifts but the memory fades...

This is what it looked like before.

It wasn't bad and I used it for it's given purpose for a number of years.  It looked real nice full of Christmas cards and photos from family and friends.  However, every year there were less cards to fill it (everyone is going digital with their wishes - including me) and I found myself putting in old cards.  I liked the wreath form though, and thought it would be nice for year round display so this summer I pulled it out of the attic and went about transforming it.  

The first thing I did was remove the angel and then spray painted it with this:

It looked much better at this point, however there was an awkward gap where the angel used to be and being unsatisfied with the results I set it aside until I had a better idea.  Well an idea "lightbulb" went on the other day when I took a picture of these for a fb cover photo.

And this is the result - I like it!

I don't know who the lady in the photo is, I found her under another picture in a vintage frame I bought.  I like her and her little cat too! 

I found the BINGO card under our old kitchen cabinets when we renovated.  It's the number 13 card so maybe someone thought they had better hide it away, just in case. ;)

Have an abundant day!

Diana

This is for sale on my fb page here

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Family Portraits

This past summer we finally had family portraits done.

It was about time too - we have been married 26 years and have our first grandchild. That's a lot of time to let slip away with no portraits.  The reason I'm sharing today is our photographer featured our family portrait wall on her blog HERE.  We had the portraits printed on canvas then grouped them on our "family" room wall with a sign I painted on an upcycled cabinet door from the Restore, and a letter "B" from GW.

Besides the portraits I had printed, these are some of my other favourites.

The boys and the girls 

I love this one taken on the swing set my dad made for us kids when we were 

young.  I come from a family of nine, and I have many memories of playing on this swing set, (circus anyone?) mostly good!

This is the garden shed my dad built that we are standing in front of, whose stairs lead to a second story playhouse and slide.

We had the pictures done at my parents house. They have a beautiful property that they love and care for themselves.  My father is 83 and my mother is 80 and there are at least 3 acres of well maintained gardens, a pond and a number of smaller outbuildings. Mom calls it her little piece of heaven right here on earth - and it is!

Mom and Dad with their great grand daughter. 

Our first grand child - I'm wishing for an abundance of these :)

All because two people fell in love...

with each other! ( & one of them with a bike). 

Our kids did this as a Christmas gift last year and it was one of the nicest gifts I have ever received. I cannot accurately describe just how wonderful this day was for me, and to see the results of our best work (so far) displayed on our family room wall is very rewarding.  I highly recommend it! 

Have an abundant day,

Diana