Well hey there. I've come to the realization that I simply cannot commit to daily posts, or weekly posts for that matter. Truth is, I've started several blog posts over the past two weeks and just exited out of each one because we've been busy and at this point in my blogging career (if you could call it that) I'm content with writing here when I want whether that be once a week or once a month. Life is busy. You'd think with summer here it would slow down but in all honesty I think it speeds up a notch. It seems we have something planned for each weekend from here throughout August and I want to soak up every minute of that with my family and not have to worry about my focus here. I'll post here when I want to and it'll be a post worth writing about, nothing mediocre! All fun, all family, all real, now onto catching y'all up...
This weekend was re-model central in our house, and the work has just begun. I've dreamed of a farmhouse kitchen table for the past couple years. They are just gorgeous in my opinion, simple, organic looking. A farmhouse style table is a table, in my opinion, where family can gather over plates of fried chicken, a basket of rolls and a jar honey, all while discussing each other's days and spending quality time with one another. Thing is...farmhouse tables bought new are incredibly expensive and quite frankly, out of our price range. While scouring through Pinterest and 'oohing' and 'aahing' over several farmhouse tables I came across an article where it showed you how to build your own and I pinned it, knowing in my mind that we would never get around to making it, but what the hell? Lord knows I have thousands of things on my pinterest boards that I'll never get around to making but "just in case".
Because I have the worlds best husband who spoils me beyond belief, believe it or not, he actually follows my pins and saw the one that showed you how to build your own table. After months of him listening to my love of farmhouse tables he put two and two together and went and purchased the lumber the following weekend. #sweetiepie
Within a day he had my table built and it looked perfect. It was the correct width and height and could easily fit four more people to the table from what our current table could hold. There is one thing I will say about my darling man, he isn't a painter. Not that he isn't any good at it, he, to put it short, hates it with a passion, so he left me in charge of that.
I knew I wanted my table to have a dark stain on the top with white legs. We would do lots of craigslist searching and garage sale hopping until we found wooden chairs that we could stain to match, but in the meantime I wanted the table stained and painted. I went with an ebony stain because I thought the darker, the better. In the words of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, "big mistake, huge!"
One swipe of the stain brush onto Tarls gorgeous handy work and it was ruined. The stain was too dark and the brush stroke I had used was so wide that it wasn't just a small black stain, it was a huge paint brush streak of black on this gorgeous natural wood and most certainly not the dark color I had envisioned. I was in tears. He was angry. We both felt defeated. We did what any normal couple does, we argued a bit, picked ourselves up, kissed, apologized and started over. He borrowed a large sander from my brother and went to town on stripping off that horrible ebony streak.
Take two was much better. I ended up going with the stain color, Jacobean. A mix between a dark brown and black. It turned out beautiful, especially paired with Lowe's chalk paint in Little Kid Gloves. Turned out my mother-in-law had four wooden chairs that she was looking at selling and voila, we sanded those bad boys and painted them to match the table. I kid you not when I tell you, the four chairs took us all day to do. Cadence swam in the pool while we stripped chairs and painted them in the yard watching her swim. We started at 12:30 in the afternoon and entered the house at 7 that evening, covered in Jacobean stain, white chalk paint and sawdust, but it was well worth the effort because this isn't just a table to me, this is a memory that I will forever hold in my heart. A thought in my head was put into fruition by the man who loves me. Cheesy? Maybe, but damn I'm one lucky woman to have a husband who does the "little things" because we all know the little things are the big things!
This weekend was re-model central in our house, and the work has just begun. I've dreamed of a farmhouse kitchen table for the past couple years. They are just gorgeous in my opinion, simple, organic looking. A farmhouse style table is a table, in my opinion, where family can gather over plates of fried chicken, a basket of rolls and a jar honey, all while discussing each other's days and spending quality time with one another. Thing is...farmhouse tables bought new are incredibly expensive and quite frankly, out of our price range. While scouring through Pinterest and 'oohing' and 'aahing' over several farmhouse tables I came across an article where it showed you how to build your own and I pinned it, knowing in my mind that we would never get around to making it, but what the hell? Lord knows I have thousands of things on my pinterest boards that I'll never get around to making but "just in case".
Because I have the worlds best husband who spoils me beyond belief, believe it or not, he actually follows my pins and saw the one that showed you how to build your own table. After months of him listening to my love of farmhouse tables he put two and two together and went and purchased the lumber the following weekend. #sweetiepie
Within a day he had my table built and it looked perfect. It was the correct width and height and could easily fit four more people to the table from what our current table could hold. There is one thing I will say about my darling man, he isn't a painter. Not that he isn't any good at it, he, to put it short, hates it with a passion, so he left me in charge of that.
I knew I wanted my table to have a dark stain on the top with white legs. We would do lots of craigslist searching and garage sale hopping until we found wooden chairs that we could stain to match, but in the meantime I wanted the table stained and painted. I went with an ebony stain because I thought the darker, the better. In the words of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, "big mistake, huge!"
One swipe of the stain brush onto Tarls gorgeous handy work and it was ruined. The stain was too dark and the brush stroke I had used was so wide that it wasn't just a small black stain, it was a huge paint brush streak of black on this gorgeous natural wood and most certainly not the dark color I had envisioned. I was in tears. He was angry. We both felt defeated. We did what any normal couple does, we argued a bit, picked ourselves up, kissed, apologized and started over. He borrowed a large sander from my brother and went to town on stripping off that horrible ebony streak.
Take two was much better. I ended up going with the stain color, Jacobean. A mix between a dark brown and black. It turned out beautiful, especially paired with Lowe's chalk paint in Little Kid Gloves. Turned out my mother-in-law had four wooden chairs that she was looking at selling and voila, we sanded those bad boys and painted them to match the table. I kid you not when I tell you, the four chairs took us all day to do. Cadence swam in the pool while we stripped chairs and painted them in the yard watching her swim. We started at 12:30 in the afternoon and entered the house at 7 that evening, covered in Jacobean stain, white chalk paint and sawdust, but it was well worth the effort because this isn't just a table to me, this is a memory that I will forever hold in my heart. A thought in my head was put into fruition by the man who loves me. Cheesy? Maybe, but damn I'm one lucky woman to have a husband who does the "little things" because we all know the little things are the big things!
I want to get two nude colored parsons chairs for both ends of this table or maybe even a bench for one side and the other two chairs can go on either ends, but for now I'm just in awe of our hard work because in this case, it paid off!
Not only did we focus our time and energy into this table over the weekend but we started on our spare bedroom. I've mentioned here before but our spare bedroom has served as storage for us the past few years. Box after box, more junk, you name it, we didn't want to throw it away, it got stashed in the back room and over time it became to a point where you couldn't even walk in it. No thanks! Tarl and I were both fed up with this room and were both ready to get it back to an actual room so for the past month we've de-cluttered the mess, sold some things, given away some things and put the items that we couldn't part with in Rubbermaid containers and stored them in his shed. Out of sight, out of mind and now the room is completely empty and ready to be molded into my dream spare bedroom.
For the longest time I knew I wanted to have one room in the house with a lowcountry/coastal theme. Lots of grays, hints of blues, pillows adorned with seashells, a cozy corner in the room with a chair with a blanket thrown over it where you can sit and read a while. White framed prints on the walls with fish, oysters, crabs, something indicative of the South Carolina lowcountry. I wanted one bold color on the wall with pops of white to help break it up and since Tarl did so well on the farmhouse table I knew I wanted him to build the headboard and a barn door for the closet. I wanted both of these items to match, not only in the wood style, but in the color. Painted white with lots of man made scuffs to give that weathered look. This weekend, after gutting the room and fixing a hole in the wall (more sanding #sigh), we painted it a mix between a light gray and a dark gray. To be honest, I have no clue the color name, but I like to call it lowcountry gray, because if the lowcountry was a gray hue, it would be this one. Tarl plans to go to Home Depot this weekend and buy the necessities for the headboard and the barn-door for the closet. While he's working on that I plan on painting the chair and side table we bought, both at a garage sale for $10! I'm going to use Little Kid Gloves chalk paint again. It's a crisp white and very easy to work with, plus it's way more affordable than any other chalk paint you can get elsewhere. I took before pictures and when it's all said and done I'll be ecstatic to share the afters with you so you can tell the difference. Although it's tedious and downright a headache, after it's all said and done there is nothing like a little remodel to get your DIY gears going!
Yesterday was a fun day and a much needed reprieve from all the manual labor we did over the weekend. Cadence had her big end of the year field trip and Tarl and I always take off to go with her. We went to a small zoo just outside of Savannah and we got to pet a baby alligator, a huge Indigo snake, a baby loggerhead turtle and play with an armadillo. After the field trip we went and visited my mom who is unfortunately in the hospital. As stated before she was diagnosed with COPD a little over 3 years ago and every now and then it causes her fits which in turn, causes her to be admitted to ensure the doctors and nurses can keep a very close eye on her. Please keep her in your prayers for a speedy recovery. Her spirits were high yesterday as we visited with her. Even between catching her breath she was talking a mile a minute. I know that's a typical southern saying, but it is no truer saying as it pertains to my mom because I've never met a woman who liked to talk as much as she does :)
If you've been long time readers here at Life in the Lowcountry, than you may or may not remember me mentioning last year that I had planned on being a stay at home mom come Summer 2016. As much as I would love to say that this dream has become a reality, that just isn't the case and I'm not one to sugarcoat things. Although, financially, I could quit tomorrow if I had to, it just wouldn't be the smartest decision and as time passes and the years grow on and on, being debt free is a huge want for both Tarl and I. We sat down and did the math about two months ago and saw that if I continue working through next winter and holding out until the spring of 2017 we could pay off a giant amount of debt. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't disheartening. Hearing the words out his mouth stung a bit. Ultimately though, he did leave the decision up to me and told me he'd support whatever one I decided making, and in the long run I knew I'd much rather be a stay at home mom without financial burdens then being a stay at home mom with nothing but financial stress on our plates, so I'm sticking out until next spring. We're looking at my leaving work falling in line with Cadence's spring break so she and I can spend her spring break together and then I can be a full time stay at home mom. In the scheme of things, it's really only about nine more months, Tarl teases that it gives us enough time to have another baby, hell, I'd be pregnant with our third if it were up to him. I'm still not aboard the baby train, not yet anyways.
If you've managed to stick around this long I truly appreciate you taking the time to read my blog. It means a lot to me. It may not be a weekly visit here anymore but I promise you when I have relevant updates or news I want to share I'll do it here, but for now, I want to enjoy the last few days of Cadence's first grade year, summer vacation, and of course, time spent with family.
Until next time...
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