Value Village for the Win!

Recently, Spruce Grove opened up a new Value Village.  It's big and exciting news for someone who loves a good bargain!  Often, when we go into town, we'll pop into "VV" to take a quick look around.  I'm a sucker for any sort of embroidered linens, antiques, or housewares.  I have my couple of items I always look for - quilts, hand painted barn pictures, aprons and antique crockery. 

The older I get, the more I place value on items that are either handmade, or have stood the test of time. For example, I have a hard time saying no to vintage tea towels and aprons.  I know how long it takes me to embroider one simple tea towel.  How many hours do you think it to someone to embroider these?  And on flour sacks, none the less.... how do you not take these home?

How I appreciate that the well loved items of yesteryear were actually cherished.  And reused, often times again and again.  It's so different from our culture today, isn't it?  Lately, The girls and I have loved looking for handmade wool sweaters.  Again, the time that was spent on these projects.... and I don't know how to knit, so I really do appreciate a beautifully knit sweater.  Throw in the fact that it's wool, and that baby is coming home with me!  Wool is so incredibly warm, we wear these sweaters for everything through the winter.  Here's my "choring sweater", which I found a couple of weeks ago... Incidentally, it's really, really great to have someone in your life who knows how to knit, because this beauty had a couple of small holes, but my SIL was able to fix them up fairly easily for me. 

Again, because I know how much time and energy goes into making a quilt, I rarely turn up any quilts.  And I really do love those old school polyester quilts, because you cannot wreck those things.  I've bought a few over the years, but this one takes the cake!  It's bright and beautiful and stays in my truck for when we need to spread out a blanket to sit on.  Or in case we ever get stuck in the snow.  My girls really don't love this quilt, but I think it's so bright and cheery.  And no one will ever steal it!

My "commitment to thrifting", as a friend likes to call it, has wielded me some pretty exciting deals, so I'd rather think of this activity as an "investment for my retirement".  I keep telling the girls that the junk valuables I buy from VV are actually items of worth, and that when I die they'll be able to sell them.  For example:  I bought this pretty sweet Hudson Bay Point Blanket.  It's an iconic Canadian keepsake! (And don't worry - I took it directly from the store to the dry cleaners!)

And then, I found a few more points blankets, all in great shape, all keepsakes, and all dry cleaned!

I also got Abby started on a little collection of her own.... enamelware.  She's even picked up several more pieces since this picture was taken.  She tells me that when she moves out, that's all she's going to use.... we'll see about that!

The most exciting find, I think, to date, has been a beautiful vintage, hand sewn, honeycomb quilt. 

The quilt was unfinished, and needed a bit of tweaking to make it back into a rectangle.  It pains me to think of the amount of hours someone spent making this quilt, and I've decided to finish the quilt myself.  I justified the cost of finishing the quilt by the fact that I bought the top for a mere $5...

I'm having it professionally quilted, since doing so myself, on this size and shape of a quilt is beyond my skill level, and I'm so excited to see it once it's finished!

I suppose I've realized that I really do love the thrill of the hunt when I'm thrifting.  You never know what you're going to find when you walk through those doors, and for a relatively small investment (I don't think I've paid more than $20 for anything I've ever bought from VV), it's a fun little hobby. 

Before and After's

I figured it was time to get some "Before and After" shots on here, since the lion's share of our reno's have been completed.  I'm going to start with an easy room (or two)... so we'll start with a bathroom.  This is the main bathroom on the upper floor, and the little girls use it to shower, as well, company uses it when they are here. 

 

 

 

And here's the finished product.  We planked the ceiling and walls, took out the floor tiles, changed out the cabinetry, lighting and sink, as well, took out the really lovely plastic doors on the shower and put up a shower curtain.  It's kind of hard to get a decent picture of this space, since this bathroom is so wee.  I think this might be the only room in the whole house which is totally completed.  

 

Next is the little girls' room.  This room is in the back corner of the house, where the floor slants up  towards the window.  There was a "built in" bulletin board as well.  The really great thing going for this room is the exceptionally large window and closet. 

 

 

We replaced flooring in the whole house, as well as planked the ceiling on the entire upper floor, so that's a given for this room as well.  I had to paint 3 coats of paint on these walls because it was doing something super funky, but it ended up alright.  This room now seems so much larger, even though we've crammed 2 single beds in there, as well as dressers, a nightstand and various other articles which little girls seem to collect.

 

 

These next few pictures are of the kitchen.  In our original planning, I was alright with keeping the cabinets (for now) and painting them, but when we moved in, and upon closer inspection, we decided that there's no time like the present to make some changes.  That, and I know a great kitchen guy (my husband!!), and he insisted couldn't live with those cabinets.  The laminate in the kitchen was newer, but since we were replacing everything else, the new flooring continued in here.  The nasty, mouse infested cabinets had pipes running through about 8 ft. of them.  It was....interesting.  I think the pictures speak for themselves....

 

 

We planked the walls and ceilings, replaced the flooring, put in new cabinets, lights, appliances and plumbing.  Basically, we gutted it.  We also made the doorway bigger to go to the dining room to be more accommodating for a larger family.  We still have a few things to do in the kitchen, such as install the hood fan and finish up the door to the basement.  The lovely thing about this kitchen is that there's lots of natural light, with that huge window above the sink that looks out onto the front porch, as well as garden doors which lead out to the back. 

 

 

The last set of before and after pictures I'll do today is our main living area.  The before pictures are a bit hard to explain, but I'll try.  The picture below is taken from the doorway to the kitchen.  There was a wall there, with a closet in it.  It made the entrance area extremely small and cramped (which it still is, only a little bit less), and it felt like you were coming into the house and walking into a wall.  Once we took out this wall, we realized that it was a supporting wall done wrong, so we had a friend come and put in a beam in the attic to do it right.  It was probably the single best decision we made in this reno.  It opened up the room completely.  The closet has been replaced with a row of hooks (we're not really closet people anyhow...hooks are so much easier!)

 

 

This picture shows the large windows on the south and east side of the house.  I especially love the lace curtains.  Unfortunately, they HAD to go!

 

Lastly, this is the wall in the dining room, from where I stood to take the last picture.

 

The After's:

This picture is taken from the front door, looking at the large picture windows.  Those windows are so wonderful - great for watching the birds out of!

 

 

This view is front just in front of the dining room table... I have big plans for the fireplace area - I'd like Art to build me a mantle, and we'll do something with that brick too.  For now, I've just painted it white (of course!) to get us over the exceptional ugliness of the brick.

 

And lastly, the dining room, with that long wall.  We left space for ourselves, if we want to put some cabinets there.  I wasn't sure if I felt like I'd have enough storage space, with our kitchen being substantially smaller than our last home (and by substantially smaller, I mean it's a third of the size!), but for now, I think everything has worked out fine.  I will keep my eye open for some cool pieces at farm auctions over the next few years, but I'm wondering if that'll make the space seem too cramped?  We'll have to wait and see. 

 

The only changes we made in this main living area is flooring, paint, planking the ceiling and removing that wall.  Sounds simple, doesn't it?  (Yikes!)

 

I'll do some more Before and After's in the future, when we've got some more projects completed, but until then, here's a pretty good overview of what we've been up to for the last year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Morning Off?

The times that I am child-less are few and far between.  Going to town?  I've got the kids.  Running errands in the city?  Kids are in the back seat.  Have to pop into Art's office?  You guessed it....the kids are along...

 

So when I get a chance for a few hours during the day to be out and about without my pretty little ladies, I feel somewhat....free.  And excited.  And out of sorts (if I'm being truthful!)  

 

A retired teacher in the area has started doing some writing workshops for home schooled kids, and since we know her well, we - actually I, decided that it would be good for The Girls to participate in such a thing.  It's nice because there are different sessions for the workshops, so we can pick and choose what works for us.  For this session, every other Monday morning, for 6 weeks, The Girls go and write.  Which means that I have me some kid-free time.  On a Monday morning.  It's....amazing.

 

Now if I was good, I'd probably drop The Girls off and go right back home to get some tasks done while they're gone.  But I'm not.  So instead, I usually head into the big city to go and browse around a few second hands store.  The thing with second hand stores is that sometimes you score, and many, many times, you don't.  It turns out that the last two times I've gone, I've scored.  And by scored, I mean "Found cool stuff for cheap".  I usually look only look in the housewares, and am always on the lookout for old tablecloths that have some sort of embroidery on them, or cast iron anything, perhaps some milk glass? 

 

Last time I went, I found a primitive looking table runner.  This week, when I went, I found a beautiful old tablecloth...I can hardly wait for fall to use this beauty!

 

First thing I did when I got it home was put in through the wash.  Now, it's sitting on my kitchen table, laid out to dry.  It looks a wee bit small in this picture, but what you may not realize it that my kitchen table is massive.  It would look great on the diagonal, or even better spread over a beautiful old harvest table.  Perhaps even on my kitchen island?  We'll have to see....

 

 

 

In Love With...

As some of you may know, I tend to be fairly smitten with galvanized tin.  I love that stuff!  It starts off shiny and new, and in my opinion, after it has some years of use under it's belt, the look gets better with age.  I especially love the patina of old tin.  It's excellent. 

 

I also love using things for something than what they were originally made for.  Case in point:

 

A galvanized metal feed scoop.  Throw in a mason jar (of course!  How can you go wrong with a mason jar and anything galvanized?!) with a candle, and voila!  Perfection.  It lets off a really great glow when it's dark out.  I love it!  I had to steal this scoop from the chicken feed, but hey, a peanut butter container works just as well, no?  (At least that's what I told the Girls!)  It would also look great screwed to the wall, or with a few different sizes, as part of a bigger display. 

 

Therapy

As I've said before, baking is one of my forms of therapy .  Preferably something bread-like, with yeast.  My family LOVES it when I need some therapy.

 

Another form of therapy for me is to decorate.  To mess around with a space, using what I have around the house to make it fresh and new and fun. 

 

The other night, we headed over to have a visit with some good friends' of ours.  They just moved into a house in the summer, and so now that all the "major" work is done, the fun begins...the fun of decorating!  Art helped put up a shelf in their dining room, and my friend asked me to give her a hand putting some things together on the shelf.  She's been scouring the back roads and garbage dumps for old windows, and has come up with a pile of them, so that's what we used...

 

Here's the end result... and I think it looks pretty good!

 

It was great to visit...and have some therapy.  Thanks, friends!

 

 

Christmas Is Coming!

 

This week, it looked like a bomb went off in my house; like a tornado hit it; like Christmas up and puked. all. over. my. house.

 

It started last Friday, when I took down my fall decorations, and brought up the Christmas bins....

 

 

Saturday, we spent a few hours (yup, you read that right!) putting together one of our Christmas trees.  Every single branch needs to be fluffed and put into the tree.  It crazy, because our Girls really do enjoy the process, and I keep thinking to myself, "This is 3 hours of my life that I can never get back!".  But whatevs.... it ended up looking great!

 

Our other tree, which is pre-lit, and several years old, when we went to plug that little sucker in, 3/4's of the lights were burnt out, and we had no way to figure out how to get them working again.  So, again, Art spent probably 5 hours taking each light, which was zip tied, off the tree.  It's a good think I'm married to such a patient man, who loves me very, very much!

 

Finally, on Friday, we finished mostly everything.  The trees and garlands are put up, candles put out.... the only thing that needs to be done is the nativity sets need to be done, which we will do as a family this weekend. 

 

It seemed like quite a bit of work this year, but I (mostly) loved doing it (well, not dealing with the trees, but that's ok, that's what Art is for!)

 

And so, it seems, that Christmas is in the air.  Now, if only I had my shopping done....

Cupcakes, Anyone?

A good friend of mine owns a country store in town.  Every once in a while, I make my way in there to check out her goods.  The other day, she had a big sale in the parking lot, so I of course had to pop over there to take a look.  I found these cute little ditties on her $1 table.  I was only going to take home a couple, but for $1 each, I thought I'd take them all!

 

I put the cupcakes on 2 cake plates that I stacked to make a display.  They're a fun little addition on my counter right now...