Moving time….

We have had a rough weekend. Period. Between trying to pack, hubby developing  a wicked case of shingles and my back acting up, it hasn’t been pretty around here.

This time next week, we should be moved into the new house. We are looking forward to the new digs, but dreading the move. Have I mentioned before that I hate moving??? The chaos of boxes everywhere, attempting to keep things organized, turn on power there, change address, not being able to clean like I want to… it’s like herding cats….and makes my OCD flair…. I am fondly looking back on less hectic, more organized moments, lol!!

Needless to say, we will soldier on…our son is coming with a couple of friends to help us move. Hubby’s brother and mother will also be on hand. I am sure those of us “old” people will get plenty of harassment, especially the hubs and myself, about being old and decrepit!! My boys have already told me they are searching for my nursing home, lol!

Going to be a busy, busy week!!!

Until next time, God bless and I wish you enough!!!

The Dream Continues

 As I recently posted, we will be moving, hopefully by the end of the month of March. At the latest, we should be moved and into our new home by the first week of April.

As sad as we are to leave this house, we have recently been offered the opportunity to continue on with our dream of seeing our vision for this house to its fruition. Needless to say, we are very excited for this new opportunity to spread our wings and try something new.

For me, that means I have been asked to continue to design and decorate for this wonderful home. The owner is planning on using it as a vacation rental home, something that many people in this area do. His plan is to have it ready to go by May 3rd.  That means a lot of shopping for décor and home goods for me!! Yay!!

It has long been my dream to break into home design/home staging and feel like this is the opportunity I have been waiting for. I am looking forward to a very busy month of April!!!

Throughout my life, I have always believed hard work and faith in yourself pays off in the end. I also believe that the good Lord puts us where we need to be to take advantage of the opportunities given to us. It is up to us to see those opportunities and move forward with them.

I could be very sad that I am moving from the house that was supposed to be my dream house, our retirement home. Instead, I feel like I have found the silver lining in my clouds once again. I could not be more thankful!!

Thanks to our Lord above for always having my back, and also to Scott for having faith in me to help him accomplish what he wants for this home. And also to my wonderful husband, Rodney, who has always believed in me. I am looking forward to a bright future again!

 I will be boring you with stories and pics throughout the next few weeks! Stay tuned!!

God bless and I wish you enough!!!

 

 

 

An ending leads to a beginning…

Hello friends, I am writing this with a heavy heart.  Due to unforeseen changes in my husband’s job, we are going to have to change our home.  We are somewhat heartbroken, but we know that as we end this period of our life, we are beginning a new one…

As the saying goes, when one door closes, another opens…I say, walk through that door and keep going… so we shall!

As we search for a new home over the next several weeks, I will try to share the changes we made in the current house over this past several months.

We are sad to be leaving this home, but know in our hearts that it is best. I truly believe that God has a guiding hand in our lives and that he puts us where he wants us.

Excited to be on the house hunt, so on to the next chapter…

 

 

Come back….

It’s been quite a while since I posted anything. We have been unbelievably busy and I just have gotten off the ball, so to speak.

There have been a number of changes/improvements done since I last posted and I will try to cover those in the next few weeks.

In the meanwhile, I will just say we had a rather busy Christmas season, I have been very busy trying to train our 11 month old chocolate lab puppy who has turned into an attention hog, and dealing with several health issues that have not helped with our progress.

We continue to have big hopes and dreams for our little home and hope you enjoy sharing our progress!

God bless and I wish you enough!!

Putting the tiki in the tiki bar!!

The end of October marks the end of our official tourist season here at Lake of the Ozarks.  Many of the lakeside bar and grills are closed or are closing for the winter, people are closing their docks, winterizing their boats, shutting up their houses for the winter, and sadly we are the same.

October has been a very busy month for us. The hubs has been out of state working, so I have had the chore of trying to get projects done around the house…more to come on those.

One of the saddest chores has been shutting down our boathouse. It requires cleaning out the refrigerator, taking down decor, hauling bottles and bags up to the main house, and then cleaning and putting away furniture, decor, basically, anything we don’t want left out in the winter weather.

While I don’t want to bore you with the details of cleaning, I did think you might enjoy a few pics of decor we have used. We really wanted a tiki/beach hut feel for this boathouse and I think we achieved it…my brother in law says “this bar drinks pretty good” In Ron lingo, that means it’s a pretty comfortable place to kick back and have a drink and hang out…pretty high compliment if you know the source, lol!

So here you go, a peek into the things we feel helped make the tiki in our tiki bar…

Most of these things have been acquired over the years, bought here or there and hung in different houses. Several things have been gifts from friends or our children (who are all adults now). All have been packed away and brought out until they found their way to this boathouse. My husband did most of the decorating and I know there was a great deal of contemplation as to where each piece should go. This is his outdoor man cave!! He has a jammin’ stereo and a 42′ television hooked up so he can spend all his “off” time hanging out by the water…not sure what he will do for the winter, lol, but I have plenty of honey do’s to keep him busy for the winter!!!

So I hope you enjoyed this little peek at our favorite tiki bar! Looking forward to the changing of seasons!!!

God bless and I wish you enough!!

The rest of the story

 

 

So, I started to tell you about our boathouse re-creation…My hubs had the brilliant idea to create an outdoor living space. And so we began….

First step was to place the six steel posts that would eventually hold up the roof, etc… My hubby is a brave man, as the only help he got was me. We measured and marked and measured again. I think we got the posts as squared up as we could considering the boathouse is neither squared or level.

Next came the headers, which are the beams the joists sit on. Basically, they support the whole roof structure. Luckily he got some help on these, as I am a weakling girl and couldn’t lift on them. Much thanks goes out to his brother, Ron, and good friend, Al, who spent the whole day helping us.

We spent several days staining rafters and framing walls before our builder, who is a family friend came over to put on a roof and walls.

So now the exterior was done! Time to start on the interior!!! Here comes the fun part! Our plan was to have a bar, with cabinets, fridge and space for a sink eventually behind it. A grill area and room for a patio table and chairs to the side. My hubby has a bit of the architect/ engineer in him, so he drew it all up on his cad program so we had a plan to go off of. He also has a background as an electrician so he spent an afternoon wiring and then we were off to the races.

First, plywood went up on the walls and then framing for the bar. While he worked on that, I played with some paint on the walls. We were going for bright, tiki, tropical and so this bright turquoise seemed to be a good fit.

Once the bar top was done, a little trim and the face of the bar was up, Rod couldn’t resist a little decorating…it didn’t take long to finish the basics of phase one!

Painting and trim work done, back bar in, grill installed, tv hung, and of course, some tiki decor!!!

We are loving have friends and family over for barbecue and just hanging out and having a good time! Spring will start phase two, with water line run and sink installed, and an epoxy floor, but until then, I hope you like our humble abode!

Boathouse Bar (lakehouse necessity)

When we moved into our lakehouse, we were blessed with a boathouse on our property. By boathouse, I mean a concrete structure with a metal side door and a metal garage door facing the lake. Inside has a concrete floor and a winch to haul a boat trailer in and out for storage. We have no current plans to store a boat, so for now the inside of the boathouse is being used for other storage….

The story here is about the top of the boathouse however…

As you can see, it was in rough shape. Bare, pitted and patched concrete and worn out iron railing that was not even bolted down in spots. That’s our 8year old chocolate lab, Coco, enjoying some sunshine early this spring.

Our GRAND PLAN! Turn this underused and underappreciated area into a outdoor bar/kitchen. Somewhere to relax with family and friends and enjoy the amazing view!

That is our dock and cove looking out from the boathouse! It was a long project that I am happy to say is well under way… can’t wait to show you the results!!

But I thought I needed to show you it’s humble beginnings first. We started this project in April, and while for the most part, it is finished, there will still be a few more small (or not so small) projects or improvements to complete.

When complete, we plan to have a bar with full outdoor kitchen, refrigerator, grill, and sink, with a dining area. Tiki bar is the theme…here is a sneak peak. Next up, I will give you the step by step we went through to get to where we are now!!

Take a break!

It’s Sunday morning and, as you can see, my counter is full of tools and paint supplies. I was very busy yesterday working on my to do list, trying to finish up the little details that finish off a room. Touching up paint on trim, painting doors in the hallway, painting doorknobs because, quite honestly, they were ugly! I also spent some time reorganizing my office area and my upstairs bathroom. Uggghhh!! How do two people accumulate so much stuff???

I still have a lot to do today! I have family coming to visit next weekend and want to get all the bedding washed and bedrooms cleaned before I start my work week. Plus, there is still more painting to be done, normal weekly cleaning to do, laundry to washed…but for the moment, I am taking a break. I am enjoying the other side of my living room. Sitting in the quiet, listening to the birds, watching my pups play. Enjoying my cup of coffee and some sunshine….

I hope you take some time today to take a break, enjoy a little peace and quiet maybe, play with your pups, or your babies (mine are all grown). Reflect on this amazing world we live in….God bless and I wish you enough….

 

Clay Pots to Candleholders!!

I am loving these little clay pot candle holders!! Another Pinterest success story!! Super easy to DIY! I actually had all the supplies needed so it was super easy on the checkbook too! All you need is a clay pot and saucer, the paint you want to use, a sanding block and glue to attach the pot and saucer together.

So, first step is just to paint the pots and saucers. I painted just the outside of the pots and inside and out on the saucers. I did one coat of craft paint in white (I just used whatever craft paint they had at Wal-Mart).  The second coat was a very light gray. Then I had to wait for them to dry!!

This was after the first coat!! Had to see what they were gonna look like!

The next step is to sand the paint off in spots. If you like the look before sanding, you don’t have to sand them. I like that little bit of rustic look so I sanded. Once you like the finish on them, all that is left to do is glue them together. I used some Gorilla Glue…

I love the way they turned out!! I put the candle holders on my dining room table. I used two as candleholders and one to hold a mini topiary that I already had. My pots were only about four inches. You could use larger ones if you wanted.

I love how they look with my antique bowl that I keep on the table. I had a piece of burlap runner that I just pulled some threads out of each end to make a little fringe. I think they are a great little accent for our dining area!! Hope you love this little project as much as I did!! God bless and I wish you enough!!

lil’ turquoise cart

Since we moved into our lake home, we have had to do some soul-searching about what furniture pieces we wanted to keep. Over the last 5 years, we have moved 4 times, downsizing several times. Our lake house is not tiny by any means, but by todays standards, would probably be considered small by most people. Despite boasting 1,700 sq. feet, we have very little storage and even less wall space. Our living area consists of living, dining and kitchen. Closets are small and few. Every room, with the exception of our guest room/office, has a wall of sliding glass doors, making it sometimes difficult to place furniture. And while the view outside is spectacular, I would like the inside to try to live up to its competition.

During one of our moves, we were given two matching cabinets, a china hutch and sideboard. The style borders on mid-century modern. They are on the smaller side and are good quality pieces. We have generally used them as liquor cabinets and storage for our barware.

The issue is that I don’t have anywhere to put them that looks right. We have always had a separate dining area, not necessarily a dining room, but at least an area where these cabinets fit and looked appropriate. Now they are awkwardly sitting in our basement family room.

Since I am not at all happy about these cabinets in the place they are sitting, I have found new owners for them. Therefore, I needed to clean out all the glasses and liquor that was in them. Most of the liquor had been taken to our outdoor bar/kitchen (you will be seeing that soon). But we wanted to keep a few essentials in the house….enter the lil’ turquoise cart.

I got this cart from Ikea when we first moved to our house. Originally I had planned on using it for my make-up and hair products, as my bathroom is very small. I thought I could keep it in my bedroom and roll it into the bathroom while I was getting cleaned up…that lasted all of two weeks. Since then it has been used for a nightstand, water bottle storage, and general clutter keeper by our front door.

But as I sat eating breakfast Saturday and deciding what I was going to do for the day, inspiration hit! A Bar  Cart for my itty bitty dining area!! So I spent some time sorting through the barware in my big cabinets downstairs. I packed some glasses away, but kept out some of the glasses I knew we would use. This little cart is perfect.

In the top shelf are some liquor, a set of shot glasses, a shaker with a muddler, bottle opener, and a wine opener. Couldn’t leave out the little umbrellas or sword picks, lol! Also there is a little cream and gold sign that says ‘work like a captain, drink like a pirate’…appropriate I thought for a lake house. I think I got it from Zulily a couple of years ago, but I have seen similar signs in many places.

The second shelf holds a set of wine glasses. They are on the larger side and can be used for either red or white wine. There is also a couple of more liquor bottles there. The third shelf has some tall, thin tumblers or what used to be called a Tom Collins glass, a couple of Moscow mule copper cups, a small silver shaker, and of course, another liquor bottle.

Now don’t go thinking we are a couple of lushes, lol. We do like to entertain occasionally and a drink now and then doesn’t exactly upset us.

So I hope you like my lil’ turquoise cart transformation. Leave me comment or a thumbs up!! God bless and I wish you enough!!