Tales from the Farmhouse

Tea Staining My Pillow Fabric to Make it Match my Toile

noreply@blogger.com (Lacy @ Catholic Icing) — Mon, 30 May 2011 00:08:00 +0000

After making my curtains from toile, I didn't want to overwhelm the room with it. So I decided on a variety of white and black pillows. But everything at the fabric store was too bright to match my particular toile. So I tea stained a bunch of white and black patterns to make them match.

Fabric before- glaringly white fabris that's not playing

nicely with my georgeous toile...

I just put 10 black tea bags in and boiled for about 10 minutes,

although some fabrics needed longer than others. Some started getting

dark very quickly, so be careful.

I did a piece of toile just to see, but this got way too dark.

Here's the after. I washed and dried them after the staining.

Now they're laying nicely with my toile.

I wanted every pillow to be made from a different fabric.

More pictures later! :-)

Fall Mantle Decor

noreply@blogger.com (Lacy @ Catholic Icing) — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:10:00 +0000

The Nester is my decorating hero. Seriously. You don't even want to know what my house looked like before I found her blog. Now my friends don't even believe that I used to have trouble decorating. *scoff*. So the Nester is having a fall mantle link up party, and I couldn't refuse the invitation :-) You can also find a fall decor linky party over at Hooked on Houses.

Lots of glitter. I glittered the edges of the roses myself with clear glitter. All the white ones, and 3 of the black ones. I love the addition of the one red rose- it brings so much interest to the arrangement! Actually lighting my candles? Another trick I learned from the Nester. The sparkly gourds on the candle stick holders also made me happy. The tall ones needed a little piece of double sticky tape and they were good to stay.The little glittery head things used to be my mom's. Don't know where they came from, but you could totally paper mache your own.

I LOVE my ladder above the mantle. We found it in the cellar of the farm house when we moved in. My husband thought he was going to actually use it as a ladder. Silly hubby ;-)

Fireplace Makeover- less than an hour of painting...

noreply@blogger.com (Lacy @ Catholic Icing) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 14:00:00 +0000

Less than 1 hour of painting popped my fake fireplace right off of the wall!

Before

After

Some Details...

Best Deal on Toile EVER!

noreply@blogger.com (Lacy @ Catholic Icing) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 12:22:00 +0000

I was at a yard sale when I looked across the way and saw a giant pile of toile. I had been wanting some forever to make curtains with, but... it's like 14/yard at my fabric store! So I had a really hard time keeping my cook when I asked with a casual face "How much for this fabric", you know, trying to act like I didn't even know what toile was. When she said $5, I just couldn't hand her the money fast enough. Yee haw!!!

Yep. All of this for FIVE BUCKS!

I sewed the curtains and pillows myself. All of the pillows are backed in toil because I have so much of it. Did you catch the toile lamp shade? Ya, I thought you'd like that :-)

Patriotic Porch

noreply@blogger.com (Lacy @ Catholic Icing) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 15:31:00 +0000

Even though my front door is purple (and not red) I've decided to decorate my porch with a patriotic theme. So not "4th of July" decor, but actually American themed year round. I've been seeing some really cool projects that I'll be doing later. When it's not the 4th of July anymore. And none of you will care. Lol!

So here's what I have going on for now:

I love my hanging baskets from the dollar tree.

Clearance flowers. I love his old toolbox they're in.

I got it from a yard sale for $2.

My antique auditorium bench that I found beside a dumpster.

The porch swing my husband just made.

My blue cross from the dollar tree on my $10 Salvation Army shelf.

My purple front door and a wreath that was a wedding present.

I recently painted my shutters from gray to black.

My old wagon wheels came from a "free" pile on the side of the road.

The little flags all came from the dollar tree, or the Target dollar spot. Thanks for joining me today!

Don't forget to check out the other entries at Centsational Girl's Stars and Stripes Party!

Building a Porch Swing

noreply@blogger.com (Lacy @ Catholic Icing) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 02:42:00 +0000

My farmhouse porch was missing something vital- a porch swing! I wanted one all Summer last year, and even found one at a yard sale... but they were asking $40, and it had chipping paint and rusted chains. So I didn't get it, but I haven't ever found a better deal on a used porch swing since then. So I started looking for a new porch swing. Sooooo un-me. We buy all of our furniture used. But the cheapest I could find was $150 and it was... well... cheap.

So my awesome husband volunteered to build me a porch swing with his own 2 hands! Very "farmhouse" of him ;-) He found some directions here, and got to work.

(Que hammer and saw audio effects)

My antique auditorium bench became a workbench.

And the porch swing started to take shape!

He built it just like they did in the good 'ol days!

Well... like the good 'ol days, but with a laptop and power tools ;-)

Yay! It's so exciting to watch something come together like this!

We got a can of "oops" stain from Home Depot for $5.

I LOVE oops paint- so affordable! I guess whoever returned

it wasn't satisfied with the color, but I like it!

My adorable daughter, just-a-swingin'!

Perhaps the trickiest part was hanging it by the ropes, but we are enjoying it soooo much! I think it would be easier to hang from chain, but I was insistent on the rope because it's cute, and it's silent :-)

The porch swing cost us a little less than $100 for the wood, stain, rope, and miscellaneous supplies. We even had to buy sandpaper. This was $50 cheaper than the cheapest porch swing I found, and it's waaaay nicer!

Find the plans to make this porch swing yourself here! If you are going to attempt to build this swing, know this- it doesn't say that you need a middle support for the seat, but you do. The boards are just too long to support an adult person very well without it. Other than that, the plans were fine!

Please- make a porch swing a priority for your porch this Summer! You won't regret it! :-)

Purple Door Eye Candy

noreply@blogger.com (Lacy @ Catholic Icing) — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 20:59:00 +0000

I posted about painting my front door here. I never noticed what a nice door this farmhouse has until I painted it. I love the details!

Don't miss the before and after shots here! And find more front door posts at Funky Junk Interiors.

Purple Front Door

noreply@blogger.com (Lacy @ Catholic Icing) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:36:00 +0000

I've been working on my curb appeal this Summer and watching everyone's porches everywhere I drive. Sometimes my swirving would indicate I should be watching the road. Anyway, I think color adds a lot to curb appeal, and I felt like our front door could really use a splash of something bright.

Blah Brown Before Door

Once you go purple, you never go back!

Not bad, huh? I painted it while bouncing the baby in the bouncy chair with one foot. Lol! I love the color and I'm so glad I had the guts to go through with this! It painted on really bright, but dried a nice shade of purple. Shew! You never can tell with paint.

Red would have been the most obvious color choice for a white farmhouse, but I wanted something a little different. And I love me some purple! Yay for colorful curb appeal!

Thrift Store Find!

noreply@blogger.com (Lacy @ Catholic Icing) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:54:00 +0000

I found this great hutch thing at the Salvation Army here for $35. It was love at first site!

But barn red really isn't my color. So I painted it black. Classy. Simple. Sleek. I thought that would be best since I am going to put it in our entry way :-)
Kind of boring for me? Not quite. Check out the little surprise you get when you open the cabinets and drawers!

I love me some purple! The best part? I got the whole gallon of purple paint for $3.95 because it was a 'mistint' or 'oops paint'. If any of you aren't checking the oops paint shelf every time you go into Wal-Mart, Home Depot, or Lowes, you're missing out!

Defeating my Beast of Boxes

noreply@blogger.com (Lacy @ Catholic Icing) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:39:00 +0000

Unpacking. Ya. Not my strongest point. But it's fun getting the farmhouse together!

This is what it looked like in here when the moving

truck was pulling away...

But here's what it looks like now!

Ok, I'm going to drink a glass of sweet tea. I've earned it :-)

Fixing up the Farmhouse

noreply@blogger.com (Lacy @ Catholic Icing) — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:32:00 +0000

I have been CRAZY busy! We are moving on Sunday to a fabulous old farmhouse built in the year 1900, and we're so excited! However, packing all our stuff while watching 2 tiny tots has been no easy task...

As if packing weren't enough, we decided we needed to paint everything so we would be sure there was no exposed lead paint. So for the last week, I've been painting painting packing painting packing packing painting. Ya. But I do have some great pictures for you guys!

The windows were really the worst off before cleaning and painting...

Then we thought, "Why stop at the windows and the walls?" so we re-sealed the floor.

I'm really glad we did this. We just got some high gloss polyurethane, and brushed it on with one of those lamb head applicator things. It cost $50 for the supplies, but the results were fabulous! The floor was in such bad shape before that even after we mopped, our feet were still turning black. It took us less than 2 hours to do this, and I'm very excited about the results! :-)

Just a little farmhouse eye-candy ;-)

Here's my new living room. I can't wait to get my furniture in there and start arranging! You guys will help me figure out where everything goes, right?

Townhouse to Farmhouse

noreply@blogger.com (Lacy @ Catholic Icing) — Sat, 02 May 2009 03:01:00 +0000

Well, it's official! We signed the lease yesterday. My family is in for a huge change next month!

We are moving from one of these tiny townhouses...

To this farmhouse!

Our yard will be going from a fenced in bedroom...

To a house sitting in a corn field. I am so excited!

Now, don't get me wrong. I have enjoyed our tiny yet adorable living room for the last year...

And we have been very blessed to have a yard, and we have enjoyed it thoroughly...

I'm just very excited to finally have the space for our family to stretch out!!!
There are some downs of course (like heating & cooling, hardwood floors with little kids, and a longer commute to work) but I could not be more excited about the pros! I'm going to have my own art room! Yay!!! My painting and sewing stuff can stay out all the time! I'm even going to have my own ceramics studio in one of the old "servant's quarters"! We will have space for a playroom, a real dining room table, and a place for all of our books! My husband will be able to work on our cars (a beloved hobby for him) and have space for all his wood working tools. We will have a swing set, and ample space to host pot lucks and barbeque's! I imagine I won't be running out of blogging material for at least a year ;-)
It's about 35 minutes from my husband's work, but only 10 minutes to our church. It's farther away from some of our friends, but closer to others.

I love to have people over and host parties, but it's kinda hard when you're already a family of 4, and your dining area looks like this:

We have loved you little town house...

... but it's time to move on!