The Twists and Turns of life…..

Well, I know I have been away for a long time. Not sure if anyone noticed and that is OK. I needed the break from blogging. Lots of stuff has been happening since the beginning of August, so this might be a long post since I have about a month's worth of stuff to catch you all up on!

First of all,  when I got back from my parents 50th Anniversary,  I decided to pull all of my furnishings from the Antiques Mall. It was a hard decision to make since I loved the location (right down the street from me) so it made drop off ridiculously easy. But I had to go in weekly to clean up my space from other vendor clutter. The last straw was when I went in and the vendor that shared my space had completely moved my things out of the way so they could add a big set of club chairs to their space….except that they were in my space….. So I just decided after two years (I can be a little too optimistic sometimes), this wasn't going to ever be addressed.

 So now everything was sitting in my foyer, much to my husband's chagrin.

So as I was searching for another venue to show my wares, I came across The Neighborhood Flea. 

This isn't any ordinary Flea market. It is a curated event which only serves to give the consumer a better variety of items to go gaga over!  It is held the 4th Sunday of the month from 11a-4p in the Strip District of Pittsburgh, so if you are in town, stop by!

I scoped it out on July 27 and decided to apply for the next one 2 weeks before the next one! I got accepted but then needed to put it into over drive to get more stock. At this point, my sleep cycles get completely jacked because I do NOT have the ability to shut my ideas off……they especially start going between the hours of 12:30 am and 3 am. Yeah I was a zombie.

Now usually when this happens and I am functioning on less than stellar sleep, I also become the Hulk. Yes, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry! I may even turn green…..

But God gave me super human patience during this time and he continues to do so because I am also participating in the September 28th Flea. I have been able to balance family time with work time (yes, I also work a "real" job 3 days a week) with project time. This is important to me since I have a hard time doing this sometimes. Projects keep coming to mind and I get so excited that I tend to forget everything else. A bit of an exaggeration but not too far off if you know what I mean.

But don't bring in a white glove because I am not a miracle worker and my home is filthy! The first thing I am going to do when this is all done is clean the heck out of my house. Certain things are getting spot cleaned, the toilet for example since I do have 2 guys that live here so that is a must, but other things are getting hit about 1x/every two weeks. 

It is embarrassing.

Then we needed to get a car. And that took about all summer. My husband will tell you that I research the heck out of what I want, decide what I want and then I want it immediately. I needed three things in an SUV, third row seating because we are starting to haul more kids, large enough to haul furniture because I need to haul more furniture, and the third row needed to fold flat, otherwise when I find a cool piece on the side of the road, the kids were going to have to ride on the roof if I had to remove third row seats. AND since I wanted third row seating, I might as well get three extra seats instead of just two. And it needed to be American made and used!

So I kept praying about it and searching online at dealerships and having no luck. Then God provided through…..Craigslist! We were able to purchase a 2006 Dodge Durango with all of these things, in mint condition with only 73,000 miles! 

This SUV has more that paid for itself just in the furniture hauling department…it even hauled the U-Haul to the Flea. 

I love this car.

During all of this, I have been struggling with the idea of opening a shop. This is not an easy decision given that I do still need to work; I carry the medical insurance so that is one reason and it helps if I can buy food for the children. But I also don't know how it would look trying to do real work, shop work, still make projects to put in the shop, have time with my family, yada, yada, yada.

The Flea was very validating in that I had had this thought process before the Flea but almost everyone that came into the tent, asked if and where my shop was. i was also worried about how much traffic would pass through my tent. I was not disappointed. I had a ton of foot traffic and was busy all day. Thank goodness my friend Michelle came to help me. I would have been overwhelmed, in a good way!

This is a slowly evolving process so I'll keep you posted.

The third big exciting news of the month is…..no I am not pregnant! I actually had a reader contact me and ask if I would help rescue/decorate her house. This came out of left field for me but it also intrigued me. I went to see her home and have started some of the work on it which I will be sharing as it progresses. But very stoked about where this could go…..

My husband is also a real estate mogul. We own two rental properties and he just closed on a third. Usually we rent our properties but he wants to flip this bad boy and I do mean bad. It is a ridiculously cute 1/2 of a duplex but it needs major renovation. Usually we do what is needed to rent it but this time he actually said I could do whatever I wanted within his budget. That makes my heart sing. I foresee more sleepless nights!

The previous owners left a lot of stuff, mostly boxes of their parents life, and I went in this past Saturday to go through stuff to see if there was anything worth saving before we got the dumpster.

Now this is fun with a capital "F" to a gal like me! I'm also a cheap date if you couldn't tell.

I got some amazing finds that I will be able to sell and some to keep with a little clean up. It was strangely cool discovering someones life in boxes. I found out the father was a photographer and had a t-shirt printing business. Someone also had a thing for electronics and music.

I tried not to haul too much home because my husband just said to me

"You know eventually we will run out of room in this house……"

I know babe, and I am so glad that you put up with me on this journey that we are on together. 

I will be finally posting the Flea pics and some of the projects I made in the next few days. 

Look on my Instagram feed for projects that will be coming to the Flea in September.

So I have one more piece of BIG excitement but that will have to wait for another day.

But here is a sneak peek….

Can you guess what it is?????

Love you guys for hangin' in there with me on this journey as well. 

Always being renewed,

Please see the link party page to see where I link arms with those blissfully beautiful bloggers that host every week. So gracious they are along with these other sweet ladies!

Read more at http://diyshowoff.com/2013/04/01/that-diy-party-10/#xgMAcRCgRocl5vmh.99       

 

 

http://www.remodelaholic.com

Desk into Changing Table....or Kitchen Island when the kids are grown!

So before I go into this fun transformation, I want to thank all of you who left me such sweet comments, texts, visits to my house (miss lynnie!)  and words of support about my youngest going off to Kindergarten.  I did cry most of Friday but felt much better on Saturday. I needed to get it all out before this Monday so I can send her of strong. I know I will probably still shed a tear when I turn and walk away from her but that I think is to be expected. 

What this has continued to show me is God is so good. I prayed that God would help her out and limit her anxieties and He is always so faithful. Tessa is actually starting to get excited for school, where she previously was not at all. She has got her backpack literally packed with stuff she "needs!" to bring with her to school. This makes me feel great that she is ready for the adventure to begin.

I also know that I have such a great support system! You all are amazing and I wish I could give you all a hug and a big wet one right on the kisser for lifting me up and giving me words of encouragement. Thank you, thank you , thank you!

I do find that work has a way of taking your mind off of things, in a good way. I was contacted by a sweet school teacher named Virginia and her husband Chris to remake a desk into a changing table for them. Their first little one is due  in November.  This has been just the project I need to keep my mind occupied and my fingers busy. I also thought it was such a nice project because I loves me some babies and although I am ending that phase of my life, I am always excited for those who are getting to start this phase. It is such a huge privilege to have children. 

Let me also say that I felt like I knew Virginia for like forever. We had no problems talking and I just love her! She is also one of the cutest darn pregnant gals I have ever seen. Just all baby in front..it was hard not to grab the belly. But I did refrain as I remembered how weird I thought it was when complete strangers wanted to touch my largess. But at some point I may have to just grab her and give the baby a magic rub! 

She wanted a green color for this makeover and left it up to me to pick the color. Now that's fun but it also puts a lot more pressure on you than you might think. She said she likes all of my work but still.....I was nervous. I mean have you seen the orange in my foyer? I can be a bit....BOLD, shall we say. But she trusted me and I knew the piece would speak to me and tell me how green it wanted to be!

So Virginia and her hubby dropped this off at my house about 3 weeks ago.

I suggested that we add a base at the bottom so there could be a shelf where the chair would be and then add legs so it is taller and easier to use as a changing table. Trust me I told her...after labor and delivery you will want to save your back. Plus Chris is very tall and since we knew he would be using this table a lot (wink,wink) we thought it should be a little higher for him!

Secret weapons? 

Curtain rod finials! 

Yes these are screw-in curtain rod finials. 

The legs at Home Depot weren't quite right, either too fancy or too plain for this desk, so I kept looking. I did look at fence post finials as well, but they were a little too chunky for this and I thought a little too high as well. Before I gave up I managed to hit the curtain aisle and that's when it became clear that this was the way to go.  I pre-drilled the holes using this same technique and then used glue as well to secure the finials to the base.

I L.O.V.E. how this turned out! The color is Corn Husk in Behr from Home Depot . The color I originally picked looked very yellow when I got home. I found two quarts of green paint that I hadn't ever used for some reason and the Corn Husk was perfect. I mixed up my own chalk paint recipe and got to making it pretty. I added some Hobby Lobby knobs and then had to dig into my stash of saved baby things to stage the changing table. 

This was a bit nostalgic and good for me to do. Tessa let me use Sugar Pie, her brown bunny, for my photos...and I used some ceramic animals from Izzy....

and believe it or not these are my Jake's first little sandals and take home baby outfit! Izzy couldn't believe that these were once Jake's shoes and if you saw the size of his feet now, you would agree.

I also think this could easily be used as a kitchen island as well. So this is just a little think outside the box moment and realize that a desk can be made taller, it can be changed into a changing table (get the pun!!Mwahahah, I needed a good laugh!) or use it as an island with great storage. Either way, use what you've got. Much easier than buying new.

Virginia and Chris just picked this up this Saturday and dropped another dresser for me to rehab.

God's timing is perfect.

 I thought He was just growing my business but He knew I'd need something to keep me busy tomorrow while Tessa is at school for her first day. 

Thank you God for your awesome goodness and grace to me every single day.