2013
What We Got At The Chicken Barn
Last week, or was it a few weeks ago, I can’t remember whether I’m coming or going these days, I posted about our trip to the Big Chicken Barn in Ellsworth, Maine. We shared all the cool goods that we wanted to come home with. But what did we actually get? This collection of stuff:
Oh…and one more thing. The Life Magazine from the month and year I was born. I still don’t know what I’m going to do with it, but everyone needs their Life Magazine, right?! I tried to find Colby’s but lo and behold, it was just about the ONLY month/year that the Chicken Barn didn’t have. Once I’ve got the complete collection I may have to whip up a little Life Magazine art display somewhere in the house.
But back to the goods, what we got and what we paid for them. First up, the rope knot which was originally $9 but with the 30% off sale, it was only $6.30.
You got a sneak peak of it in yesterday’s entry makeover post, where I hung it from one of the coat hooks on the shelf.
I’ve been swooning over all the rope knots that grace the pages of Country Living and Better Homes & Gardens magazines, so when I stumbled upon one at the Chicken Barn, I snatched it up quicker than a klepto at an unsecured jewelry store.
Next item up is the old pottery crock that I picked up, which replaced our old utensil holder in the kitchen.
The crock was priced at $30 but was also 30% off (thank you winter antique sale) making it only $21. I’ve been stalking these crocks for years now, ever since we moved to the house way back when in May of 2010. Every crock I’ve found has either been too big, too small, too pricey or chipped. But this one was the Goldilocks of crocks and was “just right”. The crock is so much spacier than the old, too crammed full utensil holder.
The next Chicken Barn score was that gorgeous coral/aqua shell we showed you during our Chicken Barn tour. It was $10 plus the 30% off for a final price of $7.
I love the shell…absolutely love the shell. Right now, it’s on our bathroom vanity. That is if you can call it a vanity. It’s just a painted piece of plywood with a $10 Habitat For Humanity Re-Store sink attached to it. It’s a “temporary vanity”….an air quoted temporary vanity because it’s been there for nearly three years. But I swear this year will be the year that we FINALLY finish the bathroom and build a real vanity!
Anyway, the shell is parked on the vanity to serve the purpose of jewelry holder when I remove my bling at night for face washing time.
And finally, my favorite score…drum roll please….the green metal cabinet.
I actually didn’t buy it during my first trip to the chicken barn. I came home without it, did nothing but think about it for the next seven days, dreamed about stroking it gently and whispering sweet nothings to it, and returned to the Chicken Barn the following weekend to pick it up. And thankfully it was still there and still on sale. It’s original price tag was $30 but with the 30% off discount, the price came down to $21.
As for the location, the cabinet became an office space organizer and I tucked it under my computer on my side of our shared, his/hers desk.
I’m really digging the cabinet in that spot. I love how it elevates the computer just enough so that it helps fill the awkward void between the top of the monitor and underneath the shelves. I can’t explain but that empty space always bothered me. I chalk it up to general weirdness.
Anyway…I knew exactly what I wanted to use the cabinet for when I bought it…CD storage.
I’ve been on a file backup/cleanup my computer rampage lately. Mostly because my computer is old, storage on it is maxed out, and I’m trying to burn all my files to CDs, organizing and storing them in the cabinet.
I was worried at first that placing the computer on top of the metal cabinet would place the screen too high for comfortably working at the computer. But because I have one of those old mushroom Macs, the monitor moves pretty easily up, down and around.
Go go gadget computer!
Pssst…What have you guys found at your local antique stores lately? Anything good? Or anyone recently leave something behind at a store only to think about non stop until finally going back for it?! Do tell!
2012
There’s A New Chair-iff In Town
So some of you super-observant readers out there may have noticed in yesterday’s post, but there has been a little rearranging going on in the living room and parlor at Casa Campbell. More specifically, a little chair re-arranging. Before, there was this pink chair in the living room:
And then this matching pink chair in the parlor:
But then I brought home this guy (you may recognize him from my Instagram pics) from a thrift store while I was out thrifting with my mom.
And what’s even more exciting is the $4.99 price tag on this baby.
But the chair is not without faults. It was $4.99 for a reason! Not only is the upholstery a little rough around the edges, but there’s also evidence of an unhinged spring. I’m hoping it’s fixable. But if not, so I’m out five bucks. It’s the same cost of a grande-non-fat-white-chocolate-mocha-no-whip-latte. Don’t judge. It’s my favorite Starbucks latte du jour. Scratch that, if I can’t fix the spring I’ll figure out a way to make a solid, springless, foam cushioned chair instead.
So now with the new chair-iff in town (har har har….so sorry), there had to be a little rearranging to make room for the new chair. So the pink chairs came together in the parlor.
It feels a little too crowded in there for me. But I couldn’t bear to get rid of either of the pink chairs. Not only because they’re hand-me-downs from one of my grandmothers, but also because Goose is pretty attached to those chairs. Don’t let us fool you, those chairs are really Goose’s chairs. He pretty much rules the roost.
So the new chair is now in the living room where the old, pink chair used to live pre pink chair reuniting and it feels so good. It’s kind of a reading chair of sorts, or a guitar playing chair for Colby, bumped up against the bookcase.
The chair is in a desperate need of a makeover, but it’s size and scale in the room is perfect.
But I have faith that I can makeover the chair and make it just lovely. All it took was a little bit of Pinteresting and I found so many inspiring ideas to bring new life to an old chair. There’s definitely no shortage of barrel style, cane chair makeovers out there on the blogosphere. Here a few of my favorite pin-spiration pics for the $4.99 chair makeover:
- Cane back chair reupholstery here
- Cane back chair makeover from here
- How to replace broken caning tutorial here
For our chair, I’m envisioning spray painting the wood and caning a glossy white, re-upholstering the seat in a pinkish or sea-foamy fabric, and perhaps even dip dying the legs of the chair gold. But we’ll see how it all ends up. It’s definitely one of my weekend projects on the list.
Pssst…A little off topic here but I’ve got some exciting news on the 30-Before-30 front. Colby and I are now official mug club members at one of our favorite bars, Paddy Murphy’s. Our mugs won’t be in until January, but it’s one step closer to checking off “mug club member” from my little to-do list.
2012
What’s In The Box
Apparently I have wedding on the brain these days as I have yet another wedding related project for you this evening (the first project was the first dance art). Although this project is a little more hybrid like and includes a little organization and a little wedding. The other day I was trying to organize and store all of the wedding related paraphernalia that we had acquired. I’m talking cake knife, wedding cards, shower cards, bunting, cake toppers, etc. I had this white storage cube-like box that I had been storing stuff in during the wedding planning process, but in the end it wound up too small to fit everything. I love the box, but it was just too small. So I started thinking to myself, “self…why couldn’t this box just be bigger?!” So…I was cruising the Home Goods section of TJ Maxx the other day, which is my idea of a good time on a Saturday night while Colby is away gallivanting around the woods (it’s hunting season…thus I find myself a hunting widow most weekends), and my wish came true. I found a larger version of THE SAME box.
What are the odds?! The original box (which I introduced to you during my Martha organizing love-fest back here in February) is on the left and the new box, purchased from the same store nine months later, is on the right. Seriously…they’re identical minus the size. The smaller box was a $6 clearance steal and the large box, not quite as cheap, was $12 and worth every penny! The box held everything perfectly. There wasn’t a spare square inch to spare but managed to hold everything that I wanted to fit inside.
Contents include the cake knife (on the bottom), extra save the date cards, extra invitation suites, some bunting from the reception decor, the birdie cake toppers, extra garters that my momma made, and all of our wedding and bridal shower cards. Speaking of cards, I followed through with my card storage plan and punched holes in all of them and bound them with rings. It makes it so easy to flip through the cards and read all the lovely love notes from all our friends and family. Cue up the obligatory “awwwwwwww”.
I couldn’t believe the amount of cards that we had amassed. Between my bridal shower cards, congrats on your engagement cards, and the mound of wedding cards, the box was pretty much full. But I couldn’t bear to part with a single card. They’re just so pretty!
I was amazed how well everything wedding related fit into the “wedding box” as it’s now affectionately known as. It’s like this little wedding time capsule that we can take out and peruse through from time to time when we’re feeling wedding nostalgic like. Or if we ever feel the need to get our wooden birdie fix. As for the old, smaller wedding box, he got repurposed as thank you note/note card/envelope storage. It suits him well.
And now both boxes are living happily in harmony on the large shelf above our desk.
Here’s the closeup of the in harmony boxes. And I freshened up the shelf a little bit and brought out a few green vases. They were antique store finds from a few years ago. Actually, I think they date back to before we even bought the house. They’ve been with us long time.
So there you have it. A quick and simple organizing project that gets our hearts going all pitter patter like. And not just because organizing projects get me all hot and bothered excited, but because it’s like having our own little love box sitting up on the shelf above our work space. We just can’t help but smile when we think of its contents and the happiness of our big day. Where’s the cheese police when you need them!?
Pssst…What simple organizing projects have you done lately? Anyone else have the shopping/organizing gods smile down on them with the perfect solution to their organizing dilemma? I still can’t believe I found EXACTLY what I was looking for…and accidentally!
2012
One-Liner A Day Keeps The Doctor Away
This post is long overdue, like LOOOOOOOOOOOONG overdue. As in I started this little project on January 1st and am just getting around to finishing it up and posting about it. Anyway, this post is about one-liners, and not the kind that quirky, overconfident bar fly guys use on poor unsuspecting chicas out for a girls night out. This is about micro-journaling one-liners.
Last year, I came across a blog post about micro-journaling. Then I came across another and another and another. I can’t remember any of the micro-journal inspiration blogs (if you’re the writer of one of those blogs, please let me know so I can give you credit where credit is due). But I fell in love. Hard. Like face smacking on pavement hard. So I decided to do it. And what exactly is micro journaling? Every day, you write down one thing that you did, was meaningful, or you want to remember.
Essentially, you write out the date, then the year, and the item you want to remember. You end up with a stack of 365 index cards. Then, the following year, you take that same stack, and add another line for the next year. Thus, you can see what was memorable that day the year before. Sometimes the journal item can be small and relatively mundane, like taking the dog for a run.
And sometimes they’re much more memorable, like getting married.
I chose to write out my microjournal on index cards, but just about anything works. A notebook, a journal, an Excel spreadsheet. Confession, I actually keep the micro journal in an Excel spreadsheet in a business geek-erie fashion. But upon my acquisition of the Anthropologie berry container, I decided to transpose my micro-journal onto the cards and store them in the container. I like the idea of having a physical copy of the journal to access. It’s tangible. I can touch it and feel it, and who doesn’t like that?!
I picked up the four packages of index cards from Target for only $0.84 each. If you add that too the $20 Anthropologie berry container, the whole project cost about $24 but given all the memories that it holds, it’s priceless (cheese police, cheese police).
After I wrote out all of the memories to date, I plopped all the index cards into the berry crate, and put it on my desk.
It’s a fun little pick me up for those evenings that I’m slaving away at my desk, working on blog stuff, paying bills (bleh) or let’s face it, what I do most, cruising Pinterest and blogs.
Now here’s hoping I keep this little project up for the next couple of years, if not longer. I can see myself adding big milestones to the cards (like info about future kiddos or other big life moments) as well as the small moments (like when Goose does something funny) and see how everything aligns year after year.
Pssst…How about you all? Do you journal or log your memories? Go the photographic route or write things down? Feel free to share!
2012
Two If By Sea
As you may or may not have noticed thanks to all those Instagram pics, Colby and I spent a little time in Boston last weekend. Our primary purpose of the trip was to go down to Fenway and see a Red Sux…I mean…Red Sox game (they lost in extra innings….booooo) and then to the Sam Adams Octoberfest (it was beer-tastic). But it just so happened that the hotel we stayed at was within walking distance to both Anthropologie and West Elm…side trip perhaps?! ”Two If By Sea”…get it…Boston…two home goods stores…it worked in my head.
I had never been to either store before. Why yes…yes I am an Anthro/West Elm newbie. I couldn’t wait to go check out all the goods I’ve spent ages drooling over on their respective websites. And those stores did not disappoint. Poor Colby…it was all, “oooh, this is so much cuter in person!” and “I had no idea this bowl was so small!” and “where or where would I find those mugs?!”. He was a good husband. It was fun for me but I’m not so sure he enjoyed the stores quite as much as I did. For me, it was like coming home…home to a gorgeous, well manicured, meticulously decorated home that I want to move into.
But anyway, you know I had to come home with my first Anthropologie and West Elm purchases. It would be sacrelegious not to. And of course me and my type A personality HAD ALREADY PICKED OUT THE GOODS before even entering the store. What is wrong with me?! Can I just have one spontaneous moment for once in my life?! Sheesh! But anyway…check out the goods that we brought home.
The bird vase and the egg crate came from West Elm and the berry crates, mugs, and door hardware came from Anthropologie. As for what is going where and how we’re using our latest purchases, the muchos cool-os door pulls are for the kitchen closet doors. That is, if I ever finish the project that never ends!
The monogram mugs, “A” for Angie and “C” for Colby, are meant for our morning coffee. Although we’ve only used the mugs once so far and that was for ice cream. Same difference. But our current mug situation is pretty much all over the place and I love the idea of having just a few, consistently themed mugs. These are perfect mugs. Perfect size and cute as a button. It may be time to yard sale the old mugs.
The ceramic berry containers, which came from Anthro, also have a specific purpose…well…one of them does. But I can’t reveal to you yet what that purpose is for. It would be like a magician revealing his secrets…or Barney Stinson revealing his magician secrets at airport security. It just won’t happen yet. More on that later this week since I’m still finishing up that project.
And then there is the vase. The dear, sweet, gorgeous vase that I’ve visited virtually at least four dozen times in the last month or so. Yes, I’m that in love with the vase. Colby get worried cuz this love runs deep! And it’s one of the artisans for West Elm, which I find to be a really awesome joint venture between independent artists and the West Elm chain.
I wish we lived in a home where a vase could live on the window sill but alas…we have a Goose. A Goose who loves to jump onto the window sills as children and squirrels go by our home. So the vase has been relocated to a much higher location…the shelf in the parlor.
And finally there is the egg crate which, like you’ve seen about a gazillion times, used to store my sparkly earrings and cocktail ring bling. Nothing new to see here folks. But I love the concept of using the ceramic egg storage container to hold jewelry. It’s adorable sitting on my dresser and there it will stay. Especially since I like to strip myself of all my bling at the end of the night and it usually sits on top of the dresser (or bathroom vanity) anyway.
So there you have it. A mini shopping spree at the Boston Anthropologie and West Elm stores. They may have been the highlight of the trip, you know, since the Red Sox are completely blowing this season! Oh well. Here’s to next year!
Pssst…and on a completely different side note, Colby and I completely ran into Bobby Valentine, the Red Sox coach, on our way to Octoberfest. Weird. But anyway, have you guys shopped Anthro or West Elm lately?! Those stores are awesome! I’m seriously digging West Elm. It was way more awesome in person than via the web! Have any favorite items at the stores?
Welcome to Angie's Roost (and Colby's Hen House) where you'll find daily posts about our misadventures in DIY home improvement. We bought a 100+ year old home that desperately needed some love and blogged about our entire adventure.
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