Our little prairie farmhouse has quite the history…

Originally built in 1918, its walls have seen many families come and go. Every once and a while, a former resident will pull into the driveway and want to reminisce. I absolutely love hearing the stories of the folks who loved this piece of land before I did.

I’ve learned that the original family who built the house raised four girls in the tiny upstairs bedrooms. And how their uncle would pay them for every rattlesnake they killed on the property (which apparently was quite a few…). And how the family that lived here in the 1940s and 1950s would candle their eggs in the basement and how this place was their pride and joy.

Unfortunately, I’ve also heard how the house fell on hard times in later years. It became a rental at one point, and was severely neglected. In fact, there was even a horse (it was either a pony or a foal) living IN MY LIVING ROOM at one point…

Thankfully, the man who we purchased the property from completely remodeled the inside before we bought it. Out of necessity, he put in all new sheet rock, flooring, fixtures, and appliances. It was literally like a brand-new home in the inside. (You’d never know that a horse had ever seen the inside of these walls– promise!)

Unfortunately, in doing some of the necessary remodels, some of the original old-house charm was lost. I am so thankful that my kitchen came with all new appliances, counter tops, and cabinets, but it just seemed to lack some of the character it should have had as a old homestead house.

As you know, I recently undertook the massive task of repainting my kitchen cabinets, and during that process, we also added a few extra touches to increase the farmhouse charm-ability.… [Continue Reading]

Ever get half-way through a project and wonder if you had to be half-crazy to have started it in the first place?

Yeah… That was me about a month ago.

My road to crazy was a gradual one… Thanks to too much time spent on Pinterest, I’ve had my eye on white kitchen cabinets for about a year…

The problem was that I couldn’t exactly justify ripping out my current cabinets and springing for brand new ones. Although I wasn’t a fan of the builder-grade orange oak, they were still in good shape and I didn’t exactly have a couple thousand bucks hanging around for a full kitchen remodel.

So there I was– with orange cabinets… and a whole bunch of paint brushes in my basement.

You can see where this is going, right?

Hubby wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea at first– but after I showed him pictures of crisp, farmhouse kitchens with creamy white cabinets, he started to “feel” my vision…

There are a lot of cabinet painting shortcuts online, and although I was tempted by them at first, I decided to avoid them. My kitchen is the most-used room in my home,  and I couldn’t risk having paint that would rub off it a year or two…

I decided to follow the process that Young House Love outlined in their cabinet-painting tutorial. They have multiple in-depth posts on the subject- I definitely recommend checking them out. (I think I read the series about 582 times before I started…)

I originally figured that the project would take about two weeks…. *cue hysterical laughing*

It actually ended up taking over two months… I somehow failed to include the fact that I have two small children, a homestead to run, and a blog to maintain into my initial time estimate.… [Continue Reading]

(I’m furiously working on re-painting my kitchen cabinets this week. So, I am thrilled to be sharing this guest post by Jennifer of Black Fox Homestead. I’m not a seamstress at all, so I love these ideas!)

Before I was married I had the privilege of owning and operating a small interior decorating business that specialized in custom window treatments. I designed, sold, and manufactured a wide variety of curtains, shades, and valances for a number of beautiful homes.

I would be the first to admit that custom-made is not a luxury that everyone can afford, but I feel that every home should have beautifully dressed windows and that lack of skill or resources should not prevent that.

Following are three “custom” unique looks using materials you probably already have at home, or could purchase at a low cost that can be assembled in less than 10 minutes without sewing a stitch.… [Continue Reading]