A Little Bump

With the crazy amount of details and work that had to be done on our little piece of Texas, I had to take a break from the blog, and then life just got full.

At the very brink of Covid, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. My husband has been home from work, with our future sitting a bit unknown. But each day, I see God’s hand showing itself in the midst of the unexpected. I am now through surgery and radiation, and slowly on the road to recovery. A little slower than I would have ever thought, but recovering.

Now, after months of being home and working on plans that we have had to put on hold, we are now moving forward with our garden. Hoping to post pictures on both Instagram and the blog as we begin to move slowly forward. Blessings! Staci

Office Doors

Part of today’s project is to hopefully finish the top side of this old door.  I have a set of two that we acquired in the run down military barracks side of the house.  It is one of the few things we kept in this part of the house, and even then it has been a labor of love to get them  where we want them.

This is the backside of the door as we found them when we bought the house.  I had no idea of the wonderful color that was on the front side.  When we pulled the doors out, they were covered in mud wasp nests and dirt. We cleaned and lightly sanded them. We found there was a darker layer of burgundy underneath the already burgundy color.  I love the layer of colors we found.  The problem was, there was so much damage and repair that needed to take place, that getting a close color match was important. Not to mention, after we had already made plans for the doors, we found they had been cut off on the bottom, so they were very short. (You can see that in this picture. I was so excited about them that I didn’t even notice, till I had my heart set on using them.)

Our carpenter Seth Allen did an amazing job fitting a piece of wood onto each door to lengthen them.  Because there was such a big gap of old and new color, I am currently working with Brenham Iron Works to cut us kick plates for the doors.  Hoping this will help hide the seam between the old and new wood and to blend it all together.

There will also be new handles with backplates, that is the other thing I am working on.  I found a pair of black metal handles at Home Depot.  Once I get those, Brenham Iron Works will cut two backplates with the screw holes to match the handles, so I can attach them together to the doors.  Lots and lots of details!!!!

I went with an oil based satin paint from Sherwin Williams.  I wish I could have got a flat oil, but there is no such thing in Sherwin Williams paints or anywhere that I know of.  I didn’t use a water based paint, because I didn’t want to prime the door and knew there would be places of repair and overlap of the old with the new paint.

I am planning on rubbing a light coat of clear Briwax over the whole door.  Hoping this will help preserve the old and blend the new.

On a different note! Sorry my posts have been spotty.  Life has been full and blog posts have become just another thing to get done.  I do post a bit more on my instagram account at a_little_piece_of_texas .  Hope to send some follow up pictures in a week or so.

Blessings for your day!

Landscape Begins – Rain Chains

Today was a fun day at our little piece of Texas.  My long awaited rain chains (technically rain cups) were installed.  Originally, the gutter guy and hubby only wanted downspouts. I really didn’t want gutter downspouts on the sides of our pretty dinning room windows.  It took some convincing, but I am glad I stuck with my guns on this one.

The full view of one of my pretty rain chains. I chose the blue bell cups, because this spring we had not only the wild blue, blue bells, but the white ones too.  At one time, the blue bell was abundant in the area. So much so, that our beloved Blue Bell Ice Cream was named after them.  I had never seen one wild in a field before, so I was so excited to have them on our property.

I have one more container to get for my trio of pots.  I am hoping to get a tall galvanized can for the back right.  I have one in mind and will be picking it up tomorrow.

The chain and cups are attached through the base of the pot.  Because of some drainage issues, we chose to pipe all the gutter water away from the house.  It’s been a bit of a job, but we wanted to get this right on the front side, rather than when problems occur.

Not only did we pipe out the gutters today, but we had to move the hose spigot that was in the middle of the yard.  See the man on his belly, that’s where our hose spigot was.

This is the bad boy that made the trenches happen. Got the job done in no time!

The hula hoops and 2×4’s in the background, are our visual layout for a storage/outdoor shower and jacuzzi.  We are starting that at the end of the week.  Hoping to get it mostly done by Easter.

We have had a lot of water running under our house.  Once the skirting is up that problem should be mostly eliminated.  We had leveled and trenched this area a year ago, but with a lot of work being done on this side of the house, and a lot of rain, including Harvey, we needed to build it back up again.

The rain chain on the other side of the windows was attached to a drain box.

This rain chain was attached with a few links of copper chain at the bottom.  I am eventually going to put landscaping cloth over the top with some gravel or bull rock to hide the green grate.

The pretty pair – with time, they will patina and darken.  Can’t wait to see them in action.

That’s it for now!  With the holidays over and all my kiddos back in school or working, hubby and I are back on the planning, working train.

Good day here at the farmhouse.  Feeling blessed and grateful.

A Little Nook

One of the things I loved about this remodel, was the freedom to dream (mostly due to my wonderful hubby).  When the kids were little and they were making an artistic creation, they would sometimes get frustrated if paint spilled, a marker dried out, or a large amount of glitter poured over everything. Many times I would tell them, “See what unexpected thing you can add to make your artwork even better.”  Most of the time, it did turn out better, other times – well….to the trash it went. I am still amazed at how looking past an immediate issue can help turn a mistake or an overlooked detail into something better.  This remodel was full of hourly, daily, minute by minute details. Most were planned, others just happened, but many were unexpected discoveries. It is these unexpected discoveries and surprises that kept me going.  Sometimes we uncovered colorful walls, or sanded some old painted boards to find amazing color. Even some of my collections of stuff played a wonderful part in keeping a bit of ingenuity in our project.

We had a small nook of space between a support beam and one of the upper cabinets.  Originally, I had thought about putting in a narrow pencil cabinet or a small open cabinet for nick-nacks or cookbooks. But as our plans for the cabinets began taking their true shape, we realized this space wouldn’t hold much.  At that point, I remembered a little collection of nut grinders I had. I was considering selling them at my antique booth.  But the more I looked at this space, the more I dreamed of my little nut grinders fitting snuggly on corner shelves.  It ended up being a perfect fit for a little nook.

Along with the spice grinders, another new addition to our kitchen were the barstools.  I work at a beautiful antique store called Leftovers in Brenham, Texas.  It’s 17,000 square feet of amazing European antiques, bedding, clothes, food and wonderful finds.  We use bar stools like this at work all the time, so I had them in mind during the planning.  They fit the space better than I had expected, so I happily worked to get these bar stools during the Round Top Antiques Weeks here in Texas.

On a different note, I don’t think there is a day that goes by where I am not truly grateful for our home.  Living in the country had been a little girls dream.  I really wasn’t expecting it to happen – hoping at times, but not expecting.  Then we found our little piece of Texas. Many times during the remodel, I thought – Am I going to survive this? – seriously – I did.  Hubby was amazing, but God was even more amazing. He was with us through it all, even through the really tough stuff. He helped with all the details, and worked things out in unexpected ways. He brought us wonderful people to help us, encourage us, work with us and for us.  It took a small village and a very big God to make this place our home.  So thankful.

This picture was taken several months ago.  I had never seen a full double rainbow before. Just another beautiful reminder of what an incredible God we have.

Phil. 4:6 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

 

**Joe Perez, from Perez Cabinets was our skilled cabinet maker who helped make some kitchen dreams happen.

**Seth Allen of Seth Allen construction made the little shelves for the nut grinders.

 

 

 

 

Farm House Kitchen Before and After Part I

A kitchen is the heart of a home.  Here is a snippet of our kitchen as it is now.  We love it. Even now, I am smiling, so grateful to have it finished and functioning wonderfully.

The next several pictures are photos of the kitchen process.  I will probably do a kitchen part 2 and possibly a part 3, since there was so much involved in the demo, planning and completing stages. At the end of the kitchen segments, I will also include the names of the crews who did the majority of the work, outside of Hubby and I.

The above picture was taken when we first walked through this house. Originally, I had planned on keeping the upper glass cabinets and soffit to save some money and to keep some of the original character.  Joe Perez, of Perez Cabinets, encouraged me to pull the glass cabinets off.  He was definitely right!  The soffit came down a few weeks after the upper cabinets.  Joe came to do kitchen measurements and was really happy we had taken the soffit down. This helped to open up the area around the window.  We ended up removing all the wood across the top and were able to use it for floor and wall repair. The bottom cabinets were in terrible shape and had no salvage value.

I will show this picture again, because we made so many changes here.  The yellow cabinet is in our pole barn, but the wonderful swing door was repainted and put in our walk in pantry/storage room off the kitchen. The oven went to one of our work crews. So, everything found a new home.

In the above picture, the doorway on the left, originally led to the master bath, the master and another bedroom.  We closed it in and used the space for a large master shower and a deep cavity to push the fridge in to.  It ended up being a great decision with a great use of space!

This is the opposite side of the kitchen.  We had just started the demo and remodeling process in this picture.  The circuit breaker box ended up being extremely difficult to relocate, so we left it.  This door opening stayed, but we closed off the room to make a small utility closet. You can see the 2×4’s being placed to get ready for the new wall. The open area in the back is now our master closet and this super cute door is now our laundry room door. Unfortunately, the flooring in this room was vinyl, but it worked out great, because I put a heavy parquet vinyl floating floor over the top. Yes!  I put it in!  We also put the same flooring in the pantry/utility room, so we would have a safe place to close in our little pup if needed.  I’ll show pictures at another post.

We ended up taking both built-ins out.  The one on the left became a doorway into the pantry and the other one was taken out all together.  I thought these were old until we looked at the materials used and realized they were made out of plywood and some particle board too.  There wasn’t much to save from either of these.

I really struggled with taking this built in out.  I have always loved built in anythings in older homes, but I am so glad we chose to open up this wall. We were going to open it up part way, but the more we looked at it, the more we knew this needed to be completely demoed.  Hubby was sure that was the best way to go and he was right!

I saved all the doors and trim from this cabinet, just incase I got wonderfully inspired.

One of the most exciting things that happened in the demo, was finding this chimney.  I was at work the day they took the wall down.  Hubby told me they were going to tear the chimney down the next day!  What?!  So… I got up real early, picked up coffee, brought my Bible and sat on the front porch till the first crew came in.  I was going to block the chimney demo with my body if I had to, that chimney was not coming down! 🙂

Needless to say – some of the foundation issues we had were explained with this chimney.  It had been cut underneath and above, so we had no idea it was even there!  It was a wonderful find.  This chimney ended up adding so much character and texture to our kitchen.  I love it!  Such a wonderful find!

The next several pics are of more kitchen demo and changes.

Adrian just took out the built in to open up this area up for a swing door.  We saved all the salvageable wood that we tore out of the house.  I am so glad we did!  The laundry room wall that I sanded and sealed is made of boards originally from the kitchen.  We also used boards from the kitchen to repair the pine floors.

In this picture, you can see that the pantry has a door opening now.  Everything is opening up and moving forward.

I have got to be honest.  I look at these pictures and my stomach cringes a bit.  It was so much work.  So much work.  We hired a lot of people, but it was my full time job for quite awhile.  So many decisions, so much work, patience, time and money.

This last picture is one more snapshot of our finished kitchen

The beautiful color above the window and above the doorway are all original. Our friend Mark, sanded the area above the doorway.  I sanded the turquoise above the sink and painted 2-3 coats of polyacrylic on each area. The amazing color we found in this house was wonderful.  I am incredibly thankful to have had great help who were willing to sand down surface colors to see the beauty develop underneath.

More kitchen pics to come – sometime soon – I hope. 🙂

 

 

 

 

Master Bathroom Before and After

 

After

Before

This entire bathroom was completely gutted.  All the bead board and floors were original.  We uncovered them and enjoyed their hidden beauty.

Hallway – Before

This is the hallway next to the master bath.  Both the hallway and the master bath had the same cork tiles glued to the ceiling.

After

This is the refinished hallway ceiling.  All the color was there.  We sanded it, caulked it and put 2 coats of polycrylic on it.   New light and crown top it off.

I love this product.  It goes on clear without any yellowing. I have used it to seal a cabinet, ceilings and a wall that were all the old chippy pealing paint that I sanded down and cleaned before clear coating.

Beginning of the plumbing.

Ceiling sanding and insulation repair.  These two awesome guys were such an amazing help.  They both go to our church and made the work a lot more fun.

This is the beginning of Dave’s shower.

After the drywall came in, Mark and I continued to sand, prep and repair the windows and the bead board wall.

This picture was taken before any of the trim came up.  I kept the center trim in the middle, but the rest came down.  Was so thankful that the windows were solid enough to keep.

The trim had been put up and the vanity set.  All of this prep and painting kept me more than busy.

Hubby checking the front wall of the shower.  We built out a tall pony wall, so we could still enjoy the view, even in the shower. The front of this wall is old bead board we pulled from different spots in the house.

Hubby let me keep the windows, if I promised to seal some of them off.  Here I am caulking one of the old windows closed.  The middle window still works, but the two side ones are closed.  We kept the window weights in tact. We just stuffed them with insulation to help with drafts.  The mechanics of all the windows are good, so if we ever wanted to make them operational again, we could.

Sealing the ceiling with polycrylic. Love this stuff!

I had bought this transom window a couple of years ago because I had always loved the one my mother-in law had at her house. I saw this on a virtual garage sale group that we have in our area.  I was so excited to find this, I drove 40 minutes away to pick it up. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it at the time, but now, I can’t imagine my bathroom without it.

When the bathroom was taking shape, I saw there was an open area above the pony wall that separated the toilet from the vanity.  After measuring, I saw it fit perfect.  I found a post on clearance at a local hardware store, cleaned up the  transom window (sanded, painted and learned to window glaze!) and was more than pleased with how everything fit.

I found this  chandelier at a garage sale about 10 years ago. There was no price on it.  It was in a large dirty cardboard box under a table.  Before I picked up the nasty box, I asked for a price. The lady said – $20.  I paid her, grabbed the box and happily ran to the car to take a better look at my find.  It was nasty and dirty from mice chewing on parts of it, but after a good cleaning and replacing a few minor parts, we have a real beauty on our hands. I love this light.

A couple of weeks ago, I walked into our bathroom early in the morning and was surprised by this sight.  This picture still puts a smile on my face – so pretty.

Before

Here is the condition of the floors before they were refinished.

After

So amazed by this transformation!  These are all original long leaf pine.  So beautiful!

Our almost finished master bath.

For those of you wondering – The bead board wall is painted in “Dewey” by Sherwin Williams.  All trim is painted in “Glass of Milk” by Sherwin Williams. The painted walls are a customized color that is 50% “Gray Owl” by Benjamin Moore.  The vanity was from Builder Surplus.  The tub and fixtures were a Varage Sale find that ended up being owned by a friend at our church.  The simulated marble surround on the master shower is from Brenham Area Marble.  All trim work was done by Perez Cabinets. The glass door was from Old Mill Creek Glass. Floor refinishing by JM Beautiful Floors.  The plumbing was done by Plumbing That Works. The rest was done by yours truly, Hubby and some great help.

There are still a few more things to do in the bathroom – mirrors for one, but it’s mostly there.  So thankful for the beauty of color that was apart of this room, and a husband who let me run with it and dream.

 

 

 

Priorities

This wonderful husband of mine was crawling in a ditch laying electrical wire to the garage, while I was gathering any 2×4’s I could find to give to our amazing handyman, Seth.  This picture is one of the few we have taken together in our labor of love and craziness.  But, we are getting there.  Remembering everyday how thankful we are to have each other, our wonderful family, this beautiful piece of Texas and a very big God who has walked with us each stage of this journey.

I haven’t posted in awhile, because honestly, I was overwhelmed and a bit discouraged. Some of the toughest parts of our journey happened in February and March. I was stretched and limited in so many ways.  Then, about a month ago, I was feeling discouraged, tired and stressed out.  I talked to my dad and he asked how I was doing.  I told him that things had gotten really hard.  My dad said, “Well, I know you are good with your morning quiet times with the Lord.”  I stopped him right there.  “Dad, I haven’t been having them. I am so tired and I get up early every morning to meet different workers or crews coming to the house.”  My ever encouraging dad, scolded me and basically said – It doesn’t matter how early you have to get up, or how tired you are, you have to give each day to the Lord.  How right he was.

For the past several months, I had been doing it on my own strength, which was not very strong or very wise. I said pocket prayers as I was driving and saw my joy waning. The witness I could have been to others, was lacking.  Needless to say – it was a wake up call. So, for the past month, my coffee and my Bible are starting each morning.  It has been good for me to focus on something other than myself and my day.  To take my eyes off of me, has been a way to lift the burden I had been feeling.  Things aren’t perfect, but they are better.  We are making good progress on projects, but we still have a lot of life happening around us to keep up with too – graduations, birthdays, holidays – you know – life.  Good stuff. Tough stuff. In between stuff.  But doing life without the Lord actively apart of it, is heavy and comber some.  Consequences come when the Lord takes a back seat.  Though things are better, I find myself going back to Him in humility and earnestness.  I am so thankful to have such a good God in my life, one who knows me, sees me and forgives me continually.  For now, that’s my Little Piece of Texas – I’ll post some new project pics soon.

May God’s grace fill you and yours.   Blessings – Staci

Drywall!

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I am so excited to see the room coming together!!  This room is in the old military barracks that was attached to the farm house when we bought it.  We had the rooms framed back in September to help with the roof support. Dave and I marked and measured the rooms with blue painters tape and they literally placed 2×4’s over the top of the blue tape to build the walls.

The slideshow is all before and afters. One of the photos I took the pic looking toward the entry and the other is looking back. I can’t tell you how exciting this is for me and hubby, Dave.  Plus our $ is about out!  So glad we got this far!!!

The drywall work will be done by the end of this week.  I seriously can’t stop smiling!

Laundry Room Prep

In case you haven’t noticed, I love reclaimed wood.  Reclaimed wood with great color always brings a big smile to my face. These little lovelies will be a part of the back wall in my laundry room.  I have one of my favorite chandeliers going in, a cast iron sink, some old glass washboards, a canvas rolling laundry basket, hopefully some fun shelving and I even have a wonderful stained glass window that’s already been installed.

The laundry room is on the section of the house that we considered tearing down.  It’s an old army barrack that was a flooring showroom, then who knows what.  It ended up on our property before we bought it and was in horrible repair.

This is my friend Risa, and wonderful helper. We are standing in the middle of the old barracks.  This pic was taken a few months after we had been working on the house. The framing is up, the old flooring is mostly gone and the roof isn’s sagging any more. Behind Risa, is a small framed opening.  That is my some-day laundry room.

This picture is the corner where my laundry room will be.  This picture was taken right after we bought the house. See the floor?  It was one of probably 15 different types of flooring that covered this building.

The window with plywood partly over it, is where my stained glass window is now. Both the siding and the window were sold to people who would reuse and enjoy them.

This picture is of the laundry area before the new siding went up.  I had to show you my super great door.  This door was in a bedroom, but I moved it so it could be enjoyed even more.

The crazy thing about this laundry room, is I planned most of it before a stud was set. I didn’t have the sink at that time, which would have helped the door placement.  The sink led to finding the right sized laundry basket to fit in a small nook. The laundry room was really fun, because it’s small and it really has no interest to hubby except function. I have been a free spirit in dreaming.

This week, the insulation went up(I will post a pick of that later). The drywall goes up next week, which is why I am sanding and preparing like crazy.  I need to get the wood walls up, before the drywall.  The drywall guys are awesome and can set it right up to the wood, so I don’t need any trim or inside cove on the sides.

Here are a few more pics of how I spent yesterday afternoon.

I started sanding each board with 60 grit sand paper.  If it came off quickly, I would change to a higher grit like 80 or 100.

Each board sanded down differently, so I made sure to apply light pressure until I could figure out how it would sand.  Some were stubborn on one end, then sanded quickly on the other end.  Needless to say, I took time on each board, so I could get the best possible color out of them.

Once I got close to the colors I wanted, I did a finish sanding with a 220 or 120 grit paper.  I am really happy with the results.

I thought I had sanded enough boards, until I laid them out on the floor in the laundry room. Fortunately, I have plenty of yellow and pink boards, so I will be sanding more this week.

All the boards came from the house, though I am not quite sure where. We took a wall down in the main house on a day I was at my part time job.  I am guessing these were behind drywall, because I don’t remember seeing them before they ended up in a pile of reclaimed wood in the pole barn.  I am very thankful that our workers, took the time and effort to remove them with care. They all knew how I love old wood. The other big plus, is that these boards are almost completely nail free!!  So, they are in really good condition.

Eventually, I’ll post pictures of the finished product.  It’s exciting to see dreamy ideas come together.

Yesterday, while I was sanding, I was thinking about how thankful I was.  Thankful to have the freedom to be creative.  Thankful to have a husband who lets me have fun with this big project.  Thankful to have people around who are capable of making it happen. And… so very thankful to have such a big God who loves seeing us enjoy life and using our gifts in unique ways.

A Little Bit of Fun

When we began the demo on the master bathroom, we found a turquoise painted ceiling with heavy glue stuck to it from the ceiling tile squares that were there before. Clay and Mark sanded down this ceiling and got the gook off that had held those wonderfully awful ceiling tiles.  This is the end result of the sanding. I am a blue lover, so this was a wonderful surprise.

*Below is a before shot of the bathroom and the hallway next to it that shows off those lovely tiles.

This is an upside down happy face.  So I look even happier.  After the sanding and gook removal, we had some patching to do.  Seth handled that.

Mark had caulked the big gaps, but I hadn’t thought ahead and we had white caulk streaks.  So, I mixed some paints to get a turquoise that was close.  I did a bit of blending in some of the cracks to cover the white caulk lines and to tie the colors together.

After three coats of polycrylic, the finished project was wonderful.

It literally took a village of us.  So thankful for some really great help. Feel incredibly blessed and wonderfully happy with this great ceiling.

*Just  a note*

The month of December was a tough one for the remodel and for Dave and I.  Weather, delays and stress brought me down a bit.  My phone stopped taking pictures and one of our daughters had surgery.  My Grandma passed away and the holidays were not as relaxed as usual.  I think I had my plate overflowing.  But.. through prayers, patience, perseverance, my wonderful husband, family, friends and a very big God, things turned around.  Our crews aren’t as big, but are so wonderful.  The help we have had in the last 6 weeks has been a tremendous blessing.  I am overwhelmed with gratitude.  We are beginning to see some exciting progress.  The construction loan is almost gone, but we are down to a few big projects that should fit into the budget.

Hope to get more pics out soon.  Glad you could follow along.