JosieJones is a simple design site including DIY projects and tutorials, Recipes, fabulous finds to copmplete a room and amazing photos that capture it all.

We have been featured in Victorian Homes!!

We are thrilled once again to be featured in Victorian Homes Magazine!! This is our 5th magazine feature and each time it happens, we are as excited as the first! Natalie was especially excited to be asked to write the story for this feature! It’s still out on the stands so be sure to grab your copy. We’ve got more publications coming up in the future so stay tuned!

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admin - Thanks Gene!!!

Eugene Williams - Congratulation for being featured in VICTORIAN HOMES magazine again.

Allowance for kids???

Summer is almost here and kids will soon be home all day. Chore lists will need to be put into place!

Giving your kids an allowance is a tricky and sometimes controversial subject.

Should you give them a set allowance every week or should you do it another way?

The Rohwers do it another way.

Our kids can earn cold, hard cash for simple jobs around the house. Here is how it works:

1. Your own space {your room} must be clean to be able to do a chores-for-cash job

2. You can do as many jobs as you wish

3. Your earnings go onto the chalkboard bank…we keep track of the cash here so they don’t lose the cash, spend it at the vending machine at school or leave it at home when they suddenly see something they want to purchase {as they don’t carry wallets or purses yet so they don’t have their money on them everywhere we go}.

See the bank on the chalkboard above.

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Here are a list of chores and their dollar amounts at our house:

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Clean the toilet .50 per toilet

Vacuum a room .75 per room

Empty all trash bins in house .50

Clean the basement 1.00

Load or unload the dishes from the dishwasher .75 per load

Fill laundry in washer OR move from washer to dryer OR fold from dryer 1.00 per load

Mop a level or porch 2.00 per level

Pick up dog poo in yard 3.00

Clean and fill dog dishes .50

Clean out the car 1.00 per car

Bring up garbage cans from garbage day .50

ADDITIONAL CASH OPPORTUNITIES

You could get rewarded for a kind gesture

You could get rewarded for keeping room clean for a long period of time without asking

You could get rewarded for grades

New chores are negotiable and welcomed

What do you do in your house?

2 comments

admin - Thanks Desiree!

Desiree - Such a pretty kitchen… I am pinning!

The COTTAGE SALE!!!!!!!!!!!

We are gettin’ the itch for a sale and we can’t wait to see you all again!

We love it all when it comes to sale time. The good, the bad and the ugly. We set up for days on end, drinking bottomless cups of coffee, sweating off layers of dirt from cleaning our cottage in the wilderness, moving countless pieces furniture in and then out and then in again. We price endless items until we can’t remember who’s is who’s, we drill too many holes in the paneling, we smooth things over with our hubby’s who want to be anywhere but there and take stock of our kids’ adventures after long days in the woods.

We love it. All of it.

We are thinking a Summer sale will be perfect for us to be able to use the indoors as well as the outdoors to house our millions of items.

Mark it on your calendar:

Wednesday, June 12: 5pm-8pm {sneak peek and first dibs}

Thursday June 13: 10am-6pm

Friday June 14: 10am-6pm

Saturday June 15: 10am-2pm

Click here for directions and more details!!!!

2 comments

admin - Hey Joni! Here’ is the link with all the info and directions! Hope to see you next week!! http://www.josiejones.com/the-cottage-sale/

Joni Wetmore - What is the address? I live in Woodbury — have been to your sale once before but lost the address. Thanks!

Natalie’s Mini Makeover On Kim’s Mini Makeover!

A few posts back, Kim shared with you the mini-makeover she did in her living room. She spruced it up with a few new amazing purchases. I love Kim’s style… it is very clean and crisp with chippy, rustic, chic elements. When we shop together, my cart is usually filled with lots of color {the brighter the better}, where as hers is usually full of whites, grays, browns, and creams. We tease each other about our difference in color comfort levels so I thought it would be fun to use my Olioboard skills to do a little mini-makeover of my own on her mini-makeover!

So here’s what Kim’s looked like…

{Beautiful, calm, collected, neutral}

And here is mine…

I didn’t do a ton, but added a few punches of color that were inspired by the beautiful orange tulips she added.

{Pillows, a fun ottoman, another mirror on the wall, and one more splash of color with a ceramic vase}

And here is the second makeover I did…

{More pillows, another fun ottoman, a patterned lampshade, a shelf with accessories, and a chandelier}

This was a super fun little project to play around with. I’ve actually decided to add this to my list of design services. If you would like some ideas on ways to spruce up a space, you can send me a straight on shot of your room striped down to the bare bones (no accessories, pillows, etc.) with just the furnishings, and I can do a mini-makeover on it for you. Please send me a message if you would like more information about this service. I would love to work with you!!

natalie@josiejones.com

Natalie:)

Bonus…here’s the advice that I took from all of this {I added color!!}…

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My Three Sons…

I grew up with 2 sisters so my childhood was filled with barbies, baby dolls, and lots of girlie things. I couldn’t wait to someday have a little girl of my own to pass down all of my childhood dolls and other misc. girlie things to.

{That’s me with the ears in the middle…}

When we had our first two babies, we waited until their birth day to find out the sex. It’s a boy! It’s a boy!! I had 2 boys?! I never dreamed I would be the mother of boys! But I was elated and loved them more than I could have ever imagined.

For my 3rd and final pregnancy, I decided I needed to find out the sex ahead of time. I was still longing for a girl, and decided that I needed to prepare myself if it wasn’t going to be. We had our 2 boys in tow and got to experience our first ever 3D ultrasound. It was amazing and my eyes were full of tears of joy with the site of our new blessing. The doctor then gave us the news that I was going to be the mother of another beautiful boy… I cried tears of joy watching him flip circles inside me. My husband held my hand fighting back his own tears of disbelief that he would have 3 sons. I remember the feeling of shock though when it hit me that I would never have a daughter. How could this be? I was always going to have a daughter, that was a given in my mind. It was the boys that I had never imagined! Well we went home that day and I went to my room and had one good long cry and for about an hour I mourned the daughter I would never have. And then I was done… I had a baby boy nursery to decorate and needed new baby boy clothes and one more baby boy name.

So here I am… The mother of 3 energetic, messy, sensitive, loud, kind hearted, sometimes stinky, beautiful boys. My three sons, that is my life! I was meant to be the mother of boys. Every day my house is filled with boys craziness…ie. Nerf bullets in my Rachel Ashwell sofa cushions, for lack of a better word- “nut cups” on my kitchen island, frogs let loose in my house, and more craziness than you could ever imagine.

But once in a while that craziness is offset with a boy noticing a new pillow I bought, or them sitting down and enjoying a marathon of “Say Yes to the Dress” with me, or wanting to help pick out new fabric for my chairs.

{My oldest giving his input on chairs slipcover fabric:)}

How could I have ever been a mom of anything but my three sons?

Happy early Mother’s Day to all of the moms, soon to be moms, and those future moms out there. May God bless you with wonderful things you could never have imagined.

Natalie:)

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