Next on our tour of Lindsay’s home is her darling craft room!
This is where she creates all of the amazing goodies that she has sold over the years at our Cottage Sale. We love how she had everything so well organized, yet visible and easy to find.
Tag Archives: vintageThis month we were super excited to attend the Gathering of Friends held at Bachman’s Flagship Store in Minneapolis, MN. It’s one of our favorite events for inspiration. We wanted to share some of the fun ideas and creations we found that day. Hope you enjoy!
                                                                     
For the last 3 years, I have put the Oronoco, MN “Gold Rush Days” on my calender and informed my husband that we would be going. And for the past 3 years the event came and went and I promised myself that next year was the year. Well we finally did it! And as a bonus, we made it a couples getaway and took Kim and Brant along! We were only gone for 28 hours but it was an amazing time. Even our hubbies seemed to enjoy this shopping adventure! We started the trip off with a
He greeted us kindly and I reintroduced myself. I asked him if he was up to letting us shop around and he happily obliged. Our quick stop turned into a 4 hour picking adventure! It wasn’t all business though… our time with Jerome was full of great conversation. He shared memories about his childhood, his years of dairy farming, his love for junk, and also his love for sharing his junk with others. Jerome still gets up everyday and puts on his suede cowboy hat and heads outside to work around his farm. I hope that when I’m 92, I have even 1/8 of the drive that he has!
So after 4 hours of visiting, digging through dusty piles, rummaging through building after building, we payed for our treasures, gave hugs and said our goodbyes. We are happy to be able to share Jerome with you today! We’ll fill you in on the Gold Rush in our next post. Have a great day!!!
As an Interior Designer, I am constantly collecting magazines for inspiration. My favorite part of the day is when I get to sip my morning coffee while browsing at my decorating magazines. A while back I found this cute drawer at a yard sale for $12. This was a little more than what I’d usually spend at a yard sale, but the colors and petina of the drawer were perfect so I splurged. It was the perfect width to hold my magazines so we simply added 4 casters to the bottom which made it easier to move around. Works great and looks cute.
My cutsie country living room 13 years ago..
To say that your style evolves over time seems like a bit of an understatement when I look back at my living room 13 years ago. We were newlyweds with our first home. Our furnishings consisted of 90% hand-me-downs from our family and many garage sale finds. The “in” colors were mauve, sage, and taupe and the “it” items were birdhouses, grapevine, and ivy! This is what I tell myself at least so I don’t feel so ashamed of these before pictures. Please don’t judge!! The aerosol hair spary was clearly fogging my mind! I had a very limited budget back then which actually hasn’t changed at all over 13 years. I think I’ve just grown a bit wiser on how and where to spend my dollars. Here is my living room today…
It is one of my favorite rooms in my home. It is home to some of my most fabulous finds ever. Example, my Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic Slipcovered Sofa. This sofa retails for $3,600… I bought it off of Craigslist for $600, and it came with 2 slipcovers! I admit shamefully that I did risk my life for this piece by driving alone to Minneapolis for it. Surely you can understand that once in a while a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.
Some of my other favorite pieces in this room are my grandparents wingbacks. They use to be a
As you can see, I have a bit of a pillow addiction. I’m always swaping them out. It is my favorite way to change up a room for any season. I also love pillows with removable covers. 3 Boys can be very hard on pillows!! Our living room is simple, cozy, and calming. It is very child friendly (with an exception of the wing backs;), but really it works well for our family. Hope you’ve enjoyed this look into yet another corner of our homes! We’re excited to share several tutorials and recipes with you over the next few weeks! Feel free to PIN any pics!!
When it comes to my own spaces, I tend to really take my time. The plus side of this is being able to space out the expenses that re-dorating can entail. The downside is that my family and friends have to hear me obsess over the space for a LONG time, in this case an entire year! As my 3 boys have gotten older, they’ve outgrown many of their toys. For example, the darling play kitchen that never got used unless their little girl friends came to play, or their lovely art easel that again was really just for me:). So the idea behind my family room redo was that it be about our 3 boys, and their passion for the outdoors. They wanted a hunting/fishing theme so my goal was to give them that, but in a timeless and classy way. I also wanted to make sure that this space would fit the test of time as they matured into their teens.
Here are the BEFORE photos… It is a little embarrassing to share them with you. {Ever heard the saying… “A plumber’s toilet never works!”?}
This is what your walls look like after 6 years with 3 boys… PAINT~ I changed the wall color from a somewhat playful green to a more mature smokey blue/gray color {Benjamin Moore, Smokey Mountain}. For the accent colors I went with reds, grays, and browns that I thought would pop with the enameled trim and bead board. FURNITURE~ With 3 boys I knew wash ability was a must so I went with all slip covered pieces for the seating {Ektorp line from IKEA}. We took a metal wagon base that I had used for decor outside and attached a small wooden trunk I had to the top to make a fun, unique coffee table! The rest of the furniture was vintage, rustic, repurposed items that were already beat up and distressed. I figured anymore dings and chips in them would only add more character. *The only new furniture items I purchased were the loveseat and chairs from IKEA {3 pieces for $979}. I helped cover my expenses by selling my old sofa on Craigslist for $300! Other items I sold were the rocker, art easel, and play kitchen so that really helped out. ACCESSORIES~ I love vintage décor so over a year I collected treasures at yard sales and occasional sales such as old lanterns, suitcases, and misc. items that would add interest to the room. Fishing and hunting memorabilia also were a must for the space! Here is a simple project where I displayed antique fishing lures and a reel on an old piece of wood. {Click on image for tutorial}
A huge part of making a house a home for me and my family is to incorporate family of past generations. Here is one of my favorite items in the room… a simple IKEA pillow turned into a one of a kind way to display an old photograph of my Grandpa, dad, and uncle on their own fishing adventure. {Click on image for tutorial}
*The only new accessories I purchased were accent pillows {Ralph Lauren from TJ Maxx} and a lamp. Every other item was “junk” I had collected over the years.
And last but not least, my pride and joy! An old shop door we pulled out of by dads workshop! It was buried behind “stuff” and wasn’t being used so we pulled it out, cleaned it up and hung it on the wall, track and all. I’m in love with it!
So here’s one final BEFORE picture… EWWWWWW!
And after!
We hope you have a great week! Make sure to subscribe for JJ&Co updates so you don’t miss more fun projects we have coming up! We’d also be delighted if you’d “Like” us on Facebook or follow us on PINTEREST!
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Kitchens seem to have the most to organize, but the fewest opportunities for decorations. The counters are usually filled with practical things like toasters, coffee makers, utensils, etc… The kitchen also usually acts as “ground control” or at least it does in our homes. This is where papers pile up, post-its are posted, spills happen, and garbage bins over flow. For many of us, this is the room we spend most of our time in which makes it so important to keep it organized! If you have a kitchen that lacks cabinet space as I do, you may need to get creative with your storage solutions. For example, I’ve used an antique breadbox to store pads of paper, tape, rubberbands, etc. It keeps it handy and within reach, yet out of site. This allowed me to use a cute decoration on my counters but also get some great storage. I also have a set of retro sugar, flour, and tea canisters on my counter that hold nothing of the sort. The sugar can holds candy for the kids {ok I guess that’s sugar}, but the flour can holds camera supplies, and the tea can holds misc. cords/chargers/batteries. Think outside the box {or can} when organizing and get creative! My latest organization project was to tackle my paper build up. I decided to nail 2 cute magazine bins from IKEA to the side of a cabinet. They were the perfect solution to keep mail/school papers/etc. off the counters but within reach!
Here are a few more fun ideas we found on PINTEREST!
This is the easiest project…plus fun to get to the final product! We went to an airplane museum and saw all of the old war planes on display. It was fascinating…and of course I brought my camera. All I did for this project is to make my photos into a Sepia tone and size them to the frame sizes {I use Photoshop} . If you don’t have Photoshop, just order them as a sepia tone print and order in the sizes you need to fit each frame…the lab will do the work for you. My favorite online lab is MPIX.com. They use quality inks and paper…so the prints looks great and will last. Often, chain stores will have very inexpenive pricing for prints…I know this is tempting, but consider they cheap papers and inks they need to use to be able to offer those prices…they will not look good and/or last. Also consider ordering the print mounted..this means the print will be mounted on a hard backing. This is great for easy framing and longevity. The best glass to use when printing is called Museum Glass…it offers UV protection which will help your colors and photo last even if the sun is hitting it. I also added a vintage puzzle framed in the middle of the collage. You can really take photos anywhere for this effect…boats at a marina, trains at a museum or local track, etc.
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And speaking of magazines, we are super excited to let you know that we will be featured in Cottages and Bungalows Magazine this Fall!!! More details to come…
{In case you are wondering, the walls are painted Weekend Getaway 473 by Benjamin Moore.}
