Friends and New Places

Well, it's been a while since I posted - sorry no photos yet.  I've been back and forth to the new house, the current owners have nicely allowed me to have access.  Currently I'm staying with good friends who have been a great in showing me around and giving me pointers.

Can't wait to show you photos of the house in summer!

Brief Holiday

I'm currently visiting what is supposed to be sunny Victoria, British Columbia; however it's raining.  Oh well, great time to visit some antique stores!

Photos to follow!

Beautiful Home - Secret Garden Cottage

I've said it before, and now again I'm amazed at the creative women out there and how you all have been so creative (and frugal) with decorating your homes.

I love Janice at Canadian Cottage, she's so creative and such a beautiful home.  I follow her blog daily to see what she's been up to!  In her most recent post she's introduced a new blogger, Jojeana of Secret Garden Cottage, I am so inspired by her kitchen remodel - fantastic!  Go check both blogs out!

Kitchen - Secret Garden Cottage

I love the island, what a great find!  I have to say I'll be shamelessly copying her mudroom for our new farm house!

Mudroom - Secret Garden Cottage

I love love love bead board!!  You guys are filling my picture file with so many inspiring photos, I'm itching to get started soonest!

The countdown begins - 40 days till we start our move across country to the new farmhouse and new location of Patriot Acres!  I've only seen photos of the house without snow, can't wait to see it in summer in person!  Love that red roof and shutters ;)

Things are getting busy, I'm heading out to Victoria, British Columbia on Wed with our trusty big green machine (Ford F150 supercrew) to pickup my son's stuff (he's training with the army right now) and to visit friends before we move further away.

Soldier boy is staying home to look after the dogs, what a great hubby.  Though I'm not sure I can be trusted alone with what will be not a fully loaded truck.  You know I'll be checking out the antique shops and thrift stores, MUST FILL TRUCK to make the trip worthwhile!!!  I'll keep you posted if I find anything great! 

Ticking has arrived!

Well my 10yds of sage green cotton ticking has arrived!  I think I should preshrink it by washing it (in cold and low on the dryer) before I use it.  I'm still undecided as to what to do with it, curtains, pillows hmmmm.  I picked up a cute antique single size iron bed frame that I intend to use as a day bed in the new house but need a mattress for it.  So here's the plan.......Ikea mattress and make a removable cover out of the ticking!?  What do you think, isn't this cute!

Country Living

If anyone has any thoughts or ideas let me know!!

Baby

I just finished reading Gracie's (Sense and Simplicity) post about how her dog Juno found them and how they found her.  Thank you Gracie for giving that little girl a good home after her years of hardship.

We started breeding King Shepherds because of Baby.  Years before my husband and I got together, he heard about a dog that had been left alone on an acreage outside of town.  Seems the owners up and moved and left the dog fenced in on the property with nothing but a bowl of raw eggs.  Hubby (a huge dog lover) got mad and drove out there late after work and was greeted by this huge wolf like dog bounding out of the darkness.  Now my soldier boy isn't scared of anything, and well, Baby has that name for a reason (he came with the name as it was on his tag) so he brought Baby home.  Cleaned him up and nursed him back to health and they were inseparable.

See, Baby was a King Shepherd and even for the breed was a big dog!  Almost all black with some tan on his legs, 145lbs of muscle and when standing his head was just above my waist (I'm 5' 5") and he looked like a wolf.  What a boy though, like I said Baby was just that, the sweetest most gentle dog I've ever met.  Little babies could crawl all over him, senior citizens loved to hug him and he was the best thing that ever happened to my soldier.  See, my hubby has PTSD as a result of numerous tours to some horrific areas of the world.  Although hubby rescued Baby, that dog also rescued my soldier boy and gave him a reason to keep going in the world.  Thanks to Baby, my soldier boy was able to work on his own issues and the two of them became a therapy team helping others and when we were married, Baby was our ring bearer bringing us together.

Now as you can tell I'm writing in past tense.  Baby passed on to the Summerland two years ago at the age of ten after fighting and losing a battle with cancer.  Because of him we have Piper, Payton and Polar and have had two litters placed in wonderful homes.  Three of our pups have gone to special needs families with children with autism, and both Payton and Polar are training to be therapy dogs and Piper is working on tracking for search and rescue.  Baby is always with us, and is missed greatly by us all.  Below is a portrait of Baby done by Deb Bates, a talented artist who works in pencil crayon.

Baby

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Mothers Day

To All Mothers

Have a wonderful Mothers Day

May it be filled with love and sunshine

A little history and my own grain sack pillow!

So like everyone else out there I love the grain sacks but they are now a little out of reach.  Inspired by all that craftyness (my word) out there I thought I would do my own.  So I bought some rough cotton, trim and a pillow form....

Then I needed to figure out what I would put on it....hey what about my own family history!!  Handy, that I've been working on the family tree lately.  So my great-great-great-great-great grandpa, Robert Hays was born in Ireland in 1794 and at the age of 25 immigrated to North America.  After moving around a bit he settled in Huron county, Ontario, Canada.  Bought a farm, built a mill and had the town of Haysville, Ontario named after him.  So, what better......

No. 19 (cause I randomly picked it)

Robert Hays

Grain & Feed Mill

Huron   Ontario   Canada

1847

Now how to get the letters on the material??  Well after considering stencilling, iron on etc I ended up just printing my design from the computer with the font I wanted and traced it out as best as I could with the good ole sharpie black marker!

Pulled out my new sewing machine that I bought a month back, cause you know I'll be sewing cushions and curtains and stuff for the new farmhouse when we move!! (Remember I have 10 yrds of lovely ticking coming in the mail!!)

And after several hours, and tears (the thread wouldn't stay threaded in the needle - turns out the instruction manual had it backwards - ok I confess I haven't sewn anything since, well high school).  I also confess there was some choice swearing going on too (hey, 23 years in the army taught me a few!), hubby and the dogs hiding in the basement - I finally got it together, whew.

Here's the finished product, rough I know but it's my first one, now that I've figured out the sewing machine look out crafty world here I come!

 Have a great weekend everyone!

Doggy Decor

So, as you can see by the side bar we have dogs.  What you can't really tell is exactly how big they are!!

Mine!  I got it!  Mine!

Ha!  Got it!!

Throw it again!  please please please

Payton, our boy with the ball obsession is currently 135lbs and stands 30 inches at the shoulder at two years old.  His son Polar, is currently 125lbs and stands about 31 inches and the momma Piper is 87lbs and 29 inches at three years old.  So if my math is correct that is 347lbs of dog muscle in our current 1650 sq ft home.  Once a year when we have pups, add eight puppies and at eight weeks old they are approx 20lbs each of squirmy, cuddly, active energy!!!

So as much as I love the trend of light bright white decor....well it just ain't happening around here!  Everything I plan for the house must have dogs in mind.  Every upolstered piece has a slip cover (definately not white) I've found that microsuede almost repels dog hair.  I'm in love with all those beautiful coffee tables displaying unique pretty items - yeah right not here - one swipe of a dog tail and it's gone.  We have laminate floors (light coloured pine which I've always hated - but the house is sold so I'm not changing anything!) and we use area rugs.  Not the lovely natural fiber rugs I would like, no we have indoor/outdoor rugs so when required I can just take outside and hose off!!  I'm just so happy that there are so many options now with these rugs.

I do have a nice wicker laundry basket near the doors that holds dog towels, how lovely right?  No curtains puddling on the floor here, my vacum, Swiffer and mop are constant companion.  But we love these guys and they are part of the family, I'm willing to sacrifice some of my decor plans for big wet puppy love!  But maybe I can slip a white pillow in somewhere.....

Beautiful Blogs!!

It amazes me the ideas and beautiful interiors of all you fellow bloggers out there!  I've had such fun linking from one blog to another and each time finding another treasure!!  I found Samantha at The Nest, I love her home and projects (I'm attempting the freezer paper stencil technique right now!).  I also follow Rie at Home & Harmony, this morning she showed her chalk board, which is now my inspiration in making the freezer paper stencil for a pillow!!  See how this snowballs!!

From The Nest I then linked over to Morning T who is having a give away (which I would love to win, that little basket and pitcher...love it!).  She has such beautiful style, I'm in love with her home!

Ladies, thank you all for the inspiration and ideas.  I love how my list of fav blogs is getting longer and longer and I'm having so much fun visiting.  I hope that as I go along on this blog adventure that I too can provide ideas and inspiration to others.  For now I'm having fun writing about the rest of you!!

My Addiction

Another cold, miserable day here so it seems to be a great day to haul out all my old magazines.  Every so often I go through all my magazines and rip out the pages of things I love to add to my dream house file.  Then off to the recycle they go, but of course there are certain magazines I hang onto forever and don't dare rip out pages!  These are the ones that I re-read cover to cover and try not to drool on.

One of my all time favs is not a decorating mag, I guess it's a little of everything.  100% Canadian, Harrowsmith Country Life is one I save - everything from homes, gardens, cooking, hobby farm, chickens, solar energy you name it and all sorts of little tidbits in between!

Another fav is Canadian Home & Country but they've taken it out of circulation now, however they are still online with all the great country decorating ideas and awesome photos!

Canadian Home and Country

So I think I'll pour another cup of tea and settle down with the dogs, flip pages and dream.  Have a great day everyone.

PS:  Some of you are probably thinking, doesn't she work or is she independantly wealthy?  Well I haven't won the lottery yet, I'm just currently home on some sick leave after surgery - alls good - just enjoying some down time; back to work on Monday!

Dreaming of Gardens Past

I'm dreaming of cosmos in bloom

Pink Peonies

Green Green Grass

containers on the deck.......snow has melted from yesterday, but

still not what I've been dreaming of

but

soon

it

will all start

to

look like this!!

I will miss this place when we move...but I've already started dreaming of the next gardens

Where oh where did the sun go???

The calender says it's 4 May, but here in Alberta right now it looks like mid January!  We're in the middle of a snow storm!  Dogs are loving it, hubby is miserable all round.  I hear it's sunny and warm at our new house in Ontario.......

This is our back yard today in Alberta

My hammock - go away winter your time is done!!!

The boys on the deck, they don't seem to mind it much!

If I didn't mention it before, we haven't seen the new house yet in nice weather.  The photo in my blog title of the new farmhouse was taken in January during a bizzard when I was out to view the house when we were still thinking about buying it.   The picture was taken at the end of the driveway (while I was waiting for the tow truck as I got the rental car stuck!).  I love the look of the laneway, and if we love the house in winter it can only be better in the summer right!!?

Can't wait for spring to actually arrive!

I'm a fan of Urban Farmgirl!!

I've just become a fan of Urban Farmgirl, go on over and check her out - Mary, a woman after my own heart!  She's having a wonderful give away to announce her new blog and business, I wish her the best of luck with all her future endevours and I can guarentee I'll be following along getting ideas for my farmhouse!  I can say - first thing I'm doing is putting up a clothesline!
I'm crossing my fingers that I can luck into garage sales like the ones she finds LOL

Country Kitchen Decorating Dreams

Although it's a month from our move to our wonderful farmhouse I find myself dreaming night and day of how I want it to look.  I think I'm becoming obsessed, I pour over magazines, books, searching the web (that's how I've found some fantastic blogs which have given me wonderful ideas)  I stumbled upon Canadian Cottage, Janice has such a fantastic sense of style I hope she will forgive me as I plan to copy some of her ideas from her home.  She was nice enough to reply to my request for help in regards to the kitchen.

Sorry not a great photo, but you can see the cupboards and sink, currently there is no backsplash, it's just painted brown (yes brown) - do you see white subway tile???.  I love the sink and taps, the floor is the original maple.  You can see a bit of the original oak wainscotting under the window at right.  I'm not a fan of the cupboards, the style is fine but I feel it's too much wood and just doesn't seem to jive with the age of the house.  I was originally thinking of painting them cream, Janice suggested bright white and as we now have purchased all white appliances I'm going to follow her advice. 

Here you can see the oak wainscotting and the tin wall (the previous tennents painted it a copper colour! Ick).   I'm going to whitewash the wainscotting so that the grain still shows through, and paint the tin walls a nice neutral colour (Janice's advice again - thank you!)  Originally I was thinking a sage green but I'll bring that in with accessories instead.

Kitchen ceiling closeup - love it!!

Close up of the tin wall (painted copper) great texture

Antique light fixture and kitchen ceiling

All the light fixtures in the entire house are antiques that have been rewired.  I like the kitchen fixture but it just doesn't seem to really suit the room.  As I'm planning to put a kitchen island in, I'm thinking this might be the fixture for the space

3 Pendant Island Light from Barn Light Electric

can't decide between the gavanized or the navajo white

Speaking of islands (kitchen not tropical) check out what Rie at Home and Harmony did for her kitchen island, her before and after photos below.  WOW - now I'm on the hunt for a suitable piece to do something similar!  Maybe this is where I can use a sage green paint, and my 10 yards of sage green ticking fabric!!

Thanks to all you fellow bloggers out there for all the fantastic ideas.  I think I'll have to invest in a bib since I find myself drooling so much over all these great photos and ideas!  Once we're actually in the house I'll take more before photos, in progress and of course the after reveal shots!!  If anyone has any ideas, suggestions etc please please comment - all are welcome!

Moving On

Just got back from a friends place from a going away party.  That's one of the things about being in the military, you move and leave people you love behind, friends move all over the country and overseas.  My friend Josh and his family are on their way to Brussels, Belgium - what an adventure for them!  Another close friend, Erica and her family are off to Gagetown, New Brunswick; and of course we're heading off soon from Alberta for the trek to Ontario leaving close friends and co-workers behind. 

Always makes me sad, but the military is like a big family with cousins coast to coast and I'm sure I'll see them all again some day.  Maybe they can all come visit the farmhouse once we're set up in our country dream!

Here's to friends near and far!