Farmhouse Table Reveal

Did you forget that Justin built me a dining room table last year for Christmas? 

  

I never shared a sneak peek of the table, but I did show you these awesome cane back chairs I found on Craigs List. 

  

  

A lot of our home projects came to a halt when I got pregnant.  I just didn't have the motivation or energy to do much of anything.  But as soon as we got Lillie home, I've been back to my old self, hard at work on our home projects when I have a little spare time.

 

I busted my butt on this, but I finally got our dining room table and chairs finished!  Since both sides of our family are coming to our house this year to make it easier for us, I wanted it to be finished and looking nice for Christmas. 

 

 

 

I LOVE the way it turned out!

 

 

Doesn't our dining room and formal living look so elegant?  It looks like a real grown up house! Ha.

 

 

Those chairs were a beating to paint.  I didn't know it when I bought them, but painting cane is HARD.  But it was worth it.  Just look at those beauties.  I covered the green seats with burlap and really love how it looks against the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Old White.

 

 

Earlier tonight, we had our first of our family Christmases and it was so nice to be able to sit around the table together.  The table is roomy enough for everyone to have room to eat, but still have all the food in the middle of the table.

 

 

 

Don't you think Justin did a fantastic job?!  It is so beautiful and I love it so much!  It will be a family gathering place for years to come and we just might fill up all those chairs with little ones before we know it!  Ok, ok, maybe not all of them, but hopefully half ;)

 

 

From all of us here at the Harmon House-Justin, Jordan, Lillie, Molly and Dexter-we wish y'all a Merry Christmas!  We hope tomorrow is filled with lots of love, happiness, friends and family!

 

Linking up:
  



 

Our New Coffee Table

I've been wanting a new coffee table since we moved into our house, but it was one of those very low priorities on our list.  What we had wasn't bad, I just wanted something that was a little more our style. 

I knew I wanted more of a farm house style look and I instantly fell in love with this table from Shanty 2 Chic.

Isn't it gorgeous!  It makes my heart swoon.  I showed it to Justin and he said it would be no problem to make our own version of it. 

He drew up his own plans...can you believe that he came up with this?  It's so beautiful!

He used a dark walnut stain on the top and Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint on the legs in
antique white.

 

He also made the top slightly different by framing the entire table on top instead of only the sides.

 

 

I love it!  And it really pulls everthing thing in the livingroom together.

 

 

 

Wire Basket Love

Don't you love wire baskets?

I do!

I've got several around the house.  One of them came from my daddy's shop and I'll probably blog about that one some day, but for now, here's a pretty wire basket I found at Walmart for just $5!

Does that table top look familiar?  It should.  It's the red buffet I revealed last week. 

Yeah, that's right.  There is a Kinky Friedman book in my wire basket.  It's sitting right on top of my book of daily prayers.  Should that tell me something?  Ha. 

 I filled this basket up with things that I had around the house, keeping with the rustic  theme of the room. 

 I added a little mason jar, the unity candles from our wedding, and an old youth hymnal that my mama gave me a while back. 

Did I ever tell you the theme of our dining room/formal living room area? Well, if not, I'm doing a family heirloom theme.  I'm using decorations given to us or made by our families or that have some kind of family meaning behind them.  This hymnal is very important.  It takes me back to one of those silly sister moments when we went through this hymnal just a few years ago and sang all the songs we knew.  And that's right, baby...this hymnal is now turned to "Victory in Jesus" my all time fave.  Em will be so proud. 

 You can see the rest of the dining room when we do the big reveal of our table (if I can ever get those dang chairs painted!).  Ooh, I can't wait to show y'all!  We moved the table into the house this past weekend and it looks amazing!!

A Love Inspired Mantel

Valentine's Day is just around the corner and this year, I've decided to do a little decorating to celebrate!  I'm not going all out like I do for Christmas, but I thought having a Valentine's Day themed mantel would be nice and I'm going to decorate our dining room shelf too (pics of that to come when I'm finished.) 

O Christmas Tree.... O Christmas Trees!

Remember our tree from last year? 

I love this tree!  It's so beautiful.  We have it up again, but this year, I decorated the mirror banister with lights, ribbon that matches the tree, and poinsettias.  And we hung a wreath (given to us my Justin's super nice boss) at the top.

It's gorgeous!

AND, I was lucky enough to find a FREE tree on freecycle this summer.  So we have 2 trees this year.  The fancy tree in the formal living room/office area and a family tree in the living room!

 The family tree has miscellaneous ornaments on it like ones from our childhood, ones given to us as gifts, milestone ornaments like our first Christmas together, our first Christmas in our new home, etc.  I'm going to carry on the traditions of both of our mothers and buy/make ornaments for us and our kids every year.  But since we don't have kids yet, I bought Dexter and Molly ornaments instead!

What? These doggies love Christmas as much as we do!  And I needed an excuse to buy more ornaments to help fill up the family tree (got them at Dollar General for a buck a piece!).  Who wants to look at a sparsely decorated tree?!  Ok, ok, I admit it.  I'm kinda a crazy dog lady...both doggies have a present and something to go in their stocking.  But they can't be left out of Christmas!   =)


More posts to come-mantel and Christmas shelf decorations, an awesome, sentimental diy gift and lots more! 

Our New Nativity Scene

My first nativity scene was given to me by my grandma.  You can see it here.  I still have it and put it out on the coffee table again this year.  I also have a small nativity scene from Kirklands.  It's been really handy the last few years.  It looks a lot like my mama's, only on a tinier scale.  That's why I bought it.  The one my mama has was her grandma's so when I look at mine, it reminds me of Christmases back home.  It's perfect for a small apartment, but being in the house this year has really made me want a bigger nativity scene.  I wanted something special, like my mama's. I remember her getting it out every year and putting it on the back of the piano.  It just didn't really feel like Christmas until she got it down from the closet.  I was sort of feeling the same way this year.  I love the Willow Tree figurines and knew they made one so I thought I'd check it out.

 

Willow Tree actually has 2 different sets and they are both equally amazing.  

 

But they are EXPENSIVE.  So I was out of luck.  There was no way we could afford any of it.  Not one tiny piece. 

 And then I found this at Kohls.  And I was in love.  What was even better was the price-$30.  We could totally do $30.  So I brought it home.

 

 

 Ok, so I know the tree doesn't go with the nativity scene, but I needed something to go in that corner and it's cute!  It goes with the burlap nicely. 

 "We three kings of orient are..."

Love that song.

  One thing that this set has that Willow Tree does not are these inscriptions on all the dark parts of each figurine.  Can you tell what it is?

That's right...it's the lyrics to "Silent Night."

Get the free printable here

 And that makes me love it just that much more!

Christmas Table Centerpiece

Since my dining room table is so small (it's a 4 seater) I don't have much room for an extravegant centerpiece.  I have to go small and simple.  I saw this idea on pinterest and thought it would be perfect for our table. 

It's supposed to look like the candles are laying in snow.  The jars are partially filled with epsom salt.

  

  

 Instead of using a third mason jar, I decided to use a salsa bottle to mix it up a bit and give it a little more character. 

 To add a bit more detail, I topped each jar off with a rafia bow and wound this wire edge ribbon in and aroudn teh jars.  I think it turned out really pretty and goes really well with the rest of the decor in the room.

All I Need Are Some Corn Stalks...

 I've been making the outside of the house as pretty as the inside!

 

I love those yellow mums!



Mr. Scarecrow needed a friend so one day I brought home Mr. Ghost to keep him company.

Now all we need is the cool weather to stay!

Witch Broom Door Hanger

 Halloween is next week so I've been busy getting the house spookified for our party!

Here's a little somthing I made for our front door to welcome all the ghouls and witches that will be coming to visit next Saturday. 

DIY Wall Plaque

I love vinyl wall art, but I don't like the price.


$35 Etsy

 Source: etsy.com via Jordan on Pinterest

There are lots of DIY tutorials, but I don't own and can't afford a Silhouette machine.

Redefining C

So I decided to make my own vinyl wall art and I L-O-V-E (no pun intended, ha)  the way it turned out!

Wanna make your own? It's so easy!

I painted the sides of the wooden plaque turning the ugly gold to dark brown.

Then I applied a thin layer of Mod Podge to the top of the plaque.  I wanted to cover up "Welcome to our Ranch."  Not so big on western decor...

So I covered the front of the plaque with the pretty scrapbook paper.

Because my paper was too short to cover the entire face at one time, I had to improvise.  I covered the front as much as I could, let it dry and then covered the other half.  The tricky part was lining up the design so that it would flow nicely and the pattern wasn't too terribly off.

Then I got my brown paint back out and roughly swiped it around the edges to give it a distressed rustic look. 

After the paint was dry, I put the Dollar Tree vinyl wall art on top and Mod Podged the entire think to make sure it was all sealed up and protected. 

Isn't it lovely?

  Do you love my birds?  ::Swoon::  I've loved birds for a long time (maybe cause my nickname is j-bird...ah, old softball days) so I've been trying to incorporate them in the house as much as Justin will let me.  He hasn't said no yet! ;)

 So what do you think?  It cost me less than $5 to make this because I found everything on sale or clearance.  I've got a few more of these babies that I'm going to make for different parts of the house.  When I have a chance to get them finished, I'll show y'all how they turned out!