Movin' On Up

Hey there!

I've said "Seeya Later!" to Blogger and got my very own domain name (oooh fancy!).

So hop on over to thekieffercollective.com and check out the new digs.  Seeya there!

Legging Lovin'

I don't know who ordered an early Fall for southwest Ohio, but let's just say I'm less than thrilled about it.  Didn't Summer just start?  Like a month ago?  I checked the temperature this morning at 7:45 and it was 48 degrees outside.  In mid-August.  In the Ohio River valley.  UN - HEARD - OF!

So naturally, I started digging around for long leggings and cardigans and the rest of my Fall wardrobe when I got dressed this morning.  I work from home, and we live way out in the sticks (if you're unfamiliar with where "the sticks" are, it just means I live 15 minutes from a city limit in any direction), so I don't always leave the house each day.  Or for a few days at a time.

So my usual outfit in Fall months consists of long leggings, tank tops, and cardigans.  And then for Winter, I add boot socks (on the outside, yo - 80's style) and chunky sweaters over the tank top or a long sleeve shirt.  I'm weird about sweaters touching my bare skin for some reason, so I always wear a tank underneath.

I have a total of 10 pair of leggings in my stash, mostly black, but a couple of charcoal grey and navy are in there for some variety.  Out of these 10, I have one pair - ONE PAIR - of black ones with cute gold zippers at the ankle, that don't have some sort of paint or bleach on them.  So I had to part with a few of the oldest ones this morning, and start looking for their replacements.

I'd like to get new ones that are suitable for wearing outside of the house, since I tend to wear them out in public even when I'm not working.  I mean, who doesn't love a black legging with a riding boot when there's a chill in the air?

My usual go-to places have been Old Navy (cheap and easily replaceable) or New York & Company (better quality and the sizes just seem to fit me better).

Forver21's sister brand Love21 is one of my favorite places to visit on the web.  I always find cute clothes that are more age-appropriate than what the regular Forever21 line offers, and the prices are just as good.  It's either order online or fight the high school girls for a dressing room at the mall's F21 store.

I found these this morning and am really coveting them:

The motorcycle-inspired knee panels and ankle zippers are too good to pass up.  Especially at $15.80.

I've also had good luck with the Simply Vera Vera Wang leggings at Kohl's. The fit is good, with a higher waist than the juniors' sizes that Kohl's carries, and it looks like they've added some fun colors this year.  The fabric is also more matte and thicker than what Old Navy carries, so there's no worrying, "Can you see my underwear through these???"  Plus, they're on sale for $15.99 right now, so these could be my new go-to everyday "work outfit" leggings.  I'm also loving this pair but I'm not sure if I'm brave enough.  Maybe those will be just to wear at home, too.

I'm also thinking of spicing up my out-of-the-house leggings by adding a pair of faux leather ones.  I'm not hardcore enough to rock a full-on leather legging (don't let the nose piercing fool you), so I'm loving the pieced-leather look of these:

They're also from Love21 and are just $19.80.  And don't worry, those aren't stirrups at the bottom - I'm not that 80's.  That's just a poor choice of footwear for the photo shoot, if you ask me.

And then Express has these, with a "scuba" faux-leather panel running down the side for a slimming, lengthening effect.  They also have them in variations with the panel on the front, and a full-on faux leather leg.

So there you have it, a few of my favorite options for my favorite pants when it gets chilly out.  I've got my shopping list ready and am ordering them soon, before I get paint on my last remaining pair.

Barn Quilt Update

Soooo . . .

Is it really almost the end of summer?

It looks like the last time I posted, I was thinking about barn quilt designs.  And no, it didn't take me five months to do it, just to write about it.

So here goes.

I found a website that explains the meaning behind some common barn quilt designs here.  I made one for our barn, and then another one for our Realtor, who actually just lives up the road from us on a chicken farm.  I chose "Hen and Chicks" (see below, left) for hers, and "Prosperity" (see below, right) as our pattern.

So I went to Lowe's and bought a 4x8 sheet of 3/4" thick plywood and cut it in half, so that I had two 4' x 4' pieces.  I started by priming them with two coats of white primer, so that I had a nice primed surface to paint on.  Since these are made to be hung outside, I wanted to make sure that the paint would adhere well.  I also coated them with a clear, UV-resistant and waterproof acrylic sealant to keep the colors from fading over time, and to keep the wood from getting wet in the rain.

I laid my patterns out in AutoCAD and then measured how long each line or section would be.  Then I got out my pencil, T-square, and ruler and make my marks on the boards for where each line would be.  I just used acrylic craft paint to fill in the colors for each section, with two coats total, to cut down on seeing the brush strokes and get even color.

So here is how ours turned out:

We did have to put it slightly off-center on the front of the barn, since we wanted to still be able to open the loft door (just to the left in the photo above).  Although we don't go up there much, we didn't want to block it in case we needed to use it sometime in the future.

Patrick climbed up the ladder and steadied it on the top step, while I backed up and made sure it looked straight from the end of the driveway.  I think I was more nervous than he was!  That puppy's heavy.  He mounted it by just driving some long nails right through it - we didn't bother with adding a hanger on the back or mounting a cleat to the barn to hang it on.  You can't see the nails at all, since it's up so high.

We've had several of our neighbors stop and ask about it, and have received lovely compliments from them.  I'm so glad that they like it as much as we do!  It makes our house easier for people to find, since we can just say, "Look for the big white barn with the blue, green, white and magenta barn quilt!"

Barn Quilt Ideas

Mr. Kieffer suggested that I make a barn quilt for our white barn a while back, and my first comment was, "What the hell's a barn quilt?"

This city girl had never heard of one, and then we went up to Columbus a few weeks ago, and saw a couple of them along the highway on people's barns.

In case you're as lost as I was, here is what he was talking about:



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They're always square, and range in size from 2' x 2' to 8' x 8'.  Most have simplified geometric forms, like in a traditional blanket quilt, but some people have gotten really creative with their designs and incorporated hobbies or motifs that say something about their farm or family.

I like these nature-inspired quilts:

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And some people have made theirs really intricate or brightly colored:

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We decided that the best size for our barn is 4' x 4'.  We don't have a huge barn, and that size works out to be half of a sheet of plywood, so it'll be easier to make.

I started working on designs today and came up with 12 that I like.  Some of them are just small tweaks to other designs, and I tried to do a couple (the last 3 on the bottom row below) that have a more modern feel.  I was going for a chevron / herringbone pattern. 

I'm still trying to decide on colors, too.  I was trying to pull colors from the cow paint-by-number, but now I'm thinking it should be brighter and more fun.

We'll see what I come up with.  And I'll post instructions on how I did everything once it's all finished.

Welcome Back!

Sweet baby Jesus, I didn't realize it's been since November that I've posted.  Don't think we've been spending all that time just laying around though.  No sir, not us.

So where did I leave off?  Did I even post about building the farmhouse table?  I don't think I did.  Click the link for Patrick's how-to tutorial on Instructables.com and go make yourself one!

So here's the table around Thanksgiving time when we finished it.

 

 

And here's another shot with the big cow.  Everybody seems to like the big cow.  In case you missed it, I posted a tutorial here on how I did it.

 

 

 

So that gets us up to Thanksgiving.  Between Turkey Day and Christmas, we didn't get much done.  Except shopping.  We always do all of our shopping starting on Black Friday.  It gets expensive, but I'd just rather not worry about it the other 11 months out of the year.

 

So we were trying to decide what to do with our long New Year's weekend and I was all, "Hey, let's finish remodeling the dining room finally."  So we did.

 

And here it is:

 

 

We used the same non-beaded beadboard we put on the chalkboard wall in the kitchen. 

 

HOLD UP!  I never even posted finished photos of said chalkboard wall.  Let's back it up a bit.

 

Before I disappeared for a few months, we left off with the chalkboard wall painted, but not conditioned.  Okay, so here's the chalkboard wall progress:

 

Patrick adding the non-beady beadboard

 

And here's a link to the wainscot we used from Home Depot.  I picked this over the traditional-looking beadboard because it doesn't have the center bead between the wider planky-looking parts.  Sorry that's a terrible explanation, but I like what I like and I know it when I see it.

 

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And here's a photo of it finished up with the chair rail and baseboard added.  This is pre-paint on the trim, and once we added 3 coats of paint, you totally can see any of the seams where the 3 pieces of beadboard meet.  (Can you find the 2 seams in the photo below?  I can!)

 

 

 

 

 

And months later, I still love that light fixture.  Such a good choice.

 

We did put a new outlet and plate cover on the wall - don't worry.  And we painted everything.

 

We've had fun doodling on the new wall.  Bob likes to admire our handiwork.

 

 

 

I even doodled our family.

 

 

 

And here's the whole wall, with the trim painted.

 

 

 

So anyway, we decided to work on the dining room over the New Year's weekend.

 

Downward dog

We used the same Martha Stewart Sharkey Grey paint from Home Depot for the walls and the same Behr Silky White for all the trim.  In the photo below, you can still see the original triple bead wood trim in the living room and the brass spotlight.  Don't worry, those are gone now.

 

 

And here's what it looks like after we added the furniture back in.

 

 

We built a side table to match the farmhouse table so we could get rid of the old desk we had in there.  Here's a link to the Instructable on how we did it.

 

We also built shelves and stained them to match so we could display my collection of antique ironstone I started over the summer.

 

Shelves with simple black arc brackets

 

 

But wait!  Wasn't the big cow on that wall?  Don't worry - it's been relocated.  More on that in the next post.

 

Farmhouse style console table

 

In case you're wondering, the big photo of the stone lion is one I took during a trip to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC a few years back.  The white blob in the bottom of the photo is Bob Barker's tail.

 

Tiny Greenhouse

The tiny greenhouse, the plants and plant pots are all from Ikea.

 

 

 

 

And I finally got around to hot gluing some picture hangers to Patrick's antlers, so those got hung in the big antique frames.  The bench that I bought for the kitchen remodel in the Jasper house now lives in the dining room.

 

I used Ook brand hangers since we have plaster walls, and these are the only thing I've found that don't make hanging things a complete nightmare.  These are basically just an angled tack on one end with a blunt nail-type part that sticks out so you can hang things on it on the other end.

 

 

 

 

Then I hot glued a sawtooth picture hanger across the back of the antlers on the flat side.

And now they hang out (up).

 

 

 

Whew!  I think that's it for today.  At least I'm caught up to the last week of January.

 

We did get to the living room over the last couple of weeks.  I'll post on that sometime soon.  Like, not 8 weeks from now.