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.

 

 



Thanksgiving Planning (i.e. Holy Cow - Only 1 Week Left!)

I can't believe we are halfway through November already.  Just craziness.

The hubs' parents are coming from Illinois for Thanksgiving this year, so we have exactly one week to finish up all the kitchen projects before we actually have guests over.  My sister and her two kiddos will also be joining us, so the chalkboard wall's gotta be ready.  Here's where we are and what we've still gotta get crackin' on:

1.  Paneling for the chalkboard wall - We bought the paneling and trim last night and tonight we're putting it on, and then I get to paint it tomorrow night.  We have to wait until Friday to condition the chalkboard paint (which is just taking a stick of chalk and rubbing it all over, then erasing it).

2.  Quarter round for the toekick - I got the toekick painted yesterday and the trim bought last night, so we just have to put it on now.

3.  Make a window treatment for the naked window - I decided to make one instead of buying one.  I've seen some tutorials on how to do a Roman shade, which I like the look of and seem pretty easy to make myself.  Luckily, Sherry from Young House Love posted a tutorial on how she made hers just this week.

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Cute, right?  And I know I'll never need to use it functionally, since I want to get as much natural light in that room as possible.  That and the kitchen faces the pasture, so privacy's not an issue.

4.  Build a farmhouse table - We'll file this under "Patrick's gonna tackle" projects.  Tons of people are making their own farmhouse-style tables for around $100 (check out ana-white.com for several good plans), so we're totally jumping on that wagon.  Here's the look we're going for:

Pottery Barn Solomon Dining Table

And here's another view:

This baby's on sale this week for $1,699.00.  A steal, right?  We'll be making our own out of furniture-grade poplar.  Don't worry, I'll make Patrick write a detailed tutorial so you can make one for yourself.  The Pottery Barn version is 42" wide and is adjustable in length from 76" to 122" when fully extended.  Now that's a big bad table, and I would love to have one that size, but our dining room just isn't large enough for a table that size.  Our version will be 36" wide and 66" in length, which is just enough dining seating for six people.

5.  Cut and stain wall shelves for the dining room - We're making four 30" wide shelves with brackets for the dining room so we can display my ironstone collection on the wall.  I was looking for simple black iron brackets, and I found these at Lowes:

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6.  Replace the old outlets + switches in the kitchen, mudroom and dining rooms with white ones - Small job, but needs done.

So that's it for the home improvements that have to be done this week.  Thank goodness the hubs has Friday off.

In other Thanksgiving-related news, over on Brooklyn Limestone, Stefanie posted these cute woodland animal labels / tags to use for your Thanksgiving table. 

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Just download and print 'em out on cardstock and you're good to go. 

We're not having that many people over, but these were just too cute to not use.  That got me thinking about a whole woodland animal theme for our Christmas wrapping this year.  I'm going to use these tags and draw a faux bois pattern on brown kraft paper with a silver or a white Sharpie paint pen, similar to this look:

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I'll be sure to post the process and results when I start wrapping presents - after I start buying presents!

Finally, I printed out two recipes for the Thanksgiving meal this morning, both ones that I've never tried before.

Alton Brown's Best Ever Green Bean Casserole

and

Bourbon-Sweet Potato Brulee

I know AB would never steer me wrong, and green bean casserole can't be all that hard (can you believe I've never made it?).  The sweet potato brulee recipe has a couple of bad reviews, but I think that's from people who were thinking it was going to be an actual creme brulee, just made with sweet potatoes, which it is not.  It's mashed, creamy sweet potatoes with a brulee top.  Smoq, a local barbeque place here in Cincinnati, does a version which is Just. Pure. Heaven.  Can't wait.

DIY-ing Like a Boss

Thanks for that, Andy Samberg.

The hubs and I have been hammering out projects all around the house over the last week.  The best news?  The heat, AC and ductwork are finally installed!  After 5 full days of having dudes in our house banging, sawing, and crawling around (all while I'm still trying to work at home), we finally have roasty, toasty 16 SEER heat-pump goodness pumping through the house.  And take a look at this baby:

Isn't that sweet?  And other than the super-fancy (and super pricey!) Nest thermostats, it's just about the schmancey-iest thing in our house now.

Patrick built a 3' x 3' x 3' composting area so we can have nutrient-rich organic gold for the garden in the springtime.  He used 2x4 treated lumber for the corner posts, and wood pallets for the sides.

The brick building is the little church that's next to our pasture, by the way.

We've also been sticking it to the kitchen.  (If you missed the last post about our kitchen progress, check it out here.)

Here's an update on the progress we've made over the last week.

Look at that cute booty!

With the old boiler heating unit and fuel oil tank gone, we can finally start tearing out the old baseboard registers that are in every room.  We've decided that rather than trying to tackle them all at one time, we're just going to go room-by-room and "makeover" the entire room at once and remove them then.  They will just hang out and hid the disgusting part of the wall and flooring that's been covered up since 1958.  Yuck.  We found part of a deck of playing cards (all stuck together in a big playing card amoeba), abaseball card and a rainbow magnet behind the one in the kitchen.

We bought this big Dragor rug from IKEA on Thursday night, thinking that we'd just cover up as much of the ugly faux brick laminate as we could until we do the "real kitchen remodel" down the road.  (We bought another one for the mudroom, and you can see it peeking out in the photo below.)  And then we told ourselves, "Selves - you could spend a *little* more money and do peel and stick vinyl tiles on the kitchen floor and be way happier."  So we did.

Saturday morning we woke up and started peeling up lineoleum.

 

The thing that gets me most about pulling up lineoleum (we've done it before at the Jasper house) is the smell.  And thank goodness these people didn't have cats.  Gross.

So we made with the sticky (icky), and after we primed the now-exposed subfloor with self-stick tile primer, we started laying our tiles down.

Here's what we used.

We found it on clearance at Lowe's for $0.98 a square foot.  They only have the 18"x18" available online here.

We decided to be extra over-achievers and do grout as well.  I never imagined that they made grout for peel-n-stickies, since the whole advantage of peel-n-stickies is ease of installation and why would you want to add an extra step in what's supposed to be a quickie job?  Because it looks way nicer than just butting the tiles up against each other.

Patrick gettin' grouty

Be-yooo-tee-ful!

Here's a photo of the right side of the kitchen.  Please ignore the towels and miscellaneous tools laying out.  We're working here, people.

 

 

And here's the left side of the kitchen.

 

 

And here's another one showing the (currently naked!) window and sink area.

 

And we hung a new light fixture in here, and one in the dining room. 

Here's the dining room's new fixture:

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's simple and rustic and I love the way it looks with the big cow painting.  Here's the link to buy it.

 

Here's what we did in the kitchen:

Grayton Light - Buy it Here

I went with the one I really wanted for the kitchen (see previous post), and it looks FAB-YOU-LESS.

And here it is in daytime light, not illuminated:

I still need to put another two coats of ceiling paint on our homemade ceiling medallion (that's on today's to-do list).  We had to get creative on how to cover the big 16" x 16" square hole from the old recessed fixture, and I really don't like the look of the ceiling medallions you buy at the store, so we made our own.

We used 1/2" thick furniture grade plywood and 1/2" beaded quarter round moulding.

We used four screws to hold the plywood in place on the ceiling, and a pneumatic air nailer to attach the moulding to the plywood.

I decided to go with the chalkboard wall idea for the weird wall along the right side of the kitchen.  Rather than doing a chalkboard all the way to the floor, I decided we should compromise and do paneling along the bottom part of the wall.  It will add some much needed architectural interest to the room, as well as helping to break up the big span of black on the wall.

I used Rust-Oleum ChalkBoard paint - $9.67 at Home Depot - in the original black finish.  They have a tintable version, but I liked the idea of repeating the black from the light fixture in the paint color.

Since I knew we were doing wainscoting, I measured up 40 1/2" (allowing 1 1/2" for trim for a total of 42" - bar height) on each edge of the wall and drew a line so that I could only paint the area I needed.

It says to use a roller for best results, and since I always want the best results, I started with a roller.  The paint is thinner than regular latex wall paint, and it splattered all over the freshly laid, not even 6-hours old floor.  Cue the drop cloth!  So I busted out the 4" big boy Purdy brush and used soft, sweeping X-strokes.  I actually like the texture better with the sweeping, crossing brushstrokes than what a roller would have produced.

Bye Bye Sharkey Gray!  I'll use you somewhere else in the house!

 

I used a 1" angle Purdy brush on the edges where the ceiling and perpendicular walls meet the chalkboard wall, since I personally hate taping things off when I don't have to.

 

Here is the result after one coat:

 

That big ol' drip is from using the roller.  See why I switched to the brush?

 

It's dry to the touch after just 30 minutes, and you can do the second coat after 4 hours, which is where I am now.  Time to go do the second coat!