Come and Dine

There once was a ten year old boy who was being raised, along with his brothers, by his grandmother. She tried her best, but she was disabled and times were hard.

Their tiny rented house was literally falling down around them and he would never invite friends over to play, because he was too embarrassed for them to see where he lived. 

The boy's clothes were too small and too few. There were no toys in sight, as these were only luxuries that his friends had, but never him.  

Until one day, a beautiful lady entered the house. Like a fairy godmother, she helped the family find a more suitable home. She cleaned it, mowed the grass, and filled the home with special touches.

The house was almost ready for the family to move in. When the lady asked the boy what he would want most in the house, assuming he would ask for toys and such, she was stunned by his answer.

His one wish - a dining table. 

His family had never had a table to eat on. He wanted to gather his family and sit around a table to have their meals, to laugh, and to share about their day. Mostly, to have a time of coming together.

That wonderful lady fulfilled his wish of a table, and in addition, a complete house of furniture and all bedding needed for the house. Some she bought herself, and for the rest, she worked and worked until she had enough donated for the cause. She even brought toys and clothes for the family. When the family moved in, they were incredibly thankful.

The little boy spoke few words, but you could see he held his head a little higher after that day.  And he gathered his family around that wooden table.

How long has it been since we've gathered our families? Held hands and said grace? Laughed and cried together?

Never underestimate the power of the gathering of a family around a dinner table, big or small, fancy or plain, especially in the eyes of a child. 

Or the magic of stopping our busy lives to notice someone else.

Love, 

Elizabeth

This is a true story that happened several weeks ago and Elizabeth has the honor of knowing the beautiful lady and the boy..  The pics are not the boy's dining room, (it's Elizabeth's), but can't you picture him gathering his family at his table? Go gather your people.  

THE PORCH AND A TOTALLY TUBULAR LOVE STORY

I know a few people that don't like their husbands. (I mean, I am a divorce mediator...). I don't know why this is or what to do about it, but I get a little teasing because not only do I love my husband, I really like that guy. I gush about him even. When I tell you our story, if you're rooting for me, you'll be a little on the fence about him but hold on until the end, it gets better. 

And by the way, the pics in the story are of my back porch, where Hubby strung lights as a surprise for me a couple of weeks ago, after we saw them at a resort and I casually mentioned that would look pretty on our porch.

Who does that? Isn't he dreamy? I'm still waiting on his permission to post his picture. He's cute stuff.

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN...

There he was, in his green and yellow tank top, white Puma tennis shoes and his brown, curly hair cut as close to a mullet as curly hair could get. I saw him across the crowded pizza place/arcade. It was the 80s and hair was a BIG thing. I'm not sure how he missed me with my huge Aquanet helmet of hair, I could've knocked someone out with my 'wings'  but he didn't notice me at first.  Oh yeah, it could have been because he was on a date with someone else.

Not cool. 

We had mutual friends and did finally get introduced. I was a little taken with him at the ripe old age of 14 and have never forgotten the day we met 31 years ago. He doesn't remember the day we met at Pepperoni's Playhouse. Not even a little bit.

Totally not cool, Mr. Right.

Apparently, my braces and huge bangs did not get his attention later either. I threw a going away party for my friend who was moving and invited him. Turns out my friend's older sister, ahem, age 17, also liked him, was it the curly mullet??, so we decided to let him pick whomever he liked better, if either of us, and we'd be fine with whatever happened. At the party, we sat on either side of him, and I'm sure he felt like man of the hour. In reality, he was a quiet, humble guy who probably felt a little uncomfortable with all this attention. But then...

That dude picked her. Even kissed her on my front porch!!

I know!!!

How was I going to eventually marry this guy if he keeps forgetting me and kissing other people on my porch??

So I admitted defeat and a few months went by. We became good friends and he'd tell me his girlfriend woes over school lunch. I didn't have any dating troubles at fourteen, so I was pretty interested in hearing about his. 

Finally, the day came when he realized the girl of his dreams was sitting right in front of him, in some cute, black stirrup pants. We'd laughed and shared enough lunches to become the best of friends. He needed a date to a Halloween party, and finally, it was me.  On our first date, he picked me up in a ratty gray Blazer, so rusty that you could see straight through to the ground in some spots of the floorboard. He drove a few minutes, then promptly ran out of gas, LOL., thankfully beside a gas station. On our next date, again a Halloween theme, we went to a haunted house where his little brother got hit in the eye with a rubber snake, so the date ended abruptly to take his brother to the hospital.

 It was a date with his little brother?? Yes, yes, it was, I took what I could get. 

Thankfully, he didn't view me as a curse, because really, we were pretty nervous about what could happen on date #3, but eventually, we made it to our third, uneventful, romantic date.

The back porch, the night of the surprise...before the fall flowers were added. Bear popped in the pic, reminding me that he also helped with the secret light surprise. He still reminds me every other day.

Eight years later (come on, folks, I was only 14 when this story started)...I walked down the aisle to the man who would become my husband, the father of my children and my everything. I knew many years before what it took him eight years to realize. I should've put on those stirrup pants a long time ago.

Very cool. 

Don't give up on your dreams, sometimes they are right in front of you.

And always wear cute pants.

Love,

Elizabeth 

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If you see Elizabeth out in public wearing stirrup pants, or any type of stretchy material of any sort, kindly return her to her home unharmed. She doesn't mean to hurt you in anyway, she just doesn't always understand that the 1980s are over and so is her ability to wear said items. Thank you. Love to all.

Bear's Bathroom and the Clawfoot Tub Confession

I had to confess something to the Bear, because it was the right thing to do. I told a Big Fat Lie to him and kept it going for almost two years.

I know.

Mother of the Year.  

It's about his tub.  You guys, I really wanted a clawfoot tub in the house.  It's just so vintage and charming and I love them. Since I have a bad back and I'm clumsy, the tub couldn't go in my bathroom, I'd end up on the floor trying to get out of the thing for sure. Our oldest son flat out refused to bathe in a clawfoot tub being all of 6'2 and kind of grown and manly and all. That left Bear no option. He had to have the clawfoot tub. He was 8 at the time and really didn't seem to care about design decisions too much. Score!

So herein lies the problem. I didn't buy a new clawfoot tub, it was OLD and GROSS.  Big time old and gross, like from a horror movie gross. A friend of mine was demolishing his old abandoned apartment building and offered to sell me a tub out of it. Unfortunately, Bear was with me when I went to see it.  He was understandably horrified and flat out refused to consider it.  Actually, I was a little horrified too, but I could see the good bones. Good bones matter! Eight year olds cannot see bones. They can see black crud. He didn't care that I'd gone to church half my life next door and our puppet ministry team used to have practice in the apartment where the tub was. He didn't see how awesome it would be to preserve something from Mom's past and recycle instead of buying new.  I wish I had a 'Before' picture but it looked a lot like this one:

Photo from Bathrenovationhq.com

So we left and Bear said, 'I'm NOT taking a bath in that tub EVER.' I secretly paid my friend for the tub and hoped for the best. I'd never had a tub refinished before so I had no idea what I was in for. Then the lie began.

'NOOOO, of course I'd never buy that disgusting tub for you, honey bun! Only a new tub for you!'

I felt pretty guilty about it but I'm pretty sure my Mom used to occasionally lie to me, so it's a generational thing.

I just blamed lying to my child on my mother? I really can't recall any specific lie that she told me. I think I've just thrown my morals out the window for a clawfoot tub...

I was thrilled when I found a guy about an hour away to refinish the tub. He came and picked it up, reglazed it and I even got to match the outside paint color to the bathroom cabinet color.  He mixed some sort of epoxy with regular Sherwin Williams paint. I really like how it turned out. I was concerned that it would chip (he even left me some extra paint - that I've already misplaced), so far after almost two years, there's a couple of tiny chips but nothing that bothers me. The price was reasonable and after pricing new tubs that are the same size/look, we saved a couple hundred dollars going this route, plus we were able to customize the color. Someone had tried to convince me that the old timey clawfoot tubs wouldn't hold heat and Bear would hate it, but we've not had that problem. Another bonus, it's surprisingly easier to clean than my other tubs because soap doesn't seem to leave a film on it like a regular tub.

He was suspicious at first though.  'Are you SURE this isn't that nasty tub from that house?'

'Baby, absolutely not. No, siree. Brand new.'

I know, I'm horrible. I confess, my mother did not make me say this.

Thankfully he also likes vintage looking things like me (unless they're gross). He liked that the tub was deep and he had a handheld shower, exposed plumbing and that his bathroom was a little different.

Bear's closet door.

Bear was born on the 13th, so it's our lucky number...

So, if you're wondering about Bear's reaction to finding out the truth, he was none too happy.  He was NEVER...BATHING...AGAIN. 

And then....he magically forgot.

I felt SO relieved to get that off my shoulders. Shew.

My version of necessities for a clawfoot tub.  Bear in no way approved this message. Have you guys tried those LUSH bath bombs???? Wowsa. Yes.

So I feel extra guilty leaving the story here, where the moral is recycle things from your past and lie to your children, so I must say, recycle but don't lie to your children.

Or blame it on your mother.

But if you need to put a gross clawfoot tub in their bathroom, I totally understand.

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Thanks for reading! I really appreciate all of you who support the writing of this blog. You're the best!

A Boy's Room- Bear's Bunkhouse

I found out Bear was a climber when he was 2.  I'd been occupied with his brother for a few and then I couldn't find him (I know, bad mom).  Then I spotted him, he was sitting on top of the refrigerator, eating out of a family size bag of Lay's potato chips. When I held out my arms to coax him down, he dumped the whole bag of chips on my head.  Turns out he's not fond of sharing me with his bro.

When we were picking out bedrooms in the house plan, Bear specifically wanted the room closest to his dad and me.  Right across the hall.  It was the smallest room in the house, but had tall ceilings, a walk-in closet and his own bathroom.  I decided since he wouldn't have much room in there, we'd build up instead of out, perfect for a climber!  

I was afraid to put in a twin bed because that I think Bear is going to end up a big guy and I didn't want him to outgrow it too quickly.  A queen would have swallowed up all the space in the room, and a full is the same length as a twin so that could still end up being too short.  Ugh.  Then I discovered another size I'd never heard of - an extra long full!  It's perfect, the length of a queen and the width of a full!  Who knew!  Sheets can only be bought online with no cute prints that I've found, but I can deal with that. 

My original plan (it only changed twenty times!) was to put in two beds end to end but two wouldn't fit.  Not even two twin sized. So I thought it'd be fun to enclose the top, put a ladder on the end and make it a bunk/playhouse area.  The two panels at the very top can be opened and the hinge can be put in a locked position so it stays open if Bear wants.  The bottom ones are stationary. 

Sorry no pics from the inside. Last time I was in there I got stuck and couldn't get down.  It took an additional ladder and two people to get me out.  Thank goodness it wasn't the fire dept.

I had a desk built at the end of the bed.  Sometimes it's a catch all, but it's great for all his stuff!  

You see that furby in the basket?  I dislike that guy. A lot. 

Same goes for the large drawers under his bed.  Huge amount of books, etc. in there!  And it stays hidden, hooray!

Shiplap is on the back wall behind the bed and desk.  I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed shiplap.  I love the look but had never considered the durability. We have it in our hallway leading to the garage also and it's great because kids can ramble down the hall, backpack, etc., hitting the wall and no problem, no damage!  Plus it's so easy to wipe down if it does get handprints or whatever.  (I'm usually afraid of the 'whatever'). Joanna Gaines knew what she was talking about!

I'm not sure where the obsession came from with the British flag, but obviously it's all over the room. I admit it's too much but there's a lot of cute flag stuff out there!   I found the rug on Etsy here (love Etsy!).  They had some fun handmade Turkish rugs to choose from and actually ship it from Turkey.  I was a little leery, wondering if it would really get here without my money mysteriously disappearing, but it all worked out. The only downside is it's a very low pile, so it's not super cozy.

The British flag pillows on the bed and desk chair came from antique shops but are new. The flag over the desk isn't quite the British flag but I stumbled across it in Texas at an antique nautical store.  I love nautical stuff and this place was unbelievable with old portholes, huge rope knots, etc. They had a ton of large old flags and they were only about $10 each.  I looked on their site, pieceofship.com, and they said they are running out of the flags made of the grain sack type material like the one I have, so I hope they have not upped the price.  A lot of them are nylon now but I believe you could still find some grain sack ones there if you are looking. (I've heard of them being used to reupholster chairs, how cute is that?!) Everything else in here is from antique stores, HomeGoods, TJ Maxx or Burke's and most are under $30ish each with a few exceptions. The office chair was an antique store find that I painted and it was also in the $30 range. I love to decorate on the thrift if I can!

Moving on....The ladder.  Y'all I couldn't resist.  Hubby thought I'd lost my mind.  I changed this room up a bizillion times until I thought the builder was going to wring my neck  :) Above Bear's room is a large bonus room, about 14' x 45'.  I talked hubs into finishing it for a guestroom/playroom for the boys.  I'm so glad I did because I ended up with more usable space upstairs and it doubles as a guest room.  Private with one exception.  There's a trapdoor.

I'd have a slide instead of stairs if I could, ...oooh and a hidden room with one of those bookcases that covers the door and only moves if you pull the light sconce... but a trapdoor was as far as I could take it, guys.  There's reality.  Called the Husband.  Who would actually like to pay for electricity and running water instead of a slide.  Sigh.  (In all fairness, he did think a hidden room would be cool, yet that darn factor of budget kept getting in the way).  I'm not sure how everyone in those Scooby Doo episodes afforded all those secret rooms.  

I'm rambling.  Back to the ladder and trapdoor.   

The ladder leads to a trapdoor in the floor of the playroom, so when guests stay, they are thrilled when Bear pops his head through the floor to say good morning!  It's always a little interesting around here.  When our foreign exchange student stayed in that room for nine months, we had to totally ban the use of the trapdoor.  Bless her heart, the relationship between Germany and America will never be the same.

The landing at the top just below the trapdoor. The mini ladder was added after the build when we figured out it was difficult to make it up through the trapdoor.  I really don't want to squish myself in there to paint it so I'm going all rebel and not doing it.  

The room from the landing. I didn't know if I was going to make it down from here.

Trapdoor in guest room.  Fun times unless you're the guest...

One thing that always got me about looking at pics when we were building is that I never knew the dimensions, so I never knew if the designs would work in my space. I'll end with all the dimensions just in case you are interested.

Our builder surprised me and came up with the design for the ladder himself.  

The ceilings are 12' high.  If the bed was lowered, this design would still work with an 8' ceiling height.

The room is 12'3" by 11'5", with the bed along the 12'3 wall.

The height of the platform where the mattress sits is 28".  Because of the high mattress, the end result was much higher than we anticipated and even I have to use the stepstool to get onto the bed.  Although it was a mistake, it's kind of fun to have a bed so high.  On the downside, later if it's used as a guest room (I anticipate Bear taking over his older brother's room at some point) not all guests will be thrilled with literally climbing into bed.  (Though these kind of people probably would not have appreciated a hidden room either, so I'm not sure we can be friends).  The platform of the upper bunk is at roughly 7 1/2' which leaves about four and a half feet of head room in the upper area. The desk is 5'4" wide and two feet deep.

I hope this is helpful for anyone building their own bunks or just a fun, quirky room.  We've had a lot of good times here so far!  

Elizabeth

Edited to add:   - I've had some questions about the lighting and floors.  The light fixture and flooring were suggested by a local designer who chose all the flooring and all but a couple of lights in the house.  Unfortunately, I don't have the brand name of the light but the floors are hickory.  If I come across the brands we used I will add them in a future post.

I don't like that furby guy either.

The Kitchen- What I Wish I Would Have Known...

Over the course of building a house, you learn things.  That your husband likes dark cabinets and you like light ones.  That he doesn't like wood flooring in the kitchen because he knows someday your dishwasher will leak and destroy your floor (he's a wise one, that guy), and that maybe you two are a good team because you can compromise and get light cabinets with a tile floor. 

Besides learning to compromise, we found out some things that I wish I would have know about the first time I built a kitchen about 18 years ago:

1) There are a lot of designers out there that don't charge you one penny to help design your kitchen if you buy the flooring and lighting, etc. through them.  Now, if you are like me and hear the word, 'designer', you automatically run away.  I'm thinking, hey designer lady, I buy 90% of my stuff at TJ Maxx and Homegoods (Oh HomeGoods, I love you) and there's no way I'm going to pay designer prices.  BUT I was pleasantly surprised to learn that some designers have many different price points.   A designer helped us with colors, flooring and any question we had and it was all INCLUDED in the price we paid her for the flooring and lighting.  It was also nice to have some choices shown to us that we wouldn't have known about otherwise. 

2)  I can't speak for everyone's experience, but hubby and I bought scratch and dent appliances off of Ebay with free shipping and warranties included and they have worked perfectly.  The appliances I wanted were not in the budget UNTIL I found this place.  I wish I still had the name of the business but I remember it was in Florida and I had the seller email me all the warranty information ahead of time so I could check it out.  The 'scratches' and 'dents' were all on the sides or places where you wouldn't be able to see them anyway and you would never know there was anything going on with these guys.  The only drawback I could find was that even with the scratch and dent cheaper prices, a cabinet front refrigerator is still a higher price than a stainless steel fridge.  I don't get it.  I mean you are literally buying a fridge with NO FRONT on it and having the front made at your own expense and it still costs more.  Say what???  They are also a tiny bit tricky to install, which I believe is included when you buy the fridge in the traditional manner, but obviously no little man is going to shoot through the internet from Ebay and install yours, so good times.

3) I'm not sure if this is all cabinetmakers or if we just lucked out, but there were several features I requested of our cabinetmaker AFTER he quoted us a price and he included all but a couple in with the original price of the cabinets.  Say whaaatttt?  Hooray!

Pull out sliders on either side of the stovetop and on either side of the sink were both included!

Also included was the extra deep drawer made to look like two shallow drawers (above) and the pull out shelves (shown below) which are in all the lower cabinets.

And now for my favorite thing in the kitchen......

A utensil drawer.  Yes, I'm a nerd.  In my old kitchen, I had one utensil container, bucket, whatever you want to call it, sitting at the stovetop.  It was so full that every single time I would pull out a spatula or whatever, every single utensil would fall out. Grrrrr.  And then the utensil drawer came into my life. 

I love you, utensil drawer. 

It's simply a pull out drawer built like a box with three holes cut into the top where the three canisters sit.  Although I am pretty horrible with tools, I'm picturing that this could be easily made in any cabinet with a pull out drawer feature. 

Ironically, the two items I paid extra for (darn you, Pinterest!) are just okay.  I had to pay a little extra to get drawers under the sink. The Pinterest version shows two full drawers under the sink.  By the time the plumbing, disposal, etc was accounted for under the deep farm sink, I just had this much space left for the top drawer:

The one reason alone to get a one bowl, deep farmhouse sink:  There are dirty dishes in there right now....but you CAN''T SEE THEM!!  I know, it's a dream come true.

The height of both bottom and top drawers are just ok, but not tall enough for dishwashing detergent or other cleaning supplies you'd normally keep under the sink, so it's just not worth the extra money if the room is limited.

The second item was the corner drawers, shown above.  Again, they are ok, but there is a lot of wasted space back there in the corner.  I'm really too clumsy for a lazy Susan (you know I'm going to knock something off back there and then have to stick my hand in that black hole area where I always wonder what's going to grab me from in there).  The drawers are shaped weird but if you don't need the extra space the corner provides, then go for it.  Really, the best thing these drawers are for are for freaking people out when you ask someone to open one and they get more than they expected.  Hehe

You know those daisies in the center of the counter in those jars?  Those are called,' Hey kids, go pick me some flowers to keep busy because it's summer and I'm losing my mind' daisies.  They may also be called weeds.

4) Open shelving was something that was also included in the cabinet price and I have been pleasantly surprised that I have liked this.  I don't like clutter and I'm not great at decorating shelves. Or dusting shelves.  The more I think about it, shelves are not my friend.  But these guys rate up there because they make it very convenient to grab frequently used items.  I just keep decorative items up there as well so when I take down some dishes to use it doesn't look like something's off or it's empty.  The downside is the Bear comes along and drinks Koolaid out of my grandmother's decorative teacups. Sigh. 😂

This is my first time having an island. It's about 4' X 7' which I have found to be a great size, no wasted space in the middle.  Maybe some day we'll even get bar stools, lol.

A couple of other things before I head out:  I once had a gas stovetop with a downdraft vent.  The draft from the vent affected the flame I was cooking with and it was very frustrating.  This time around I went with gas again but made sure to get an overhead vent.  Also, I took a rough inventory of all my kitchen items and made sure I had a place to put everything in the new kitchen.  Anything that was just taking up too much space that I hardly used I got rid of and thankfully I haven't missed those items at all.  Lastly, although I don't have any, I would seriously consider IKEA cabinets if there is a next time around.  I've heard so many good reviews about them and they seem very reasonably priced.

I hope this helps give those of you remodeling or building a new kitchen some ideas and maybe even save some money.  If you have some other tips, please put them in the comments section for all of us to use!  

❤️, Elizabeth

It's summer and there are kids everywhere.  I'm pretty sure they just used all of Elizabeth's dish detergent on a slip -n-slide.  She's happy because she didn't want to do dishes anyway.  I'm happy because so far they haven't thought to put ME on the slip-n-slide.

The Foyer - A Messy Girl's Best Friend

Someone just drove up the driveway.  Unannounced.  You glance around.  There's little boy's underwear laying in the floor (don't ask me, I just live here).  Dirty dishes are overflowing in the sink.  It looks like a wild party went on last night, but the only people here were you, the hubby and the kids.  

Please, for the love that's all good and decent, please don't get out of the car.

Well, good times.  They got out of the car.  Oh, shoot, they want to come in the house. 

But, guess what? For the first time in my adult life, I have a foyer. 

Foyer is also code word for:  STOP where you are, don't come any closer to the real part of the house, just stay right here, sister.  I'm neat, I'm clean, that's all there is to see.

That's right, take it nice and slow.  No sudden movements.

With that said, welcome to the foyer!  I'll give you a tour, but it stops at the boy's underwear, deal?

Below you'll see a snippet of the dining room and rugs which were inherited from my grandmother (the famous MomB). 

Is that a Hershey kiss wrapper in the floor to the upper left? 

Oh my goodness, it is.  Geez.  So much for the clean foyer.

To see MomB's buffet makeover, click here

The buffet is on your left as you walk in the door.  The ceilings are 12 feet and we had a hard time finding a mirror to fill the space, but we lucked out when a friend/antique dealer found this one. I love old, French style mirrors.  Old French style anything!

And I love having books all over the house.  Fake books, real books, poetry I'll never read, it doesn't matter.  I'm addicted to reading (except poetry, sorry) and would love to design a library in the house one day.  Considering we don't even have landscaping yet, it may never happen, but it's fun to think about.  ☺️

As you walk in the front door, the piano is on your right.  It was a gift to me from my parents when I was around 15 years old.  The house plan called for this to be the dining room but we changed things around so we'd have a place for the piano.  Did you know there aren't any house plans with a 'piano room' listed?? It was so hard to find a plan that would work with all the open concept plans available nowadays, so the dining room is now the piano room, the living room is now the dining room and the changes trickle on into the kitchen.  In a future post I'll lay out the original plan and show the changes.  In the first house we built I was so afraid to make changes to the plan, but I think all the HGTV shows gave me the courage to knock down some walls for this house!  I'm having Fixer Upper withdrawals, wish the new season would hurry along!

Did you know I get a piece of bacon if I lay really still like this?

So there you have it. Well, have a good one! I'm off to do the dishes and pick up whatever candy wrappers have made it to the floor so I can show you the kitchen soon.  Do your kids trash your house or is it just mine?? 

Wait a minute.  I think it was me that ate Hershey kisses in the foyer. 

Oopsie.

❤️, Elizabeth