Farmer Country Club

I have done so many fun projects with architectural salvage. It's crazy to me that I haven't done a post on each and every one! I guess I can do a quick roundup. I have built 7 houses, renovated 1 and am in the process of renovating the second, oh and building another! It's a hobby and a business. My husband is the best land/lot finder in the state of Alabama. So, if you are in the market to build a house, he can find you a piece of property that will knock your socks off! Or you can just let us find it, build a house on it and then you can buy it from us!

Our first home was built in 3 months. Basic floor plan and not many extras. High gloss trim, maple cabinets and oak flooring. Don't get me wrong, it was great. We even had a bay window in the kitchen that overlooked the woods and it was perfect! Emma was born there and when she turned about 3 months old, we moved into our second home. The lot was bigger, the house was bigger and I got crazy with the paint colors. This was a big open floor plan, but again, not a lot of extras. John Connor was born here and a few weeks later, we moved into our third home. We had built-ins in the living room, slate in the kitchen, we even added on a bonus room so there was a cool, brick wall! All of these houses were build as quick as possible, live there a few years and find the next "best lot ever". The fourth house. Oh, that fourth house. I still think about the pool and the tennis court. You can see a little of the front of the house here. 

But, it was the antique bricks from Chicago, the beams that were milled into 5-6" wide heart pine flooring and the trough from France in the powder room that make me miss it. 

This trough was from France. We had a metal base built as a stand. 

As you walk in the front door, you see one of the beams that the we used to mill the floors. This one had a lot more paint on it and they talked me into sanding most of it off. I learned early on to go with my gut on things I like. The contractor for this new house will probably hate me. (wink) Those are the bricks from Chicago. You also see one of my favorite things to collect, foundry patterns. 

Walking into the living room, you will see a wall of doors that open onto the back of the house, but turn around and you will see the other side of that brick wall and John Connor's first deer hanging above the mantel. The ceiling was clad with hickory planks. You can see a smidgen of walnut trim that we used on both sides of this room. It was from a house built in the late 1800's. The mantel was a piece left over and you can see the gorgeous detail that goes all the way across. You can see a few more pics here.

Moving into the kitchen, we pulled out all the stops. The cabinets were custom built from hickory and we used a red stain for the top cabinets. I love the lead glass across the top, too. The bricks were split to create a veneer for the backsplash. You can see a small piece of red granite that was amazing. It is surrounded by terra cotta tiles that were in boxes in the bottom of a church basement that was being cleaned out. (jackpot!) We used the same hickory for the bottom cabinets, but used the bead board side for the doors and just a clear coat to enhance the wood. Our kitchen table was a piece of granite attached to the island. Lots of homework and creating happened at this table!

 The keeping room, where we lived ALL the time holds lots of memories. We sat in front of many a fire in this stone fireplace with that old beam as the mantel.

Ahh, the back of the house. We lived out here. The doors you see open up folding to one end. My kids were always in the pool and that swing? My husbands grandfather, Papa, built it for us! This is the best place in the whole house!! There is antique brick framing the arches and I can't tell you how many times we refinished that floor. It was not wood that should be outside!!!

 My bathroom. Oh, this place was a close second to favorite places in this house! That copper tub? Yes, please. I could sit there and read a book forever! The best thing about this tub is the water NEVER got cold! We used the hickory for the cabinets and the bead board on the ceiling. I love that crown molding, too. This color is a lot brighter in this picture than it was IRL.

 These pictures were from Instagram, so I apologize for the grain and the words! Our bedroom was 4 steps higher than the main floor of the house. I took this picture in the "sitting area" of the room that was level with the rest of the house. The banisters were literally found on the side of the road. Metal and the perfect patina. I had the railings made at a local ironworks shop.

John Connor's room was so fun!! We pulled out all the stops in here. The tin was from an old barn that was torn down from our camp house. We designed it around the size of this hand turned bed. 

I will have to dig up more pictures from the rest of the house. It was a lot of fun to build and I'm really looking forward to working on MoonGlow!

Cool Architectural Pieces

I went to one of my favorite salvage stores, Southern Accents Architectural Antiques,  today and looked around with a list. I was looking for leaded windows, tall windows..but narrow, newel posts or banisters, a table, a pull for a door on tracks, wood slabs for a coffee table, doors, corbels and picking up an M. None of these were for me....all for other people that know I like to find unique treasures and love to share them!

Some of my favorite finds today were smalls. Or parts of something.

Corbels always inspire me. This one was really big. I can see it as a shelf. There may have been two. If so, definitely could find lots of uses for these guys!

I saw this table online yesterday and didn't realize the size. It seemed bigger in the picture because it was shown by itself. With this adorable little, yellow car on top, you could see how small it is. It almost feels like a stool or shelf for something. It would be awesome as an island. You could add legs and a bottom with casters......(I really like that idea!)

 This creeped me out a little. I immediately thought of a crematorium.....or the slaughterhouse...eek!

Probably my favorite thing! Why didn't I bring this home with me today? How fantastic is the title Southern Queen?

Lots of new keys. I love to dig through the key drawers. These were all on rings and didn't lend themselves to being perused. I didn't ask if they were sold individually. That would be a good question. 

This is from a pulley. I just couldn't resist the HH. 

I bought a pull for the barn door, sent pics of windows and newel posts and brought home a giant M, took more pics of tables and slabs of wood. It was a pretty good day out searching! I know the newel posts worked. We'll see about the other things! 

Creek Party! is for sale

We started working on this house around 10 months ago. My husband can find the most beautiful pieces of property and then turn them into these amazing places to live. He really specializes in large tracts of land. I guess I should give you the deets...didn't really intend this to be a sponsored post. I will have to ask for compensation! haha

He owns his own real estate firm, High Pointe Properties. You can check out the website for listings  All of this to say, the Creek Party! house is for sale!! We are thrilled to put it on the market. We worked very hard to make this a place like none other in the state of Alabama. The cabin is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, full size loft with many amenities...one being, it's in the middle of nowhere!

An amazing photographer, Alan Matthews, came out one rainy Sunday and snapped some great pics. We have been trying to get together for months! We finally decided to weather the rain and make it happen. Didn't get any of the outside of the house, but you can see that here or here.

I love this view from the windows that cover the front of the house. The wood-clad beams and just enough wood accents really gives this house a modern, yet rustic feel. The rocks you see on the fireplace surround were pulled from the creek. You will see those on the patio in the back, too! The floors are reclaimed hickory. Possibly my favorite flooring right now. We just added a clear, flat finish to these so you could see the natural beauty of them!

When you turn around and look out the windows instead of into the house, you see this. Seriously, this is right outside! The color was probably enhanced just a tad since it was a cloudy day, but this captures the view perfectly.

Downstairs is very rustic. The ceilings in this bedroom are red barn wood and the walls are old bleachers! They are so fun and still have plaques and holes for the bolts. We put a set of bunk beds in this room and would probably put another set if we had them.

This bedroom has the view of the creek. It has the same red barn wood on the ceiling with a little around the walls to accent the natural barn wood walls. The doors were all saved from the same house in Hanceville, Alabama. The floors on the bottom floor are stained concrete. You can see a couple of shots of the downstairs living space here.

I was so thankful when I grabbed Connor for a shot of the two of us. I love this picture. We enjoy building houses together. We have similar tastes and when we disagree, we can usually compromise! 

I have always loved this screen door. It serves no purpose. I just love to look at the size and character of it! It will go with me to another house.....more on that later! ;)

Lucy Lockets Jewelry Stands

If you need a place to keep your Lucy Lockets safe, you need a vintage jewelry stand! Check out the Lucy Lockets link above to see the selection! I can work with you on size or any other specifics you are looking for!

HUGE thanks to Lori Gordon for the photos. She does AMAZING work.....as you can see!

Doors, Doors, Doors

Our house on Shades Creek, we call it the Creek Party!, was built using (mostly) reclaimed materials. I bet you can guess where I got most of those reclaimed pieces! I knew I wanted to use old doors in this house. We have a bay door on the back looking out over the patio, and a couple of outside doors that are new, but for the most part, they are all reclaimed. Garlan was taking down a house in his neck of the woods at exactly the time I needed doors! Good for me? Good for him! He had exactly 8 interior doors still in their jambs that I could get. The front door was also available. It was perfect and how cool for them to all stay together. They were like orphan doors that needed to stay together. I was going to be their new mom!

I forgot to mention, hardware was also included! This was meant to be, don't you think? I love this little plastic cover on this doorknob. It has character....so, it's staying!

 This is in the downstairs bedroom. You can see 3 of the doors in this photo. We used barn wood to cover the walls. The red is on the ceiling and when we ran out of the brown skins, we pulled the red down like a trim for the top of the walls. I was a little worried that it might make the ceiling feel like it was coming down on you, but it just adds dimension. I love the way it turned out! Sometimes, I just pull together what I like and hope it all works together. I can't believe how well these doors look. This room looks like an old farmhouse that was built in the 1800's. I LOVE it!

Ok, so the front door from the house kinda got taken from me. Not really, (wink) it was too sentimental for me to keep. The sweetest lady came by while Garlan was taking down the house telling him it was her grandmother's house. She was talking to him about all of her memories there and how much she always loved that front door. Seriously? I had to let her have it, right? She and I have become "friends" on Facebook and I am so glad she has that door. It fills her with memories of her childhood. I love my "new" door. I had to scramble to get one. Honestly, I'm not picky. Garlan walked through the store and sent me a couple of pictures of doors that would work and this cute red door made the cut! It adds a fun element to the front of the house! My nephew asked his mom why I picked a door that was so old looking! She just said, "That's your Aunt Lucy, she likes things like that!". The door opened the wrong way and instead of filling the hole and it not looking like the rest of the door, Garlan added a piece of hardware from an old pocket door. Ahhhhhh, it's my favorite!!

I didn't get doors for the pantry until the last minute. I wanted to find something really cool and different. I really wanted glass, but didn't look hard enough. Again, I called G and told him the dimensions I needed......he found me some cool red doors. I think these have about 12,000 coats of paint on them!! I left them as is, of course. They needed pulls and I had picked these cool brass ones up for my husbands office several months before. He never put them on his doors, so I stole them for the Creek Party! #perfection 

  There are a couple of sets similar to these on their website right now..... they won't last long! If you want to keep up with all the new findings at Southern Accents, you can follow their Facebook page. The inventory changes daily. I am heading up a blogger meetup next week sponsored by Southern Accents and Hometalk. If you haven't been to the Hometalk website. Go there NOW! You can thank me later! 

Birmingham Home and Garden Show

Oh man, that was a long week! I can't believe how hard it was to have a booth at the show. We started set-up on Tuesday. I was at the BJCC on Tuesday morning helping the guys lay the floor, decide where to put the doors and carpenter's bench. On Tuesday evening, back to the BJCC to meet Garlan and Michael to go over a few changes and where we wanted to add flowers. We are in the middle of the Gardens of the show, so bear in mind, we aren't going to win the flower category! I was up until midnight with Lori and Ashlee working on the brochure.....we still had a typo! oopsie, maybe because we were up so late? I'm sure our eyes were crossing! We did copy it from the website, but we should have read through that!

We had a few minor issues when setting up. Thankfully, Adam knows how to use a drill, saw and nail gun! I need a clone of him in my back pocket!

I think we have an amazing booth. I'm a little worried about being an architectural salvage company and being in the middle of the Gardens. The event planner assures me that she would not PAY to move! Ok, here we go. Wednesday we added the rest of the banners and all of the little things. Carpenter's pencils and small blocks of reclaimed wood with a Southern Accents logo stamped on them were giveaways.

A few of us "in" the booth. That's Daphney from Thursday, Garlan and I were there Saturday and Sunday and Michael stopped by on Saturday to check out how his flowers looked in the booth!

I was thankful to not have to work on the booth this night. Emma was trying out for cheerleader on Friday and I wanted to see her practice. I needed to feel good about her being ready! Of course, she was! She's a pro ;)! The show started at 11:00am on Thursday. Mike met me at our booth with the brochures. Garlan brought in a few things we needed at the last minute and the show got started!!

We were full force all day Thursday. There were lots of people waiting to get in before the doors open. I had so much fun meeting each person and telling them about Southern Accents. Thursday was Valentine's Day. I had no food and nothing to drink all day! Someone could've brought me dinner, don't you think? Daphney brought me lunch and I ate half of my chicken salad sandwich at 9:30 in bed that night! I was worn out and thankful I didn't have to work on Friday.

I did meet Heather and Mandy at the show Friday morning. They were running a little behind. I didn't mind hanging out at the booth for them. I ended up staying until around 1:00. Cheer tryouts were after school and I had to be there for Emma! She went through around 5:30 and said she did everything perfectly! I am always so proud of her. She works hard at cheer and tumbling and it pays off! After she finished, I took her to Taziki's, one of her favorite places to eat. While we were sitting there the results were in! SHE MADE IT!! We were thrilled! Being in Middle School has lots of lessons. This year a good friend that was on the squad last year didn't make it again. Emma was very upset and not sure how to handle it. I talked her into texting her on Sunday. I think it was good for both of them.

Saturday and Sunday are a complete blur. I was at the show at 10:00am on Saturday and barely remember being home until Sunday night! I do think the show was very successful. We got several leads and lots of email addresses! I think they are doing the Hunstville Home and Garden show......not sure if I'm going to make that one! I will have to wait a few days to decide!

 I was so glad to do this project. It was fun designing the booth and banners. I think it turned out gorgeous. We had lots of compliments and lots of interest in the store. I had a blast meeting so many people and giving them a better understanding of the company.

Just a few more photos from our booth. It should've won an award! We were on Fox6 the morning of the show. One of the news anchors broadcast live right in front of it!

All of this could not have happened without months of work! I know the store was pretty much shut down for a week working on the floor and the blocks of wood. Thanks to everyone that had a hand in making it perfect! It was all worth it, don't you think?

Hansel and Gretel Bathroom Before and After

This is my bathroom. Well, this was my bathroom before I moved in. See that light bulb? Yeah, that's inside the shower. I do love this wood that is on parts of the walls. I probably could have used it if I could have found more to match. Don't worry, I saved it all! I'm thinking picture frames and Christmas trees! These pictures were taken while the previous owner lived here. 

I also need to say, this bathroom is SMALL! Only one person at a time in this baby! You can see in this photo there isn't wood on every wall. We have a little plumbing showing and cinder block wall action. I really wish you could see that lamp. It's a Diet Mtn. Dew can. I love Diet Mtn. Dew! I totally could have used that lamp somewhere! He took it. :(

I called my handy man, Charlie. He's my brother and favorite handy guy. He doesn't enjoy my projects, but he does a pretty good job!! We decided just to do 1x6's on all the walls. We went to Lowe's a million times. There ended up being a lot of space to cover! We took the wall all the way to the ceiling and covered the ceiling in the 1x6 wood, too. I chose to paint the wood with Moonlight White by Benjamin Moore. This color is EVERYWHERE in my house! 

I found some old baseboard at a architectural salvage place in Chattanooga, Architectural Exchange. It is a great blue color! We took the baseboards and cut them in half to use as shelves. I also found some tiny corbels at Southern Accents to use a brackets to hold them up! 

Next, I went to World Market and found baskets to hold all of my essentials! (You can see my hairdryer sticking out! ;) The mirrors are small and hanging just so you can see your face. There isn't room for big ones! 

I love the way that blue Ball jar just pulls a small amount of color in and matches my key hole perfectly! It's a simple amount of accessories and it seems to make the space feel a little bigger! 

A wider angle shot so you can see how it all looks together....I had to stand in the utility closet to get this shot!

This is a lot smaller than my last bathroom. I can live with it, though. It's small and cozy and hey, who needs to spend a lot of time in the bathroom? FYI, I put my makeup on in my closet.....I'll show you that later! It's my FAVE place at Hansel and Gretel!

Architectural Corbels

I've always loved corbels. You will find intricate detail on many corbels and some will have no detail at all. I'm drawn to the more detailed ones. These are very popular right now in home decor. You will see them under top cabinets or under a bar top.  Check out some of my Pinterest boards for lots of ideas! I love to see them for shelving or as an entry table. If you can find them large enough, you can use them as a table. A friend of mine, Layla Palmer, you may know her from her awesome blog, The Lettered Cottage! She has just moved into a "new" cottage! I am going to love watching her re-do this cute house. She called me last week looking for corbels for a desk. You can see the post of her inspiration here. I found several options for her......but, none that were perfect! She has another idea for her work corner and I'm sure we will see it soon! I still have her on my  when-I-find-some-cool-ones list because I know she may need some for another spot and she has a friend looking, too! I really enjoy helping people find that perfect piece! My favorites are one-of-a-kinds. That's why I like architectural salvage stores so much. They have an ever-changing inventory and I  know that eventually, they will have that perfect piece!

While looking for Layla, I found a few loves of my own! Southern Accents has a few singles.

They usually come at a better rate. Most have a project that requires two. Me? I would hang a single one on a wall and be DONE! I may still add a couple of these to my collection! One may have my name on it...I need to check on that! I did notice after I had Garlan going all over the store taking pictures for me, these were featured on their facebook page!

 They also added these....I love these. I want to cut these and re-make them! Or just add to them.....

They have more simple lines, but I think in a kitchen they would be beautiful under top cabinets. Of course, you would need really high ceilings!! (not at the Hansel and Gretel house :()

This morning I get a text from someone with a 423 area code. Signed Tim. Woah....do I know a Tim? I couldn't think of one that would have corbels! I tell him I love them and he tells me he is in Sweet Water, Tennesse.......my MOM! Yay! I asked her to be on the look-out for me last weekend. She was on an antique junking trip of her own! I was so excited! I called her and asked if she would pick them up for me. Did a little dealing and decided to buy all 5! I know I can use them or hook them up with a new home!!

I did buy these last weekend in Atlanta at the Country Living Fair. I just got them out of my car this morning to take a photo. I have NO idea what I'm going to do with them! My husband would say they would be good fire wood! rude

A few other pictures of corbels. These are concrete. Can you say h-e-a-v-y!

These are from The Depot. They need a bit of TLC!

Do you like corbels? Have you used them in decorating? Maybe you have some in your barn, like me, and just haven't decided the perfect place for them!