Blue Ribbon Dresser

The booth has been crazy lately, so it's been hard to keep up with posts about the booth! I feel like several of my nights are filled with sanding and painting. Good thing I like it :) We found a cool dresser with fun details and decided to paint it royal blue. Here is the before/during picture:

This picture doesn't include the doors, but the top one has a cool decoration. Here are the after pictures:

While the details were cool, the knobs were not that cool. So we found these knobs at our local True Value and I think they really add to the dresser.

We also added a mid-century modern teal side table:

And lastly, here is what the booth looked like with these two pieces in it:

Stay tuned for me booth updates and fun before/afters!

Follow the brick road

When we moved into our house a couple years ago, there was so much renovation work to do on the inside that we couldn't even think about tackling the outside of our house. So this summer, we thought it might be time to focus on the outside as well. We started the garden and were inspired to work on other parts of our yard as well.

One of my favorite things about our house is our street. The street is in historic part of town with a brick-paved street. We also have a brick path that leads from the front door to the back door. When we moved in our flower beds were lined with awful wood beams that we hated. So we decided to tear them out and replace them with brick. Here is what our house looked like the day we closed:

I know the focus of this is us as happy new homeowners, but if you look closely, you can see the wood beams.

In this picture you can really see the wooden beams. Here are some after pictures with the bricks:

I feel like it adds character to the house and makes me excited to plant flowers in the spring!

This photo captures our porch swing that we love to sit out on and enjoy the weather!

We waited until the fall for this project because all of the bricks were on clearance. 

 

And finally, a cool picture of the bricks at night with the lights we bought this summer as well. Check back soon for another booth update!

 

Deco Desk

Now that the weather has cooled down, things have been moving fast at the booth. Even though this desk has already sold, I still wanted to share it with you. I love the shape of this art deco desk! Here are pictures of the desk:

We got the desk at a garage sale and it was pretty beat up. However, with some sanding and paint, I think it turned out pretty well!

Even though most of the pieces in the following pictures have sold, I still want to show you what the booth looked like with the red desk in it:

Check back for a post about a fall landscaping project we completed at our house and another booth update!

A Hearty Harvest

As summer turns to fall, we have been collecting the last harvest of our garden. It has been a great summer with a cornucopia of vegetables at our disposal. I won't lie and tell you that the garden wasn't hard work. It takes weekly maintenance (at least). However, it is incredibly rewarding to eat the food you have grown. Here are some pictures of our harvests over the summer:

This was one of our first harvests in the summer. We had so many cucumbers from just one cucumber plant!

Definitely a common scene in our kitchen. We had trouble keeping up!

And who doesn't love watermelon?

Since our kitchen was overflowing with vegetables, we decided to find a way to save them for a "time of need" a.k.a. winter. So we stocked up on Ball jars and looked up several canning recipes. We ended up making homemade pasta sauce, tomato soup, salsa, pickles and pesto.

Here is the recipe we used for the pasta sauce. I followed this recipe for the pesto, but I added a step of toasting the pine nuts so they would release more flavor into the pesto. I love to use this recipe with our homemade pesto! It is so delish and easy. For the pickles, we just bought a bag of pickling spices and followed the directions on the bag.The trick to canning anything (including diced tomatoes which we also canned) is to throw them in a jar with some lemon juice. Then, put the lids on an place them in boiling water for about 15 minutes to seal the jars. Then voila, you have canned vegetables!

And finally, here are some pictures of what we canned! If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

I'm so excited we will be able to savor our garden through winter! Stay tuned for a booth update.