Choosing Exterior Lights....OH the MaDnEsS!!!

Friday is here!! 

I'm smiling like a pardoned prisoner.

So, during this whole Farmhouse process, as you know, I haven't been exactly the quickest to make decisions on all the little details going into this project. My husband reminds me hourly...

 One of the decisions, however, was somewhat easier going that the others, and that was which exterior lights to choose for either side of the front doors and also either side of the garage doors.  I had done about 3 weeks of searching (yes, that's a small amount of time for my overthink-every-little-stinkin'-detail brain) when one day we were at Lowe's grabbing something boring and un-fun, like Pex or screws or something, so I decided to wander off like a child in a Lifetime movie...

....or a bored wife at Lowes...

...and I found myself in the lighting aisle.

 

That's when I spotted these lovely lights...

 

 

Image from Lowes.com.

 

Now, I know they're nothing fancy or unique per se, but I really liked the seeded glass and the scrolly hook at the top.  Plus they come in 3 different sizes...this particular one above is 20 inches tall.  I wanted to make sure that whichever lights I chose, especially for either side of our massive French doors, didn't look like tiny glow sticks from the road.  I've read that when purchasing carriage lights for your front porch that you should choose lights that are about 1 1/2  to 2 times the size you initially had in mind, because once you stand way back to look at them, they will look much smaller than you predicted.

 

...Then again, make sure you don't over do their size otherwise your guests will be wandering around your porch like zombies because they've been rendered incoherent and blind from the lights... 

 

 

I also really liked these lights from Lowes.  I had originally been looking for the classic, tall, rectangular shape like this guy below, and he also has the seeded glass, although its hard to tell from the picture.  The only downfall to these is that in the store, the glass looked kind of cloudy and dusty and not as crisp and clear as the picture you see here.  I was wondering if maybe the ones on display just hadn't been dusted in a while so, given my pain-in-the-ass inquisitive nature I decided to find an employee and ask...

 

....this was the look I got from the poor unsuspecting Lowes employee when I asked her if the lights were just dusty, or naturally cloudy like that...

 

 

 

...as much as I wanted to say, "ok, I take it that you don't have any freakin' idea, so please, don't hurt yourself..."  I just smiled and thanked her for attempting to have a clue, and I went on to find Nolan who I had lost somewhere between plumbing parts and the Walmart next door. 

 

...3 hours and one Missing Persons Report later, I found him, and we headed home.

 

Later that night I got online to further torture my myself and decided to turn to Houzz.com for some additional exterior light inspiration. After a couple hours, one bottle of wine, and a whole boatload of popcorn later, my fingers were so swollen from dehydration and massive sodium intake that I could no longer type, and I decided to call off the search for the night.  Luckily my last search had popped up a few lovely barn lights, and they peaked my interest.  Here's a few...


 

 

I like the copper accent on this one.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm a big fan of old school white enamel shades, so this one stood out too...but it's $440, sooo, unless I want to sell one of my kidneys on the black market, then I'd have to find a cheaper look-a-like...

 

 

 

This lovely, worn looking barn light is from Pottery Barn, so naturally I love it.  It is $189 though, which isn't near as bad as the white one above it, but we would need between 6 and 8 of them, so that can really add up....

 

SO, these are my top 5 lights or at least "looks" that I am going for.  If you have any opinions to help me make up my mind, I would really appreciate it....you all never let me down :)

 

 

 

It's funny, before we started building this house, anytime I needed to make a decision I was very resistant to outside opinions....

 

....I compare it trying to make a cat swallow a pill...me being the cat, and the outside opinion being the pill... You'd have to pin me down and stroke my neck just to get me to swallow the suggestion and then watch me carefully to make sure I didn't hack it back up...

 

But no, not now! I've opened my eyes and ears to the power of suggestion, and I embrace the help now wholeheartedly :) So thank you all for your help, without it I'd be wandering around our new front porch just shuffling my feet and making creepy, demented gurgling noises...much like the undead.

 

...in fact, I bet most zombies weren't led to their fate by an incurable deadly virus, oh no...they were merely undergoing new construction....

 

 

So, again, thank you for reading, and definitely thank you for helping keep me human.

 

:) ashley

 



 

 

 

Little Girls and Home Depot

So last night was fun-ish.

We had dinner plans with my dad and step-mom at 6:15 at Big Fred's...

 

In case you don't know about Big Fred's, well, shame on you. It's the best pizza in the city and it's commitment to '90's décor is nothing to laugh at...it takes a lot of effort to stay that dated. But like I said, awesome pizza, awesome salads... and I'm pretty sure our waiter asked me if I wanted my wine "to-go" so I'm going to use that to my benefit next time we go.

 

Anyways, before Big Fred's I had to run a couple errands for work, and one of the stores in particular closes at 4:30.  So we went as a family to avoid 2 trips into Omaha within an hour of each other, and figured we would just walk around Home Depot as a solid, focused, family unit for an hour and a half until it was time to head to Big Fred's....

 

...It got a little hairy at times...

 First stop, Wendys.  I figured we better get the girls some "tide them over" nuggets and a small fry to share while we walked around the store...

...They were gone before the automatic doors slid open and the smell of lumber and potting soil hit our faces...

...luckily my girls love Home Improvement stores as much as fruit flies love my wine glass...

 We headed for the paint aisle.  I had my Wythe Blue paint swatch from Benjamin Moore in hand and had heard that other paint brands can create that exact color for you, except in their brand. Well, Behr is cheaper than Benjamin Moore, so sure, why not?  When I went to tell the paint lady," YES! lets do this before I change my mind again!, I got distracted by a pretty, shiny paint sample booth with Earthy vintagey colors and thought, "WAIT! maybe there's any even better color!!" So I told her to chill for a sec and I went paint exploring"...

 

Now, the colors I was searching for are for the entry doors that are on either end of our wrap-around porch and our back deck going into the great room..

Here's the door going straight into my kitchen...

Just the border will be painted because the grills are inside the glass (a mistake made by whoever ordered them at the store...a mistake that almost made me crazy, but we have to pick our manic episodes, right?) ...and ignore the siding and trim colors right now, that's just the primer color...

 For those of you wondering, I decided to keep our Main entry doors wood toned...for now....

 

 

So, this accent color I was in search of is for "secondary entry doors"..

 

...by the way, did I mention we have 7 entry doors?! Oh yeah, its true. Hence the reason we will have a security system, our own personal cameras with a secret screen in our closet to watch any potential trespassers (perks of having an electrician husband).  Oh, and we have a really old, cranky dog and an old sawed-off shotgun that I found in the walls of our current home, Spider Manor.  No joke. I was doing laundry one day a few years back and in our little "under the stairs" laundry "room", there was an area of exposed stairs and wall.  It was dark back there...and spidery...so naturally I stuck my arm way back in there, and low and behold, I pulled out a really old, sawed-off shotgun...

 

...It was like the wardrobe to Narnia...except instead of a beautiful antique wardrobe, it was a dark, dusty hole in the wall, and instead of mystical creatures like goatmen and talking Lions, it was just a bunch of spiders and dead rolly pollys....

 

...Anyways, I thought it was a pretty cool find, and you can imagine my husbands reaction when I walked into our bedroom holding a sawed off shotgun and sporting a weird smile...

 

 Back on track...

 

...paint aisle at the Home Depot...

 

So I grabbed some paint samples with the help of my youngest daughter and her shoeless toes ( she kicked them off in the car and no one seemed to notice until we were in the store). Anyways, we ended up with random, toned down shades of Robin's Egg Blue, and a couple lovely, rich Cranberry red colors...

 

 

...laid out like this under bad lighting, they kind of blend in with the dated red and gray décor of Big Freds...

 

I'm kind of liking that greenish blue one in the lower left-hand corner.  I have found afterall, that when it comes to choosing a light blue, you want to make sure it has a little green in it, otherwise you're going to have that "baby boy nursery" feel. Or make sure it has a little gray in it for a cool, steely look.

 

Write that down...that may be the only helpful information you get from this ongoing random babbling of mine.

 

I really love those deep reds though too....

 

I can feel my "paint color decision making" induced brain-bleed acting up again...

 

Anyways, I grabbed my samples and met the rest of my group around the corner in the tile aisle.  We have been trying to decide on the tile we plan to use for the girls upstairs bathroom as well as our master bathroom.  I am 97% sure that I want to stick with an old fashioned farmhouse black and white hex pattern, like this lovely little gem of a bathroom...



image from Houzz

 

 

I've been told that I may grow tired of this black and white pattern and that I will regret it... I'm not so sure. I mean afterall, it's a classic look, and you can pair any wall color with the black and white floor. I'm really trying to stick with an old fashioned look for our home, and I think this tile is a good fit. Plus, it's inexpensive :)

 

So, I confirmed my love of the black and white hex and we moved on to the outdoor garden area to search for a couple big planters for either side of our big French Entry doors....but instead we ended up here...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My little ladies love them some riding lawnmowers. 

 

So I let my little ones man handle the lawn equipment while I listened to my husband give a speech on why we ABSOLUTELY must have a riding mower.  Obviously, yes, we do, I mean we own 10 acres and unless we want to let our cattle loose in our front yard to eat down the grass, then I guess we will in fact be needing a rider mower.  He also convinced me that we need one of the trailer buckets to pull behind it so that when I get around to making my raised garden beds, I can just toss the weeds in the bucket and then drive my little rider mower down to the pasture and dump it out....

...I'd never tell him, but this made my heart squeal with excitement....

....I'm going to need a big floppy hat and some overalls....

 

...usually when he's trying to talk me into something I just smile and nod while I think, "Do I want popcorn or Raisin Bran?" or, "I wonder if they'll ever be able to freeze people and then thaw them out 100 years later?" or, "I wonder what kind of crazy looking fish are in the Marianas Trench?"...  but this time he got me.  Now we have to add a rider mower to the list.  Oy...

So, after we peeled the girls off the mowers we wandered over to bathroom faucets which is when the meltdowns finally happened....it's inevitable when you are trying to keep two little girls happy at a home improvement store for an hour and a half...Luckily it was time to head to dinner.

We finished our eventful evening off by eating delicious pizza with the parents, losing $3 to the Claw game (those stuffed animals are wired down I tell you!), and watching a naughty baby run around the restaurant barefoot....yes folks, she belongs to me.

Oh, and my little Lucy had her very first ever Shirley Temple!
Her mama is so proud :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we couldn't leave Olive out of the excitement, so she got a little bowl of ice cream...

 

That's my girl. She's falling off her chair but she won't let go without that bite!

Again, mama is so proud :)

:) ashley 

 

 

Some random facts about Mrs. Farmhouse

Halfway to the weekend!

(it's actually Tuesday night as I type this. Conan is on and it's pretty good. I like Jason Biggs. I'f you haven't watched Orange is the New Black on Netflix, you should!)

I don't usually get that excited since I have to work on Saturdays and usually I have a lot of cakes to make, or a wedding to cater and although I love what I do, Saturday's do tend to be on the "stress related hair loss" and hyperventilating end of the spectrum as far as work days go, so you can imagine my excitement when I say that this Saturday, I have no weddings and no special orders!

YAY! I'm super stoked because I've had a handful of farmhouse related projects I've been working on and I've been dying to finish. So wish me luck :)

Anyways, until those projects are done and I can share them with you, and until someone gets another big part of the house completed for me to take credit for, then I don't have a whole lot of anything interesting to say...

...not that my posts are ever "interesting" per se, but I figure if you've actually taken time from your day to read this hullabaloo, then it might actually be a tiny bit engaging....

...i'm sorry by the way that you continually get your hopes up for something better...

Anyways, for todays post, I figured I would share with you some random facts about myself. 

Please, contain your enthusiasm.

I have found from personal "blog following" that I tend to be more engaged and interested in the blogs if I feel like I somewhat know the author...

...plus, again, it's a good way to take up a day's post until I have something you may actually be interested in, so this is what you're stuck with for today.

 

... don't get too excited...

The more I think about what I'm going to tell you, the more I'm boring myself.  I have also decided that since I have an unhealthy habit of over using ellipses (......) that I will make this list of random factoids in a bullet point format.  It'll be easier on all of us... especially the period key.

I would also suggest grabbing a snack, or a drink, or a magazine because I'm sure at some point you'll need something to make this tolerable.

 

My name is Ashley, and here's some random crap about me:

• I love red wine.
• I hate when I leave for a second only to come back to a fruit fly graveyard in my wine glass.
• I have a dog named Balou. He is old and grumpy and has a hip problem.
• I love Roseanne reruns.
• I love to cook pasta dishes.
• I have another dog named Koda. She is old and fat and has a fat problem.
• I love to make people laugh, or at least try really hard...sometimes I just make it awkward...
• I love Frasier reruns.
• I put cinnamon in most everything, sweet or savory...Cinnamon makes it better.
• I love any movie or tv show with Zombies...I've loved the undead since before it was cool.
• I'm a pessimist by nature. I'm trying to change that, but I don't have high hopes.
• I own a bakery and I've been told its pretty cute.
• I've also been told I make okay cinnamon rolls... given that pessimist in me, i'm just waiting for someone to tell me ,"HA! you've been PUNKED!"
• I love any movie with Meryl Streep or Diane Keaton.
• My favorite late night snack is wine and popcorn.... or Raisin Bran.
• I love white bedding for two reasons: 1. you can bleach it and it smells super clean, 2. you can see spiders easier.
• I love coffee mugs. A perfect mug of joe can change your outlook for the day.
• I hope to make it to Italy before I die...and France because I love butter.
• I collect cookbooks.
• Once the farmhouse is done, I will build a chicken coop. It will have 5 hens all with old lady names.
• I love Halloween maybe as much as Christmas, and I'm a little sad we don't have trick or treaters out in the country.
• I make outstanding mashed potatoes.
• I secretly love seeing celebrities get fat.
• I love Indian food.
• I don't like swimming or pools. I don't have fins or gills for a reason.
• I love winter.
• I hate summer.
• Sometimes after my youngest has fallen asleep at night I go scoop her out of bed and rock with her in the chair in her room.  Creepy? not until she's 13 or 14.
• I've never broken a bone.
• I've never sprained anything.
• I've never had stitches... or an eyepatch.
• I'm not a thrill seeker. In no way do I think bungee-jumping, skydiving, swimming with the sharks, or running with the bulls will make my life more full...I'd rather spend my time with my babies.  If I died because I just had to hurl myself from a bridge whilst attached to a rubber band, therefore missing the rest of my children's lives, then I be super pissed at myself.
• I can't dance.
• I can sing like Celine Dion and Kelly Clarkson...when I'm alone in the house.
• I love sushi.
• I love dirty martinis.
• I love a good novel, but I if I get distracted for even a day, I may not pick it up again for a year.
• I think Ryan Gosling is the bee's knees.
• I was obsessed with Jurassic Park when I was little.
• I sort of hope they clone a dinosaur before I die. I'm really sorry if it gets loose...
• I love medical oddity shows.
• I can't stand Dance Moms.
• I love Conan.
• I think baby toes are the cutest thing ever.
• I'm terrible at sending thank you cards.
• I'm equally terrible at getting photos developed.
• I don't keep up with the Kardashians.
• I love spicy food.
• I love '80's movies.
• I love hosting large holiday meals. the more work and fuss the better.
• I love playing board games.
• I do not like losing at board games.
• I believe in life on other planets.
• I hope to witness proof of it in my lifetime.
• I believe there are crazy amazing creatures still undiscovered at the bottom the ocean.
• I love going to the zoo.
• I'd love to have an old, lazy fat cat one day...the kind that takes naps on your chest and makes you sweat and purrs so loudly that you can't even fall asleep with them, so you pretty much just act as their mattress until they wake up.
• I love a back rub more than anyone else. ever. in the history of mankind.
• Dolls terrified me growing up,
• Dolls terrify me in adulthood.
• I cry whenever I think about my babies growing up.

 

...excuse me while I weep..

...ok, i'm ok..

 

• I think a box of Kraft Mac n Cheese can solve most problems.
• I love roses and plan to plant many of them at the Farmhouse.
• I think the solar system is absolutely fascinating.
• I love Pioneer Woman.
• I make pancakes, bacon, and cheesy eggs for my family every Sunday.
• I've learned quite a bit of Spanish from Dora the Explorer.
• I don't care for fireworks, at all.
• I make fantastic stuffing for Thanksgiving every year.
• I love slow roasting meat. 
• I think ticks are the most pointless creature on the planet.
• I think a good lipstick color or nail polish color is an excellent mood elevator.
• The older I get, the more nervous I get in airplanes.
• I love the color Robins Egg Blue.
• I would love to have met Julia Child.
• One day I will own a complete set of French Copper pots.
• My secret dream job is to be a spy.
• I love mushrooms.
• I sometimes wish I were a redhead.
• I hope to write a novel one day.
• I was totally Team Edward.

 

Ok, well I can't really think of much else...

 

I should probably wrap this up anyways.  Everyone else in the house has been asleep for a while now, and before I know it my little ones will be crawling on my face demanding Cheerios, only to then refuse the Cheerios and when I get up to fill my coffee, steal my bagel like damn dirty thieves...

 

 So I better hit the hay now so I have the energy to fight them off.

 

Plus my laptop is burning my legs.

 

I won't post this until morning though, so hopefully while you're reading this (bless your heart for making it this far) I'm eating a bagel...

 

:) Ashley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Farmhouse Porch Completion!

So first off, Happy Labor Day to you all.

I hope you are catching up on some much needed R & R as well as rehydrating from this weekends Football festivities.

I myself am enjoying this relaxing afternoon by snacking on some stale peanut M&M's from my husband's secret stash in his night stand drawer, and watching a little quality, adult programming whilst my children take their naps...

"Sharktopus" to be exact...

Loves me some Syfy channel.

Don't be too jealous though, my day didn't start out this awesome, oh no....  It started out with manual labor....

Looking back now, it's a cruel irony given today's Holiday...

Anyways, our morning started out by checking off one of the 17,342 "to-do's" from the farmhouse project list. We decided to work on the wrap around porch and back deck of the farmhouse, more specifically, cutting and attaching each and every stinkin' spindle that went on this thing....

Two words...

Holy Blisters.

well, one blister... on my right hand. I bet this is how compulsive gamers feel after a righteous Super Mario run...

I was personally a Street Fighter and Pilot Wings fan... ah, memories of a simpler time...

...many Pizza Rolls consumed between 1991 and 2004...

*flashback over, back to current day*

Holding an impact drill, impact driver...whatever it's called, for 3 hours straight is not as much fun as one might think... shocking, I know. Pressing in hundreds upon hundreds of screws into hundreds of porch spindles can only be compared to the thrill of a wisdom tooth extraction, or maybe jail time...

Sure, its fun for the first few minutes because you're still naïve to the amount of work yet to be completed. All you can focus on is the end product, and at about 50 spindles in, you're pretty confident that the end is in sight...

....until you look down the full length of the porch and see 700 miles of spindle-less railing...

My reaction was similar to this...

You then realize this is your fate for the next several hours, shed a tear, say a bad word or two, and get back to it...

Luckily, before madness took me,  I got into the swing of things and by about spindle #134, I was throwing those things up like a boss.

After about 250 of these skinny cedar bastards, I was done.

Here's the fruits of my labor, and yes, I attached EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM...

...just the front of the house...

...and a view from the front yard...

 

(sorry its so small...my computer only lets me enlarge photos about 3% of the time)

 

...Here's another micro-photo as evidence of my Bob Vila-esque awesomness...

 

...HGTV should give me my own show...

 

 

...southeast corner of the front porch...

 

...and part of the back deck...

 

 

...pretty exciting stuff huh?

 

 

Of course I can't take all the credit for this mind-blowing wrap-around porch...

 

 

Meet, DeWalter.

 

 He stuck with me from spindle #1 through to the end and never complained once.

 

Doesn't he look regal looking off into the distance? I know, I felt the same way...

 

...I picture him as the power tool equivalent of the Dos Equis Beer guy...

 

 

Oh, and my husband helped too I guess..

 

.....if you can really even consider making angled cuts at the bottom of each and every spindle, "helping"...

 

 

So, that's it for now I suppose...

 

 I'm going to scarf the rest of these extra crunchy peanut M&M's and enjoy the remaining suspenseful and utterly ridiculous moments of Sharktopus before my little ladies wake from their sweet slumber.

 

 

 

Until next time,

:) Ashley