Antiques and Auctions, oh my

One thing Scott and I enjoy is hunting for antiques.  We have gone to antique fairs and stores far and wide in search for special pieces for our home.  It's a nice hobby that we both enjoy.  Recently we have gotten into the local auction circuit which has been so much fun.  I will share some of our past finds and the newer pieces as we add them to the house.

We found this chest in Ohio and we love it as our upstairs coffee table.  The colors are perfect and its still in working order, which allows me a great place to store serving pieces which we don't use often.

 We got this industrial sign in Ohio.  I loved the coloring, the size and the reference to my hometown.  We carted it all the way home and hung it before Scott mentioned that "perhaps" the subject matter could be misconstrued in an "off-color" way.  For some reason that endeared it to me more...which is likely a sign of a mental imbalance;)

We got this chest in Ohio.  It's perfect in the entryway.  On top of the dresser is a really cool piece, I will get a better picture soon.  It's a time clock from Scott's grandpas old job- some 50-60 years ago.  We found it in the family barn.  His name is on it...its the coolest thing ever.

 We got this old school table in Ohio.  The chairs we got in Tennessee.  I painted them to bring some color into the space.

 This old scale came from Ohio.  I think it looks so cool in our kitchen.  We actually use it to store fruit-it only gets a place if we can apply some sort of function to it.

 This is one of my favorite pieces from our last trip to Ohio.  As you can tell, our last trip was fairly fruitful.  This is an old organization unit from a factory in the Midwest.  I use it to corral my knickknacks.

 Close up...its full of mostly Easter goodies this time of year.

 Scott stumbled upon this old tanning lamp while we were in Ohio.  He was able to turn it into a standing lamp.

You might remember we purchased this old nail bin, the summer of 2011.  In the midst of the wedding planning and remodel we knew we had to have it.  Because we are crazy.

We, Scott of course, split the nail bin into three sections.  He took the outer two sections and the top and is using them in his garage.  The third section we used with a reclaimed wood top.  I plan to distress the top further.  For now its great for book storage.

Out of Site, Out of Mind

I started planning to put my old house on the market in the winter of 2010.  I knew I wanted to do a FSBO and from all my HGTV watching I knew I needed to clear out closet and shelf space to make my house seem larger.  No problem.  I started packing things up.  And packing.  And packing.  I realized a couple of things:

1.  I have allot of "stuff"

2.  I needed a placed to store all the "stuff" while I put the house on the market

Scott allowed me to store the boxes in the garage.  I brought them over in batches, as I finished packing, and loaded them on a pallet he had assigned to the project.  The pile grew and grew until finally it looked like this.

Scott shrink wrapped everything and decided it would live on his storage shelves, at the very top.  He loaded it on the forklift.

And put the whole pallet at the very top of the storage shelves.  I think he had an ulterior "out of site, out of mind" plan.

The boxes stayed in storage until the summer of 2012.  Yes, I am ashamed.  I have that much stuff that I didn't even think about unpacking, and therefore, likely didn't need to begin with.  However-I was smart and didn't have Scott retrieve the pile until I had a garage sale planned.  I went through every box at the garage and was able to whittle the pile down to three boxes of things that eventually made their way back to the house.  I was pretty proud that I was able to cull down the load so drastically.  Granted-Scott did remind me a couple of times that I had lived without the stuff for almost a year and a half-how badly could I need it?

The kitchen BEFORE and AFTER...

Two years ago this month, Scott and I found this house.  We knew we could make it fantastic-we knew it would be hard.  We are still not finished.  But-we have accomplished enough and I have been remiss in capturing it.  Let's start with the kitchen-the before and afters are the most dramatic in this room.

 We kept the basic layout the same...kept the cabinets, and upgraded every other finish,

We painted the top cabinets white and the lower cabinets are a very light grey.  The color difference is very subtle...you can kind of see it in the pantry pic below.  We also mounted the microwave, added a backsplash and upgraded all the appliances to stainless steel.

Sink, dishwasher and fridge BEFORE

This was the view from the doorway to the dining room BEFORE

The view from the dining room AFTER.  We kept some of the upper cabinets open.  Most of the decisions we made in this house were tests to see how we like things for the eventual "forever" house.  I love the look of open cabinets but wanted to make sure we could keep them neat.  We have been upstairs for a year and a half and we have never had an issue.  I love it and am so glad we did a dry run in this house.

You might remember there were extra upper cabinets between the kitchen and dining room.  We took them out to open the space and put in a large peninsula to maximize counter space.

View from dining room toward the kitchen BEFORE

 
 First day of demo

Day three of demo...the floor removal

View from kitchen toward dining room once the upper cabinets were removed.

Same view today.  We left out one of the lower cabinets to leave room for the trash can and Molly's food.  This was a great decision for how we function in the space.

 This is the best total view.  The difference is almost too much to comprehend.  I think we brought this 1970 wonder into the current day, and then some.