Repurposed Old Window ~ Turned ~ Necklace Hanger

Thank you, Pinterest! I've seen several versions of this on Pinterest which inspired me to do my own. All of my jewelry has a nice home... except my necklaces. They have a drawer. Necklaces don't belong in a drawer. When you can actually find one to wear, it's so tangled with others that you end up going necklace-less.

My husband and I got permission to grab some old wood and stuff from a property that has an old house, barn, milk barn, and shed on it. They are all falling down. The house basically has no floor anymore, and it is dangerous to go in. We did, however, find some broken windows sitting on what is left of the floor. I grabbed them and took them home.

This is what the window looked like when I got it home:

Gross, right? It had nests all over it, chipped paint, one in tact window, one broken window, and one completely missing window, springs sticking out the sides, and filth galore. I strapped on the face mask and gloves, cleaned it up, scrubbed it down, sanded the loose paint, and took out the glass.

Then I painted it brown, nailed a bunch of nails an inch apart from each other, put a couple of picture hangers on the back, hung it on my wall, and draped my necklaces from it.

And there you have it! I spent absolutely no money on this necklace hanger! I used paint I had in my arsenal, nails I found in my old toolbox from about 5 or 6 years ago, and picture hangers I had in the same toolbox.

Barn Wood Buffet

My husband and I have been inspired by Pinterest. We see projects made from trash, and our imagination runs wild. I have always been a trash-to-treasure kind of person, but I never got into big things. All of mine were small hand crafts. Now that I got my husband (the one of us who owns a gazillion tools) hooked on Pinterest, we've been brainstorming together. We're trying to get our rustic-style house fixed up to put on the market so we can move closer to his son's school, and we've been doing many odd jobs ourselves. If you don't have a neatly laid out furniture arrangement, though, the house is just not going to show as good. So... we decided to take that matter into our own hands, too. Since we can't afford to go out and buy all new furniture, we're making it. We located a barn that was falling down. We searched until we figured out who owned it, contacted the owners, and got permission to take some of the wood.

We got the wood (and one sheet of rusted tin) to our house and stared at it for a long time trying to figure out what to make.

We came up with the idea, my husband drew it out and figured the measurements, and we began building.

Clearly, he's so good to patiently teach me what to do, and he not only allows but encourages me to use his tools.

We used new wood to supplement the old barn wood. We wanted the inside to be solid and sturdy with the new wood, and we wanted to save the old wood for the part that would be seen.

After getting the face and frame built, we cut old boards for the sides.

We took it down off the sawhorses to put the top on it. The boards we used for the top had other boards nailed into it that we had to remove so it would fit. We wanted to keep the look of the old rusty nails, though, so we cut each of them off on the other side.

We used a pocket jig to attach the frame of the doors together. Before attaching the boards, though, we used a router to cut a slot to hold the tin.

I used tin snips to cut out the tin, brushed it down with a wire brush, and sealed in the rust with spray polyurethane. Tim then attached the doors to the unit.

Drawers and I don't get along, so he built all the drawers and installed them.

I cut the tin for them, routed the area of the tin, attached the tin to the drawer fronts, and installed the pulls that I got 50% off at Hobby Lobby. He then put the fronts on the drawers.

And.... Voila!

We got it moved inside and put a few items on it. You can see some of the fresh cut edges. We'll have to weather them to make them match the rest of the wood, but we were so eager to get it inside that we decided we could do that once it was in.

You may recognize those shelves above it from a previous post. We placed it in our breakfast/dining area under those shelves, added a shelf inside each side of cabinet of the buffet, and filled it with all our small appliances that were cluttering up the kitchen. It's amazing what a difference it makes in our kitchen/dining area. 

All toll, we spend about $35-$40 dollars on this piece. It could easily sell for $800 or more. It took a lot of time to build, but we definitely had quite a bonding experience through it. We will without a doubt be building more barn wood furniture together!

Stay tuned for our new/old barn door dining table that we are in the process of building.....

New Mexico Roadtrip ~ New Year's 2010

In November 2009 my husband was transferred to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. We were engaged at the time, and I still owned a business. Therefore, I was stuck in Arkansas while he was stuck in Oklahoma. We wanted to spend some more time together before we got married, so we decided to take full advantage of his leave over Christmas. Since we had a big trip to Tahiti coming up, we decided to get away by loading up the truck and driving. We took our sweet little beagle/dachshund mix, Bentley, loaded up some clothes, a cooler full of food and drinks, an air mattress, a space heater, and a generator, and we started driving. As we got on the road my husband asked me which way I wanted to go. I thought for a second and said, "How 'bout west?" And so we did. We drove from Arkansas into Oklahoma. The sunset was beautiful as we drove through the plains part of Oklahoma, and we loved seeing the many windmills along the highway.

We drove through the panhandle of Texas and into New Mexico. We decided to stop there. We found a truck stop in a safe area, parked in the parking lot, set up a generator outside the vehicle, blew up an air mattress in the bed of the truck with a camper shell over it, and plugged up a space heater. We taped black trash bags over the windows for privacy.

Because it was New Year's Eve, we broke open a bottle of champagne with some styrofoam cups, and we rang in the new year in the back of our pick-up truck. It may sound redneck, but I must say it was the best New Year's ever!

The next day we hit the road again. We picked a spot on the map and decided to head to it. We were so excited when we finally hit snow, though, so we had to stop for a picture.

Then we headed on to our chosen spot on the map of Taos, New Mexico.

Unfortunately we were not as excited about Taos as we thought we would be, so we continued on. We came upon Red River, and we fell in love with it immediately. We decided to set up shop there for the rest of the day and night.

We decided to get a room in a motel so we could curl up by the fire and get plenty of rest for the drive the next day. We splurged on eating in a restaurant in that quaint little mountain town, too.

We got up the next morning and walked the shops in town a little more. We let Bentley play in the snow before climbing back into the truck for the road trip home.

The drive was just as incredible as the destination. We saw some beautiful sights along the way, and we frequently pulled over to take in the views. Hey... we were on no schedule, right? There was no reason to rush down the road.

Although apparently we really did decide to "rush" down the road without realizing it. We got the wonderful opportunity to meet one of New Mexico's finest on the side of the road. Tim was 40 years old at the time, this was the first time he had ever been pulled over, and it was his first and only ticket ever.

We continued on, stopping at each state to take a picture, and all the while enjoying the views.

So... an incredibly awesome trip, and it only cost us diesel for the drive, one night's stay in a motel, and dinner in one restaurant (which was very moderately priced).... well.... and one speeding ticket. But all in all, it was a trip worth way more than what we spent.

Mt. Magazine, Arkansas ~ November 2009

Arkansas is nicknamed "The Natural State," and visiting some of our parks will show you why. There is so much beauty in our state. You can make an incredible vacation by just staying in our state. Throughout the summer we like to visit lakes with our boat and camper, but in the fall you can't beat the beauty in the Ozarks.

In the fall of 2009 we visited Mt. Magazine. We took our cargo trailer with the 4-wheeler in it, a tent, and some camping equipment. Although it was just one weekend, it was without a doubt one of the most memorable trips I have ever taken.

The one bad thing about the trip was that the leaves had already fallen. I can't imagine how beautiful it was with all the fall colors.

Setting up our home:

Cooking in my high class kitchen:

The lengths I'll go to just to get a picture: