Friday

Mudroom Tiny Bathroom Tour

At Bliss Ranch it's about the rocks.  I love boulders, and stones and the earthy element of the color variations.  When we built this house I also needed to be creative to keep costs down.


What we had a lot of - was rocks.  Most of them were in my head.

All those years ago there was no internet to get ideas from or show anyone what my vision was, so Brawn had to interpret what was in my head.

Hence the rocks diagnosis and a mudroom vanity top made of field stones.

The rocks are sealed in a non-glossy goo, and are surprisingly easy to keep clean.  For those times when real mud made it into the mudroom bathroom, it was by far more attractive on rocks than it would have been on granite.

Really this bathroom has no place to bathe in it, so technically it is probably a powder room.  But the kids did more bathing in there without a bath then they ever did powdering.


Wall to wall the bathroom size is 7' x 4' with a 10 foot ceiling.  The toilet is behind the door, upon which I had to sit to take some photos.  No I was not multi tasking.  This bathroom is at your service if you are in the garage, on the patio, or in the front yard. 

It is also the closest to my computer so the reading material is important, because who doesn't like to keep their friends close?

Kelly from The View Along The Way, just one of my many superstar blog friends who grace the pages of magazines these days and keep us company in our bathroom.

And then there is Cassie from Primitive and Proper who reenacted Kelly's photo shoot when she went to visit last weekend.  I told her to give Kelly a hug for me, then take baby Mila and run.  I also see after the magazine folks left, she moved her washer and dryer back where they were.



Kelly is right up there in the top 10 Bliss Ranch bathroom reading material. This book was a gift from my BFF when our youngest was born.  Little did she know it would become a family favorite and one we quote from often.

When our guests take a little longer using the mudroom facilities, we know why - it's because they are reading the book, and often times they emerge quoting from it as well.


It was hard to take photos in this room without a lighting set up.  And while I love you all I did not feel like setting up lighting.  Lazy is my middle name.  There is a big window directly above the guests sign that keeps the room private and bright enough for necessary things.


 I picked up this shoe size thingy at an antique shop called Mustard Moon... many moons ago.


The ceiling of this room is trimmed with these details.  Brawn made all the components in here - the trim, the vanity, the counter.  The wood is not oak, although it looks like it in these photos, it is hickory, as is the vanity.

This seems like a good time to tell you, that when I say Brawn made it, I don't mean he went to the lumber yard bought some trim, cut it and installed it.  No.  I mean he maaadddde the trim.  He cut all those grooves and round parts in the garage with his saw and special cutters from regular hickory boards that he picked up at a lumber mill, not a lumber yard.

I learned the hard way after initially installing all white ceramic flooring tiles, that the place for white was not in a mudroom that was home to six kids and a Great Dane who slobbered in that area, unless I wanted to do nothing but clean it, so we changed that.

What I needed was a mud colored mud room.

This bathroom is also home to the famous toilet tong toilet paper holder.


I bought this heavy metal piece of junk at Second Hand Rose in Buffalo Minnesota, where you can get your junk fix in a whole town of the best occasional sales. 

I was tired of this bathroom never being stocked with "supplies".  That isn't a problem any longer thanks to this holder which also hides the scratch marks in the wallpaper where a bored 4 year old child once started peeling the paper off.

This week I added the little sign above the antler towel holder.  Due to that, some dining room chairs being redone are going to be missing four large head tacks.  And I did not kill this deer, I rescued the rack from a garage sale 20 years ago while on the hunt to save money and have a unique towel holder.


It is time to paint the frame on this Schnapps advertising mirror.  I gave it a coat of bronze spray paint about 12 years ago.  Maybe I'll just sand it down a bit.


The emergency first aid kit I put together last summer in an old tool box, found a home in this bathroom as well.  It is the perfect location off the garage for first aid stuff since fingers tend to get cut often in close proximity.


The little ladder is from the same vintage 50's bunk bed as the front porch bench Brawn recently made.  Recall my son painted the whole set black when he used it for his kids.

When he built them new beds, the bunk stuff came back to me, so I distressed it a bit and gave the ladder a home in the mudroom bathroom - because Kelly needed a place to hang out.

And when you have a seat to rest in here, directly in front of you is the vanity mirror where you can adjust your hairstyle while you wait.  That IS multi tasking.


Linking Kelly in the bathroom up at:

Upcycled Bathroom Ideas @FunkyJunkInteriors

Summer Linky Party @ThistlewoodFarms
Share Your Creativity @ItsOverflowing

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Thursday

Christmas in July Link Party

 

 Christmas in July  

Link Party Announcement...

It's coming and so is the snow. HA!

Is Christmas the furthest thing from your mind right now?  
Has Bliss lost her every-loving-Winter's-finally-gone mind?  
I mean seriously, we still had snow in May for gosh sakes!
 
But you know me, when I'm invited to a party I go, and I've been invited to spend Christmas in July with Angie @ Knick of Time and Betsy @ My Salvaged Treasures.  So I'm growing out my snowy white beard and fix'n to get my ho, ho, ho going, just to put you in the Christmas mood.
 
The week of July 15th - 20th you can link up on one blog, be visible on all three.  *IMPORTANT*....... 
If you link up you will seem as crazy as me for thinking of Christmas in July and I won't feel alone, we'll be santas in a box together.


Old and new posts are welcome, but come on, get a jump on December and create ahead of time.  Your project could go viral and be the next big thing by the time the rest of blog land is thinking about Christmas.   Like melted snowman heads........
 
 
As I'm loving up your links I'll be pinning them on my Pinterest board and posting them on Facebook as well as bringing the awesome stuff back again in December.  I just won't let a good project, gift idea or food post be forgotten from Christmas in July.
 
And the best part?  All 3 hosts will share their favorite 3-5 links on July 22 , which just so happens to be my birthday.  Ummm hmmmm.  I'll be Plenty-Nine.  Again.  Or I'm having my 20th anniversary of my 35th birthday.  Then again I'm not so good at math that might be wrong.
 
Us hostesses would love it if you'd add the button to your sidebar and help spread the wordYou can even refer to me as Crazy Bliss if you want, but be kind to Angie and Betsy.
 
Here is the button again in case you wanted to take another gander at it.  
When it's hot outside come in to Christmas in July and get your holiday spirit moving.
Projects, gifts or yummies now.... link in a couple weeks.





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Friday

Supervising Rock and Mulch Moving



Lest you think I have been lying around for over a week doing nothing......

I'll have you know if need be I can supervise just about any project very well thank you, from one of the windows in the house.


I've. Done. Nothing.

But supervise that is.


I did plant some plants in the buckets I've been collecting.
Those are now hung from chain along a garage wall in the back yard.

And just like I said I supervised the hanging job from the window.

I think they'll look pretty when they get growing and fill in.   I always forget to water what hangs there, so maybe the extra deep buckets of soil will help these from drying out so fast.


This week the iris are blooming, along with everything else.
  
Spring came s l o w l y here in Minnesota.

The lilac bush below our bedroom window makes the room smell wonderful and this is my first year with blooming peonies bushes.


And this pile of rock in the driveway,
To replace mulch that the chickens scratch in and make a mess........


Turned this area.........


Into this...........

All while I supervised.

Everything but the old metal wheel was already planted there, just in mulch instead of rock.  HA... take THAT chickens, lets see you scratch and make a mess of these rocks!

So the rock pile while not gone yet, is much smaller now.

But then yesterday this arrived on the driveway.........


To re-mulch some areas that didn't get rock.

I will probably supervise the mulch moving too.

And the duckens are getting big.


You have probably heard that Google reader is going away July 1st, so if you have been following Bliss Ranch that way, now is the time to switch.  I would love to have you subscribe via email, or you can click the Bloglovin' box on my sidebar.  Bloglovin' is also a reader, it's the one I use to read blogs too.  I don't want to lose any of you, my followers are the best!

Linked up to:
Summer Inspiration Decor @TownandCountryLiving 
Share Your Creativity @It'sOverflowing



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Wednesday

A Raised Panel Door Gets Some Cottage Style

This month's edition of Building With Brawn, exposes what happens when the man gets a wild hair and just up and gives the door a new look.

 
There is no good before & after of this project, and honestly there is just no good photo at all.   I couldn't get it right no matter how hard I tried and I finally just said "whatever"!. 

(Ok, another honestly.... I didn't try too hard).

But I did try hard to at least find a before photo.  I did what any good blogger would do; I looked through nine-million-nine-hundred-ninety-nine-thousand photos to find one that had a glimpse of a before.

Before the dawn of time
Here is your before photo.  Yes those are ghost heads, you got a problem with that?  Look beyond their felt eye sockets and you will see the yellow-ish (mostly ish) door and the wood trim.

I don't know what happened, the door used to be stained a walnut color, and along the way it was painted.  It had been that way for quite a few years, well minus the ghosts, waiting for time, inspiration, or money.

Apparently inspiration arrived after Brawn made the grooves in the plain flat lazy Suzan project and wondered if he could do that to the door.

Groovy Grooves

The door and trim had already been painted white when inspiration hit him to start groove'n up the door panels.  

Brawn reasoned if his plan didn't work, then we'd have to get a new door.

When I finally grabbed the camera the transformation was well under way and I spent the time I should of been taking step by step pictures, interrogating Brawn on what he was doing.


This man formally had a thick full head of curly blond hair
Basically he made himself a straight line track to follow and took the router to the door, cutting grooves in each panel as well as the panels in the sidelites.  When done, he went back and sanded inside each groove till it was smooth. 

It was finished with another coat of white paint, and we ended up with a front door that has a bit of cottage charm for which we spent a big fat ZERO cash on.


The grooves are hard to see in the full door photos, but in person they are noticeable.  It's known as bad photography.




Sorry, weirdly colored over exposed spots on these.  Maybe it was the ghosts?

I like how the groovy door looks with the rocks. 

The last thing to complete the project will be to forge a nice black knob back-plate and buy some cottage style hardware which will include some sort of hinge straps.   I added that to the never ending list and then I will maybe put some effort into a decent full view photo.  

Maybe.







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Sunday

Pallet Look Plate Rack Thingies With Chicken Wire and Rebar

Once upon a time in a dining room far far away, (so far in fact one photo shows snow)
A crazy lady decided it was time to redo her dining room.

In November '12 she bought six chairs from craigslist, where she drove alone to a strangers home to see the chairs, and lived to tell this tale.

In February the walls were painted by the crazy lady's loving husband. 

A table was made, also by the crazy lady's loving husband.


Chairs, oh the evil chairs, were painted, painted again, maybe even three times - she has blocked that info out - waxed, sanded, tacks removed, seats recovered.

She tried to describe for the man of her dreams, the vision that was in her head for the redo.

He had a hard time recreating something he could not see in her head.  But he is a patient man and humored the crazy lady instead of telling her to build the darn stuff herself.

He labored in the melting snow.


 And wrestled chicken wire.

He built.  And rebuilt, to please the woman with the vision, because she did not like his first interpretation of what he could not see in her head.

He questioned her..... "you want steel rebar rods for what???  You don't care if they are rusty???".


He took her to the electrical department so she could find galvanized caps that matched her vision, for the rebar.  He did this probably because he was tired of trying to figure out what she was talking about.

And the patient man hung the faux pallet wood plate holders on the dining room wall, with their old rusty rebar and chicken wire, where they wait for the crazy lady to wax them.  Where they wait, to be accessorized.  Where they wait for her to finish the graphics for the six chair backs so the dining room will be complete.

The dining room is patient like the man.


But the crazy lady is loosing her mind over this.




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Tuesday

So 'Ya Wanna Aerate Your Lawn?


What is this big orange contraption?  Well let me just tell 'ya.......

It's called a plug aerator. 

Our lawn wasn't looking so great the past couple years and one supposed answer for that problem is to aerate it.  There are a couple different kinds of aerators, the plug aerator that pulls out hunks of dirt about 3" deep and chucks them all over your grass, or the kind with spikey things that leave little divots all over your yard.


The plug kind was what the rental place had - $50 for three hours - so that's what I got. 

Yes me.  I made the decision to aerate the lawn. 

Because it just made sense last weekend, with a to-do list of 30 things, to do something that wasn't even on the list.

And I also had to clean the dirt back out of those plugs to return it back to the rental place.  Pain in the you know what.   All the pressure washer did (FYI that's my all time favorite outdoor tool to use) was splatter me from head to toe with mud.


There were five of these big jugs that had to be filled with water to weigh down the big orange thing so the plugs could dig down into the ground.  Then you drive your lawn mower all over your yard and make holes in it. 

By the time I was done I was wondering why no one tried to stop me.

Don't drive on cement, or over landscape rock, or anything else you don't want a plug to put a hole in.


As each kid came out of the house, or in the driveway, I got the same question....

"WHAT did you DO to the LAWN?".  

I was asking myself the same question.

I'll tell you right now they don't think I'm Einstein.


THIS is suppose to help FIX my lawn?????

I read up on the process and the lumps should melt back in to the ground, but do they melt right back in the 3 inch holes they left?  I'm thinking no.  So will I be getting a big toe stuck in a three inch hole every time I run around barefoot?

 I am well aware what that looks like smeared all over my yard. 

The jury is out on whether or not aerating the yard will actually help it.  A layer of fertilizer gets put on, and some weed killer, so in a month I'll have to let you know if I see any difference I can directly attribute to the aeration. 

I'll also let you know if I get a big toe stuck in the ground.

Because nothing says "welcome" to a house like dirt clods all over the nice green grass.




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