Family Treasures

When I was young my parents had an antique kerosene heater as a decoration piece in our family room for as long as I can remember.  I think they picked it up at a yard sale or antique sale, spray painted it black and had it sitting along the fireplace.  
When I was starting to think about decor for the new house I remembered that heater and told Guy I was going to start looking for one and then kinda dropped it into the brain bucket of things to look for.

Speed up to a few months later, we stopped by my Brother In-laws house as they were having a yard sale and we thought we would just say hello. After chatting for a while, in the corner of my eye I saw it, a old beat up kerosene heater.  I asked Guy to ask what they were going to do with it and they were going to donate it as no one had bought it.  I immediately said "how much? I want it".  Next thing I know my brother in-law is putting it into the car and says no charge, its a family heirloom!  I really didn't know what he meant so asked him more about it. He told me how it had been their grandparents heater, Guy and his, and how he could remember that they would use it every winter to heat their bathroom in their old one bedroom house.  Guy's eye lit up and you could tell he remembered it as well.

As you can imagine, I was honored to have something that was really a family item and not something we found in a thrift shop.  It means so much more.

I've taken the heater home, scrubbed it painted it and it now sits in our family room, although we don't use it to heat the house, we could as it has all the parts including the original wicks but I chose to instead imagine the warmth it provided to family so long ago.

Here it is when we brought it home:

2015-10-24 14.54.23

                 After some cleaning up:

and now painted and in the new house.

File Feb 10, 3 36 05 PM

 I need to find a permanent place in the house for it but so for now it sits in a corner until I can create a display of sorts with it)

The Blizzard of 2016

Two weeks ago I posted a photo of our house with snow talking about how Guy could never say it doesn't snow in our new county and then just a week later we were hit with the Blizzard of 2016..Jonahs.

One of the largest storms to ever cover Virginia we received 16 (approx.) inches at the house which according to the news and the neighbors is more snow at one time than anyone can remember. Luckily we had plenty of warning and I was able to get to the store and get what we may need (we weren't sure how things were handled down here in regards to roads) so we made sure we had necessities like dog food, snacks, milk, etc. to get us through at least a week. We also prepared to lose power as we were told that this does occur often with high winds which were also expected.

The storm was projected to start around 10:00 am on Friday and it was almost perfect timing. I was working at home so I watched the first inch or two come down through the front windows.

Solitude

#blizzardjonas#winterstormjonah #kingwilliam #manquin#howmanydaysuntilsummer#oldtreeinthewoods #olympus#getolympus #omd1 #microfourthirds#snowdayphotography #snowcoveredtree

First Snow at New House

Proof to Guy that it does actually snow here (we a major storm projected later in the week, up to 2 feet possible.) First snow at new house

Pinterest Compare #2 Master Bathroom Shower

I fell in love with this idea early on in the designing process and never wavered from wanting to have it in our new master bathroom. We knew all along we were not going to have any type of bathtub installed and we wanted to have a huge double shower as that had proven necessary in the past (after a few medical surgeries and knowing more were coming up). Here is the very popular Pin I designed after:

and our take when completed. You can't see the 2nd shower head on the far right but it is there

2016-01-10 19.27.27edit

I can't say this was easy to get done.  The builder hated the idea and really couldn't grasp what I wanted no matter how many times I showed him the picture from Pinterest but eventually he got it and the shower was framed in but then it was very hard to find the glass that would fit the insert and pass code.  As it was already framed we had to go for it and pay the higher cost of glass but still I would do it again..  

We both really love this shower and the openness really lightens up the room and makes it feel larger. This was a Pinterest design win for us :) 

Pinterest Compare #1 Dining Room Bookcases

As we were building and designing the house I spent a ton of time on Pinterest looking for ideas.  Two ideas in particular stayed with me throughout the entire design process and became must haves in the house.  Both were/are very popular ideas on the site and I still can't believe I duplicated them.Here is the first idea:Pinterest Link:  https://www.pinterest.com/pin/41658365278244544/and our take on it:This was such a smart thing, in my opinion, to add between the two rooms.  It provides a much needed break between the dining room and kitchen but at the same time as the Pinterest pin stated created functional storage.