Sunday, April 28, 2013

50 Year Old Trestle Table

My mom and dad were DIYers way back in the 50's and 60's. 
They bought a turn of the century Craftsman era home that needed some fixing up.
I told you how they refinished all of the wooden doors in this post here.
My mom loved shopping for antiques and restoring them. 
My dad helped with refinishing projects but he loved to build  furniture.
At some point in the 1960's he built the table that now sits in our dining room. 
He made it out of reclaimed lumber from a barn using antique plans.
The patina of this wood is lovely. The tabletop got refinished at some point in the 70's but since then we have left it "as is". 
Trestle table made from reclaimed lumber.
The legs are just beautiful. 
The table has two ornate pedestals joined with a horizontal stretcher with tenons secured with a wedge. 
It is a classic trestle table design.
The top is constructed of wide, wonderful boards that are dovetailed on each end into perpendicular pieces.
 I don't know what kind of glue he used but this has held up for over 50 years. 
You can get plans to make your own at 
www.popular mechanics.com. 
The finish on this table can withstand just about anything. 
We use it for formal dinners but I have spent hours and hours doing crafts, puzzles or scrap booking at this table.  
It has been in style in one way or another for almost the entire time I have had it.
 
Farmhouse tables are back in a big way. 
It is such a joy to have something with history. 

 My husband never got to meet my dad, but I think they would have had a great time doing stuff together. 
They say you marry someone just like dear, old dad. 
Read about some of Bill's projects
  here,
  &  
   here. 
I think the old saying is true!
I miss you, Dad,

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Pinterest-How Does It Really Work?

I have been trying to figure out Pinterest. I know how it works. Pinners basically create bulletin boards of beautiful images over a wide variety of subjects. Visual to-do lists. I love it for that. 
But...
when "Let's Add Sprinkles" got its first pin, I was thrilled because the image was darling and I thought it was worthy of being pinned. Nothing happened. The same thing happened over and over again. In fact at various times I tried to go searching for pins from my blog. I couldn't even find them through the search engine. I also tried having two browsers open when pinning something to see if I could find my pin on the main page and even on the subject matter pages. Nothing. I could never find one of my pins floating around. 
I know they float around because I see linkbacks to my blog from Pinterest. I have followed the link back and have seen my pins. 
I finally decided that that there has to be some sort of matrix or something to it. For instance, let's say that I am a big name blog or a big name site like Houzz or BHG.com that gets pinned all the time. I wonder if those pins don't get some sort of preferential treatment in a techie sort of way because of the site it is linked back to and the frequency from which stuff is pinned. I am just a little fish in blog world with not many pins, so my site isn't being featured on the Pinterest main page. My pins only float around to the people that follow the people that pinned it. Does this make sense?
I have tried to even google this question to see how or why something is featured on the main site pages. 
I have found no answers. 
I think there has to be something to it because if I search shabby and white for example, I see the same big name pins and pinners over and over and over. These same pins can be there for days on end. There may be some new ones but it is basically the same pins. I know that there have to be a million other shabby and white pictures out there. To see other shabby and white stuff, I have to change my search query. My theory (and it is just a theory) is that there are big name pinners, pins and link backs that are somehow mathematically getting chosen based on the amount of traffic they get on Pinterest. 
I noticed this with one of my pins. One picture of mine was pinned by a big blog. Thank you, Holly@Down to Earth Style. It got a lot of repins because that blogger has a lot of followers. The same picture pinned by another reader got no repins. I am assuming that reader doesn't have as many followers so not as many people saw the pin. Again, I tried a specific, detailed search query for my pin. I couldn't find it anywhere. There were not even that many images to choose from but most were from big name sites. 
Over and over out in blog world I read about Pinterest and the effect on a blog. One post I saw last week talked about how to take pictures for repinning. She noted how she went from 500 repins to 90,000 repins just by changing the picture. (I wish I could remember where I read this and I would give you credit but I can't remember. But if you have 90,000 repins you probably don't need credit from a little fish like me. ;) Let me know who you are if by some miracle you find this post.)
Anyway. I would be thrilled if one of my pictures got 500 repins. But it made me wonder about the images that get 500 pins in the first place. It brought me back to my theory. I think that has to be some sort of mathematical, statistical, matrix that Pinterest has going. The big ones get bigger and the little fish in the sea get a little more traffic but not that much. 
I think that is why some of the bloggers I follow have pinned the same picture several times under different categories so that they can increase their traffic and thus their chances of getting pinned. 
Please weigh in for me. I am still trying to determine the benefits of Pinterest as it is just one more thing to do. Sometimes there is so much to do just to publish a blog post worrying about whether pictures are pin worthy is one more thing. 
Do you have a theory? Are you pinned much? Are you confused by all the social media pressure on your blog? Help?
I was just wondering....
Katie 

  Did an experiment trying to find this image. I didn't see it.

Tray From Salvaged Wood

Just a quick project.

One of my favorite things to do as a kid was jump on the bed.
 We had these old, antique beds that had slats that went under the mattress the old fashioned boxspring that was actually a spring.
I don't know why but my dad hadn't screwed the slats into the bed rails.
When my siblings and I disobeyed the rule and jumped on the bed the slats shifted and the whole bed could collapse.
It made a huge crash on our hardwood floors. 
I had some slats in the garage left over from the settee that we took apart. 

 We aren't using this piece as a settee anymore because it was so dysfunctional but I want to preserve every part of it that I can. 
Bill was going to throw the seat away but I made him take the slats off of it for me. They reminded me of all those old beds we had. 
They weren't great wood but they were older, probably from the 50's when my granddad built his lake house. This piece is very sentimental to me because I slept on this when I was a kid at the lake.
I was tweaking the tablescape in dining room because I thought it looked sloppy. I wanted something instead of my silver tray in the center. 
I thought about a wooden table runner like I had seen on Pinterest but I didn't have any longer boards.

I remembered the slats and thought they would be perfect. 
They were already cut so all I had to do was trim the cross pieces. 

 I screwed the cross pieces into the slats from the back side. None of the screws show. The old knotty holes are from when it was screwed into the settee.  

I debated keeping it natural, but instead chose to paint it with CeCe Caldwell chalk paint.

It was still missing something so I went by the Ace Hardware for some handles.










Is isn't a table runner but it is an adorable tray. 
Loving it,



Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Happy 30th Anniversary

He lived in Lubbock and was going to Texas Tech. 
I was going to NTSU, now UNT.

We met because my brother lived across the hall from him in the dorm. They discovered they were both from Arlington so when they came home for Thanksgiving we all hung out. 
Bill says he fell in love with a photograph of me in my brother's room. 
I was dating someone else so we were just friends 
for about 3 years.
I knew when he called me on Valentine's Day of 1982 that something was up.
I was at home working on this quilt when the phone rang. 

It was a Saturday and I will never forget sitting on the floor with the quilt in my lap talking to him on the phone.

I started to entertain the possibility that we could be more than friends but debated back and forth about it. 
I didn't want to ruin our friendship
but,
 I had a crush on him. 


I headed out to Lubbock in April for my sister's wedding shower.
At some point early on Saturday, Bill asked if I would go to breakfast with him on Sunday before I headed home.
Source:http://www.visitlubbock.org/business/Dining//452
After the shower my sister, Karin, spilled the beans and told me that Bill was going to tell me that he wanted to be more than friends.
 I was completely nervous all the way to the Pancake House the next morning.
I don't think either of us ate a thing.
In the two months since he called me, I had already decided we should try dating
We did as soon as he got home in May after his college graduation. 
We were engaged by the end of September and married the next April,
30 years ago today.
I have been completely blessed to be married to my best friend.
It hasn't always been easy, and we have seen some valleys
but
 in the end our friendship, our faith and our love binds us together. 
Happy Anniversary to my Honey,
Katie



Saturday, April 20, 2013

Friday, April 19, 2013

Home Tour

Welcome to our home!
We live in a typical suburban tract home. 
Our house was built in 1990 and we have been working to remove some builder grade features. 
Come on in. 
This is the entryway.
To the left is the dining room. 
Down the hall to the right is the office/guest room.  


There is a full bath to the left.

The living room is to the right of the entry.


 To the left is my cute updated kitchen.
Beyond the kitchen is the sunroom. 
The laundry is to the left of the kitchen.

Let's head on upstairs.
Our gallery wall of family.  
The master bedroom is to the right.
The master bath remodel

The gameroom to the left. 
We have two bedrooms off of the game room.
Rebekah's room. 
Jonnie's old room. Now it is called the scary doll room. 
The kid's bath.
Finally the back yard. 

There you have it. 
Thanks for stopping in. 
Hopefully, this will give you a better sense of the whole house. 
Katie

Linking with,
Funky Junk Interiors