Coldspring, Fun with friends, recycled furniture, Repurposed Furniture, ship lap

An Unexpected Visit

A funny thing happened on the way to the antique store this week.

The Social Planner, her sweet husband, Mr. Math, and I took a quick trip to a town I am falling in love with, Crockett, Texas. The town has some of the most beautiful old homes, a walkable downtown, and great food. It also has some really nice shops, resale, and antique stores.

This was The Social Planner and my second visit in less than a week. I found something that I just had to go back for on our first trip and luckily it was still there when we wrangled the guys into going back and they were troopers. We found several more shops on Goliad Street that we hadn’t visited before and met the nicest people.

The unexpected visit on the trip started when we, four grandparents who looked like exactly what we are, walked out of an antique store to the roar of a chopper pulling out of the garage next door. It was beautiful. It looked like something off television and the rider could have been an actor from easy rider. As we stared at the chopper pulling away a sweet young lady walked out of the garage to tell us hello. She was so welcoming and pleasant we stayed to visit.

Robin and Ronnie own Filthy Gringos. They make custom parts, build custom bikes, laser cut designs in metal, and ship a lot of it to other places. They moved from Houston to this small town because they wanted a simpler life and lower cost of doing business and it didn’t really matter where they are located. I learned they bought the building two years ago that was literally falling down, rebuilt it, and got permission from the city to convert part of the building into living space. We visited long enough that we got to meet their son Oden and see the awesome home they are in the process of creating/finishing. As soon as I saw the space I knew they were my people. Reuse, redesign, reimagine. The building was originally a cotton gin and has 16 inch thick walls, at one time had a huge skylight, and still has the vault for keeping records and money when cotton was bought and sold. They retained as much of the original items as they could.

Welcome to their space: I am so sad I didn’t take more pictures. The entrance to the home is a wide barn door that was original to the building but I was so shocked she invited us in I didn’t get a picture. It takes a lot of courage to let a stranger come into your home with no warning and allow them to take pictures of the home.

The main living space.
There is so much cool and unique stuff there,
The kitchen area. That vintage sink is cool.
You can see some of the reused materials here.
There are no walls in the interior space. Rooms are divided with these repurposed bookcases from the high school which was torn down.

The bathroom was my very favorite. They literally turned the vault into the bathroom.

The safe door.
The yellow cabinet is so cool.
Ronnie did come back on the chopper while we were inside the home part of the shop and had a good visit with the guys.

Never pass up the opportunity to meet new folks. We got to see a super cool space and learn new things. if you get the chance, visit Crockett, Texas.

Blessings,

Karen

Coldspring, painting, workshop

The Workshop

We have had a setback on the sale of the house.  I am still expecting that Star Hill will sell in time for us to buy our dream property so I thought I would show you guys the space we will be using as our paint booth, workshop, and carpentry shop.

There is a three stall corrugated tin building on the property that will be perfect for our workspace.

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See the long building next to what will be the Guest Shed?

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It doesn’t look like much from the outside but looks can be deceiving.

We plan on turning the end bay into a paint booth. That means I will be able to paint and poly furniture inside out of the weather, away from bugs, dust and wind.  It will increase the number of days I can work on furniture.  After this very wet winter, that is exciting to me.  I did not get any pictures of the paint booth.  It is large and empty right now.

The center bay will be our carpentry shop or large tool shop.  The table saw, air compressor, compound miter saw, drill press, table sander, and scroll saw will be in this space.  This will be where the building and repairing takes place.  At Star Hill we only have one space and we are constantly having to wait for the cutting to be done before I can get out tools for assembly,  sanding,  or staining.  There is a glass French door in in the space with a separate storage space.  I am sure that the glass door will need to go but I like having a space that can be closed off.

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The end space that is now a welding shop will be the workshop space.  There is even a wood burning stove for my cold, wet, winters.

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We are so hoping that it works out.  It would be a dream come true for us to have this amazing space to put our own stamp on. Think happy thoughts for us.  Fingers crossed.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

Blessings,

Karen

Coldspring, Country Style, DIY, Lake Livingston

Corner Shelves that Hide Wiring

Do you hate to see electric cords, cables, and other assorted wiring as much as I do? When we reorganized our tiny family room at the lake we moved the television, cable box, dvd, and karaoke machine…yep karaoke machine, to the corner of the room.

The problem with the move meant that all the cords, cables, wires… were hanging out for everyone to see. Not cool.

To solve the problem, Hubby plugged in a power strip with a surge protector to the outlet and used wiring tacks to attach it to the wall and at the top of the baseboard. We painted it to match the wall. He then mounted the power strip to the wall in the corner above this amazing reclaimed wood corner cabinet we bought at a garage sale for $15.00 and built these cool shelves to match out of our favorite wood, reclaimed cedar fencing.

The little cabinet holds a ton of messy stuff and I don’t fuss when people dig through the cabinet looking for a nerf gun or movie, or Frisbee.  I have to choose my battles.

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corner shelf on corrugated tin wall

The shelves were totally free! I call them Superman shelves because they sort of are shaped like the Superman logo with the bottom point cut off.

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cut off corner

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This is the cut off corner of the shelves.  A lot of work went into getting the shelves built to match the little cabinet exactly.

superman shelf

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We used only reclaimed cedar in the build.

Just so you know, photographing with a dog around who believes she is the cutest, prettiest, specialist critter on the planet is a challenge.  I wonder how she got so spoiled?

lumi nose

The magic of these shelves is in the space at the back for the wires to pass through and hide.

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The dimensions of the shelves is 22 inches along both sides and the front with the short sections being 11 inches each. The short pieces are attached at a 45 degree angle. (Yay for being married to a talented math teacher!)

What a great way to build shelves to hold electrical equipment above a corner television.

Don’t they look great on our new corrugated tin wall?

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. I hope you have a great day.

Blessings,

Karen

cedar lumber, Coldspring, Country living, Country Style, DIY, DIY Projects, Lake Livingston, master bedroom, Redecorating, San Jacinto county, Style

Adding a Corrugated Tin Wall

We got a good start on the want to finish projects before putting our beloved Star Hill on the market over the holiday break.

This is what the wall in our main room has looked like since we moved in.

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We recently got a new-ish wood burning stove off Craig’s List for our near the lake house, Star Hill. ($200 for a stove used one season. It is still for sale at Tractor Supply for over $600. That was a score.) It has a glass door and an electric blower, the two things that the old stove in the house did not have. We can now heat the whole house with it when we want and get to see the flames. We are already enjoying it. We knew that we would want a metal wall behind the stove and had planned for it to be put in for the seven years we have owned the place. Stuff always gets in the way of projects. Stuff like rescuing roadside furniture.

A cold, wet, weekend after Christmas was the perfect time to knock this particular project out. Hubby figured out how much tin to buy. It comes to about fifty cents a square foot. You can buy it in up to 12 foot lengths.

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How nice of Home Depot to provide gloves.

First we cleared the wall and found the studs. I love projects where we will cover the wall because we get to write directly on the wall.

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Next, attach this wooden support stuff to the studs.

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The tricky part here was making sure curves lined up vertically. Hubby chopped off the ends to make sure they all started out the same way then made sure they lined up with each other at the start of the wall. Our roofing nailer attached the wood to the wall.

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Our wall slopes up so that adds a level of difficulty to the project that we wouldn’t have had to deal with on a plain flat ceiling.

Using the very scary grinder, Hubby (AKA Mr. Math) cut the angles on the tin along with the vent cover and electrical outlet using rise over run math.

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If you plan on doing this project you will need these special screws, gloves (or a box of Band Aids- that tin is sharp), something to cut the tin (if a grinder is too scary for you too, they make a metal cutting blade for a jigsaw) a level, a stud finder, tin, and wooden corrugated strips.
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Plan on this project taking a whole day. Cutting around vents and outlets slows the process. Full disclosure here; it took us two days and a trip to three hardware stores. If we planned better and didn’t have to drive all over creation looking for supplies we forgot to bring, we could have finished in one day.

We decided to use some of our natural edge cedar for a shelf on the wall. The brackets were garage sale finds that we used for years with a funky swirl on the bottom. The grinder took care of the swirl. I love the industrial, rustic feel that the wall gives the cabin.

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The wall looks great. It is exactly what I hoped. We have it set up with our free or almost free furniture, but I also wanted you to see it with more modern furniture and fabric.  It would be a great wall for a modern wall.   I really like the look.

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Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. I hope it inspires you to tackle your own projects.