friends | The Weekend Country Girl

October 2, 2013

Map of Texas highlighting San Jacinto County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Do you remember my Social Planner, Tanis? She and her husband Larry retired to Coldspring, Texas and have spent the last year selling their two homes- a lake house and their city home, clearing land, planning a new home, and finally building and moving in to their dream home. They really did find a slice of heaven when they found the 22 acres that they are quickly turning into their family gathering spot.

This past weekend they held an open house. Friends and family were invited up to visit and enjoy their world. The Social Planner went all out.

You know it is going to be a place in the country when you have to have signs because the GPS might not work.

The house was in full fall decorating mode,

I love the front porch. I wish I could bottle the view,

The Social Planner’s niece made this awesome wreath. Love it.

The barn red front door looks perfect.

Beside the front door there is this great fountain. It is so peaceful and the etched rocks remind the person sitting on the porch why the couple chose this spot.

I love the fall mums.

There was a hay ride, the covered porch was loaded with ice chests, places to sit and eat and things for the kiddos to do.

The Social Planner has three grandkids already and another on the way. She also has a nephew with three kids and when all of them are over the place is hopping. It is great to see a place that is so full of laughter and love.

Out at the back of the property the guys hunt doves, do target practice and just hang out.

The Social Planner got lots of loot at her open house. I am so happy for both of them. They have a beautiful home and open hearts.

The frame above and the chalkboard below are in their awesome laundry room. The Social Planner found the two windows on the side of the road. They are as found, except for a couple of coats of poly. One day the house will be empty enough for me to take pictures of the room. This weekend it was full of purses, phones charging, dogs, and toys.

The Social Planner and her childhood friend working in the kitchen. This kitchen fed a ton of people.

Enjoy the photos from their beautiful home and friends who visited for the weekend. I hope the photos reflect their style, the love their friends feel for them, and family.

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Hooray for Chair Painting Day

April 14, 2013

I am still learning to use a hotspot, so I missed uploading a few photos. I will upload them as soon as I reach civilization. Enjoy.

The long anticipated chair painting day has come and gone. It was so much fun and I can’t wait to show off the before and after photos. Sweet Amanda and Baby Boy have an amazing group of friends who are united in their love of The Lord, the lost, and college ministry. It is tough for them to connect as often as they would like because they are working on college campuses around the state, The United States and the world. The girls who came to this event I believe all lived in “The Tree House” with Sweet Amanda while in college or were members of her small group. Lauren has been her buddy since birth. I have another blog post in the works about these girls, but today it is all about the chairs.

As the girls arrived there was lots of hugging, squealing and general mayhem.
All the girls signed in on a chalkboard and this determined the chair that they would be painting then taking home. Beth was not going to be able to make the event so we signed her in and The Social Planner, Tanis, worked on a chair for her with help picking color and fabric from the ladies who know her well.

Here are the lovely chairs before we got busy. I did not pay more than $5.00 a chair from Goodwill, Craigslist and resale shops. Every chair, except one had some structural issue. They had missing rungs, needed regluing, had need badly repaired… the list goes on and on. Hubby spent several days getting them all up to Baby Boy’s wiggle standard. He literally sat on them and wiggled around to see if they were sturdy. Remember that these chairs are going to live in homes that will have college students visiting often.

I numbered each chair with a post-it note so that the girls would know when they got up the hill what they would be working on.

Look at how nice and clean the ladies all looked in this photo! This was after inspecting chairs, but before the paint clothes went on and the work began. They really are stunning young ladies.

Each of the girls inspected their chair, looked at the paint choices, chose something, then got busy. Some of the girls checked out their fabric options before jumping in, but not everyone!

It was fun to watch the girls working, side by side, each on a different project, laughing, catching up, teasing and commenting on each other’s work.

Tanis brought her yard chairs for an update too.
As they finished the painting, the upholstery began on the chairs that had padded seats. A big thank you to my friend, Kandy for donating all this amazing fabric.

Here are the finished chairs-before and after.

Sweet Amanda
Behr Sailboat Blue with yellow chevron fabric. This chair originally had caning in the seat so hubby built a new top to go on it that is padded. It can be removed and re-caned if they ever choose to do so.

Tara
Behr Rapids blue with burlap fabric. She is going to monogram the back panel. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

Yliana

Behr Coral. Oops. I forgot the Mod Podge for this project chair. The seat is going to have a map of Colorado- where she will be moving in July to join her new husband in his ministry to University of Colorado. She roughed out the edges and took the map with her, so I cannot wait to see how it looks complete. Sorry Yliana.

Lauren
Behr Cinnamon Cake and flowered fabric. This is my favorite off white, brown toned paint. She really classed up this 1970’s charmer. I love the distressing.

Molly
Valspar Elephant Hide with some fun, funky fabric. This chair gave Hubby fits and I think he was ready to throw in the towel, but at the end of the day it turned out so cute. The piping was in the fabric we got, already done and was plenty big for this little padded poof. It is going with Molly’s craft table that is painted the bright teal you see in the fabric. Yay for having a craft table.

Beth
Coral that Molly brought so not sure the color. Fabric was teal upholstery fabric. I used the darker coral on the chair back to create an ombré effect. Darkest at top then diluted the color the paint with the cinnamon cake as I went down. I like the effect. Beth surprised us by making it at the end of the day, and we surprised her with a chair!