Head Over Heels Friday: An Excellent Adventure At Junk Bonanza!

I had a fabulous time at Junk Bonanza yesterday! I couldn't think of anything else I was more Head Over Heels for this week!  I have to show you what I took home and some of my other favorites I spotted at the ol' JB.

Favorite item of the day?  Hands down it was this necklace that Gretchen from Mimi Toria's Designs surprised me with!  Gretchen designs beautiful, one of a kind jewelry made out of vintage finds.  She and I connected through the blog world after last year's Junk Bonanza, so I was looking forward to meet her in person.  After greeting each other, I was beyond excited when she showed me this...

This was so perfect!  I loved, loved, loved it! Perfect mix of the vintage style I love and a bit of my glam side :) Here is a pic of Gretchen and I with her booth in the background (I'm sporting the necklace as well!).

Thank you again Gretchen!

If you are headed to Junk Bonanza, make sure you stop by her booth located at #256 (see map here).  You have to check out her jewelry, so many beautiful items!  I ended up picking out this lovely vintage styled bracelet.  Isn't it gorgeous?!? 

I love the finish on the links, the stacked charms, and the little bit of ribbon tied on to finish the look. So happy with my one of a kind find from Mimi-Toria's Designs!

Now, back to the other goodies I took home...

I wasn't really on the hunt for anything big for our house considering the whole upstairs is still a mess and repairs haven't started.  So I just picked up a couple things.

This vintage metal Z cut out

And, oddly enough, these antlers.  I know you are probably thinking, "why the heck did she get antlers?"  Truthfully, I don't really have an answer, and no, I am not going to turn our home into a hunting lodge.  I saw a big wagon full of them and thought I could end up doing something fun with them.  I feel like I have been seeing a lot of antlers lately in decor?

Or maybe I just wanted to take this silly picture with them?

Nerd Alert!!!  I'll keep you posted on what happens to those.

That was it!  I didn't buy anything else (I know, wa-wa), but I'm glad I didn't bring home things we don't have room for right now.  The current clutter is already driving me nuts :)  I will share the other items I saw that I was Head Over Heels for though!  Ready, go...

Vintage stacked luggage

Vintage factory carts (a steal for $450 at Junk Bonanza, they sell for $1095 at Restoration Hardware)

Metal letters and numbers handmade from vintage tin tiles

Vintage wood trunks

Framed vintage tin tiles and metal framed tables (again, much cheaper than the ones at Restoration Hardware ranging from $1195-$1995)

Halloween themed wood signs (I kind of want to make some now!)

Lastly, this fun vintage styled Halloween table setting, spooky and cute!

What were you feeling most Head Over Heels for?

Did you go to Junk Bonanza?  What did you think?  What did you buy?!?  I'm all ears!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Goodbye Ugly Chain Link Fence, Hello Manual Labor (DIY Style!)

As I mentioned in a post from last week, Alex and I are taking on the removal of our damaged chain link fence AND installation of a fancy new privacy fence.  Over the weekend we finally got down to business and ripped out the old 3' chain link fence that was damaged from the May tornado.  I admit, I was REALLY dreading the removal project because I assumed it would be really difficult and time consuming.  Oddly enough, it was pretty easy and only took about 2.5 hours, really!  Keep in mind we have a very small yard within the city, but it was not as bad as I imagined.

So, here is how we took this bad boy out...

Alex went around the perimeter with bolt cutters and cut the chain link from the posts they were 'wire tied' to. The top metal poles came off first, that part was really simple...just Alex and a Sledge Hammer!

As he freed and removed the metal poles along the top of the fence, he rolled up the fence (to minimize the mess and make it easy to transport to the big red dumpster). 

I guess the part that concerned me the most was taking out the metal posts that were cemented into the ground.  As Alex continued to cut the fencing off the posts he said, "I bet if we saturate the ground with water the posts will come out a lot easier."  I thought his idea made sense too and decided that we should at least give it a try. 

I grabbed the hose and saturated the ground surrounding one of the posts with water.  Alex then started to wiggle the post back and forth...

LOL's, we know this pic looks ridiculious!

Holy buckets!  Our stupid idea really worked! 

Alex wiggled, kicked, and loosened the posts to the point where he could just pull them and the cement out of the ground.

Our guess is (even though the fence was fine for the 3 years we have been here), maybe these posts weren't installed with the right amount of cement?  Yes... No?  They were buried maybe 2' deep with cement surrounding, maybe that was fine for a 3' fence?  It was crazy though to just POP those posts out the way we did.

After that discovery, we 'watered' the posts a bit so we could wiggle them out the way we did on our trial run. Disclaimer for environmental folks: Don't worry! We didn't use TONS of water, and quite honestly, we never did water our yard this Spring/ Summer anyway since the tornado killed everything.  It was crazy how little water the ground needed to loosen these babies up!

Alex even let me give it a try.  It took some serious muscle (and un-lady like grunting, ha), but I pulled that post out AND the cement myself!  Hammers and High Fives for me :)  Really though, I remember feeling that pulling pain in my back and thought I was about to injure myself.  I left it to Alex after that (and I was sore for 3 days after).

For kicks, here is the metal pole that went across the top of the fence where the GIANT Pine Tree landed after the tornado. 

Beneath that top metal pole where the tree landed, was this metal post (along with a cheesy/annoyed/ sarcastic pose from a physically exhausted hubby who always seems to wear the same yard project shirt).  It was driven very far into the ground from the impact of the tree.  There was just over 1' left of the 3' post above the ground. 

This is the ONLY post that remains.  Even the water didn't help to get this guy out.  Since I was the only DIY-er with him on this project, he thought it was best to wait for one of his stronger (male) friends to help him out with this one. 

The last post we took out (aside from the difficult one) was the one connected to the gate.  Yea, it isn't pretty or anything, but this is the gate Alex and I walked into from our garage to our house everyday for 3 years.  It felt sort of sad but triumphant to take it out.  I hated it (for 3 years), but it was still weird to see it go into the dumpster.  Alas, we must move on!


Before we can begin installing the new wood privacy fence, we have A LOT MORE yard clean up to do (boo).  But I can't wait!  I will share the style we picked soon along with all those pesky city codes/ rules we had to follow.  Thankfully, our contractor from Dry Tech helped inform us of those details/ rules, so that was pretty easy).

See you tomorrow for Head Over Heels Friday!

Junk Bonanza. Thursday. Shakopee, MN. Be There.

Need I say more?!?

Thursday marks the first day of the 2011 Junk Bonanza at Canterbury Downs in Shakopee, Minnesota.  If you aren't familiar with Junk Bonanza, here is the description of the event from their website:

The Bonanza hosts more than 130 juried "junk" vendors of vintage finds, beautiful antiques, one-of-a-kind and artisan-repurposed pieces. The 2010 gathering included more than 10,000 visitors who found their special treasure at the three-day, indoor, event.

Last year was the first time we attended this event all thanks to Layla and Kevin from the Lettered Cottage.  While they were on a visit here we were lucky enough to have them come and redo our Guest Room and go junkin' with them at Junk Bonanza. 

 Everything we bought was used to decorate our Guest Room and we LOVED it! Layla and Kevin were every bit as fun to hang out with as we had imagined from reading their blog.  We were also very thankful for this experience because it's how many of you ended up finding us and our blog :) before that, I think my mom and sister were our only readers.

I am still really bummed that the Guest Room was the only room to have tons of damage from the tornado.  It was my favorite room in the house because of how it turned out, and the overall experience with Layla and Kevin was a fun memory for us.

 SIGH

Anyway, back to Junk Bonanza!

I am heading there Thursday morning to do some junkin'!  Will you be there?!?  I am also really looking forward to meeting a few other bloggers that have booths there!  I have a few things on my wish list, but I know I can't go too crazy considering our whole upstairs is a cluttered mess with all the work going on.  But maybe I will find something that will inspire me for our Master Bedroom Redo?  Or the Office?

For all the local readers/ bloggers, hope to see you there!

A Repaired Garage! Complete With Functioning Roof and Entry Door

Our garage repairs were finally completed last week!  Woo-hoo!  We now have a roof on it that doesn't have tons of holes so the inside won't get wet anymore when it rains! You know, the whole purpose of having a garage with a roof :)

Here is the 'before' pic from all the tornado damage pictures.  I guess I didn't take many others (our garage is pretty ugly anyway).  But you get the gist of it, tons of shingles came off and some of the wood decking was damaged and left exposed to the elements.

Here is the 'after', ahhh it looks so much better! Well, the roof at least?

I got a couple shots of the Dry Tech guys in action.

 I wonder if they are sick of me taking pictures yet?!?

They used the same Timberline Wood Shake Style shingles in Pewter Gray that match the new roof on our house.

Another nice update that we got on our garage was a new side entry door.  When the tornado uprooted Mega Stump, it broke out most of the concrete by this entry and smashed the glass window out of the door.  My assumption is that it is the original door to our 1924 garage because it was in really rough shape to begin with.  There wasn't even a doorknob, just a lock, so Alex and I never used this door all that much.  It was also extremely hard to open since the door frame itself was crooked from settling over the years.  It was on our long list of future repairs/ upgrades for the house.

Insurance covered replacing the glass window on the door, but we opted to replace the whole door instead.  Our Project Manager from Dry Tech told us we could get a simple steel door that wouldn't cost us much at all out of pocket.  The door we got is similar to this door from Home Depot.  It is made of durable, galvanized steel and is designed to prevent water absorption, resist rust, and only cost about $100.  Quite a nice upgrade from the other door and we can actually open and close it!  You know, like how most doors are supposed to function :)

I mentioned how the whole door frame was crooked from settling, so that didn't make it very easy for them to install the door.  They had to add some new wood to frame it in so it would fit evenly... and add a lot of spray foam to fill the odd spaces.  Kind of odd looking from the inside, but hey, we have a door that opens, closes, locks, and is weather proof!  Totally awesome!

Overall learning from the garage repairs...

It is the simple, little things that make a big difference! 

Who knew how excited we'd be when we walked into our garage from that new door?  Yep, kind of stupid, but true!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!  We got down and dirty with a big DIY project in the backyard....

Tearing out that awful, smashed chain link fence!  Oh yea!  More to come later this week on that experience!

All I Can Think About Today...

I was seventeen years old when the events of September 11th, 2001 unfolded. 

Before that day, I had never experienced in my lifetime such a horrific act of terrorism. Nor did I comprehend the weight that this day would forever carry on the shoulders of all Americans.

My heart still breaks looking back.

I will never forgot the feelings I had that day and how it changed the way I viewed and appreciated the freedoms I have as an American.  I will always remember 9/11 and I will always be thankful for every man and woman that stands guard to keep America safe.

Head Over Heels Friday: Decorating With a Side of Mustard Yellow

Hello everyone!  It's a gorgeous Friday here in Minneapolis, I love early fall weather!

Normally I am not so much a bold color kind of gal, but lately I have been drawn to one color in particular, Mustard Yellow!  I feel like I have been seeing it everywhere, and I'm totally Head Over Heels! Even more interesting, I usually associate this color with very modern/ contemporary decor, but now I see it more and more in traditional/ classic interiors and I'm so drawn to it!  It got me to thinking about decorting with this color somewhere in our home so I started searching for some inspiration online. Here are my favorite interiors with a Side of Mustard Yellow as I like to call it....

I love the muted gray walls mixed with the elegant mustard yellow headboard.  The white bedding and darker gray throw at the end of the bed pull the look together nicely. 

Muhmamashop

This room's mix is a bit more ecletic with vintage flair.  The lighter blue mixes really well with smaller pops of the mustard yellow.  I love how the red accents both colors, never would have thought of that!

Little Lovables

  I always love plain, bright, crisp, white kitchens.  They always look sophisticated, but I love how the mustard yellow accessories add some fun style to space.  (I love that island table too!).

Decor Pad

This combination is on the bolder side, but this mustard yellow settee against the navy blue wall looks devine!  I love the mix of wall art they featured in this photo as well (even on the door!).

One Sydney Road

The color combo in this image is similar to the first one in this post.  I really love that muted gray mixed with white and mustard yellow.

Scout Design NYC

 These dark gray walls remind me of the color in our Living Room (ours aren't quite that dark).  Maybe I can talk Alex into some mustard yellow furniture?!?! JK, but I love how the contrast looks.

Seastation

 Lastly, this is quite simple but so elegant, love! I only wish my bathroom were this perfect!



 Are you Head Over Heels for Mustard Yellow too?

I'm really loving that muted gray, white, and mustard yellow color combination.  I feel sort of like it could be fun to use as inspiration for our Master Bedroom redo?  As one accent color? What do you think? 

Hmmm, while we are on the topic, maybe I need to go get these pumps to go with my mustard yellow mood too? I think they'd look cute with some funky tights for fall!

Jessica Simpson Landy Pump: $89.99 Endless Shoes



I will share our sassy new garage roof and door soon!  Have a great weekend everyone!

I'm... Dreaming... of a Nice... Privacy Fence

The title was to the tune of I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas, just in case you didn't catch that :)

As we move along with all of our home and property repairs, Alex and I are eager to get started on our new wood privacy fence!  We currently have a lovely 3 ft tall chain link fence around our backyard.  It was never the nicest looking thing, but it was very nice for us with our two dogs.  Ideally, we always wanted to tear it out and replace it with a nice, tall wood privacy fence. 

As it turns out, the May 22nd Tornado got us much closer to making that dream a reality.  'Mega Stump', as we called it, got completely uprooted by the 140mph winds and pulled out a nice section of our chain link fence. Ka-boom!

On the other side of our yard, the top of 'Mega Stump', aka the rest of that giant pine tree, landed on a couple sections of the fence smashing the posts and bars into the ground. Crunch!

Thankfully, insurance is covering the damage and gave us the full amount to replace the chain link fence.  But why replace something you don't want anyway?  The wood privacy fence is obviously going to be more expensive than chain link, but this is where we feel like paying a little extra out of pocket is totally worth the upgrade!  Also, to keep the 'upgrade' cost as low as possible, this is one project we are going to take on ourselves instead of having our contractor install it.

We have been looking at different styles of wood fencing for our yard. Here are our two favorites...

Wood Framed: I like the flat boards across the top, looks very neat.

Standard Dog Ear: Likely to be lower in cost, and I still think the look is nice.

Images via Production Fence Works

Overall, I guess I don't really care how it looks, I just want a privacy fence that will look nicer than the chain link! We're thinking Cedar instead of Pine, which costs a bit more, but it's typically the lumber of choice for fencing.

Of course before we can get going on the new fence installation we had to do some clean up (boo).  In the summer time we let vines grow into our chain link fence.  The vines would at least hide the ugly fence a little bit and make it nicer to look at.  But now that we need to yank the hole fence out, we had to cut out all the vines, which was no fun at all (and sadly this was before our trip, so we have to do a little more again, really BOO!).  Alex also had to finish up cutting some wood that was hanging out in our yard since the tornado. 

Oddly enough, most of that wood is from the section of the tree that fell into our house.  I can't wait to burn it in a fall bonfire, grrr!  It took us about 4 hours but we got the yard all cleaned up. I was out there sweating and cleaning too even though I'm not in the pictures.  I ended up getting blisters on my hands from cutting and raking... Alex said, "Well that's what happens when you avoid manual labor your whole life." HA!

We're hoping to decide on fencing this weekend and get it ordered.  Perhaps we will start ripping out the rest of the chain link fence too. Wish us luck!

*********

So, what style of fencing do you like better? 

Do you have any tips for us Alex on installing a wood fence?  If so please comment away!