Thanksgiving at the Ranch

The Eichman's flew to Colorado for Thanksgiving. Henry's Grandparents live on a ranch in Eastern Colorado and Henry was dying to introduce the smallest Eichman to his Great Grandparents. 

Uncle Zach and Papa were a bonus. {I must note that Henry packed Oscar's suitcase and when I rifled through it before they left I pared down the plaid collar shirts from 4 to 2, seriously!}

I sent the camera along and told Henry to document everything. Like a good husband, for the love of his family and because he secretly loves being featured on my blog he took lots of pictures.

Oscar is passionate about all things with wheels

Oscar is also passionate about his Great Grandpa letting him drive large machinery

Put a boy in a huge tire and good luck getting him out

Looking at tractors with Great Uncle Bob

This is Princey

This is Princey's house

This is one lucky little boy

Heading out to feed cattle

Uncle Zach holding my baby a little too close to the hungry cattle

This place is Oscar's Disney World

The whole gang

I asked Henry who took the last picture and he said he set up the camera with a timer. I think it is adorable that he squeezed in the middle of the crew for the picture...totally something I would do!

Have you been wondering about Momma Lovely? I didn't go to Colorado because we are going to see Henry's family in Oregon for Christmas and I wanted to spend some time with the Olson's, who I didn't bother to snap one single picture of. Believe me, we had just as much fun and they are all super cute.

Please Cancel That Order

I haven't been making lightening fast progress on the playroom. Actually there is no major progress to report at all, but I have some ideas.

I want to move our big grey rug that is currently in the family room into the playroom.

It fits tightly in one half of the playroom and it is a little stained up already, so I think it is a good move for this big guy. Which means, I need to find a new rug for the family area. Poor me. 

Our rug criteria should be strong enough to withstand drinking liquids of all colors, eating, reading, walking with shoes on our feet, diaper changing and let's not forget the not always tidy four legged Lovely. The rug also needs to be cute.

My online rug shopping has been a little rocky this week. 

On Monday I ordered this rug.

It was late at night, there was a 75% off sale and I loved the turquoise. As soon as I bought it I knew it wasn't my best move because of the criteria listed above. I slept on it and asked Henry what he thought in the AM. He confirmed that it was a terrible idea, so I cancelled it Tuesday AM. 

On Tuesday PM I ordered this rug.

After my AM cancellation I was getting antsy so I purchased this quickly before running to a meeting at 4PM. I liked the colors, it's wool and it was reasonably priced from overstock.com. When I got home at 6:30PM I showed Henry a picture. Again, he expressed his concerns about the light colors and expressed that it was a bad decision. So, I canceled the order.

Now it's Wednesday and I am still on the rug hunt. I am leaning toward FLOR.COM options. Here are some of my faves.

 

 

I could go on and on. I think FLOR carpet squares might be the answer to our high traffic family living space. Clearly Henry has an opinion about this rug choice, so I am slowing this rug train down and we will make a slow and methodical decision together, but only after we order samples and labor over the price and the appropriate size. Fun times, no?

Here are 5 reasons I think this might be the best option for us:

1. If I spill my 'Affair in Red Square' fingernail polish on one of the tiles we can just replace it.

2. Lots of textures or patterns will hide the mud from Stella's muddy paws.

3. We can order the exact size that we want.

4. Someday when I am tired of this rug (which will be a long long time;) we can split it up or send it back for free to be recycled.

5. It is made in the USA

If you just got itchy to buy your own rug from FLOR I found a 15% off coupon online {15FALL12F}

Dining Table and Chairs

When we moved into our house almost 2 years ago this is what our dining room looked like.

The table and chairs are right where they belong, in the room that was designed for dining and entertaining. This set up didn't work for our family. We were looking to lounge and this seemed to be the best space, after all it's right off the kitchen and sometimes I need ice cream- and I need it NOW!

So we shoved the dining table into the other half of the house.

The move has been great for us. We spend the majority of our time in the kitchen and the family room (formerly the dining room) and have been able to concentrate on making this half of our house a more sophisticated, adult friendly space. Which is exactly what we are...sophisticated and adults:)

In an effort to do that I had a table custom made and I was wild about it.

You can read all about the table here. What I have not shared with you is that the table top went awry. The rust continued to eat through the metal and the entire top became somewhat of a rusty hazard. You can imagine my panic. It happened slowly I am sure, but it was about a month after we owned it that one day it was really apparent that the table was no longer functional.

I called the artist and we made arrangements to get it back in his hands so he could fix it and then get it back in our hands. There was no yelling or swearing, just good old fashion conflict management. The table is now back in our dining room where it belongs, with a little different feel.

I think there was some stripping and toxic chemicals involved in the transformation. I didn't ask, but I love it more than ever.

To celebrate I finally recovered the chairs. I don't like to use the word reupholster, because that sounds much to complicated for this job.

I simply tipped the chairs over on the table and screwed off the seat with a screw driver, nothing fancy people!

Typically I just wrap it like a little present, staple gun it and screw it back on the chair. As you can see, I have done this four times and the corners were becoming bulky with fabric, so I removed a couple layers before I stapled on the new stuff.

Ooh. Ahh.

{Funny little story about this fabric...I found this design along with a coordinate fabric that will be curtains soon- and I ordered samples. Yup, patting myself on the back. I received the samples, loved the samples and while I was waiting for my next credit card cycle to order the fabric, the famous blog Young House Love did a post and featured this particular fabric. These particular bloggers are so famous that when I went to order the fabric- it was sold out...EVERYWHERE! Apparently, these folks are the Oprah of home decorating. I finally hunted down a couple of yards and paid top dollar because by this point my heart was set on it and I had to have it!}

Now I am dying to have a dinner party.

Scratch that. I am dying to have a potluck!

Curtains

I have 18 yards of fabric fresh from the bolts waiting to be transformed into curtains. In preparation for The Lovely's Curtain Making Bonanza...it's a real thing and it's happening this Saturday...I have been combing the world wide web for various curtain making styles and tips.

Enjoy and keep your eyes on the curtains.

You can find the tutorial on how to make this style of curtain here.

Here is a version of the fake roman shade and tutorial by YHL.

It's all about the looks with these shorty curtain rods.

Sweet and simple hanky curtain.

For a really fun time take a looky at the shower curtains! Why don't people do this?

One thing I know for sure is that I am going to give the no-sew method a shot for the first time by following this tutorial. Any other curtain making tips? Speak up!

Toy Box

We were given this toy box...

Since it wasn't really my style (therefore, none of the Lovely's style:), I thought I would dress it up with some paint and give it as a gift to our lovable, squeezable niece, Caraline.

I concocted a plan, and by that I mean, found an image to copy on the world wide web. I worked on tracing and taping and painting off and on for about two weeks. Last night I hauled the box up from the basement for the big reveal (to Oscar and Henry)...you can imagine the excitement and the lack of "whoop whoops!"

It wasn't hard work, it was tedious work. You know about me and details. 

I traced a square tile that was sitting on our basement shelf. The pattern is nothing fancy, just a bunch of diamonds that I taped off, bit by bit.

Patience, Patience, Patience...

I bought the circle and the 'C' from Michael's for 3.00 and stuck it together with Gorilla Glue. I used a black paint pen that I bought for 1.00 for the lines, but I would recommend using a good old black sharpie if you are going to try this project- especially if you have one on hand.

Of course, all this paint was sitting on a shelf in our basement so the project you see here cost a whopping 4.00!

Lucky Cousin Oscar gets to play with this pretty toy box until the Thanksgiving Day delivery.

If Caraline doesn't love the snot out of this toy box, I am giving it to some other kid that's name starts with a C.