Heart & Soul

For the past year our friends have been building their dream home.  Their dream is made up of 40 beautiful acres of wooded and marsh land in a secluded area outside Madison.

And in the middle of those 40 acres rests this.

Their custom built log home.  A project they poured their heart & soul into - treasure hunting to fill it with the most amazing details.  And to my delight they allowed me to take you on a tour of their dream.

As you enter the home you stand in front of a tree.  Yup...a tree that spans from floor to ceiling of their two story entry.

(Don't mind my husband and daughter playing in the background.)

To the right is my dream kitchen - antiqued white cabinets, white farm sink, stainless appliances and hood and a kitchen island they found at an antique store that I am still dreaming about.

Just look at this beauty...

Not to mention those wide plank hard wood floors.  Ahhh.

On the far side of the expansive room rests their dining table and an exposed brick wall with this baby built right in.

 Yup, a real deal pizza oven.  I'll take pepperoni please!

As you make your way up the beautiful all wood staircase you encounter just one of the dozens of details I just loved (and wanted to pack up and put in my bag).

And don't think that they hired some fancy designer to bring in all these pieces.  No, they collected and hunted and searched out every single item in this home.  Including the refurbished wood beams that made my heart sing!

Just look at the ceiling in one of the bedrooms.  They found these beams and applied the crackle finish to the white themselves.  I seriously almost moved into this bedroom, but eventually they chased me out.

My favorite thing about their amazing creativity was in the bathrooms.  Each one had a re-purposed vanity and sink that should be in a magazine spread.  Take a look...

And the Master Bath also had this amazing tub in addition to a giant walk-in shower.  Party in the shower!

As I made my way down the stairs this view of the entry caught my eye

and as I said goodbye to this breathtaking home (and to my friends too) I couldn't help but hum a little heart & soul...I fell in love with you.

Making A House A Bookend

What...that isn't how the saying goes?  Well, in this case it is because yup, I took a house

and made it a bookend...

As I said last week, my daughter no longer has a changing pad filling the top of her dresser so I had some extra room to play.  I had my eyes peeled for some bookends but just couldn't find the right thing.  Well, that isn't entirely true.  I found some of the right things with the wrong budgets and some of the right budgets but the wrong thing.

For example, I loved these bookends from Serena & Lily, but the price - $54 - not so much!



And I loved the price on these babies - $4.58 - but um they are hideous!


So what is a DIYer to do?  Oh yeah, DIY!  So I picked up these cardboard houses from Michael's for a few bucks a piece.

I also bought some stones, from the floral section, as I knew I would need to weight them down.

Once I filled the houses with stones I started spray painting.  The cardboard absorbed quite a but of the paint so it took 4 coats to get them covered.

After letting them dry I fished through my scrap fabric bin, cut out doors and windows, glued them on and my houses were now bookends!  And both my style & budget where happy.