September 23, 2016 by Jillian

Hand-Built Corner Beds for the Girls Shared Bedroom

My not yet 2 1/2 year-old girls are now in big girl beds! Yeah, I know. About a month ago, the girls decided they were done with cribs. It was quite unexpected. They’ve been able to climb out of their cribs for about a year, but just haven’t made an issue of it and we’ve been very lucky with their sleeping habits. I could count on one hand the number of bad nights we’ve had since they started sleeping through the night at 8 weeks old.

Needless to say, Jeremiah and I were a little bit cocky. But one day, they were just done. I wasn’t prepared. In fact, I tried to force it for about a week (more on that in another post), but eventually I gave in and put their crib mattresses on the ground while I tried to figure out what I was going to do about beds. BTW, how sad are their little crib mattresses on the ground?

I knew I wanted to build something, but since I thought I had at least 10 months before the transition, it wasn’t on the top of my priority list. Their room isn’t tiny, but any room is small with 2 beds in it, so I waffled between loft beds, side-by-side twin beds, and a bunk bed, before landing on a dual-level corner bed unit.

My mom had kept my brothers old bedroom set from Moosehead Manufacturing (closed since 2007), which is where the bureau and cabinet — that now lives in the girls closet — came from (pictured above). Of course, I didn’t take any before photos of the bed, but you can get an idea for it’s original look from that closet unit and those somewhat-sanded drawers. Basically, it’s a simple platform bed with 3 drawers on each side. Lucky for me, the drawer units are 2 separate pieces, so I was able to use one side of each drawer base as a foundation for each bed unit. Since this only gave me half a bed frame for each bed, I simply added a very simple leg frame using 2x4s to complete a full twin bed.

The lower bed sits directly on the frame, while the higher bed, has a 10″ shelf unit that I built using some leftover MDF I had in the workshop.

For the headboard and footboard pieces, I picked up a sheet of 1″ cabinet grade plywood and ripped it to get my (4) pieces. I used my jigsaw to scallop the edges, painted them and then attached them to the beds using wood screws.

I purchased these 8″ memory foam mattresses. They are our first ever memory foam mattresses and I’m already sold on them. They came packaged in boxes and we unrolled them and let them “inflate” for about 48 hours (although it seemed to only take about an hour for them to fully puff up). They’re solid mattresses for the price.

I painted the bed frames, drawers, headboards and footboards using Valspar Ballet Slipper. It looks white unless you put something white next to it, but I love how the soft, muted pink looks next to the bright blue walls. I have no issues with a “girly” room, but I’d like to keep the room somewhat balanced and gender-neutral.

I added a few sheets of heavy-duty gold-striped card stock to the back of the shelves on the higher bed. you’d hardly ever notice it, but it’s a quiet, fun little surprise.

Thanks to a few pieces of 1×4 and 1×2 strips of molding and a LOT of caulk, the piece gets a nice clean built-in look. I did use painter’s tape for most of the caulking work, but I got lazy on a few of the final touch-ups that showed up after removing the tape.

I recycled the owl knobs from my yellow sideboard for the drawers, which hide off-season clothes and extra blankets. Eventually I’ll utilize these for toys, but right now we have an excess of storage in this room.

Those adorable ice cream cone sheets are from Target’s new Pillowfort collection and they’re stupid cute and admittedly girly. We let the girls pick them out. I was rooting for the flamingo set but the ice cream cones won and in a wildly bizarre twist, they both picked the same ones. These may tip the gender-neutral balance just a touch.

We won’t be making a ton more changes to this room moving forward, but I will be adding some new artwork and some floating shelves above the beds. I also need to add steps or a ladder. The girls can get into the beds with a bit of muscle power, but they’re high enough that a ladder or stairs make sense. This footboard wall is so big and bare that I’m actually thinking that wall-climbing grips might be fun.

I also need to do some additional touch-ups to the patched walls. I apparently used the wrong sheen when patching from old artwork and you can see it. Womp! Add it to the list.

September 14, 2016 by Jillian

Stair Hall Update + Chunky, Floating, DIY Wood Banisters

This beast of a project lovingly known as The Stair Hall is racing to the finish line and I’m so excited to share our new banisters with you. Actually, I’m not sure you can call them banisters. Maybe they’re just hand rails? In any case, I love these and they were super ~~cheap~~ affordable to create.

The old banisters just had to go. The walls rails embodied everything I hate about builder-basic homes and the molding on the knee wall boring and broken in several places. Since we’re looking to make this space a gallery, I wanted something simple and clean, but with enough warmth to lighten up the newly painter crips white walls.

We purchased 2×6 pine beams and attached them to the wall using 2×4 braces that I cut to 3 1/2″. Yes, you can see the braces, but from most angles, it gives the illusion of a floating rail. The best part, we built these new handrails and re-finished the top of the knee-wall to match for about $14 (I used sandpaper, stain, and hardware that I already had on hand).

The hand rail on the bottom stair and on top of the knee-wall is cut to 8 feet, while the hand rail on the top stair is cut to 6 feet. The stair rails are both cut at a 45 degree angle. All pieces are stained with Minwax American Chestnut.

I was a little disappointed with the condition of the knee wall once we removed the original trim. It was a big mess and I wasn’t convinced I’d be able to patch it clean enough to be happy with the finished product. In fact, I bought flashing to cover it up, but HATED that look.

So, I got to work patching it. It was quite a process. I used a whole can of putty and buffed and polished 4 times over 3 days. The final step was to caulk and then I finished with a coat of paint. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it.

To think I almost left the original trim and then almost added flashing! Live and learn. It’s virtually seamless now.

This hallway is meant to be a gallery for our growing collection of prints, art and photography (including our kids artwork). You can see that I’ve started to play around with placement and have even hung a few things to there permanent home.

These drawing by my sweets girls are a favorite. Hadley is quite the minimalist, while Kayleigh tends to color in every inch of a paper.

Jeremiah won a big award last year during Charleston’s Food & Wine festival, so his “name in lights” are featured on the stair landing, which I framed with 1×4 wood boards.

We have a lot of things to frame, so this will definitely be a working gallery. Shoot, my gallery wall in the bedroom still isn’t complete 2 years later. Womp!

A little before and after…Isn’t it funny how the paint color looks almost identical between the before and after. It really depends on the time of day, but the warm wood and green ceiling really make those white walls look very greige.

Want to remember where this space started, check out the Original Moodboard and our first Stair Hall Update

September 12, 2016 by Jillian

My Favorite Over-Saturated Boho Rugs for the Girls’ Shared Bedroom

Progress on the girls big girl beds is happening in real time. The girls decided that they were done with cribs 2 weeks before my best friends wedding, which was followed by a work transition, the death of my husbands grandfather and a seasonal cold that rocked the whole house. I mean, most projects take us a long time to complete, but this one continues to linger as I find time to sneak in to work on minor finishes, like caulking, puttying, sanding, etc. It’s one thing when you can complete projects in a workshop, it’s quite another when they’re being completed inside the room of your children.

Since I wasn’t planning on the girls moving to beds until they were at least 3 — this project came as a bit of a surprise — I had to shuffle a few planned projects to the back burner. I didn’t want them sleeping on the floor on crib mattresses for the next year, although in all fairness it would have been totally their fault 😉

That said, we’re not doing any additional changes in here. I will have to rearrange some furniture and there will be a few other minor adjustments, but this is more of a bed swap and not a room makeover. Although, two twin beds take up quite a bit of space, so there is definitely a huge design change to swallow. I do have a few things I’m planning to do in the next few months, but the only other big purchase is a rug.

I’ve been wanting a rug in here for a while. We’re not ready to redo the floors, but our brown bedroom carpets make me sad, so I want to add something to cover them up and add some much needed contrast. My girls are lighting rods, so I’m looking for something bold and spicy. Here are a few of the rugs on my hit list:

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August 22, 2016 by Jillian

Tricks from a Reluctant Cook + Mealtime at Our House

I’m not a bad cook. In fact, I’d venture to say I’m a pretty good cook. My mom made dinner every night when I was growing up and I’ve learned a lot from my brother and husband, who are both formally-trained chefs. It’s just that I don’t enjoy cooking. Honestly, I’d rather clean the bathroom than cook. It’s just not my thing.

Over the last year or so, I’ve finally come around to the idea that it’s just part of the job these days. While I’m in the process of starting a business, I’m not currently working full time and my husband’s job is very demanding. Ultimately, I am anchoring the family, which means dinner is my responsibility. The girls eat at 6pm, just before their bath and are in bed by 7pm each night, so I always cook their meals. Luckily, they’re good eaters, so they typically eat some variation of what we eat. Jeremiah typically gets home around 9pm, so dinner needs to be ready for us to eat when he walks in (it’s already too late, as far as I’m concerned). When my restaurant opens in a few months, we’ll have hired help here at night, so dinnertime will be altogether different then.

My eating habits differ greatly from my husbands. I’m a snacker. I’d eat crackers and cheese, popcorn, handfuls of nuts, and cereal for every meal if I had things my way. Jeremiah eats meals. He only eats meals. His snacks are what most would consider a full-size meal. Seriously, the man can put down food like you wouldn’t believe. While I could subsist on snacks, I know that it’s better for my family to eat normal, fresh, well-portioned meals, so I cook.

We grow a few of our own veggies. Our pepper plant is on crack and produces loads of peppers year-round, so we always have fresh peppers for my favorite homemade condiment banana-pepper salsa. We also have kale and various other greens that produce at least 6 months of the year, along with tomatoes and summer squash. In addition to our small urban garden, we also get a CSA from a local farmer, so we receive a box of fresh veggies every week throughout the year. The CSA isn’t available all quarters, but it’s available most quarters, so we eat a lot of fresh veggies.

I’ve also learned that if I don’t have leftovers or a prepared salad in the fridge, I will not eat lunch. So, meal prep includes prepared lunch salads with protein. I typically bake a big tray of chicken breast at the beginning of the week and store half in the fridge and half in the freezer. Then I can just add it to salads or to the girls lunch for an quick and easy lunchtime meal.

Since I’m quite the reluctant cook, I’ve learned a few tricks to get the job done fast. It’s not entirely painless, but it’s pretty effortless.

Meal prep is crucial – Every weekend when we receive our CSA, I prep all the veggies. Protein with some type of mixed veggie in a stir fry or saute is my go-to, so I fill quarts with chopped veggies (these are our favorite quart storage containers) that I can easily throw in a pan with protein for a 15-minute meal
Label and date stored veggies – Our meal prep containers are stored in the same area of the fridge as our leftovers, so it’s important to mark meal prep jars, so they aren’t mistaken for leftovers. Jeremiah takes leftovers or prepared salads for lunch. Most of my veggie mixtures can be thrown in a pan and sauteed, but every once in a while I cut jars for a specific meal, like a soup, something new I’m planning to try (which is rare) or a goulash or ratatouille, so I make sure to mark these on the label
Brine your meat – Most meat will benefit from even a 30-minute brine, so even if you’re short on time, it’s a helpful step
Use EVERYTHING – This is a trick I’ve learned from my husband. Any veggie scraps and bones should be kept for use in stocks. You’d be surprised what can be salvaged for additional meals and typically all that stuff you tend to throw away is the most nutritious part of the food. I’ve eaten salad dressing made from veggie scraps (pulverized with olive oil in a food processor) more times than I could count
Freeze stock – Because we use the pressure cooker for a lot of our meals, we always have stock, but we also make stock on the stovetop. Once we get a big bag of scraps stored up, we just throw it on the stovetop and cook it down. Homemade stock is a great foundation or starter for meals and Jeremiah will drink stock for a snack, in place of a protein shake. Bonus points that it can easily be stored in the freezer.

Our pressure cooker is my best friend (we use this one). It’s seriously the best tool for the reluctant cook, but I think it’s probably the best tool for a busy mom and family too. Any device that cooks a whole chicken to juicy and tender in 20 minutes is a gem in my book. Plus, it makes great stock, and stock is like gold in my house.

Jeremiah is a chef, enjoys to cook, and is really good at it, so when he’s home early or off (he has one day off a week) he does the cooking. He tends to do much more elaborate things, which is a nice break from my more structured meals. As a rule, we eat very clean, but he is decidedly more healthy than I am. Before we met, he was a Crossfit-preaching, paleo-eating man and that message still runs through his meals.

What’s your strategy for easy weekday meals? Any tips for the reluctant cook? We’ve been thinking of adding Blue Apron or another prepared-meal company to our strategy (Jeremiah isn’t convinced). Any happy users out there?

August 19, 2016 by Jillian

Progress on the Credenza + A DIY Wine Cabinet

I’m almost finished with our floating credenza. All she needs now is some interior organization and hardware (oh, and I still need to work on leveling the doors). Ho hum, the life of a chronic DIYer.

But, I did finish up a big chunk of this bad boy with the addition of this middle wine shelf.

In addition to the (2) Sektion 30x15x20″ cabinets with Haggeby doors we purchased for this credenza (you can read all about the original build HERE), I also purchased a single, door-less, cabinet frame in 15×14 3/4×20″ with the intention of creating an open-shelf wine rack. Here’s a look at the before and after.

I didn’t want the look of key holes for the wine bottles, so I opted to make dividers using 1/2″ poplar dowels, spaced evenly across each shelf. These “stoppers” keep the bottles from rolling around on the shelf. The dowels are attached to the shelf using wood glue and finish nails.

I attached the shelves to the cabinet using small l-brackets. In some cases, you may be able to use shelf pins in the existing shelf holes, but my measurements were just barely off these existing holes. The l-brackets worked perfectly.

For a built-in look, I used 1×1 dowels attached to the frame using brad nails. The entire piece is stained using Minwax American Chestnut.

We don’t typically have a ton of wine in the house, because if we have it, we tend to drink it, so it doesn’t sit around to be displayed. I’m hoping this will encourage me to buy more wine (because why not?). It’s always nice to have a few bottles of wine on hand for an impromptu friend gathering or a Friday night of porch-sitting.

So, now all we need is to get the interior organized. I think I’ve landed on my strategy for this space, so that should be coming together soon. And I just located the hardware that I want, so this bad boy should be complete very soon. Stay tuned!

PS: Open Shelves in a “Hyphen”, DIY Plant Stands and an Easy Peasy Hanging Planter

August 17, 2016 by Jillian

Refocusing on What Matters (what a $500k fixer-upper taught me about feeling content)

I am a real estate voyeur. I look at house listings at least once a day. I wouldn’t say I’m actively looking for a new house. We always said that this was a starter home and with only 2-bedrooms, we’ll most certainly out-grow it, but we have a few good years left in this home and I really want to finish it before I jump ship, but I do look…

And last week, this guy showed up in my feed. It’s a 5-bed, 3 bath home with a yard and a porch in downtown Charleston and here’s the kicker. It’s on the park (like Charleston’s version of Central Park). 2 of the 5 beds are in a finished basement apartment. So, with a basement rental, it’s actually in our price range. Eventually we’d want to make it a single-family home. This could be a forever home. I called our agent and we scheduled a time to look at it the next day.

I could tell from the photos that it was going to need work, but I don’t want a renovated home. Besides, nothing on the park, in this size, would sell at that price. I’ve looked at some funky houses and very little can scare me off. As long as the house is safe and habitable for the family — move in ready by my standards — we’re happy to spend the time to renovate, update and polish.

This house, though. The first 2 rooms were gorgeous with 10-foot ceilings in the living room and dining room. It needed some love, but that was expected. But the further into the house, the further into the rabbit hole we went…The master bedroom was an old sunroom with half the bathroom in the bedroom. There was no way to open the kitchen, which was a dark hole in the back of the house and the upstairs was an architectural nightmare. The nail in the coffin was that there was a very obvious cockroach infestation and not the “good kind” — how native southerners refer to palmetto bugs. Nope, these were the nasty German kind. The house was not habitable and don’t even get me started on the “finished” basement apartment.

When we left the house, Jeremiah could tell I was defeated. “Babe,” he said, rather matter-of-factly, “If you want to move, that’s fine, but we need to do it strategically. We need to sit down and talk about what our wants are, figure out our real budget, and start looking. You can’t keep randomly jumping on houses that you think might work.”

“I’m not actively looking to move,” I responded. “I love our house, but when I saw this house, I just thought it might be it. Our forever home”

He shook his head, “I think you need to do some soul-searching and figure out what you really want to do.”

I was wounded. What was he trying to say? But, later that day, I thought about what he said. The truth was, he was right. I’ve had one foot out the door since we moved into this home. It’s too small, it has no yard and it was missing my only must-have — a porch. But, the reality is that it’s a great house. It’s in a perfect neighborhood and in just 2 years, the value has almost doubled. It’s also the place we brought our daughters home to, the home we’ve poured blood, sweat and tears into. The home we still have so many plans for. But, I’ve been so consumed by what’s next that I haven’t really been enjoying what I have right now.

So, now we’re making future plans for our starter home. Real plans, like how can we make it work for us past that 5 year mark without pricing ourselves out of the neighborhood. It’s not our forever home, but it has more longevity than I’ve been giving it credit for. The biggest change is that I’m no longer planning our exit strategy. I won’t stop looking at houses — I want to buy all the houses — but, now I’m more focussed on loving my home, because actually we’ve made it kind of awesome and we’re not done yet.

August 15, 2016 by Jillian

Mid-Century Modern Nightstand DIY

I’d like to say these night stands are inspired by West Elm, but the truth is that I totally copied the design of their Mid-Century Night Stand. Like, I straight up stole it and recreated it in my basement workshop. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? Well, I don’t feel too guilty about it. I would have bought the original design from West Elm (my favorite home goods store – the bedding is West Elm) but at 24″ they were too tall for our low-profile bed (in fact, these are still too tall, but we’re planning on getting a new mattress this year, which will increase our bed height by 3″, so I accounted for that in this build) and at $300 a piece, I wasn’t about to hack them up to make them shorter.

There is nothing I don’t love about mid-century modern design and when we started ideating about our master bedroom updates, that design aesthetic became a key element in all of our mood board picks. These bedside tables were a match made in heaven. Making them myself allowed me to tweak a few other elements, like the drawer + open shelf design.

This is a very basic and simple build when you get down to it. It’s just a simple box design with tapered legs added to the base. I used a 1×16″ board to make my tables. The top and bottom are 18.5″ and the sides are 10″. I beveled them on three sides and built the box using wood glue and finishing nails.

Of all my years building furniture, this was my first go at drawers and I must say they weren’t nearly as tough as I thought they bed. The hardest part was getting the depth between the drawer and the slides. Those little sliders are tricky little guys and the dimensions in the directions were not accurate, but I managed to figure it out without causing too much heartache.

My drawers were made using 1×3″ boards cut to 15.75″ for the front and back and 13.75″ for the sides. I used 1/4″ wood dowels and 3/4″ plywood to create the bottoms. I used these affordable $5 drawer slides — they’re a 12″ euro drawer slide that requires a 1″ total depth, so 1/2″ on either side of the drawer. I assembled the drawers using wood glue and screws.

My drawer front is a 1×6″ cut to 17″. You can see the drawer here before hardware. Jeremiah’s drawer was made into a charging station. His job requires him to be attached to his phone, so the phone has to be near him at all times, but one of my biggest pet peeves is his phone, especially in bed at night (grrrrrrr), so this is a nice compromise. He can tuck the phone and iPad away at night, but it’s still right there in case of an emergency.

I tweaked the design in order to have an open shelf at the bottom. I have a lot of magazines and it takes me a loooooong time to get through them, so this is a great space for my magazines. Jeremiah’s drawer is reserved for electronics, so his open shelf is a good place for him to put his journal and sketch book.

And the cherry on top are these brass pulls from Lew’s Hardware. The pictures don’t due them justice. They’re exactly what I was looking for!

Tapered legs are the key to mid-century modern design. These are 11 1/4″ Waddell legs that I bought on Amazon. I stained them to match the night stand box and painted the feet gold to match the rest of the hardware and design accents in the room. They’re attached to the night stand base using Waddell angle top plates.

And guess what, my friends, that means we only have one more project until the master bedroom is complete! Yipppeeee!

PS: An easy peasy DIY Platform Bed and a look at the progress in the Master Bedroom.

August 3, 2016 by Jillian

Gold School Bus “Wallpaper” Stencil DIY

Now that the girls room is finally finished after over 2 years — in all fairness it was 90% complete before they were born, but just took a while to get those last touches complete — I’ve started thinking about the fine details, like refinishing all the terribly-installed and poorly finished trim and molding. And more fun things, like what to do with those builder-basic closet doors.

Here’s what they looked like before. For a while I considered painting them a different color, but since the walls are a bright aqua teal color, the trim needs to have a neutral base. I thought of buying new doors and adding trim and even wall-papering them. Then I decided I was going to paint gold hearts all over them. That’s the idea I’ve been holding onto for the last couple of months.

And then I saw this beautiful hand-painted “wallpaper” that Elsie did in her new house in Nashville and I immediately knew that I had to do a more whimsical design. Not that hearts aren’t whimsical, but there are a dozen items that the girls are more obsessed with than hearts these days.

I narrowed that list down to 3 items: dinosaurs, school buses and owls. It could have easily been planes or helicopters, as well. But, school buses are sort of their thing. I sing The Wheels on the Bus 500+ times a day and it’s the only nursery rhyme they consistently request from me and the TV. They’re also obsessed with the physical vehicle/toy itself. The school bus is the only item liked more than their baby doll stroller.

It had to be a school bus! So, I printed a cartoonish sketch from the computer and made several templates using card stock.

For the most part, I just eyeballed the placement, but I did measure about 12″ between each bus vertically and about 3 1/2″ between each line of buses using a ruler. It’s very “ish” measurements.

It’s a pretty easy project, especially since I was only working with closet doors. It’s pretty difficult to get straight solid lines, especially on the decorative faces that are indented, but I was able to do pretty decent touch-ups and it doesn’t need to look perfect. It’s hand-painted and whimsical, right?

All you need is a Krylon Gold Leafing Pen, painters tape, your template (it’s helpful to have a few templates on hand), and some patience. I used the painters tape to help keep the template in place while I was tracing.

The only thing that really matters is that the girls love it. They ooohed and ahhhhed for about 15 minutes and wanted to “touch it”. They did call them “cars” at firt, which was a knife to my artistic soul (just kidding), but they like cars too, so it works for me.

It’s fun, surprisingly subtle and adds a bit of whimsy to their cute little toddler room. The best part is that it will be easy to change when they grow out of wanting school buses on the closet doors.

What’s your favorite upgrade to closet doors?

August 1, 2016 by Jillian

A Hanging Swing Chair In Our Living Room!

I’ve been a fan of hanging chairs for awhile now and when I stumbled across this Marrakech Swing Chair form Urban Outfitters I just fell in love. So for my birthday I sort of threw it out there as an idea for a gift.

It was a bit of an expensive gift for a birthday (it’s currently on sale for $179, BTW), but I put it on the table figuring it would be forgotten and that would be that.

Then on my birthday, my mom dragged a giant, fully wrapped gift into my house. Yes, she wrapped the furniture box that the swing chair came in. It was HUGE! She also put 34 candles on my birthday cake, but I digress. I had my swing chair!

I wanted to hang it up right then and there, but I wanted to do some research on safety and the best way to hang a behemoth swing chair that needed to hold the weight of a 6′ 7″ giant + two wild toddlers. So, there it sat under my couch for the next 2 months.

I was beginning to think I should hire a professional, but after chatting with my grandfather while we were on our trip to Maine about the best way to hang it, I decided to tackle the project myself. So, last Thursday I climbed into my attic on a 100-degree low country day to install a brace between the floor joists in order to hang my chair. Now, in a perfect world, I would have attached the chair directly to an existing floor joist, but the location of my floor joists weren’t in the right spot, so I had to create a new terminal from which the chair could hang.

Also, in a perfect world, you don’t have to hoist yourself into an attack located inside a tiny closet with a hole the size of a bucket. Yup, our attic access is in there (the closet pictured above). It was so hot that I thought I might die up there. Just pass out and be stuck forever in the attic of death. I think I lost 10 pounds of water weight that afternoon. But, it was all worth it for this hanging chair!

I cut a 2×4 to size — my floor joists are 22″ apart — and made sure the fit was snug enough that I had to tap the new brace into place. Then I attached a floor joist hanger to either side, slid the new brace into place and for added measure screwed from the outside, through the existing joist, into the new brace (on either side).

Then, my husband screwed the 3/8″ x 4 1/2″ eye bolt with locking nut into place from the underside of the ceiling and through the 2×4 brace. Once the bolt came through the 2×4, I locked it into place with the nut. Not that I’ll be testing the theory, but this forged steel eye bolt can hold up to 1,200 pounds. Of course, that didn’t stop me from cringing the first time Jeremiah sat on it with both the girls in his lap.

This chair is very bohemian, which I wouldn’t really consider my style, but man does it work. I’m so obsessed with this chair in the living room that it makes me do a happy dance every time I see it.

Yes to hanging chairs inside the house! This is seriously the most fun furniture we own.

July 27, 2016 by Jillian

Our Vacation in Maine (according to my iPhone)

Oh hey, hi. How are you? It’s been awhile, no? We just returned from our family vacation to Maine and are diving right back into the thick of things, so we have lots to share in the coming weeks. Today, however, I wanted to continue my big long deep breathe by sharing some photos (according to my iPhone) from our trip.

Maine is my happy place. It’s the one place in the world, where I feel I can fully relax, unwind, and unplug. My grandparents live in the sticks, on a dirt road on the outskirts of sleepy little town. We also have a family cabin on a deep water lake, which is where we spend the bulk of our time. Both of these places have little, if any, access to cell service. That, in itself, is reason enough for me.

So, what do you do in the middle of nowhere without digital services, access and commodity? Breathe, my friends. Just breathe.

We took long walks and I let the girls pick up every stick, rock, leaf, beetle, tree frog and pine cone along the way. We gathered wood and starter for fires, fed squirrels out of the palm of our hands. We swam in the lake, water-skied and canoed. We read So. Many. Books. Every night we played games, like Racko, Uno and Phase 10.

I didn’t bring my camera because my photo-taking can be a point of contention with my husband. He says I don’t experience moments because I’m constantly taking photos of them instead. Of course, I took a billion photos, but getting a quick picture with my phone is a bit more acceptable than pulling out my full camera gear and staging photo ops.

We ate lobster (Hadley made friends with the lobster, but had no problem eating it) and lobster rolls, and hot dogs and marshmallows and ice cream.

We sat in rocking chairs and stared out at the water, watching the ducks and their new ducklings swim past, listening for loons and laughing about all the crazy memories we have in this tiny little cabin in the willy wacks of Maine.

The little town my grandparents live in, Dover-Foxcroft, has seen a boom in development lately, with young couples moving back and starting small business, local farms and the recently renovated woolen mill that houses lofts, a boutique inn and a lovely coffee shop and cafe that rivals those in more urban areas. Maine’s economy isn’t great, especially the father north you go, so it’s great to see people pushing the boundaries and working to bring it back to life.

My husband didn’t want to leave. He is seriously planning our new life on a farm in the woods of Maine. A bed and brewery, maybe? I’m so glad he loves my favorite place as much as I do. This place, it’s that transformative.

On the drive home, we made a bonus pit stop to visit an old friend from New York in her new house. She just hit the mother load of life events, so it was a much-needed catch-up. You can’t see it, but her little boy is sitting on a growing belly.

Where is your happy place? Do you have a spot where you can fully detach and unplug?