Let Me Count The Ways... Porch and Yard Edition

My porch is likely my favorite place in our entire farmhouse. It's peaceful, it has an amazing view, and the constant breeze is unbelievable!


However, we moved from our tiny townhouse and therefore had absolutely no furniture for our porch whatsoever. As usual, my superpower to buy practically everything in our home used came through for us once again! ;-)

1. Folding bench thing, FREE! I found this beside a dumpster outside a friend's house. It was too big to fit in my car, so I left a note on my husband's van begging him to go by and get it for me. When he was brought it home for me, it felt better than getting a bouquet of flowers! {lovey tightwad sigh}


2. Kid's Table, $4. I got this table and 3 folding chairs for 4 bucks. I'm still looking to replace it with something wooden, but it's working for now.


3. Amazing table and chairs, $30!!! This is my favorite "find" on our porch! I saw it at a yard sale, but couldn't talk the people down farther than $60. (I can't blame them. It's really a good quality set). My husband surprised me the next day by driving to their house, knocking on their door, and asking if they'd take $30! And they totally did! {another lovey tightwad sigh} The Masked Husband truly is my hero!!! (Yes, even superheros have heros) I love this table so much, here's another picture of it:



5. Kiddie Slide, FREE! Found it on the curb. You know how my saying is "it's only embarrassing to take something off the curb until you get it into your car. Then you get to keep it forever"? Well, if you take it from the house 3 doors down, it's embarrassing for longer because your neighbors know you took it. Lol!

(Do you guys love how I skipped number 4? Ok, moving on!)

6. Kiddie Swing, $5. Yard sale find. I talked them down a little. My kids love it, and it's shaped like an airplane!


7. World's largest kiddie pool, or world's smallest adult pool (however you want to look at it), $10. We got this at a yard sale 2 weekends ago, and it's been a huge hit! I don't think adult people are supposed to be excited about such a small pool... but we're easy to please around here ;-)

I love our porch and yard! And my secondhand super savvyness makes is even better!


And my favorite thing about my porch? Watching the Masked Children enjoy their yard and cheap yard sale toys from my awesome table and chairs! ;-)


I'm linking this up at the "Price My Space" party over at the Nester's.

Has The Masked Mommy Disappeared???

No. Last time I checked, going invisible wasn't on my list of superpowers ;-)

However, I have been CRAZY busy! We are moving on Sunday to a fabulous old farmhouse built in the year 1900, and we're so excited! However, packing all our stuff while watching 2 tiny tots has been no easy task... even when you do have superpowers... ahem.

As if packing weren't enough, we decided we needed to paint everything so we would be sure there was no exposed lead paint. So for the last week, I've been painting painting packing painting packing packing painting. Ya. But I do have some great pictures for you guys!

The windows were really the worst off before cleaning and painting...

Then we thought, "Why stop at the windows and the walls?" so we re-sealed the floor.

I'm really glad we did this. We just got some high gloss polyurethane, and brushed it on with one of those lamb head applicator things. It cost $50 for the supplies, but the results were fabulous! The floor was in such bad shape before that even after we mopped, our feet were still turning black. It took us less than 2 hours to do this, and I'm very excited about the results! :-)

Just a little farmhouse eye-candy ;-)

Here's my new living room. I can't wait to get my furniture in there and start arranging! You guys will help me figure out where everything goes, right?


I'll try to blog when I can, but I'll be pretty busy between now and moving day (which is Sunday). I wish I had some time to share some more awesome pictures with you, but more to come! :-D

Want to know where we're coming from? Check out my post Townhouse to Farmhouse!

Townhouse to Farmhouse

Well, it's official! We signed the lease yesterday. My family is in for a huge change next month!

We are moving from one of these tiny townhouses...

To this farmhouse!

Our yard will be going from a fenced in bedroom...

To a house sitting in a corn field. I am so excited!

Now, don't get me wrong. I have enjoyed our tiny yet adorable living room for the last year...

And we have been very blessed to have a yard, and we have enjoyed it thoroughly...

I'm just very excited to finally have the space for our family to stretch out!!!

There are some downs of course (like heating & cooling, hardwood floors with little kids, and a longer commute to work) but I could not be more excited about the pros! I'm going to have my own art room! Yay!!! My painting and sewing stuff can stay out all the time! I'm even going to have my own ceramics studio in one of the old "servant's quarters"! We will have space for a playroom, a real dining room table, and a place for all of our books! My husband will be able to work on our cars (a beloved hobby for him) and have space for all his wood working tools. We will have a swing set, and ample space to host pot lucks and barbeque's! I imagine I won't be running out of blogging material for at least a year ;-)

It's about 35 minutes from my husband's work, but only 10 minutes to our church. It's farther away from some of our friends, but closer to others.

I love to have people over and host parties, but it's kinda hard when you're already a family of 4, and your dining area looks like this:

We have loved you little town house...

... but it's time to move on!