How Do You Nurture?

I have never read the book The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary D Chapman but many of my friends have.  It is on my list of future reads.  When visiting with my daughter Ashley about it, we were categorizing how we show love and how people show us love.  The love languages are listed below. 

• Words of Affirmation
• Quality Time
• Receiving Gifts
• Acts of Service
• Physical Touch

So I realized that my way of showing love is "acts of service"...in particular, cooking for my family or helping them with things/projects.  It is interesting to me that how we show love is often how we need love.  In other words, what speaks to me from people who love me is what they do, more than what they say or what they give.

The conundrum of course, occurs when the people around you have a different love language.  It's hard to always stay in the moment, thinking an action through and how it impacts (or doesn't impact) another person.  And it is also hard to remember that what you want/need and what you get are not always the same thing and that doesn't have to mean we are not loved and appreciated.  The trick, though, is remembering what I am and what someone is, that they are two different things, and attempting to change a person is not an option.  We have control of ourselves, so we must focus on our own actions and reactions.

It is always interesting to me that in the middle of our busy lives, we sometimes loose a little focus.  We forget to take the time to practice another person's love language.  We get angry when someone doesn't practice ours.  This short little entry is simply a reminder to take the time to remember each other, and love on your families and friends the way they need loved on.

Crazy Cabin Upcycle Any Tiny House Enthusiast Can Appreciate

It's been ages since I posted.  Life has a way of getting out of control.  My dad was in a very serious motorcycle accident last July 1 and went home for the first time last Tuesday after 8.5 months of recovery and more to go.  The blessing is he is still with us to recover and we thank God for that every day.

Priorities of course, get rearranged, and I haven't been doing much of any kind of project until this spring.  And my husband and I took on a major upcycle.  Not furniture, not a car, but a house.  And not one house, but two!  We bought a cabin in Custer South Dakota and ended up with a cabin, garage, and a house.  The garage and cabin we are keeping.  The house is up for sale.

So in preparing the house for resale, we have put in trim, painted, fixed flooring, cleaned, taken down trees, repaired outside things.  That has been our focus. But this past weekend we were there, and we took out a wall in the cabin to make it a "studio" cabin.  It looks so much better.  And made so much more space.   This itty bitty 450 square foot cabin is our dream (well maybe not exactly, but still).  It is in Custer.  It was affordable.  It has a nice deck, great outdoor space, and creek running through the back yard-"Laughing Water".  It is not perfect but it is ours and we love it.  Take a look at the before pictures:

And after tearing out walls, painting, and some furniture...more to come.  

So this is our in between fix.  We tore down the itty bitty bedroom wall with the weird peek through window.  It was sheetrock, lath, and plaster and let me tell you...heavy heavy heavy.  We got it all pulled out, my husband patched the wall holes with 1 x 6, and we painted.  Now we have a place we can use until we do our final remodel, which will be to tear out the walls and ceilings at the front of the cabin and vault the ceiling, putting two windows up high above the door in the peek, and wood siding the whole front living room.  With some kind of new flooring, wood vinyl, slate, or wood.  It is a 1930 cabin, and the floors are VERY uneven, so whatever we do will be what works, and what minimizes the uneven floor.  But this is w hat we are living with for now, and we couldn't be more happy with the results. 

What's next.  Well, you will see by the pictures below that the cabin needs repainted and some outdoor work done on the front.  We intend to put in some kind of new front walk, clean up the landscaping, and probably do some painting to bide us some time until we are ready for the exterior make over, which will include some kind of wood exterior with a green roof..true cabin appeal.  That is down the road a ways, so for now, be watching for the temporary solutions we come up with.  

And my favorite down the road project is the bed.  We have an old bead board cabinet my husband is going to use to make a murphy bed for me.  I can't wait!  

A Little Surprise

I don't have pictures to share yet, but I do have a new project, my best yet in fact, on the table.  More on that later.  My husband and I will be married for 25 years this summer, on June 9th.  Since we were first married we have loved going to the Black Hills of South Dakota.  Coming from Nebraska extremes and flatlands, there is nothing better than the warmer winters (yes warmer) and cooler summers that Custer South Dakota claims.  Every time we have ever gone there, we pick up the real estate books and start looking at property, dreaming over it, wishing for our little piece of paradise. And yet, timing has never been right.  We were too young.  Everything was two expensive.  Etc., etc.

This winter, on a fluke, we went up to look at some property, and immediately realized it wasn't for us.  But in the mean time, the realtor did show us a property that was coming up for auction in two days.  It was a bigger house (806 square feet on the main level) and a little cottage with a neighboring awesome garage.  The little cottage needed work, had some issues, but the outdoor space was fantastic.  A deck, two blocks from down town.  A creek, "Laughing Water", running through it.  It had potential. And more importantly to my husband was this great big finished garage that was only 6 years old.  Heaven, right?   So, we came home Sunday night (a five hour drive).  We worked Monday.  And we turned around and went back to Custer Monday night for the Tuesday auction.

Well, needless to say, the auction went well.  We bought the house and cabin.  That was NOT part of the plan.  We are working on the house as we speak, to flip it. We are also changing lot lines to improve both properties.  In the mean time, we are dreaming about South Dakota nightly, and our little studio cabin that will be converted to something fabulous over time.  Little.  But Fabulous.

My husband doesn't allow me to use the term "tiny house" but in fact, that is what it is at 450 square feet.  It has a newly remodeled bathroom and kitchen, so it is just waiting for us to knock out some walls at the front part of the house and bring it up to standard too, and recreate our little bit of paradise.

Our next trip up is over my spring break, and after a few touch ups painting in the "big" house, I'm going to town on my little one.  And I can't wait.  But you will have to.  For pictures and progress. :-)

Waterfall what?

HI everyone.  It has been awhile since I posted.  I think I kept waiting for warmer days this winter, and you know what, we still haven't had them so I threw in the towel and started in on some projects that have been in storage for a few months.  My first one is this waterfall front desk.  It has some issues, as you can see..but I love the character of the desk.  It is almost done but I couldn't wait to share it with you.  The process of the transformation was to sand and then paint in an off white.  I left the top in natural wood, sanded it and then applied a dark wax Annie Sloan Dark Wax Stain (which I LOVE).  Then I stenciled this large stencil pattern on it, and put another layer of dark wax stain over the top of it.  And...I love it.  What do you think?  I have the handles yet to complete, but that requires a little shopping!