A little project complete and a big project begun

For the last three weekends, I had to be home in Nashville for different commitments (work, Easter and more work).  I ended up staying between the weekends last week because there was so much I had to do at home, but now I'm back at the lake with no more commitments at home till June.  We're trying to complete this house in the next month; there are so many projects left I'm glad I can stop going back and forth and just focus.

Perhaps the biggest project of all so far began last week: the shore line redo.

Here are some pics of what the land looked like before we started:

Here's a pic looking up at the house standing on the shoreline (taken about a month ago).

The little "beach house" is a screened building on the future projects list.

The potential for this 2 acre lot is enormous!

I imagine these old railroad ties were the original shoreline from 1974.

They are disintegrating and you can see the instability of the ground.

Looks like there used to be wooden steps.

Trying to get into the water or step into kayaks for the last two years was a bit of a challenge.

It's hard to tell, but all the ground from the shoreline to the beach house isn't great.

There are all kinds of little holes you could twist your ankle in, the grass is sketchy and the whole area gets marshy and muddy when it rains.

(You can see the neighbor's boat dock at the end of our property line in the pic.)

So the plan is: carve out the shoreline and build a large, covered boat dock.  We need to carve the land out because we are at the end of the lake right where a channel begins; if we built a boat dock off and out of our current shoreline, we'd be blocking the channel and boats from the three houses beyond ours would not have room to pass.  So we need to carve into our yard space.

I don't consider this a huge loss as the dock area will be much nicer and more useful than the current slightly unstable terrain.  Next to the boat dock, we're going to put in a sand beach.

The water is only a few feet deep in front of our property (remember, it's at the end of the lake), but it would be lovely to put a beach chair in some sand and sit under an umbrella on a hot day.  Some of the homes around this lake have wonderful sandy beaches on part of their shoreline.

Here's the current state of the shoreline:

We began the excavation last week!

(Note the big, beautiful azaleas in bloom around the beach house.)

To the left of this pic is the neighbor's dock, it's about three feet from our property line.

You can see the PVC shoreline material that's been installed so far; that's the top of it, it's ten feet tall!

The land will be filled in and graded down.

The open area where you see the yellow fencing will be the sandy beach area.

Here's another view.

That's my son in the red shirt.  Because our contractor's help kept not showing up, my son picked up a job as the contractor's assistant.

So I've lost my own project assistant for the week, but he gets to make money so he's happy!

Our house is currently surrounded by trailers, dump trucks and heavy machinery of all kinds.  The yard is being torn up...you may remember, we are hoping to have a party here Memorial Day weekend to celebrate finishing work on this house.  (So we hope!)  We'll need to try to get some grass growing ASAP!

This is a $54,000 project - just for the shoreline.  So the covered boat house is going to have to wait a year or so.  But just having a nice looking shoreline, stable ground and a beach will be a good start.

In other news, I completed a small project yesterday, it went like this:

I found this wooden duck at a thrift store a few months ago for $3.

He had some artificial moss glued onto the bottom half of him; I have no idea why or what he was used for before.

I thought if I added some hooks to him, he'd make a nice little coat rack to put by the door.

So I cleaned him up and chiseled all the glued-on moss off.

My husband installed the hooks for me.

I needed a place near the door to hang the dog leashes we use every day to walk the dogs.

I thought he came out great!

My husband even hid the wall installation screws behind the hooks; his attention to detail is appreciated! 🙂

My instructions to the husband: "You need to install him so well that no one will pull a jacket off the hook too hard and rip him off the wall."

Well, this little guy is bolted on so tight if someone tries to rip him off I'm pretty sure they'll leave a hole in the wall.  Mission accomplished!

He perfectly serves the purpose I needed: a place to hang dog leashes (they're finally off the floor!) and the towel we keep by the door to wipe their paws off on rainy days.

I'm nearing completion on this room; I still need to have curtains made.

(Once I painted the walls, I put the former curtains back up and the color just didn't work at all.)

When I started working on this house, I was really trying to avoid making it too "theme-y" or cute.

I have to admit, as I was making the thrifting rounds I kept finding myself drawn to ducks.

There are quite a few ducks in this house...but hopefully I haven't gone overboard. 🙄

Ok, time to grab those dog leashes and walk those dogs!  Then on to the next project...

It's beginning to look a lot like spring!

Whenever my mom tries to convince me that I would love living in Florida, I have to remind her of what Florida doesn't have: fall and spring.  I can't imagine living somewhere without these two beautiful seasons!

Watching the earth spring back into life through flowering trees, lilacs, azaleas and daffodils is pure joy.

And spring is such a wonderful time to be outdoors; no oppressive heat!

It was a beautiful Easter weekend, full of church, rest and roasted lamb.

 I love this little Williams-Sonoma bunny dish I found at Goodwill recently.

Our church puts up a photo backdrop for all the holidays, with volunteer photographers to take photos for whoever wants one before and after services.  It's been great for our Christmas cards every year.  I found this series of pics on my phone when I got home Sunday:

Not sure what the husband was up to in these pics, but I did laugh when I saw them.

And remember this little project I posted about in the fall?

I planted spring bulbs in these four pots and then stuck them in my shed.

I pulled them outside in the beginning of April.

They bloomed just in time for Easter!

But this was a project with mixed results.  If you recall, I planted four pots, not two.  Two of the pots had these red and yellow tulips, and two pots had different colored tulips and another type of bulb.

The two pots with these turned out beautifully, for $5 a pot.

So, the two pots with these tulips and chiondoxa have yet to bloom.  There is growth in both pots, but no flowers (yet) and I'm not sure if they're going to do anything more or not.

I think if they were, they would have done it by now, since they're packages say "early flowering."

(The packages of the tulips currently blooming say "mid-season flowering.")

Ah, gardening.  The seemingly random results you reap sometimes, where something doesn't perform for no obvious reason, while some small, spindly, barely-alive stick you put in the ground grows like crazy.  I keep hoping as I gain more experience, I'll figure some of these things out.  It seems every year I lose at least one good-sized established perennial for no reason I can fathom.

But when it works, it's just so satisfying.

I'll keep you posted if these pots end up with anything interesting after all.  We'll see.

So, as much as I love Florida, I'm afraid it's just not in the cards for me.  At least not now.  But I'll probably meet the minimum age for moving there soon.  Maybe I should start studying up on the tropical plants now...

Some Goodwill gold and a WalMart wonder

You know something I love?  Going to Goodwill and not just finding something I want, but finding something I want that's still newly wrapped in its plastic packaging.  Something that got donated without ever even being used.  This happens a lot more than you might think!

Here are a couple things I found last week, still fresh in their cellophane:

I LOVE Southern Living cookbooks!  They have the BEST recipes and great pics, always!

You can't really tell, but this cookbook is still in it's wrapper.

My husband will be receiving requests from this book this summer, for sure.

Have you ever played Sequence?  This game is so fun, and since it's still in it's wrapper, I didn't even have to count the pieces with this one. 😉

While this would be perfect to put on the shelves for guests at The House of Goodwill, I actually bought it for myself.

Full disclosure:

I actually bought a version of Sequence at Goodwill years ago; it was the same game, only a version that uses states and capitals instead of the playing card motif of this original.  I bought it before I adopted my son from Colombia, we could play it to help him learn his US states and capitals.

(Games are the best way to learn boring facts, in my opinion.)  Anyway, that game was one of my former Goodwill purchases that fell into the "lessons learned" category.

When we went to play the game, I realized I had forgotten to check the game before buying it, and we made the sad discovery that it was missing the marker pieces.  (I think we still played, but substituted Colombian coins...)

So I've been looking for another Sequence game ever since, to get the pieces needed for our States and Capitals version (that I would rather play).

And perhaps that helps explain why I get so excited to find something I'm looking for brand new and still wrapped up.  This one will have all it's pieces for sure!

And in other great find news, I still can't get over this one: last week my son and I made a WalMart run for some groceries.  (Sadly, WalMart is the best grocery store in Lexington near The House of Goodwill...)

Anyway, as we checked the WalMart clearance aisle (a requisite on every WalMart run), I found these:

A Nutrilbullet for $22???  What??!!

If you recall, I recently posted about my "great find" of a used Nutribullet at an estate sale that I bought for $35.  I've been using it almost daily since to make green drinks that I've gotten addicted to.

I was debating about whether to leave it at The House of Goodwill for guests or not...I do have a VitaMix at home that performs the same task, but the VitaMix is bigger and takes longer to clean...I just loved the little size of the Nutribullet.

Well, it's not a debate any longer!  Now I have a Nutribullet for everywhere I go.  (I even bought one to take to New York when I travel.)

I still can't get over this; I've never seen a new Nutribullet for less than $70.

So wow, who knew?  It turns out I don't hate new stuff after all! 🙂

Apparently when the price is right, sometimes I actually really, really like new things.

I better be careful, or this might turn into a blog about finding stuff at the mall, or on Amazon. 😬

But it probably wouldn't be the same...after all, it's the joy of the great find that makes bargain hunting so fun in the end, isn't it?

The House of Goodwill book club, Easter edition

I've recently read fantastic books that I absolutely LOVED, and realized their themes - of death and resurrection, not to mention faith, hope and inspiration - made them perfect for an Easter review.  With one exception, I picked them all up at Goodwill.  The only thing better than a really great book?  A really great cheap book!

First up, Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent

When my father had his cardiac arrest last fall, I was packing to go stay with my mom (to help with hospital shifts), and I was looking for some appropriate reading material for while I was there.

I had the seen the movie version of this book and liked it.  But the story was so compelling I thought I'd still like the book.  (I rarely read books if I've seen a movie version and already know the plot, but I made an exception for this one.)  Though the movie was good, the book is much better (as usual).

Anyway, this is the true story of a little boy who gets extremely ill and during a major life-or-death surgery, visits Heaven and returns.  Obviously, he survives to tell about it.  But how do we know his experience was real?  Well, as the boy begins to heal after surgery, he randomly shares information about people and things he never previously knew about, to the shock of his parents.

His descriptions of Heaven, which he tells about in bits and pieces during his recovery, are fascinating.

As it turns out, I didn't get a lot of reading done while I was with my parents.  But after witnessing my father's own resurrection story, I enjoyed reading this (and the next one) even more.

The next book is 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper with Cecil Murphey.

I've almost finished this book and wow, what a story!  Another death and resurrection story; it's been a perfect read for Easter week.  A quick backstory: my son is dyslexic and absolutely hates reading.  So to encourage him to read (a hugely important habit to cultivate, in my opinion) I've worked hard to figure out what kind of books he enjoys, and keep him in a constant supply of them.  Like lots of people, when he's got the right book, it turns out he doesn't hate reading as much as he claims.  (So far the category that appeals to him most seems to be spiritually-themed books.)  He's begun a habit of reading before bed, and he burned through the three books in this review so fast it made my head spin.  All that to say, I started reading this because I've sort of created our own two person book club; when we both read the same thing around the same time it gives us lots of interesting stuff to talk about while we're walking the dogs.

These books spawned some great discussions about Heaven!  We still talk about them.

This is the true story of a man who is involved in a horrific - and very grisly - car accident, who is pronounced dead on the scene by paramedics, who, failing to find a pulse, proceed to cover his body with a tarp and leave him alone.  Ninety minutes after being declared dead, a pastor (who was stuck in the traffic jam caused by the accident) comes upon the scene and inquires if there is anyone involved in the accident who needs prayer.  "No," he was told by the EMTs, "there's only one guy and he's dead."  Feeling God telling him that he needed to pray with the victim anyway, the pastor convinces the EMTS to allow him to enter the crushed car and pray with the dead man.  As he prays, he feels God telling him to pray for the man's recovery, and.....

I will leave it right there!  

Yet another amazing recount of Heaven.

And the third book is What are the Odds? by Mike Lindell:

I love a good biography, and having seen Mike Lindell share brief pieces of his life story on tv, I knew I wanted to read this book.  I love bios of successful people, and bios of people who have led really crazy or unusual lives, and this story definitely fits both categories.  I actually don't know exactly what to say about this story, its just so....crazy.  I could not put this book down once I started it, and I've given it to four other people who have read it and agreed.

This is a truly amazing story of God working through someone's life, and in this case, probably the last person in the world you would expect God to use.

The other great thing about this book?  It was only $10, but 100% of the proceeds go to recovery services for people who struggle with addiction.  So since it was such a great book, I ordered extra copies and have given them to others.  I love a great win/win!

And lastly, they aren't books, but I've been reading and enjoying these great finds this week:

I just found these Easter editions of Ideals magazine at Goodwill.

They don't appear to have ever been read or even opened.

Score!

Easter week reading or not, these were three incredible, faith-affirming true stories.  After witnessing my own miracle with my father this year - and God promising his healing to me before it happened - they resonated with my spirit on an even deeper level.

All three will be on the shelves at The House of Goodwill for guests.

The only thing better than a great, cheap book?  A great, cheap book read by the water! 

A lot of work, a little rest

My family and I have been working on The House of Goodwill for two years now, getting it rental ready.  And (finally!) we're just about there.  We've set a goal of having the house complete by Memorial Day, partly because we need a specific date to push us to get finished, and partly because we want to have a party here that weekend to celebrate getting it finished.

Chances are it may not be totally done by then.  But hopefully.  Done enough for a party, anyway.

To get there, we have been working really, really hard.  And because of commitments at home every weekend lately (work, Easter and more work), we've been coming and going a lot.  A LOT.

It's been pretty stressful.  "Fun" stress, but still stressful.

We drove back to The House of Goodwill this week on Saturday.  We were going to come Friday night, but my husband realized he had to do taxes, so we stayed Saturday so he could work on them.  (Whenever I'm home, I have yard work and laundry, etc. to catch up on, so I have plenty to occupy myself there.)

As soon as we got here, we realized we'd forgotten two bags of groceries I'd bought for the week.  They were in the refrigerator waiting to come, but none of use remembered to get them, along with a couple of boxes of things I'd found at an estate sale last week that I meant to bring to work on this week.

Oh well.

We noticed when we were at the home/house that we can't put off getting a new roof any longer, and our mailbox is falling apart after twenty years and needs to be rebuilt, but when do we have time?

Managing two properties does get hectic, and though I hate to turn this house over to renters, that is mainly why we bought it, and I have to admit that I'll be a little relieved when we make it to that point.

It will be nice coming here to the lake when we're only needing to do small tasks, as opposed to setting up an entire house to rent.  The trade off - of course - being that we'll then be sharing it with strangers.  After all this work, it's going to be hard to let it go!

Anyway, all that to say we've been pretty busy.  So when we can carve out an hour or two for a fun break, we really, really enjoy it.  I thought I'd share a few of the fun times lately:

We had a Parcheesi tournament at home on my birthday.

I got some great gifts for my birthday; here are two of my favorites!

Above is a bag my mom sent me.  I laugh every time I see it.

The same with these socks (below) that my son gave me.

I learned to crochet last year and made a goal of two crochet projects this year.  My neighbor helped me start making this blanket last year before she moved.

I'm going to finish it; I love crochet!

I find it very relaxing at the end of the day to work on this blanket and listen to tv.

I found this great coffee cup at Goodwill (it says "Make things happen" if it's not clear..).

It matches the dishes I bought AND motivates me! 🙂

It was a beautiful spring day recently, so I sat outside for an hour with my green tea and a great book (free from an estate sale).

I had to be in Nashville for a job last week, and realized it coincided with "Rigoletto" - the

first time we've been able to go to the opera since before the pandemic.

We had a great time!

(That's my sister-in-law Linda with us.)

My other relaxing hobby?  Flowers!

This was the very end of my spring daffodils for the year.  We were leaving the home/house, and I 

knew the daffodils would fade while I was gone, so I harvested them all to bring with me.

My first time using this duck vase I found at a thrift store.

My crabapple tree at home was also in it's full glory when I left, and I knew I'd miss it's finale.  So I cut some branches to bring with me.

I found this beautiful, huge, vintage McCoy vase at an antiques store recently, and thought it would be perfect for fall arrangements.

I'm loving these $5 tulips from Wal-Mart.

Lovely!

And finally: a little Mexican Train this weekend.

As I was fretting over my husband potentially knocking his giant beer mug off the table while playing dominoes, I came up with the perfect solution.

Remember my recently acquired ash tray/plant stand?

Well, turns out it's also an excellent drink holder!

I knew it was worth the $7.50!

And though I have no photos to prove it, while I was home last week I hit up two nearby estate sales with my son.  Although technically I'm "working on the house" while looking for stuff I still need, it's pretty much my other favorite relaxing hobby: looking for secondhand acquisitions for this airbnb.

I just love an excuse to go to Goodwill!

It wasn't quite Antiques Roadshow, but...

...it almost was!  So, I've had a ton of awesome Goodwill finds over the years, but perhaps I made one of my very favorite finds last week. 

As I was perusing the shelves at Goodwill, this gorgeous little blue hobnail candy jar caught my eye.  "That looks like Fenton," I thought to myself.  I checked the bottom, and it wasn't marked.

Now, I know that Fenton doesn't always mark their pieces.  (Fenton, for the uninitiated, is a glassware company that began making beautiful colored glass pieces over one hundred years ago.  The company no longer exists, but Fenton pieces are very collectible and often command high prices when resold.)

And I also know that people often give really, really great stuff to Goodwill.  And that sometimes people don't know the value of the stuff they donate.

But still, I thought it must be a reproduction.  Why?  Well, because it had a $3 price tag!

Usually Goodwill marks items up that they know (or think) are worth something.  How could I find a piece of Fenton for $3?!  It had to be reproduction!  Well, reproduction or not, it was too pretty not to buy for $3.

Upon checkout, the older lady cashing me out grabbed the candy jar and exclaimed, "You found Fenton for three dollars???"  She shook her head, "People just don't know what they have.  But good for you!"

Well, that was unexpected.

I'm often told by the cashiers at Goodwill that the things I'm buying are "pretty" or "beautiful," or maybe I hear "What a great find!" as they're ringing me up.  But I've never heard one identify my find before.  (To be fair, I've never found a Fenton at Goodwill before for one to identify.  But I have found some other great valuable pieces.)

Well, if the Goodwill cashier recognized a Fenton, I started thinking it must be.  Maybe there are no reproduction Fentons?

As soon as I got home I put my detective hat on and googled my beautiful little jar.  Sure enough, I found several exact replicas for sale online for around $50 a piece.

Yes!!

Just look at this pretty little thing:

Here it is.  I still can't believe it!

Who would give this away?

Here it is on ebay.

I gave her a run through the dishwasher to get her super sparkly.

The slight gradations in Fenton coloring are just so beautiful.

If you recall, I found an absolutely gorgeous blue Fenton vase last summer at a flea market for $26, and I thought THAT was way undervalued:

I think Fenton, like all art glass, is so much more beautiful in person, because you can see the variations in colorization, which are so much of what make it so lovely.

It was perfect to fill with gladioli.

So maybe it wasn't my "I paid $6.00 for it at a yard sale and found out it was worth $20,000" Antiques Roadshow moment, but it still felt pretty good.

Treasure hunting is what's fun about thrift store shopping, even if the value of the purchased object is high only to me.

In the end, I just bought it because I loved it.

So I guess that proves I've got amazing taste, right? 😉

Some happy little details

During the last month of work at The House of Goodwill, I've taken some days to hit some estate sales and thrift stores to try and find the last few things I'm missing to put the house together.  (Finally putting it all together is helping me discover anything I'm still missing, like rugs, nightstands, etc, so I don't have to go looking for them at the last minute.)

For the last two years, most of the house furniture has been in the garage.  I wanted to have all the messy projects done before moving things in (mostly the painting, but also sanding from the walls being resurfaced).  The mantle we had made is floating, so it required the giant chimney rocks to be drilled into for installation - was the last "dirty" project to be completed.  (There was rock dust everywhere from the drilling.)

So we are FINALLY really moving in, and it's exciting.  We have a goal to have the house complete by Memorial Day weekend, and we even received a deposit from our first renters (July 4th week) a few days ago!

Anyway, I thought I'd share a few pics of some of my favorite estate sale finds last month.  I wasn't able to get to any sales earlier enough to score any of the big things I still need, but I found a few little things that just made me happy.

Isn't this little goose votive sweet??

We hit the very end of one estate sale, when the house was mostly emptied, but everything left was marked waaaay down.

This little guy was $1.

Here he is lit up on the new mantle.

I just absolutely love him.

This lake house definitely has a duck/goose theme; I couldn't help it.

I just LOVED this vintage, pink egg-shaped vase for spring.

(It's on the unfinished mantle.)

It was $2.

This lot of books was totally free.

It was at the end of a sale, and the sellers apparently didn't think anyone would buy them so they were just giving books away.

These are all exactly what I love to read when I have a few minutes to sit; I would have paid for all of them.

I want to have great books on the shelf for the guests.

At another estate sale I got this beautiful little marble ashtray for $7.50.

But is it really an ashtray?  OR....

...a really pretty little plant stand?

It fits small pots perfectly and has a built in saucer to catch the water!

I found a Nutribullet like this at an estate sale; I'd been wanting one for a while.

It was $35.  (And no shipping. 🙂)

I've been using it to make green drinks every morning; I love it!

I'm debating whether I should leave it in the house for guests or keep it...I haven't decided yet.

This book was $3 at the thrift store.

I'm looking forward to trying some new recipes with it next week.

It's the details that make a home feel welcoming.  I believe all our future guests will notice, and appreciate the little things!