The Traveling Bench...

This poor bench has moved quite a bit since we made it. We built it to go with our farmhouse table in our last house. Once we moved here it has been back and forth between a few rooms. Over Christmas it was in the dining room.

But ulitmately it spent most of it's time under the large chalkboard in our kitchen. 

 Well, once I finally made the sideboard for our kitchen (which you can see more of here and here), it was time to find a permanent home for bench.

So we moved it up to the guest bedroom. I like how the stripes look in here and it is a nice spot for our guests to set their bags and things. Hopefully now this is where it will stay. At least for a few months, anyway...haha!

 

You can see more photos of this room (including some before shots) here. 

Source List for Guest Room:

Wall Color - Graystone by BM in Matte Finish
Trim Color - Simply White by BM in Semi-Gloss
Door Color - Mopboard Black by BM in Semi-Gloss
Bed - Skyline Furniture about five years ago
Mirrored Dresser - Haynes Furniture about five years ago
Silver Chest - TJMaxx about five years ago
Lamp - Aiden Gray on clearance about 7 years ago
Sheets - Amelia Embroidered Sheet Set from Ballard Designs
Duvet Cover and Euro Shams - Jardin Toile from Ballard Designs
Quilt and Standard Shams - Audree Pom Pom from Ballard Designs
Two Square Pillows - Home Goods
White Linen Center Bed Pillow - IKEA
White Framed Mirror - Savvy in Williamsburg, VA
Bench - We made it, tutorial can be found here
Tall Mirror - Home Goods
Urn - Had for Years
Metal Sphere - Home Goods
Chalkboard Print - Written by myself and sold in our shop here.
Frame - World Market
Smaller Frame - Home Goods
Chair - on clearance at The Loft Outlet in Williamsburg
Knit Pillow - Joss and Main
Geometric Pillow - Target
Drapery Panels - Ritva Panels from IKEA
Curtain Rods - Home Depot
Lamp Shade - World Market
Horse Bookends - Savvy in Williamsburg, VA
Chandelier - Restoration Hardware Baby and Child
Rug - Rugs USA
Shades - Lowe's
White Frames with Lillie and Lola photos  - IKEA

You can find source lists and paint colors for the other rooms shown here. 

I hope you all have a fabulous Thursday!

An Oversized Chalkboard and Bench In the Kitchen.

Sometimes I make decorating decisions that either I don't end up loving or that don't work for our family. I hit the jackpot with this wall seeing how it fit into both of those categories. You can see in this post how I first decorated it shortly after we moved in. Although I really liked the clock I wasn't as big a fan of the shelves. I thought they would be a nice addition seeing how we didn't do any of the open shelving that I had orginally planned on doing but because they were on a wall that we walked by regularly I had to go with shelves that weren't very deep and that meant I ended up just putting random things on there instead of dishes and other more substantial things that give the overall look I like when it comes to open shelving. Even though I chose shelves that were not very deep so there wouldn't be any problems with anyone bumping into them that didn't work out so well either. Poor Jon bumped into them just about every single day, to the point where they were leaning more and more and I needed to take them down before we had a big crash and some broken toes. 

So, down they came and I decided to go with something more simple and practical. As you know, I love chalkboards so I thought it might be nice to make an oversized one that we could use as a message center of sorts. I may at some point put something "pretty" on it but for now it is working out really nicely as a functional chalkboard. It is a great spot to keep our grocery list (I just snap a shot of it on my phone before we head to the store), Lillie's memory verse for the week from school, and for keeping track of what we have going on for the week. We used it last week (which is what the photos are of), and then I changed it out this week and so far we are really loving it.

Then I decided to move the bench in here to see how it worked. We had moved it upstairs to the end of our bed once our new dining room chairs came and I liked the functionality of it there but I figured I would prefer it to be downstairs so it could still be easily used at either the kitchen or dining room table for extra seating. I didn't think it would work here because I thought it would stick out a bit too far but after a couple of days of it sitting there we realized it actually worked wonderfully. It's a nice place for the girls to sit when I am in the kitchen and we have all used it to put our shoes on and take them off seeing how the closet where we keep the shoes is just around the corner. Once we knew it was going to work there, the girls and I went ahead and recovered it with this striped fabric that my mom got for me from New England Fabrics in NH.  It is the same fabric she used in her kitchen and I LOVE it! Even though it's still neutral I think it adds a nice interesting and fun touch in here too. And don't look too closely because the nailhead trim is pretty crooked. The girls took turns hammering in every other nail =)

Until we can go ahead and replace the counters and add a backsplash (and that is probably still months away!) the kitchen is pretty much finished for now. Here is a reminder of what it looked like on moving day:

 

I made the chalkboard the same way I did for our other ones (you can find that tutorial here) except I made it a good bit larger. And then for the chalkboard part instead of painting chalkboard paint onto a piece of wook, I painted the backside of a whiteboard that they sell at Lowe's. It was $13 for a HUGE piece (I think it was 4' by 8') so I had them trim it down a bit for me.

You can find our tutorial on how to build the bench here.

And if you are looking for sources you can find those by click here.

Have a blessed week!