Makeover plans for my office

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Our first project of the year is well underway, so it’s past time for me to catch you up. As I mentioned in my Home Goals 2017 last week, we are redoing the last of our three bedrooms, the room that is going to be my office.

This room has been my office since we moved here, but it’s never been set up as a functional office. It had a filing cabinet to hold our paperwork and a desk (left by the previous owners), which held my sewing machine. That was pretty much it.

Along the way, we added furniture that we weren’t using elsewhere, which gave me a place to store magazines and patterns. But most of my fabric, office supplies and knickknacks were still in the cardboard boxes that I’d packed when we moved from our first house–almost five years ago.

Having a pretty, well-organized, high-functioning room where I can craft, sew, write and work is important to me, and we’re finally going to make it happen.

Here is some of my inspiration.

Inspiration board for my office makeover

Sources: Goose, Paint Colour, Desk, Chair

And here’s our to-do list and an update on where we’re at so far.

~~Scrape ceiling~~ – It has become a tradition that over the Christmas holidays we scrape a ceiling. This year was no different.
~~Paint ceiling, trim and walls~~ – With the ceiling scraped, everything could be painted. The trim, ceiling and closet look so fresh with a coat of white and the walls are a fun dark turquoise.
Add new shelf to closet – I bought the shelf on Friday. I just need to trim it to fit.
Redo china cabinet and desk – I’ve stripped and restained the tops of the desk and the cabinet and primed the bases. I’m hoping to continue painting this week.
Reupholster slipper chair – The legs of the chair got a beautiful dark stain while I was doing the desk and the cabinet. I have the fabric. I need some foam. Then I’ll teach myself upholstery.
Reupholster ironing board – Because a primary activity of the office is sewing, I have an ironing board in the room. It needs a new cover to match the new office.
Unpack all of my boxes and decorate – Oh I am so excited to do this finally.

I don’t have any pretty photos yet. Here are some progress shots.

First up, the guest room, which is holding all of the things that used to be in my office. Oy vey. My poor pretty guest room. I hope no one wants to come visit for a little while.

Matt doing the messy work of scraping the ceiling.

Where we’re at as of yesterday afternoon. Beautiful smooth ceiling, bright trim, oh so purty turquoise walls… and a makeshift paint shop.

I do not like refinishing furniture indoors, but it’s a necessity in January in Canada. My freshly painted walls were so dusty, and I don’t have enough space to lay out all of the pieces that need painted. Argh. This stage is going to take a little while, but I’m feeling good about the progress we’ve made so far.

What do you think about the progress and plans? Do you have an office? What do you use your office for? How do you balance the pretty and the function in a work space?

Home Goals 2017

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Alright. It’s officially time to start looking ahead. Time to share my Home Goals 2017.

Unusually, I’ve not been thinking about these for the past few months. Some of them have solidified over the last few weeks–one of them even started just before the end of last year. Some of them came together just as I was writing this post.

I think we’re getting to the stage where more things are done around the house–and the things that are yet to come are biggies. As in so big we’re not ready to tackle them yet (although I really, really, really want a garage).

However, there’s still enough to keep us busy for another year. Here’s what’s on the list.

My office

Turquoise and brass file cabinet from DIY Mommy

Source: DIY Mommy

Ahhh. My office. Finally a room of my own (thank you Virginia Woolf–not an affiliate link). I don’t know as I can convey the monumentalness of this project–except by making up words. Five years ago we moved to the farm. Since that time, moving boxes have been stacked against the wall in my “office.” I want to unpack and truly have a functional office. Finishing off my office will finish off another milestone for the house: the final bedroom.

The transformation is already underway. This is the project that Matt and I started right at the end of December–gotta keep up our holiday tradition of scraping a stippled ceiling.

Clean up the pond shore

Source: Gillie Rhodes

Property clean up has been on my list every year. And every year I end up working on whatever spot shows up in front of me. This year I want to be a little more plannful. This year, I am cleaning up the pond shore–how’s that for an emphatic statement.

The pond is my favourite place on our whole 129 acres. And I haven’t been able to easily access the shore the whole time we’ve lived here. I’ve considered enlisting professional help, but I think if I put out a call, I should be able to find a few family members willing to wield chainsaws and weed eaters for a weekend.

Vegetable garden

Hay mulch in the garden from The Prairie Homestead

Source: The Prairie Homestead

The vegetable garden was our major project last year, and as a result I feel like we’re in very good shape to start this year’s growing season. However, there are a few things I’d like to add this year, like rhubarb, a second row of berries (maybe raspberries, maybe something else) and maybe some more grapes.

Most important, this year I am going to keep the weeds under control–another emphatic statement. I’m hoping a deep mulch will help me not spend my whole summer weeding.

Flower gardens

Colourful shade garden from Better Homes and Gardens

Source: Better Homes and Gardens

Last year our flower gardens were entirely neglected as the vegetable garden consumed all our time. This year I want to give them at least a little bit of attention.

I’ve dumped plants randomly in two beds at the front of the house, and they need a bit of organization. I’d like to add some more shade tolerant flowers to the turnaround.

I’m also planning to remove the flowerbeds at the back of the house (there are only so many hours in a day, and mowing is easier than weeding).

Basement

Source: Martha Stewart

I’ve said it before. The basement has been hanging around long enough. This is the year we’re going to finish it once and for all–including fun art.

New barn cat

This one may be more of a farm goal than a home goal.

We have an outstanding barn cat in Ralph. So outstanding that we’d love for her to teach someone the wisdom of her ways. I’m not sure exactly how we’re going to go about finding her an apprentice, but we’re going to figure it out.

So there you have it. Six goals. Two inside, three outside, one alive. Some big, some small, one with a tail. Some easy, some tedious, some furry.

We’ll see how this goes.

Time to get started!

Do you have any goals for this year? What would you like to accomplish at your house? Any tips for introducing a new barn cat? Anyone want to help clear the shore at the pond?

Staying in

Posted on January 13, 2017 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Our living room is definitely a work in progress. I’ve shared bits and pieces, like our bookshelves, the sideboard turned sofa table with its display of family photos, the TV stand, the bar cart turned side table and of course our fieldstone fireplace.

Even though there are still things on my to-do list (just don’t look up to the stippled ceiling or giant green ceiling fan, okay?) we love our living room. In fact, this is the room we use the most at the farm.

We are home bodies and prefer to stay in most of the time. Over the holidays, the mattress company Leesa reached out to me and asked me to share the elements that make up my perfect night in. Since this topic is such a fit for me, I wanted to participate.

Most evenings, we come home from work, light a fire and then we have dinner in the living room. Since finishing the fireplace two years ago, this room has become the place we spend our winter evenings.

For me, a wood burning fire is essential to a winter night in. Building this fieldstone fireplace was a dream that I had for years, and it added such country character to our home.

While a brown couch is not the most popular decor choice, it’s a very livable piece of furniture. This is the first piece of furniture we bought when we moved into our first house, and it’s almost 10 years old and still comfortable. We sit, watch TV, eat, sleep and work on this couch–and, yes, doggies are welcome too.

Obviously, the throws (or as I grew up calling them, afghans) are functional and not just decorative, especially on a cold winter night. Leesa has a blanket to go with their mattresses. It looks super cozy and warm–a great option for staying in, whether you’re snuggling on the couch or dozing in bed.

For me, I’m all about incorporating personal and family pieces in my decor and these knitted afghans are completely that. My Grandma, who taught me how to knit, made the one draped over the back of the couch, and I knit the one with the flowers.

Rounding out my perfect night in are my favourite two-legged guy, a few candles, my favourite fizzy drink, a salty snack and some good TV–we love Ken Burns’ documentaries and are making our way through Baseball (not an affiliate link) right now–it’s so good.

Since moving to the farm, we’d rather be here than anywhere else. Having a living room that’s truly for living is the perfect encouragement for staying in on cozy winter nights.

Are you a home body or do you like to go out on the town? What makes a perfect night in for you? Any other documentary fans out there? Do you have any afghans at your house?

Disclosure: I’m not receiving product or financial compensation from Leesa for this post. This is simply a topic that resonated with me, and I liked the idea of being part of this series with Leesa. Learn more about the Leesa mattress.

Looking back at Home Goals 2016

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I have to be honest. I’m on the side that is glad to see the end of 2016. It was not my favourite year.

But there were some bright points. And before I look too far ahead into 2017, I want to take a look back at my Home Goals 2016.

I really enjoy laying these goals out at the start of every year. And I find them very helpful throughout the year to keep me on track.

This year was kind of a mix. We accomplished a lot, and I am really happy with what I can cross off the list. However, some little finishing details continue to hang around, and I couldn’t summon the motivation to finish them.

Here’s my review.

Start to plan for the big reno

I started last year by sharing some of the floorplans that we’ve been playing around with for our long term vision for this house. Through that process, I think we landed on a plan that will work best for us.

We also met with a contractor, got his input on the plans and got some very rough numbers from him about how much things will cost.

We also realized that we can easily break our plans–and our budget–down into several phases. I like knowing that we don’t have to do everything and spend all the money all at once.

The big reno, even just phase one, is likely still a little ways away, but it seems more real now that we have some drawings and numbers.

Guest room

You know I love crossing a whole room off my list, and the guest room has been one of my favourite projects so far.

A few family members visited us in 2016, and they all liked it too. My one nephew said it was like a bed and breakfast–the kid knows how to make his aunt happy.

This is a project where one niggly finishing detail is still hanging around. I stripped the paint off the old metal bedframe way back in the summer, but I never repainted it. So this will have to go on the list for 2017.

Finish the basement

The basement was our very first project when we moved to the farm, but four years later I still had some niggly finishing details hanging around. The biggest detail was Matt’s bathroom, which is alllll done–and so, so pretty.

The basement ended up being the focus of an unexpected reno this year when we had to waterproof the foundation in a few areas. It was tough to redo already redone areas. I’m keeping my fingers crossed we don’t have any water seep in this spring.

While I had planned to focus on just a few small things, after redrywalling the areas that were waterproofed, I also built a new closet in the laundry room. Closets were a theme of the basement. We added a tonne of new shelves to the cold cellar and built shelves in the closet under the stairs. These areas have given us a lot of extra storage. It was great to dig out the Christmas decorations without digging through a pile of boxes first.

So there was some good productivity.

But on the niggly details front, I continue to struggle with art to finish off the basement. I know what I want and I even have frames. I just haven’t taken the time to find the pieces I’m looking for. I did make 16 personalized Scrabble tiles for the pingpong room. Having each of our family member’s initials is a touch that I really like. The rest of the art will come in 2017. I promise!

Furniture

I didn’t buy a whole lot of new furniture this year, but what I did has been on the list for a loooong time.

Finding a third matching cabinet for the dining room was definitely the thrifting score of the year. I think it will be hard to top that one.

A close second, though, is finding a china cabinet for my office. I’ve been looking for a pretty specific piece for a long time. This hunt was a lesson in persistence and the importance of carrying furniture measurements with you everywhere.

The two other pieces of furniture on my list for 2016–making a new coffee table for the living room and reupholstering a slipper chair for my office–will carry into 2017.

Vegetable garden

The garden was a huge project this year. We invested a lot of time in it, and we saw the results.

In fact, everything that I wanted to do on my original Home Goals 2016 list, save for planting rhubarb, we did.

2016 was about a lot of the infrastructure for the garden. We finally hung the gate, put in curbs around the outside edge, built raised beds, built trellises for raspberries, tomatoes and squash, planted some perennials like grapes and asparagus, tried our first cover crop of winter rye, experimented with a deep mulch of straw, and last but absolutely not least ran a waterline out to the garden.

This year’s harvest was again fabulous. I feel like we’re starting to settle into our gardening groove.

And thanks to all of the work that we did in 2016, I feel like 2017 will get off to a much faster start and we can focus on growing, not building, the garden.

Outdoor clean-up

When I look at the farm, I feel like there’s so much that needs to be tidied up. In adding outdoor clean-up to my list last year, I knew I was going to have to pick a spot.

However, when I reflect on the last year, I realize that we actually ended up doing better than just one single spot. We cleaned up a scrap lumber pile behind the barn and another big one at the edge of our centre field. We picked up rocks, so I’m able to mow along the north side of the house, although I would still like to add some more topsoil and pick up a couple of patio slabs.

And the biggest area is the one pictured above on the south side of the garden, which was cleared for the first time this year–a controlled burn is the way to go–and then mowed by Matt all year.

There’s still a lot more clean-up to go, but I have to remind myself that we have a 129-acre property and we have made good progress.

And that’s a good word to sum up 2016 as a whole. Progress.

I feel good about what we accomplished, and, even better, I continue to enjoy the process of making the farm and the house ours.

What were your accomplishments in 2016?

New Year plans from Illinois

Posted on January 4, 2017 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Sarah in Illinois is back for another year. She’s kicking off 2017 by sharing some of her plans and projects, and how she’s going to make it all happen.

It’s a new year! That means new goals, new projects and a big blank slate.

Last year I said that I was going to choose one word as my goal for the year, and that word was “focus.” That was helpful for a while. I used “focus” to stay on task and get things done.

However, like most resolutions, once the newness wore off I got back to my old habits.

That is what is so great about a new year. It’s a chance to start over.

So I went to oneword.com again to find a word for 2017. It only took a few seconds for a word to catch my eye. My word for this year is “less.”

It can apply to so many areas of my life. I plan to eat less, spend less, worry less and own less clutter.

Hopefully this year I use my one word to make some great changes and improvements.

As for projects around the house, I decided to set a goal of one project a month.

Some months the project may be large and some months may be much smaller, but the idea that at the end of the year I will have 12 completed projects sounds pretty darn great.

So here are my first 3 projects:

1. Steve and I built a dog house for Blitz to have when he is outside. However, it needs painted and needs some type of roofing material, most likely shingles.

2. Months and months ago my mom brought me my grandma’s St. Francis of Assisi statue from her yard. My plan was to patch the cracks and repaint it. So far, I have not done a thing to it, and my grandma doesn’t even know that I have it. I would really like to get it fixed up for her before she looks out in the yard and thinks that someone stole her statue.

3. I really want to finish priming and painting our hallway. I am embarrassed to say how long it has been unfinished, but believe me it is a long long time.

I hope in the next three months I can get these projects done. It will take “focus” and “less” distraction that is for sure.

What are your plans for the new year? Do you make resolutions? What do you do to make sure you stay on task and get things done?

Thanks for sharing your plans, Sarah. I really like your strategy of having a word to guide you throughout the year and a project a month. Good luck with your first three projects. I’m looking forward to seeing the results.

Christmas writing elsewhere

Posted on December 16, 2016 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

One week to go before Christmas. I. Can. Not. Wait.

We’ve hosted our annual Christmas party and done a bit of decorating. Baking and finishing off Christmas presents are on the list for this weekend.

I’ve also written a few Christmas posts for some of the other sites I contribute to.

On That Mutt I shared my tips on how to make sure your dog is comfortable during a party. I think it’s pretty clear that I’m biased when it comes to Baxter, but seeing his facial expressions during the party are worth the click in my opinion.

Here’s a sample for you: the most hopeful puppy in the whole world staring at his favourite person (Matt’s Dad) and his favourite foods (turkey and squash). He’s very hard done by, in case you were wondering. I have some actual helpful tips in the article too, not just cute dog pictures.

Since moving to the farm, I’m embracing more and more a rustic, natural style. On homify, I wrote about Christmas decor without the kitsch.

Country Living room by Vanessa Rhodes Interiors

And since it’s been years since we’ve had a Christmas tree at our house, I also shared some ways to branch out beyond the traditional Christmas tree (although I can’t see a Christmas tree wall decal ever being our style).

Are you ready for Christmas at your house? What festive things are you up to this weekend?

Vintage bar cart end table

Posted on December 2, 2016 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I made a change in the living room the other weekend.

I switched out a small end table for my grandmother’s vintage bar cart. I’ve envisioned using this cart as an end table for as long as I’ve had it, and I love how it looks in the living room.

The top tray is the perfect height for a lamp, and the shelves give us more space for the phone, answering machine (we’re still old-school here in the country), some storage and display, and even some room left over for a drink and a snack.

Plus the brass, glass and wood is pretty.

Bar carts have become so popular. I think the reason is in part because they are such versatile furniture.

In my grandmother’s house, this cart lived in a corner of the dining room and held her silver tea set. As much as my grandmother enjoyed an adult beverage now and then, this cart was known as a tea cart.

When it came to our (first) house, it served the same purpose, sitting in our dining room and holding my silver tea set.

It did that for awhile here at the farm too. But I knew it could do more.

When we added the third part of our new-to-us china cabinet to the dining room, the tea cart got a chance to try something new and moved in to the living room.

It will be here for at least awhile. But I’m also envisioning it in a bedroom as a night table. So much potential…

Do you have a bar cart at your house? How do you use it? Are you a fan of bar carts? Have you ever heard of a tea cart?

How I organize recipes

Posted on November 30, 2016 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

One of my favourite features of the island we added to the kitchen is the open shelving on the end that holds our cookbooks.

The books add a splash of colour to the wood and white of the kitchen. The shelves keep them organized and easily accessible. Plus I love cookbooks. I will sit and read them like a magazine or novel. (And, yes, you’re not imagining. The upper shelf is sagging a bit under the weight of all of our cookbooks).

However, not all of my recipes reside in cookbooks. I have a bunch of printouts from recipes I’ve found online (I haven’t progressed to a tablet yet), clippings from the newspaper or magazines, even a few hand-written recipes from family and friends.

To keep these recipes organized, I returned to the lessons learned in school–binders, dividers and page protectors.

A couple of weeks ago, I added a bunch of new recipes to my collection, so I thought I’d share my organization method with you.

First are the binders. I have three major categories which each get their own binder: Appetizers and Sides, Entrees, Desserts and Sweets. Entrees outgrew its single binder and is now split into two books. I use different colours for each grouping.

Within each binder, I’ve divided the recipes into subcategories.

In appetizers, the sections are appetizers, soups, salads, sides, snacks, breads and drinks. For entrees, I divided them into pork, pasta, sandwiches, beef, fish, vegetarian, poultry, other meats (venison, lamb), breakfast. Desserts starts with the most important, chocolate, and then goes to cookies, “buns” and bars (including muffins), cakes, pies, fruit, custards and Christmas.

The recipes themselves are stored in plastic page protectors. I’m not the tidiest cook, so the plastic sleeves protect the paper from spills and splashes.

However, it’s easy to slide the recipe out of the plastic and add notes about what worked, what didn’t or what adjustments I made.

Beyond the binders, I also use magazine holders to organize the smaller pamphlets and cookbooks I’ve collected over the years. I got two wooden holders from Ikea and stained them to match the countertop and cabinets.

I love having my recipes organized.

In fact, I was so inspired that I flipped through the dessert binder and whipped up one of my favourite fall recipes, spiced apple muffins, using the apples my friend gave me from her own tree.

With my recipes all organized, I feel ready to move on from fall baking on to Christmas baking.

Are you doing any baking, either fall or Christmas? How do you organize your recipes?

Basement bathroom details

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Today is about diving in to all of the details on our basement bathroom that you saw on Friday.

This is a small space–5 feet by 7 1/2 feet. But it makes a big statement, if I do say so myself.

As you saw, what we started with was not great. We ripped everything out right back to the concrete. We reframed the walls, our plumber ran all new waterlines, our electrician fixed the unsafe wiring we uncovered, we had sprayfoam insulation added, and then we put up drywall and cement board.

Along the way, Matt broke up the concrete floor so that we could reposition the shower drain and toilet (a lack of insulation in the original walls made them very thin. Once we reframed and reinsulated, we had to bump the toilet out from the wall by a few inches).

We also flipped the plumbing in the shower so that the shower head was on an interior wall rather than the exterior one.

And the other change was a small bump out into the hallway outside the bathroom. We have a very wide hallway leading to the laundry room–7 feet wide. So we borrowed about 2 square feet of it to make a little storage nook in the bathroom.

Here’s the floorplan.

And here’s how the bumpout looks from outside the bathroom. It’s not obtrusive and gives us a nook perfectly sized for a storage cabinet just outside the laundry room.

Let’s step inside and take a look at some of the details of our new basement bathroom.

The shower is big (3 feet by 5 feet), beautiful (marble! white! clean!) and has a few special features that I’ve always wanted (the soap niche and bench).

The main tile that we used is a 4 inch by 2 inch white subway tile–a bit bigger than the standard. It runs up half the wall behind the toilet and then floor to ceiling in the shower. Inspired by Lindsay Stephenson and her beautiful DIY shower, I added an accent band of grey marble mosaic tile. The shower floor is also a grey marble mosaic of little hexagon tiles.

The niche and the bench are two things I knew I wanted from the start. The niche is 12 inches wide by 15 inches tall and the bench is 32 inches wide by 16 inches deep by 18 inches high. On every horizontal surface, I used a solid piece of marble to protect against leaks. For the curb and the niche, we were able to find marble at Home Depot. For the bench, it took awhile, but we eventually found a remnant that was big enough for the top.

It may sound funny, but the shower curtain is what pulls it all together for me. Early in the bathroom project, I fell in love with Cole & Son Woods wallpaper. It was an organic pattern that would be a bit of a rustic element in the bathroom. Since moving to the farm, I’ve come to want to incorporate something rustic in all of my interiors. However the fabric version–like the paper–is way more $pendy than my budget.

I considered all kinds of alternatives, but nothing panned out. Then this summer Jen at Rambling Renovators posted about a Woods knock-off. And it was from a Canadian company and already made into a shower curtain. Before I finished reading her post, I had already placed my order. It’s perfect.

Someday we might add a glass enclosure (there’s extra blocking in the wall to support glass), but that’s more money than we want to spend, and Matt’s satisfied with the curtain.

As I mentioned in Friday’s post, we reused the original vanity and sink that were in the bathroom. We didn’t have a lot of space, and they fit perfectly, so there was no reason to reinvent the wheel. Looking at these photos, I see the finish of the vanity looks very creamy next to the white toilet and tile. However, in real life, it doesn’t bug me.

Matt selected the faucet, and his choice was driven purely by budget. If it had been up to me, I would have chosen something square, like the towel holder and light fixture, which I picked. However, in hindsight that might have ended up being a bit too many squares. The faucet matches the hooks that we chose and the variety of shapes work well.

There were two things I wasn’t sure about in this bathroom: the black paint and the huge mirror.

In a small room, I was worried the black would be too much. But it’s only one wall, so the black doesn’t overwhelm the small space (it’s Wrought Iron by Benjamin Moore). The contrast with the white tile and fixtures is dramatic.

In a small room, a big mirror is a no-brainer. But sheet mirrors like this aren’t exactly in style anymore. Running it from the corner right over to the shower and from the vanity up to the ceiling modernizes it a bit. Installing the light fixture on top of the mirror also modernizes it–although the process of measuring and hanging this mirror was nerve-wracking. But the mirror does its job of doubling the light and appearing to double the size of the room.

With limited wall space, we didn’t have a lot of room for towel bars. Two hooks behind the door–each with three individual hooks–give Matt space for his bath towel and clothes–although pants still end up on the chair in the family room outside the door. Argh.

Even if the hooks don’t work quite like I intended for storage, the built-in works very well.

The closed cabinet on the lower part hides the less decorative things in the bathroom. Plus the cabinet door that I found at the Habitat Restore is a perfect match for the doors on the vanity. Originally, I’d planned to build a drawer inside the cabinet, but some dollar store baskets are much simpler and work just as well to organize Matt’s toiletries. The guy’s deodorant collection is ridiculous.

The upper part of the shelves gives more storage and a spot to decorate, which makes me happy. The back of the open shelves is lined with barnboard–that I actually went out and cut off the side of the driveshed. It’s another rustic touch that I love so much.

This might be a stretch for anyone except me, but I had a loose chess theme in mind when I conceptualized this bathroom. We have kind of a fun and games thing happening in the rest of the basement. Matt’s game–although I’m not sure you can really call it a game the way he plays–is chess.

When I thought about going black and white for the bathroom, I thought of a chess board.

That also led me to incorporate a photo of Matt’s grandpa, who was an avid chess player. And to ask my Dad to make a large rook–Matt’s favourite chess piece–on his wood lathe. (Beware, any time you play with Matt, he will always castle his rook and king).

For all of the time that Matt and I have shared a house, we have not shared a bathroom (aside from the short time span when this bath was under construction). So this room is all about him.

Happily, the finished product is something that works for both of us.

3/3 of a china cabinet

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Want to see the thrifting score of the year?

Last December I wrote about a pair of large bookcases I found at Value Village and my intention to turn them into a china cabinet in the dining room. I also wrote that I had really hoped to find three bookcases, but the store only had two (hence the 2/3 title of that post).

More than six months later, in a different Value Village, in a different town, I came face to face with a bookcase.

It looked like it might be the same as the bookcases we already had at home. I actually called up my original blog post on my phone and tried to compare the pictures of the cabinets with the bookcase standing in front of me.

I was pretty sure they were a match.

In another sign that the universe was on my side that day, we were driving my Dad’s truck, so we had a way to transport the bookcase. And Matt had a 30% off coupon.

The bookcase became ours.

When we placed it in the dining room, sure enough, it was a match.

Unbelievable.

I still have plans to make over this trio, but when that day comes I will no longer have to build the middle section from scratch. For now I’m quite happy to have 3/3 of a china cabinet sitting in the dining room.