Saturday's Shutter Assignment

So...we have been wanting to add some shutters to our house for some time now, but I don't really ever see any out there at the typical Lowe's or Home Depot stores that I like.  Plus, if you know me well I always think I  (excuse me-my husband and I) can make that object I am eyeing and at a lower cost than what the retail value is! Anyways, I mostly knew what design I wanted at this point because I had been doing some research on different styles, and when I say research I mean staring out the window at houses.  My husband finally had the itch to make them himself (usually the timing on when things get built at our house is based on his itch to do a project or my hinting I want "blah blah" built for mother's day or something).  I am not exactly knowledgeable on all those tools he has in that garage of his.  I mostly stick to my paint cabinet and occasionally toy around with hanging some pictures on the wall.  OK, man I am rambling.  It is way too late for me to be writing this.

First we measured our windows to figure out how tall the shutters needed to be and selected 3 pieces of wood per shutter to reach the width we wanted.  These were only about $2.00 each.

Here is my husband working hard at sawing the wood off to be the right size.  The back of his truck often becomes his work bench.

Here is what the shutters look like all nailed together in its raw form.

I decided to stain the shutters instead of paint them.  I wanted to warm up the front of our house a little and give it that slight touch of country charm.  This was the most expensive part of the project since I had to buy a gallon of stain.  Oh well, I am sure I will find a way to finish that can off on something else.

Next we added the hardware to make them look like they were operable.  I also think it adds something to them that without they wouldn't be as interesting.  This is adding "bling" in the construction world as I would say.

And here they are up on our house.  You will need special screws that are meant to go into brick and a good bit for your drill.  My husband learned that the hard way when he was using an old bit and it took him like 30 minutes to get one screw into the brick.

I am very pleased with how they turned out.  Now we just need to work on our landscaping.  Ahhh...lost, help!

Happy Making!
Anna Landers

Time To Share Tuesday

Thought I would share my latest design project.  My sister-in-law wanted me to help her with her playroom.  Her kids are getting older so she wanted to turn her playroom into more of a homework/art room type space.  It still has an area for toys and TV watching, but most of it purpose is for sitting at the table doing homework or craft projects.

Most of the storage items came from IKEA and can be interchanged with several units; ie, open storage, closed storage, etc.  The table we are going to look for on Craig's List and paint this green color.  Then we will look for the chairs and stools at local stores around the area to see what deals we can find.  Sometimes Ross or Home Goods can have some inexpensive looking ottomans and chairs. 

One side of the table would be my neices area where she could put all her things, the other side would be my nephew's.  Hope you like!

Thanks for letting me share,

Anna Landers



Thankful Thursday

So many of you may know my story, but for the sake of those of you that don't, here it is.  Early last year during a "routine" surgery to remove what looked like to doctors to be an abscess on one of my fallopian tubes it was discovered that I had ovarian cancer.  After a complete hysterectomy followed by six rounds of chemo I was told that my cancer is gone!  I went through one of the roughest times of my life over a period of 6 months, even though it seemed like so much longer.  Praise God that He got me through it.  On my journey back to recovery I was not sure how or even if I would be able to get back to the workouts I had once done prior to surgery.  Since cross country in high school it has always been one of my dreams to run a marathon, and I always thought that one day I would get around to it.  It seemed, though, that every time I started to train something else got in my way.  After some inspiration from one of my closest friends, I decided that with the help of God's strength I could start running again.  And so I did.  I set a goal to run a 5K in April called "Sprint for Cancer".  A little at a time I increased my distance until I hit the three mile mark.

Of course, I talked Anna into running the 5K with me.  For her, this was a comeback story, as well.  A couple of  years ago she had knee surgery and was unsure she would ever be able to run again like she had before.  With a little physical therapy and increasing her run distance at little at a time she was back to three miles again.

On April 21st we both ran together to sprint for cancer.  Through a little hard work and perseverance we both crossed the finish line and accomplished our goal.  We are both thankful that we were able to go out there and run that 3.1 miles with no injury, and we aren't going to stop there!  After all, life is a race me must run.  Never give up on the dream!

Right before the race

Almost finished!

Keep Dreaming,

Tiffany