I started a blog back in 2013. I was going to blog about home decor, projects, life, etc. It’s been five years and the blog has about 10 posts, and I haven’t posted anything new since 2015. LOL.

The reason I’ve decided to come back to blogging is because I decided I want to document the happy little things in life. The last time I posted it was about minimalism and taking time for things that are important. I’ve been working at it. I’ve been weeding things out of my life, and trying some new things. Where I’ve landed is this journey toward becoming me. It’s a journey toward happiness with my husband, whether we have children or not. It’s a journey toward health, and coming home.

To be perfectly honest, documenting the journey via blog is a great way to share who we are and make connections that might result in an adoption some day.

At the end of the day I just really enjoy following bloggers who have similar interests as myself. Brett is an avid forum-follower. He’s constantly reading and posting and interacting with others who share his interests. So, in a way, sharing information on this blog is also a way to reach out to my friends who are far away, or living on a different schedule. Blogging provides a way to feel connected. It’s like being Laura Ingalls Wilder and living on the frontier with no close neighbors. Except instead of writing a letter and sending it to a friend you’re sending it to all of your friends at once! Instantly!

In summary, Down on the Creek started as a way for me to share my struggles, my relationships, my projects and my life. And it’s continuing, but now Brett’s joining me.

PS – We’re going to try not to share too much detail about loved ones or friends if they don’t want us to. We’ll also try to be careful to maintain some sort of privacy regarding our lives. This is the world wide web you know…

• Pack up miscellaneous decor to sell in my shop.
• Garage Sale – for household items and clothes that can’t be sold in the shop.
• Find room to store centerpiece decor in the storage room or garage. In an organized manner!
  • The book talks about focusing on things you like to do and making sure you’re spending time doing things you love… as well as not being fearful! One of the things I truly love doing is decorating and planning events, which requires a certain amount of “stuff”. I’m toying with the idea of having some sort of event planning business on the side of my regular job, so I’d like to hang onto some items with the intent of trying a new business venture!

Cleaning up my life might be a project for the entire summer (or maybe the next year – or two), but the main reasoning behind it is that the more money we make the more we find ourselves spending… and as my house fills up with crap I find myself getting more and more stressed out. I can’t think of a better shopping suppressor than sorting through mountains of items I’ve shopped for in the past… only to stick those same items into a closet or spare room and not think about them again!

We did this quick update to the kitchen the other day. A few years ago, my husband’s grandparents moved out of their home of forty years. When they moved, a LOT if things got thrown out – or passed down. One thing they threw out (and we promptly snatched up) was this coat rack that Brett’s Dad made in shop as a teenager. It was weathered authentically after being stored in the potting shed for years, and I thought it’d be a great option for our place, so we took it back to our apartment at the time and it has lived with us ever since.

The other day it occurred to me that it takes up a considerable amount of floor space and that dog hair was collecting around the four feet. I try to minimize the things around which dog hair can collect, so I knew it was time for the coat rack to go.

I’ve seen a lot of pictures of mudrooms with board and batten style framework that I LOVE, but with our front door opening into the living room (and without an official “entry hall”) it hasn’t been possible to incorporate that sort of look into our entry. However, it occurred to me that the corner where the coat rack lives (in our eat-in kitchen) would be the perfect place to install some psuedo-board and batten with some hooks for hanging various sweaters and my purse, which effectively gets outerwear off of the dining room chairs and keeps my purse off of the kitchen counter (ick) or floor.

Luckily, we had some leftover stained boards from our craft center project in the basement (oops, I haven’t blogged about that yet) and so all I had to do was cut them to length, screw them into the studs and attach some metal hooks. I purchased 8 hooks at roughly $3 per two-pack. I spaced them far enough apart that we could hang up bags or coats without the space being too crowded. Since I screwed the boards into the studs first, and attached the hooks after, I appreciated that the boards were stable and didn’t move as I hand-screwed the hooks into place. Granted, if I were to do this project again I would probably pre-drill the holes as that makes it easier to tighten all of those screws. However, I wasn’t sure how far apart the hooks needed to be and wanted to visualize that before drilling or screwing anything. So I “winged” it… As usual…

Brett went to the garage for any steps involving me and a drill or screwdriver. He hates my lack of measuring and can’t handle it.

Turned out pretty good… if I do say so myself!

Did I mention I like to spray paint? Oh yeah… guess I did.

Here’s the “before” look at my dining room buffet and atop it are two items that have been purchased on clearance racks or at Goodwill and then sprayed.

The first is that red lamp. Loved the shape! Not so much the color. It got sprayed Rust Oleum’s Gloss White Enamel Spray Paint.

Next is that accordion-shaped thingy on the wall. I’ve seen those all over 1990’s country-themed decor and someone got rid of not one, but two of those racks at Goodwill. I snatched them each up for $0.99 and took them home. I found the miniature baskets hanging from it at a thrift store in Manhattan.

The tree painting is my own. It looks better in this picture than it does in real life! My husband’s grandfather is very intrigued by it. He’s an art collector and I think the offset canvases bothers him, but he can’t quite decide how much. Maybe he likes it though, he’s hard to read. He’s not really into blogs and home decor, but each time I make a change he and Brett’s grandma like to come out and see what’s going on.

So anyway, the accordion thingy and lamps both got sprayed. Can’t picture it? Let me help you out…

Isn’t it great? I filled each basket with a little green moss, some teensy flowers and hung them up on the wall.

You don’t see it? What? Why?

Okay… so that’s not what the picture shows… you caught me. I can’t find my pictures of this update and the only picture I do have of the white lamp and sprayed accordion thingy is this one. This was Christmas the first year we moved in. I DIY’d the lamp shade trim, the runner on the buffet, the rope Christmas trees and the tiny mirror hanging up top. I simply didn’t keep up with the blog and now I’m trying to get some posts done for things that I DID take pictures of… *sigh*.

Why can’t I go into the dining room and take another picture? Well… things have already changed of course! I don’t even own the buffet anymore!

Did I mention I’m addicted to spray paint? So, as an interior decorating blogger I get tired of telling people about it and reading about everyone else’s addiction to spray paint, yet… here I am. Doing a second post, right out of the gate, about spray painting stuff we already have to make it fit the new decor!

We’ve had a few victims of Rust Oleum’s Universal Aged Copper Metallic Spray. The first was these stainless canisters, that I’m pretty sure my husband’s mother bought from Walmart when he moved into his first apartment in college. That place was decorated like you wouldn’t believe – that’s not sarcasm, it’s amazement! When we moved into our house, and I finally embraced the backsplash tile, I also embraced copper in my home, and now it’s taking over the world!

These canisters were fine in shape, but they’d become sort of scratched and worn. So I gave them a little zap with the old spray paint can.

Better… eh?

Want to know about my master bath? I hope so because I’m excited.

When we moved in it looked like this.

I painted the bedroom and bathroom in shades of green and swapped out the toilet rack for a different toilet rack. Then I discovered that one bulb in our builder grade light fixture did not work. That looked something like this…

After reading blogs and joining Pinterest I decided that my original decorating plan was not my favorite, so I decided to change things up again.

One night I had the idea to make shelves for over the toilet. You see… it all started when I accidentally bumped our store-bought toilet rack and a bottle fell off the top shelf and narrowly missed hitting me in the head. No… we didn’t anchor it to the wall. Yes… that was in the instructions. Don’t worry we don’t plan on suing the manufacturer…

I had seen some awesome floating shelves that I liked, but I didn’t think the super-contemporary vibe was going to mesh well with my more rustic vision. So I walked around the hardware store until I came across these metal straps and brackets, which got me to thinking…

Brett welded the brackets to the straps so the shelves would be spaced evenly apart.

While he was welding I took a 1×6 and cut it into three, even pieces. I determined the shelf width based on the old over-the-toilet rack width. I sanded the top-side of each shelf because I knew that rustic, rough wood won’t be easy to dust unless it’s smooth. I stained each board dark walnut and sprayed each shelf with a few coats of poly.

Notice that there’s more to that picture than just the three shelves? Be patient!

When Brett was done with the brackets I hung them from our deck on a hanger (that’s how we spray paint everything) and sprayed them black. No pictures of that.

While all of that was going on, I was busy as a bee painting the bathroom in the dark. We had removed the old light to replace it with the new light. Since I was too lazy to move the toilet, I bought one of those skinny rollers, but I also wrapped the toilet in Saran Wrap to protect the back side from paint!

Oh yeah, prior to some of the painting, Brett sure was thrilled to install the new light fixture for me. It was a Menard’s Clearance fixture I snagged for $29. Yeehaw!

We had an issue with the hole on the wall not being centered above the sink, which irritated me to no end. So, I dreamed up this little decorative frame, that Brett attached to the wall behind the light fixture. Adds a little pizzazz, if you ask me.

Next came the tricky part. We wanted these shelves to hold some amount of weight and we knew screwing the straps into sheet rock wasn’t going to work. One strap lined up directly with a stud, but the other side did not, so we had to use some wall anchors. The versatility of these straps meant we could easily screw them into the wall at any point along the strap. We went with a screw placed at three different points along the strap to make sure everything was nice and secure.

The last step was to attach the shelves. We used some small wood screws to attach the shelves to the brackets. Because the brackets had two holes we went ahead and used four screws on each shelf.

Final result? BEEE-U-TEE-FUL! Did anybody notice the mirror update? That was a $14 Goodwill find! It used to be on top of a mid-century dresser. When I found it the dresser was long-gone, but the mirror was in decent shape. I sanded away the blonde finish and stained a rich brown. The darker wood tones warm that bathroom right up!

Some day soon you’ll get to see the other side of that door…

You want to know where I got my solid white cow in my kitchen? Hobby Lobby.

You want to know what it looked like before I spray painted it white? Boom.

Typical rustic décor, right? Totally different when the cow is glossy white. Very YHL chic. Got the idea from John and Sherry of course. In fact, I entirely blame them and a few other bloggers for my spray paint obsession. You’ll notice that the picture above includes Apple Barrel Glossy Acrylic Paint, which can be found at most craft stores… or Walmart. I tried it first, but quickly realized it wasn’t going to work for the cow. So, as soon as I had several items ready that I wanted to paint white, I gathered them all up and gave them a few coats of Rust-Oleum’s Gloss White Enamel Spray Paint. It did the trick two years ago and continues to hang on tight. So far the victims have been a lamp and this cow. I’ve got a few other things waiting to also get their gloss coat though.

Would you believe that I never spray painted until I started following blogs? It’s true. In fact, this cow is covered in drips because I was still learning HOW to spray paint. My husband is an expert spray painter so I took some tips from him. To his dismay I still don’t have enough patience to wait the full recommended dry time. In fact, I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m a good spray-painter now…

In order to get caught up on what’s currently going on at my house, I feel like I have to get you brought up to speed on some of my favorite projects over the past two years. I’ve been taking pictures for the blog since I bought the house, but never did anything with them! The time has come to move on and get to it!

Meet my $0.99 chair. It’s gouged, scratched, and wobbly.

Meet the chair after it’s been hit with a can of Krylon’s Coral Isle Gloss Indoor & Outdoor Spray Paint. I didn’t sand, I didn’t prime. I just sprayed to my heart’s content. The result? A very low-maintenance, antiqued finish. Since I couldn’t fix the chunks of wood missing from the backrest I simply wrapped the top bar with a little foam from an old mattress topper. After stapling that down around the edges and covering it in a cute fabric, I added nail head trim to keep everything held down tightly. The lower rungs were too small to add a bulky foam cushion to. They also weren’t gouged, so I wrapped them in fabric only.

My sister’s boyfriend only had one comment. That comment was, “the seventies called… they want their chair back”. I guess you can say he is not amused.

Anyone annoyed by my over-use of parenthesis yet? Sorry. Can’t help it. That’s how I think. It’s like this…

Coherent thought. Coherent thought (which makes me think of this. And this.) and then, oh yes, here’s the rest of that second coherent thought. Next coherent thought.

Final coherent thought. The end.

Drives my husband crazy.

My sisters think like this too, so when we’re all in a room (there’s four of us girls) and we’re all talking at once (that’s the only way it works) it’s very hard to keep up with the conversation if you’re a little slow (or a man). Because we tend to change topics quickly and sometimes in the middle of a topic. Sometimes we never finish an original conversation. Someday I will post a group text conversation on here. You’ll be amused. I promise.

Can someone please tell me why rustic décor must include roosters? I just don’t understand.

The first definition of rustic is: of or relating to the countryside; rural (according to Google…).

It says nothing about roosters. I realize that roosters live in the country… and people like them… generally. I also have neighbors that have a rooster and chickens. But, (in my opinion) it’s one of the ugliest animals on the planet. Why would I put them all over my house?

Here’s another question. Why are they so common in kitchen décor? I can’t find rustic kitchen décor anywhere that doesn’t include a rooster. Okay… that may be stretching it a bit, but you don’t see living rooms with roosters in them. Why is that?

This post is about to get hilariously hypocritical… Because I must confess that I’m obsessed with cows.

Yes. Cows. I have a cow in my kitchen… and milk bottles. So the same people I’m insulting (regarding roosters) are now looking at me skeptically because I have a love for cows. Here’s the main point of this post though… I can love cows but not necessarily associate them with rustic, country décor. I can also avoid saturating the kitchen with cows. (See above where I mention that I have ONE cow in my kitchen. Now that I think about it… I have ONE cow in the house.)

If you’re a good friend of mine and you have roosters in your house or yard and you’re now wondering if I hate all of your décor and think you’re stupid for liking roosters the answer is no. I love your homes. You’re free to like roosters, or pigs or any animal that strikes you. The home is an expression of ones self and you are free to decorate with what pleases you. The entire point of this post is for me to express my opinion and to let you know that I don’t have any room for understanding of the common obsession for the rooster. That’s all.

PS – Totally ridiculous second post. I’m a terrible blogger already. And… no pictures! Which totally makes sense due to the fact that I only want to post my own pictures here… and I have no roosters to take pictures of… now I feel better.

UPDATE – Look at this picture and tell me that doesn’t make you feel overwhelmed and half-mad…

PPS – I have a chipmunk in the basement.