Vintage Inspired Patriotic Decor

Hello!

How are you all doing?

In the last few years,  I've forgotten about decorating for 4th of July until it is too late to create very many vignettes. This year, I pulled it out Memorial Day Weekend so I've had plenty of time to play with decor.

I watched this YouTube video as a spring board for my inspiration. I love the Little Cahaba Junkin channel. Kayla has a great eye for vintage finds and reminded me that I had some cute stuff tucked away. I had some stuff that isn't patriotic but it works with a patriotic color scheme. 

This is a long one. I hope you find some inspiration. 

Transferware in blue and red was pulled out from the cupboard. 

My little shoe box of flags and other mementoes was sorted and tiny touches were added to displays. 

A little Liberty Bell was popped in with an antique seed catalogue print. 

I utilized the old Scrabble game to spell out fireworks. 

Tiny toy soldiers were added to a display of military photos of my father and his parents. 

The book belonged to my maternal grandfather from when he was in the navy. It just dawned on me that I do have a photo of him in his naval uniform somewhere. The antique graphic is a card that I found last weekend in Fort Worth at the antique mall. 

Flags were popped in a vase of dried status and gypsophilia. The video reminded me to use the number 4 in a patriotic display. This one is from my antique church attendance board. It is perfectly aged. A tiny souvenir Statue of Liberty rounds out the display. This is my favorite display this holiday. 

I love the mantel. 

I figured that my Boyscout husband might have something to say about how I draped the old flag. Rather than take it to the hardware store to be decommissioned and go where flags meet their final end. I conducted an impromptu decommissioning ceremony of my own. I'd rather display my Nana's old flag than have it go somewhere from the hardware store. Comment if you know what they do with old flags. 

I fear that they end up in the landfill. 

I spelled out Red, White and Blue with our vintage little school blocks. 

It does kind of drive me nuts that I had to use a green U. I love it though. 

It took me an on and off day of searching to find my red poppies. 

Poppies are very popular in Europe for Remembrance Day.

As we began cleaning out the attic, I came across a book from when I taught school. 

Rather than donate it, I set it aside to use in the summer. 

How precious is it? 

Thank you Graphic's Fairy for the printable. 

Poppy post cards and star bowl filler rest on Starsky the Hutch.

 

Aunt Jessie's washstand got another seed catalogue printable. I got two of these from the Smithsonian Libraries Website. 

I pulled my grandmother's 100+ year old doll house down from one of the closets at Christmas. Since then, I've been decorating it for each holiday. Faux Candles come on each evening at 5 or so. 

I adore the bunting that I tied across the porch. 

The little cupboard in the laundry room got a sweet doll. I made the dress for her in patriotic colored fabric. She waves a tiny cupcake decoration flag. 

I made the flag following Mother Thyme's tutorial. 

When I reached the end of my stash, I hit my two thrift stores, a gift boutique and my antique mall. 

I found the fan, the butter pats and a darling geranium pillow from a favorite local crafter. 

I tucked them in a bowl of blue onion pieces. 

I sorted my vintage Christmas bulbs and only used blue and red in an old jar. 

A Queensland fabric pillow brings red into the garden room. 

It is my favorite fabric. Red glass is corralled in the bird cage. 

A tiny flag pillow by one of my favorite crafters rests next to a vintage tin filled with more poppies. 

That is about it. If you have made it this far, thank you! 

I hope to see you again soon. 

Hopefully, this week we will have an update on the house addition in East Texas. We've been waiting on the plumber. Once he does the rough in, we can get the concrete poured. 

Bye, bye for now. 

Katie 

East Texas Addition Update Spring 2024

Hi, Friends,

How are you? I meant to write a blog post last week but I left my laptop out in East Texas. I could have pulled out my old Macbook but that would have been way too frustrating to add pictures to the post. I have pictures for this post and I think you need pictures. 

We have made progress with our plans to move to East Texas permanently when Bill retires. We have a tentative date and it will be here before we know it. 

If you have been following, we bought a little house out in East Texas in the fall of 2020. We talked at that time about our "five year plan". If we liked the area, we hoped to make it our new home. 

From a relational standpoint we are well settled and have made friends and have found a church home. 

The house, however, is a little small for all our stuff. We will be downsizing some of our possessions but I would like to be able to fit all our pretty and sentimental things. 

We spent a great deal of time last summer chatting about what to do. We had some friends from a company called The Plan Factory come out to dream with us about how to add on to this house. They took our ideas and made them better. 

We picked up the final plans in April so we have been busy in recent weeks meeting with contractors in order to get started. 

There were a couple of things that we needed to do. When I say we. I mean, Bill for the most part. 

We painted the front porch ceiling and posts. I love the fresh clean look of the posts. 

The screen porch in E.T. has been a cat lock so to speak. It is a place where we can come and go and there is less chance of Caroline escaping. At both houses, she hears the click of the lock and she comes running. She's escaped here a couple of times and each time I freak out. With workman coming and going we needed a safe place for her to hang out so Bill enclosed part of the front porch with screening. We can lock her out on it and we also have a bug free place to hang out while construction is going on in the back yard. I can keep my pretty porch decorations for the duration of the construction. This is temporary until we are finished. We are enjoying a new point of view, however. 

We are doing four things to the house. We are enclosing the back porch and carport to add more dining and living space. 

Last summer's unbearable taught me that I need spaces that I can use all year. Two seasons will not cut it. We are building a new back porch which we will screen. It will also have three screened sides and the ceiling will be insulated so that it isn't an oven in July and August. 

We are building a small addition which will give us more closet space, a bigger bathroom and a bigger laundry. 

We are creating a small library nook in our bedroom by taking out a closet and a shower. 

Here is an inspiration picture. This was designed by an architect friend of my cousin. 

Ours won't be this big  and we won't have this many book shelves, 

That gets you up to speed on what we are doing. 

Here is a look at what we are doing to get ready. 

First, we needed to get the propane company move the propane tank. 

That was easily done! 

 I wasn't here when they moved it. When I did arrive I didn't even notice it. It is way more noticeable in the photos. It looks like a giant blimp. 

While I was away, they also decided that a tree needed to be cut down. 

I wasn't happy about losing any tree, but no matter which way we went with the addition, we were losing a tree. I had hoped this one could be saved, however. 

I will have a nice new flower bed. The roots of the tree prevented anything but baby oaks from growing. 

Next, we had to move the shed that was next to the carport in order to get the renovation started. Bill wanted to tear it down three years ago but we needed it to lock up tools. We used it a ton during our first stage of redecoration. 

For about a year, we have asked shed movers and several other contractors if they could move it for us. 

They all said, "no". I can get a brand new shed moved here in a heart beat but no one wants to move an old shed. They would tear it down for me but we still need it for storage until I get a "she shed." 

Our neighbor and his tractor came to the rescue.  We are so thankful for his help. 

Here is a photo of the carport with the shed gone and the shed in its new spot. 

I have to cross quick sand in order to get to it and it needs some cosmetic work but it will do.

Bill needed to remove the old screen from the back porch so they can chip away some and level the concrete. It slopes away from the house to drain water. 

He has also started taking down the ceiling of the carport to see the structure. He thinks it looks fine but our framer will come out and have a look. 

They have also removed the guttering and set it aside so that it can be reinstalled after we get a new roof.  

That is about it for now. 

The plumber comes soon to do the rough in plumbing. Once that happens, it will be time for concrete. 

That is it for now. I hope I wasn't all over the place with this. Thanks for stopping by to see how we turn our weekender into our full time home. 

Heres a peek at our neighbor's free range piggies. 

Let's hope they don't get picked up by a herd of ferrel hogs. 

See you soon! 

(I hope.)

Katie