Thursday, September 29, 2011

Where are we going, where have we been?

Ohhhhhhh.

My last post was a week ago, and even that was kind of a non-post.  The reason?  Well, crazy busy is one.  The other is that our reality at the Apple House has been a bit hard to deal with recently, and I have been avoiding writing about it.

In just a few weeks the Wright family will be leaving our log cabin in the orchard and heading to another community that is also rich in agriculture, just not in our backyard.
 


Just as we didn't plan to move to an apple orchard 50 miles south of the Canadian border, we also were not planning on leaving the orchard just under a year later.  Life happens, and lately, life has been happening a bit too much to our family.

So, we are headed to the Willamette Valley,  in search of, well, greener pastures.  Because while September is an idyllic time to live in an orchard, the work situation in this particular valley has been more like a nightmare.



I'm certainly looking forward to several things about our new home.  We will be close to Portland.  I will live withing a few minutes of any convenience I could want.  We will live close to family for the first time in eight years, and we will be living in a modern, warm, sheet-rocked house.



However, I know that there is a great deal that I will miss about this house and this community.  Of course I will miss the space this house provides, a large workshop and a craft room, along with a play room and a huge kitchen are not luxuries we can afford in the city.  (However, I will be thankful for less space to clean.)  It is harvest season, and I have all ready canned over 100 jars of fruit, none of which I payed for, all of it harvested from the trees in our yard and in our neighbors' yards.  I doubt that will ever happen again.  I will miss the walks with my boys through the orchards, and I will miss my chickens who will not be coming with us.



Most of all, I will miss the people.  The friends we have made here have left a deep impression on our hearts and it will be hard leave them.  Last year as I drove out of Seattle, with only my eight month old baby as a travel companion, I cried.  Leo will be my lone passenger again, but at 19 moths old, I will have to wait until he is napping to let my tears flow this time.



Several people have asked me if I will continue this blog, if I will rename it, if I will continue my business.  I will continue blogging here.  It has become an excellent platform for my business as well as a place to share my love of vintage and crafty goodness.  I will continue my business in Oregon.  I'm excited to find new venues and meet new clients. I also expect that having a much larger potential customer base will benefit my growth.  I will not being changing the blog's name or my business name.  I want to honor where this whole thing started, in a crazy log house, 50 miles north of nowhere.  I want to remember that out of cold and dark and depression and loneliness something beautiful, profitable, productive and creative was born.



I'll be scarce for a few weeks, but I'll check in with some posts about all the yummy things I've been canning.  Most crafting will be halted until we are moved into our new house, but I will be holding a furniture painting and refinishing workshop here before I go and I will try to remember to take pictures!

So, here we go, on another adventurer.  


Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Charlie's Soap Winner






Congratulations, An Ordinary Mom!  (Whom I happen to know and love!)  This will be perfect for sprucing up your new house!  Email me your new address and I'll get the information to Charlie's!

For everyone else, you can order Charlies from Amazon (subscribe and save for a great deal) or directly off their site.  Sign up for their emails.  A couple of times each year they have amazing deals (that's when I stock up!) 

It also sounds like they are just days away from launching their new site!  Can't wait to see it!



In other news, I'm working on a difficult to write post about why things are going to be a little skimpy around here for the next two months.  Hopefully I'll have it up tomorrow. 

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Vintage Love - Old Scale Love

What is it about old scales?  Why do we like them so much?  Is it because they were once (or still are) functional?  Is it because we associate them with delicious and fresh things to eat?  What ever it is, I'm completely charmed by my new addition.  Rusted just the right amount and in all the right places.


What vintage objects make your heart smile when you see them?

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Don't forget to enter Apple House Revival's FIRST GIVE AWAY!  Tomorrow is the last day to enter!

Friday, September 9, 2011

Audrey and Helen

These lovely mid-century twins are enough the same to turn heads and just different enough to not fight over one gentleman.


They are extremely well built, including springs under their seats, which makes them very comfortable.


They are red, lightly distressed, with a black glaze.  I think the color and finish give a modern pop to these vintage ladies.


The polka dots and flowers weren't really intentional, just the two black and white print fabrics I happened to have, but I just love them together.


These sophisticated ladies are for sale.  They are $70 each of $125 for the pair.  Email me at applehouserevival at gmail dot com if you are interested.


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Don't forget to enter AHR's first give away for one of my favorite household products, Charlie's Soap!

I'll be sharing at:

Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday. 
House of Grace: Twice Owned Tuesday 
Primitive and Proper's Piece of Work Wednesday

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

CLOSED -Charlie's Soap - AHR's FIRST GIVE AWAY

So, it might surprise some of you to learn that despite all the crazy harsh chemicals I use in refinishing furniture, I am very very careful about what I use in my house and around my children.  There are no harsh chemical cleaning agents in our home.

I am also a total nut about laundry.  I know most people sort their laundry into whites, colors, brights.  Right?  Not me.  Here is how my laundry sorting breaks down.

  • whites- underwear
  • whites- not undewear
  • brights - reds, yellow and oranges only
  • darks
  • pastels
  • jeans (and colored socks)
  • white socks (socks are too nasty to be washed with anything else)
  • towels
  • linens
  • kitchen towels and wash cloths
  • rags
Yes, I am a little bit insane, I recognize this.  This partially comes from my mother, who also 'over' sorts her laundry and partially it comes from the fact that I rarely buy new clothes so I need and expect my clothes to last a long time, and I feel like I have to take extra care with them to accomplish this.

So, what does someone this OCD use to clean her laundry, expecting it both to do an excellent job AND be gentle and non toxic?  And did I mention that Leo and I both have super sensitive skin that reacts to EVERYTHING?

Well, I'm sure my blog title gave it away.  I am a super fan of Charlie's Soaps.


On their all purpose cleaner is says "Cleans everything from diesel engines to false teeth," and it's true.  I've yet to find something that I can't clean with one of Charlie's four products.  Yep, they only make four products, and those four products will clean anything.  (Here's a secret, in fact, I only use two of them.)

They offer

1. Kitchen and bath natural cleaner
2. Indoor/outdoor surface cleaner
3. Laundry detergent (in powder or liquid form)
4. Laundry pre wash

They also offer a laundry booster for people who live in areas with especially hard water.

Our family uses the Indoor/outdoor surface cleaner and the powdered laundry detergent.  We dilute the surface cleaner for our everyday cleaning jobs and even us the laundry detergent for some cleaning jobs, like cleaning our stupid plastic bathtubs.  (Does anyone else have those?  Someone who never has had to clean one clearly sells them!)  We also use the surface spray for our stain treatment on our laundry and for seriously difficult jobs, like cleaning up after our plethora of animals (if you know what I mean!)

What? I never throw up random mouse parts!  (ICK!)


Recently I added a scoop (about a TBLS) of laundry detergent to a bucket of water and John Henry and I used it to wash our car.  It did an AMAZING job, and that is actually what led to me wanting to write this post.  When we were done John Henry wanted to wash is wagon.  I had no issues letting him wash and play to his heart's content with the water that had Charlie's Soap in it.  It has no lye, phosphates, bleach, dyes or perfumes.  I fell confident that it isn't going to hurt him, unless, of course getting clean is harmful to a three year old (he thinks it is, I disagree!)

I scream like a banshee when my mama tries to wash my hair.

I also feel really good about supporting their company.  Charlie's Soap is a small, family owned company that was started by two men with $200 who saw an opportunity and ran with it.  You can read all about it here.
I also love how important customer service is to them.  They have PDF's that you can download (at the bottom of their products page) that provide you with information about the best ways they have found to clean specific items with their products.  I also saw a woman comment on their facebook page who was having a hard time getting some stains out of her laundry.  Within a few minutes someone at the company had commented telling her to call their 1-800 number and someone would talk her through some techniques and trouble shooting.  How's THAT for awesome!

As I prepared to share with you my favorite way to clean everything, I thought that it would be fun to offer one of you the chance to try Charlie's out for yourself.  In the "never hurts to ask" spirit, I emailed Charlie's and asked them if they were interested in doing a give away.  Well, just one more reason to LOVE this company. . . Sherry emailed me back within a few hours and said they would love to offer one of you the chance to try TWO of their products, a bottle of their Indoor/Outdoor Cleaner and a bottle of their Kitchen and Bath cleaner.




See. . . AWESOME!  

OK, OK, enough of me blabbering on about how much I love this stuff.  (Seriously, I do.)  Here's how you can enter, up to three times, for a chance to win this awesome stuff.

1. Follow Apple House Revival either via my RSS feed or LIKE my facebook page and then leave me a comment letting me know you do.

2. LIKE Charlie's Soap on facebook and leave me a separate commenting telling me you have.

3.  Share the give away love via Twitter or on you facebook status. . . and, you know it, leave me another comment letting me know you've let your friends in on the fun!

I'll randomly select one comment on Friday, the 17th.  Comments will be accepted through Thursday the 16th at midnight.

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Disclosure.  I was not paid or perked in any way to write this review.  I approached Charlie's Soap about offering a chance to win their product, they did not approach me.  My opinions are 100% my own.

*** This give away is only open to US shipping addresses.

Monday, September 5, 2011

John Henry's Custom Bed

When my son, John Henry, was ready to move out of his crib, I wanted him to have a special bed, but after looking around at what was on the market, I found that everything was either crumby quality or out of our price range.  Well, of course I did what any 'rational' DIY-er would do. . .

I built him a bed.



I was only blogging at Yarnnation at that point, and since it wasn't made of yarn, even though it was awesome, I never blogged about it.  This means that I can't show you the process because I didn't photograph it, but I can show you its parts and all its functional awesomeness.

I made the bed to fit a standard crib mattress.  I can easily remove the mattress and the side rails and the platform becomes a train table or a place to build with blocks or legos.


The platform lifts up to provide additional storage.  In our old house that was key.  We kept the kids' off season clothes under there.


In the Apple House (notice the crazy log wall there) we have plenty of storage, so now we just keep cats in there!


I upholstered the frame, first covering it with two layers of batting and then with a sturdy home interior fabric.  I love the dots!


The side rails are also plywood with large L brackets screwed to them.  When the mattress sits on top of the horizontal part of the bracket it holds the rails securely in place.   I can say that with confidence.  John Henry has tested them in 'extreme' circumstances!  (He inherited a propensity to wander around his bed in his sleep from me.)


To upholster them I sewed two pieces of fabric together to make a slip cover of sorts, and after covering the plywood in batting, slipped it over the top and stapled it to the bottom.


I made one short rail and one long one.  In our old house there was one on each long side of the bed.  In this house, where the bed is against a wall, the shorter rail acts as a headboard.





And here's one more shot of the whole bed.   Don't mind the big blank wall above his bed.  This isn't actually where his bed goes.  I moved it so I could photograph is against a plain wall instead of a log wall, which always makes the pictures look orange.   If his bed DID go there (instead of Leo's crib) I would put a big areal themed map up there.  Hmmmm.  I think I feel another crafting project taking shape!  :)


If you like this project, check out the rest of my blog!  We do LOTS of furniture renovations.  Follow along w/ us as we embrace our adventure.  Find us HERE on facebook.

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I'll be sharing at:
Between Naps on the Porch's, Metamorphosis Monday. 
Primitive and Proper's Piece of Work Wednesday.

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