D.I.Y. Newspaper Table Tray

When we first bought our house and began thinking about renovating and making big changes, I became acutely aware of the "past" of our home.  I was thinking through color schemes and decorations and floor layouts...and it caused me to think of the people who must have stood in about the same places and who must have made the same kinds of decisions.  Evidence of those people and their lives kept popping up as we dug deeper into our home; we found old toys, some pictures, and even a memento of a baby's baptism. 

My favorite finding of our home's past was a collection of old newspapers stuffed between the studs in the walls, most of them from the 40's, when the house was built.  I started trying to think of a way to display the clippings, in order to sort of honor the home and let it stay connected to its past in spite of all the renovations.  I wanted to do it in a way that wasn't super obvious (so framing them wasn't an option) but that was cute and functional (as I believe most decor should be). After a bit of hemming and hawing, and some inspiration from this blogger who posted on my Pinterest challenge post  (of which there is a better picture on this post) I came up with this project. May I introduce my D.I.Y. Table Tray.  Come on down after the jump for a little how-to.

Kitchen Sneak Peek

There is something about the fall that makes it seem as if every part of life is crazily busy. Dan and I don't have school schedules, or kids with school schedules, or kids at all...but it doesn't change the fact that the busyness of our daily lives increased tremendously in September. Now, as we tumble toward the holiday season at an alarming rate, it doesn't seem like there will be an end in sight.

I suppose that's not all bad. We had a few (and I mean maybe two or three) glorious weekends in the summer that were unscheduled, but for the most part, we are booked. This past weekend we squeezed in eight events. Eight. We are busy people.

I bring all of this up because I have come to realize that my heart's timeframe for the completion of our house is not the same as reality's timeframe. That is okay. I just need to make some adjustments.

Around the House Weekly Five

I recently had a chat with a friend where I explained how she could set up her RSS feed to keep up with her favorite blogs, using mine as an example. We talked about how great it was that the most recent posts from all her blogs would just come directly to her; no longer would she be required to jump from page to page across the Internet tracking down blogs. It was great. I was so excited for her. Then, a few days ago, she sent me this text:

"Have you blogged recently? Cause if you have I did this rss thing wrong!"

Um, hi. Embarrassed, party of one. You did a great job with the RSS feed...but I haven't blogged since my last weekly five.

Called. Out.

Well! To make amends, I bring you another weekly five, this time centered around a little theme. Follow me after the jump to get in on five sneak peeks at the goings on at our place...

Demolition Smack Down

There are about a million things going on right now...I'm taking a little break from tea-staining and spray painting everything in sight to do a little blogging. I'm looking forward to posting the bathroom reveal soon (it's looking sooo good!) but for now I thought I'd give you a little glimpse of what taking down the walls looks like. The bathroom wasn't the only place we rearranged the blueprints, a couple of bearing walls also made their exit from our kitchen space...

Moral of the story? There was a lot of demolition.

Which.
Was.
Awesome.