Farm Flashback - Beverly Hillbillies

I live in the city now - and I absolutely love living in the city., but I was raised in the country - on a small family farm.  While most of my childhood friends had chores like folding clothes, feeding the dog or taking out the trash, my brother and I were working in the garden, putting up fences, chopping wood, or feeding the cows/goats.  Maybe this is why I enjoy my DIY projects around my house.

We often used our golf cart on our chores.  Now, this is not your country club golf cart - it had a 'bed' in the back instead of seats.  And it did have a top - but my dad actually chopped a tree down and it fell on the golf car - so it is now a convertible.  It looks close to below - only ours was never that clean...

My grandmother lives next to us, so we often visited her and helped her with the upkeep of her house and property too.  One day, my brother, father and I were up at her house - I do not recall the reason for the visit other than at the end of it, we loaded up an old rusted chair to take back to our house (so we could take it to the dump - yes, out in the country you have to go to the dump - trash is not picked up at the end of your driveway).

Now the chair is on the back of the golfcart and since we are all big people - my dad decided that I would drive and my brother would ride in the front - he would ride on the back in the chair - like the Grandma of the Beverly Hillbillies...

Now it is a short drive around the hay field from my Grandma's to our house.  I took off driving like normal.  Now my father tells a different story - of me driving Nascar style around the curves, hitting every bump. Then again - as a young teenager, that was probably my normal style.

We were about half-way home and I took a curve and hit a bump at the same time.  Now, the next part seemed to happen in both slow motion and warp speed - as so many disasters seem to happen.  My father and the chair slid to the side, hit the edge and then flipped off the back.  The entire ball of metal chair and father somersaulted in the air - his hands holding the chair arms in a death grip.

Luckily, he landed right on his head - probably the hardest part of his body.  Unfortunately, it was right in a bed of ants.  My brother and I immediately stopped and ran to him - and he slowly unfolded like an accordion, finally releasing the chair.

We tried to help him up - but he said he needed a minute and that he would walk the rest of the way home. We drove off home with the chair on the back, but leaving him laying on the ground.  Needless to say - he doesn't ride Beverly Hillbilly style anymore...

Anybody Home?

Last week, I went with my family down to the redneck riviera - I mean Panama City Beach for vacation.  My brother and I drove down the day after my parents for scheduling reasons.  We always us our family friend's condo - Big Ed (that is his nickname, not the condos).  We have been doing this for several years now.

That said, you would think that I would know where this place is.  Or maybe my brother would.  Now, to his credit - he did say he thought it was on the top floor.  However, when talking with my dad, I thought he said condo E1704.  So my brother and I arrive.  We manage to get all of our bags, food, etc in our arms and troop up to the 17th floor.

I burst into the condo Kramer style and look around.  The door was unlocked - and I immediately notice that Big Ed must have remodeled - the floor and furniture was different than I remembered.  Then, I notice the shoes.  I come from a family of big people - and big people have big feet.  There were tiny shoes in the hallway and I knew that this wasn't the right condo.  I heard someone coming out and tried to get out quickly - but as I mentioned - we are big people - I couldn't have shoved Will out of the door if I had tried.  Not to mention negotiating a narrow hallway with multiple bags in hand is difficult.

So like a deer in headlights I was frozen in my spot as the man walked out of his room.  Had I been in the country, he probably would have been carrying a shotgun instead of his ice cream bowl.  I immediately try to push Will out the door while apologizing with Sorry, wrong room!  What was probably only 5 seconds felt like hours.  The guy was nice enough - and he now probably locks his doors.

Well, what goes around comes around.  2 days later, I go up early for a conference call and leave the door unlocked so that the rest of the family can come in without disturbing me.  Low and behold - just after my call an older couple blows into our condo just like I did to poor E1704.  A very confused conversion ensues, as they are not sure why the rental office would give them a key to a place that was already rented.  After a moment, I look at the key - it was for the place next door.  And you don't need a key to unlock a door that isn't locked.  They too apologized and turned to leave, blaming the confusion on their age.

I said no worries - I did it same thing earlier and I don't think it has anything to do with age!

Please be seated.

I was getting the mail last night and the gentleman that was cutting my neighbor's yard greeted me (we have a very friendly neighborhood) and I greeted him back.  He then proceeded to tell me that he used to take care of my yard and that it would get a ton of leaves.  Now, I know he is just looking for me to hire him-but, God blessed me with an able body and I plan on maintaining my yard myself.  Thank you, I will save money and do it myself. 

On the same note, I find that often DIY project can save money - as with the windows treatments I did.  So lets move to my favorite part of the house - my screened in back porch.  It is a small area, but one that I wanted to highly utilize - but didn't want to break the bank in making it that way.

So, I started looking at outdoor furniture.  Oh boy that stuff is expensive - or huge - or really small or really uncomfortable looking or boring.  Nothing seemed to fit my porch - I mean, how hard is it too find a rectangular table and chairs?  Finally, at Ikea I found a table I liked.  It seemed pretty sturdy and it was white - I have an issue with clashing wood colors my porch is 90% natural wood already.  So I got it - worse comes to worse - I could always paint it a color I wanted or return it - right?

Now, I have my table.  Great - so buying piece by piece has the potential to be cheaper - but a much bigger hassle.  I found a rug randomly online that I LOVED - so of course, I bought it.  It is a Turkish print with blues, greens, yellows and some purple.  I liked how bright it was.  Okay - table and rug check...


All that is missing now were the chairs - which are crazy expense (I am STILL trying to find something I like for my dining room).  Randomly, my parents have 4 straight back small chairs that they are getting rid of - did I mention that they were old and faded?


Not a problem for me - I just sanded them down and spray painted them in the back yard.  They look perfect with the rug and table!  I got creative and blew all of the dust from the sanding away with my new blower - quick and easy (very opposite from the sanding).


One lesson learned: when sanding - wear a dust mask or something over your nose - just trust me on that.

Below are the before of the chairs and the after with my porch - and all for under $100!