We're buliding shutters

Yet another project at the Coplin Commune!  Luke is amazing with anything crafty around the house!  We are attempting to update and freshen up the curb appeal to travelers along the Coplin Commune.

We have bought the materials.  I need to order faux shutter dogs and pulls, but now we just need to build them!  Luke's parents so graciously gave us a table saw that Mr. Mike bought from an ad and restored.  He's amazing!  I know where Luke gets his "handiness" from ;)

Here are some inspiration homes around my neighborhood:

We'll see what we can cook up!  We are going to start building them this weekend.  It will be a mix of all these.  

Flooding Faux Pas

Yeah, I know Faux Pas is usually used in the political context, but I must say that our backyard is pretty politically incorrect. It pretty much looks like white trash property ~ pretty embarrassing, but I must show you what we go through in the High Point Terrace neighborhood. Flooding. Small properties without a good water conduit system. We need a backyard overhaul. I think we need to completely wipe out everything and start over. The big pile of mulch that never seems to go away after bags and bags of it used to be a humongous sweet gumball tree that we had removed....almost a year ago.



Could I submit these pictures to some TV show that could come HELP us!?

See the sweeping water...this could be dangerous people! That's my excuse for immediate attention. Plus, I'm sure the shop being flooded is not so great either.

What a great find! Discount Fabric Store

I usually dread visits to stores on Summer, but there are some hidden treasures on this sometimes shady street!! One of them being the Discount Fabric Store.


Let me preface this post with my awful experience with Broomcorn Fabrics on Perkins. I had set out this past March to find the perfect Hounds Tooth fabric to recover my dining room chairs (progression pictures to come after completion). They have a great selection (almost overwhelming) of expensive fabrics (i.e. Duralee). I had ordered a (what I have come to find waaaayyyy overpriced) Micro-suede Duralee Hounds Tooth fabric. It was very lovely and very stain resistant. Little did I know that it would be on back order for 3.5 months when I had been told it would come in 4-6 weeks. That is way overdue people!!! I made several calls ~ hopefully polite, but I was fed up after spending almost $200 on 3 yards!! When the fabric finally came in we had come to find the die-cast was off...yeah, that meant it looked dark brown and gold rather than stark black and beige. I had already painted a few of the dining room chairs black and I was not going to half-a$$ this project after so much time and money had gone into it. Needless to say, I got my money back ;) Shew, okay, now on to the good and delightful news.

I just happened to see this Discount Fabric store on Summer Rd. when I was in the passenger seat. It took some courage to go there (it's next to Pancake 24-7 House & a Latino nail place) hoping it wasn't a dump. It wasn't! This delightful and shall I say dainty guy, assisted me and was very sweet. I told him what I was looking for and he took me to this spool section:

Perfect! The hounds tooth fabric matches just right and we can just put another coat of Scotchguard to make it more stain resistant. Heck, for this cheap ($12.99/yd.) I can replace it when needed. I should come out $160 lighter b/c of this find. Yay!

Here are some more pictures around the shop:


They even have an even deeper discount section. The first sage/brown damask fabric is a remnant and is $6.99/yd. The black/cream damask bedskirt (double size) is $75! It's adorable, but not affordable for me at the moment. The other fabrics are $5.99/yd: