When Life gives you Lemmen's, you're blessed.

Hope you had an amazing resurrection weekend!! We got to spend some brief time with my parents, sisters and their kids (minus Holly who wasn't feeling well and Alex who was in Cleveland with his girlfriend-turned fiance's family!

We were so excited and surprised while facetime-ing he and Carolyn (who I absolutely adore, btw) when they randomly showed us this:

Praise for a God who could create two amazingly similar souls and bring them together in this great big world. I'm still blown away. I've always claimed Alex as my first born son and now I'm claiming her as my daughter-n-law! ( My sister's Lo and Cherie have always been so gracious to share their children with me). :)

Here's the motley crew after a whirlwind of an egg hunt. 

We also got to spend time this past weekend with our former neighbors Doug and Jackie Lemmen who lived next door to us when we built our first house in Greystone. 

We love those two and felt like such kindred spirits when we moved there. Doug and Ken loved to talk sports and wood-working (still do) and Jackie and I just love to talk about our families. Even though it's been over 10 years already since we've lived there, we can pick up right where we left off every time we see them.

I spent most of the night snapping pics on my phone of all of Dougie's creations over the last recent years. 

He spotted me doing that and asked "Boev, what's with all the pics"? I told him there were some blog readers who absolutely HAD to see his work. Some day when he retires from his successful career with Pepsi, he will become a part time artisan doing what he loves which is this:

 He planed and cut different species of wood, and had DeLeuw Lumber cut the MI outline. Beautiful!
Below, wood salvage that used to hold keys at their cottage that now holds his medals from running road races. Which i would've thought of this idea before I threw away all my medals a few weeks ago. "Yeep!" as my girls would say, which in teen speak, I think means "yikes"!

 Pallet wood wall with wood bar collaged with collectibles and meaningful memorabilia.

 Handcrafted table against vertical pallet wood which he had planed down to be all the same depth.

 Hand made pine island top stained dark ebony:

 Pallet coffee table urethaned for protection:
I thought this was soooo cool! Using left over and newly cut wood chunks to frame them as artwork!
 Ken has so many scrap pieces-I want to experiment with this! 

 Pallet wood backdrop to a sleek metal clock. Love it!

This is the show piece of their whole main floor. This hand--scraped matte wood floor. It is so raw, rich and beautiful!

 Sunroom/dining addition they put on a few years ago housing all hand crafted furniture by Doug of course.

 End tables, dressers, armoires, night stands, tables, bar stools....there is NOTHING this man can not do with wood.

 Custom headboard and nightstands. He's got quite the talent for layering paint and staining as well. 

 Yes, he made these too! Inset drawers-do you know how hard that is? Well, I don't either, but it sure looks hard to do!

 Armoire to house their flat screen tv and Jackie's shoe collection:

 Beautiful nightstands. I loved the finish on this:

 D and J don't kill me for posting-someone's gotta brag you two up! Love you both and can't wait to see you again soon. 
Champs...happy spring. We're heading south soon for Kennedy's last spring break with us! Boo Hoo!
See you back here soon!

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Spring Treasures at NSS

Happy Monday Champs!

This is what happens with two teenagers in the house who know how to download and use apps better than they know how to do laundry!

Good times. :)

Hope you're enjoying this brisk but beautiful sunny Monday!

I promised you some more pallet wood pics this post, so here are a few:

My contractor, Travis is a miracle worker when it comes to implementing the many requests that both homeowners and myself have asked of him. He didn't disappoint with the repurposing of pallet (skid) boards that Ken and I had stored in our attic after being given a pile of them from our generous neighbor who is a mason. 

We quickly learned after cutting them apart, that they were a bit too heavy to make signs out of, but they have come in handy for these small spaces to add rustic character and unique charm. Above, we had a perfect nook in Tauna's remodeled ranch to use them as shelves. 

Here below, in Renee's new build, we added them long after her move in date to line the back wall of her desk area in the back entry.

She sent me these text updates as she was so excited to see the progress.

I've shown you my pallet wall before in our office that we remodeled several years ago. These boards were given to me by a former neighbor who lined his entire basement with them.  We are getting together with them this weekend, so I will try to snap pics of his amazing work and inspiration behind my half wall!

I haven't been so faithful in showing you Not So Shabby's latest treasures. I have found it was too busy for me to work my 8 hour shift each month, so I pay a bit of extra rent to skip my turns. This has allowed me to accommodate more design work and custom orders. That being said, I do miss having a pulse on what is selling and being able to chat with customers. I do still stop by there once, twice, sometimes three times a week to stock or stage my booth and today I took some extra time to snap pics of other booths and items that caught my eye.

My booth below (last week):

 My booth below (today):

 
 I spied with my little eyes these items in other vendors' booths. Time to go on a treasure hunt for yourself and find these unique vintage scores!

This is Carolyn's from "The Porch". She does amazing upholstery work. I loved this chair!

And this one!!

 and this cute little number:

 And especially this one! So adorable!

 Here's a new vendor. I loved her spring decor-so artistic and cheerful!

 

 Stop by Not So Shabby sometime soon! I will be redoing my entire booth in the next month and need to clear out some of the old to make way for the new!

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