Home Show in Spokane a big hit!

How else to kick off the season than with a home show for OBRC in Spokane at Adonna's house.    Thanks to Kim and her awesome daughter, Kristen, for organizing it and inviting their friends.

Silly me...took pictures of the work and not the beautiful women at the party...next time there will be smiles posted!!

 

We had a great turn out with wonderful food and wine along with Christmas music and ladies buying the reclaimed wood signs off Adonna's walls and helping each other pick out vinyl decals from our website.

  Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas season!!

Adonna & Jan

Saving part of history

It's at the heart of what we do and a reigning passion of ours-- 

rescuing old materials before they are discarded in our landfills.  

In doing so, we preserve little bits of history and restore beauty to things that seem broken, "too old" and "of no use" anymore.  

Each of our upcycled decor items has some hidden history deep within.  

This is a glimpse of what we mean.

Two days ago, our neighbors told me they were going to be tearing down the old shed behind their home.  

They wanted to know if I could use some of the wood.  I said, "sure!" 

 My husband and I went to take a look at it.  

This "shed" was so cool and so old and so full of history!  

The front section was for the carriage and the back section was a stall for the horse!  FUN!!  My mind was whirling about all the history and stories within and around that little shed!  I wanted to save it all!!

 I was sad it was going to be torn down, but grateful that we could be a part of salvaging some of it.

My amazing husband agreed to come the next morning and be our "demolition team".  

 He removed wood from some of the walls (yes, he sawed most of it already), a small window, and some old rusty hooks and screws and other funky old metal thingys (how do you like that for my vocabulary description). 

I know, it looks like junk to most...but we are so excited and 

can't wait to create so that a little old shed that once housed a carriage and horse may live on!

Another GORGEOUS Customer Photo

We SO enjoy seeing the finished result of our wall graphics
once they are installed by our customers.
These photos recently sent to us are stunning! 

They show what a beautiful impact
a single wall graphic can make in a room.

Thanks, Farmer Family, for sharing!!

Lake Love

We are creating some of our little signs again

 and I am reminded of how much I LOVE reviving old "junk"!  

This little sign is my new love: 

I have had this piece of wood laying around for a long time.  

It is a scrap cut from a 130-year-old farmhouse door (my childhood farmhouse to be exact- maybe that's why this is stirring up so much adoration in my heart)  

The wood alone is just so great and I knew it needed something special.  

It is a perfect buttery yellow color with "real life" crackled aging and a little grey, brown, and dark red paint showing through underneath.  

A lovely color combination!   

I knew I wanted to use these old game tiles on the wood because they are a great match for the browns and buttery yellow.  

The key was finding words I could spell with the remaining letters I have.  

"Lake" seemed to be a good choice.  

(Except now I wish I had a lake house!)

Next I found the old water faucet handle that had the exact red/grey color that would draw out the colors under the yellow in the wood!  

I completed it with a rusty old base to prop up the faucet.  

It was starting to really come together! 

 Then I had to think of something for the space underneath the vintage letters to fill the space.  Our brown vinyl lettering came in perfectly for this. "Life is better at the lake".  

Ahhh, yes, it was meant to be.

Makes me smile. 

This Coco Chanel needs a zebra print!

As many of you know by now, this is one of our most popular quotes. 

I have to say I love this rosy pink and black combination for this quote and 

I keep picturing it with a fabulous zebra rug! 

 

Email us at: jan@oldbarnrescue.com if you are interested.

My new favorite!

In our business we take something that is ready to be discarded
and show it some love! 
Quite often we find ourselves attached to our creations
 either due to the wonderfully old character of the wood,
a fun vintage item we have used in a clever way,
or just the amount of time and work we have invested in some of these.

I have to say I am quite smitten with this latest creation!

This window was both old and dirty!!
It took some scrubbing just to clean it up, but once the dirt was removed, some perfectly old, chippy pale pink paint was reavealed.
I loved it right away and knew that the paint would dictate the rest of the creating.  I mixed some pink and coral paints to match some of the aged pink paint that was already showing through.  Perfect!  

 

Next it was sanded and sealed and
re-chalked to hold the fabulous old wavy glass in place.
 It was just waiting for the perfect quote.  

"Sugar and Spice" in beige on a pale pink window would be just right!

 Yep - I am smitten!

Personalized space

Another customer photo...

and another great example of how wall graphics can add personality and a special touch to any space.

Personalized wedding sign

I just finished this customer's order and LOVE how it turned out!  

An old cabinet door has brand new life again!

What a perfect wedding, shower, or house-warming gift...

personalized and functional!

I have a feeling we'll be making more of these.

Part of something bigger...

So we LOVE finding out when our products are part of bigger stories.  

It is an honor to be a help create special moments, memories, and projects.

Recently, we were contacted by a customer who was going to surprise his fiancee with a "bedroom makeover" while she was away for a week of vacation.  

He had the whole project designed and wanted to include one of our wall graphics. 

http://oldbarnrescue.com/2012/03/loved-you-yesterday-love-you-still/

 

We talked through some different options, sent some color samples to his parents' home to make sure no suspicions arose,
and planned a timely pick up.

He just sent us the following pictures of the finished project and thanked us for our help.  

He said that his fiancee loves it! 

We LOVE it too and we think she has found a great catch in this guy!  

What a great gift and beautiful job!  Single ladies take note!  

How sweet is this!?!

Go Jump in the Lake

We were recently commissioned to create a window as a gift for a client's sister and husband.  

They were hosting a huge family reunion at their lake house and 

all the sisters wanted to give them a special gift.  

We are so glad they thought of us!  

It was an honor to create this personalized quote and window for them.  

We love the response we have received from the whole family! 

 That's why we do what we do. :) 

A Sailor's Bedroom

How super cute is this bedroom?!   

What a great job this customer did with our Mark Twain wall graphic!

http://oldbarnrescue.com/2011/11/throw-off-the-bowlines/

Laundry never looked so good!

More customer appreciation...

This is a GORGEOUS laundry room 

and we love seeing our wall graphic add a finishing touch!

Fun statement!

Another customer just sent us this picture of our vintage damask graphics

on her gorgeous plum-colored wall!  

Love what a great statement these wall decals can make!

Be glad of life

One of our customers just sent us this adorable appreciation photo!

This is still one of my all-time favorite quotes hand-lettered by Adonna with a few extra large stars and swirls.

So, as I try to get on a "blogging roll", I thought I would share.

Go confidently

If you've ever wondered why we are so bad a blogging...here is the answer!

We are so busy creating windows for stores and custom orders and keeping up with all our wall graphic orders that we never seem to get around to blogging.  Good problem to have, right?

Anyway, I loved this picture a customer just sent us of the window we did for her. 

It looks fabulous in her daughter's room.  

We love seeing the final result and LOVE our happy customers!

Here's to more creating and maybe inspiration to blog more of our creations (we'll see)...

Took a breather

We have been so, so, so busy lately - well, since the beginning of November it's been non-stop.  We keep thinking it will slow down but it hasn't.  It's a good thing we tell ourselves but we do get tired of producing product sometimes.  That is one reason why it is so awesome to have a great business partner.  When I said I'd like to take a couple days to just go visit my folks Jan quickly said, "Go!"  So I had a quick trip out to Bayview, Idaho for a visit and got to play 3 rounds of Settlers of Catan and 2 rounds of the Marble Game, eat homemade cherry pie and sleep in till 9!  Here are a few pics of my folks lake - Heaven.  Jan, now it's your turn for a breather!

SUGAR and SPICE

You can't manufacture age.  

So we are thrilled when we find wood that is genuinely aged and has a wonderful true, shabby color we can embrace.  

That was the case with these two windows.  I  had to touch up the paint a little and seal it all with a clear finish but the original colors were the inspiration.

I started with the pink one because I immediately fell in love with the color and knew it had to be designed for a girl's room.  After much debate and thought, I pieced together a couple of our wall graphics to create this Sugar and Spice design in our brown matte vinyl complimenting the brown wood showing through.  Then I added a brown handle to complete the look.  CUTE!!

So cute, in fact, that I decided to do another one in this mint colored window.  

(Again, the original paint color).  

This time I added some brown and mint buttons at the bottom as my finishing accents.  

Sweet and Fun!!

Feelin' the LOVE

Just in time for Valentine's Day!

This creation once again resulted from a little love on our part -- love for this rusty hinge that I simply could not remove.  When my husband cut the door, he had to cut around it.  It left this little lonesome piece of wood attached to the rusty hinge and I simply could not throw it out.  So...with some vintage typewriter keys fitting perfectly in the holes and some other funky metal pieces and buttons this sweet piece developed.

Sweet, one-of-a-kind, and sending its love!

 

You can purchase this on our website at:

(Remember, there is only one available!)

http://oldbarnrescue.com/2011/10/love-with-typewriter-keys-and-rusty-hinge/