Pergola Pergola Pergola!!!

Remember that Summer To-Do List I was JACKED about at the beginning of June? Well as much as I'd like my next words to be "We totally KILLED IT!"...that didn't quite happen. 

Eric did get most of our ceilings painted, but instead of finishing the guest bedroom, I decided to give our little awkward kitchen bathroom a makeover. Fingers crossed those final details will be coming together in the next week or so! But the dinning room chairs are still brown, there are zero headboards on the beds, and our mattress is still frame-free chillin' on the floor. 

One thing we were determined to at least BEGIN before the first day of school was the pergola in our backyard. We may have started building Saturday, and school commenced on Monday...but it still counts. 

Friday night, Eric's parents came down to lend a hand. I've mentioned before how handy my fantastic father-in-law is, and his construction expertise plus incredible attention to detail helped us out a LOT in this whole process. 

Bright and early Saturday morning, casa Wellman looked like this.

Since there wasn't much that Eric's mom or myself could really help with at this point, we decided to go shopping! Watson's was having their annual parking lot sale, and I've never been, so off we went to scope out some outdoor furniture. 

I'm finding myself drawn to the more modern style, but I still want it to have an eclectic boho type feel. Collected, and not too matchy matchy. We'll see what we end up buying. It's too early, but just thinking about all the places I'm going to have to throw pillows and decorate with accessories is making me all giddy inside.

When we arrived back at the house, this was the scene that greeted us.

But an hour or so later, it had progressed to a more pergola-y looking structure.

One thing that my mother-in-law and myself COULD do while the men were working their butts off, was stain the beams and rafters. 
And stain we did!

So much wood. 
To add a bit more style and interest to the cross beams, Eric cut an angle off each end with a circular saw. 

As Saturday came to an end, Eric and his dad screwed each end-beam, plus the center one, into place and called it a day. 

Sunday's goal = get the remaining beams up and set! 

We've still got a long way to go before everything is complete. Those four main posts need covered, we're going to touch up the stain, and (hopefully in the near future) pour concrete and apply a stamping technique to give the illusion of stone. 

But for one weekend, I think we made some definite progress! 

In other house news, I FINALLY pulled the trigger on a hallway table. Which then of course meant I could hang the mirror that's been hibernating in our dinning room since we moved in....TWO YEARS AGO.

Better late than never I guess. 

The World's Longest Yard Sale - 2015

Every time Eric and I head back to our home town, we drive up US 127. It's pretty much a direct shot from Cincinnati to Mercer County, and we never have to worry about the ridiculousness that is I-75 traffic and construction. This past Friday, our drive was especially exciting though, because it was the home of The World's Longest Yard Sale! 

127 Yard Sale weekend is basically one of my FAVORITE times of the year. 
You can read about last year's trip here, and if you love searching through antiques and other thrift-ed treasures, you also will appreciate the glory that is The World's Longest Yard Sale. 

FYI, this post is pretty much all pictures, so if you're looking for some intense literary insight into the art of yard sale-ing...well sorry. Maybe next time. 

We hit the road around 2pm, and it wasn't long before we stopped at our first sale. 

Our strategy? 
Drive until we see a bunch of tables, cars dangerously parked along the side of the road, and pedestrians wondering everywhere. 

We didn't end up buying a ton of stuff. But I did score a vase in the oriental style I love, a little wooden pineapple, and a brass pineapple as well (yes two pineapples). Eric also found some wrench thing, that will help him get the tires off my car, for like half the cost it would be in a store. 

Overall it took us 6 hours to get to a destination that usually takes 2, but man was the extra adventure worth it. 
Only 358 days until next year's!