Nell Hill's Inspired Towel Rack

On my drive from SLC to NC we stopped at Nell Hill's in Atchison, Kansas. I love stores like this! It just goes on and on and there are so many ideas to take home, even if you don't spend a lot of money, you can get inspiration to make projects of your own.

Just inside the front door I saw these wonderful iron hooks for $3/each that had been painted, they looked old and immediately I thought about making a coat or towel rack for Mom and Dad's house. I bought four of them and let the creative juices flow while I was wandering around the rest of the store.

Holiday decor made from old windows!

We (my friend Amy and I) loved that they had used old windows in so many neat ways! This holiday idea is just one of the many uses they had displayed. They had used them as shelves, wall hangings, candle holders, just so many things. So, my little wheels were turning and I decided to use an old window and the hooks to make a towel rack/mirror for the bathroom.

this is what we started with.

Amy knew of a place near her house where I could get an old window for $3, so I got the window in Tennessee to go with the hooks I got in Kansas. My dad had pieces of mirror in his outbuilding so all we had to do was get the mirror cut to size. (I even found the screws in Daddy's building that had the paint on them and they matched perfectly!)

 
We had to scrape off layers of old paint and remove some rusty hardware and add a narrow board to the bottom to make it wide enough to mount the hooks, but I think the final product turned out just great! We decided that we needed a way to know whose towel was whose, so we used an eyeliner pencil to write our names on the mirror above our towel, which can easily be wiped off, we used brown and it matches the bathroom! See what you think! We love it!

Stairway to "Heaven"

We've been trying to finish the last bits of several projects. We get sidetracked now and again and start another project without finishing up the one we had going. (ever do that?) So, we've put down shoe moulding and touched up paint and moved the furniture into the new stair landing, the last bit of this project was putting up the banisters. We built every component of the railings from "scraps" of wood and metal rods, we painted it and then assembled it. This was a time consuming and tedious job trying to line up each and every little rod and hold them in place and get the railing fastened, but the end result is awesome!

Mom and Dad's heavenly coffee spot!

This little landing area is where my parents dream of having their coffee in the mornings and watching birds in the spring and summer, the leaves changing in the fall and the snowfall in the winter. It's right outside their bedroom and we're putting a coffee maker here, so they don't even have to come down to the kitchen to get their morning brew!

As soon as we finished and set the furniture in, my dad said, "That's just like I saw it in my mind." He has "designed" the house in his mind, there have been no drawings or schematics to go by, just what he "sees" in his mind. And, except for the help of a few family members, he's done all of the work himself! I happen to think he's extremely talented to not only dream these things up, but to execute them so beautifully.

With almost every room in the house at some stage of completion, and not one fully complete, except the bathrooms, we've still taken the time and luxury of enjoying our first cup of coffee in this wonderful little nook that just a few months ago was just a dream in the mind of my dad! And for years to come it will be our little corner of "heaven".