Sweating Bullets of JOY!!!

Whew...it was HOT! It was Lovely, it was Magical, it was filled to the brink with some of the best treasures around, IT WAS the fruition of our Barn House Dream coming true...and y'all, it was Texas HOT!!!! First, we have to thank the MANY die-hard customers who ventured out to the country on a day that was predicted to be 100 degrees. We love you and we thank you!!!And we MUST thank Rebekah (Little Byrd) and Mrs. French (Bliss) for bringing incredibly delicious home-made cookies and taking the most beautiful pictures of the event and our little farm house (and sending them to us since our camera was acting funny in the heat)!! These young women are amazingly talented photographers!!! They make it look like we are doing something kind of special around here! :o) Check out their blogs for more pix. Somebody should pay them BIG BUCKS for this talent. We are going to pay them with some country cookin' and Mojitos in a couple of weeks. Thanks SunshineS!!!And we can't forget the renegade parking assistants Scott and Wade. We were supposed to fill these little bottles up with water since they were out in the blazing sun all day, but forgot. Ooops! We ALWAYS have to give a special thanks to the purple flower that's in bloom!!! Our little babies seem to have left us for new homes. We wish them the best with their new families!! And we REALLY have to thank our very special friends who accepted our invitation to be part of The Barn House Experience!! We love you and thank you for all of the hard work you have put into make this dream a reality for us. From left to right...Katie, Chrissy (Couture Junquie), Me & Joe (Barn House), Sylvi (Little Cottage), Susan (Couture Junquie), Debbie & Laurie (very close to deciding their name, but we won't spoil the surprise), and those not pictured: Cindy (Queen of Tarte), Natalie (Sparrow), Toree (Narrow Gate Antiques), Kim Poloson (Kim Poloson Studios) and Rob Kennedy (Rob Kennedy Photograpghy).

Joe and Jermonne
Barn House

OH, and the first Barn House Flea Market (July 26th) is going to be SOMETHING ELSE...AND, we are getting YOU involved in a little competition between the dealers!!! HEE HAW!! More to come this week!!!!

Will you even recognize us??

Still lots to do...still making trips FROM the basement with more stuff...still making trips TO the basement with items that didn't quite make the cut...still have to borrow the neighbors tractor to extend the parking area 'cause we ran out last time (thanks to you!)...and still...and still and still!

The Barn looks soooo different, I can't even remember what it looked liked for the opening. I can't figure out where all this new stuff came from...and we have still have Cindy coming this morning to cram even more in!!! It's looking good folks...I mean REAAAALLLY GOOD!!! It makes me emotional just thinking about it all.

OK...Joe is going to wring my neck if I don't get back and move all that stuff back to the basement. Here are some very rough pix of where were are at 9:00 am today....




See you tomorrow!!!!

J & J

Gettin' There...

With only two more days to pull it all together, progress is upon us. Sylvi put in hours today getting a lot done on her space. Her husband Wade built the "big elaborate structure" for us, so it was only fair that she get this cute space. The rest of us are sure to hate her for it too!

Joe was busy getting the entrance together today...

The talented Wade also made this table out of old salvaged pillars. Joe and I were tempted to try to find a place for it somewhere, but we need another farm table like we need a hole our heads. DARN IT!!

We are also incredibly honored to have Kim Polosen as one of our featured guest!!! She too has been hauling lots goods in this week. She is an AMAZING artist/designer/collector/etc. AND, we dare not mention our favorite Tarte...the Queen of (all) Tarte...Cindy Dockins!!! She is on her way Friday with lots of treasures too!!! HEE HAW!! We are just sad she won't be staying the weekend with us again. Apparently, her other gig is prohibiting her from being the life of The Barn House After-Party this time. This is a terrible injustice!!

We have NO idea where we are going to put all this stuff, but I am sure we will find a place. :o) More to come...

J & J

Barn House Sale - This Saturday!!

We had a wonderful time this weekend at the first Flourishes Flea Market. Outside of an actual bear rolling through and knocking over some of the displays in the wee hours of the morning, it was a beautiful day. Aleta has some before and after pictures on her blogs. Fortunately for us, the Barn House booth was untouched. I don't know if it was the garlic cloves Joe hung (to ward off any vampires), or the fact that he peed around the parameter of our space to keep the deer from eating our display flowers, but whatever it was, IT WORKED! Just Kidding Aleta ...he would never-ever-EVER pee outside at your place! But, we did have a little talk with Bill, your son and son-in-law just for future reference. ;o) Here are some more pictures of our space.

The Barn House Family has been hard at work here on The Farm getting ready for Saturday!!! Everybody has been out shopping like maniacs over the past few weeks. Joe has spent ALL of our breakfast, lunch and dinner money...Sylvi (Little Cottage) is exhausted from all of the shopping/sewing she has been doing...we saw Susan & Chrissy (no-blog-having-Couture Junquie) this weekend and they told us about the truck loads of great treasures they are bringing over!! Toree (no-blog-having Narrow Gate) called today and has also found some great items she is bringing. AND, we can't leave out our favorite "Master Primitive Finder" Natalie (no-blog-having-Sparrow) and what must be her under-studies and the newest members of The Barn House Family, Debbie & Laurie (no-name-having-OR-blog having!). They (Debbie & Laurie) came over today and started on their space and it looks Fantastico so far!!
NOW, it's just time for EVERYone else in The Family to get to work while I (Jermonne) am slaving away at my other gig!!! :o) This evening after I came home, I helped Joe haul all of the completed projects and new-finds out of the basement to The Barn...and out of the basement to The Barn...over and over like a broken record.

Good thing there is always the surprise of a pretty new flower when I get home to distract me from all of the hard (and I mean HARD WORK) that still needs to get done, or I might have a spell that requires some "porch time." BUT, this family works great under pressure!! And we hope y'all are delighted by the end result!!

Keep checking on us out for more pix of the progress this week...Hope to see you on Saturday!!

J & J

Weekend Jackpot...

What a beautiful weekend to hit the "Vintage Home & Garden" Jackpot! Saturday morning, we decided to cruise through the country-side to see if we could spot any good sales on our way to the nursery. After a couple of major disappointments, we stumbled upon a "garage" sale...that was not by any means a typical garage sale. We drove down a long driveway which revealed a beautiful old house that had a few small, very cute cottage-style buildings on the property. As we began to get into that treasure-finding-zone (some of you may be familiar with this), something seemed oddly familiar. As it turns out, we were at home of Rose -- we met last year at the Willow Nest Flea Markets AND most recently at our opening!! We got a tour of her house--GORGEOUS and full of a million Linda and Ludmil creations. Rose and her friend Rosy (who showed up too) are getting ready to open a store (Rosy Rose) in one of these cute buildings on her property. We got a preview of the store AND the opportunity to shop. Then her husband came home and took us into his studio and we got to shop even more! At this point, the pickup was too full to try to go to the nursery. Look at this incredible primitive cupboard!! We are trying our best to give Natalie a run for her money in finding great primitives!! ;o)

Next we decided to go to the Battle Ground Farmer's Market to pick up some plants. "Some plants" is a huge understatement! I am not sure what got into us, but we went a little crazy and ended up spending the rest of the day planting like maniacs. Shoveling and hauling compost around is awesome! ;o) Hopefully one day soon our work in the garden will be done, but that is highly unlikely.


We are not the only ones going a little koo-koo around here. About five of our hens decided to go "broody"...and for y'all city folks, that means five of our hens have decided they want to sit on their eggs for weeks to hatch little baby chicks. This is a picture of the first born. I have no idea what we are going to do with any more chickens!! Good thing our egg selling business is steadily growing...we to have to pay for all of this chicken feed somehow.

Shopping, planting and playing with baby chicks is not all we have done this weekend. We have also been working on getting the store ready for our next sale. It's looking good!! The layout has changed quite a bit, and LOTS of great new goods are being brought in on a daily basis. We hope our next sale is even better than the first! More to come...

Joe and Jermonne
The Boys of Barn House

We are back...

Geez, we can't believe it's already been a couple of weeks since our opening. Joe has been running himself ragged shopping like a mad man. That $$$ from the first event didn't take long to start burning a hole in his pocket. I think he was out early the day after the event to get his "fix." I, on the other hand, have been sitting on the porch (recovering) with a .22 pistol hunting the bunnies that are ravaging our gardens! Not really...that would have been MUCH more productive than what I have actually been doing on the porch (in recovery). BUT, I can say that it is exhausting to watch Joe run in and out of the house with truck loads of stuff to price...hence, more recovery time was needed and no new blog could be added (sorry).

Joe has been branching out of our neck of the woods with Natalie (Sparrow) and Sylvi (Little Cottage). Sylvi has some great pictures on her brand new blog of a few items she will be bringing...I know there will be more to come! On one of the excursions with Natalie (Sparrow aka The Master Finder of Primitives), Joe stumbled upon this table full of Ironstone and other treasures. Some of the Ironstone (the largest bowls and platters I have ever seen) are not pictured as they are trying to find a place in the Barn House "Home Collection." Yes, he really has an illness.

And even though it sometimes feels like winter is still upon us, he has been finding lots of old concrete and other garden treasures too!!

Thanks for all of the wonderful comments about our opening event!! We had such a great time that we plan on doing it all over on June 28th...with our featured guests: Sylvi (Little Cottage), Cindy Dockins (Queen of Tarte), Natalie (Sparrow--and one day she will get that blog up-and-running...yes you, Natalie), and Susan & Chrissy (Couture Junquie). And the baby chicks will be there to greet you too!!

Oh, and we are VERY excited to announce we will be vendors at the very first Flourishes Flea Market at Mt. Pleasant on June 21st!! Aleta and Bill's place is truly magical...the beautiful view of the Columbia River, the Historic 1800s school house (now converted into a home) and old wood gymnasium and barn (we have serious barn envy)!! We can't wait...thanks Aleta and Bill for the invite!! :o)

J & J