Tennessee Treasures

Last week, Tim and I had a chance to get away to our favorite little B&B in Tennessee.  His parents graciously came up to watch the kids for us.

 

While we were in TN, we did lots of antique shopping. Actually, I shopped and Tim pretty much just patiently followed me around.  I’m so thankful he puts up with me.  I always get excited when I walk into these kinds of places cause you just never know what treasures you might find.

 

We also happened upon these stack of pallets and wooden spools just sitting on the side of the road. After making sure it was okay, we helped ourselves to a spool.  If we had more room in the car, we probably would have grabbed a few pallets too.  You just never know when you’re going to need pallets.

 

Have you seen this spool on pinterest yet?  I love what they did.

 

I’m not sure that our spool will work for making this book holder, since ours is a bit taller, but that one does inspire me.

This next picture is from the Found blog.

 

 

I love the painted spools, so now I’m in the process of painting ours.

We’ll see what I decide to do with it. It might end up in the future boys’ room one day as a nightstand or maybe it will be a side table in the house somewhere.  Who knows?

 

Last year,when we visited TN, we saw tons of tobacco baskets for sale.  I almost got one then, but wasn’t so sure about them or what I would do with one, so we came home without one.  At times over the last year, I’ve regretted that decision.

Especially after seeing pictures like these:

 

via pinterest

 

via pinterest

 

But I really love what Megan over at Contented Sparrow did with her tobacco basket in her dining room.  She has such a bright, fun, cheery home. It makes me smile.  If you have some time, you can see a full home tour here. 

 

Since we recently bought an old farmhouse table for the eat-in area of our kitchen, I wanted to put something on the wall above it.  And after seeing Megan’s pictures of her dining room, I thought that over the table would be the perfect spot to hang up a tobacco basket. So this year, while we were in TN (the land of cheap tobacco baskets) I told Tim that I wanted to get one and hang it on the wall. I admitted that it was a risk and I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but that I had an idea and wanted to try it.  And although Tim never really catches my vision for these types of things, thankfully, he’s usually willing to go along with it and just let me do my thing.  

So here it is…

I love how it turned out.