This week on four things – Dreamy handpainted walls and historic patterns, a feel-good story, the best apples in the world, and plugging away on home projects.  Enjoy!

what I’m reading

I purchased A Year in the French Style and received it just in time for a dentist appointment for my 6-month cleaning.  I don’t usually have to wait very long, but I always bring a book with me.  I see waiting as a prime time to get more reading in instead of scrolling pointlessly through my phone.  They were running a bit behind schedule, so I had time to flip through and start reading A Year in the French Style.

I was so in love with this neutral, faded mural, and enjoyed reading about the process since I’m eyeball-deep in painting my own mural.  I might need to try something of this style somewhere else in the house…

I also bookmarked this page for kitchen shelf inspiration.  I still want to build something for the eating area corner, but haven’t quite settled on the exact thing.  I love the brackets, though, and how deep this shelf is.  It would be fairly easy to make something similar designed for the pieces I want to store and display.

It’s a beautiful book and a winner if you love French style.  I don’t think I’ll be making wing of skate or some of the other recipes in the book anytime soon, but I loved looking at the decor and reading some of the stories.

what I’m watching

I haven’t been watching much TV lately, but I felt like a feel-good classic when Jeff was at a meeting earlier this week and tripped across a movie that fits the bill perfectly – Secretariat.  I first saw the movie when it came out in theatres and have only watched it once since then, so it’s been a while.  It’s such a great movie and, based on what I’ve read, stays pretty faithful to the true story.  I figured Disney made the races more dramatic than they actually were in real life, but I watched them on YouTube and they were just as portrayed.  The final race is absolutely unbelievable.  If you’re not familiar with the story or have never seen the movie, you should check it out.

what I’m loving

When I moved to Minnesota, one of the things I was going to miss was living in a small PA town surrounded by apple orchards.  This meant we had amazing apples during the harvest and a few weeks after each year.  I became a bit of an apple snob and mourned them each year when October rolled around.  When we moved back, I was thrilled to be able to buy Adams County apples again from my favorite farm stand – Hollabaughs in Biglerville, PA.  I’ve already made trips out there twice this year to stock up on several bags of apples from their bins.  When I ran out, I bought some local apples (Washington County, MD) from the grocery store and they didn’t even compare!  You’d think apples grown less than an hour apart would be pretty comparable, but I made the drive back out to Hollabaughs and loaded up on more apples.

I’ll be sad when apples are no longer at their peak, but clementines and grapefruit will be in season and that will cheer me up.

what I’m working on

I know I’m trying to fit too much in before Thanksgiving, but I have a hard time tempering my enthusiasm to get things done!  As you know if you’ve been following along, I’ve been working on finishing up the dining room mural.  It’s about 95% there and I hope to finish it up today.  It’ll be finished for now and I reserve the right to add, change, or edit once I’ve lived with it for a while.  I finished the trees yesterday and have a bit more to do to walk away for a bit.  I’m still strongly considering applying an antiquing glaze to tone everything down and I’m still playing around with the foreground and distant land.

On Friday, my mom will come over to help me organize the basement.  When we first moved in, we set up this wall of shelves to store toys and games.  Since the boys have outgrown playing with them, we’re going to move them to the storage area until they have a chance to sort through and figure out what they want to keep and what we can donate.  I didn’t want to push them to make those decisions during the move, but I knew their days were numbered!  Getting this stuff moved and stored will free up space so I can continue removing glue from the floor and then paint the walls and floor.  It’ll be nice to have this area feel a bit more finished and comfortable.  One step at a time!

You can find previous Four Things posts HERE.