LOOKING AHEAD

It's hard to believe that we've been back from our trip 2 weeks now. While it gets harder and harder to leave our beautiful Mountainview Hideaway and return back to Texas life, it's nice to know that we will be returning in just 7 weeks for another 2 week visit. I am eager for chilly Autumn mornings and evenings where we have a fire going in the wood stoves, seeing the green Larch trees transform into their brilliant shades of golden hue, the smell of wood smoke hanging in the air and wearing sweat shirts and jeans. Fall has always been my favorite time of the year and who knows...maybe we'll even see a light snowfall up there as well!

This picture (October 2012) was my very first trip after we bought the house. I took a day off from cleaning and painting and explored Hungry Horse Dam and Reservoir. We had already gotten a light snow fall and the mountains behind me are in Glacier National Park.

This past weekend, Dave and I took a road trip up to Glenpool, Oklahoma to visit JHE Log Furniture Place and order our new china hutch for the Montana house. We hit the road before the sun came up, traveling up Hwy 75 through small town America.

We got to finally meet Jason and his wife face to face and we also got to see the workshop where the magic begins.

We ordered our new hutch and it should be delivered during our October visit.

Before we left the house 2 weeks ago, I went ahead and moved the bookcase out of the dining room in anticipation for the new hutch. I have gotten used to having it in here so it seemed a little odd to go ahead and move it into the office/library.

I can't wait to post pictures of the new hutch in the dining room! One of my smaller projects that I worked on during our recent trip was to create a coffee bar. When we had been planning the kitchen remodel and update last year, I entertained the thought of having our contractor build shelves on the back side of the redesigned stove island to house antiques, cook books and such. Dave wasn't on board with that so he told me to find something that would accomplish what I wanted, he basically told me to go furniture shopping! Needing no further encouragement, I quickly (before he could change his mind) went on a quest and found exactly what I was looking for in April 2013. It was on my trip over to Idaho to pick up the five drawer chest and two nightstands that my friend Cathy had given me info on, that Brenda and I, after enjoying lunch at her home, followed her to a rustic furniture store nearby.

Although the back of the van was already filled with the bedroom furniture I had picked up, when Brenda spotted this TV stand at the showroom she ran out to the van with my tape measure. She assured me that we could fit it into the van and we did! We also brought back a KIVA ladder and two large lampshades, proving once again that sometimes a big van is as good as having a pick up truck!

I have been holding off on finishing the last window treatment in the kitchen because we have had some leaking issues over the winter with ice dams. In April 2013 I brought up the new cellular shades and curtains for the kitchen and dining room windows but decided to wait, until we were certain this one window in particular was cleared up. Our contractor thought he had taken care of it but this past winter it reared its ugly head once more. He's addressed it but I want to wait another winter to be certain, I don't want to risk ruining the new window treatments. In the meantime, we have these lovely paper, pleated shades!

Back to the coffee bar...I came up with the idea of creating this in order to clear up counter space. I like the idea of having less clutter so I moved the coffee pot and canisters onto the TV stand. This is before:

This is after:

I moved the Grizzly platter from the bookcase in the dining room and placed it where the canisters used to be, I really like it here!

I like having everything in one place. I have all my coffee supplies underneath in one of the baskets and I have our coffee cups and other essentials in the canisters or on top. I have plenty of room underneath to house my many cookbooks and recipe binders. All in all, I am really pleased with how it turned out. I did however move it away from the window right before we left just in case, we have any kind of a leak still. I am eager to finally have this window completed and get to check one more thing off of my list of projects!