The Backup Singers or It Takes A Village

No one puts their house on a home tour by themselves.  No. One.  Today I'll share the village it took.

The doors.  The doors in our house haven't been easy.  Hubby built our front door several years ago.  He refinished it this summer.  Every interior door was different and some were not pretty.  Once we added the master suite and chose doors for it we decided to replace every interior door to match the new ones.

That may sound easy but in an old house it's not easy.  In spite of all of the issues Hubby replaced each and every interior door.  Sometimes the surrounding trim too.  The back exterior door got stripped and refinished, the garage man door got replaced by a door that had to be refinished.

Hubby spent a lot of time on the doors getting ready for tour.  We are so glad that we did it but boy howdy it wasn't pretty in the process.

I couldn't live in the Stone House without Hubby.  He maintains a lot of old, broken things here and I am very grateful for him.  As I came up with ideas he said, "yep, we can do that."  Well, except for getting the Aloha finished.  He knows I need boundaries. 

Hubby likes to go junkin' with me, has vision and then the talent to carry out my crazy schemes.

Thanks hon!

My friend, Shelly said from the beginning that she would help me if we did the tour.  She wasn't kidding.  We spent Mondays wrapping, decorating, gathering poinsettias, etc.

More importantly, she listened, told me when to stop and put up with me.

I made her a gold shiney brite wreath to thank her and remind her of our time together.  It's kind of crazy but so were our Mondays.  Thankfullly, they ended with wine.

Chris let me use her studio(it is the best, happiest place in L-town), her German glass glitter, her paint and her wisdom.  It's pretty great to have a former Annie Sloan Chalk Paint stockist stop by your place to give a color consultation every time you call.

She gave me the sheet music wreath, apparently she made four of them one evening while watching TV.  Honestly, who does that?

I went junkin' so many Saturdays with Chris and Shelly I lost count.  And we drank so much coffee at Woods that my points paid for two new Christmas mugs.  The girls let me have first grab on the Christmas goodies and helped me find the goods at estate sales.  It's nice to have those two tall gals on your side.

CW Designs aka Cheryl Westra sewed my laundry basket liner.  She donated her labor as her way to contribute to the Bethany tour.  Isn't it pretty?  Santa left his laundry in it for tour.

My friend Lisa brought us dinner one night during the week before tour.  The best chicken enchiladas ever.  Hubby was so happy to have real food.

You'd be excited to eat a home cooked dinner too if you'd been eating like we had last month.

My sister, Kathi asked if she could please do something.  I asked that she pick up some pretty cupcakes in Bellingham.  She did one better.  She enlisted her friend, Marla, a baker extraordinaire to bake cupcakes with her.  Gorgeous for staging and yummy for stress eating.  Thanks Marla and Kathi.

 *We hired Annetta H. to come and help with the cleaning the week of tour.  Best decision, ever.  Nothing beats a good Dutch cleaning.

*The girls at the Print Stop.  Thanks!

*My sisters, Kathi and Jodi agreed to help on tour day.  We were so thankful that they were here to watch the stairs and keep our guests safe.  My sister that is a Snapsister took the picture of our Bethany baby, Zach.  Thanks sis!

*Special thanks to my friend, Sheryl.  She ran over to our house and consulted on all of the rug purchases and then stayed for a glass of wine.  She also helped me move furniture one day.  Nicely done.

*Our best friends, our dear foodie friends, Mark and Karen and Vern and Shelly made dinner for the night of the tour.  It was so great to come home, enjoy the house, have yummy food and just enjoy the work being finished.  Friends came by and it was like the five loaves and fishes all over again.  

Only with much better food!

*The Stremler sisters!  Oh my, did we laugh at ourselves in the months leading up to tour.

*Thank you to Mark V. for showing up with a keg after tour.  Possibly the funniest thing ever.  He just happened to have one and knew there would be people at our place.  To the best of our knowledge this was the first kegger at the Stone House.  But we have three sons so we aren't entirely positive that it's a first...

I hope I haven't forgotten anyone because each and every person that helped  and encouraged is appreciated.

Next, I'll share my favorites from the other homes on tour.  Oh my, crazy beautiful!