"Love" In Our Home

When friends enter our home I want them to feel comfortable and a sense of love.  One of my prayers has been that our home would be a blessing to others and they will feel welcomed.  

To me that means using warm, rustic furnishings and handmade items.  I collect items that are worn and have a history, or I create things that I love.  

In our entry there is a sign that says, "love".

If you have visited the Our Home page, you may have seen it.  

I really do love this sign and it is the first thing that anyone sees when they enter through the front door.  It sits on a bench that runs the entire length of the entry wall. 

Here is how we made it:

This is the hubs going to collect some scrap pieces of wood from the garage.  I just thought it was cute.  

We gathered several pieces of wood of different lengths and roughness.

We laid them out to see how well they laid against each other and how much shimming we would need to do on the back to make them level with each other on the front. Then the hubs trimmed them to roughly the same length. Once that was done he used screws to anchor them across the pack with a long scrap of wood. 

This wood was from a loft bed that had been painted black at one time.  

I gave it one coat of off white spray paint and then Hubs finished it off. 

See my poor little painted finger?

And, yes, we just laid it on the ground in the backyard.  We're wild and crazy like that.

After it was all dry, I took it inside to finish it up. 

It was easy breezy.  I just used some sunset gold latex paint that I had a sample pot of. Then I outlines it with a brown marker to make it pop. You can see the brown marker near the top of the photo.  

Do you notice the Old English? It's my aging and distressing secret weapon.  

I used an old cleaning cloth and just lightly wiped it all over the sign.  I concentrated it in areas where I wanted to appear sort of "dirty and old".

We did it on the spur of the moment and I didn't really get enough pictures of the process.  

But, I love the finished product and I think it really "fits" our family and how we want others to feel in our home.

³⁴ “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35

Do you have a piece in your home that you created and just love? I would love to see it!