Basket Baby Boy

Introducing our latest grandchild.

A little boy to join the 4 little grand-girls!

(Isn't the tiny owl hat too cute! Made by his momma.)

A Bedtime Fairy Tale

  Once upon a time, a mommy journeyed to a faraway village to buy an old bed.

  This bed looked wonderfully exciting in the sale ad and the mommy jumped at the chance to own it. The mommy hoped that someday a little girl would feel like a princess when she slept in this bed.

  She excitedly showed the bed to her favorite furniture restorer, Mr. Jon.

“Isn’t this an excellent bed! It is very old and I love all the beautiful carving that it has. It has a couple of ouchies that I might need you to help me fix. What do you think?”

   Mr. Jon looked the bed over carefully, wiggling all the different wood parts to see how strong they were. Oops! Watch out! I don’t think those pieces are supposed to come off!

   Mr. Jon was afraid that this old bed was too badly hurt. But he promised the mommy that he would do his best and see if it could be fixed. Many, many hours went by as he worked on this bed in his workshop. He had to take it apart. He had to put it back together like a puzzle and sometimes he even had to carve new pieces! At long last, the antique bed had a new coat of creamy paint and was ready for a new home.

   The mommy and Mr. & Mrs. Jon took the special bed to many places - it was the center of attention at a home décor store; it went to several very nice vintage shows. Many other mommies loved the amazing bed but somehow it never went home with them.

  The mommy had two little girls of her own, but they already had special beds. Then, oops, the mommy found out that she was going to have another baby girl. Surprise!

  The mommy kept taking the awesome bed to all her shows, but she secretly hoped that maybe it wouldn’t sell and her own little baby girl, Summer, would sleep on it.

  Suddenly the mommy and her three little girls had to move to a faraway kingdom – way over to North Carolina! That settled it – she couldn’t leave the special bed behind.

  So the bed was carefully wrapped and made the long trip in a big truck.

   As time went by, Summer was finally old enough for a big girl bed and the night came when the mommy could snuggle her into the special bed. The mommy told her that Mr. Jon (who was also Summer’s grandpa – Surprise!) had made the beautiful bed just for her. Every night before she closes her little eyes to sleep, Summer whispers, “My Boppa made this bed just for me. I love you, Boppa.”

    And everyone lived happily ever after.

All In Good Time...

Hmmm, thought we could renovate our main floor bathroom over Christmas vacation. Eleven days off work and school. We'd have to work hard and have a can-do attitude, but thought we'd give it a whirl. Well, of course we didn't work on the actual holiday-days; so the days dwindled...

I'm happy to announce -
    that we're still working on the bathroom.
    On the Martin Luther King holiday.
Now I kid around that we should be done in eleven months.

Actually, it hasn't been too bad and we are taking the time necessary to do the job right. We still have another completely functional bathroom to use, even though we have to share it. So we aren't having to take our showers at the gym or anything. Too bad that Home Depot doesn't offer frequent flyer miles - they should be greeting us by name at the front door by now. I wish we'd started a number-of-trips-to-the-hardware-store log to see if we're creating any kind of world record.

Jon laughs at me, but since I am a very visual person I analyze where I can move forward on the fun, design stuff. That's why the new lighting is already installed, three of four walls are all painted, the fun towel hook that I've been saving for this room is up and waiting for new towels to arrive instead of the kitchen towel to remind Jon not to bang his head on the hook, and the glass apothecary jar full of soaps is already on a shelf (on the "good" side of the room!).

If you look on the other side of the room, there's a bit more work to do. Don't worry. I'll get there. I've already upwrapped the marble pebble shower floor tiles so I can try them with my bare feet. Important things first!!

What Design Shows Don't Show You...

My house was in a 70's  time warp when I moved in ten years ago and has undergone many changes.

I'm all too familiar with the nasty job of removing multiple layers of wallpaper - the soaking, the scraping, the mess, the patching... Having a little "vintage" in my style does not mean brown wallpaper in the dining room that features covered wagons pulled by oxen.

All the wallpaper is gone, but we are now learning a new skill. Removing a glued-and-screwed particle board subfloor. However, I'm not sure if many hours - make that DAYS - of painstaking chiseling, scraping, sweeping (all on your knees) qualifies as a "skill."

After putting off this last major project for many months, Jon and I are deep into renovating our main floor bathroom - and doing the work ourselves.

So that our new heated marble tile floor isn't two inches higher than the other floors in the house, the subfloor must go. (Also, tile cannot be installed over particle board.) The two layers of vinyl flooring were a cinch. But the particle board does not come off without a battle.

Hmmm, I don't think I've ever seen this demonstrated on HGTV...have you?
Back to work; I'm keeping my eye on the beautiful bathroom prize ahead.

Caution! These are not glamour shots.

Holiday decorating - off the grid!

This summer I tired of the traditional red door on my white/black shuttered Cape Cod house. I was looking for something out of the ordinary, with some pop and flare, "off the grid."

The front door of my house is now a bright citrus green as is the wooden bench under the white pergola on the side of our property.

So instead of my usual holiday decorating with traditional wreaths in each window, I decided to simplify and modernize. On a recent visit to North Carolina, Kristen and I stocked up on ribbon at Carolina Pottery and I brought home some wide mesh plaid ribbon and some fun flocked polka dot stuff to give my traditional wreath a makeover.

I used these same materials to punch up a couple of hanging baskets. These are always full of flowers during the summer, but adding some evergreens, a candle with a glass hurricane, and some ribbon gives them a cute look for the winter months.

This one hangs by my patio.

The one hanging in the pergola. 

The process, if you are interested... 

I put them together indoors this year. No more frozen fingers!

A simple way to save twenty bucks on a polka dot candle (only try this if you won't see the candle close up.)

Vintage Treasures #2

Here are a few more pictures (see our previous post) from the show we did yesterday. These are some pictures from other vendors. Seeing what other people have created and how they display it is always one of the most fun parts of a show.

We didn't get everybody's names, so if you see your items here, please let us know and we will mention you specifically.

I wish I'd gotten a shot of the inside of this armoire! Adorable little curvy shelves.

Perfect for my little granddaughter, Summer, in her vintage Frenchie bedroom.

This ruffly lamp shade was one of my favorites and I was tempted to make it my own.

I'm giving away my age here, but when I was a child we had little candles like these at each place setting and we lighted them during our family holiday dinners.

Vintage Treasures

Here area a few pics from our space at the Vintage Treasures Market from Saturday. Hard to get good photos in that bright overhead light - our apologies.

In just a bit we should be posting some others pictures featuring a few items that caught our eye.

 

As Promised...

Here is what we call our "Chateau Trimoulet" cabinet.

Originally a Victrola cabinet, it was pretty sad when we rescued it. My talented husband hand painted the cabinet top on a Sunday afternoon with his other eye watching a Seahawks football game. Just think what he could do with both eyes!

I can see storing fine French wine (or a local and affordable Riesling)

and beautiful crystal glasses in it.

We will feature this at the Vintage Finds sale on Saturday.
(SOLD)

This was a new type of project for us -please tell us what you think!