Time for a change.

Hello.

It's been a few months since my last post and I'd like to thank those of you who

emailed me to see if everything's okay.  It's all good, but up north our summers

pass by in the blink of an eye, so I've let my laptop sit idle while the days fly by.

I had no intentions of posting today, but since I already uploaded the photos

I thought I'd dust off my keyboard and sneak in a quick post about the 

changes I've made in our living room.

 

I loved the original color of my clock, but it was too dark for this corner.

I mixed up blue and cream flat finish interior paints and covered

 the grayish green body of the clock.  Yikes!

  To tone down the bright blue, I rubbed on a mixture

 of Johnson's Paste Wax and black and burnt umber artist oil paints

and what a difference it made!

I also painted our too-large-for-this-corner armoire with the same creamy off-white

as our kitchen cabinets and now it feels less like the "elephant in the room".

Before.

(These are the 2 colors I mixed to paint the clock.)

Earlier this spring, Lowe's was kind enough to ah... lend me this sisal rug

 for a trial run, but in the end I returned it.  We're waiting for a call from the movers

so now's not the time to invest in a rug that I may not keep.

Oops!  I guess I should clarify.  Piano movers!

Yes, our piano is moving on to greener pastures.....literally.

Very soon it will make the trek to Beaverville (my pet name for their home

in the country) where it will live for all eternity.  hehe

I also recovered the red cushion on my seagrass chair and now I know,

without a doubt, that white furniture will not be making an appearance

in this room.  Our low-maintenance navy furniture has served us well 

over the past 25 years!

The reason I took these photos along with dozens more was to help me decide

 where to hem my curtains.  I found 2 sets in the perfect color for our double-hung windows

at HomeGoods for only $29.99 a pair!  They looked perfectly lovely right out of the package,  hanging straight down to the floor...but, as you can see, they would be right up against our

extremely hot live steam baseboard heaters, so I made countless trips up and down

a ladder to find the best length and I think this is it.  deep breath

*My Google safety experts recommend anywhere from 6 to 12 inches

between the bottom of the curtain and the top of the baseboard heater and I went with 6.

Inspiration photo.

Source: Georgica Pond

I'm in love with the look above, but without the built-in bench seating,

 the sill length panels made our windows look short and squat.  I'll live with them

 pinned up to the length they are for a while before I take my scissors to them....

scary business!

The curtains take up about a foot of wall space, so my lead glass

window had to come down and I replaced it with one of my many old mirrors.

  Now that I see it here, I think it needs to be moved up an inch or two, but no biggie.

 What's one more hole in the wall, right?

I have to work the next 5 days leading up to

our city's Jubilee Celebration with parade and fireworks,

 so today's my one and only day to get our house ready for our extended family.

Time's a wastin'!

Ready or not, here we come!

Five little.....angels?

(Our grands and grand niece on the left.  Photo by Ashley.)

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful summer!

Vickie

*I'm joining the parties at:

Mod Mix Monday Mod Vintage Life

Tweak it Tuesday Cozy Little House

Share Your Style The Essence of Home

Furniture Feature Friday  Miss Mustard Seed

Autumn, past and present.

I didn't go overboard decorating our house for autumn this year,

as I've been known to do in the past.  In fact, I hardly did a thing!

I kept the dining room mantel very neutral.

A new wreath from HomeGoods replaced my sheet music wreath.

Of course I brought out my old pumpkin lamp, which, believe it

or not, I rewired!  Pam (House of Hawthornes) inspired me with her

 easy to follow tutorial.  Thanks Pam! 

Photo from last year on the left and proof that it works on the right!

The lamp is now home to the one and only compact fluorescent light bulb at 911.

Hmpf!  Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?!

I found a new spot for one of the hats I bought at the thrift store. 

My tool caddy centerpiece is filled with brown bottles, candles, and scented pine cones.

I love the spicy smell of cinnamon in the fall.

This little farm girl comes out to play every autumn.

I found the orange heart vase for just a few dollars at an antique shop

and the colors are perfect for our dining room!  I've had the figurine so long

I can't even remember where I got it.

Now, prepare yourself for a frightening sight of autumn past.......

Before & After

Eeek!  The photo on the left was taken...oh, about 6 years ago

when I was still trying to make our old furniture work in this house.

Truth be told, that dining room table and chairs we purchased way back in 1980
 never worked for us, so we gifted it to a needy young couple.

The furniture is still going strong, but unfortunately their marriage isn't.

That's it for the dining room.

I cut the last of my black-eyed Susans to fill canning jars on the
living room mantel.  After trying every mirror I own (and that's quite a few!)
 I settled on the oval mirror to offset the straight lines of the fireplace.

I replaced the old wicker rocking chair with this chippy
 turquoise chair to lighten up the dark brick.

A basket of old quilts covers up the black gas insert

when the fireplace is not in use.

My Limelight hydrangeas really took off this year and provided

plenty of blossoms to fill baskets around the house.

There are a few updates in this corner, like our new clock that actually keeps time.

Imagine that!  I love the color, but it's one more dark element in the room, so

I'm going to paint it a lighter color.  I also changed out our old

lampshades with new linen shades and what a difference it made!

Before & After

Yikes!
The photo on the left was taken 2 years ago, and I'm not missing that dark trim
one little bit!  Now I'm rethinking my decision to leave the fireplace as is.

Looking back, I realize I've made quite a bit of progress in lightening up the rooms
and also in practicing the Less is More design theory........sort of.
  :o)

Well, that's it for now.

Thanks for stopping by!

Vickie

*I'm joining the parties at:
Mod Vintage Life Mod Mix Monday
Cozy Little House Tweak it Tuesday
Ivy & Elephants What's it Wednesday
Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson Share your Cup Thursday

Switcheroo.

If you live in an old house that has shifted and sagged

over the years you know what a challenge it was to hang this

crooked old cupboard on a crooked old wall......and yet provide the illusion
that it's all plumb, level, and square.

Here's what it looked like when we brought it home.
A mere skeleton of a cupboard.

  Our daughter Julie asked if anybody wanted it and I couldn't say yes fast enough!
Somebody else may have shouted  NO!!, but with my hearing issues I can't really be sure.  :)

The old kitchen cupboard is about an inch too wide to sit on top of the dresser,

so I devised what I thought was a simple plan to hang it on the wall.

Ha!  It took three days of hoisting that thing up and down to get it right.

By the way, has anybody watched Renovation Realities on HGTV?
If you're feeling discouraged about your current DIY project, this show is
guaranteed to make your job seem like a simple task.
  It's sort of a "how not to renovate your home" featuring clueless idiots!!! 
 Friday nights at 7.  Don't miss it!

The first thing I did was replace the rusted out nails with wood screws to beef it up.
(I got tired of the thing falling apart in my hands every time I moved it.)

I replaced the bottom shelf that was twisted and warped with a piece of leftover redwood.
We were in the middle of a snowstorm, so I used whatever wood I could find in our stash.
I hope my daughter finds the 2 missing drawers in their garage this spring.  hint hint
If not, I'm sure I can construct 2 crooked drawers that will look original to the piece.

I added horizontal wood supports across the back of the cupboard,

and then nailed tongue-and-groove wood strips vertically to create a finished back.
A piece of trim hides the slightly uneven cuts of the pine strips.

I screwed 3 heavy duty metal brackets into the wall studs, and topped them with
 a section of pine stair tread cut to length for the base.  Then I nailed
quarter round trim around the perimeter to hide the metal brackets.
My master plan changed somewhat as I went along.

The doors are so darn lopsided, I gave up on my idea of installing glass
and made shirred curtain panels out of old curtains
to conceal the contents of the cupboard.

 

 Before stain.

After stain. Hideous!!!!!

Last of all, I mixed and matched stains to try to blend the new wood
 with the weathered old finish, but I didn't care at all for the way the new pine took on stain.

  I remembered reading about a method of aging new pine with vinegar
and steel wool, but our internet was down, so in desperation I winged it.
 I dipped steel wool into apple cider vinegar and scrubbed the already stained wood.
My technique was all wrong, but it worked anyway!  How often does that happen?
 After the vinegar treatment, I rubbed in watered down white latex paint to tone down the color.

Thank you, Julie!  I love my new wall cupboard!

The cupboard is now home to my sewing patterns and notions.
This is where I do my sewing, and I've been moving my sewing paraphernalia that was previously
 stored all over the house into cupboards and closets on the upper level of our house.
(There goes my cardio workout of running up and down 2 flights of stairs
countless times looking for this or that when I'm sewing!)

Another of my toy sewing machines.

I paid $35 for the Eastlake dresser over 30 years ago,
and it's still one of my favorite pieces of old furniture.  It will never be painted.

My dressmaker's form is wearing a vintage spring dress I
found last year.  Notice the tiny waistline of the dress.

The label says it's size 13/14, but today would be a size 6.

I found the mercury glass perfume atomizers years apart
at different estate sales, but they're a matching set.

Slightly dusty clock.  It must be the maid's day off.

The teacup is my "jewelry box".


So, what did my daughter get in exchange?

We hauled this nearly 8 foot tall door-turned-mirror on top of
our Matrix in the dead of winter.  It was a 4 hour nail-biting, teeth-grinding trip,
but the mirror made it unscathed.  Whew!!!


One daughter's trash is her mother's treasure and vice versa.
Sorry guys.

Thanks for stopping by!
Vickie

I'm joining the parties at:
Miss Mustard Seed Furniture Feature Friday
Revisionary Life Thrifty Life Thursday
Savvy Southern Style Wow us Wednesday
Cozy Little House Tweak it Tuesday
Mod Vintage Life Mod Mix Monday
Funky Junk Interiors Party Junk