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Showing posts from April, 2013

Over the Mantel

Are you curious about what is going on the wall above the mantel in my foyer project?  Maybe you thought I didn't have anything in mind for this spot.  Well, I did. I have had this mirror in my garage for several years knowing I would eventually find the right spot for it.  It is creamy white and slightly distressed.  I left it that way until I knew where it was going to hang.  Then I painted it OC-23 Classic Gray. At first I thought I would stencil the frame in a crocodile or snakeskin pattern .  After several emails back and forth with Rachel at The Stencil Library, we came to the conclusion that maneuvering a stencil on this surface would not produce the desired results.  So on to Plan B.   I had used fish net as a window treatment in the foyer and since I was planning to change that for the "new" look.....  I tossed it into the washing machine and hung it out to dry. Okay, it wasn't quite that easy.  Before I adhered the

Seven Square Feet Complete

I seem to be coming up with lots of excuses for why I am not moving faster on the foyer project.  First it was my aunt's funeral in Iowa and this week it was because I devoted the entire week to preparing for a yard sale.  The hauling, and arranging and pricing was all worth it.  The weather was absolutely stunning, the buyers were plentiful, and I sold a large percentage of my stuff for the asking price.  I have the cash for more remodeling and lots of people have something new (to them) to enjoy.  With that as a prelude, you will understand why I'm talking about a very small piece of the pie....roughly seven square feet. I'm referring to the firebox that looked like this at the beginning of the remodel. Things were happening all around this small opening but nothing was going on inside the firebox. Finally tile was installed on the bottom but the sides were dismissed for the time being. Now seemed to be the time.  I painted the blocks a few shades of

Loose Ends

This is a mini post to tie up a loose end I left hanging way, way back when the pantry was being redone to accomodate the doorway to the new powder room. The right side of this pantry became the doorway to the powder room The left side was reconstructed with glass shelves for glassware and dishes.  The idea was to have two framed glass doors made to fit side by side.  However, after much research it was determined that no one wanted to make 86" high doors that were only about 15" wide.  So Plan B was put on the table.  Long story short Plan B (to make frameless glass doors similar to frameless shower doors) also bit the dust.  Not only would they be extremely expensive but the hinges were not what I wanted in this space. Was I disappointed not to have my tall glass doors on this opening?  A little, however, I lived with it so long during the research that I got used to it without doors.  It seems to be working fine this way. I wish I could capture the

Tile on the Fireplace

I can't wait any longer to show you what has happened with the tile on the face of the fireplace.   In this previous post it looked like this. Then it sat like this while we waited for another section of the tile to arrive.  Turns out that tile sat in the warehouse for ten days before I could get anyone to admit it was available for pickup.  But that's history now.  We laid out the rest of the tile and did our advanced math only to come to the conclusion that we needed a little more filler.  That's where the pencil tiles you see on either side of the herringbone come into play.  Lo and behold, Home Depot came to the rescue.  That's another story about denial...them denying the company still made that tile and the sample they were showing was just an outdated sample, and me not willing to give up.  I moved boxes on the shelf, enlisted the help of complete strangers to reach boxes far back on the shelf, and suddenly the tile they no longer carried was on the

My Aunt Helen

There is no progress to report from this past week.  Work at home was put on hold while I attended the funeral of my Aunt Helen in Sioux City, Iowa. Helen was born in Yankton, SD on Sept. 25, 1924 and died March 28, 2013.  Family gatherings were high on Helen's priority list and she attended many.  Here she is with my brother, John, on his wedding day. Helen was the last of my parent's siblings to leave us, so her funeral was a gathering of the next generation from various parts of the midwest. Because Helen never married and had no children, she devoted herself to her nieces and nephews.  Right up to the end she knew the names of not only the children of her 15 nieces and nephews, but also the names of their children.   Knowing lineage meant a lot to her, and she knew it well, both the generations before her and the ones that followed. She kept herself informed of events in our lives and then kept the cousins informed of each others lives as well.