As we are getting closer to completion - this is a long distance thing and I've been living vicariously through the photos Lisa has been sending. I get to see every detail, from so far way - it's amazing.
Now I've been thinking about this for a bit and have decided I (we) want to be surprised with the rest of the work. Yes, you read right. Surprised.
This is what I emailed to Lisa and David
"So I feel I'm ready to be surprised with the rest (Roger says "What ever you want sweet", good hubby)....
Please continue to take progress photos - just don't share them with me...I want to cry and be oh so happy when we walk thru that door
OK, totally unrelated....but I was writing someone about the color I plan to paint the light bedroom and was stumped. Every time I write it I think I'm spelling it wrong. The color is Grey...or is it Gray?
Something in my says it's G-R-E-Y....but G-R-A-Y looks good too....oh I don't know!
Like I said I was writing someone and didn't want to look like a fool so what did I do, I googled it and came across this page.
This one tells me that they're BOTH correct and a cute little spelling rule that went something like this:
In England they write GrEy and in America they write it GrAy.
I don't think I'll ever spell it "wrong" again! The site also shows other common misspellings and cute ways to remember how to spell it right, like:
abundance- Often spelled -ence Mnemonic: A hot dog can make a-bun-dance
Is that cute or what? I've had my giggle for the day - hope you have too.
I've been thinking...All these years that we've been going to the laundromat and feeding the washer and dryer with our quarters, I've been saying "We could afford a really nice washer and dryer with the money we are tossing into the machines every week."
I must admit we get a really good deal on a load here 75¢ to wash and 25¢ for 20 minutes to dry. But on our last trip to the house I didn't have the luxury of having the laundromat on our back lanai - I had to load everything up into the gas guzzling truck, drive to town and sit around for about 2 hours waiting for my $12 worth of quarters do their magic on 3 loads of laundry.
It was then that the brilliant idea hit me. When we get our own washer and dryer I should just keep using my quarters to wash my clothes! Hey, I've budgeted for it. Might as well continue and use those quarters to either pay for a repair (if needed) or towards buying a new washer or dryer down the line. Much better than trying to carve the money out of our savings....
Love my little quarter box that my daughter gave me
Doing the math, on how many quarters we use for laundry in a month x's 12. It certainly adds up! I will have saved enough to buy a new set (if needed) in a little more than 4 years.
That's the kind of math I LIKE!
Now we need to go hunting for a nice and big piggy bank!
A few weeks ago we had the Super Moon and Roger and I headed over to an East facing beach to take some pictures. I was just getting over a cold and stayed home all day to be sure I had enough energy to make thru how ever long we were going to stay at the beach.
Had a little bit of camera fun and will have to fart around and figure out how to get a nice pic of the moon...some day...Hope you enjoy.
I was able to get in touch with the reupholster lady I met last year and showed her a pic of the chair. She loved it too! She looked thru one of her suppliers and they could make a chair to kind of look like the original and it would cost as much as the original
This is the original for $3000 It has 2 kinds of fabric and the main part of the chair is leather.
this is how it could look like for $2400
she couldn't get the side fabric to show on this one, but it would cost $1900 to make it look like the original
Ok, don't worry, I'd NEVER spend that much for a chair, never ever. So we are looking into the next bet thing I find a quality used chair and re cover it.
So my go to furniture lady sends me some swatches of fabric for the back
Of the 4, I think the bottom one would match best...Now get this, the fabric costs almost $80 a yard and to cover one chair we'll need 2-3 meters (no wonder the chair is so expensive...).
So she is still looking for fabric - maybe even something totally different, that could be more affordable.
Me, I'm looking around for a good use wingback that we could bring back to life to enjoy in our new home. Gimme a holler if you know of one...
I've been thinking about this for a long, long time....well, since last year actually. When we were at the house last summer and were working in the yard things kept flying into my shoes (rocks and thistles). It was a major cause of grief for me.
I plan to get a pair of welllies for yard work. If I stuff my pants in the boots stuff will still fly in. If I put them out, stuff can still crawl up. Then it hit me - double pant legs! I bought a couple of yards of heavy jeans fabric that can take the wear and tear of yard word. Out of that I sewed a pair of work jeans. Then I added the bloomers that will go over the top of the boots, snap close at the bottom so nothing can fly in PLUS I get to flash a little Aloha Flair.
I'm gonna look like such a dork riding our tractor... :o)
I really like the warmth and the feel of the wood room and would like that feeling for the light bedroom too, just not as much. Thinking of using reclaimed wood on the West wall of the room.
Kind of like this
I plan to paint the walls a light shade of grey. The ceiling and the built in will be white.
Built ins and trim will be painted white.
The new windows will be white and the casings will be white too. Just like in the bathroom.
This is the West wall that I would like the wood on
I was also thinking of the South wall and remembered the wall tattoo's my sister and daughter have in there homes. I thought a tree tattoo would look nice here...and then hang pictures of our family in the branches, sort of like a family tree.
This is the South wall
The tree trunk would be in the corner and the branches would reach across the wall.
Then I remembered that the walls are textured and that the tattoo would look kind of rippled and might not stick all over. I looked some more and found these stencils:
A long, long time ago I did some work for a company called Plaid and in one of the goodie bags they gave me there was a 3 piece stencil set of a pot of ivy. It sort of looked like this:
Only difference was that it was a 3 piece stencil. I didn't stencil it, instead I used a medium and plastered and then painted it. The result was 3D, it was like having a real flower pot on the wall, actually 5 flower pots. It was a lot of work but I really, really liked it and from what my daughter tells me - it's still on the wall, so it's held up for over 10 years!
I know I can do this, and I would love to do this....I think I'm going to do this! The plan is plastering the tree in white on the grey wall and hanging the photos in nice wood frames. When I do I'll be sure to take some step by step photos and share the results!
They've arrived, have been put in place, have been tested and they work!
They look so HUGE!
When the weather gets a bit better the contractor will drill to vent out the dryer. I don't think I will need the dryer as much as I need it in Hawaii, (95% of our laundry gets dryer dried) but I'm glad we have one....
Yes, you read right we used the dryer for almost EVERY load we wash. Because of the high humidity our clothes would never really dry and they get musty, really, really fast.
At first we used these and they are supposed to "last" for a month and they dissolved and filled up with water in half that time.
Now we have to keep a heating element in the closet so the clothes we do get dry, stay dry.
When we were living in Waipahu I had purchased 2 comfy wicker chairs, just so we could have some kind of seating in our room. They don't have the ones we had anymore, but they kind of looked like this:
When I got the promotion to manage the apartments I was looking forward to getting more use out of the chairs.
Sadly I came to realize that they were ok to sit a bit, but to sit in them to watch a movie, with your legs up on a hassock - not very comfortable. Roger saw my discomfort and he bought me a nice chunky recliner.
Those of you that have been to our place in Hawaii know that I LOVE my leather recliner...it is so comfortable. If you have been in our home, and I let you sit in my chair - I hope you know that it was a big honor.
When the time comes for us to move, we won't taking our furniture with us. If we were military, that would be one thing, but on our own dime....Let's just say, as much as I love the chair, furniture just doesn't have that sentimental value to make it worth while to ship.
Considering the size of the front room at the ranch and the couch that we already have, a big recliner like the one I have here, is out of the question. We both seem to be on the same page that we want older style furniture, not contemporary. Somewhere on that road I've fallen in love with wingback chairs. It would fit perfectly in our style.
While browsing thru pinterest (my latest addiction) I came across this chair and can totally see it in our house.
The lines, the color, the contrast..just love it! Just the price, $3000 - I am in no way in love with that.
Last year I found a woman on craigslist, that lives near the house, and she reupholsters furniture. Maybe she'll be able to make a vintage chair look like this one for me.
So, our contractor is going on vacation for a bit - so no progress to report. So for now, my posts won't be as frequent as there isn't much to say, other than the same old, same old.
I do have something planned for the upcoming weeks and I hope that you will come back to enjoy it.
See you soon!
One of the reasons I fell in love with house was all the built in storage. Everything will have a place - close and handy to where it's needed.
This is the built in that we have in the hall way.
FWIW, the socket and the switch you see here have been moved to the other side of the wall because of all we had to do for the bun baker.
Now these cabs, unlike the original cabs in kitchen, are in very good condition and the only thing I might think of doing is painting it, put the drawers on tracks and swap out the flimsy plastic hardware for something more substantial - but staying with the period of the house.
When we were last there I had taken the hardware off and looked for new ones with the same distance and it was impossible to find anything with the same distance. That means, for what ever I pick, I am going to have to putty up the holes.
Not sure about what I'd like for the drawers though.
Now comes the question, what kind of paint job should I do? It is straight across from the front door, so it is one of the first things you'll see when you come into the house. Then the hallway is dark, so I don't want to paint it too dark...or should I just stick to white? only freshening it up?
I tried so hard to be careful! But I guess I wasn't careful enough. I caught Roger's cold. I have a stuffy nose, headache, sore throat, swollen glands and my ears hurt. So - I"m not a happy camper.
I'm drinking lots of fluids, taking airborne and cold medication, praying that it will pass soon. All this got me thinking...what other folks do to get over their colds. Is it the good old chicken soup or something off the wall like inhaling Chamomile steam.
Spring is in the air and the one of the wild Chickens in the neighborhood is showing off her chicks in our yard.
Throughout the day they circle the building, scratching here and there. She let me get close enough to take some pictures, but those little suckers are so fast that it was hard getting something in focus.
She's a pretty bird, love the coloring. That's why I took so many pictures of her...
Playing around with Photoshop....might be a nice print for the kitchen...
Is that because they are wild chickens and have a healthy fear of humans? When the time comes and we have our own domestic flock, will they be people shy too? Hope not...
When I was in the 5th or 6th grade we went on a 3 day field trip with school. Among other places we stopped at a chicken ranch. My eye caught this one hen as she remained still in her nesting box. She let me get close and I petted her for a bit, and while I was petting her - an egg popped out. To an 11 year old - I thought it was because of my petting skills that she laid the egg then and there.
I came home telling my parents that I want to be a chicken farmer. Looks like it's gonna happen.
I'm not gonna lie to you, the water at the house tasted pretty yucky. It was ok for showering, but not high up on my list of beverages. It's also pretty hard water, would be a shame if our nice new appliances, that are hooked up to water, and faucets would get all gunked up.
There seems to have been a filter there at some point because you can see the pipes hanging in the air, missing something.
But it wasn't there when we bought the house.
So the plumber brought this to our attention
It doesn't really soften the water as much as it prevents the hard stuff from sticking to everything....and makes the water taste better. The thought of not needing to lug a ton of salt for the other kind of filter is pretty appealing.
