A Place to Hang My Cup

You know when you've found a good coffee cup when you hold it and if feel perfectly balance, not too hot, your finger doesn't get stuck in the handle….perfect.

Well, I fell in love with this shape from pyrex.

 I haven't found them in my crazy daisy pattern yet, so I'm keeping these on hand till I do.

Anyway, I've always wanted to have cups ready on the counter, but never had the counter space. Now I do! So I went hunting at my local and not so local thrift shops to see what I might find and came across this for the magic price of 65 cents. Mine!

I liked the lines, but it's a little unbalanced and kinda dark, so I got to thinking…..and came up with this

Add a base to it…paint it….figure out how to attach it…Simple!!

Drilled a few holes, painted, sealed, attached with wire and presto - new STURDY cup holder!

Sing it with me….now it's solid! Solid as a rock…dum dum….yeah!

Aloha A Hui Hou!

Lucky Finds

Since we've been here we've been hitting yard sales and estate sales, thrift stores and junk stores….looking for the special something that will fit our needs. Here are some of our finds.

We found license plates! This one is from the year our home was built and we found two more, from our birth years….not going to post those…gal has'ta have some secrets. Anyway, I plan to build something with these, so stay tuned!

At a yard sale I found an antique violin case, all wood. Needs a bit of TLC and to be relined. Anyone one have an idea where I can get self adhesive red velvet/felt by the yard? Also have some plans with this. Its all about repurposing! 

I love this pot, enjoyed many a cups of ice tea…but something is wrong with it. From the dark spots in the glaze it sweats sticky stuff….ick…I'm afraid of lead poisoning….something I learned about in ceramics class…. If the glaze is cracked or the surface is not totally covered, lead can leach out of the ceramic into your food or liqiuds….Maybe I'll use it as a vase for dried flowers??

A lucky find for 2 dollars at a garage sale. It is now in my craft room, used to store odds and ends.

This was something brand new - The cup in the middle is from my set of "good" dishes. Almost all of which made the move without a scratch…almost. I lost 3 soup/cereal bowls. I have been looking for replacements, but so far I haven't been lucky…till I saw these on sale at Ross. They are BIG soup bowls with lids that i can also put in the ovens for individual casseroles, deserts, baked over what nots….unlimited possibilities and the red matches the red in my dishes perfectly! Now I just need to finish refinishing the dining table….

Love the patina on this brass vase we found at our favorite thrift store….I just have to resist the inner urge to polish it!

I love the giant Cognac glass. It is mouth blown and very thin walled. So many things I could use it for…plan to have it out on our new porch.

I

 know, I said I have enough green glass, but it would have been perfect for lilacs….my bush out front was starting to bloom and I could just see them in there….

I didn't know that it would freeze again and we'd lose all our beautiful lilacs….there's always next year...

Now this was a great find, a 4 GALLON mason jar with lid - it is amazing. We are guessing that in some point in time it was used for pickles, right now it is our change collection jar - will just take us 3409193845904832759023 years to fill it - but boy when it's full, we can get something really special!!

There is more to share, but it will have to wait for another post. So for now Good night and

Aloha A Hui Hou!!

A Little Repurposing

As you can tell by my absence - we are really busy and working hard around the ranch.

In July our contractors come back to start a big project on the exterior of the house - we are getting a new roof for the porch, extending it and enclosing it - can't wait.

I'll fill you in on the details of that later Now I want to tell you about this project, that has something to do with the porch.

When we bought the house my mother in law gave us several boxes with stuff "that we might be able to use" but just never got around to looking at….On this trip I did and deemed that a lot of it was yard sale material and I almost put these in the yard sale pile when an idea hit me…

I could make something out of these….just had to see if I could get the other part I needed.

Went to several stores and finally found what I was looking for at the world market store.

Click photo for source

I picked the 30 light set and I'm thinking right about now you are getting an idea of what's going to happen here…

Right!

I'm going to use the jello molds as lampshades!

But I didn't have enough. I got really lucky at the thrift store and got a bunch for less than two dollars, but it still wasn't enough.

I checked eBay and there were a lot to be had there, just the prices were all over the place and I would still have to pay shipping.

Wound up getting the seven I needed at an antique store for 8.-, so so far we are at $40.- for the lights.

Once I got them home and looked at my drill bits I noticed that even my largest wasn't big enough for the task so I wound up getting this puppy (which cost another 40 bucks….any suggestion what I can make to get some use out of it???)

Oh my dad is so proud that his girl likes fancy tools.

I was able to use my new to me drill press that I bought at an estate sale when we first got here.

The only way that I could drill them was by cutting a piece of wood for the inside so it doesn't get all bent out of shape when I secured them with the vice.

After they were drilled I took the bulb out and put the "shade" between the bulb and the socket…some holes were a tad big, others I had to work a bit to make it fit, but over all everything worked out fine.

Now these are my "I'm so excited that they're done and look cool" pics, I'll share better ones when we have them hanging out on the porch

So that's my project - hope you like it! But stay tuned, another idea hit me,  to be continued!!

Aloha A Hui Hou!!

I know, I've been a flake!

But with good reason!

We did it! We moved! We are now enjoying the country life at our Never Rush Ranch. Have a few more things to get organized and then I'll be posting again.

Hope you all had a wonderful mothers day!

Aloha a Hui Hou!

Spreading the Word

Just wanted to give a heads up.

There is a fun camera site called Photojojo. They have all kinds of cool camera and cellular phone camera  doo-dads.

It's amazing...the things people come up with!

The camera will follow your movements....perfect for shooting that how to video!

I know they didn't come up with this...but they offer a bunch of other cool stuff like this.


Now here is the part where I want to give you a heads up. Right now they are offering an iPhone photography class.....for $5

Is that cool or what?

When the class is over you get a $5 gift card for their site....

Cool again, huh?

I am on lesson two and I'm learning and having fun

How to make a double exposure with HD

Composition, Rule of thirds and taking a squirrels eye view pic

Looking forward to the next lesson!

I'm not getting anything to promote this.....just thought I'd share

Aloha a Hui Hou!

Better Pics

First off, thanks to those that that commented on my closet  (and all my other posts) - means so much to me. THANK YOU!

My friend Peggy went back to get a better pic of the closet for me, to see the whole thing...or almost the whole thing.

Here is the before view again

Here is what it looks like from a similar angle

A couple more views

Love, love love it and can't wait to see it for myself!

Aloha a Hui Hou!!

Last Big Piece of the Puzzle

One of the reasons that we fell in love with our house was because of all the built in storage.

Even love the period typical closets.

This is, as you can guess, the one in the wood room. The closet is smaller, but there is a built in dresser, complete with dividers in the smaller drawers so you can organize your undies and such.

This one is going to stay just the way it is. The wood has aged together, so it should stay together.

The one in the bedroom is a different story. The doors are all chipped, they don't stay shut and the drawers are worn down.

Sure, I could have torn the built in out and put in a modern closet like this. But we are trying to maintain the character of our home, not take it away.

I wanted something rustic looking that would go well with our little farm house. The carpenter that did the rest of the work in the house has been very sick so I had to look for a new one.

Carpenters must be very busy in that area because I didn't get one response. From all those that I contacted, not one.

It's not like we were in a hurry, so it was ok for it to stay the way it is. When I painted the bedroom I did take off the doors and put them out in the shop... might be able to put them to good use later.

Last Fall, before our last trip I was browsing craigslist and came across an ad for a carpenter offering his services. They had a website and I checked it out, looked like good workmanship, so I contacted him.

To my great surprise he got back to me and we arranged a meeting for during our trip.

And this is what came out of it. TA DA!

I love the wood grain, love the farm look of it. I also see that I will have to touch the wall up a bit too.

So, for the top, I decided against putting the doors back on. I want to put curtains up and wouldn't be able to open the door fully because of the curtain hardware. I know that I would wind up getting the door all dinged up, so no doors. Right now I have my winter clothes stored in fabric boxes that I'd like to put back up in that open space. I'll hunt till I find the right thing to put up in there.

Just like in the kitchen, I don't mind keeping the old insides....for now.

But I will save my pennies, better my carpenter skills and somewhere down the line I'll line it with cedar.

Hoping to get pictures from a bit further away soon! I just couldn't wait to share.

Aloha a Hui Hou!

PS: Thanks to my friend Peggy for taking pictures for me!

On to the Basement

Right now our basement stairs are a hot mess.

Look at the top left, there is a large hole in the wall. That's now closed. The top landing and the two steps up to the kitchen are tiled with the same tile as in the kitchen.

You can't really see it here, but the stairs have rounded corners....LOVE that detail and I want to kep that.

On this last trip I removed the 2nd handrail (one on the right). Stairs are a lot roomier now.

But I am planning to tackle them next time. As mentioned, I want to paint the risers, each one a different color, using the paint that I used in the other rooms of the house.

The treads have textured paint on them and are a bit chipped and worn.  For safety sake I will find a can of the textured paint and just freshen up the treads.

For the rest of the space I was thinking of something like this, just keeping our metal banister.

I just plan on using bead board WALLPAPER, instead of real bead board. Will be so much easier to cut and put up and I'll have less waste.

On my first trip to Egypt in 2000 I bought this papyrus and plan to hang it across from the door.

As for the wall color, I was thinking of a sandy color

So, that's my plan. We will have to wait and see how it turns out.

Aloha a Hui Hou!

Rain, Rain Go Away

I'm sure you haven't heard, but we've had a bit of rain over here.

We're not called the rainbow state for nothin, ya know.

Anyway, we have a stream that runs behind the apartments and we've had so much rain that the stream and the marsh are now one.

Bad thing is it makes the water really dirty and don't think it's a good idea to harvest any of the avocados that are falling in there right now. Pretty bummed about that.

Good thing is that the there is a lot of water and on this wind still day the reflection of the mountains is just beautiful.

Just takes your breath away.

Aloha a Hui Hou!

About CFL's

Ok, we are told over and over again that CFL's are better than regular old lightbulbs.

My employers say we can save money, use CFL's

After reading and viewing this, I'm not too sure anymore.

Click photo to go to the article

If you don't have time to read it all, at least watch the 3rd video and share your thoughts with me.

Aloha a Hui Hou!

A Stitch in Time

Dating myself here, but I'm a child of the 70's...and a sewing box was something we had to have for Home Ec class. All my classmates had these tiny sewing boxes and I had a HUGE green monster. Knew that sewing would be in my future and would need the storage. 

Well it made it to Germany, but didn't make it to Hawaii with me. I miss it and couldn't find anything like it on the modern market.

I checked ebay and they were there, but the sellers wanted 40 bucks plus shipping...just wasn't willing to pay that much for it.

I continued to dream that I might someday find one.

On a trip to the butcher in Meridian we saw there was a Youth Ranch thrift store that we hadn't visited yet and decide to stop in. 

Image my joy when I found this in their craft department! 

Yes, you read right, a thrift store with a CRAFT department!! I was really amazed by what they had, stamps, beads, patterns...lots of cool stuff.

Anyway, I checked it over and it was in good condition and wait for it.....

They were asking $3.95.

Mine, Mine, Mine!

Now I just need my sewing machine and notions over there and I'll be all set!

Aloha A Hui Hou!

This and That

We found a few more items that go well with our style...

Found this octopus over at onekingslane. com. Since we both love to interact with octopi - it has a lot of meaning to us.

This phone also came from onekingslane. It is a replica with buttons instead of a dial, but it's nice and heavy, just like real old phones used to be. Can't wait to hook it up!

Now that we have the dining set in the wood room, we've crossed the murphy bed off our wish list - but we did want to have a guest bed. Found this beautiful, all wood, day bed at the World Market store. It will be in my craft room so I have a place to snuggle up and let those creative juices flow. Don't worry - over time we will be finishing the basement.

Every time we leave it's getting harder and harder to do so and my new knick knack says it best.

 Aloha A Hui Hou!