jane's apron

wedding present

After a weekend of 4 soccer games and 3 baseball games, I came home late Sunday afternoon and told my daughter we would plant the flower she bought at the garden club sale.  One thing led to another and I ended up getting everything planted...not stopping to change my good shoes or to even put garden gloves on.   After dinner I came out to sit on the swing  and ran back inside to get my camera to take a picture of our beautiful dogwood tree.  The dogwood tree is pretty but it also has a cute story...

The original owner of our house moved in when he was a teenager.  He married for the first time when he was 80 years old...and planted the dogwood tree as a wedding present to his bride. 

craig's list table redo

Guess what we did last weekend?  To review, we were fixing our living room walls and I bought a dining room set on Craig's List with the idea to cut the dining table in half to make two console tables for either side of the fireplace.  I said at the time that my husband was a bit of a goofball carpenter...this is still true.  If we can manage something like this, I know that anyone can.

The challenge with the china cabinet was to make it look a little more casual and not too stiff or old lady-ish. I'm still working on it but I think by adding fun thrifted stuff, family photos, magazines, and stacked books, it looks just right. Two thrifted robins's egg ceramic planters have been my inspiration for adding color into the room...I'm loving the robin's egg/orange combination.

I still have to redo the dining chairs and fix the TV area with the dining room buffet so there's more to share....later.

our house

As promised in this post, I have framed and hung some of my new artwork. I sat on the steps in our front hallway to take this picture.  I love the stair banisters in our house and wanted to include it.  The "Our House" print fits right into the front hall.  A few years ago I painted the bottom 4 ft. or so (including going up the stairs) in a subtle "washed" paint look.  It does a really good job of hiding hand prints and other marks that find their way onto the walls.  This picture also includes a peek into our living room.  You can see the new "coffee" walls and my two new orange sofas (scored one at Macy's floor sample clearance and got the other delivered from the warehouse at the same price).  They marked my sales ticket at Macy's as a "fly by" purchase.  You can also see that my console tables are not there yet...finishing a room is a long, frustrating process around here. 

my new kitchen corner

I recently updated a little corner of my kitchen.  I have had the flower hooks since I was in high school...truly amazing for a girl that tires so easily of stuff.  They followed me to college, to my first apartment, to my daughter's room, and now my kitchen.   My Mom is always telling me that I need to display my aprons so I guess this counts. 

The teeny tiny book on the shelf is from EllynAnne Geisel and is called Apronisms - Pocket Wisdom for Every Day.  I have a couple of these cute books and picked up a few aprons with pockets at my thrift store...I feel a blog giveaway in the making.

craig's list

I made my first Craig's List purchase this week.  A dining room set...for my living room.  My idea was that a dining room buffet would make a cool place for a TV.   I found a nice buffet....and matching china cabinet, and table, and chairs...all for less than I'd pay for an average end table.  My challenge now is to make the china cabinet fit into the living room and not be too "old lady" or too "knick-knacky"...we'll see.   

For the table that came with it, I remembered this idea from my favorite Martha Stewart book.

The table is the extending kind, so it can easily be made into two pieces.  I have talked my husband into cutting each piece and putting them on each side of our fireplace as two matching console tables.  My husband is pretty handy but a bit of a goofball carpenter.  Still, I really don't think he can mess this one up...will share pictures soon (I hope!).   

and so it begins

I finished a house project last week...finally getting my former "studio" converted to my son's study room.  A fresh coat of paint and a new desk (which he assembled!) and it's a whole new room.  I was feeling the power of a completed project...and then used that new-found power to get my husband to start on our living room.   A heated "discussion" on Saturday morning led to the living room looking like this by Sunday morning...

See the wall to the right?  In an old house with plaster walls, a little bit of imperfection is expected but this wall was in need of a more extensive repair (it used to be covered by a big armoire which made its way to my son's room as a wardrobe....see how projects just lead to more projects?).  Anyway, my husband began by stripping the canvas from the walls and digging out the loose plaster.  It's all his idea to take it this far.  He's more of a perfectionist and I tend to be a little more artistic (practical?) when it comes to wall surfaces.  Whatever dude...just get it done.

I tried to tell him that people in new houses sometimes pay to have their walls distressed like this but he's not buying it.  While he worked, I opened my big drawer of paint chips (pictured above) and started making plans...

While quickly looking through issues of Home Companion for a particular room I remembered, I also ran across some old favorites and thought it might be a good blog feature to list them (and a good reference for me when I need a dose of inspriation).  Treat yourself to one of my favorites "Eat at Zoe's" starting on page 78 of the June/July 2003 issue...

happiness & disappointment

I got an email yesterday letting me know that the Rock and Roll Craft Show had some leftover inventory that was not available at the usual vendor pickup time after the show.  Huh?  I just found out this morning that the leftover inventory includes my altered train case...for some reason, it was never put on the sales floor (I have talked to the show organizer and it was simply a mistake).  I don't mind at all that I did not sell it but what I do mind is that I told (gloated?) everyone here that I did sell it...and now I feel like a complete and total idiot.  I don't get upset that easily but this has truly upset me.  The thing is, I craft for the pure joy of it...if I wanted to make money, I'd go back to work as an engineer.  So...once I get over the disappointment  and embarrassment I feel, I may list the case in my etsy shop.   

On to some calming pictures from my house...

I think these pretty little vintage ornaments look like lemons.  I put them a robin's egg blue planter that I thrifted and placed them on my favorite piece of hammered aluminum that sits on my dining room table.  The tray is my favorite because it has a "j" engraved in the middle of it. 

I have no idea if these guys are the three wise men but at the time I bought them (at our church garage sale), I thought they were and put them on top of the cabinet in our computer room last Christmas.  Like an annoying neighbor that never takes their Christmas lights down, I have kept these guys out all year.  They seem like they fit into the painting placed behind them.

Deep breath...OK, I'm starting to calm down a little. 

pumpkins

I'm 44 years old and have a tiny pumpkin face tea set that no one is allowed to touch but me.  Is that wrong?  I've had this tea set longer than I've had kids.  It's from the same ceramic artist that made this bunny.  She creates her own molds from vintage candy molds and other vintage items and then finishes them in a cool "shabby" way.  I have a pretty large collection of Halloween stuff from her but only get out a few things each year.  This year it's the tea set and these...

Boo!

Just wanted to post a quick update about the artist that created these cool ceramics.  Her name is Chris Farr and she has a website at www.thesunshineshed.com.   My sister Jennifer had the information and she has her own post about Chris here.  Jennifer lives two houses up from me and, when it comes to talent for arranging interiors, she is the best there is...the photos in this post are actually from her house and not a decorating magazine...seriously.

inside the front door

Before there was the orange front door, there was the orange back hallway.   This picture is a view from the front door looking straight back into the kitchen.   I am very influenced by the names of paint colors.  This color is called "october"...how perfect is that?    I know it looks pretty but I have to tell you that this was the painting project from hell.   The back hallway is only about 6ft. x 10 ft.  but is has six doorways (six doorways!!), one large window, and a radiator...and the decorative entry you see from the front hallway.   

With the bold color on the walls, I started adding black & white art.  The photo of the cherubs is from a friend of my cousin, Mary Pat Gallagher...I think it was taken at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. 

front door

Most discussions about home projects with my husband are remarkably similar.  He tells me what I shouldn't/can't do and I put my hands over my ears and say "la, la, la...la, la,la".  I think the "discussion" about our front door may have set a record...the project took 6 years to complete.  When we moved in, an aluminum storm door (with a decorative swan...yes, a swan) covered the front door...totally and completely out of place on our Tudor house.  I won't bore you with the details but, as you can see, I finally made the door my own.   I wanted the door to be painted.  Not just any color...but a nice pretty orange...with a dark, dark green frame around it. 

...and just one more sliver of orange to share with you.  Today, I am officially the mom of a teenager.  We took a lot of teasing about naming him Jack (there weren't very many Jacks back then...I had to constantly repeat that he was Jack not Jake)  but the guys I worked with were very supportive and told me that with a name like "Jack Thompson" he would grow up to be a baseball player.  They might have been right...that's Jack with the MVP ball from the all-star game this summer.  Happy Birthday Jack!