Welcome back, dear friends!A big thank you to the repair techs at Apple, Inc. down in Dallas, Texas for their help fixing my computer problem!! After moving a lot of files off to a separate hard drive, we were able to download a newer operating system (Mojave), so I can work again. Yeah!!!
A little boo!
I feel much better now that the computer is working again, and now I can begin sharing the potting shed and how it is coming along…
As you come inside and look left, the potting bench Mr. Ethereal built last year as a surprise sits along the southern wall and underneath the eastern window. Filled with various fertilizers, a few pots and now some fall pumpkin decor, the bench gets lots of use!
I’d like to paint the interior a cheery white but Hubby thinks we should insulate the walls first, to which I agree. My daughter was up over the weekend and she heard there could be another Arctic freeze this coming winter (oh boy!). This building will need its insulation, plus heating, to keep plants we move inside from freezing.
Here is a good shot of the roll linoleum Hubby put down in late August. Happily we used only one bucket of the glue to stick it to the substrate. It spreads on very thinly and then you just roll something over the top of the lino to squish out any big air bubbles. He did a great job lining it up and finishing the sides cleanly! I found this 12′ wide brownish-grey roll over at Lowe’s, in case you are looking for something inexpensive. It was about $300 for a 12′ x 16′ long piece.
Love the pegboard as wallboard!Linda Vater (right) and her friend having a brunch of fresh garden tomatoes.
Wall finishes
I am trying to convince Hubby that beadboard would look lovely up under the eaves and along at least the long wall AND be very functional. We could drill into it and only hang things on the 16″ on-center vertical 2x4s since beadboard is very thin. (He’s worried about things not staying since it is so lightweight).
I like the upper beams open but he wants to fill them in, so what eventually happens remains to be seen. Maybe we could put up spray foam and still see some beams??
New 5-position ladder
We picked up a storage wall set for hanging garden hoses, tools, etc. and will install it overtop upon whatever wall covering we decide.
This ladder was on sale for $125 and Hubby had seen it on his favorite tool guy YouTube channel, so we picked one up. It’ll come in handy for painting in the living room ~ mostly likely a project for this winter/next spring ~ plus for getting leaves off the roof of the shed and house, etc.
We had seen another of these sheds with a long shelf built from back to front, and we may put one in at some point. The vents are sealed and screened to keep out creatures and bugs.
Tons of room for storage
The right side of the shed is strictly for storage. We have a couple of these tall racks to use in here and would like more of the wire rack inserts, like the new one has. Not easily available… We went looking at ranch panels but the spacing between each wire “square” is bigger than these racks need. The cuts wouldn’t be right to have a finished edge all around, either.
I need to contact the company which made the new rack and see if we can order more. 🙂
So, not pretty yet but it will be in the future. I felt I needed to share what it looks like now since I have been talking about it all summer… A new place to play!!! ;)’
storage units I wrote about the dust and icky spiders
I was pretty sure I was going to have to battle…
Sorry these photographs are a little blurry. They were taken with my iPhone 6 and iPhone7. My daughter Amy calls the carved wooden ormolu on the bonnet of this armoire a “mermaid.” And it does look a bit like a mermaid from the front! Hence the opening photograph.
But today I am happy to report that the spider issue wasn’t as bad as we originally thought they would be ~ the cobwebs were mostly around the rollup doorways.
So I took the duster you can see in the photograph above and swooshed and swept up as many webs as I could find and then
set off bug bombs to kill any other critters still alive and quickly
pulled down those doors while still holding my breath and
locked those doors and left.
🙂
That was on Thursday afternoon the day I arrived in California.
I posted a few photos on Instagram just after setting off the bombs as I still had time to go by HomeGoods in Temecula before traffic was going to get bad and I loved seeing the palm trees and smelling and feeling ocean breezes.
I remember the store owner sharing with me if I knew
that this piece was French.
This is when and where I first fell in love with
French country furniture.
When I said no, he in turn told me all about it.
I’ve always loved the grain staining technique that
S-curves down the sides of this piece that
the furniture finisher used on it.
I have forgotten the technique’s name but will add
it if I remember it later.
😉 *Update: I was just out on a blogging friend Cindy’s site, Edith and Evelyn Vintage, where she’s talking about creating her French Provincial buffet and realized that mine was the same style. Now I am able update and share this with you for when you are looking for similar pieces! 🙂
Now put cobwebs, cleaning and this photograph together
and you’ll get a little picture of what I’ll be doing over
this next week…
😉
Sawhorses, bookcases, the 1940’s Danish maple table I refinished and had made into a sofa table, and my favorite easy chair that is worn and shabby ~ sitting next to our 1880’s reproduction French armoire bought around the year 2000 from a woman closing her gift shop at a mall in Oceanside, California.
So, first orderof business was to call our storage landlord
and ask if it would be alright to set off some of those “bug bombs”
in our storage units and my message was returned with a yes!
“Whew!!!”
I just need to make sure my neighbors will not be there when I set them off ~ hopefully I can do that this coming Thursday evening and let the spray sit inside over the weekend.
I’ll leave my neighbors small notes next to their locks to let
them know that I sprayed so they don’t wonder about
the smell.
🙂
Happy Memories
I am thinking of selling some things while I am out there
and I’ve considered selling this antique oak dining table…
except for my birthday one year my father-in-love made
me two leaves for it.
Those leaves go with the original ones that came with the table when I found it in Auburn, California in 1993.
There it stayed at that shop as I worked to pay it off
at $100/month.
Then this old Victorian stayed with my longest known best friends whom I’ve known since our freshman year of high school
at their home in Northern California
for another year.
Finally when our son was 5 months old in January of 1995
we drove up to see our inlaws, our son and daughter’s
great-grandmother {who passed shortly thereafter}
and to visit our friends ~ that table of memories made the
trip home to Southern California to live with us
in our first and then our second homes.
Can I really part with it?
This chair basically came with our second house.
The previous owners were selling all of their furniture with
their move up the hill to an area called Greer Ranch.
This chair in all its floral beauty was so comfortable and
practically new so I made an offer and it stayed with its home.
I made a slipcover out of a matelassé bedspread that I found at AmVets Thrift Store in Escondido, California
probably eight years ago now.
The chair is beginning to lose its seat and the stuffing has
fallen apart in the back piece but I remade a new cover
for the back piece out of heavy muslin and
{shown above}
then lovingly made the welted slipcover taking care
using the original cover as my pattern.
There are the the most beautiful roses in a twining vine
along parts of the matelassé and I designed the cover
lining up the scalloped edges of the three edges of the quilt
to create the skirt bottom around the chair’s lower edge.
Can I sell this chair?
Maybe…
Now I have been looking for a large Welsh cupboard for probably 20 years or more and the ones I found in antique stores
I just could not afford.
One day however I found this sweet new Shabby Chic cupboard
and buffet at a now-defunct gift and tea shop for $300.
Once again it was another of my layaways.
It took only a month or two to pay it off.
Made around the angel picture frame, the man from Riverside
who made a number of these cupboards and sold them to the
owner of this shop
{or consigned them, I don’t remember}
probably doesn’t make them anymore.
These custom-made cupboards were hot items then
and were beloved because of the items incorporated
into their designs.
No, this cupboard really doesn’t hold much on its upper shelves and I used our table saw and cut and installed a second interior bottom shelf inside the lower doors matching the paint from one of the original doorknobs.
It was made more functional with that shelf addition and it has held hundreds of pounds of stacked china on the bottom shelf and
17 teapots and various creamers and sugars
along the upper shelf hidden behind those doors.
I have planned to sell it as it has had a good life with us
and I’m ready to find something bigger and different
but really
I am pretty attached to my furniture and as a curated group
they all go together and a part of me.
The $5.00 goose which was part of the goods sold at the model homes of which our first home was a part of ~ Vista Homes, Beezer Homes, Murrieta, California.
Chalk it up to moving over 40 times in my life with
all of my parents’ military moves then college and
our young married lives.
Well, you get the picture…
😉
Some people are more than able to sell everything they own
and move on.
Perhaps they lived in one house all of their lives and their homes
were very stable with extended family and cousins surrounding them all of their young lives and they aren’t affected
with this crazy deep need for
“home.”
Just thinking about having these pieces of furniture
near me ~ even if they are still in storage ~
I’m already excited!
And I have sold many pieces of furniture over the years
but for now most of the big pieces will stay.
I always said I’d keep and pass on the large red sectional
that is Hickory Chair and eight-way hand-tied.
It’s a down-filled sofa and is sooo comfortable to lie on
and take a nap on a lazy afternoon.
I think it has to go…
It won’t fit in whatever house we find here in
North Texas.
The mirrors will definitely be staying
A piece is already broken off the big one as I remember
my daughter was overtired and was being rough with it when she was moving it in and out of its spot between the bookcases…
Another 1920’s or 1930’s mirror was broken as it was being taken off the wall in our living room and readying it to be packed.
