Deck the Halls

I was off to a good start with decking the halls, but after getting a tree outdoors lit and a little tree up in the kitchen, I've realized that any other Christmas decorating requires some housecleaning first. And I'd rather do anything than clean house! I hate shopping during December, but I even went and stayed with my daughter this weekend and went shopping rather than clean house. I had this morning off from work and it's been much more fun to sit here and catch up on my e-mail and everyone's blog than it would have been to clean house.

So, here's a couple pictures of my kitchen tree, or the jewelry tree as I'm calling it. I didn't have near enough aqua colored ornaments for it, so I just started adding rhinestone jewelry to it. I really like the way it turned out. After it was all done I found some satin ribbon that would have worked better than the ric rack, but I'm not redoing it.

Another project

I can't imagine what would happen if I only had one project going at a time. I worry that I'd go into a tailspin of boredom, or that I would actually have time to keep the house tidy. Since my bathroom project has wound down to a near finish, I decided to tackle another project that has been bugging me for years. The Hallway.

Too big to be a hallway, too small to be a room. Dark and dingy and too ugly to be a part of my house.

A couple years ago I peeled the wallpaper off the bottom half of the wall and painted it the same color as the kitchen backsplash. The color coordinated pretty well with the wallpaper above, but I still didn't like the look.

And the wallpaper above was so old and dirty and dingy. One day I decided to paint a few different colors on the wall to see what I'd like in there. The Man suggested forest green after he came home and saw all the splotches of color on the wall. Well, forest green just doesn't go with the rest of my house. I settled on a teal, but was waiting to get more of the bathroom done before I bought paint.

On those home shows they talk about paint being the cheapest improvement you can make in your home, but paint isn't exactly cheap. Then I decided the ceilings better be painted first so I did the bathroom ceiling in white, and the hallway ceiling in a color called "Sand dunes" that I've got elsewhere in the house. The horrible grate in the ceiling was rusted and brown, so I painted right over that. It's not quite the eye sore it was before.

Under the wallpaper I found one wall painted with flat green paint and another wall painted with gloss white. Weird. But that's the way this whole house has been.

Scraping, sanding, staining and varnishing the woodwork is going to be an all winter project since I'm dealing with at least eight layers of paint.

More pictures to come when I get the halls decked for Christmas.

More Bathroom Photos

The essentials are done! Things are done enough to put the toilet paper holder back up.

And the mirror is back up. That's not necessarily a good thing, now I have no excuse for not doing my hair!

And the shelves have been moved back in after 6 months of sitting in the hallway. Nothing as inconvienient as having your eyeliner in the hallway, your mirror in the living room, and ponytail holders, in the kitchen.

The baseboard has been put on. I see from the picture that I do need to sweep the floor though!

With luck, this afternoon I'll get the ceiling painted and the rest of the window trim put on. I still need to hang the towel racks too.

Bathroom Project Update

I know I posted earlier this year about my bathroom remodel project, so I thought I shoudl update and give you some pictures to look at. It's coming along slowly but surely. As big a pain in the butt as it's been, some good things have happened. 1) our bathroom is now much, much warmer in cold weather 2) I got the table saw running again 3) hubby found the missing piece of the router and fixed it last night so I can use it again. Hooray!!!!

I tore all the old stuff off the walls, pulled out the old insulation (I was quite surprised to find any in the wall), reinsulated with modern insulation. Tore out a big heavy cupboard that was hung using three big finishing nails. Very interesting. There were several layers and colors of wallpaper. Most of the bathroom was originally built using used lumber. I used more used lumber to fill in missing studs. In one corner of the bathroom, the wallboard was nailed to NOTHING in the corner. The only thing keeping the corner together was paint.

Putting up the new boards meant draining and moving that water heater- twice. I worked all of one day and didn't get near finished, so I had to reconnect the water heater and start all over the next time I had a day free to work. The boards are pine carsiding, stained with "pickled oak" stain. Basicly just white stain. I want to keep the whitish look of the new pine, I don't want it darkening to that dull gold that pine gets after a few years, so I'm hoping this white stain will do the trick. After the stain is on, then I'm topcoating with varnish

I have more pictures on the camera. They will have to wait for another day to be downloaded and posted.

Garden Post

It occured to me that it's been awhile since I've done a garden post. We've had some rain that has kept some things growing and rejuvenated a few things that I thought were finished. We've yet to have a killing frost which is really odd for mid-October.


The Autumn Joy sedum looks like it should this time of year. I love this plant. It's so pretty, and it has some fond memories for me. When I was eighteen and away from home living on my own, a country girl living in town, I could look out my bedroom window and the landlady had a flower garden out there. I don't know what all was growing in that garden but I remember the sedum being so beautiful. When I got down and gloomy (or tired of doing homework) I'd stare out the window at that sedum.


Summer squash, this is yellow crookneck, should not be producing fruits in my area at this time of year. They should be frozen dead. But..... this plant did not even start blooming until Labor Day! It just sat and baked and complained about being watered with tap-water all summer until we had some rain. I took this picture maybe a week ago. We've since had just enough cold to kill off the top of this plant.


The cosmos have been just radiant. I really like this "tire-d" flower bed. :) Next year I may grow entirely cosmos in it instead of trying for three different kinds of flowers. These cosmos have survived being stomped to bits by the yellow dog. They've been baked to the point of near extinction, and seem to just keep coming back. Love 'em!



Marigolds. You can't beat marigolds for just blooming on and on despite whatever kind of lousy weather, soil or growing conditions they have. I used to grow a lot more marigolds than I do now. I think I will have to start planting more of them again. They are so easy and so cheerful.

Project #6

Saturday there was no time for projects. I had to work a couple hours in the morning and left directly from work for the city. Why you ask? To be a hair model for a young friend of mine who is a cosmotolegy student extrordinaire.

Sorry I don't have before and after pictures. By the time she was done snipping, it was quitting time and everyone was in a hurry to go. We didn't think to take an after picture. But it really doesn't look much different than it did to start with. She trimmed the ends and gave me some layers. Unless you're really into hair, you don't even notice. She got some experience with long hair and I hope, got an excellent grade.

Project #5

STARCHING FINISHED DOILIES


Ok, I've been a little slow getting projects posted on here, but rest assured I have been doing projects steadily. And Friday's was starching a doily I had finished a couple weeks ago. Actually this would be project 5 and 7 because on Sunday I did one more and I'm going to put them both in one post.

I can't even tell you how long ago I started this lavender oval. I found it crammed in a box of non-crochet stuff. I'm thinking I started on it about 3 years ago. Was half done with it. I suppose I set it aside to work on something more interesting. Or it could have gotten set aside for the summer when I'm really not into doing needlework, and then I forgot about it. Anyway, it's finally done.

These doilies and a couple others I have will be going with my mother to some craft shows. Hopefully they will sell, because I sure don't want them laying around my house. I love to make doilies, but I hate having them around. I don't want to dust under or around them. I went to work for a lady on Wednesday who had a doily or dresser scarf or some annoying thing setting on absolutely every single flat surface in her home.



This is a really poor picture of this lovely aqua blue doily. I bought the thread because it goes with the color of my kitchen. But when it comes right down to it, I don't want this in my kitchen. I"ve got sort of a vintage modern theme going on and victorian doilies just look silly in there.