junkin finds

A couple of weeks ago we had  our city wide garage sale.  We have them twice a year and people come from miles around.  With such a small town if you have a sale on your own, unless it's huge you will get far fewer customers.  I don't like having them but I do love to go.  I've gotten many great treasures over the years and I'm always amazed at what people will get rid of for such a small amount of money.

Concrete pedestals and pot along with some great wire baskets and wonderful cupcakes for a donation to our church youth camp.  I am always so proud of how hard these kids work during the year so they can go to camp.

brass bird house along with a smaller one $5 for both

brass tray table donation to a church $20

two prim chairs for .25 each  I'll add screen and moss and plant flowers in them

concrete urns $30 a lot of cash for me but they are antiques and will last for many years

I didn't know what this was but it looked like a house for $1 and I thought I'd put a fern in it.  It is a golf ball holder

charming foot stool with storage $5

kitchen update mid week

I know showing pictures of a bedroom under the title kitchen update seems crazy but not so much in my world.  This guest room is right off the kitchen.  You get to the main bathroom, office and my sewing room from here.  During the remodel this room has been stuffed with boxes, cabinets and appliances.  For most of the last 5 months there has been only a path to each door.  The bed was piled 4+ feet high with every thing that needed to go in the kitchen, tossed or taken to the Restore.  Well this week it finally got cleaned out and put back together.  It was 21/2 looooong hard days of cleaning, doing windows and washing all the bedding. Now it is fresh and clean and ready for company.  That company better be my twins and families.  They haven't been able to visit since Christmas so they better come see their Mama!!!!

  I removed a large cabinet from here to open the room a little.  Hats hung on the wall for easy decor and grabbing one to go outside.

Since the cats think this is their bed I keep the blue cover pulled up to keep the white bedding clean.

Little desk and a box with the grand kids toys  My talented Mom made the quilt.

I hung some of the toys in tote bags hooked to the closet door. If I was really obsessive I'd make bags to coordinate with the room.   More storage in the stacked suit cases.

kitchen update

We're getting closer still.  The things we need to finish in the kitchen are mostly the small things that don't show up well in pictures.  The trim will be started today and with the weather we've been having who knows when we will get the table and chairs painted. It does seem with little things they are never ending because putting them off does not affect the function of the room.  We did get the can cabinet finished and filled.  It sure is handy to just pull open a door and have all the cans visible at one time.  The light over the table is a vintage Moe Light mid century modern shade coupled with a ceiling fan globe.  This shade was originally meant to be hung design side down but that looked like it would be a perfect bug/ dust  catcher so I wanted it turned the other way.  It's a good thing I have such a talented husband.  I can come up  with the design ideas but he has to come up with ways to make them work.  The shade was found in my father-in-laws work shop after he passed away.  It was brand new and still in the box.  I did look it up and the same shade on E bay was selling for several hundred dollars. This is hung high enough, I don't think any curious kitties can grab hold and swing from it.

Old light that will be converted to an outdoor solar chandy

New light during installation.  We tied dental floss on it to get the balance right while hanging

This shade is 26" wide and the design is beautiful when lit.  From the early 60's.

I love the can cabinet, I can see what I need at a glance.

Open shelves filled, the color helps break up all the black along those two walls.  I love having my bowls and cups hanging under the cabinets with cup hooks.  It saves a ton of storage space in the cabinets.  When those hooks are empty it's time to wash dishes!

dirt bag

I saw this on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try.  Just poke holes in the bottom of a large bag of potting soil, cut a large square out of the top.  Add seeds and water.  I did this three weeks ago and look at the difference.  I planted spinach, leaf lettuce, radishes and mixed lettuce.  Salad for supper tonight.  We should get several salads from the bags and when we'er done I will recycle the soil back into the garden.

new work

Even as the kitchen remodel and the spring gardening go on I am still trying to get furniture pieces ready to sell at Home Again.  A friend, thanks Larry, has been purging and I have been the lucky recipient.

Clock face I may convert to a real working clock.  I made it personal by adding my maiden name, city  and year of birth.

This was once a dark stained very country style clock I have turned into a cabinet with shelves

Once mud brown and tarnished brass. The top was badly damaged so I added a piece of painted cork.  

The top and one of the legs were broken when i got this. Look at it now,white paint, a brown bag top and black tipped feet and it looks classy 

This coffee table is huge 3'X6' and heavy.  White paint and a faux sandstone top and it would fit into almost any living spac.  I love the legs and it's on casters.

Cute stenciled table, the top is cream not yellow.  This would be a perfect bed side or lamp  table 

kitchen update

This project is sooooo close to being done. AH got the can cabinet done with the exception of the front piece finished.  The weather is just not cooperating with doing staining or painting out doors so that piece will go on today.  The shelves in the corner are finished and look great.  I hope to put all my blue glass jars filled with things like dog treats, little utensils and all those small things that run around loose in your cabinets on the shelves.  The tiny lower corner needs its door, this is where I will store cookie sheets and cutting boards.  The light needs to be changed over the table and the table and chairs need to be painted.  We are going to use the sprayer so that has to be done when it is not too hot, not too cold, not windy and not going to rain. Who knows when that will happen in Illinois. The trim painting has started and the last thing to be done will be refinishing the floor while I am gone in late June.  I guess all most seven months for a complete kitchen remodel is not too bad for just working on week ends.  A friend told me it was like pregnancy, you forget the bad things when the new baby or in this case kitchen is here.

funky corner shelves, where the crooked walls and cabinets meet

Dish towel with just the right colors found at Walmart.  It sits right next to the sink for easy hand drying.  The hanger is an antique bottle corker.  I just cleaned it up and sprayed it with clear sealer.

Can cabinet, I should be able to store about 75 cans in this tiny space

This cabinet will have a black front and handle to match the rest of the cabinets

Funny corner the bottom.  We could not find the exact size cabinets so they could meet.  We could have just added a spacer piece but would have lost some handy storage.

spring time flowers

 We have had what seems to be a very long, wet dreary spring so the burst of spring flowers seems even more beautiful.

blue bells a native Illinois wild flower

even dandelions brighten my day

red twig dogwood growing in and around the mini green house

I've had so many people stop and ask what these are, they are huge double ruffle tulips

lilac time is way too short

giving back

A while back bags of soap base came into the Restore.  Rather that try to sell it for $1 a bag I took it, with permission, and had a class I was subbing in make it into new bars of soap that we can sell at the store.  Instead of $5 for the donation we can make around $100 selling the soap.  Mrs Stewarts Culinary Occupations class has all senior boys that love to eat.  They did a great job of making the soap and as a reward they got to make and eat chocolate dipped Oreos.  Absolutely no nutritional value but very delicious.

kitchen updates

We are getting down to the small things that you really don't notice in the kitchen, but are really convenient for the cook.  We should be done with the can cabinet and  table light by the end of the day.  I think we've made our last large weekly payment to Menards and we should have everything except the top trim bought.  Our savings account has taken a huge hit with this project but we are only a few hundred dollars over budget.  One case of miss measuring, one cabinet damaged moving it and another where we changed our minds account for most of the overages.  That and our bad habit of : while we're at it we may as well.
One of the small things I am really liking is the little plungers we attached to the cabinet doors.  They stop the door from slamming shut by slowing them down and closing slowly.  It makes the kitchen so much quieter.  AH is making me hooks for the pot hanger from copper wire.  Regular S hooks are too tightly curve and too heavy gauge to work.  I can't wait to get the pans out of the cabinets.  After all the years of having them at my fingertips I really am ready to have them back that way.

Who knew I'd get so excited about something this small.

happy aniversary

Forty-four years ago today I married the person I was meant to spend my life with.  We have had our ups and downs but we have managed to keep it together far longer than most people we know.  Yes there are times when we could have walked away or had a screaming fit, but we know that we can get through any thing together.  Along the way we've been blessed with excellent role models with both sets of parents, wonderful committed friends and great kids.We also know that our success is  not because either of us is so wise, but only through the grace of God.  Happy Anniversary Andy.

Sorry no picture new computer is not cooperating with old brain to get pics from files.