The move.....

Last week we helped our daughter move to her 

new rental home.  We packed up some of the 

things from our home in the van and on our trailer.

She lives about 180 miles south of us.   

 

Spring 2012

When she was in junior high we bought her a new bedroom outfit.  I told her someday when she was ready she could have it in her own place and so it seemed the time had come.

This was the dining and the bedroom (below) last week before the move.

Notice the large armoire in this room.

 The armoire doesn't look so big in this room!

These must be 12 ft. ceilings. 

She decided to use it for a tv cabinet instead of

putting it in her bedroom.

This is the living room (before the armoire was in). 

 Looking back towards the kitchen.

The cupboards are old and painted, but I doubt

original to the home. There's a fair amount of

storage and behind me is the stove and fridge.

Standing at the kitchen looking back to 

the entry hall and living room.  This 

whole area is for dining.

This is the front door. It has such interesting detail.

I can't believe it's not preserved better, but these

rentals get a lot of use so I guess the landlords 

don't care to put that much effort into them.

A short banister as you go upstairs to the bedrooms.

Her bedroom.  As you can see we got a little crazy with plastic wrap! It worked really well and it was raining that day so we were even happier that we chose to wrap everything.

It's a duplex home that is probably 80 to 100 

years old.  She's happy with it and that makes

us happy!  

We were worn out for the next two

days after this, but we've recovered and now the empty bedroom in our home is undergoing a small change.  Always something!!

 

 

The floral parade...

The floral parade continues. 

 It's such a treat to see the flowers showing off their happy colors and pretty faces!

My island out front has been blooming away. We had a garage sale this past Saturday and I worked on prepping for it throughout last week...which was hard because of that heat dome we were under.  98 with a heat index of 105

The day of the garage sale it cooled off and it was quite comfortable.  People were taking tours of my gardens.  They were all so kind and complimentary.  Made me feel good!

These drooping Delphiniums are all that's left of those big 5 ft. tall ones I had.  I love the bright blue color.  It makes for some nice summery color combinations.

These little cone flowers are coming along nicely.

The Zagreb Coreopsis have turned out to be a winner!

When I found these Shasta Daisies at the garden center I liked how the flower's face is straight up.  I've got to hunt around the plants and see if I can find their tag, because I don't remember their name.

Last week

A new cone flower I put in last year looks pretty mixed in with some these purple delphiniums. 

Too bad I didn't remove that green plant stake for the picture!

The Peachie's Pick Stokes Asters are starting to bloom too.

Still waiting to see the Black Eyed Susans! 

This butterfly weed made it back.  I love their color.

More cone flowers- I believe these are called Little Annie

I love the soft delicate flower of the hostas.  

Summer, summer, summer!  Yes!

 Out back the hostas are all blooming.  I enjoy watching the hummingbirds visit them. They dance around feeding off of them and it's a joy to watch.

These are short and stout but I love the variegated

 coloring they have.  These are Amber Tiara hosts.

These hosta flowers are draping across like flags hanging.

The Endless Summer Hydrangeas are blooming.

I love the different stages of the flower.

My soil is very alkaline and even with the fertilizer that's supposed to help turn them more blue this is about as much blue as I can get from them.

Love their soft fluffy flowers

This one is a giant...almost like 3 flowers

Last year I had no flowers due to the untimely frosts so I'm tickled to see them blooming!

 These Sunday Gloves day lilies are framed with some Razzamatazz day lilies. 

  I think they are a stunning lily.  Definitely my favorite!

Thanks as always for visiting!

I love to hear from you.

I'm sorry I haven't gotten around to visit much lately, 

but I will try to do better!

GARAGE SALE!

 I was busy all last week preparing for a garage sale.  

I live off of a main county road that gets a fair amount of traffic and I've always done well with getting people to stop in.

I did advertise in my local paper and on Craigslist.

One way or another I was able to sell most of my goods and I'm grateful for that!

Step one, we decided to build some tables to set things on.  In the past I've used some saw horses with a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood or whatever I could find.  My logic was that we could reuse these again.  Boy the price of lumber is crazy.  We ended up buying floor decking material because standard plywood was ridiculous!

We cut the 4 x 8 sheets into 2 x 8's and we bought 7 ft. 2 x 4's and cut them to 3 ft. lengths.  We had a bunch of 12 inch pieces left over which we used to connect each table at the seems and it straightened them up.

Everything was screwed together so it could be taken apart easily. (Dig the sexy sox on my hubby)

Our garage is split with two doors and we used the left side for staging. 

Dan insisted on covering up our stuff that wasn't for sale by adding this visqueen which we happened to have on hand from some other projects.  (Staple staple staple...) Many years ago some nosy (older guys) went right around my tables at a garage sale and were nosing around in our tools.  I had to boot them out!  That's why we do the privacy plastic thing.

I bought a bunch of (cheap) vinyl tablecloths with the flannel backing to cover the wood because it's picky and this looks better.  I started bring my stuff to the tables.

I marked everything with little strips of masking tape and a marker which is a super inexpensive way to do it.  Those little round ones they well with prices on them already are nice but I had too much stuff and wasn't going to pay for them (cause I'm cheap!)

We have left over pieces of carpet from different times that we've had carpet laid.  We cut small strips and I staged pictures on them.

  I forgot I had this faux olive tree stored away so I sold it too! 

In the center of the room I created a space for some man stuff.  I was thrilled that hubby brought out a lot of stuff he was harboring.

  

He works on industrial electronics for machines at machine tool shops around a five county region.  That is our business. 

This is a crazy shot.  I used the panoramic mode on my iPhone.  You sweep from left to right as your taking it.  It made a crazy curve of the garage door but you get the drift.  Some of the things on the floor were taken outside the day of the sale.  It was in the upper 90's all last week while we prepared so we had fans going all the time.  

I popped into a party goods store the day before and spotted this garage sale balloon and I combined it with the polka dot ones for an eye catcher.   It had a weight at the bottom and we stuck it into the mail box and closed the door and it worked great!

By 4:00 it was pretty barren.  We brought in our signs and I condensed what was left into a couple of spots.  

Sunday we tore down the tables we made and the plastic was taken down.  

It's not a pretty garage, but it does the job.  

Now to put this away in the storage barn.  

We took anything left over to the Women's Resource Center and Goodwill.  The electronic/electrical stuff went to a recycling place for that kind of stuff and the rest we took to a recycling center where are garbage pickup company is located.

So that's what I've been up to for the last week and weekend.  Next week we move bedroom furniture down to our daughter's place.  She's moving into a new rental with more space so she's finally going to have her bedroom furniture from home.

  What have you been doing??

Americana and French Country

In the recent past I converted my little kitchen dining nook to having a bit of an Americana theme.  It caused me to change up the look I have on the burlap covered table that's nearby.

 I've blogged about this spot a few times and my Tuscan accents. 

(The mirror is too high but I don't want to adjust it until I'm sure it's staying)

Because this table is so easily seen near my dining nook I needed to swing the look so it would work better with the new Americana theme I've started.

I'm debating on that mirror. It was placed there after it lost it's home over the fireplace.  It's very Tuscan and I'm tempted to paint it or find a better piece for the wall.  It also looks like I'm mimicking my door which I wasn't, it just happened. 

I've been playing with this for a few weeks.  I brought out two mercury glass candle holders so they would bring in the same metal tone as my accessories over in the dining nook.  I had this large white rooster hiding under the table and I was glad to have a reason to bring it out.  I put the glass candle holder in the rear to create some height.   I think this may qualify as "French Country" but I definitely feel it works better with my dining nook.

Good 'ole One King's Lane got me again! 

It's part of a 3 pc. set.

 The silks were pulled together from my stockpile.

I stuffed reindeer moss under the candle for

a little added definition.

The other two pieces have been incorporated into my plate rack. 

I like how they made these tins look aged as though they were some found treasure from the past.

The smallest one got paired up with this potted sunflower that I laid on it's side.  The sunflower was a pick from Pottery Barn a few years ago.

Standing back in my kitchen this is my view.  I'm planning to change that elephant table for the blue pottery piece.  It was used because it's solid and provided a safe spot for it, but it's not what I want there.

This is one piece that I have in mind for that spot.

 The chicken wire lantern piece on the table was another Pottery Barn find from a few years back.

They called it "farm wire"  I have a matching serving tray that goes with it as shown here, which also shows how the wall looked before the picture came in.

I do plan to change out the picture kind of seasonally.

I also want to paint the door but I need to figure out what color.  I would also love some wainscoting on the wall by the kitchen nook...that's been on the list for 20 years...

So that's my current tweak.... what have you been tweaking?

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