Light Fix

The light fixture in the family room died the other day. None of its ugly florescent tubes would come on. The plastic that used to cover the tubes had succumbed to crumbling last year, and we'd never gotten around to replacing it. Electrical engineer hubby put up a temporary fix while I checked prices of replacement fixtures. The temporary fix was functional but not a thing of beauty.

For the new fixture, I wanted a country look—but country looks cost big bucks. Meanwhile, I remembered seeing a picture of a chandelier that someone had spray-painted and made into a candlebra. We had a couple of vintage mid-70s chandeliers lying around somewhere. 

This truly ugly chandelier used to hang in the dining room before we upgraded. I don't think I'll ever use it again. I figured I had nothing to lose if I spray-painted it. First, I wrapped and taped the parts I didn't want to paint:

I had a full can of blue—my favorite shade of blue. Let's see what happens. . . . 

I needed to turn it over to paint the underside, and I happened to have an ugly silver-painted flowerpot that would hold the chandelier while getting itself painted at the same time.

Finally it was dry enough for hubby to hang. But we needed to check to see if it would work before we added all the bulbs and globes. 

Yes, it works!

After adding bulbs and vintage 70s globes, we now have this:

And all it cost me was a can of spray paint that I already had.

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Shabby Chic

. . . at least, I think it might qualify as shabby chic. It's still a work-in-progress.

About 50 years ago, someone gave my father a mantle from a house that was being demolished in Old Southwest in Roanoke. He stored it in the cabin on the farm. Even though it was oak, it was in pretty sad shape.

A couple of years ago, my husband and I loaded it into my truck. . .

. . . and brought it home where I cleaned it up a bit.

I'd planned to refinish it, but I couldn't get all the white paint off.

I worked on it off and on the past couple of years, but mostly the old mantle lingered in my, uh, project pile on the patio.

Lately, I started imagining what the old mantle might become, so I started working on it again. I sanded it some more and painted it off-white.

However, I have no place to put this mantle anywhere in the house. Then it occurred to me that maybe I could fix up a little area of the patio to incorporate it as a design element. So I got to work. After the paint was dry, I added a wallpaper border. I imagined how it would look with some furniture around it to encourage folks—or more likely my cats and I—to sit a spell.

I have a lot of old furniture—like a little rocker my great-great grandfather made.

I have a lot of plants on the patio, some of which—like a fern that I found last fall at the dumpster—might look pretty good with the old mantle. I started experimenting.

I'm not done yet. It's still a work-in-progress. 

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Floored by Choices

Because my farm home has white carpet in the hall and light beige carpet in the den (I didn't choose these colors—they were here before we bought the place),  I'm going to have the entrances to each room tiled. I figure the mud clean-up will be much easier with tile.

Now, my problem is which tile. I went to Lowes and looked around. I found three (relatively cheap) possibilities. Here they are in the den, where the final choice will be in front of the sliding glass door:

Which looks best with the carpet? The dark tile coordinates well, the medium tile is close to a match with the kitchen counters, and the light tile brightens up the place a bit.

Now, here they are in the hall, where the area just inside the front door will be tiled:

I don't think the dark tile looks good here. Check them out against the wall:

I think I can eliminate the dark tile. But do I go for the light one or the medium?

Too many choices, even if it's only two.

~

Rain, Hair, and Undressed Beds

(or Life in Rainy Rural America)

The weekend was drismal. We must have gotten over an inch of rain on Sunday alone—and several inches of mud. When I fed dogs yesterday and this morning, I thought my shoes would get sucked off.

At least I could feed horses under the run-in shed. But yesterday both mares were water-logged. The only thing worse than a soggy horse is a shedding horse. My two mares are shedding handfuls of hair at a time.

Because I have to wait for Cupcake to finish her “soup,” I groom Melody to give her something to do so she doesn’t hand over the gate and intimidate Cupcake. I run the shedding blade over her and watch her hair cascade to the ground. Birds will use the hair for a soft nest-lining. Sometimes I go into the stall (while Melody glares at us) and scrape hair off Cupcake. Cupcake has LOTS of hair. I’ve already clipped her head, her armpits (or whatever they’re called), and a strip down her neck so she won’t get too sweaty. I clipped off enough hair two weeks ago to knit a pony, and she still has plenty more.

For the last couple of days, I’ve returned to the house wet, muddy, and covered with hair. (Note to urban readers: this is the norm in rural America.) I then shower, have another cup of coffee and read The Roanoke Times—such as it is (or, more likely, isn’t). The RT contains very little in the way of actual news—and much of that is poorly written. (Do journalism classes now encourage students to use as many prepositional phrases as possible? as many passive verbs as they can?)

Anyhow, the Sunday Roanoke Times ran a full-page reprint of a Better Homes & Gardens article, “Sleeping beauties: Don't just make your bed — dress it.”

Notice the empty space at the bottom.
Apparently when the RT runs out of words, they just leave space.

Here's a closer look. (Note all the bleed-through from the other side of the page.)

A copy of the article is here (albeit without the numerous large photos the RT used to fill the page, the empty space, and the bleed-through). Apparently other content-hungry papers reprinted it, too.

I thought the article was a hoot, even though it wasn’t supposed to be. Who has time to “dress” a bed? I do well to get mine made up before I go out to feed hungry critters. Plus my bed is usually occupied by at least one cat—Foxy, Camilla, Dylan, and Eddie-puss have sort of a time-share arrangement regarding the bed.

Foxy insists upon returning to bed after she's made her morning rounds.
I can't make up the bed until she finishes her morning nap.

Some of the article’s suggestions just aren’t practical for a rural lifestyle:

Hideaway bed: A bed skirt isn't just for looks - it's a perfect solution for keeping underbed storage out of sight. Plastic bins will easily slide under the bed.

And cats will push them out again. Under my bed is the perfect storage for boxes of books and piles of magazines. The cats periodically reshuffle them. Also a border collie sometimes sleeps there. Cats also like to hang by their claws from the bed ruffle. I assume that’s some kind of cat exercise because they periodically kick it, too. When the carpet cleaner comes, the bed ruffle provides a hiding place. At least the cats think they’re hiding. Anyhow, my bed ruffle is decorated with paw-prints and cat hair.

The grand finale: Drape a coordinating throw over the bed's foot for a final flourish.

And a cat will promptly roll up in the throw. Another cat will jump onto the rolled-up cat. Or, worse, a cat will hack up a hairball on it.

Time and again: Choose an easy-to-work-with neutral for the parts of the bed that you won't change frequently, such as the headboard and bed skirt.

It’s even better is you select colors that match whatever critters sleep on your bed. Or whatever they hack up. Do real people actually have fabric headboards? In my house, a farbric-covered headboard would make a great scratching post.

Note that I do not have a fabric headboard.
I do have a washable comforter and shams, though.

Camilla rearranges pillows on the made-up bed.

Tucked in: Give your bed a tailored look by tucking in the quilt only along the foot of the bed.

Obviously the author has never had an ingrown toenail or leg cramps. Where do you put your feet if the quilt is tucked in? And how does a cat hiding under the covers get out easily?

Old style: Look to vintage linens as another source of less-expensive fabric (they're also low-maintenance - they've likely been washed many times and can stand up to more).

Uh, most of my linens qualify as “vintage.” Even the pilled-up places on the sheets are old enough to be “vintage.” When my linens become more “vintage” than I can stand, they become shop rags or animal bedding. (Truth be told, most of my possessions are "vintage.")

Coincidentally, I just bought a "vintage" quilt last Friday at my favorite boutique (aka Goodwill). It's not very old, though, and I'll use it to "dress" the sofa, not the bed.

This twin-size quilt cost $6.99. I hope I didn't pay to0 much.

Now, if y’all will excuse me, I need to finish my coffee, put on my "vintage" barn shoes, and slog through the mud to shovel some “vintage” manure out of Cupcake’s and Melody’s bed—er, stall.

~

First Sign of Christmas

It just isn't Christmas until I hang this critter on the ficus. If you press his belly, he sings "We Three Kings of Orient Are."


OK, he doesn't actually sing. He neighs. He's a little hoarse—er, a little horse.

What? Not Christmas-y enough? How's this?

A "cartridge and a pear" tree!

The little horse isn't far from the pear.


No sense going out on a limb when it comes to decorations.

Keep it simple, I say.

~

Rearrangement

Since we moved into our house in 1999, a pothos plant has been on the mantle. At first it was mainly confined to the immediate area around its pot. Then it started to grow. And grow.

Last week it looked like this:


What to do? The "devil's ivy" was taking over. The cats were biting the leaves within their reach. I didn’t want to cut the plant back.

Then—an idea! Using some drapery tie-backs ($1 for a package of five at Goodwill), my husband and I festooned the plant between two, so it sort of became a mantle swag. My original idea was to untangle the plant and drape it over all five hooks.

Have you ever tried to untangle a very long vine while a couple of cats try to help? I gave up. Hence the swag:


The new rearrangement, like my newly begun YA novel, is still a work-in-progress. I'll tweak it a bit, make adjustments, do a bit or rearranging, etc., until I get it right.

Sometimes writing is like untangling a pothos. Sometimes you have to give up what seems like a great idea and go with one that’s more workable.

Been there, done that, too.

~

Whimsy

A front door, if you believe the hype in decorating magazines, is supposed to be warm and welcoming.

The front door on my southern colonial ranch-style house has always looked at bit, well, bland. And boring.



Wanting to spiff it up a bit, I decided to paint it yellow. I thought a yellow door would add a touch of whimsy to the place.

The yellow was a bit brighter than I expected, but what the heck.


Not bland and boring any more, is it?

It's downright whimsical.

~