Slowly, Slowly

My mosaic work has been moving at a crawl lately because we're having our foyer retiled.  The foyer is pretty big and is connected to all major gateways through the house.  The guy doing it is awesome, the kind of guy who takes pride in a job well done.  So he takes off the first layer of tile here:

So not only is it just kind of blah, my husband stepped down recently and this happened.  Bad tile job by whoever did it before!

 

So under most of this was just what you want to find, a nice, level layer of plywood.  However, we found this under a big square right in front of the door:

Okay, other than looking burned, this retro tile is kind of cool, but not in my house with all of the retro white carpet.  I'm trying to update here.  So he takes this out - painstaking, long process and finds this:

About 3" of this nasty, crumbly plasterish cement stuff.  Poor guy!!  By now, everything in my house is COVERED in dust.  It's making me crazy.  Even the remote felt gritty.  So he takes this out and finally, plywood.  But this layer is kind of flimsy and my husband and I are tiptoe-ing over it.  It's the only thing between us and the basement floor!

Tomorrow, he's building up this floor to be level with the other and then he will start putting in the new tile!!  I can't wait!!  Sorry for the rant, but it's just hard to create with all the dirt, dust and banging.  I guess this is breaking us in to all the future renos we have planned for this 1973 beauty.

A Curious Trip

The Curious Sofa gift certificate that Jas got me for Christmas was burning a hole in my pocket.

Don't forget to check out the bathrooms on your next trip.

I love the antiquing technique and have asked the owner if she has someone on her staff who could do this in my home. I'd like to paper part of the living room soon. The aged look of the paper will be the perfect balance with the fresh plantation shutters.


As always, great eye candy with plenty of tarnished silver.





I posted a pic of this old stove around the holidays. I bet I'd be the only one on my block with one of these in my living room.


I had been looking at a great velvet-covered light blue settee, and my heart sank when I saw the "sold" sign hanging from it. I guess it was not meant to be. I am itching for a trip to Old School Flea in Alma, KS, so I hope to find something similar for the living room soon. It takes a long time to furnish the house considering I came from such a small space. One step at a time, I suppose.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Jason and I had a birthday party for my mom yesterday. I love this pic of she and my dad, they are even color-coordinated! I wonder if they planned that?

It took me forever to make this cake (lie). Baskin Robbins makes the best cakes. This was a white cake with strawberry ice cream. Yum.

Dash enjoyed helping Grammy blow out the candles.

And because baby Kiran came early here in KC and NOT Chicago, my brother and his wife were able to be here.

We had Jack Stack BBQ for lunch, so since I was not slaving over the food, I was able to do what I like to do before a party, rearrange my stuff.

I got these silver and glass decanters with the Curious Sofa gift certificate Jas got me for Christmas. The bugs came from Mothology, a site I've blogged about before with all kinds of wonderful treasures.

The glass jar originally came from the Mission Road Antique Mall and was filled with dice. That particular dealer kind of specializes in putting interesting collections in glass jars.

I went through my mosaic materials stash and found a bunch of antique drawer pulls. I think they look pretty cool stuffed in the glass jar.

More mosaic stash. I have so much stuff I can't even keep track of it all. I go searching for glitter and I can't find glitter, but I find tintypes. I start digging for stamps and I find the glitter. I was organized at one time, but it's gotten out of control again. The green and red-dressed figurine is chalk as is the boy with the blue cap. The cute boy with the collar/wings just came from Prydes, but the other stuff has been lurking in the basement.

Great salt and pepper shaker figurines formerly waiting in a basement drawer to be put in a mosaic. I can't remember where I found them, maybe the Jessie James Antique Mall in St. Joe.

More cute figurines perched on old blocks.

I thought my "Talking with the Dead" book looked "cute" beside my cracked-in-the-head night light. Friday night, my babysitter told me she'd describe my home decor style as casual elegance meets the macabre. I was so flattered!!!

How long will it take before I'm vacuuming up buttons?

The talcum powder and tobacco tins were hidden downstairs. They may still go into a mosaic, but why not show them off in the meantime? They are just the right kind of rusty.

And I don't think I ever posted a pic of the wonderful pillows my fabulous mother-in-law makes for me out of old feed sacks. The goal back in the day was for people to buy enough feed in the right patterned sack to be able to sew them into clothes. I love the vintage feel of the designs and colors. It was a great day with a lot of laughing and Wii-playing. Happy birthday, Mom!

Still Making It My Own

We moved to the new place in June and as I've said before on this blog, I've been anxious to transform it. This morning, a big piece of the puzzle fell into place, the shutters . . . ahhhhh . . .

I LOVE plantation shutters. They are like a piece of furniture in your window and when they are closed, they really block out the light. They saved us from baking in our old house with the sun beating into the tiny family room during the summer.

Here is a "before" of the new house. I had the outside painted a color called Antique Tin by Beher. The neutral stucco and brow trim was boring and had zero "pop". (The landscaping will be a huge summer project).

It took me a try or two to get the color right. Here is Light French Gray by Beher. It looked great on the chip, but when I got it onto the stucco, it was baby blue. Not right for this style of house.

I decided to go in the opposite direction and went with a very dark gray which looks nice against the white trim and gives the "pop" I was going for.


Those washed-out garage doors really stand out. I live on a busy street and have gotten lots of compliments from neighbors and walkers about the improvements. I don't think anyone noticed this house before and now between the new paint, shutters, and all the crazy garden stakes, it's bound to get some attention!

I was thankful to have window treatments when we moved in, but I think these must have been original to the house built in 1973. They had a way of entrapping flies and ants that made them a pain to clean; I had to stick the vacuum inside of them. The man who made and installed the shutters told me he had seen these types of shades peppered with dead insects. Gross.

They were some kind of synthetic nylon and had gotten dark and dirty over the years.

There are also some homes in this subdivision with these fake window panes. I loved them in my old house where they were original and real, but these were stuck on the inside with metal clips and were painted brown on the side that faced the street. They had to go.

I use a guy named Mike Goodrick in Kansas City for my window treatments and he is a pro. He did the wonderful Austrian valances in the Midland downtown.

The blades on the shutters are beveled and this adds some wonderful detail.

What a difference!

And the tiny shutters for the sides of the front door.

Tahh dahhh! Beauty and functionality since I had nothing over these windows before.

And I drove by the old house the other night and for the first time in six months, I felt nothing. I think I'm putting my mark on the new one, making it mine, and identifying with it. The old house is sure cute, but now it's just somebody else's.

BINGO, Baby!!

My friend Laura interviewed me at a place called Aquila Energy back in 2000. I walked out of that interview thinking, "I might not get this job, but I will always be friends with that girl." Seriously. And Saturday night, I attended the 10th annual Girl's BINGO Bash at Laura's house. I didn't know her for the first one, but I haven't missed one, since!

Laura went all night with no BINGO and then won the cash for the blackout round!

Diana, Elise, and Angela having fun. Everybody loves that microphone.

Laura and Angela.

Terry and I sit together most every year so we can ham it up. She only looks like she's sleeping quietly.

Laura's mom, Deb, always helps her deck her house out for the holidays. I love it all!

Deb took some antique tin out of her garden for this display. I do believe she likes antique tin almost as much as I do.

And a wide shot of the mantel. Before heading to Laura's, I stopped at Gina and Suzie's open house. Here's Gina looking so cute in an apron (tutu) that her friend, Mary, brought her. So cute!

Suzie and Jeanie having fun. Jeanie and her husband like to watch House Hunters International and we had so much fun talking about our favorite episodes!!! We decided we'd have to be millionaires many times over to live in Paris so we could afford something larger than the 450 square feet, 7 figure apartments in the Sixth District!!

What a spread Gina and Suzie had. Everything was wonderful!

Fabulous art.

And the features and architecture in this house are amazing. Great vintage sink.

This little building in the backyard is right up my alley. I wouldn't change a thing!

What newer home has these kinds of details?

Unbelievable mantel.

I am really fortunate to have so many wonderful friends. Happy holidays!