hgtv = the devil

Before:


After:


Not a great "after" photo, but you can at least see some of the work we've done. The grass is a little worse for wear, not to mention watering restrictions, but it's perked up a bit since we've had some rain.

Flowers. They look like we did zero work and just threw them in there. WRONG! That was hours of work, baby. HGTV gets everything done in a half hour including commercials. I can't watch it anymore because I know they're lying to me. Digging out the CLAY, adding in the potting mix stuff, digging the holes in the CLAY...notice said pile of clay to the left of the flowers. It's still there, actually. Anybody got a wheelbarrow they want to get rid of?? We hauled all the weeding and extra dirt to the back yard in our recycling bin! 200' is a looooong way when you're carrying a big bin full of dirt...



Kitchen light fixture, in progress (the garbage bag taped to ceiling was Brandon's idea...definitely helped with cleanup when he had to install the mounting bracket in the attic:



Closeup. Oooh. Aaah.



I'm lame, though. I don't have a picture of the actual light fixture after we installed it. I know you're dying to see it. (ahem)

we own a sideboard

side·board (sīd'bôrd', -bōrd')
n.
1. A piece of dining room furniture having drawers and shelves for linens and tableware.
2. A board that forms a side or part of a side: the sideboards of a skating rink.
3. sideboards Chiefly British. Sideburns.

We arrived bright and early (okay, so we got there at noon, whatever) at the estate sale in Sharpsburg to discover that "our" sideboard was still there and unsold. The asking price was indeed $395 and we were indecisive. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that the piece had a lot of veneer and a lot of it was missing. The veneer was made of tiger oak and was really very pretty. The entire top of the sideboard was missing the veneer, though, and while the rest of the sideboard seemed to be in good condition, we still weren't sure if we were ready to hand over $400 of our savings for it. We checked the back in vain hopes of seeing an indication that it was a hideously valuable Stickley or something, but no such luck. After an hour of poking around through the rest of the sale and finding various odds and ends to buy (including a mission style coat rack for $25, missing one hook, of course...), we ended up back at the sideboard. The lady told us it was very old--late 1800s (highly unlikely) to early 1900s--and that was about all she knew. She told us that a couple of dealers had expressed interest in the piece and she was reluctant to bargain on the first day of the sale, and finally said she would take $345. An hour later we were in the P'tree City Home Depot renting a truck for two hours. Half an hour from P'tree City to Sharpsburg, half an hour to load it in securely, half an hour back to the house, half an hour back to P'tree City...easy, huh? Not quite. We also had to stop and fill the truck back up with gas, get the thing unloaded and in the house, and navigate traffic. Two hours and 13 minutes later, we were back at Home Depot. Still, it only cost $34 for the rental, so we still came out under the original asking price of $395 in the end, I guess.

After much cleaning and oiling and waxing, the sideboard is gorgeous. The top is pretty rustic looking, the mirror has been replaced, and it looks like it might have originally been a dark brown, more mission typical, stain. Appears as if someone took some steel wool to it in places, but luckily they are all hidden (inside doors, under the shelf, etc.) from view. The color is now a reddish brown, but it's very pretty. Looks like all the "repair" that was done to it happened a long time ago, though. We think it's not a great specimen of Craftsman work, but more of the mass market variety. Not sure who made it, but it's got numbers stencilled in white on the back of the mirror/shelf and the sideboard itself.

off to the lake...

We're heading up to the lake for a couple of days this weekend, and then plan to be home on Monday through Wednesday to work on the house. We also heard about an estate sale this weekend down near Tyrone that has a mission sideboard for sale for $395! Argh...unfortunately we're still hanging onto our emergency condo mortgage money (which is probably more of a reality than a possible emergency--still no offers and we can't afford to keep paying if after next month, so renting it looks like our next step) so the sideboard probably won't be coming home with us. Unless it turns out to be real...like a Stickley or something. Here's hoping :)

spam!

Just FYI, if you comment on a post, you will now have to do that word verification thing that's so annoying when you try to buy tickets online, etc. ;) I got a comment in Portuguese from a total stranger about his blog for ordering custom printed t-shirts. At least, I'm assuming it was a stranger, since the only Rodrigo I know speaks Spanish, not Portuguese, and I think he'd at least say hi before he tried to sell me something :)

I don't want to have to moderate comments, so I'll try this first and see if it cuts out the spam.

Sorry!

more new photos...

the title says it all

Forgot to add that Brandon got the closet doors put up in our bedroom last Wednesday! Very exciting news (yes, we have no life...) although now it is very beige in there with the beige curtains, too (see, I was right!) but it looks a lot better than gaping closets. Of course, they don't line up with each other, the wall, or the floor (all three seem to be a little crooked), but that's not B's fault--it's just the house itself and little, if anything, in it, is plumb, level or square :)

more bargains...(now with photos)

Hoping to have more photos to post later today, but Brandon has the camera, so we'll just have to see ;) We haven't done a lot since the last post, but we did find a few more "bargains" ("this is so cheap we have to buy it even if we don't actually need it"). We went to Scott's Antique Market again on Sunday morning a week ago and found a very cool mission style rocking chair. It hadn't had the easiest life, so we bargained the guy down from $90 to $75. It's got a cool mission patterned back on it, and the original upholstery and springs were still there underneath all the layers of fabric. The springs are in okay shape, although the fabric is not usable anymore. It's a little wobbly, but B cleaned it up and tightened it and it's a lot better. Someone decided at some point, however, to make it a non-rocking rocking chair by cutting off the rockers at the back. The rockers are still in place, but shortened, with a little block of wood tacked on underneath them to keep it from actually rocking! Maybe someone was tired of it bumping the wall or rocking over the cat, we have no idea...but it's still lovely even with all the abuse it's suffered.

We also picked up an old wooden office chair for $5 (very cool, it revolves on pedestal base, but the whole base is wood, not metal) and a card catalog for $25 (bargained down from $35). The card catalog is just the middle section and similar to the one we already own. It's missing the legs/base as well as the top, so it was probably in the middle of a stacking unit and the other pieces are long gone. There was one drawer still full of cards, though--the "P" drawer, with cards for "Panama" and "Polar Bears" and such things. It was probably from a school, and most of the books are from the 1950s up until the early 1990s. I bought it with the intention of cleaning it up and passing it on to someone, so the bidding can start now, ha ha ;) We don't need another one, but I couldn't not buy a card catalog, you know? Especially for that price. Raylynn has dibs on it for the Center, but if they don't want it, it's available. It'd make a cool coffee table!

I had a wisdom tooth cut out last Thursday, so Patrice (MIL) came over to keep an eye on me. She said she couldn't sit still for the whole day, so she offered to paint our dining room! Yayy! It's gorgeous! Hope to have photos up soon. It's sort of a terra cotta kind of orange. It looks pretty 1970s in the photos, but in person it is really pretty. ;)