Transom and French Door Update

The French doors and transoms are installed and trimmed out - now some sanding and spackling and painting and it will be finished. We love it.

Remodel Work: Vintage Transom and French Doors Kitchen

In the process of framing in the doorway to the kitchen door opening. Found some vintage transoms and door panels to build into a frame in the doorway of the kitchen and add a little architecture to the opening. The house is in complete disarray but it looks promising. Very excited.

New Portrait Wall

Not anything new just got bored and wanted to feature some paintings and drawings that we owned. I love portrait walls - whether they are vintage or salon classic - its always interesting to look at. We had a mix of vintage, drawings from french flea markets and up they went. We don't have a lot of wall space available in the house but this was a small wall in our living room and it looked great. And done.

It's Official - House Naming

When I lived in North Carolina and summered at the beaches along the coast. It always amused me to see how people named their beach houses. Beautiful, funny names. Wealthy people typically named their homes but our house upstate is on the smaller side and it seemed like it was a little pretentious to name it but we have lived here long enough and love it so much that we felt that it has become it's own character like in a book or movie. So, it had to have a name. When we first started coming up here, we couldn't believe how beautiful the property was when all of the ferns came up and filled the woods all around our house. When you drive up our driveway, the entire frontage of our property is filled with Bracken fern. It's tall and lush and a little invasive but very pretty. Since we are a fern family and Tim's Dad was a fern specialist for New York Botanical Gardens and elsewhere - we thought it would be appropriate to call it Brackenwood. It sounds very GOT somehow. So, while we were over at the Delaware County Fair we happened to come across a booth that made house signs. We decided to do it since I have proscrastinated for so long. It's official - we now have a house sign - welcome to our home, Brackenwood.

New Project Transom

We were just going to go over to the Delaware County Fair in Walton when we decided to swing by our newest favorite store in Walton - Yolo. The store wasn't even open but the store's owner - Courtney was there and saw us and opened the door. We didn't want to bother her but she started to show us around new stuff in the shop and something caught my eye. I was in the process of trying to close off the end of our mudroom hallway that leads to our kitchen. I had wallpapered it but needed to have a break before you end up in the kitchen. Courtney had just bought this beautiful transom fixture with this green/yellow milk glass. It was so pretty and we measured it and although it was a little big - it might just work. We bought it along with a few other things. Courtney is this awesome store owner and we love her energy and store. Thanks Courtney.

Finished Door Headers Finally !

I have been working on adding these vintage architectural salvage door headers to most of the doors in the living room, back hall and back mud room. They have been going so well, I was pleasantly surprised how easy they were until I had a snafu on one door. It slowed me down a little bit but I was determined to get them finished this weekend. Got the last two up and so happy with them. Now onto my next woodworking project!

Love a Project

It was a gorgeous weekend with plenty of early summer projects to tackle. However, when we went to the dump this morning, someone had left behind an old vintage bar table. We love a project and you can NEVER have enough outdoor furniture. We threw it on the back of our pick up truck and are going to repaint it and use it for a work table and bar for garden parties.

Indoor Projects

Along with working on the basement and painting the house and various other projects. I managed to finish all the headers and got them mounted over the doorways and we have been really enjoying out turntable stand watching the snow fall. On long cold weekends, we sit and play old records from the 80s and 90s and read. In addition to those projects, I continue to work on new plank flooring for the kitchen. It's actually a pleasant little chore in the basement during the work week - staining and varnishing the planks on the seed work table when I can take breaks from work. It is looking good.

SALVAGE DOOR HEADERS

I was looking for a quick simple house project and after our culture excursion decided to make a pit stop at our favorite architectural salvage store. I was looking for old door header tops to add to the doorways in our house and hit the jackpot. Managed to find most of them in the right door size and threw them all into the back of the trunk and took them home. They are going to look great when I have all of them mounted.

COLLECTIONS

Just a shot of pottery and art I collect. I love Japanese RAku pottery and I love this Vietnamese potter that does this beautiful organic sea-inspired vaseware. I used to collect art and photography from this studio in Paris that I bought items from infrequently when I went there for work frequently. Nice souvenirs from a wonderful time in my life.

DIY Turntable

I am very late this year to posting pics and have some serious catching up to do. It has been a crazy year. We have so many old albums from our pasts and then inheriting a ton of albums from both our parents so we couldn't store them any longer. We needed a turntable stand where we could store our albums/vinyl and play them using a new turntable and an old receiver. Still using old wood shelving that I had from a Restoration Hardware furniture delivery debacle from a few years ago. Just adding some legs and with some new hardware and a little paint, voila a turntable record player is ready to go. Miss listening to my parents albums and all my records from the 80s and 90s. Tim's parents amassed this unbelievable classics collection that is categorized and tabbed and labeled for us.

PANTRY CABINET UPDATE

Still working on the pantries in the basement. I am almost complete. Found some corbels that looked good to close in the storage at the top of the cabinet and getting there. Have to put on a top and paint and we can begin to fill it. It's 7.5 feet tall - so lots of space and there will be two of them eventually. This is a tank so I have to wait till next Spring to construct the second one. Have other smaller projects to tackle before then.

Repurposed Pantry

 

As we are remodeling our basement, one of the goals is to repurpose 4 vintage topiary cut out shutters that I have hauled around some 30 plus years waiting for a place to use them. Finally, we have found a permanent place for them as the doors to the pantries. Very happy to have found them a new home.

Winter Project #1 - Bookcase Shelving

 

Several years ago, I ordered a bookcase for our dining room.  I waited all day for it to be delivered and finally at 9 pm at night in snow it got delivered and dumped in the side yard of our house.  It was not supposed to be assembled because it was too big to get through the door of the door of the house. I had to disassemble it in the dark and somehow get it through the back door to put in the dining room. There was damage to the shelving for the bookcase and it was missing screws.  Restoration Hardware where I ordered the original bookcase discounted the bookcase, sent me four sets of screws and two sets of replacement shelves for the bookcase. The first set of shelves fit another bookcase and the second set was 5 shelves when I only needed two.  Needless to say, it was the last order I ever placed with them.  I set the shelves aside knowing I would try and figure out what to do with them at some point. 

Several years later, I finally got around to doing something with them.   We are still in the midst of remodeling the basement and I needed bookcase shelving for the dinette area downstairs.  I made four ladders out of 2x2's  for the shelves and painted them to match the finish on the shelving and anchored them to the wall.  Voila, instant bookcase.  It looks great and is already filled with games and puzzles for the basement.  I have a couple more projects in store for the basement and am looking forward to tackling those soon. 

VINTAGE LINENS

Those of us who work in textiles won't admit to our secret fabric hoarding closet, room, storage spaces.  All of us have them.  We have a terrible habit of picking up fabrics wherever we are shopping and sticking them away forever until we can find a home for them.  I have tons of fabric swatches from the Design and Decoration building in NYC. However, I do have a lot of fabrics that I have collected over the years - 20-30 years. I finally got around to pulling out all these vintage linens I have bought for some time and found an old wire basket holder to display them. I put them up in the back hall and they look really beautiful agains the trellis wallpaper.  Now, if I can just find homes for the rest of the fabric?

Back Porch Enclosure

Our back porch needed a cover and an enclosure since we get a lot of snow drifting against the back door in winter. I finally got around to putting a roof onto the existing porch.  It was my first attempt at  roofing and it was not easy.  The existing porch couldn't take any substantial weight so the materials had to be light weight.  I didn't think I would like the corrugated roof but after working with it - I don't know if I could have mounted anything heavier.  It's a decent frame to put up a clear liner and temporary door for winter so we aren't fighting ice and snow at the back door.  The snowballs looked beautiful with it.

Basement Remodel 2

The basement is a mess and so much stuff has to be donated and cleaned out.  However, while it's snowing outside - I would like to get a section of framing put up every weekend.  It's really hard to get 4x8 plywood up from the driveway to the basement steps - so I will stick with the framing until May to get the plywood bought and put up.  It doesn't look like much and I am only focusing on minimal framing at the moment. I will go back and insert additional support and strength but the framing needs to be completed so that I can determine any structural issues like boxing in venting.
This is going to be a long term project so have to have lots of patience.

Basement Remodel Begins

We have been discussing and planning this for awhile. We needed a larger space when we had guests over  or when we wanted to have a larger group of people over to watch movies and also have a wood burning stove.  There is no timeline for the project and it has to be done when money is available.  Lots to do but I started this weekend with one panel wall blocking off the large sink area.  Will take our time and am learning along the way.  Very excited!

Yard furniture

While in the city this week, I managed to find this folding fleshy beige colored cafe table for nothing. It just needed some TLC. I also found a couple of outdoor metal chairs near a dumpster and snatched them away from the jaws of extinction.  I brought them all up to the house and cleaned and spray painted them.  Voila! A new outdoor set for the yard.  Wish I had before pics but it was such a quick project that it was done in the blink of an eye.

Architectural Salvage

I have an obsession with architectural salvage stores. I drove over to a store this week with one specific project in mind.  3 hours later, I realized I must have been drugged or something. I have to get a quote on a couple things but wanted to buy everything I found.