Saturday, November 22, 2014

Hold the Presses!!!!

Way way way back when I mentioned the problem of the master bath floor and how was I going to replace the tacky carpet economically.  Yesterday I was at Sun Bowl Plaza - the thrift store strip mall, and the Lutherans had two full boxes of ceramic tiles - 15 cu.ft. each, pluse 6 single tiles - $18 for the lot.  So I bought them.  I wish I could say 'faster than a speeding bullet' but that doesn't happen there.  It took quite awhile to find a guy who was young enough and strong enough to lift the boxes off the bottom shelf.  But eventually they found Jack, and now I own enough ceramic tile to do the bathroom.

The kitchen and other bathroom are done in a cream with pink ceramic, and I actually wish I could afford to get enough of this pattern to do the whole house.  It's quite gray with bits of copper in it.  It looks like stone.  Love it!


Now the question is... do I watch all those YouTube videos about how to lay ceramic tile, or do I bite the bullet and hire someone?  I will think about it for awhile.  I'm too busy overdoing Christmas decorations right now to consider learning how to lay tile.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Behold! The Garden!


And, as promised, here is the big reveal of our new garden.



Actually, I think it's a rather lovely little corner, even if the biggest plant in it is the basil I planted in May.

You might be wondering what we did with all the pavers that His Grace dug up to make this corner garden.  Check this out!

All the pots and ornaments came from various thrift stores.  I got the blue-green wall plaques for $1 each; the large clay pot was $5 and the other two were $3 each.  The blue butterfly one didn't have a drainage hole, but we discovered a masonry bit in the garage and His Grace used his new drill... presto... functional planter.  And I think the stacks of pavers actually look like we planned this arrangement from the beginning.  That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

We did have one garden 'ornament' that came with the condo.  Meet Mac.  His Grace is not a fan, but I think he's so cheesy he's cute.  I plan to fix up his paint job later, but I like him.

His Grace wanted hanging baskets, and I found three empty planters at thrift stores.  The two larger iron ones (There are two of them.) were $5 each, plus the cost of the coconut matting, and the strange gold bullet-shaped one was $3.  Unfortunately, I got this one before His Grace got the drill, so I just put a bunch of rocks in the  bottom.  We might drill a hole after the petunias are finished.  And the little blue on hanging on the wall was only $1.99.  It might be my favourite of all of them; the blue goes so beautifully with the moss green wall.

But the piece de resistance is the bird bath.  I know there's a 'lake' half a block away on the golf course and the birds aren't remotely interested in our little bowl of water.  This was tested and proved this summer when I put a tray of water out every day.  But I don't care!  It's not a garden without a bird bath.  But I get ahead of myself.

Our friends Richard and Nancy have these really cool glass whimsies in their garden.  They are essentially glass dishes that have been glued together one on top of the other.  I'm not explaining it well, but trust me, they're really neat.  So I decided to make one for our garden and promptly trotted off to Goodwill.  But I couldn't find the glass I needed to make my vision a reality.  Then I saw some pottery vases, and a big bowl.

I glued everything together using Loctite Glass Glue because I had some left over from making cake stands.  It worked a charm gluing the plate and white container (which is filled with rocks for stability), the middle piece with the leaves and the blue-green vase above it and the vase to the pasta bowl.  But that middle piece with the green leaves isn't a vase; it's a candle platform thing-y, and the bottom (the part glued to the white container) is unglazed.  The Glass Glue didn't hold, so I tried again using Goop plumbers glue, and that seems to be working perfectly.

Voila!  The bird bath.  

His Grace is not as delighted with it as I am; he thinks it looks like some odd bits of pottery that have been stuck together.  Whereas I see it as some really interesting odd bits of pottery that have been stuck together (With a bunch of rocks hidden in the base for stability).  But I really need the birds to back me up in this by actually using it.


Sunday, November 9, 2014

Remembrance Day

Not a post about our condo; this is a picture of my father in his WWII Canadian Army uniform, with a the poppy from Flanders Fields he sent my mother.


Friday, November 7, 2014

Wow! Some projects actually get finished!

The painting of the garden wall has been finished, but you can't see any pics yet because His Grace, Gentleman Gardener, has almost finished the digging, planting and decorating the garden.  I'm going to wait until all the white rocks have been put down before the grand garden unveiling.

The second nightstand is finished and back home where it belongs.  I never did find a pseudo-French provincial nightstand, so we stuck with the art deco-ish one I showed you earlier.  It has nothing in common stylistically with the one on the other side of the bed, other than being painted silver.  I also got the headboard painted and put back in the bedroom.



The bookshelf I was struggling with last time is done and in use.  I also got my desk chair painted and recovered.  But the desk itself hasn't been touched yet.  Neither have either dresser, but I did come up with a cool plan for one of them.

And I did find a third frame and painted it pink to go with the other bark paintings from Mexico.  I really rather like this arrangement.



His Grace's dresser has somewhat weird fabric inserts in the drawer pulls.  At the moment they're a dark brown covered with breaking plastic.  But I'm pretty sure I have enough material left over from the two bedroom chairs to use on the dresser.  Remember the fantastical bird print?  The chairs are done!


Is that not the most amazing print!  And if I use little bits on the dresser drawers, it'll look like I planned the whole thing in advance and not like I scored upholstery material at Goodwill for $2.99.

Next project will be to paint the master bath the same blue as the bedroom.  And then to find something to replace the carpet on the floor.  I've noticed that various thrift stores have odd tiles, and I'm wondering about doing a mix/match thing.

I also have another project for the bedroom.  We have some rather boring lamps that were supposed to be the same colour as the furniture, but that changed when I bought the wrong paint.  I think I'm going to try to paint them like some of the gorgeous Navajo and Hopi pottery around here.

This is the lamp.

and this is a general idea of what I'm going to try to do to it.

http://www.kokopellinh.com/files/images/native-american-pottery-119924b.jpg
http://p2.la-img.com/359/37822/16054044_1_l.jpg
http://indulgy.ccio.co/n4/r6/8C/227713324878397585OcReIP6ec.jpg

The vases I've seen are really beautiful, and it will be a challenge to try to get close to the skill the Native American potters have.  But I want to try.