laundry today or naked tomorrow.

Published on by Quandie23 Comments

My sister was off work last week, so on Friday she swung by my office, picked me up and we went to a few garage sales that were nearby on my lunch break.  We only had time to stop at about 5 sales and I didn’t find much, but my sister got a great deal on a leaf blower just in time for fall.

One thing I saw and debated buying was a vintage wooden ironing board.  I didn’t grab it because at $35 I thought it was a bit overpriced.  Plus I already had two of them in my carriage house.  However, it did inspire me to dig one of those out and turn it into a sign for today’s quandie quickie Wednesday post.

I used this ‘designer wall lettering’ to make my sign.  I can’t remember exactly where I found this, either Hobby Lobby or Joann Etc.

It couldn’t have been easier or quicker.  Simply remove the protective sheet, place the wording on your surface, rub with a plastic thingie (sort of like a credit card, it came in the package), and peel off the backing.

My only complaint about this product is how shiny the letters are.  The label says “appears hand painted”, but unless you are using some super glossy paint, I beg to differ.  They definitely look more like stickers than like hand painted lettering.

Next time I will opt for stenciling with actual paint.

Nonetheless, the ironing board laundry sign is pretty darn adorable.

I wish I had one of those gorgeous laundry rooms that other bloggers seem to have, with things like subway tile and vintage containers for the soap.

Oh, who am I kidding, even just having walls would be an upgrade.  My laundry facilities are in my cellar-like basement complete with cinder block walls, lots of spiders and perpetual dampness, so I had to stage these photos in the photo cottage.

But hey, I’m not complaining.  I’m lucky to have the photo cottage even if I have a less than stellar laundry room.

But if you happen to have a fabulous laundry room, or even just one with real walls, this fab vintage ironing board sign is available for local sale.  I’m planing to bring it down to Reclaiming Beautiful in Stillwater tonight so you can look for it there starting tomorrow. However, if you are local and want to call dibs on it for your laundry room, check out my ‘available for local sale’ page for more details and send me an email asap.

 

 

 

 

 

union jack with a side of mustard.

Published on by Quandie16 Comments

I feel like mustard is one of those things where you either love it or you hate it.  It’s true of the condiment and the color.

Personally I love all kinds of mustard; honey, dijon, yellow, brown.  Mmmmm, just thinking about mustard is making me kind of hungry.

I also love Fusion’s Mustard paint.  I fully admit that I probably wouldn’t have chosen this color initially, but Fusion sent me a free sample of it last year and I used it on a toolbox and fell in love.

Recently nnK returned a typing table to me that she purchased at one of my sales and no longer needed.  The top was a bit worn, so I decided to give it a fresh new look.

I was planning to give it a little more personality with a union jack on the top in shades of grey, like the end tables I painted last year.  But then Monique from Reclaiming Beautiful saw it and suggested I consider using Mustard as one of the colors.  I took her advice and thus gave it a lot more personality.  I’m calling it ‘union jack with a side of mustard’.

This color combo gives the table more of a modern twist, or maybe I’m sensing a bit of a mid-century vibe.  What do you think?

This table itself is really rather challenging to photograph.  From straight on you just see the metal base and the 1/2″ sides of the top.  I tried a bunch of different angles when I was getting the ‘before’ shots and they were all pretty awful.  So I really wasn’t sure how I was going to stage the piece and get good photos.  I also debated, do I stage it as a desk, or should I stage it as a side table?  How about staging it as a bar cart?  Or maybe as a nightstand?  All were possibilities.

But then I remembered the September issue of Conde Nast Traveler that nnK had left on my deck the other day.  Just look at all of that mustard!

I had to use that.  Then I added a vintage camera to play off the ‘travel’ theme of the magazine plus the union jack.  Finally I threw in a golden toned wooden piano stool that plays well next to the mustard.

It was still a bit tricky to get a good angle on the table, but I had fun trying.

This piece really wouldn’t function terribly well as a desk, except possibly for a child.  It is the ergonomically correct height for a typewriter which is a bit lower than typical desk height.  However, it would be perfect for all of those other uses I mentioned; beside the sofa, beside the bed, as a bar cart or for that matter as a TV stand.  There is a lever you move to lower and thus activate the wheels.  Or it can be perfectly stationary with the wheels raised slightly.

By the way, did you notice that it’s only Tuesday and I’ve got a blog post?  I was so productive this past weekend that I have a back log of stuff to post about.  So I’ll be posting every day this week, hope you enjoy!

In the meantime, this union jack table with a side of mustard is for sale.  Be sure to check my ‘available for local sale’ page for more details if interested.

 

 

 

madame’s dresser.

Published on by Quandie34 Comments

Oh my gosh, I can hardly believe that it is September already.  Where did the summer go?  It started out with my two week trip in May.  Then there was moving my sister into her new house in June.  I spent a lot of time working on my master bedroom makeover in July and August.

In between all of that, I worked on this dresser and the summer just flew by.

But first, here is the ‘before’ photo.

This piece is large and heavy and I didn’t have the manpower to move it out of the workshop for a ‘before’ photo, so you’ll just have to excuse that.  I’d also already re-glued and patched some of the chipping veneer on the drawer fronts.  Ken had also already worked some magic on this dresser by re-attaching all four of the feet.  Two had come off when we loaded it in the truck, and the other two were pretty wiggly.  Ken added dowel pins and fresh glue and now those gorgeous feet will fully support the weight of the dresser.

If the style of this piece feels familiar to you, that’s because I’ve already painted its companions.  This small table …

and this small vanity …

As you can see, I got a lot of chipping on both of these pieces.  In fact, I even ended up re-doing the small vanity.  I had tried using General Finishes Flat Out Flat as a top coat over the milk paint and I discovered that rather than ‘sealing’ the chipping paint, it brought up more chipping.  I did that right before I left on my trip, and the photo above was taken then.  When I got back home I found that the finish had chipped even further while I was gone.  Basically I’d say about 80% of the paint had completely chipped off.  Unfortunately I didn’t think to take a photo of it at that point.  To salvage the piece I simply sanded off the chipping paint and then re-painted with the same Homestead House Stone Fence milk paint.  This time I added Miss Mustard Seed furniture wax as a topcoat.  Here is how it finally looked.

The good thing about discovering the propensity towards chipping on these two smaller pieces was that I was forewarned before starting on the large dresser.  I wanted some chipping, but I didn’t want to lose 80% of my paint.  So I prepped the piece really well by sanding it with 120 grit paper and then cleaning it thoroughly with TSP substitute.  That definitely did the trick because I ended up with just a very small amount of chipping on this one.

I painted it with Homestead House milk paint in a color called Bedford.  This is a lovely greige that is just a tad darker and a tad warmer than the Stone Fence.

I used another Iron Orchid Designs transfer on the front of the dresser.

If you look closely at the transfer you can see why I decided to call this madame’s dresser.  I thought about going with the full ‘dresser de madame la marquise de Cremy’, but that’s really a mouthful!

Once again I used the Real Milk Paint Co’s Dead Flat Finishing Cream on this piece.

I am really loving this stuff for pieces that I want to sell.  It’s nice being able to tell the buyer that the finish is washable.  And in fact, I was able to put that to the test on this piece.  When Mr. Q helped me move it into place for the photos he left a dirty hand print on top of the dresser.  It came right off with a damp cloth.

When looking at the ‘before’ photo you might have noticed that some of the trim at the bottom of this dresser was missing.  Some people have fancy ways of molding replacement trim out of bondo or some such thing.  I prefer to just fake it with paint.

I painted the trim with Homestead House Limestone milk paint and I just painted the areas of missing trim as though it was still there.

My staging of this piece hid the pretty trim at the back of the dresser top, so I took a quick photo after clearing it off.  I didn’t have to fake anything with that bit of trim.  It’s all there and isn’t it gorgeous?

The two little upper side drawers each have fun little coin/jewelry holders inside.  There was a velvet liner at either side of them that was pretty grungy though.  I thought I’d be able to remove the coin holders, replace the velvet and then put them back in.  I also discovered that one can’t get to the screws that hold the pulls in place because the coin holders block them.  Much to my surprise the coin holders were not removable.  At least not without leaving major damage behind.  I had Ken take a look and he thinks they are both nailed and glued into place.

So, I improvised.  I painted the drawer fronts with the pulls in place and I added fresh toile fabric over the velvet.  I used a little 3M spray adhesive to keep the fabric in place.

I had fun staging this dresser using old books, some hydrangeas from my garden, some pale roses from the grocery store and some ironstone.

We had a gorgeous sunny morning here yesterday so it was perfect for taking photos outside.

I may have gotten a little carried away with the quantity of photos, but I couldn’t help myself.  There is just something about these beautiful summer mornings in September.  They start to feel so fleeting this time of year.

 This is such a lovely piece of furniture, I’m sure it won’t last long.

This piece would work beautifully as a sideboard in the dining room or for storing clothing in your bedroom.  Be sure to check my ‘available for local sale’ page for more details if you are local and in need of a gorgeous new dresser or sideboard!

a heck of a deal.

Published on by Quandie3 Comments

You all know my opinion on matched bedroom sets, or as they called them back in the day, a bedroom suite.  I’m not a fan.  To be more specific, I’m not a fan of keeping them together and using them in one room.  On the other hand, I’m a big fan of buying them and separating the pieces.  It can be a tremendous value.

Even though I’ve already shared the ‘afters’ of most of the pieces in this set, I thought it would be fun to put them all together in one post so you can see just how far it went.

Funny enough, when I first looked at the ad for this set I was specifically trying to decide whether or not I liked the bed well enough for my own room.  I debated back and forth with myself on it for a while before I had one of those smack your forehead, duh, sort of moments when I realized that this set was a heck of a deal regardless of whether or not I was going to keep the headboard.  If I ended up deciding I didn’t like the headboard, I could still sell it along with everything else.

As it turned out, I loved the headboard and it is perfect in my master bedroom.  I altered it to fit my queen sized bed (read that post here).

I also love how the little nightstand/washstand turned out.  If I didn’t already have a similar piece that came from my grandparents, I would have been tempted to keep this piece myself.

I separated the mirror from the dresser, painted the dresser and added an IOD transfer.

Since I couldn’t use the foot board after converting the headboard to fit a queen sized bed, I decided to ask Ken to use one of the side rails to add a shelf to it.  I’d done this once before with a headboard and it was a great success.  This one turned out pretty awesome as well.

I made a Farmers’ Market sign out of the remaining side rail.  I currently have this hanging in my dining room, but it’s also listed on my ‘available for sale’ page because I don’t think it’s perfect for this spot.  I’ll continue to keep an eye out for just the right thing for my dining room wall.

 Finally, I turned the mirror frame into a chalkboard.

I didn’t share that makeover here on the blog since I’ve done several of these in the past and blogged about them here and here.  Usually I have Ken add a shelf to these, but this one didn’t have a good spot for the shelf because it has that raised panel at the bottom.

Here’s a close up so you can see the chippy, layered finish I achieved with milk paint.

That is a base layer of Homestead House Upper Canada Green milk paint with HH Limestone over it.  I used my secret weapon for perfect chipping, adding some HH Salad Bowl Finish (or Miss Mustard Seed Beeswax Finish, same stuff) between the layers of paint.

I finished with a top coat of Low Sheen Finishing Cream from the Real Milk Paint Co.

Currently this piece is hanging in my living room, but I don’t think this will be its permanent home either.

So, if you’re keeping track, I took this one 3-piece bedroom set and made six individual pieces out of it.  And technically I still have the mirror itself, which has a pretty frame.  I’m debating whether to turn it into a chalkboard also, or leave it a mirror.  So really, I will have 7 pieces in the end.  Like I said, a heck of a deal!

hanging it up.

Published on by Quandie31 Comments

I really debated using that title for this post.  I didn’t want to give any of you a scare, thinking that I was giving up blogging.  Nope, so far I am hanging in there (bwa, ha, ha, ha).

This post is about actual hangers.  Although maybe I could give the title a double meaning.  I’m hanging up the Wednesday travel posts, and instead I’m going to try to feature a small decorating project every Wednesday.  Something that can be pulled together in an afternoon.  We’ll see how long I can keep it up.

So, as I said, today’s post is about actual hangers.  Vintage wooden advertisement hangers that is.

I pick these up whenever I see them at garage sales.  Sometimes if you dig through a box of plain wooden hangers you’ll find one or two with advertising on them.  I usually pay less than a dollar each.

Oddly enough, I rarely find hangers from local shops.  So far I just have one, and it’s not one of my favorites.

I decided to use a few of the hangers in the simplest way possible in my master bedroom.

First I printed out some of my favorite travel photos (oh, maybe there is a hint of a travel theme to this Wednesday post after all).  The top two photos on the wall are from Prague, the bottom photo is from Vienna.

Several years ago I had Photoshop on my computer and I had some great plug in’s.  When my computer crashed in 2014 I lost them and never took the time to reinstall them.  Now I can’t even remember the name of the plug in!  Ugh.  But the two Prague photos were altered using that plug in.  The Vienna photo was altered using a Picmonkey effect called Filmstock.

Isn’t that a gorgeous building?

I printed the photos on matte photo paper (I use Target’s Up & Up brand).

  Then I gathered up some vintage metal clips (another thing I like to grab whenever I see them at garage sales) and simply clipped the photos to the hangers.

Easy peasy.

I hung them on the wall between my windows and my closet.  They fit perfectly there and it seems apropos to have ‘hanger art’ next to the closet.

I wondered whether or not the photo paper would curl a bit in humidity, but they’ve been up for close to a month now and we’ve had plenty of rainy weather and so far, so good.

Down the road I can easily change up the photos on a whim, or if they start to look less than fresh.

So the next time you see some old advertisement hangers, consider nabbing them and creating a gallery of ‘hanger art’ yourself!

my giant English cupboard.

Published on by Quandie46 Comments

For quite some time now I’ve been looking for a giant cupboard for the Q branch.  I wanted something that would mostly fill up this wall …

The dresser that I currently have in that spot is very functional, it holds lots of crafting supplies and camera paraphernalia.  There isn’t anything wrong with it, but I don’t love it.  It’s a bit more traditional than I am.  Since it was functioning well, I wasn’t in a hurry to replace it, but it’s something that has been in the back of my mind for some time.

I like the idea of being able to shove everything inside a cupboard and shut the doors leaving the room looking nice and tidy.  Otherwise I tend to pile stuff up on the dresser and it looks messy most of the time.

I’ve pinned quite a few examples of large cupboards as inspiration, like this beautiful example from Rustic Farmhouse …

And this gorgeous cupboard from Rusty Hinge …

Amazing, right?

So I’ve been keeping an eye on Craigslist for a suitable candidate.  To begin with, pieces this large are few and far between on Craigslist.  In addition, when I do find them they tend to be newer pieces that were intended to house clunky television sets in the 90’s.  But I have seen a handful that were fabulous vintage pieces, but for the most part they were way out of my price range.  And by ‘way out’, I mean over $1,500.

For example, I’ve been admiring this gorgeous cupboard for months now (here’s a link to the ad if it’s still out there) …

But the price tag is $1,800 and it hasn’t come down since I started looking at it last winter.  I suspect the buyers are holding firm.  It does have a gorgeous original painted finish.  I’m not saying it isn’t worth that much, I’m just saying that I can’t pay that much.

Then I spotted the ad for this one …

The ad was very short, it simply said “Antique English country armoire (late 18th / early 19th century) with the original lock.” And it gave the dimensions:  63″W x 17.5″D x 72″H.  But it was priced at $900, which was pretty high for me.  Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.  So I checked the measurements first and they were perfect for my space.  Next I contacted the seller to ask what was inside because there were no photos of the inside included with the ad.

The seller got back to me and said there were bars inside for hanging clothes, but no shelves.  However, she said there were supports for shelves, so at one time it must have had shelves.

So.  No shelves.  $900.  I decided to put it out of my mind.  It wasn’t really right for me after all.

I sent an email back to the seller letting her know that it was just too far out of my price range with the cost of adding shelves on top of the $900.  I didn’t hear back right away and assumed that was that.

But then one Saturday morning I got an email from the seller saying she would take less and asking me to make an offer.  So I offered $600.  I really didn’t expect her to go for it.  And I thought for sure she’d counter with $750, which was still going to be too high for me.  Let’s be honest, even $600 is a lot for me to spend.  I was surprised when she emailed back and said “Great!  I’ll take $600 if you can come today.  We’ve just moved and we need to get it out of our garage.”

As luck would have it, Mr. Q had already left the house for the day with his truck.  But nnK (my neighbor Karen) said her dad, Larry, was coming over with his truck and he’d probably be game to let us use it to pick up the cupboard.  Shortly afterwards Larry showed up and instead of his truck he was driving his baby blue classic Oldsmobile.  Hmmmm, that wasn’t going to work!  Next nnK suggested we borrow Ken’s trailer.  We could hook it up to her SUV.  So we called Ken next, and he said ‘sure!’   So we hooked Ken’s trailer up to nnK’s SUV, and then Ken and Larry both decided to come along for the ride too, so the four of us headed out.

As nnK says, we must have looked like one of those Shriner clown cars when we got to our destination and all four of us piled out of the car!  The sellers did look a little surprised that I had brought the entire neighborhood with me.

I headed into the seller’s garage to check out the wardrobe.  It’s an interesting piece.  It’s made out of pine and looking closely I could see that at one point it was painted (there are still traces of paint in the grooves), but it had been stripped.  Pine pieces were typically painted, so that didn’t surprise me.  And it was good news to me because if I decide to paint it, I won’t feel guilty about painting over an original finish.

It has some really cool hardware inside including this gadget used to hold one door closed …

And a huge lock mechanism …

The husband of the woman I’d been emailing with asked if I wanted to know the story behind the piece, and of course I did!  He said he was from Texas and he purchased the wardrobe from an antique dealer in Texas who regularly travels to England, buys antique cupboards, ships them back to the U.S., refinishes and repairs them and then sells them.

I always hear stories like these and wonder how in the world it is possible to buy something in Europe, ship it back here, refurbish it and still make any sort of profit.  The guy didn’t tell me how much he paid for it, but I’m guessing it had to be a lot more than $600.

While listening to the seller’s story, I was also giving the piece a thorough inspection.  The back of the cupboard was obviously a replacement.  It’s made out of cheap particle board.  Or possibly this cupboard was originally a built in and never had a back, but instead just used the wall as its back.  I wasn’t convinced that the cupboard was as old as the ad said it was (late 17th, early 18th century), but it’s definitely an old piece.  I loved the simplicity of the design.  And the size was perfect for my space.  So after much scrutiny, I said “I’ll take it” and handed over the cash.

Next came the fun part.  Loading this monster into the trailer.  In the end it took 6 people!  The seller’s neighbor came over to help too.  Part of the problem was that there just wasn’t anything to grab onto to lift it off the ground.  We ended up putting cardboard under it and then sort of sliding it out of the garage.  Once we’d cleared that space we were able to tilt it backwards with three people on each side and then lift it up and into the trailer.

We strapped it down and headed out.  I wish I’d taken some photos.  The cupboard is huge and hung halfway out of the trailer.  We took back roads all the way home to avoid traffic and high speeds.  We made just one stop at the Dairy Queen.  I’d promised my helpers some ice cream for their efforts.

So for $600, plus the cost of two malts, one blizzard and one small cone, I am now the proud owner of this beautiful antique English pine cupboard.

 Now that I’ve got it home, Ken will work his magic on this inside and then I’ll work some magic on the outside … maybe … I still haven’t decided.

What do you think?  Should I paint it, or shouldn’t I?

the rest of the bed.

Published on by Quandie24 Comments

I showed you guys the full bedroom set that I purchased just to get the headboard for my master bedroom.

If you look just in front of the tall headboard you can see that the bed came with a foot board.  It also had side rails, but they aren’t pictured.

Since I modified the full size headboard to fit my queen size bed, I couldn’t use the side rails or the foot board, so I decided to re-purpose them.  I called Ken over for a consultation and explained that I wanted him to cut down one of the side rails and attach it to the foot board as a shelf.  Oh, and cut several inches off the legs.  Ken has gotten so used to me now that he doesn’t even question my crazy ideas anymore.  He just takes the pieces away to his workshop and a few days later brings them back completed.

And then I take it from there.

Initially I was going to paint this piece white.  I pulled out the packets of milk paint that Homestead House generously provided me with last winter to see what I had in white. I had Sturbridge White, a fairly bright white, and Champlain, which is more of an off white.  I also had a packet of Miss Mustard Seed’s Ironstone, also a bright white.  I knew I didn’t want bright white, so I chose the Champlain.

One thing you should know about the lighter colors of milk paint is that they sometimes will take on color from whatever is underneath them.  It’s not necessarily the same thing as when the stain bleeds through your paint because it’s more of an overall color not so much random spots of bleed thru.  This foot board had a very orange-ish colored stain on it.  That gave my Champlain a bit of a peachy look.  Ugh.  Not what I was going for at all.  So after two coats of Champlain, I switched gears and added a final coat of Homestead House milk paint in Stone Fence.

I love this color.  It’s a pale greige.  In hindsight this would have been the perfect color for something in my own bedroom!  It reminds me quite a bit of the Edgecomb Grey I used on my walls.

Once the paint was dry I sanded to distress, vacuumed away the dust, wiped it down with a clean cloth and then added an Iron Orchid Designs transfer.  I had to cut and paste the elements of the design to fit on the foot board, but that worked out perfectly.

I sanded over the transfer just lightly with 220 grit paper to take away a little bit of the shine.

Finally I applied some Dead Flat Finishing Cream from The Real Milk Paint Co.

A while back I tried the Low Sheen Finishing Cream from The Real Milk Paint Co and I loved it.  I wanted something just a bit more flat though, so I asked if they would be willing to send me a free sample of the Dead Flat in exchange for a review on my blog.  They were game and sent some out asap along with a brush for applying it.

The first thing that I really love about this product is how easy it is to apply.  It has the consistency of a thick body cream …

To apply I just dipped the end of my brush in the cream and then brushed it onto the surface.  You don’t have to work it in like wax, you don’t have to wipe away any excess like with hemp oil.  You just brush it on without over working it.  It dried quite quickly for me and I was careful not to over brush as it started to get tacky.

What I also love about this product is that there is very little smell.  I would definitely feel comfortable using this inside my house in the winter, which is an important quality for painters in Minnesota!  Furthermore this is a non-VOC product, it’s water based so you can clean your brush with soap and water, and after 24 hours drying time the finish itself is washable.  Also, you can paint back over the Dead Flat with milk paint as soon as the finish is dry.  That is not the case with wax or hemp oil.  That could be very handy if for some reason you need a do-over.  Say for example you realize that an IOD transfer looks terrible over dark green milk paint (been there, done that) and now you want to just start over.

I’d been looking for a finish to use over milk paint that is more durable than wax or hemp oil, but still has that matte look that I love and this one fits the bill perfectly.

I used an old galvanized tub full of Annabelle hydrangeas in my photos.

I’ve had this tub for years and I usually use it to hold shopping bags for my annual occasional sale.  Since I’m not having a sale this year, I decided I should dig it out and use it for something more decorative.  I filled it with flowers from the Annabelle hydrangea that is out back in my cutting garden.  This time of year the Annabelle’s turn really green, while the Limelights are starting to get a pink tinge.

Oh, and as for the other side rail from the bed, I turned it into a Farmers’ Market sign.  I painted it with the Homestead House Sturbridge White milk paint, stenciled it with Funky Junk’s Farmer’s Market stencil, sanded it lightly and then finished with the Dead Flat.

It would be perfect hanging above a sideboard in a dining room, don’t you think?

Since I don’t have an appropriate spot for either of these pieces in my own house, they are both for sale locally.  If interested, check out my ‘available for local sale’ page for more details.

 

the beamish.

Published on by Quandie17 Comments

I feel just a little sad to be bringing you the last post about our trip to Norway & Scotland.  I have really enjoyed reliving the trip while writing these Wednesday posts and I’m going to miss doing them.

Our last port of call was Newcastle upon Tyne, England.  I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but we didn’t actually dock right in Newcastle, we docked in a rather industrial area with not much at all to see right there at the port.  However, once again there was a locally provided shuttle service that would take you into Newcastle or several other locations (including the Beamish, if only I’d known).  But this port is where we took our one and only ship sponsored shore excursion, a trip to the Beamish.

If Disneyland and a traditional museum had a baby it would be the Beamish.  The Beamish is an open air museum that was founded by Dr. Frank Atkinson.  He was inspired after visiting some of the Scandinavian open air museums, like the one that we visited at our first port of call, Oslo (it’s as though we have come full circle!).  He wanted to preserve the history and culture of this more industrial part of England.

The Disneyland part comes in because first of all the place is quite large at 350 acres.  Second, it’s basically set up as a series of themed areas situated around a circular 1.5 mile road.  And finally, because you can ride on various vintage forms of public transportation to get around (much like on Disney’s Main Street).  The only thing that it’s missing is a boat ride with singing dolls, and of course The Mouse.

We decided to start off in the 1820’s section of the museum and so after entering we headed to the right towards St. Helen’s, a lovely medieval church that was saved from demolition when it was moved here.

I truly felt as if we were traipsing through the English countryside exploring incredibly charming out of the way places.  This is exactly the way I picture England in my imagination (probably a result of all of the Father Brown shows I watch).

Here is a view from inside the church.

After visiting the church, we made our way through the beautiful Georgian landscape up to Pockerly Old Hall.

As you can see, the place isn’t just buildings and functioning vintage transportation.  There are also plenty of animals like the horse above, and this comical guy who stared me down through the fence.

 Plus there are costumed characters demonstrating what it was like to live and work in each era, such as this woman doing a little baking in the manor house.

You could test taste the results too!

It started to rain a bit just as we got to Pockerly, but I braved the elements to snap some quick photos of the gorgeous terraced gardens.

Don’t forget, this was May so things were just sprouting in the kitchen garden.

Then we headed back inside the hall to get out of the rain and tour the fully furnished rooms.

I would love to get my hands on that dresser.  It needs a little milk paint and some new knobs.  It seems to be missing ‘just one.’

After touring the rest of the manor hall we decided that a little rain wasn’t going to hurt us, so we headed off through the ‘English countryside.’

We followed some pretty country lanes back to the main circular road which then led us to the 1900’s town.

There were a few more people in town than there were in the countryside, but there was also a lot more to explore.  All of the buildings are furnished appropriately for the period and you can walk through them.  Many of them also have costumed workers who can tell you more about the place.  There are so many buildings that I’m not going to take the time to list them all, but you can check out this link to the Beamish website to read more about them if you like.

The inside of the print shop was full of interesting bits.

Just check out the fabulous old cup pulls on the print cabinet.

Even though we never actually rode on any of the old street cars, it was fun to see them being used.

The rain had ended by the time we were done exploring the town, so instead of riding we opted to continue on foot.  Our next stop was the 1940’s farm.

This area focuses on life in England during WWII with rationing, land girls, and finding ways to ‘make do and mend’.

The final stop on our circuit was the 1900’s pit village.  I wasn’t really sure what exactly a ‘pit village’ was, so I looked it up on wikipedia …

A pit village, colliery village or mining village is settlement built by colliery owners to house their workers. The villages were built on the coalfields of Britain during the Industrial Revolution where new coal mines in isolated or unpopulated areas needed accommodation for the incoming workers.

I’ll admit I wasn’t terribly excited about seeing something called a ‘pit village’, but I ended up loving it.

Especially the miner’s cottages with their small gardens and cobbled together green houses.

I’d love to have one of these in my own backyard!

This area was so charming.

They really paid attention to the details with things like old quilts hanging on the laundry line …

and old posters pasted to the walls …

We really enjoyed our afternoon at the Beamish.  It was a little bittersweet knowing that it was our last port of call and our trip was coming to an end.

But honestly, 16 days of traveling was just about perfect for us.  We felt like we saw so many great places, but we were ready to head home and sleep in our own bed again.

Overall it was an amazing trip.  If you’ve been reading my posts and thinking that one day you’d like to take this cruise, well sadly Holland America doesn’t seem to be offering this exact itinerary next year.  They still have a cruise called the ‘Fjords & Highlands‘, but it only has one stop in Norway at Kristiansand, which if you’ll remember was my least favorite of the Norway ports.  Otherwise they have switched out all of the Norwegian ports for Ireland.  I’m puzzled as to why they are still calling it by that name because it doesn’t even seem to sail through any fjords.  Are there fjords in Ireland?

Anyway, this brings my Wednesday travel posts to an end.  I hope you enjoyed them!  I’m still not sure what I’m going to do with my Wednesdays after this, but I’m sure I’ll think of something.  You’ll just have to stay tuned to find out!

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the gold rush.

Published on by Quandie17 Comments

My sister picked me up bright and early this past Saturday and after a quick stop at the local cash machine we headed south on highway 52 towards the Oronoco Gold Rush.

Gold Rush is an antiques market that has been taking place since 1972 in the little town of Oronoco, just north of Rochester, MN.  Their website is pretty basic and doesn’t really provide much in the way of stats.  I’d love to know how many vendors they had, and what the estimated attendance was but I couldn’t find that info.

Let’s just say that on Saturday there were LOTS of people there.

And there were also LOTS of vendors.  I don’t think we made it to all of them.  It’s easy to get turned around and lose your way.  Did we go down that street?  Did we head up that hill?  We lost track after a while.

Update:  since originally posting I found an article with some numbers, 275 – 300 vendors and 20,000 shoppers per day.  Yep, like I said, lots!

There was a real mix of stuff at this event.  There were traditional antique dealers with things like glassware, military collectibles, and expensive furniture.  There were Scentsy vendors and Tastefully Simple vendors.  There were lots of vendors selling those welded metal lawn ornament type things.  There were vendors with food items, like fudge or those wine slushy mixes (yep, purchased some of each).

I’m always amazed by the vendors who have a whole lot of one kind of thing, like this one with a table full of vintage woodworking tools.

Or this guy who had all kinds of vintage, rutsy iron fence/railing thingies (do these things have a name?)

My sister bought a couple of them to use in her garden.  I have some already, and I use mine in my planters and window boxes.

This vendor had a whole bunch of gorgeous chandeliers.

There are a couple of booths that really stand out as show stoppers.  One is the booth by Checkpoint 19 Antiques.

Their stuff is just so incredibly cool.  It has a vintage science experiment sort of vibe.

You guys, I was so busy admiring the style of this next vignette that it didn’t even occur to me that I should check the price on that fab aqua metal box.  Dang!  I’m kicking myself now.

I just loved all of their adorable topiaries and I was so tempted to buy one of those.  But sadly, I have a bad track record with topiaries.  I consider myself to have a fairly green thumb too, but somehow proper topiary care eludes me and every one I’ve ever had has died within a year.

Another vendor that really stood out above the rest was Angry Minnow Vintage.  They create the most amazing upcycled flannel shirts.

I really loved the ones that had flared cuffs made out of vintage linens.  What an awesome idea, right?

Corrabelle Rose had a stunning booth full of pretties.

This was a great spot for getting your color fix.

Everything in this booth was just lavish!  There were luxurious piles of vintage florals.

This was the only booth where I saw any ironstone.

It was out of my price range though.  As were most of the things in this booth.

You know, I’m really just a garage sale girl at heart.  I tend to look at a lot of these things and think to myself I bet I can find that at a garage sale for a couple of dollars.

The gals from Vintage Junkies and Sparrow Antiques were much more my speed.

They really had a knack for display.  Both my sister and I made some purchases at their booth.  I came home with a great grain sack pillow, and Debbie got some dish towels and some vintage cookie cutters.

By about 1:30 in the afternoon we were getting pretty hot, our feel were killing us, Debbie was out of cash and our cart had gotten really heavy (we brought a ‘granny cart’ for our haul), so we decided to call it good.

On the way home we made time to stop off in Zumbrota to see the covered bridge.

The day could not have been any more beautiful with that blue sky filled with white fluffy clouds.

And here is the modest pile of goodies that we came home with.

Nothing too earth shattering.  My sister is going to plant a fairy garden in the radio flyer wagon next year.  I’ll add the vintage tablecloth to my non-collection (because remember, I don’t collect stuff).  Even though we didn’t buy a ton of stuff and a lot of things were way out of our price range, we’re still looking forward to going back next year!  Any you never know, maybe next year we’ll get to visit a Miss Mustard Seed booth at Oronoco, after all it’s practically in her backyard now, right?  Fingers crossed!

the garden club.

Published on by Quandie21 Comments

I mentioned a while back that my neighbor across the street, nnK, won the Acorn Award this year.  The Acorn Award is our city’s award for landscaping that goes ‘above and beyond’ normal standards.  After nnK won the award, the garden club contacted her and asked if they could plan a time to tour her garden (I shared nnK’s pond garden here).  They also asked if they could tour my garden while they were in the neighborhood.

Unfortunately the date they had available for a visit was this past Monday which was definitely not the best time to visit my gardens.  I’ve mentioned in the past that I usually throw in the towel on gardening by mid-August.  The weeds begin to take over, I’ve usually got a fair amount of Asian beetle damage by now, and inevitably I have some (or in the case of this year, lots of) hail damage.  The Ostrich ferns start to die back in August and the prettiest perennials, such as the peonies and lilacs, are long past blooming.

But mid-August was what worked for the garden club schedule, so I made a little last ditch effort to spruce things up a bit for their visit.

The fact that the hydrangeas are blooming helped quite a bit.

And the annuals in my planters added a bit of color.

I planted New Guinea impatiens and fuchsias in my front window box this year and they are going gang busters.  I’ll plant them again next year.

I think the fairy garden was a big hit.

If you haven’t seen it before, my fairy garden is planted in an old concrete bird bath that is cracked so it won’t hold water anymore.  That makes it perfect for planting because it allows for drainage.

My bright green/yellow lamium has finally taken off after a very slow start this spring and luckily my concrete rabbit doesn’t eat much (you can see some of that hail damage on the hosta on the upper left side of the photo).

I love this stuff for adding a bright spot in a shady garden.

My statue, Cossetta, was a garage sale find.  I think some of the garden club members found her tiara amusing.

But hey, what girl doesn’t want to wear a tiara now and then?

Even though the Ostrich ferns in my fern garden were mostly brown, the Japanese painted ferns still look good.

As did the Maiden Hair ferns.

I feel like the summer is just slipping away from me again this year.  Fall is right around the corner, and this is probably the garden’s last hurrah so it was fun to share it with both the garden club and you guys.

My sister and I are off to Oronoco Gold Rush bright and early tomorrow morning.  Hopefully we’ll find some fun vintage goodies that I can share with you next week.  Fingers crossed!