happy halloween.

Published on by Quandie14 Comments

happy-halloween

This year I’ll be observing Halloween in my favorite way;  staying home, wearing comfy fleece, and watching Hitchcock’s The Birds.  I would love to say that I’ll also be handing out candy to darling little kids in costumes when they come to my door, but historically we only get two or three ‘trick or treaters’ at our house.

But meanwhile I thought I would share a quick chair makeover with you.  The legs of this chair were sticking up out of my car with that haul of stuff I showed you last week.  Here’s how it looked when I pulled it out of the car.

halloween-chair-before

I needed another chair to keep in my home office a.k.a. the Q Branch so that when my sister comes over she has somewhere to sit if we’re surfing the web.

Although it was gloomy and grey this past weekend, the temperature on Saturday morning was in the low 50’s.  It felt plenty warm enough outside to paint, at least for a tough Minnesotan like me 😉

I know that some paints require a minimum temperature of 60 or so, but not milk paint.  I checked with the Homestead House people and they said that I can apply milk paint in temps right down to freezing.  It will work perfectly well, but may take just a tad longer to dry in colder temps.  How handy in my climate!

So I headed out into the carriage house and painted three coats of a mix of Miss Mustard Seed whites (Linen, Ironstone and Grain Sack) on the chair.  As is the case on most pieces I paint for myself, I would have been thrilled with tons of chippy-ness but that didn’t quite happen.

white-chair

I hope that it will wear more with use over time.  Fingers crossed.

I had a little paint left over while working on this project, so I pulled out a step stool that I picked up at another garage sale this summer.  This is the only ‘before’ photo I could find.

stool-before

  It was already painted white but was a chippy mess.  Especially on the top, I’d say about 80% of the paint was missing from the top.  If you look closely you can also see that the paint was totally peeling away underneath.  One of my tricks with pieces like this is to scrape off the peeling paint, give it a good sanding and then just add a fresh coat or two of milk paint on top of the existing paint.  I don’t fully paint it, I try to leave the wear on the edges alone.  But the fresh white paint gives it a cleaner look.  Shabby rather than grungy.

painted-stool

The stencil just adds that little extra something.

I thought it would be fun to throw in my Happy Halloween pillow and share these pieces with you today.  I don’t intend to keep the chair and the stool together as a pair, but they would work well together, wouldn’t they?

happy-halloween

I snagged the pillow from the $1 aisle at Target (although it cost $3).  It was the last one they had at my store when I grabbed it several weeks ago.  I am betting they went really fast at that price.

happy-halloween-pillow

So, how do you like to spend Halloween?  Painting with milk paint outdoors?  Out prowling the streets with the kiddos?  Living it up at a costume party?  Or like me, warm and cozy at home with some hot apple cider and a classic horror film?

getting creative.

Published on by Quandie16 Comments

You might think that you’re about to read a blog post about some fun and creative project.  But no, I’m actually going to tell you about my window repair which wasn’t much fun but we did have to get a little creative in the end.

Remember way back to the summer of 2015 when I told you that I was making over my dining room?  Yeah, it’s still not quite done.  It’s almost done, but not quite.  One of the big hold ups was the windows.

As a reminder here is how they looked before …

window-before

They don’t look so bad in this photo, but if you look closer you can see that trim needs new paint and the window on the right doesn’t have a screen.

I’ve mentioned before that my dining room was an addition built by the previous owner of my home.  The windows are a bit wonky.  They are sort of just cobbled into place and aren’t centered between the two 6″ x 6″ posts that are on either side.  Over time the storm/screen combos and the outside trim boards had started to rot.  Then this spring a bird decided that pecking away at those soft spots was a super fun hobby.  He pecked huge holes in a couple of the trim boards (sorry, I didn’t get a photo of that).  In addition that right side storm/screen had completely fallen apart.  At that point we knew we had to stop procrastinating and deal with the problem.  Plus re-doing these windows entirely, centering them and maybe even eliminating that big trim piece down the center would be a nice improvement so why not just get ‘er done.

In early summer we ‘hired’ (it was just a verbal agreement) a handyman who’d done some work for us before to replace the windows.  He had a busy summer though and thus forgot all about our small window job.  About mid-August I started to panic when I realized he wasn’t going to get to us and we needed another solution.  So we called Renewal by Andersen.

Now before I go further, full disclosure, Mr. Q worked for Andersen Corp. for almost 30 years.  We have been fully brainwashed to believe they are the best windows on the planet.  They also aren’t cheap.  We expected that.  However, when the quote to replace two windows came in at over $6,400 dollars I believe I snorted coffee out through my nose.

Let’s see … new windows or a trip to Belgium next year?  Which is it going to be? That’s a no-brainer, right?

We could have kept shopping around for a cheaper solution, but any way you cut it, replacing custom sized windows and re-building the cobbled together framing was not going to be cheap.

If you’ve read my blog for very long, I’m wondering if you can already guess who came to our rescue.  Ken!  Of course!  With his Ken-do attitude.

Since the windows themselves were still fully functional, it was really just the trim and screens that needed work.  Ken got busy and re-built screens to fit our windows.  He used parts of the existing screen framing and added new pieces where necessary.  Then he replaced the rotted exterior trim with new boards and I painted them to match the existing trim.

windows-exterior

Of course, the repairs that Ken did aren’t going to improve our r-value like new Andersen windows would have (although he did add some new insulation to the surrounding framing).  But I did the math, I estimated that it would have taken well over 30 years to save enough money on our heating bill to pay for those $6,400 windows!

In the Q household a trip to Belgium trumps high quality windows every time and unfortunately we can’t afford both.  When Mr. Q and I are sitting in the old folks home reflecting back on our life are we going to regret not spending money on quality windows?  Or are we going to remember how much we enjoyed that trip?

Once the repair work was done, I could focus on the last step, paint.  If you check back to that ‘before’ photo above, the inside trim was painted in a gold-ish color.  As part of my campaign to make my dining room seem lighter, I repainted the trim white.

white-window

And by the way, I used one of Fusion’s new colors called Raw Silk (the same color I used on the pumpkin I posted on Monday).  This is the first time I’ve used Fusion paint on trim work.  It occurred to me that it was the perfect product for the job.  Once cured it should be waterproof.

You see, I’m planning a little winter window garden for this spot so ‘waterproof’ would be a good thing.  I found this amazing giant wood tool box at a sale this summer.

winter-window-garden-2

 I stenciled it with a french garden stencil and I’ve added some re-potted white geraniums and some lavender plants that I want to over-winter.

winter-window-garden

Whether or not these plants will do well over the winter is yet to be seen, but I figured it was worth a shot.  This window faces south and gets great light.

Although I put everything in the window for my photos, I then took it all back out again.  I want to give the Fusion paint that chance to cure before adding heavy items.  I’ll put everything back in a couple of weeks.  But just to give you an idea of how it will look …

dining-room-window

What’s left in the dining room?  Stripping wallpaper on either side of the window (yep, that’s wallpaper on those walls), painting those white, and then coming up with something amazing for the opposite wall.  I’m still working on that plan.  It may take another year, we’ll see.

But in the meantime, which would you pick?  Fancy new windows or a trip to Belgium?  Who’s with me on that one?

 

 

industrial meets farmhouse.

Published on by Quandie19 Comments

A while back I was headed home on my lunch hour (I live very close to my day job office) and I happened to see a garage sale sign.  Cue squealing brake noise.

I remembered having stopped at a sale on the same street a year or so ago, and if this was the same house they had some great stuff!

Sure enough, it was.  And once again, they had some great stuff.

I came home with a carload of fabulous finds.  I shared this photo on my Facebook page at the time.  Lucky I drive a convertible!

car

One of the items I picked up at that sale was this metal base (that’s it in the front passenger seat too).

metal-base-before

I think this was probably the base to an old typewriter stand.  It likely had a wood top with drop leaves on either side.  I was really drawn to the chippy paint and to these cool industrial looking wheels.

metal-base-wheel

I knew Ken would make short work out of cutting a new top for it out of some scrap barn wood that I had lying around.

barnwood

Sure enough, I came home from work on Monday to find the finished product waiting for me in the carriage house.

I only had to do one more thing.  The newly cut raw edges of the barn wood looked pretty fresh.

barnwood-raw-edge

We can’t have that!  So I rubbed some antiquing wax into those fresh cuts to ‘dirty’ them up a bit.

barnwood-edges-with-wax

So shabby industrial metal base meets farmhouse salvaged barn wood.

industrial-meets-farmhouse

I’m showing this little stand used as a small side table, but I also think it would make a great plant stand.  I’m also thinking about using it at Christmas as a tree stand.  I could put a small tabletop sized tree on it.

industrial-meets-farmhouse-title

What do you think?

white is the new orange.

Published on by Quandie9 Comments

Forget about ‘orange is the new black’, this year white is the new orange.  Well, I suppose it’s been coming for a while, not just this year.  But these days it’s all about the white pumpkin.  Or perhaps the heirloom pumpkin in shades of grey or blue.

I hesitated about jumping on the pumpkin bandwagon this month, but then I saw this paper mache pumpkin at Target in the $1 aisle (although technically I think it cost $3).

pumpkin-before-paper

It made me think of my painted hatboxes, so I decided to try the same technique on it.

I first painted the pumpkin with two coats of Fusion paint in one of their new colors, Raw Silk.  Then I used Fusion’s transfer gel and added a Paris Opera graphic.

pumpkin-after

You can see that I didn’t get a perfect transfer of my graphic, but I’m OK with that.  It just makes it look a little tattered which is a good thing in my book.  I finished my pumpkin off with a little raffia tied around the stem.

It’s a not-so-traditional fall decoration that is perfect for me.

For now I’ve added it to my doll bed centerpiece along with a ‘hello fall’ banner and my whisk brooms in cages.

pumpkin-centerpiece

It adds just the right seasonal touch to my dining room table.

a small cupboard.

Published on by Quandie25 Comments

I picked up this little cupboard at the St. Anthony Park garage sales a month or so ago.

cupboard-before

I knew it could be so much better with just a few tweaks.

I had checked before I purchased it to be sure that it would be easy to get that wood inset in the door out of there.  I looked at the back of the door and saw that there were two stops holding in place.  In case you don’t know what that means, this is a ‘stop’ …

door-stop

It’s a narrow piece of wood, usually nailed in place, that holds the glass in place … or in this case the wood inset.  It was easy to pry that out and then remove that inset.

stop-removed

Be sure to go slowly and pry gently if you are planning to re-use a stop, they are really easy to break (I’m speaking from experience on that one).

cupboard-1

You are probably thinking that I removed the wood so that I could replace it with glass, or I could have gone with my favorite trick, grain sack material.  But no, this time I wanted to use old screening.  I just happened to have some!

screening

Yep, I paid a quarter for it at a garage sale!

I cut it to fit and used my stapler to tack it in place.  Then I replaced the shiny brass door handle with this rusty, crusty one full of delicious patina.

cupboard-handle

And finally, I lined the back of the inside with the pages from an old Swedish bible.

cupboard-inside

I ended up going with ironstone inside …

cupboard-with-ironstone

But I also tried vintage cameras …

cupboard-of-cameras

And old clocks …

cupboard-of-clocks

But the ironstone was definitely what did it for me.

cupboard-with-ironstone-2

 How about you?

jackson’s cow fields.

Published on by Quandie15 Comments

Every now and then Mr. Q tells the story about the time he and his friend Jimmy set Jackson’s cow fields on fire.  Mr. Q was … well … let’s just say he was a bit of a rebel in his youth and leave it at that.

jackson-meadow-title-1280x853

That spring he and Jimmy fashioned a ‘polish cannon’ out of Coke cans and made a practice of setting it off out in the cow fields behind Mr. Q’s childhood home in Marine on the St Croix.

Those fields were pretty dry in spring.  It was probably not the best plan to be playing with fire out there.  I’m not even sure I should share the part where the cans were overfilled with lighter fluid and Mr. Q dropped a match in them and swung them around shouting “hey look, it’s a flame thrower!”

Remember, I already admitted he was a bit of a rebel.

jackson-meadow-3

Once they realized they had set the field on fire, panic must have set in.  They tried to put it out themselves but eventually realized that wasn’t going to happen and they had to call the fire department.  This was absolutely a last resort because you see, Mr. Q’s dad was the Fire Chief and Jimmy’s dad was the Assistant Fire Chief.  Mr. Q was just hoping that his dad was still at his day job (the fire department was all volunteer) and that someone else would show up.  But no, the fire truck rolled up with both of their fathers riding up front.

The fire was put out and Mr. Q says that several weeks later the fresh new green growth was just lovely.

Back in those days Jackson’s cow fields were just that, cow pasture, but today they are Jackson Meadow.

jackson-meadow-4

You can read more about Jackson Meadow on their website.  Basically it’s a housing development based on the cluster-housing model.  Over 70% of the land is preserved as open space.  The houses themselves have a very Scandinavian feel, an homage to the early Swedish immigrants who settled in Marine.

jackson-meadow-6

Last Saturday Debbie and I decided to take a scenic fall drive up to Marine for lunch at the Brookside.  After lunch we headed up the hill and noticed a sign for a neighborhood garage sale at Jackson Meadow!  I’d always wanted an excuse to snoop around in there without looking obvious.

jackson-meadow-7

 Have you noticed something about Jackson Meadow?  All of the houses are white with galvanized metal roofs.  Their website states that you are not allowed to paint your house any other color than white, and I suspect that there is a huge long list of other requirements for buildings here as well.  Their website also mentions that only “native trees, shrubs and herbaceous plantings” are allowed.  So you can just forget about that Limelight hydrangea if you live here.

I’m not sure how I feel about that.  I definitely think that there is a kind of beauty in the austere buildings set into a natural landscape.  But it also kind of gives me the heebie jeebies.  That feeling of everything is beautiful on the outside, but controlled with an iron fist just beneath the surface.  You can live here, but only if you fit into their very narrow definition of what is acceptable.

It doesn’t help that the last time we were visiting old friends from Marine they mentioned that Jackson’s cow fields were always haunted.  Debbie and I had heard rumors of ghostly goings on in Jackson Meadow, so it was interesting to hear that these stories pre-date the Jackson Meadow development.

Maybe the fact that my sister and I stopped off at the cemetery next was really what left us in a spooky mood.

cemetery-1

Not only is it a very picturesque cemetery, but I was betting my sister that they’d have a porta-pottie there and fortunately I was right.  That glass of wine I had with lunch had caught up with me.  Debbie scoffed when I first suggested it, “they don’t have porta-potties in cemeteries!”, oh yes they do!

This particular cemetery has some really cool old headstones too.  It looks like poor Sophrona was only 28 when she died.

cemetery-2

After leaving the cemetery, we headed out of town the back way just to admire this stretch of road which is always gorgeous this time of year

back-road

By the way, I hope the residents of Jackson Meadow don’t take offense if they see this blog post.  They were all exceptionally friendly and welcoming.  I even came away from their garage sales with this fab vintage find …

vintage-suitcase

But I do wonder if they ever see the ghost of Sophrona wandering around in those fields on spooky misty evenings, don’t you?

the midnight buffet.

Published on by Quandie35 Comments

Have you ever been on a cruise?  I’ve been on a few, but I rarely manage to make it to the midnight buffet.  I’m usually still full from dinner.  We’ve gone a few times just to look at the carved melons or chocolate sculptures.

But today I’m talking about a different kind of midnight buffet, this is a Midnight Blue buffet.

midnight-blue-title

Here is where it started out.

buffet-before

I was rather undecided about those carved medallions.  Please share your opinion on those with me.  Are they hideous?  Or would they have been kind of fab painted?  Would you keep them, or take them off?  I really wasn’t sure.  So I decided to see how hard it would be to remove them.  As it turned out, not hard at all.  So I took that as a sign and off they came.

They left some glue behind though.  And although I tried my best to sand that off without ruining the veneer, I wasn’t totally successful.  If you look at this piece from just the right angle you can see the splotches.

But I moved on and painted the whole piece in one of Fusion’s new colors, Midnight Blue.

blue-buffet-half

It is the perfect navy blue.  I’m so glad they came out with this color.  I have several chairs that I want to paint in this hue too.

blue-buffet-full

I only used one coat of paint on this buffet.  I was going for a distressed look.  If I’d wanted really solid coverage I would have added a second coat.  I did sand the edges for that distressed look.

blue-buffet-angle

I swapped out the original drawer pulls on this piece for some grey knobs that I picked up at World Market.  I think they help give it a slightly updated look.

The top drawer of the buffet has a clever little tray inside for silverware (or whisk brooms).  I replaced the green felt liner with some navy blue fabric that I had on hand instead.

blue-buffet-silverware-tray

Have I ever mentioned that I have a stash of old whisk brooms?  It may seem strange, but I once saw a wreath made out of them.  So I started grabbing them whenever I saw them at garage sales and I think I may finally have enough for a wreath, but now I’m no longer so sure I want one.  The story of my life.

whisk-brooms

I particularly love blue handle on this one though.

blue-whisk-broom

I have a small confession to make.  Those leaves didn’t just gracefully fall on my buffet for the photos.  I raked up a pile under my maple tree and then sort of scattered them about over the buffet.  It was really kind of fun playing with fallen leaves.

whisk-brooms-in-cages

If you happen to be in the mood for a little midnight buffet, this one is for sale.  Check my ‘available for local sale’ tab for updated info.

fall colors.

Published on by Quandie7 Comments

fall-colors-title

I took a much needed vacation day from the day job today to rest up after my sale.  I told Mr. Q that my plan was to just do whatever I felt like.  And apparently what I felt like doing was strolling around the garden taking photos to share with you guys.

fall-wheelbarrow-and-mum

Fall is such a lovely time in the garden.  Even though things are starting to die back (we’ve had two nights of temps right around freezing this week), the fall colors are just so vibrant.  My Tiger Eye sumac is looking particularly colorful these days.

fall-color

I went a little ‘old school’ this year on my window boxes.  I found large-ish potted mums at Cub Foods (a local grocery store chain) for $3.33 each.  I wanted to use some in my ‘hello fall’ tool boxes …

hello-fall-toolbox-blog

and they were so affordable that I went a little crazy and purchased a dozen of them.

So all of my planters got some mums for fall.

fall-boiler-planter

With the addition of a little ornamental kale, some cut hydrangea flowers …

fall-kale-and-hydrangea

and maybe a ‘hello fall’ plate, they look pretty fab for $3.33.

fall-boiler-planter-2

In some cases I left a few of my summer annuals behind because I couldn’t bear to pull them out just yet.

fall-mums

The front window box got its share of mums also.  I’m realizing now that the red and white combo almost looks a little more Christmas-y rather than fall-like.  Lots of the annuals in the front window box are still going strong despite the cold weather including the Jester’s Crown ferns, the variegated ivy and the euphorbia.

fall-front-window-box

The spot where I now have the mums was filled with a gorgeous pink and white caladium for the summer, but caladium can’t handle even the slightest cold weather.  As soon as the temps went below about 50 they started drooping and I had to pull them out.

The baby tears that I planted in this little teacup are still doing well though, I may have to bring this in for the winter because it just looks so sweet.

fall-fairy-mailbox

I bought that little fairy mailbox at a cute little shop in the Linden Hills neighborhood.

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing a few fall colors here today.  Usually the fall colors peak right about now here in the Twin Cities, but I feel like they aren’t quite there yet today.  Any day now though.

fall-house

This weekend I’ll be working on a lovely sideboard and maybe a few other small projects, so be sure to check back next week.

vintage grater photo holders.

Published on by Quandie15 Comments

vintage-grater-title

Over the course of the summer I happened upon five different vintage hand held graters at garage sales.  I love the patina on these old graters, so I thought it would be fun to turn them into something decorative.

graters-2

I started by adding some Tim Holtz rub-ons.  If you aren’t familiar with those, you can usually find them at Hobby Lobby or Michaels (or other craft stores near you perhaps?) or just google them because I’m sure you can also find them online.

grater-rub-on

I just added random words, numbers and graphics to each one …

graters-3

and then clipped on an old photo.

vintage-graters-2

I feel fairly certain that these people ended up having a wonderful life, don’t you think?

wonderful-life

I hung them above one of the chippy windows at my sale last weekend.

graters-at-sale

And they all flew out the door!

They were a fun and easy project, so the next time you see an old grater at a garage sale keep this idea in mind!

thank you.

Published on by Quandie24 Comments

A huge thank you to everyone who came out for the Carriage House Sale!

thank-you

After a chilly and slightly cloudy start, we ended up having a beautiful sunny fall sale day.

It was one of our best sales ever in fact!

The bake goods were not as big of a hit as we had hoped however.  In the end, almost all of them sold but they had a slow start.  It helped that a friend stopped by and purchased all of the rice krispie bars for a pot luck he was headed to next (thanks Jay!)

sale-baked-goods

After doing the math, the profit that my sister and niece made was hardly worth all of the time they put into these.  They haven’t decided for sure, but it’s likely we won’t offer baked goods again in the future.

I remembered to get a few photos during the set up to share with those of you who couldn’t be here.  OK, ‘a few’ isn’t really accurate.  I took A LOT of photos.  So I’m just going to share my favorites with limited commentary and hope I’m not completely boring you in the process.

Here’s ‘bay no. 1’ …

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sale-3

sale-4

sale-5

sale-1

On the other side of the Carriage House, in ‘Bay no. 2’ we had a little more color.

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The blue suitcases are all gone.

blue-suitcases

Vintage trucks were a hot commodity.  I had 4 of them and they all sold, along with all of the old books.

sale-7

I think the cold weather helped bring out the Christmas spirit.  Much of our holiday stuff sold.

sale-8

I still have the typewriter even though it was priced to sell at $18.  Perhaps a typewriter isn’t typically thought of as a Christmas decoration, but wouldn’t it be darling sitting on your sideboard with a typed note to Santa?  If anyone local is in the market for a brick red vintage typewriter, leave me a comment.

Pink however was not on the radar this time around.  Although the pink vanity itself sold, most of the pretty china on it did not sell.  I’m beginning to realize that I might be the only person left who can’t help being drawn to pretty floral china.

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We had some outdoor vignettes set up as well.

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Several people took advantage of the opportunity to stock up on ‘horrible hemlock’ and ‘witches potions’ …

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I have a few hundred more photos, but I have to stop now before you all fall asleep on me.

But before I let you go, I want to send out a huge thank you to all of my ‘staff’.  I couldn’t pull this off without Sue, Cathy, Brian, Debbie, Kris, nnK, Judy and of course Mr. Q!  And behind the scenes, my handyman Ken who refuses to make an appearance at the sale itself for fear he’ll be recognized and mobbed by his fan club 😉