q is for quandie

garden quickies.

Published on June 30, 2014June 29, 2014 by Quandie3 Comments

You really can’t be impatient when it comes to gardening. In general, I am mostly an instant gratification sort of gal. I want results, and I want them quickly. I love a quickie makeover.

But gardening generally doesn’t work that way. Peonies are a good example of this. If you move them, it can take up to 3 years for them to bloom again! And you know the old adage about perennials, the first year they sleep, the 2nd year they creep, the 3rd year they leap! In other words, it takes a good 3 years for perennials to fill in.

(note: Natalie, as you can see I still have this box, it’s yours if you want it, just email me)

But just because the plants move at their own pace, doesn’t mean we can’t come up with some fun and quick garden themed projects.

First up: Remember the little chalkboard I purchased at my ‘breakfast meeting‘? I’ve given it a new quote, and added it to a crate of vintage garden supplies.

Here is my tip for writing on a chalkboard, especially if you don’t love your own handwriting. Print your design on a piece of paper first, rub chalk all over the back of the paper. Place the paper on your chalkboard and trace the design using a pencil. Then just fill in with chalk. I used a chalk pencil for this one to get the fine lines. Sometimes I use chalk pen also, but I rarely use regular chalk.

Next up: Remember the buckets I also purchased at the ‘breakfast meeting’? A couple of stencils, some black paint and 30 minutes gave me this.

There are many potential uses for these. Add a pot of geraniums or other blooming annuals. Use in your bathroom as a trash can. Stash your cleaning rags inside and store in the pantry. Use to tote your gardening tools around the yard.

The possibilities are endless for a fab stenciled bucket.

Finally, one last quickie project. I purchased a tiny vine that was originally intended for the fairy garden, but in the end there was no room. So I decided to pot it up on its own.

I felt like the clay pot wasn’t really ‘me’ though, so I gave it a paint job. One quick coat of Annie Sloan’s Old White was all it took.

Over time the vine will fill in and this will be a sweet little windowsill garden.

So, take an hour or so on a sunny summer morning while you are waiting for those perennials to fill in and complete your own quick garden project!

big city anniversary.

Published on June 28, 2014June 26, 2014 by Quandie3 Comments

Mr. Q and I celebrated our 25th anniversary in the big city, a.k.a. Minneapolis.

We started our day with coffee and freshly baked cinnamon rolls on the deck. It was a perfectly gorgeous day.

The next stop was a wedding in the park. Have I mentioned that Mr Q is a wedding officiant? I’m sure I have. Anyway, he had a wedding to perform on our anniversary at Minnehaha Falls at high noon.

Perhaps some would have found this the perfect chance to renew our own vows on our 25th anniversary. However, we had already taken the opportunity to renew our vows earlier in the week when our neighbor friend Brooke, age 9, offered to marry us. This was shortly after Mr. Q performed a wedding for Brooke and her balloon animal monkey. It was a lovely ceremony.

I always enjoy visiting the falls, so I wandered around and took photos while Mr. Q took care of business.

If you are local, you know that we’ve had a lot of rain and Minnehaha Creek is overflowing its bed.

Perhaps you also heard about the dude who decided to kayak over the falls recently. Having seen the falls up close and personal, I can confirm that he must be completely cray-cray.

This would have been his view as he started to head over.

Seriously folks. Google it to see video proof. He came out with nothing worse than a bloody nose.

Not only have the falls been in the news with the lunatic kayaker, in addition President Obama visited this week. They were prepping for his visit while we were there. I’m pretty sure he didn’t kayak over the falls though.

After Mr. Q’s wedding was over, we headed into the city proper to have lunch at Hell’s Kitchen, perhaps an ironic choice for an anniversary.

We had the Purgatory Punch, a combination of pinot grigio, lemonade, blueberry and mint infused simply syrup. Sounds iffy, but tastes delicious. After a lovely lunch, we headed back home to the burbs and took a nap. Hey, we were exhausted!

I have to say, our big city anniversary was a great success. It wasn’t the trip to Paris that I had always assumed we’d take for our 25th, but who needs Paris when you have Minneapolis?

breakfast meetings.

Published on June 27, 2014June 26, 2014 by Quandie9 Comments

I’ve mentioned before that Sue and I work together, and occasionally we get called away to important breakfast meetings. These mostly take place on Thursdays or Fridays in the summer, in other words, garage sale season.

We had one of these meetings this week. It’s an annual sort of thing. A small block sale just a mile or two from our office that we watch for every year. We know what their signs look like, and Sue and I both drive right past the corner where they usually place one on our way in. As soon as we got in to work, we both agreed it was time for an important breakfast meeting.

One of the gals who participates in this block sale is an antiques dealer who is slowly selling off her inventory and getting out of the biz. Her prices are always phenomenal and I manage to find lots of awesome stuff.

Wouldn’t this red and green tin be great at Christmas time? It would make an awesome gift filled with cookies and bars. And how much do you love that toy beater with its tiny red handle? One could tie that on with twine to complete the gift.

The chair they are sitting on will be getting a chippy paint job for sure.

These old tennis rackets have the most fabulous patina. For now I plan to keep them as potential future furniture photo shoot props. If they don’t work out for that, they will likely make their way into my next sale. They would be awesome hung on a wall.

I nabbed a pile of old buckets. I love stenciling on these. Some of these will get “French Market”, and some will probably get numbers.

I also picked up some vintage ornaments to add to my collection. You can’t really tell the scale from this photo, but the smaller round ornaments are about the size of marbles. They will be great near the top of my tabletop trees.

And isn’t this “how to speak French” hankie cute? I wish I was going to Paris, how fun to take this handy hankie along for quick and easy translation. It would also be great tucked into a basket with a Paris guide book and maybe some French wine to create a fantastic bon voyage gift, if I knew someone going to France.

I did bring home a few more things that didn’t manage to make their way into the photos. All in all, it was a very successful breakfast meeting!

bluebirds of happiness.

Published on June 25, 2014June 24, 2014 by Quandie7 Comments

Clearing out the summerhouse to make way for a furniture photo studio means getting rid of most of the things I had out there. The cane back sofa sold really quickly on craigslist. The wicker chair was quick to go at my Carriage House sale. But I also had a lot of vintage china out there. I cleaned up most of it and attempted to sell it at my sale, but not much of it sold. Sue is considering holding a shabby chic china sale at her house this summer, but if it still doesn’t sell, I may try to find one of those wedding rental companies that rents out china and see if they need platters. But, in the meantime, I want to hang on to my favorite pieces which are all the ones with a bird theme.

Bluebird china was manufactured by over 50 different companies in the late 1800’s to the mid-1900’s. It was generally used for everyday. How lovely it would be to have an entire set of dinner plates to eat from! But most of what I have is in pretty rough shape. Not something that I’d actually want to use. It’s pretty to look at though.

Not all of my bird china features blue birds though. These pieces have pretty green lovebirds.

This bluebird is tucked in amongst the flowers.

And this one has the most delicate ghost of a landscape behind him.

And here is another sweet pair of lovebirds.

Since I couldn’t bring myself to part with these, I decided to make room for them in the pantry. This dovetails nicely with two new decorating rules that I devised for myself after visiting Sue’s house. Now, I made up these rules for myself. In no way am I suggesting that you should follow them too. You have to make your own rules.

Rule no. 1 – Keep black and white areas separate from colorful areas.

I need this rule because I have a split personality when it comes to decorating. I love cheery, colorful, cottage, vintage farmhouse. But, I also love white/grey colorless French Nordic. The problem is, I can’t seem to pick a side and stick with it, and I don’t think the two work together in the same space.

So, in keeping with this rule, the pantry is now firmly in the colorful vintage farmhouse camp and includes my bluebird china.

Rule no. 2 – Keep collections together and display en masse.

Instead of splitting my chintzware between the summerhouse and the front porch, I now have all of it in the hutch on the porch.

I think both of these areas look more unified now. And the color and patterns make me happy.

Which is not to say I don’t still love the black and white stuff. Next on my list, choosing a spot to devote to these …

Mr. Q

Published on June 24, 2014June 23, 2014 by Quandie33 Comments

Today Mr Q and I are celebrating our 25^th wedding anniversary! Holy mackerel. Right? Where did the time go? Look at us, omg, we look so young and thin!

Mr. Q and I have been through a lot together in 25 years. But I thought that today I would tell you the story of how very close we came to not having these 25 years together. You see, about five months before our wedding, I got that phone call. You know the one. The one you hope that you never, ever get. In the movies, it always comes in the middle of the night or something, but in real life, it comes when you are least expecting it and in the middle of something mundane. In my case, I was at work. The phone rang and it was someone calling from the hospital. My fiance had been in an accident. I should come right away. And I should let someone else drive. That’s all they would tell me. I asked, ‘is he OK?’ … the answer, ‘just come’.

So, my friend Sue drove me to the hospital. When we got there and I told the ER staff who I was, they said “oh, come this way, we have a nice quiet room where you can wait for someone to come for you.” What? A special room? A nice, quiet, special room? A room where they can break the bad news and you won’t freak out all the other patients? Of course, this is what was going through my head, and it wasn’t all that far off.

You see, Mr. Q had been driving home from work, and he was hit by a Mack truck. OK, maybe it wasn’t literally a Mack truck, but it was a large semi-truck. He had a severe head injury and was in a coma. There were really no answers to any of my questions. Will he be OK? No one knows. Will he ever be the same? No one knows. How long will the coma last? No one knows. It was a very scary time for me. Twenty-five years later and I still can’t even write about it without tearing up. Thank goodness for our friends. We have many friends, and every single one of them was invaluable to me during that time. I am still grateful to this day for all they did for me.

In the end, Mr. Q was in a coma for eight of the longest days of my entire life. Once he came out of the coma, he remained hospitalized for many more weeks while he relearned how to speak, eat and walk. As time went by, some people suggested I should delay our approaching wedding, but I refused. I knew I wanted to marry this man and I didn’t want to wait.

Twenty five years later, I know I made the right decision. It definitely hasn’t always been easy, but it has totally been worth it.

I love this man with all of my heart and don’t even want to imagine a life without him. I hope that he has inherited the longevity gene from his mother’s side of the family, whose members regularly live into their 100’s. Because I really want him to stick around for more than another 25 years.

Over the years, Mr. Q has worked very hard on his recovery. He’ll always have side effects from his brain injury. Most of them are not apparent to those who don’t know, but I see them. But he has somehow managed to find a positive side to having a brain injury. He has dedicated himself to helping others deal with their own brain injuries. He has facilitated support groups, served on the board for the Brain Injury Alliance of Minnesota, written columns for their newsletters, been a speaker at various conferences about brain injury and he has had two books of essays about brain injury published. Now, one of his essays has been included in the new Chicken Soup book, Recovering from Traumatic Brain Injuries, and the book is being released today. This particular essay, How I Learned to Walk, is about how the thought of being able to walk back up the aisle with me at our wedding was the motivation that kept him going through his rehab. So it seems especially fitting that the book is coming out on our 25th wedding anniversary!

If you are located in the Twin Cities area, please consider attending the book signing that will be held this coming Saturday in Stillwater by Valley Bookseller. I know he would be thrilled to see a nice turn out for the event.

But as for today, Mr Q and I are going into the big city to celebrate 25 years of marriage! We’ll probably do some walking, and some eating, and some talking. All things that Mr. Q can do just fine now, thank you very much.

sue’s digs, part 2.

Published on June 21, 2014August 17, 2014 by Quandie16 Comments

A visit to Sue’s house would not be complete without a stroll around her gardens. In my opinion, Sue has the perfect spot for gardening. She has a small yard that makes it possible for her to have the entire thing planted in perennials with just the smallest bit of lawn without requiring a gardening staff of 20. This is not to say that she doesn’t have to work hard, I happen to know that she spends many hours keeping her gardens, so let’s take a look and enjoy the fruits of her labor.

You enter through this fabulous arbor.

Pass by the lantern.

And find her lovely oasis full of meandering mossy brick paths and gorgeous hostas.

Much like inside her home, Sue’s garden is also serene with a color scheme of mainly white.

Except for the occasional pop of gorgeous color, like in these peonies.

Following the path straight ahead will take you to the screen porch.

You can stop along the way and enjoy a respite in this shady spot.

You may remember that I mentioned that Sue gave me the gargoyle in my garden. She has quite a collection of her own including a gargoyle fountain.

This trellis is arranged on the detached garage wall that borders one side of the garden. Isn’t it clever? It’s just 3 standard trellises arranged in an offset way to create this pattern. I might have to borrow this idea for the side of my carriage house. Is that OK Sue?

Basically everywhere you look in Sue’s garden there is some delightful little detail just waiting to be spotted.

I always enjoy spotting some of the things that Sue has gotten from me over the years, such as this lovely lady.

As we exit back out of Sue’s garden through the arbor, I wonder … do you want to rush out and make a bunch of changes to your own garden as much as I do? Maybe add a couple of fabulous gargoyles? Some brick paths? A lovely statue here or there? Place a comfy chair in a shady spot?

I’m so glad that Sue allowed me to share her house and garden with you here on my blog! If you enjoyed your tour, please be sure to leave a comment and I will make sure that Sue sees it!

sue’s digs, part 1.

Published on June 20, 2014August 17, 2014 by Quandie11 Comments

Sue and I go way back. We have worked together at our day jobs for over 25 years. Sue has been a mentor to me in many ways. She is the one who introduced me to garage sales. She is my partner at the Carriage House Sale, which we have been hosting together for more than 12 years. Quite a few of the plants in my garden have come from Sue’s garden.

Since I get so much inspiration from Sue’s home and garden, I thought it would be nice to share it here with all of you!

Sue and her husband Mike purchased their home 31 years ago this month for the amazing sum of $67,000. Can you imagine that today? It was built in 1950 and is what I think of as a classic post WWII, one and a half story Cape Cod style home.

Every single time I visit Sue’s house I am just in awe. I pretty much drool all over everything. I leave totally inspired and I want to run home and implement her ideas at my own house. I think the thing that I am most impressed by is that Sue knows her style. Every single thing at her house is quintessentially ‘Sue’. This is something that I struggle with myself all the time. Trying to find my style and stick with it, and Sue does this beautifully. So sit back and enjoy, you are about to see just why you don’t need a large, expensive house to make a truly lovely home.

Once you have walked up that garden path above, you’ll enter Sue’s house off the kitchen.

I love the simplicity of Sue’s style. She very much embraces the ‘less is more’ mentality. You might think that these pictures are ‘staged’ for the blog, but they are not. Sue’s house is always this immaculate, and despite that fact that she displays several collections, it never appears cluttered.

And this is a kitchen that belongs to a woman who actually cooks, unlike me. I am quite sure that she uses all of the things in these canisters and bottles! By the way, how much do you love her fab faux-marble subway tile back splash?

You all keep your scoop thingies in a fab mug on a darling little shelf in your kitchen too, right?

One of the recent projects that Sue and her husband have been working on is adding this fantastic wainscoting in the kitchen.

They are planning a table/island on wheels for this area. Something multi-functional that can be moved around.

Sue is wondering if any of you have some suggestions for what to put on that grey wall above? Any ideas?

On the left you can see the glass fronted built in cabinet that houses Sue’s collection of glassware.

Aside from the occasional pop of some fab orange vintage drinking glasses, you’ll find that Sue does not include a lot of color in her house. She likes a very monochromatic look. White, with touches of black and grey and some occasional warmer tones. It gives her home a very serene feel as you can see here in her dining room.

The Minn Coaches sign is off the side of a bus. You can’t see the size very well here, but it is quite large and fills up one wall.

She has this beautiful relief over her fireplace.

And if you look up, you’ll find this gorgeous medallion on the ceiling.

I am happy to report that Sue does own a quandie original! I painted this buffet for her back before I discovered milk paint or chalk paint.

Isn’t it a beauty?

Sue gets inspiration from Country Living and Martha Stewart Living magazines. But she also says that her first stop every morning is q is for quandie! So maybe this inspiration thing is a two way street.

Let’s move on to Sue’s bathroom. It isn’t fancy, there isn’t a separate room for the toilet, double sinks or a jacuzzi tub, but it is very charming. Ultimately Sue wants to replace the wainscoting in here with the same style they just added to the kitchen.

I have copied her idea of simply hanging a vintage linen in the window in my own bedroom. The light coming through is so lovely, and you can really admire the stitch work this way.

I love this clock that she tricked out in her signature black and white, and her shabby white mirror frame.

If you look really closely at the bottom shelf of the clock, you can see a fantastic picture of her twin boys when they were young.

Another thing that I have copied from Sue, and you can too, is that she doesn’t let herself be boxed in by a room’s official function. Her dining room is located in what would have traditionally been the living room. And she has turned her second bedroom into a cozy TV room.

The TV hangs out on this fab vintage buffet that Sue painted herself.

Her black & white housekeeper’s box is also one of my faves.

Moving on to Sue’s master bedroom.

She added a little more warmth to the walls in this room with a lovely pale caramel color. I love the way all of her artwork plays off the wall color.

On the wall opposite the bed is this cupboard from IKEA. It is one of the few items in Sue’s house that isn’t second hand. Sue and Mike have added molding at the top to make it look built in.

We are now going to venture downstairs to the basement. I just popped my head into the laundry room because I especially wanted to share her galvanized wall. Last summer I purchased a load of old corrugated metal roofing to add to my summer house, and Sue used the leftovers on her laundry room wall. She also made some fab signs. And even the way she stores her laundry products is attractive!

Sue also has a family room in the basement. Perfect for chilling with friends.

Nearly everything in Sue’s house came from a garage sale or thrift store. Including this absolutely gorgeous guy that resides down here.

Every time I see this one I am green with envy. Isn’t it beautiful?

There is a TV hidden away in this fabulous antique cupboard.

Sue likes to joke that every time her husband takes a fishing trip, he comes home to find that something else has been painted. I think this oak cupboard is the last remaining unpainted piece in Sue’s home. It’s possible her husband has given up fishing to protect it! Or will he come home one day to find it painted … it remains to be seen!

I hope you have enjoyed taking a tour of Sue’s home and that you have been as inspired by it as I am. Stop back in tomorrow for a tour of Sue’s really gorgeous gardens!

the cutting garden.

Published on June 18, 2014June 15, 2014 by Quandie11 Comments

We used to have a huge hedge along our rear property line. It was very overgrown and unkempt looking. It ran all the way up to the Carriage House on one side, and the neighbor’s back fence on the other. As a result, we lived in our house for 20 years before ever even meeting the neighbor that lived behind us. Is that crazy or what?

We took the hedge down a few years ago, and replaced it with lilac bushes. And then I met the ‘neighbor behind the hedge’, Claudia. Who, by the way, is quite lovely.

When we planted the lilacs, I decided to also add an arbor so that we would always have access to the area back there even once the lilacs take over. I also realized that I had room for a cutting garden behind the Carriage House.

The beauty of a cutting garden that is hidden from view is that I don’t feel guilty when I cut all of the flowers and bring them inside. It doesn’t matter if the garden itself looks terrible, no one can see it.

I have peonies, hydrangeas, Siberian iris, and day lilies back there. I’d like to remove the day lilies though, and fill in that area with something else. If anyone in the Twin Cities wants basic orange Day Lilies, let me know. You can have them.

I also have way too many yellow iris. If you would like some yellow bearded iris plants, I’d be happy to share them with you also.

I staged my photos using a metal folding bistro chair. I’ve had this chair in my sale for 2 years running now, but no one seems to want to buy it. It can be rather handy for things like staging photos, or pulling out an extra chair that doesn’t take up much space. I also used an enamel pitcher that I recently bought at an occasional sale. I paid a bit more for it than I am usually willing to shell out, but I know I’ll get tons of use out of it.

I wish the blooming season for peonies was just a bit longer. I will just have to enjoy them while they last.

commercial break.

Published on June 16, 2014July 2, 2014 by Quandie13 Comments

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this special announcement!

The following pieces of furniture are still available for purchase.

The patriot. Perfect for your lake home, because it should be stylish too, right?

The patriot is available for ~~$245~~. SOLD!

The dried lavender desk. Wouldn’t this be lovely in your daughter’s bedroom, or perhaps in your sunroom providing the perfect spot to surf pinterest.

The dried lavender desk is $185.

The blonde bombshell. Add a gorgeous pop of color to your mid-century digs. This would work in a bedroom and hold tons of clothes, or use in the living room to hold your widescreen TV.

The blonde bombshell is $~~285~~. SOLD!

The mid-century madness credenza. So perfectly hip.

The mid-century madness credenza is ~~$325~~. SOLD!

Also still available, the sunny side table. Perfect for either bedside, or next to the sofa. Add a sunny pop of yellow to just about any room.

The sunny side table is $55.

The french cane back chair. Quite comfy, could work in so many different settings. A bedroom, your office, the living room, dining room .. you name it.

The chair is $65.

Finally, the pair of blue vintage motel chairs. Both fabulously chippy.

Motel chairs, $25 each.

If you are interested in any of these pieces, please leave me a comment and I will get back to you via email.

Thanks!

small projects.

Published on June 16, 2014June 15, 2014 by Quandie8 Comments

I love doing small projects that take just a bit of time. I think it’s the immediate feeling of accomplishment you get when you complete something so quickly. It’s not very exciting for a blog post though, so I thought maybe I could group a couple together and this post would have a little more meat to it. I’m not sure I succeeded, but here goes…

I think I bought this bench at a lunchtime garage sale. It’s pretty tiny. And it was kind of ugly.

But, the price was right and I thought it would be a fun one to restyle.

First I picked a fabric. You might remember this fabric because it was rejected for the last bench I painted.

I had a lot of options for choosing a paint color with this fabric. I thought about Mustard Seed Yellow, or maybe Luckett’s Green. Then I thought maybe I would go with Annie Sloan’s Duck Egg.

In the end, I got out the MMSMP in Tricycle. I loved this shade of red when I used it on a dresser, and the combo of red and aqua is one of my faves.

The end result is a charming little bench.

Wouldn’t this be sweet in the kitchen, maybe as a spot to rest your feet while studying your favorite cookbook.

This tiny rocking chair was given to me by my friend Cathy. It was a give away because it was missing the upper rung on the back. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a real ‘before’ picture of this one, I just sent it straight over to Ken’s workshop. And as usual, Ken just fixed it right up! I did snap a picture before I painted it and you can see the new piece at the top of the rocker back.

I wanted the paint job on this rocker to be nice and chippy and have a very aged patina, but I knew that new piece of wood would just soak up the MMS paint and not chip at all.

So, I decided a two layer paint job was in order. First I painted the rocker with MMSMP in Flow Blue, then I painted over that with MMSMP in Eulalie’s Sky. The end result was just what I wanted. A paint finish that looks genuinely aged, not just faked with sand paper, and the replacement piece blends in well.