q is for quandie

a trio of holiday chairs.

Published on November 8, 2019November 9, 2019 by Quandie33 Comments

If you’ve followed my blog for very long, you know that I love painting small kid sized wooden chairs. I’ve done about a bazillion of them.

But it never occurred me to to paint any with a Christmas theme … that is, until now.

I picked up three of these chairs last summer at a garage sale. Apparently I forgot to take a separate ‘before’ picture of them, but here they are with the rest of the haul from that day.

I did each chair in a different design.

The first chair started out getting a paint job using Dixie Belle’s Honky Tonk Red. I sanded it to distress the edges and smooth out the finish, then I added a stenciled design using Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.

I think this one has a sort of Scandinavian look, don’t you?

The red in that first photo looks just a little bit brighter than it does in person, this next picture is a little more true to color.

The Honky Tonk Red is the perfect cherry red, just right for Christmas. I’ve always loved pairing red and turquoise so I staged it next to a wooden crate painted in Fusion’s Laurentien.

The second chair received two coats of Honky Tonk Red on everything except for the seat. The seat got two coats of Drop Cloth. I have to say, I’m very impressed with the coverage I got with both of these colors. Reds and whites can both be really tricky and often require 3 or even 4 coats to get good coverage, but two coats were plenty with these.

Once the paint was dry, I sanded to distress the edges and then added Prima Marketing’s Gingham Red transfer to the seat. For those of you who may be wondering, the transfer is the black and red lines, the white that you see is the Drop Cloth paint on the chair. So if you want this look you do need to paint your item white first.

The Gingham Red transfer set comes with two different red plaid designs.

There are two sheets of each plaid in the package, and each sheet measures 8.5″ x 22.5″ for a total of 17″ x 22.5″ of each plaid.

And the second plaid is positively adorable on this chair.

I used the other version of the plaid on a sled that I’ll be sharing next week, so be sure to stay tuned for that.

Last, but definitely not least, I painted the third chair using Drop Cloth and then added another Christmas stencil. By the way, I purchased both of the stencils I used at Maison de Stencils.

Seriously. How adorable is that? Had I done that one first I think I might have been tempted to do all three chairs the same. I predict that this chair will get snapped up quickly at Reclaiming Beautiful.

It did take a bit more time to do the stenciling on this one. I had to mask off the sections of the stencil for each different color using painter’s tape. I used black, red and two shades of green craft paint for the stenciling.

I used Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta for the final finish on all three of the chairs.

At first glance you might wonder why I’d paint furniture with a seasonal theme like this, but these chairs are small and would work great as holiday decor. Any one of them would be absolutely adorable sitting beneath your Christmas tree.

Or possibly placed in the foyer to welcome your Christmas guests. Maybe with a small boxwood wreath hung from the chair back.

They’d be super cute hung from a nail or two up on the wall. Even if you don’t have any small kiddos at your house I bet you could find a way to decorate with one of these chairs!

Normally I try to post my furniture items here on the blog to see if any of my local readers want to purchase them before I take them to Reclaiming Beautiful. However, this time I had a bunch of holiday stuff ready to go and I took it all in on Wednesday evening. Reclaiming is gearing up for a holiday open house that is coming up on Nov. 16 so I wanted to get the bulk of my holiday merch down there. If you’re local, be sure to pop in this weekend and see the rest of the stuff I brought in!

As always, thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co and Prima Marketing for providing the supplies used for these chairs.

If you’re looking for Dixie Belle products you can find them here.

If you’re looking for Prima Marketing products you can find local retailers here, or online sources here.

So tell me, how would you use one of these adorable chairs?

by popular demand.

Published on November 6, 2019November 5, 2019 by Quandie26 Comments

Welcome to the final post in my weekly Wednesday tour of our own home. By popular demand, if you can count about five people as ‘popular demand’, today I’m sharing Mr. Q’s home office space despite the fact that it is not terribly picturesque.

I have to admit, while I was in there taking these photos I realized that there are a few more Q touches in the room than I thought.

One of my favorite things is the framed trio of old plat maps that are hanging on the wall.

I found the frames at a garage sale and they just happened to be exactly the right size for the maps. The maps came from an old Washington Co plat book that Mr. Q’s dad had for some reason. When he died, we inherited the book.

I framed the three that I thought would have the most meaning for Mr. Q. Lake Elmo, since he worked in the park there at the time. Marine on the St. Croix, since he was born and grew up there. And Stillwater, where he now works and spends a lot of time at his favorite coffee shop, The Daily Grind.

Another of my favorite things in the room is the union jack desk.

This was one of my earlier painted pieces from long before I had a blog. And this was the 2nd time I painted it. I originally painted it in a pretty aqua blue. At that time this piece was in our guest room. I probably wouldn’t have chosen to stage it with a yoda mug and an orange disc golf can cozy, but hey, you guys wanted to see this stuff! Or at least five of you did.

Comically enough, the union jack desk is only one of three desks in the room. I guess you could say Mr. Q likes desks. He also has a library table style desk opposite the union jack desk that is devoted to setting up his various games.

This desk was a hand me down from my friend Terri. I think it would look amazing painted, but when I suggested that to Mr. Q I believe his response was something along the lines of “it’s fine like it is”. In other words, Mr. Q really only cares about function and couldn’t care less about form. Lucky he’s married to me, right? Otherwise our house would still have all of its original wallpaper in country blues and mustard yellow. And he’d also still be wearing the same jeans he had in 1989.

Here’s the game that he’s playing at the moment.

Yep, I have no idea what that is or how to play it. But if you really want to know, leave a comment and I’m sure that Mr. Q will be happy to enlighten you.

The third desk in the room is a fabulous secretary desk that we purchased while picking up a mid-mod set of bedroom furniture. The sellers were an older couple that were moving out of their home of 40 years and into senior housing. We were there for the mid-mod set, but they mentioned that they were also selling this antique desk. I jumped at it because I knew it would look amazing painted, and I love painting empire style pieces. If I remember right it ended up taking us three trips to get all of the furniture back to our place.

But as you can see, this desk never made it to my workshop either. Mr. Q commandeered it for his office to hold his massive computer screen. The library chair is another piece that I purchased to paint, but never got there.

The real pièce de résistance in the room is the recliner.

I’m sorry. There just isn’t any way to make this chair any prettier. Although I have to admit it isn’t quite as bad as Frasier’s dad’s recliner (does anyone else remember that show?)

There is a back story to this chair too. It originally belonged to my husband’s grandparents, Bud & Mickey. Mickey died when she was 98, and Bud almost made it to 101. Mr. Q was very close with both of them. When they moved to some senior housing near his work in their early 90’s, he made it a habit to have lunch with them every day. And he continued that right up until Bud died.

Bud and Mickey were quite honestly two of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Mr. Q inherited many of Bud’s best qualities including his gift of the gab.

Anyway, when they started getting more frail they purchased this recliner. It’s actually one of those lift chairs. Press a button and the thing will lift you right out of it. Although they paid a lot of money for the chair, neither one of them ever really liked it and they rarely sat in it. But Mr. Q loved it. He insists that it’s one of the most comfortable chairs he’s ever sat in. He would always sit in it when he spent time with them. So Bud & Mickey insisted that when they were gone they wanted Mr. Q to have the chair.

Well, I guess you just can’t say no to that, can you?

But you can insist that it go upstairs in Mr. Q’s office 😉

Well, this concludes the updated tour of our house. I hope you enjoyed it. I wasn’t sure I would make it all the way through. It seemed like an awfully big task, but like so many things, if you just take one step at a time the next thing you know you’ve got ‘er done.

If you missed any of the posts, here are the links back to all of them.

the world’s smallest bathroom.

the dining room.

the principle bedroom.

the guest room.

Be sure to check back on Friday, I have the most adorable trio of painted chairs to share with you guys! See you then.

laden with a supply of toys.

Published on November 4, 2019November 3, 2019 by Quandie11 Comments

This time of year always gets a little tricky for me. Up here in the north we really see a swing in the hours of daylight throughout the year. In the summer we enjoy those June days that last until almost 10 p.m. But by the time daylight savings time ends (as it did yesterday) the sky is dark when I leave for work in the morning and dark when I get home in the evening. Plus our weather grows cold and we have lots of overcast, gloomy days in November.

As a result, I just want to put on some comfy fleece pajama pants and curl up on the sofa most evenings.

But last week I made an effort to fight that urge and I got some painting done every night after work. So now I have a few fun smaller painting projects to share with you guys over the next couple of weeks.

Starting with this sweet little piece. You may remember that I purchased this little cupboard at the Tangletown garage sales this fall.

Step one was to replace the existing back. I’m pretty sure it was not original to the piece, especially since it wasn’t actually quite big enough to cover the entire back (notice how you can see through the bottom shelf?).

Naturally my handyman Ken made quick work of cutting me a new back out of hardboard.

Then I painted the whole thing pink. I thought it would be pretty in pink. But in the end, the pink just wasn’t working for me. So I decided to repaint it using Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth and then seal it using their flat clear coat.

I sanded the surface to make it smooth and to distress the edges somewhat. Then I pulled out the Christmas Greetings transfer from Prima Marketing.

I didn’t use very much of it, just that section in the center that says ‘laden with a supply of toys, novelties and fancy goods’ which seemed perfect for this piece.

What kiddo wouldn’t want this adorable cupboard laden with a supply of toys?

I added some molds from the Prima Marketing Sorrento Laurels set to jazz it up a bit (to learn more about using the molds, check out this post).

I worked a little bit of Dixie Belle’s Grunge Wax into the molds to give them a little more definition. Keep in mind that I had already sealed the paint using the Dixie Belle flat clear coat, so that meant I could more easily work the grey Grunge Wax into the crevices and wipe away most of the excess without staining my creamy white paint.

Before re-attaching the back, I lined it with some old October Afternoon scrapbook paper.

I staged my photos with this adorable tiny folding chair that my picker Sue found for me while I was off in Disney World a couple of weeks ago.

It’s pretty adorable ‘as is’, but I think I’ll eventually paint it before I sell it. It will likely sell faster painted.

Speaking of selling, for those of you who are local, here’s a head up. I’ll be taking this piece plus a bunch of other holiday merch to Reclaiming Beautiful on Wednesday. So if you’re local and you want the best selection, be sure to head in to the shop this weekend. They are open Thursday thru Sunday each week.

The supplies used for this project were graciously supplied by Prima Marketing and Dixie Belle Paint Co.

If you’re looking for Dixie Belle products you can find them here.

If you’re looking for Prima Marketing products you can find local retailers here, or online sources here.

In the meantime, let me know what you think of this tiny cupboard laden with toys!

frugal fall decorating.

Published on November 1, 2019October 31, 2019 by Quandie18 Comments

The bill for the credit card that I used while in Disney World is going to be rolling in any day now and it’s not going to be pretty. Disney World is not exactly a budget friendly place, and I’m not terribly good at being frugal while on vacation.

So I’ll have to make up for that now that I’m home, starting with some frugal fall decorating.

This is where my hydrangeas come in, and this is just one of the reasons why I love having several hydrangeas in the garden. Hydrangeas, in particular the paniculata varieties, grow incredibly well for me here in my zone 4b garden. They provide tons of dried flowers for fall and winter decorating with next to zero effort required on my part.

I filled the galvanized boiler that hangs beneath the window on the carriage house with the Vanilla Strawberry variety.

These dry to a darker, reddish-pink which works perfectly with the barn red of the carriage house.

The Limelight hydrangeas start turning pinkish in the fall as well, but mostly only on the side of the flower that faces the sun. The undersides stay a pretty pale green.

So you can turn whichever side you prefer to face front in your arrangements.

I filled the planters on either side of my door with them.

By the way, as you can see, the pair of rusty planters that I painted using Dixie Belle’s patina products are holding up beautifully.

I used Limelights in the galvanized wash tub in front of the carriage house too, but I also included a few hosta leaves for added interest.

The sign that is hanging above the wash tub is an old table leaf that I painted up with Dixie Belle paint and then stenciled. I coated it with some of their Gator Hide and then hung it outside as an experiment to see how it would hold up. I like to do little experiments like these so that when I sell similar pieces I can let people know how durable they really are.

I used a combination of Vanilla Strawberry, Limelight, hosta leaves and a few last remaining salvia flowers in this galvanized container that hangs on the photo cottage door.

I applied the Prima Marketing transfer from their Everyday Farmhouse collection to the container a while back and it too has held up beautifully outdoors.

The transfers adhere really well to glass and smooth metal and I’ve found that they can absolutely be used outdoors on these surfaces.

Somehow I always get a lot more satisfaction out of decorating without spending much money, how about you?

These days it sometimes feels like the main goal of social media posts is to get you to buy something. Instead, I hope that I’ve given you some ideas for fall decorating that you can do without spending any money at all.

Do you do any fall decorating on the cheap? If so, I’d love to see some of your ideas in the comments!

the dining room.

Published on October 30, 2019October 28, 2019 by Quandie30 Comments

Today we are continuing the tour of our house with the dining room.

This room was added on to our 1904 farmhouse by the previous owners. I’m guessing they added it sometime in the 70’s. They salvaged the wood for the paneled walls from an old barn that was being torn down. I’m sure they intended the room to be a family room, but since we’ve turned what was likely the formal dining room into a piano room, we now use this room as a dining room.

Over the years I have thought about painting the walls white, but I can’t help but feel like I might regret that down the road. And once it’s done, there’s no going back to the original patina of the red barn wood. Here’s a photo that shows that more clearly.

Back when dark stain was really in for wood floors, I had the wide pine floors in this room stained dark and I really regret that decision. I wish now that I had left them alone too. I’m not sure how difficult it would be to strip the dark and go back to a natural pine. Maybe one of these days I’ll pursue that.

But in the meantime, I’ve tried to add lots of light colored furnishings to help brighten up the room starting with the huge Welsh cupboard on the back wall that houses my non-collection of ironstone.

I purchased this cupboard via Craigslist and then painted it in Miss Mustard Seed’s Linen on the outside and Fusion’s Linen on the inside. In some lighting situations the Fusion Linen looks more grey, but in this room it has a strong green undertone that I don’t really like. I’ve been meaning to re-paint that since I initially finished this cabinet back in 2015, but I haven’t quite gotten around to it.

And gosh, I can’t believe it’s been 4 years since then! Obviously it’s not an urgent matter.

I also whitewashed the cedar table that Mr. Q made. He made it at least 25 years ago. It was originally finished in a very shiny poly and the cedar was quite orange. The whitewashing totally updated the look of the table.

The chairs were also a Craigslist find. I painted them in Annie Sloan’s Old White and recovered the seats with old grain sacks.

I have another large piece of furniture painted in a shade of white in the room.

I purchased this bench at a garage sale. Well, technically, my friend Meggan texted me about it and then I sent Mr. Q over to buy it. The owners said that this bench was originally from Belgium. I painted it in Miss Mustard Seed’s Farmhouse White.

This bench is a good example of milk paint that has continued to chip over time. One of these days I should sand it down and add a water based sealer like Miss Mustard Seed’s Tough Coat to halt any further chipping (much like I did with this uber chippy chair).

Are you wondering what is on the wall behind the bench? I’ve ‘wallpapered’ the walls on either side of the window using old rolls of player piano music.

They are just stapled in place, so when I get tired of them they will be easy to remove.

The ‘Charles Strand’ sign hanging above the clock is from the general store that Mr. Q’s great grandfather owned in Marine on the St. Croix, MN. I found this photo from 1910 that shows the sign hanging above the door. How cool is that?

I love how those guys are all just casually standing around in front of the store, probably telling tall tales. I’m quite sure that one or more of them have to be Mr. Q’s ancestors because that is obviously where he gets his love of socializing. I can totally see him hanging out down at the general store with a bunch of cronies.

Now, don’t be fooled by these photos into thinking I’m one of those people who keeps the dining room table fully set all the time. I just thought it would be fun to dress it up for you guys. I even pulled out my grandmother’s glassware.

The amber depression glass was perfect for a fall table.

After sharing all of these pretty pictures of our dining room with you, I now have to admit to the truth. Our dining room is seldom used for actual dining and it almost never looks like it does in these photos. It is far more often used as a storage facility.

You see, this is the only space inside the house where I can store my completed pieces until they sell. I can line up as many as six or seven pieces of furniture along the walls in this room.

Right before I left for Florida I sold six pieces of furniture. That pretty much cleaned out my inventory making this the perfect time to get some pictures of the dining room without extra furniture lining the walls. Hopefully it won’t stay empty for long. I’ve got a few Christmas projects to work on before I get back to painting furniture though.

There is just one room left on our house tour, Mr. Q’s study. After I mentioned it here last week he decided to clean it out, which led to re-arranging the furniture. He’s totally game to let me share it with you guys, so I’m planning that for next Wednesday. Remember, keep your expectations low, but be sure to stay tuned 😉

a magical tour.

Published on October 28, 2019October 27, 2019 by Quandie5 Comments

My sister and I try to take a guided tour each time we visit a Disney park.

In 2009 we did the Segway tour in Disneyland’s California Adventure …

That was really a fun one because the entire tour took place before the park opened to the public. How else could they have everyone zooming around on Segways and not running people over?!

Unfortunately Segway tours in the parks themselves are no longer being offered, however there is still a Segway tour available in Fort Wilderness, the campground area of Disney World. But let’s face it, that’s just not the same thing at all.

In 2017 we did the World Showcase: DestiNations Discovered tour in EPCOT.

That time we had access to the World Showcase part of EPCOT before it opened to the public for the first couple of hours of our tour. You can read all about that tour here.

In 2013 we did the Keys to the Kingdom tour. That tour takes you into the underground service tunnels, or the Utilidor, beneath the Magic Kingdom.

Taking a guided tour used to be a great way to get into the park ahead of everyone else thus giving you a little time to get some great photos of a mostly empty main street.

I’ve always felt like there is something especially magical about having the park all to ourselves.

However, this time around the parks were all open early for extra magic hours every day including the Magic Kingdom which was open at 7 a.m. That pretty much meant that we didn’t get in ahead of anyone else for our 8 a.m. tour.

Nonetheless, the Marceline to Magic Kingdom tour that we did this trip was one of the most amazing tours we’ve done in the Magic Kingdom.

It was a 3 hour walking tour and cost $49 per person (and you must have a valid park ticket for the day as well). Honestly, it would have been a bargain at twice the price.

We signed in at Main Street’s Town Square Theater, were issued name tags and listening devices and were offered bottled water. We were a small group of only 8 people. Our guide, Darlene, began our tour by explaining that this wouldn’t be your typical guided tour where she simply told us about the park and answered questions. Instead she was going to tell us a story. The story of Walter Elias Disney.

As soon as Darlene began speaking I knew we were in for a treat. She was obviously a born story teller.

The story begins on Main Street. Darlene explained that although Walt Disney only lived in Marceline, Missouri for four years he always considered it his ‘home town’. Main Street was not modeled after the way the town of Marceline looked, but instead it was based on the way it always felt to Walt.

Walt wanted Main Street to feel like everyone’s home town, not just his own.

As we continued to walk towards Adventureland and the home of the Tiki birds, Darlene told us some great stories about the early days of Disneyland planning and the beginnings of audio animatronics, explaining just how innovative Walt and his Imagineers were.

Our tour next included a ride on the Haunted Mansion, followed by a top secret peak behind the scenes into the workings of the famous ballroom scene.

We were led into the basement of the building where we were able to see how the effect of ghosts enjoying a birthday ball is created. I won’t give any of those secrets away here, you’ll just have to take the tour yourselves if you want to know more.

Next we headed onto It’s a Small World as Darlene continued to tell us about Walt’s life and how he created Disney World as a place where families could have fun together. He didn’t want parents to just sit on benches watching their children on rides, he wanted them to ride together.

At the end of our tour, Darlene explained that she had dreamed of being a Disney tour guide since she was five years old. That was when she first met Walt Disney himself. You see, her dad was one of those early Imagineers. Her grandparents also worked for Disney.

She had been watching those Disney guides with their plaid skirts and riding crops and she knew that was what she wanted to be when she grew up. Her mom made her a plaid dress, and her dad fashioned a riding crop out of a tree branch and Darlene conducted her own tours of Tom Sawyer’s Island for other kids. Uncle Walt (as she called him) told her that as soon as she turned 18 he would give her an official job at Disneyland. Sadly, Walt died just two years later when Darlene was 7. But she still went on to work for Disney, and now she has an authentic plaid skirt and riding crop.

I can’t possibly tell the story as well as Darlene did, but I can tell you that there wasn’t a dry eye in the group by the end. It really felt like Darlene brought Walt Disney to life for us for those three hours. If you are heading to Disney World any time soon, I highly recommend taking this tour … although maybe not with kids. Kids would likely find it boring. In fact, kids who are 12 years old or more can participate, but even the official Disney description of the tour says it is better suited for adults. But if you’re looking for a unique way to see Walt Disney World, you should definitely consider taking this tour.

How about any of you? Have you ever taken a guided tour at a Disney park? If so, I’d love to hear about it!

notice of decommission.

Published on October 25, 2019October 24, 2019 by Quandie10 Comments

Who says you have to go over the top with pumpkins and spooky skeletons for Halloween?

How about a more subtle approach? Like creating the head office at the Olde Salem Sanitarium.

To create my vignette, I started with the farmhouse table from my front porch …

and then I added the firehouse captain’s chair that I purchased at the Tangletown garage sales.

But first I painted the chair using Dixie Belle’s Caviar and then added a stencil to the seat. Dixie Belle’s chalk style paint is my paint of choice when I’m going to stencil over it. The matte finish creates a surface that sort of grips the paint and helps keep the stencil crisp. Stenciling over a shinier painted surface seems to allow the stencil paint to slide around a bit more giving it a tendency to seep under the edges of the stencil.

To add a little Halloween spooky-ness, I added this notice of decommission sign to the wall.

This is an old cupboard door that I painted with Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky, then added the stencil using a pale grey craft paint.

Once I had the door stenciled I decided it need a little more oomph, so I pulled out my Prima Marketing re.design molds and modeling material. I used the crown from the Royalty mold and a laurel swag sort of thingie from the Sorrento Laurels.

One of the cool things about these molds is that you can customize them somewhat while the modeling material is still soft. In this case I used the full swag coming down the side of my sign, but I only used half of it across the top creating a corner design.

I also adjusted the swag a little making it skinnier and longer to fit the trim on my door. I glued it all in place (using a basic wood glue) while the modeling material was still a little bit pliable. Once it was all fully dry (I waited a full day), I painted the molds black.

Did you notice that amazing vintage desk lamp in my photos?

That is one of my picker Sue’s (who, FYI, is celebrating her birthday today!) finds. I absolutely love it. The patina is amazing. The wiring is original, but it’s still in great shape. I was surprised to find that the lamp has two settings, dim and bright.

I’m not sure what the ultimate fate of the lamp will be, but for now I’m determined to find a spot for it at my house. Or I may even just hang onto it for staging future furniture photos, I’m not sure. As for the chair, it is already sold.

I meant to take the notice of decommission sign into Reclaiming Beautiful to sell but I never quite got around to it, and now it’s a bit too late in the season. How did that happen? That trip to Florida just totally threw me off. I’m going to have to dive right into the Christmas projects next!

the guest room.

Published on October 23, 2019October 22, 2019 by Quandie21 Comments

Today I’m resuming the tour of our house with the guest room.

A couple of years ago when we had the upstairs floors refinished, we took the opportunity to swap the guest room and Mr. Q’s study. This is the smaller of the two rooms and it was kind of a tight squeeze for Mr. Q’s study. Since he’s in there all the time, and we rarely have house guests, it seemed silly to continue that way.

It meant getting rid of the full sized guest room bed and bringing in a twin sized bed.

I found the headboard at a garage sale and painted it with Homestead House milk paint in a color called Ochre.

I applied a Prima Marketing re.design transfer to the wall above the bed.

If you’ve ever wondering about whether or not they can be applied to a wall, they sure can. It was easy enough to do, and it has held up perfectly well. Down the road if I get tired of it, I will just have to sand it down somewhat and paint over it. I don’t think actually removing it would be an option.

I have a chair that I painted in Miss Mustard Seed’s Apron Strings at the foot of the bed.

I’ve added a few vintage pieces to the room that echo this gorgeous coral color including a hat box, and old book and a crocheted dress that my grandmother made for my mother when she was a toddler.

The jelly cupboard stores board games. It’s a piece that I painted to sell, and it never sold so eventually I just kept it for myself.

My weakness for pretty vintage china is apparent in the display hanging over the cupboard.

I also have a weakness for toy telephones for some reason …

and old typewriters …

And they all make their home in the guest room for now.

There are only two rooms left in our house that I haven’t shared here yet. The dining room, which I’ll try to photograph this coming weekend, and Mr. Q’s study. I’m still debating the merits of including that room on the tour. It’s home to an ugly recliner and lots of piles of stuff. I’m just not sure it’s blog worthy, and I’m also not sure Mr. Q will want to cooperate by cleaning it up a bit. What do you think, should I try to talk him into it?

the most magical place on earth.

Published on October 21, 2019October 20, 2019 by Quandie7 Comments

My sister and I are back from our stay at Disney World, also known as the most magical place on earth (in case you didn’t know, Disneyland is the happiest place on earth).

We stayed at one of Disney’s newest hotels, the Gran Destino in Coronado Springs.

This is considered a ‘moderate’ resort, meaning it’s not a budget (ie. cheap) resort and it’s not a deluxe (ie. expensive) resort, it’s somewhere in the middle. Usually we stay at the budget resorts. We consider the room a place to sleep and that’s about it, so why spend extra money on it. But this time we splurged.

When we booked our trip this hotel was still under construction. It opened in July, so we thought it would be fun to stay in a brand new hotel. Just in case you’re interested, I’ll give you what I thought were the pros and cons of staying at the Gran Destino.

First, the pros. The hotel and grounds were gorgeous and everything was fresh and new. The room itself was nice although not really terribly special except for the view. The view from our room was spectacular.

We had chosen a ‘water view’ room and since it faced west we had a beautiful view of the sunset. Of course, we ended up being in our room for the sunset exactly one time. Still, it was lovely. We were not able to see any fireworks in any of the parks from our room though. The only park we could really see was Animal Kingdom. That ‘mountain’ on the horizon at the left of my photo above is Expedition Everest.

Another really great thing about a room in the tower is that when you return from the parks completely exhausted after spending hours on your feet, you just have to walk up a staircase from the bus stop, through the lobby and to the elevator. Then it’s just a short ride up to your floor and down the hall to your room. At many of the other Disney World resorts it can be quite a hike from the bus stop to your room and you tend to start dreading it at the end of each day.

As for the cons to the Gran Destino, I think they are still working out some kinks in the actual operations at the hotel. We were there for 7 nights, and our room was only cleaned 3 times. The first day we were missed we were told that they were short staffed that day, but it continued to happen. We were able to call down to housekeeping to get fresh towels, so it wasn’t too big of a hardship. Still, I was expecting more from an upgraded (to us anyway) hotel.

We also had issues with getting our luggage. We waited more than 3 hours for our luggage to be brought up to our room. We called down twice and were told it was on its way each time. Finally when we called again they suggested it would be faster to just come down and get it from bell services. Gosh! If they’d just said that in the first place we would have been happy to go get it and save ourselves three hours of waiting.

So my q tip for you today is to handle your own luggage if you don’t want to wait hours for it to arrive in your room.

One of the highlights of our trip was enjoying some of EPCOT’s food and wine experiences.

If you aren’t familiar, the Food & Wine Festival takes place from late August through mid-November. There are kiosks throughout the World Showcase that have small plates and beverages from countries around the world. It’s a great way to sample new things.

I was telling one of my co-workers about this before we left on our trip and she thought these were free samples, so just to be clear, that is not the case. It really adds up fairly quickly. For example the charcuterie board was $6.50 and flight of wines shown above cost $9.50. On our first afternoon in EPCOT we spent $69 on food and wine. But we split everything, so really $35/person isn’t terrible and it is really fun to wander around the world showcase trying different food and wines.

Another highlight of our trip was attending Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party.

This was the second time we’ve attended this separately ticketed event, and we learned a few great tips this time around.

First of all, by ‘separately ticketed event’ I mean that you pay extra for this party. We paid $115 each for our tickets (prices vary depending on the date you attend). However, you do not have to pay for regular park admission that day as well. We planned this for our first day in Orlando and we did not pay for regular park admission that day. We could show up in the Magic Kingdom starting at 4 pm and stay until the end of the party at midnight. Since our flight arrived at 1:30, and we knew we wouldn’t be checked into our hotel and ready to head to the park until after 4 pm anyway, this made perfect sense for us.

The No So Scary party has a unique parade that is fantastic, and the most awesome fireworks show. There are also treat trails throughout the park that hand out ‘free’ candy, and believe me when I say they are extremely generous with the candy. There are also special characters around the park including that guy up above with my sister.

As you can imagine, they really play it up at the Haunted Mansion with special effects and extra characters.

We were also able to get on tons of rides with really low wait times. I don’t think we waited more than 10 to 15 minutes for anything, even the coveted Peter Pan. Not all of the rides are open, but most are.

So if you’ve ever thought about going to the Not So Scary party, I totally recommend it. Just try to do it on a day when you haven’t already paid for park admission.

There were two ‘lands’ in the parks that were new to us this trip, Toy Story Land …

and Galaxy’s Edge, both in Hollywood Studios.

You may be tempted to think that the photo in Galaxy’s Edge was taken at night, but no. In order to avoid the crowds, we took advantage of the extra magic hours offered to people staying on Disney property and we went to Hollywood studios at 6 a.m. The sun wasn’t up yet. That gave us the opportunity to see it in the ‘dark’ when we first arrived.

As is usual for Disney, the theming in both lands was impeccable.

Neither of us are really Star Wars fans though, so I have to admit we did not even attempt to get on the only ride open so far in this land. My sister wanted to give priority to the rides in Toy Story Land, so after just taking a few photos in Galaxy’s Edge we headed over there. By the time we came back after the sun was up, the line for Smuggler’s Run was a two hour wait and people were continuing to pour in.

We decided to save trying the new ride for our next Disney vacation.

I’m saving the story of the best part of our trip for another post, so be sure to check back next week for that one.

In the meantime, as always, I’m really glad to be home. I’m itching to get my paint brushes out soon. So I’ll have some painted furniture and other fun projects to share with you guys plus I’ll be continuing my house tour posts starting on Wednesday. But first, I may need to sleep for about a week to recover from Disney!

see ya real soon.

Published on October 11, 2019October 7, 2019 by Quandie28 Comments

I’m super excited to be headed off to Orlando, Florida this morning with my sister!

She and I have been going to Disney parks for 50 years! Our first trip was to Disneyland in 1969 when I was 5 and she was 8.

We’ve lost count of how many times we’ve gone since then. There were some decades in there when life got in the way and we weren’t able to go, and there was also a period of time when we lived in Florida so we went quite a lot. But lately we’ve managed to get to either Disneyland or Disney World at least every other year.