Merry Christmas from Our Home to Yours!

We'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Here are some of our simple traditions.

It's not the Holidays without them!



Cinnamon Rolls!

I wish I could send the delicious aroma to you along with pictures.

Here are a few special ornaments on our tree.

Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and a wondrous New Year!

ann marie

WHY ???

Head's up.

This will be short.

Why would anyone think taking something as beautiful as this-

and turning it into this is a good idea?

These trees are in my neighbor's yard behind us.

They were magnificent, and that's not an understatement.

After spending the morning at the hospital,

this is what I saw looking out back.

It makes me sick to see them.

They are not removing these trees.

These trees were trimmed.

Trimming a tree like that should be illegal.

Thanks for letting me vent.

ann marie



New Cottage Project

Well, not being one to pass up a good bargain, Marc and I took the real estate plunge and bought this!

Well, we're in the process of buying it.

We have to get an inspection, but unless there's a huge problem, it'll be ours by the end of December!

We bought it as a rental, but I plan on updating it and adding a little character to it.

I figured if I'm going to tweak it some, I might as well enjoy the process and make it look good .

Plus, I'd also like to make it an asset to our little vintage neighborhood.

It's a small, 2 bedroom, 1 bath cottage.

It's on a double lot, probably about 50'x130'.

Here's some of our before pictures.



Both bedrooms have these built ins.

There's an awful lot of storage for such a tiny home.

There's a lot of beautiful, natural light throughout.

Under the carpeting in the bedrooms, hallway and living room there's 2 1/2"  oak flooring original to the house.  It was built the same year as ours-1951.

The kitchen has built ins which give it a little character.

It also has fluorescent lighting, which does not.

The cabinets are new-but they'll have to be painted.

White seems the obvious choice.

Hardware will help pull it all together.

The bathroom has a wonderful cast iron tub that is also probably original to the house.

The fiberglass tub surround will come out.

I'll put subway tile in, maybe with a herringbone pattern as a highlight of sorts.

The lighting has to go.  A sink skirt might be a nice detail to soften things up in here, and it'll add some color.

Oh, a new mirror too.

And we'll lose the towel bar.

Another neat detail in this house is the linen closet.

It's right outside the bathroom.

The door you see to the right is to the bathroom.

The linen closet makes the most out of an awkward corner.

The door at the bottom tilts out-

it's a hamper.

This house used to have a small 1 car garage attached.

Previous owners converted it to a family room.

The truly beautiful detail I didn't get a close-up of was the ceiling.

Gorgeous popcorn texture with, of all things, glitter to sprinkle-sparkle.

The exterior will get new colors, we're just not sure what those colors will be.

There's a need for some landscaping too.

The shutters are not working for me either.

The back of the house is even better!

This should make for one heck of a before & after project!

Wish us luck.

ann marie



The Legs Have It!

As I've said in previous posts-I love furniture with great legs.

I ran across these legs earlier in the week.

They were listed on Craig's List.

In Austin, an hour's drive up IH-35.

I kept going back to the post all week.

And my heart did that little pitter-patter thing that means I'm in serious trouble.

I finally contacted the seller, and made an offer.

They accepted and I found myself in the truck with "Lola", my GPS.

When I arrived, they were actually being sold in a funky resale shop with all kinds of goodies.

They're a pair of wing backs with legs I've never seen before.

The front ones are very curly and carved.

The back legs have a graceful curve to them.

I don't know the age, but I would peg the fabric that was used to cover them was from the 80's.

Gorgeous????

These chairs are 12" from the floor.

The one below is 10" from the floor.

The dimensions are almost the same as this chair.

Maybe it's because there's more air between the floor and chair, but they feel more petite to me.

The backs are also curved, no corner like lots of other wing backs I've seen.

I'm going to slip cover them.

I think a classic linen .

Or maybe matelesse.

Maybe fabric covered buttons down the back.

Maybe a graceful scalloped front.

I'm not sure if I should paint the legs, or sand and restain them.

Thoughts?

ann marie



The Driveway Re-Do

We've always taken the simple act of driving up the driveway to our house for granted.

Whichever house that happened to be in our 27 years in the Air Force.

Even our duplex in Yigo, Guam had a driveway.

Then we moved into this little cottage of ours.

Curb appeal was non-existent.

So was the driveway!

We had a driveway, kind of.

I think someone dumped bits and pieces of leftover blacktop over time.

Then, they ran it over, a little.

There were no boundaries, and over time grass and weeds began to grow through it.

And I felt like I was going to bottom out each time I drove in or backed out.

And it drained into the garage when there was a heavy rain.

So, we decided to

put in a nice big driveway that was engineered to drain away from the house.

Isn't that a novel idea.

There's actually a funny story about the "price quote" I received from the people doing this for us.

The gentleman shows up, measures, asks how many expansion and control joints we wanted.

I gave him the numbers our city inspector gave me.

Yada, yada.

He comes back with a quote of 450.

Dollars? I asked.

Are you sure only $450 dollars.

4-5-0 dollars?

Yes, yes, yes. He says.

I think I was borderline obnoxious.

He had a very heavy Mexican accent,

then throw in my New England accent,

and the fact that I LOVE a good deal!

Well, the husband comes home and I relay the whole story to him.

He looks at me like I've been smoking something.

"You can't even rip the old stuff out for $450!"

Long story short-

When in doubt, have the contractor WRITE the amount out.

Lesson learned.

So. here's how it went.

Tear it out and make it bigger.

Put in rebar and chairs.

Groovy boots!

Bring in a couple of concrete trucks.

The "make the concrete vibrate" machine.

I'm pretty sure that's the technical name for it.

It vibrates the concrete so there are no are pockets that would weaken the structure when cured.

They level it.

I don't know what the term is for this.

However, in my professional opinion, I'd call it "smoothing it out".

These guys definitely knew what they were doing.

We now have a great place to park.

I hope we added value to our property.

Although it wasn't the deal of the century,

we love that it adds a finishing detail to the front yard

 and we're not bottoming out any more.

These guys did this all in 2 days.

It pays to know when to call in the professionals!

ann marie



Orange Slip Covered Club Chairs

While I was visiting Mark and Andrea in Boston,

we, Andrea and I, tackled a few projects.

The big one was Caroline's nursery, which I posted about here.

Another ambitious project started with these.



There are two of these beauties.

Craig's List treasures.

Although it appears that Bretten is supervising, she's actually pretty PO'd that we hijacked "her" chair.

It's the one she sits on waiting for that evil mail truck!!

Throw this into the mix.

                             Orange Greek Key Geometric.                            

The fabric was fun to work with.

And it's an indoor/outdoor fabric which will be wonderful when Bretten comes in full of sand after her romp at the Res.

They live a few houses down from a small reservoir.

It's a mile walk all the way around.

It was really quite beautiful with the leaves having changed colors!

Back to the fabric.

The pattern hid a multitude of little oops.

I really missed my sewing machine with this project.

All in all, Andrea was very happy with the results!

So was Bretten!

ann marie



Labor of Love!

After spending two weeks in Boston, Caroline's nursery is Finis!

Here's the fabrics that Andrea, Daughter #1,  chose for their daughter, Caroline's, nursery.

I made the bed linens and panels here, then mailed them to her so they'd be there when I arrived.

This is what we started with.

It kind of looked like an episode of Hoarders!

We put a fresh coat of paint on the walls and trim.

Hung panels on the windows.

We dressed that crib up with the cutest dust ruffle and bumper pads.

The daybed received some attention too.

Small bookcases for small books and girlie things.

Because this is an older home, there are no closets in this bedroom.

No problem.

We just repurposed an armoire from the living room that held games...and stuff.

We had a wonderful supervisor.

She didn't miss a thing!

That herd of elephants ended up here.

The reveal...

Caroline's nursery.

A labor of love.

Life is good.

ann marie