Projects Everywhere

We had a few days of warmth but now we are back to winter. Which is as it should be, for January. Today it is snowing on top of the icy icky that fell yesterday evening. This is perfect gather in time, time to be by the fire and cozy in the house.

But.

It is also a great time to move forward on projects, and they are scattered all over the house and workroom. It is both a disadvantage and an advantage to live so far out: a disadvantage in that we are not on the way to anywhere and few people venture out our way even in good weather. In wintry times, forget having visitors. The advantage is that we can spread our work out all over the place without worrying about anyone seeing the mess!

So here it was early this morning:

In the kitchen, a mirror and a picture get new paint. After finishing the mirror, I decided I didn't want to use it as I think the silvering is just too bad. So another mirror will be on the table later today.

Also in the kitchen the drawers to the dressing table that the mirror will go on, and painted picture frames--finished, thank goodness.

In the living room, ebay sales wait to go up to the mailbox,

and another drawer to the dressing table.

In the log room the dressing table awaits glazing and waxing,

a small trunk waits for paint and other work,

and a mirror and more picture frames need paint, backs, etc.

This doesn't include the projects Larry is working on out on the back porch and in the workroom. There is only room for one of us to work in the workroom since the dogs and cats are in there, staying warm in this bad weather. So my work has moved inside the house, for now.

I guess I know what I will be doing the rest of this snowy day.

Stay warm and safe, friends.


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

The Spencer Booth

This has been a busy week with the booths; not just stocking them but also painting and pricing things. We didn't expect to be back at our Spencer booth today but we found this amazing buffet yesterday afternoon and decided it needed to go straight to a booth rather than trying to store it. And the only booth with any space for it was the one in Spencer.

I love the detail on this, and it still has all the original pulls, too. Why isn't my house big enough for it?!

 I enjoy arranging things in my booths. This one I wanted to give a warm feel with a hint of fall colors, so I chose a lot of ruby and amber pieces.

And remember the green sideboard I painted this week? It's now in the booth and is also sporting a fall look.

This booth is pretty full, but I still have space on the wall, and in the two china cabinets in this area.

A pretty cobalt-edged tea set is called Queen's China and was made in England. I picked it up for a song and almost priced it way too low. I took a few minutes to look it up, and my goodness! The amber candle holders are Fenton's thumbprint pattern.

I may take this old chest of drawers home if it doesn't sell in the next couple months. It would be stunning if we refinished it, but right now we don't have time to take it on. Maybe this winter it will be one of our projects, although I hope someone just buys it as is and does the refurbishing themselves. We've got plenty lined up to work on already.

Glass, glass, glass, how I love it! The blue piece on the left kept me busy trying to find its maker and age. Finally a Facebook vintage glass group identified it as Kemple Glass Company of Kenova, WV, a company in business from 1945-1970. Kemple used old molds of McKee glass, which is why this confused me--the pattern and style looked out, but the color seemed wrong. The middle one is, I believe, by Jeannette and called "Lombardi"--made in the 50's. The last is Indiana Glass' diamond point pattern.

And here is the little gossip bench I painted this past week, all settled in to our other Spencer booth.

I like the way it looks with that red and ivory Hoosier cabinet. I pulled a lot of fall colors into this booth too.

We picked up the small drop-front desk last week; it's a perfect size for a kitchen or bedroom desk.

Here's a better look at the little desk. I had some wiggling to do to get everything into my spaces this week.

A few more additions to the booth: old tin canisters and a sweet little green spice rack. We lucked out yesterday--we went to the local Bargain Days flea market (only held a couple times a year) and although there were few vendors, there was one lady who had tables full of things from her mother's house. We picked up quilts and quilt tops, crockery, thimbles, and a lot of kitchenware at absolutely dirt cheap prices. I took some of it to the booth after giving it a good washing. These canisters were from that lot.

Another small shelf in this booth could still hold a few more things. Next trip I'll be reorganizing this one.

That's all the photos I took today. There were a few people browsing so I was limited a bit by what I could take. Next trip perhaps I'll be able to take more.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Projects, Projects, Projects: What Larry's Been Up To

I thought today I'd show you what Larry is up to during this cold, cold weather. Temperatures don't slow him down at all--in fact, he just gets busier. He starts the day with feeding the animals, getting in wood for the fireplace, and generally battening the hatches. With this cold weather, he also started both vehicles and let them run a while just to keep them in the habit!

Once all of the morning routine is finished, he gets to his favorite place--the new log room. It's not finished but it has become his workroom and we're rethinking the original idea to make it a guest room because we realized we desperately need a place to work on our furniture repair/refinishing projects. We will still make it use-able as a place where overnight guests can sleep when it's finished, but we are thinking about how to make it a work area that can be quickly changed over to guest quarters.

Right now, he's got a lot of irons in the fire:

We found this oak washstand Saturday and Larry couldn't wait to get to work on it. It had been varnished and later painted black; he's stripping it back to its original golden oak color, and generally tightening it up.

 We've had this primitive table around here for years. The other day the high winds tumbled it across the yard and tore some boards loose. That prompted Larry to give it some TLC. Now it's ready to go to one of our booths.

 This little oak table is in pretty good shape, but it's missing it's drawer. I got fooled on this one--the drawer side was to the wall and I didn't look close enough! So, what to do? Build a drawer, or find an oak board that matches and put it in place of the drawer opening? While we think about it, Larry is tightening it up, regluing, re-setting screws, etc.

 This dresser looked fine when I bought it last summer, but after a few months in the booth (and out of its former home in a barn) the back started to come apart. We brought it home yesterday, and Larry is working his magic on it. We decided to sand and refinish this one.

Someone thought it would b brilliant to put some kind of white fake-porcelain look on the top of this beautiful Victorian table. Larry is in the process of stripping it; then we'll refinish the top (and we may end up stripping the base and finishing it too). I bought some replacement wheels for it on eBay. I think it will look beautiful when we're finished with it.

The washstand, topsy turvy.

 Another dresser, but no photos here of this one. It also needed tightening up, regluing, etc. We decided to paint this one since it's not made of oak or other fine wood, and some of the veneer is not in good condition. I'm thinking black, with white antiqued drawer pulls. Any suggestions?

So now you know what keeps the gardener busy in winter! He has lots to do, that's for sure--and I didn't even show you the Hoosier cabinet waiting for his attention or the other two cabinets he's been working on since last summer. While he does this work, I'm busy researching glass, cleaning, washing linens, and pricing.
Who said winter is a drag? We never seem to have enough hours in our days.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Refinishing, Re-Doing, Remaking

We've been busy working on furniture while the weather has been so nasty. Washstand, chair, dressing table, and 2 dressers are all in some stage of restoration.

The washstand came out beautifully. Under its rough exterior it was hiding golden oak. I believe this stand was being used as a cabinet in a welder's shop before we bought it at a tool auction. I bought porcelain casters for it on eBay and those are on the way, and I am bidding on some brass drawer pulls; that will finish up this project--and the stand stays here at home. It serves as an end table in our log room.

It was difficult to get a good picture of it because Larry had put it back in place and it's a tight space. Here's a couple more, though, that might given an idea of the beauty of this wood.

Somewhere I had a "before" photo, but I believe it is on my big computer which is still in the shop, so I can't show you what an incredible transformation this is.

,

The next photo is the dressing table we bought a month ago. It was in very, very bad shape. The frame holding the mirror was broken, the finish was ruined, and it had big wood knobs for handles. Larry repaired the frame, stripped, sanded and refinished the whole thing. My contribution was finding new glass knobs for it. It looks beautiful now, ready to put back together and deliver to my son's house for his daughter's bedroom.

I'll add a photo of the completed project when we get all the pieces put back together.

This next photo is another dresser Larry stripped, along with the mirror to the dressing table. The man gets to work on these things before I can take "before" photos, so I have none to show you. This one was painted an ugly brown, and in the process of stripping Larry found it had also been blue, green and black at various times in its life.

When he got it to this point, he stopped. 

We tried to figure out what kind of wood it might be made of and posted some pics on Facebook. After many suggestions, I have to agree with one person who said that he thought it was poplar that had been stained with a cherry-colored stain. The stain has seeped into the wood, leaving this remarkable coloring.

So all we did with it after much discussion was to wax it and leave it as is. I think it's gorgeous. It will probably go to our Marietta booth in the next week.

No pics of the chair he's been working on because that one, thank goodness, is up in his work building. My house right now is slowly coming back to order after a few day's of being cluttered up with these projects.

Another project this week was regrouting tile.

I like tile, but it's a lot of work at times. Larry did the entryway and the kitchen counter, along with some patching up in the bathroom. The entryway is finally dry and ready to clean up.

Every surface in this house is currently gritty or dusty, I swear, but all of this work is to a good end, and dust and grit will be cleaned up tomorrow, because today?

Today is storytelling! It will be just a short hop to WV Community College to share stories and thoughts about Appalachian storytelling   with a college class. It has finally stopped the rain/snow/sleet/yuck weather and looks to be pretty today and for the next few. Hurray for sunshine!


Linking today to A Vintage Green, Treasure Hunt Thursday, Show and Tell Friday and Open House Party. Have fun visiting these great sites to see what's going on in the world of country living, vintage, crafts, and cooking. All good things!



Copyright 2012 Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.