Little Old House

Going blind(s)

2012-02-03T17:41:00.001-06:00

While Little Man has outgrown the stage where a dark room with light-blocking curtains guarantees long naps and sleeping in late in the mornings (no more naps and he's just as much of an early bird as his mom), it is still nice to have some window treatments. Privacy is a good reason although even our next door neighbor doesn't get much more of a glimpse of the ....err, creative chaos that reigns supreme in his room. Mom here simply likes the finished look that window treatments add to a room.

So after some debating and looking at options we decided on Roman shades like the ones we have in our kitchen. And just like our kitchen shades, I made Little Man's shades by hand. We found a fabric with navy and white stripes to match his accent wall and following the instructions from "The Little Green Notebook" whipped up a pair of one-of-a-kind roman shades.

The entry hall works great for projects like this: lots of open floor space to spread out. In the upper left corner of the photo you can spy my youngest assistant of the feline sort just waiting for the right moment to pounce into the midst of things!

And two hours later, Little Man was one step closer to a finished room! Weird how we sometimes end up procrastinating on projects that come together so quickly and, once done, make things look so much nicer.

Have you ever tried to make your own roman shades? Which instructions did you follow? I can't believe how easy it is and how quick you can whip up some custom roman shades in your favorite fabric!

Kiss me, Cupid!

2012-02-02T17:00:00.001-06:00

Our door wreath with the big white "G" has become somewhat of a permanent fixture on our front door, then at the Silver Street apartment and now at the Ugly Duckling, ever since I picked the two items up at a local craft store. Its look changes according to the season, but the wreath and the letter remain the same.

Like here when summer's yellow rubber ducky and flower gave way to gold and yellow leaves and pumpkins announcing that fall had finally made its way to North East Florida.

Or in this post here when I shared a few Christmas decorations with you at the Ugly Duckling, among them the door wreath ... The Wreath (tm) ... in its Christmas finery (allright, so I like it simple and non-frilly).

After Christmas, it looked a bit bare out there while we were in limbo between not-Christmas and not-Easter, so when I spied a roll of ribbon of cute little red felt hearts and a dozen heart hangers I knew what needed to happen.

Not quite $5 later this is what our door wreath looked like. Quick and simple and cute. It's been a busy two weeks - as you can undoubtedly tell from the infrequent posting here on the blog - and a quick DIY fix was just what I needed to set my world straight again.

Little Man's Cave Make-Over

2012-02-01T18:19:00.001-06:00

What?
A make-over already?

Fear not! Little Man's Cave remains mostly untouched. He still loves his grassy green walls and navy and white stripe accent wall but for some reason the layout wasn't working.

At all.

And just like that, the room failed and began to accumulate stuff and clutter while Little Man evaded the mess by bringing his toys downstairs rather than putting his room to good use. Kind of like the problem we had with our front porch (read about it here). Speaking of the porch, I'm happy to proclaim it's as tidy as on its first day!

Back to the Little Man Cave: the large desk made it feel crowded, he couldn't reach some of the cubbies underneath and it went downhill from there. One night - I was curled up on the couch with a kitty and a cup of tea - I ended up doodling on a piece of paper trying to figure out how to solve the problem.

[Design doodle: not to scale]

Little Man needed to be able to easily access all of the cubbies of the larger IKEA shelf and the smaller book shelves. So I moved them to the opposite wall and lined them up alongside. They fit EXACTLY! With maybe an inch on either side to spare! His bed, I decided, needed to move back against the wall without a window and for the moment, I set the desk aside and decided it'd be better if he just had a large space in the center of his room (with a rug) to play and romp around. Little Man does his homework at the dining room table with me sitting across from him, so he doesn't really need a desk in his room.

I'll spare you the "Before". It was an awful mess and it took us from start to finish about four hours to move furniture, to sort out and to sort in, and to put everything back in place.

So - much - better!

Little Man declared he liked it and the fact that he's actually using his room and spending time in it rather than hauling his toys downstairs is proof of that. As for me? I'm able to breathe now and don't break into panic attacks when setting foot into this part of the house ... heh.

This concludes Phase 1 of the Little Man Cave shuffle. I have more plans for window treatments, open shelving and art so expect to see more of Little Man's Green Cave here soon.

It's been what???

2012-01-31T15:53:00.002-06:00

A year.
A whole year.
365 days.

No, not since my last post.

A year ago on this past Saturday we set our signatures under tons of paperwork and closed on our Ugly Duckling. To our surprise it was a very anti-climatic event - no balloons fell from the ceiling, no confetti, no champagne corks popping - nothing - heck, we weren't even ceremoniously handed the keys to our house since they were still inside the lock box stuck to the doorknob at the house. Yet, despite all of that, this was the day the Ugly Duckling became ours.

Whatever it was that sold us on our little old house in Historic Springfield, it certainly wasn't the kitchen or the bathrooms. Nevermind the dirt, something spoke to us and both husband and I could see the potential in the old gal that we hopped in at the deep end and started swimming. We've been splashing in the pool of home ownership for a year now and it's been great. We've accomplished a LOT, first with the help of our contractors and their subs, then alone, and taken the house from drab and sad to a fresh new look with vintage touches.

While I've grown to abhor painting trim, I love loving on our house and can't wait to dedicate this year to bringing back a few more of its original characteristics.

But back to where we started. The photo two paragraphs up is from the original listing. That was the only picture in the listing so our first meeting was really a blind date. I managed to get a private sneak peek of the ground floor before our official visit when I managed to catch a painter at the house, painting the walls (the bank had decided to up their chances of selling the house by giving the walls a fresh coat of "swine." Fortunately we were able to see beyond the lovely shade of swine on the walls and other things.)

When we bought the Ugly Duckling, the interior did little to inspire awe and house envy. I mean, really, I look at these pictures now and can't help but think "Oh goody, what were we thinking?"

The downstair's kitchen

The upstair's kitchen

The livingroom

The guest bedroom

The bathroom upstairs

The Master bedroom

Our stair case

Hard to believe we fell in love with this place, eh? I mean, what for?? Whimsical Victorian? Nope. Lots of historic features? Grand style? No and no. All I can say is that the moment we set foot into our Little Old House we knew it was "The One."

Hook, line and sinker, y'know.

So we rolled up our sleeves, greased our elbows and went to work. And the Ol' Gal? She clearly enjoyed the attention and care we were lavishing on her, rolled beautifully with the punches and over the past year has become our Home. With a capital "H."

Our Guest bedroom in progress

Our stair case now

Our entry hall today

Living room at Christmastide

The dressing room and adjoining master bath, formerly known as the upstair's kitchen

Our dining room (actually the room in which we spend most of our days so maybe we should rename it to living room and call the living room "sitting room" instead)

Our lovely lovely kitchen

More kitchen (Hard to believe it's the same room, eh?)

Downstair's half bath

More downstair's half bath (and the world's smallest sink)

Our master bedroom in progress

Our Little Old House has come a looooong way, don't you think? We're nowhere near the finishing line but it's great to see what we've accomplished in a year. And maybe, just maybe this will encourage a reader that rescuing an old house and bringing it back to life is not just a green option but also very much worth it. And can be fun :o)

So raise your glasses and toast with us to another 12 months of living, loving, laughing, crying, cussing and diy-ing at the Little Old House! We love that you're along for the ride!

Where in the world is ...

2012-01-26T09:42:00.003-06:00

Well, not Carmen Sandiego, that's for sure. I doubt that fickle lady with the shady reputation ever had a permanent address, let alone one in Historic Springfield. She would, however, make a great addition to our "First Friday" parties, don't you think?

With our first year anniversary coming up in just two more days, I thought I'd share a bit more histoy of our little old house.

The person I was looking for was the builder of our Little Old House and its sister houses to the left. All I knew up until about two weeks ago was that somebody named E.F. Rainey built four houses in Historic Springfield, including ours, at the tailend of the Springfield boom years. Three of those four are still standing today, and all three are inhabitated and in good repair, still sporting at least some of their original features, both inside and out.

After the holidays I wasn't feeling too keen on picking up the trim painting brush again (Surprise!) and instead buried my nose deep in census files, death, marriage and birth records and generally went research-crazy over at Familysearch.org .

And guess what?
I found him!

E. F. Rainey is Edward F. Rainey. He and his three brothers moved to Jacksonville from North Carolina in the early 1900s to benefit from the building boom in Jacksonville. In 1920, Edward was 29 years old which means he was a barely out of the cradle and walking when he built those houses, ours included. Kidding.

So, Edward was 23 when he built the Ugly Duckling and its sister houses bringing along his crew in form of his brothers:
Jesse (also spelled Jessie), Edward's older brother by two years, listed as profession "Real Estate".
Virona Glenn, two years younger than Edward, was the painter in the family.
And the youngest, Joseph, must have been barely released from his apprenticeship when he worked as Electrician.

Electrician at 16 - scaaary! Then again, he must have done things right because the houses are still standing and didn't burn down. Lucky us!

Back then the band of brothers lived at Walnut Street, and while I have been able to find both Jessie (Jessie remained a bachelor until at least 1935 and lived at 1644 Main St.) and Virona Glenn (who got married to Ms Hazel Bonnie Southworth on February 25, 1939, in Riverside) in later years , Edward and Joseph have fallen off the radar and are eluding me so far.

I'm really excited to have found out about Edward and his brothers, and hope to dig up more about them to learn more about the people who built our house (and our neighbors' houses). With a little luck I might be able to dig up a picture of the house that has been lost over time. I wonder if it looks anything like the other three?

Almost 30 years ago

2012-01-25T10:23:00.006-06:00

In 1985 a group of people dedicated to the preservation and recognition of the Springfield neighborhood in Jacksonville kicked off a huge undertaking: surveying and cataloging every historic structure in Springfield for the application for National Historic District.

Springfield Heritage Education Center, short "SHEC", is working on making these masterfiles and photographs accessable on their webpage, along with more history, anecdotes and photographs of Springfield through the ages.

Check out the webpage here.

If you like to learn more historic tidbits about our neighborhood and find historical houses and neighborhoods generally squeal-worthy, sign up for their monthly newsletter!

While I haven't been able to get my hands on our house's master file just yet, I was able to find the picture taken in 1985 for the historic district application. Woot!

There it is, our little old house. While the years haven't been too kind to the exterior paint job and it doesn't look as fresh and new anymore, it hasn't changed a lot. The wrought-iron railing had already replaced the original wooden railing (which is a bummer since I was hoping to maybe find a picture with the old railing intact), the Crape Myrtle and funny-looking loquats hadn't been planted yet, the door to the right was much uglier than today's replacement (Thank God for small blessings!) and the clump of lilies at the step-up to the front yard was already planted. Would you believe that these lilies have been there for almost 30 years?? I certainly didn't (and now I feel somewhat bad about wanting to move them).

Other than that, our little house looks like our little house.

After mooning over the old photograph for a ...ahem,while, I did discover one little detail that had me squealing with excitement. I missed it at first, but you know, you have to get a little up close and personal.

Closer.
Closer still.

Do you see it?

Oh MY GOD! Leaded glass sidelights!

While our original entry door, bereft of its transom window, was already on the left side of the house, almost 30 years ago it had leaded glass sidelights! Aren't they beautiful??

Not only are they beautiful and I'm excited to have a picture of its past beauty, but this picture will be great proof of how the door originally looked like when we apply for the permission (Certificate of Appropriateness," short COA) to restore it. Woot!

I feel like dancing. How about you?

No more peekabo

2012-01-20T08:33:00.000-06:00

We are very fortunate to live in a neigbourhood with great neighbors in general (SPR's slogan could very well be "Come for the houses, stay for the people)" and especially lucky to live on a block with really darling neighbors.

So in order to quit shocking them with the sight of unmade bed hair, lumpy PJs and other unmentionable sights from the inhabitants and to add to the winterization of our house (not like we're really needing it this year; the winter has been incredibly mild so far) I decided to take this window in our vestibule looking out over our front porch and into the street from this

[Bare-naked ladies inside and out]

to this

[Shade in place]

by adding a simple thermal roman shade. During the day this baby rolls up and out of the way (without any cords to tease and tempt the feline members of the family to get into trouble) and in the evening it rolls down, keeping what's happening at the Ugly Duckling in the Ugly Duckling. I still may add actual curtains to the windows in the vestibule but this works fine for now.

So far, this has been our only ...ahem, foray into the world of winterization. Luckily, this winter has been very mild compared to past years. We hardly had any freezes and cold days have bounced back to warm sunny days in record time. It's kind of hard to keep up with what to wear: you go from shorts and t-shirts to woolen sweaters and coats within a matter of days.

By now the weather changes happen so fast that even my weather migraines can't keep up anymore. That is turning out to be the best thing because rather than feeling every change in weather I have managed to skip one or two without feeling so much as a twinge in my head. Woot!

Peeking into the future

2012-01-18T18:20:00.004-06:00

Since I'm chatting with our contractors via facebook plotting and planning a 2012 project, I thought I might as well post here a little doodad I threw together using Paint.

Quick and easy - that's how I like'em!

Behold! I present unto thee a future vision of The Ugly Duckling !

This vision includes replacing the current 1980s wrought-iron railing with a sturdier and historically more accurate wooden railing which will be safer and optically more pleasing, possibly a new fence with gentle swoops to both soften all and provide contrast to all the straight lines of our house and finally, the original door back in its original place by the porch steps.

This rendition does not include a faux transom window above the door (faux because our ceilings are dropped and would interfere with an actual transom). Ours got removed, most likely when the door was moved, but fortunately both houses to the left still have theirs and since the Ugly Duckling is an exact copy of one of the houses and almost 99% copy of the other, we know what its original transom would have looked like and are able to shamelessly copy them.

So, there you have it: our vision for what the Ugly Duckling should look like (plus a new coat of paint and maybe some landscaping) by the end of 2012. What do you think?

Gimme Grapefruit!

2012-01-16T07:40:00.000-06:00

In our neighbor's backyard there grows a grapefruit tree producing fruit like there is no tomorrow. It's loaded with tons of big yellow grapefruit, and while the grapefruits aren't the pretty, pristine and uniform looking fruit you can find at your grocery store, they do taste the best.

This is the first time in my life that I will happily eat grapefruit.

These babies are almost as sweet as oranges, maybe a tad tarter than your usual orange and with only the slightest hint of grapefruit bitterness as an aftertaste. Simply delicious!

If you ever needed a reminder that anything that had a chance to ripen where it was growing rather than being picked green to mature in a box in transit, there you have it.

I've been searching the web for ideas on what to do with the bounty our neighbor is sharing so happily with us and aside from just squeezing one into a glass, pure and unadulterated, for a healthy drink to accompany my breakfast here are two winners:

Broiled Grapefruit (link to recipe here)
DELICIOUS!
Then again, how can you go wrong with butter, sugar, cinnamon and oh, fruit? This is a great way of eating even the tartest Grapefruit!

Mulled Grapefruit Punch (link to recipe here)
This one is great for really juicy grapefruit. I managed to get two cups of juice out of 4 bigger ones and it made for a lovely drink to keep me warm on a chilly Florida winter night.

Got any other tried and true recipes using citrus?

Pi-Pa-Pocket doors - Part II

2012-01-13T07:03:00.000-06:00

And it's back to the pocket doors (Although the yard is calling my name. Loudly. And the weather is gorgeous!)!

As excited I am about having them, I'm just not that excited about having to paint them. I know it'll be so worth it but after painting so much trim and so many doors already, it's one of those projects that I'm having a hard time finding the excitement for. Oh woe is me! *imagine dramatic hand to forehead pose*

Anyways, my pretty babies are now patched, caulked, sanded and primed and ready for some fresh paint. Here is a in-progress shot that shows the yellow patches of wood filler where I smoothed over dings and scratches on my second time around.

I then decided to venture on another detour before painting the doors and love a little on the original hardware. I globbed on some paint remover to get rid of some old paint built-up along the edges of the hardware, waited and scraped off the gluey mess.

As always, the first layer of yellowed off-white paint doesn't budge at all. That was quality paint, back then, I'm telling you. None of that wimpy Latex they are selling these days. After cleaning up the hardware I tried to prime around it. Yeah, well, that didn't work so great. There was just no good way of doing a good job painting around the hardware so after a few moments spent grumbling, I checked the screws, grabbed the right kind of screw driver and send a prayer to Heaven.

The escutcheons came off without a hitch!

I don't know what I expected to find underneath but I sure did not expect to see raw wood once I removed the hardware. And if the smell isn't fooling me, it's pine wood to boot. A quick sanding and after almost a 100 years, this spot received its first coat of primer ever.

Hier is a closer look at the original hardware from our pocket door. It's so pretty!

On the back you can see how shiny the brass once was. Over the years it has developed a beautiful patina.

Eventually, I did get around to start laying on a fresh coat of paint. Here are the first few shots that show the first coat going up on the dining room side. Of course, I'm still not finished. Tonight I hope to finish coat no. 1 in its entirty and adding coat no. 2 over the weekend. There's a German saying that basically says that "good things take their while" so yes, this is taking a while but it's looking good.

Did you paint anything lately? [<- See that? That's a trick questions :o) ]

Porch Make-Over

2012-01-12T07:36:00.002-06:00

Whenever something isn't working - whether that's some method of organization, the arrangement of furniture in a room, a schedule of activities - Time. Will. Tell.

Loudly.
Without fail.

And continue to yell at you until you get it.
And change it.

This is how I felt about our front porch arrangement: at first, things were working fine but one day, it began to accumulate clutter.

Stuff.

Things that needed to be put elsewhere (and instead of doing just that, we added a Rubbermaid bin to the porch and start filling it up.) but weren't. That also included old newspapers and empty guinea pig food containers.

We were happily headed toward earning the honorary title of "THAT neighbor", and our neighbors really don't deserve that.

Yesterday, everything came to a screeching halt. Coming home after picking up Little Man from the school bus stop, I just couldn't stand it any longer and rather than tackling one of the projects on the interior to-do list, I tore our front porch apart. I delegated Little Man to drag our Christmas tree to the curb and then asked him to help me to carry the monstrous guinea pig (we have two guinea pig ladies, Cookie and Brownie) into the back yard.

Yes, that's guinea pig manure on our front porch (since the porch angles ever so slightly down and away from the house, straw, food and other stuff tends to roll out of the cage all by itself). I know, I know. I told you it was bad!

[In-progress: The neighborhood cats are befuddled by the activity on the porch]

After removing everything that had no business on our porch, sweeping and hosing it off, I started to rearrange our porch furniture.

The only ones to use our bench are the cats. They clamber up and perch on the back of it to peek through our window. We assume watching us is like TV to them. People TV! Of course, if we aren't quick enough to feed them in the morning, there's much caterwauling to be heard and seen from this vantage spot.

I decided to unscrew it from the house (no kidding, it was screwed to the siding with 4 large L-brackets) and move it. My dream is to pick up a porch swing at some point but for now, the DIY budget is slated for other things so it'll have to wait. Instead, I moved the bench over against the railing of the side of our porch. Not bad!

I changed the angle of the old bamboo rug, then moved our patio table and two of the chairs to restore our porch dining area. Me likey! A lot! Even Little Man piped up with how much he liked the new look.

The little old two-tier shelf/side table went next to the bench, and voila! Done!

The remaining two chairs wandered over to the other side of the porch for a quick seating arrangement next to the entry. It probably won't get any real use but it's a good spot to keep the chairs in case we need to seat more people over at the table. Plus, I figure I can't take just shut down the porch kitties' People TV for good.

All nice and tidy. I wonder what the husband will say when he comes home? Heh ...

View from the entrance door: A simple, no-cost clean up and rearranging of porch furniture made this a much more pleasant space. Now, we're no longer "THAT neighbor" - phew!

Sure, we still have to power wash, skimcoat and paint the porch floor, replace the railing with a historically appropriate wooden railing, install a fence, paint the house and redesign the landscaping up front, but for now, for now I can live with it.

Temptation

2012-01-11T07:39:00.000-06:00

While the pocket doors are primed and curing, I thought I'd share my latest acquisition with you:

Remember this from the house at Walnut Court?

These little dust corners were an invention of the last decade of the 1800s and a simple and decorative means to simplify the housework: they kept dust from building up in the hard to reach corners between tread and riser and cut down on time necessary for sweeping the stairs.

These soft brass corners are held in place by a nail, and were either plain or sported an embossed pattern.

Decorative? Check!
Practical? Check!
Quirky vintage type detail? Check!

All those three check marks put this feature on my must-have list for the Ugly Duckling. While you can buy original dust corners salvaged from another old house, reproduction pieces are also available. I found them at "Van Dykes Restorers" (in sets of 12) as well as "The House of Antique Hardware" (individual pieces).

[source: Van Dykes Restorers]

"Lee Valley Tools & Veritas" even sells a modern version that is glued into corners (here) if you care for the practicality but not the vintage design.

Anyways, I ordered a bunch of these little guys for our steps. Maybe that'll help me tackle the stair case for good. What do you think?

Pi-pa-pocket doors - Part I

2012-01-10T07:22:00.000-06:00

When we bought our Ugly Duckling of a House a year ago we didn't know that the original pocket doors between living and dining room were still in place, hidden behind an ungodly amount of caulk. It was like a belated Christmas present for us when we discovered them (you can read more about that here) soon after we started tearing into/out the non-original walls in the former entry and living room areas to restore the original floor plan.

After freeing them from their hidey-hole inside the walls, we continue to marvel at and love this original feature. For the most part they stay almost completely open with just a bit of door and hardware showing (this is how we love it best) but with colder weather moving in, they will allow us to create smaller, more intimate pockets inside the house to stay warm more easily in cozy rooms. Bigger isn't always better, y'know.

Here's what they looked like after I managed to pry out the left half. Gee, that was way back when the brick fireplace was still all bricked up and brick red. Oh, and the living room was painted that lovely shade of "swine" (which looked all the more pink thanks to the big red brick structure).

Shortly after that we created a big mess busting open the fireplace for a simple gel fireplace insert, painting the brick white (there's really no good way to remove paint from brick so we went with it and just changed the color) and the walls a beautiful warm dark grey a la Restoration Hardware.

A few days before Thanksgiving the husband decided that we should tackle the pocket doors. And again, life confirmed what we'd learned throughout the past couple of months: everything will take longer than on HGTV.

We scraped old flaky paint for the better of two days. In the end we decided that they wouldn't get finished in time for Turkey Day, I gave them a quick coat of primer so they'd at least be a uniform color and called it a day.

Fast forward 1 1/2 months ( I know, shame on me, but hey! Time flies! Especially over the holidays) :

Like a criminal I returned to the scene of my crime:

One fascinating aspect of primer is that it will point out to you the spots you missed during your first patching and sanding session. So rather than finally getting to paint the pocket doors I spied so many new old dings and scratches that I gave up, gave in and broke out the wood filler again.

It never ends.

Happy - for now - with my patching I then went for the caulk gun. You see, old trim is never just a one-piece deal. More often than not trim is an elaborate affair consisting of several simple pieces that together build up to a more complex piece. After scraping all that old paint and removing some of the old caulking with it, the seams between those individual pieces needed some patching as well.

Fortunately, I actually enjoy caulking :o)

Today, the pocket doors should finally be ready for their fresh coat of paint, and with a little luck I should be able to present them -all done and pretty - to you tomorrow. That is if my DIY ADHD doesn't kick in again and I get sidetracked, y' know ...

Rocking the Open House: Walnut Court

2012-01-09T08:32:00.005-06:00

Whenever I look at the first picture, I'm rendered speechless that this historic house was not only condemned and slated for demolition but that the bulldozer was waiting just down the alley. There was some serious luck involved that the contractor who won the demolition bid was able to get the right people involved and stall the demo long enough so they had a chance to pull this house back from the abyss and turn it into the first ever, legally mothballed structure in Jacksonville.

Over the past couple of weeks many volunteers pitched in countless hours pooling knowledge and resources, to clean and prepare this Ol' Lady and on Sunday, we got to celebrate! And me, I'm happy to be able to share a few impressions from the Open House:

Condemned, my ...! Walnut Court all prepped and primped and ready for the party

Preservation SOS Info table

A detail that escaped my attention the first time around: dust corners. These are little brass shapes that are nailed into the corners of each step to keep the dust from building up in the corners thus simplifying the clean up. Aren't they neat?
[I think I want some for the Ugly Duckling]

Visitors enjoying the official tour lead by Nicole Lopez, president of PSOS.

Mingling in the downstairs dining room. Opening the bay windows

flooded the rooms with light, and the layout is perfect for parties.

The buffet: cheese and dips and crackers, oh my.

Thanks to the gorgeous weather, the party spilled naturally out and onto the porch.

And you know, it felt like the house enjoyed it just as much ...

Meet my Neighbors: Preservation SOS

2012-01-06T10:31:00.002-06:00

Right on par with my New Year's resolution #4: "Spread the Love", I thought I'd give you a peek at what I did on New Year's Eve since it's all in the spirit of spreading the love, on historic homes and my beautiful and special neighborhood. This "Meet my neighbors" type of post will become a regular Friday Feature here at "Little Old House" and I hope you are as excited to meet some of my neighbors as I'm excited to introduce them to you!

So today I'd like you to meet "Preservation SOS" (SOS is short for "Save our Springfield"). In the rather short time since its inception, this grassroots movement of neighbors fighting to preserve historic homes in our neighborhood has grown by leaps and bounds, not just in numbers and sheer support but more importantly in influence on city legislation and overall awareness of preservation of historical structures in our city.

From stepping up to the plate in boarding up vacant structures and cleaning up neglected lots when legal owners wouldn't (or couldn't) and drumming up support for "Acts of Kindness" that beautified the neighborhood, they have recently grown beyond these smaller, yet so effective measures.

Their press release says it best:

"Historic homes matter in Springfield. This is the crux of the mission of Preservation SOS; saving the houses. On October 16, 2011, Preservation SOS, a Florida not for profit, incorporated an arm to PSOS called "This Place Matters." This Place Matters obtains historic property with active case files,encumbered with a multitude of code violations,and fosters the unloved and misinterpreted home through guardianship. Homes owned by This Place Matters participate in mothballing, code remediation, and subsequent placement (home is sold) in the hands of a willing and able homeowner. Potential owners are provided with restoration estimates, resources to understand historic codes in Jacksonville, and financial consultation with a local, reputable bank.
To donate a home, or refer a home for donation please contact us at preservationsos@yahoo.com, or call 904-335-8SOS, or become a member of our organization and forum at http://forum.preservationsos.org
Donations are tax-deductible."

On New Year's Eve, Little Man and I hopped over to the first "This Place Matters" house, armed with freshly baked cinnamon rolls and coffee for all, to see if we could pitch in for a couple of hours. You know, if we don't feel like painting stuff at our house, I guess we could at least paint stuff at another, right?

Mind you, this house was on the formal track for demolition. A historic home. In a national historic district. That in itself is a crying shame. These houses are built with supplies that are way higher in quality and with a much higher level of craftsmanship that can not be matched these days. They clean up surprisingly quickly and much more easily than expected, but Code cannot wrap its collective mind around it and well ... isn't helping. In fact, it's rather aggressively working against all that is good and noble in regard to these historic homes and would love to see the entire 'hood razed, asap.

Anyways, this is the house at Walnut Court. The previous owner couldn't keep up with the demands imposed by code anymore and finally just gave up. Fortunately, he was willing to go above and beyond what is expected to save this house and donated it to PSOS. I loved it from the first moment I saw it.

423 Walnut Court was originally built as a duplex. It's a two-story vernacular style wooden frame house with a large two-story front porch. According to the property appraiser webpage it was built in 1916 (or possibly earlier, just like the Ugly Duckling) and features 2376 sq ft. living space (not counting the porches).

Here's what it looked like that morning (lots of pictures to follow, including some with half-naked men so stay tuned!)

That's Curt sweeping in front of the house. The front of the house gets lovely dappled sunlight all day long thanks to those huge old oak trees in front of it. Future a/c and heat bills won't be entirely unpleasant thanks to this very energy efficient orientation of the house. Seriously!

Taking a look at the side: notice the nice straight siding. (it's the fence that's sagging). That Grand Old Lady is still rocking an excellent posture! All primed and ready for some fresh exterior paint. Walnut Court is the first house to be officially mothballed (more on mothballing later) i.e., to be secured and boarded up to wait for better times with the blessings of the city officials.

Original entry doors with official paperwork stuck to them.
Wanna go inside?

I know I did! I was DYING to see the inside!

Look at the gorgeous hardware with the floral pattern and the double keyhole! How cool is that? All you need is a knob, and these are easy to come by. Try eBay.

This is the entry hall downstairs. The previous owner removed all plaster walls, painstakingly pulled out every! nail and laid bare the stunning frame work. This is all bolt straight and in incredible condition. Not one funky decrepit stud in sight. And really, that's the hard part. Now all you need to do is add wiring and plumbing and insulation and close'er up with drywall and you're done!

Look at those arches! They make my knees go weak ...

Both apartments (upstairs an downstairs) have an entry hall/vestibule, a living room, a dining room (downstairs with the set-up for a pocket door and upstairs via an archway), a kitchen, a bathroom and 2 bedrooms. The rooms feel open and airy, and this would be a darling property to live in one half while renting out the other half.

Going up the stairs! See? Bolt straight!

In this pictures you catch a glimpse of the first upstairs bedroom and the upper landing. It's killing me that the newel post is sporting the cables for a light fixture! I think this one here would be perfect for that spot, what do you think? Since the upstairs windows weren't boarded up securely yet you get a great idea of how bright and light this space really is. And since all you see is tree tops, you feel very much like you're out in the country side and not five minutes from downtown.
If you look closely you can spy the ghost of the patterned hardwood floors underneath the dust. The floors are in really great shape. Much better even than here at the Ugly Duckling before the repairs. I didn't notice any obvious termite damage and heck, this is Florida. Termites are everywhere.

This is the fireplace in the upstairs apartment. That old water heater is history (Go tankless, I'm telling you!) - good riddance. More lovely floors. The kitchen is in the back behind the fireplace.

The kitchen currently holds a treasure money can't really buy: part of the original trim of the house. I was assured that -all- of the original trim - picture rails, base molding, etc. - was safely stored in a storage pod. Each piece is hand labeled so it can return to its original spot. Can't buy this stuff at the blue or orange box ...

Watching somebody paint a house with a paint sprayer is the ultimate kick. If you didn't already love spray paint before, this will push you over the edge.

Look! Gratuitous bare chest shot! (Nice hard-working guys, both of them)

Stuff like this makes me squeal with delight, I'm telling you. How adorable is this little dormer? Just for a roof vent! Today all they manage is to slap some rectangular boxes on rooftops and call it a day...

The roof needed some fixing, and if you are considering buying this place a new roof needs to be in the budget. Did you notice the rafter tails? So stinkin' cute!

Hard at work: here are just a handful of volunteers who stopped by that day to pitch in (Sam, Nicole, Debbie and Jamie) . More than a dozen came over just on New Year's Eve (and probably still sported paint sprinkles and splatters at parties later that night).

More rafter tails - I'm officially smitten. If this were my house, I'd paint them a contrasting color to draw attention to them. Yes, I'd even climb a ladder.
They'll look sharp.

Little Man helping paint the porch rail on the upstairs porch,
(with Johannes and Gloria in the back).

We have a heart for historic homes: The boards in front of the windows are required to have venting holes, so they are arranged in a heart shape. Every historic home needs some loving, even one without (yet) a forever family ...

Curt painting away on the downstairs porch.

The Grand Old Lady with a new coat of fresh paint. Can you see the potential now?

Photos are never enough so if you want to see this ol' house in person you should swing by on

Sunday, January 8, 2012
at 3:00pm
for an Open House Wine & Cheese Party
at 423 Walnut Court in Historic Springfield, Jacksonville FL.
(click here for directions)

You might even get to meet lil' ol' me :o)

Glimpse of the past

2012-01-05T11:17:00.007-06:00

Guilty as charged: I'm an old house nut. I love the craftsmanship of bygone times, the love for detail and the sense of history you get living in an old home.

While house hunting in 2010, the husband and I also looked at a number of younger houses. Modern houses outside our historic neighborhood. Not only did it feel like cheating but we were baffled at how, well ... empty those houses felt to us. Now, mind you, both the husband and I have lived in newer homes prior to moving to Historic Springfield in Jacksonville just fine. Guess we didn't know what we were missing, right?

Back to the whole history part.

[The Sanborn Map Collection at the Jacksonville Main Library]

Our darling Ugly Duckling of a house has changed hands many times in its almost 100 years of existence and has been home to even more. If you check out the page called "House History" (find the navigation button at the top of the blog or simply click here), you can find out about past tenants and the bit about the builder I was able to dig up.

So far I have

searched the city directories (check out this blog post here)
checked out the Sanborn map (read more about it here)
investigated the Springfield survey

Over the holidays I decided to take the plunge and signed up for a trial membership in Ancestry.com. I also discovered the site Familysearch.com courtesy of the LDS church and tend to get the better results using their search engine.

What better way to dig through an old US Census than from the cozy comfort of your couch, socks and tea and a cookie nearby?

Best. time. drain. ever!
Well, at least for somebody like me. It excites me to learn more about the men and women who called our house their home and to tease their story from old records.
I have managed to unearth a few more details about the people who shared the Ugly Duckling with us and I just have to figure out a good way to share these story bits.

Every old house owner's dream is it to find an old picture of their house. You know, from the time when the varnish was still fresh and the plaster not quite dry. So far, no luck, but I'm hanging in there. Who knows I might just find that one shoe box with the family pictures taken our street in 1915.

Wouldn't that be cool?

2012 Resolutions

2012-01-03T08:39:00.001-06:00

Some bloggers have already posted their New Year's resolutions, some refuse to even think about resolutions and others again might hint at them but not elaborate. Me? I'm caught somewhere in the middle when it comes to resolutions for the new year.

Sure enough, I want to eat (and feed my family) healthier, a little more exercise wouldn't hurt and I should maybe go out more often but frankly I'm a blessed little bug and my life is good. Really good.

So, do I have any other resolutions for the new year? Plans? Things I'd do different from last year?
Sure enough!

#1 - Spend more time with the husband

Make that "Spend more quality time with the husband". It's not like we don't see each other or don't do anything but we sure could use some date nights on a more regular basis. So this year for Christmas I followed this pinterest pin and presented him with a basket of 12 pre-planned and pre-paid date nights, one for each month of 2012. He was thrilled and is just as giddy about getting started. Little Man, on the other hand, is heartbroken when we told him we wouldn't take him along.

[source: SB - Find Joy in the Journey]

#2 Up my Organization
My eidetic memory certainly comes to the rescue when my organization skills are lacking but that needs to change (at least somewhat). I'd love to be a bit more organized, not just drawer-wise, you know, but be on top of sending our birthday cards, etc.

#3 Wrap'em up
After working on the house for 10 months, our DIY spirit fizzled out toward the end of 2011. We've reached a rather normal state of mind for our 'hood. It's the one where half-finished paint and/or plaster works just don't bother you. You know, we'll get there and eventually finish it. Good thing this blog makes you (or rather, us) more accountable when it comes to projects, so yes, wrapping up a few indoor projects that have been going on for way too long now is high on our list for 2012. Once the "immediate project list" has been conquered, time will be available for flourishes and extras. (Tin ceiling, beadboard, fireplace, and, and, and) Woot!

#4 Spread the love
Jacksonville is slow to changes its impression of Historic Springfield so I want to bump up the 'hood PR on my blog a bit, share a bit more about the various neighborhood groups, activities and events and just brag to my little heart's content about the world's greatest neighborhood of them all. Expect to see some more rambling about the joys of historic homes, restoration, renovation and research links and tips.

So, do you do resolutions?

New Year - New Look!

2012-01-02T09:38:00.001-06:00

After shopping around and testing a couple of free blog designs from "The Cutest Blog on the Block" (go, check them out here), I decided to jump in at the deep end of the pool and try my hand at whipping up my own header, for starters.

My google fu was strong that night and after a quick search I turned up a number of really neat tutorials like

"How to design and upload a Blog Header" from Jo Lynne at Musings of a Housewife
"How to make a Blog Header in Blogger" from Marianne at Songbird is Nesting

From there I hopped to Cozy Little House, specifically for the tutorial on "Creating a Collage Banner" using Picnik's photo-editing program (I have since then downloaded photoscape but still need to find time to play with it).

After playing around with the various artsy photo effects I decided I really liked how the watercolor filter distorted and changed the photos I'd tentatively picked for my collage without losing too much detail and - most important - without losing the character of each picture. For anybody from the 'hood, they are as recognizable as without the filter.

First up is a close-up of one of our neighborhood entry markers: a Klutho inspired spire with a stylized blue double-banner spelling "Springfield" and "est. 1869". This one's at the corner of Main Street and First Street.

Main Street, or rather a vintage postcard view of Main Street from the era before the Great Fire, takes center stage. If you've ever driven down today's Main Street, you will understand the wistful sighs and the longing in every Springfielder's voice when musing about bringing Main St back to its former glory. Yes, there are tracks in the center ... tracks where the street wagon used to run. I'm especially partial to the Floridian Grandeur of a palm tree lined avenue. The city did actually plant some on the median further up Main Street, outside of the historic district.

And last, but certainly not least, on the left you find a vista of our Ugly Duckling (and it's looking very Bungalow-y in this particular shot).

Picnik was very user-friendly in regard to adjusting the collage and generally toying with effects, placement and even text. After testing a few frames I added the "grunge" style borders to my altered pictures; I'm by no means frilly, really, but they needed something and those borders strike a nice balance between masculine brush strokes and girly curly cues, don't you think?

Thanks to the detailed instructions in the tutorials I mentioned above, installing my new creation was a breeze, and I hereby proudly present LOH's new look to kick off 2012!

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? Do you dig the new look? Yay? Nay?

I definitely enjoyed playing with Picnik and its options and might be willing to spend some more time with some design ideas, later. You know, for seasonal twists on the theme, perhaps, or when outdoor projects create a new look for our Darling Duckling.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T07:21:00.001-06:00

Coming in 2012: plans for the new year

2011-12-30T09:12:00.001-06:00

While first preparing for and then relaxing over the holidays, we had plenty of time to muse and plot and plan about the projects we would like to tackle here at our darling Ugly Duckling over the next couple of months.

After wrapping up some trim paint jobs inside our home, we've decided to dedicate 2012 first and formost to the exterior of our little old house.

[Ugly Duckling in oil]

- Replace-A-Rail
Soon, the rusty iron railing will be a thing of the past. Plans to replace the non-original wrought iron porch railing with a more historically-appropriate wooden railing are already underway.

- Picket Fence Fun
We are planning to add a fence to our front yard. It'll be part of our entire exterior make-over with special focus on ramping up our curb appeal (which is non-existent right now)

- Upfront Landscaping
Our front yard is a barren wasteland. I've been collecting ideas online and I see the beginnings of a plan. Of course, we're challenged by a small budget and a northern exposure. There are also some plans for neat features in the back yard as well for an all-around over haul of the ol' gal.

- It's Raining Paint - Hallelujah!
Time's up - we need to paint the exterior of the house. There will be buckets and buckets of paint in our future.

There will also be some window restoration, maybe some storm windows, screens, window boxes and bees in this little old house's future.

Are you in for the ride?

Trip Hop Trap

2011-12-27T08:50:00.002-06:00

There it is.

Don't you see it?
Come a little closer.

Now?

Still don't see it?

Yeah, that's the problem.

See, I have a small problem. I'm vertically challenged. Short. Fun-sized (or pocket-sized as I have heard the husband say). I measure a measly 5'2" and in order to reach certain cabinet space I need a foot stool. This particular foot stool is of German origin. I picked it up years ago at a fleamarket and have been toting it around ever since. It's solid wood, sturdy and gives me just enough of a leg up to reach what I need to reach without having to fall back on a regular step ladder (I'm afraid of heights and don't do serious ladders). Years ago, when we lived in our rental apartment with its white kitchen and cream colored linoleum floors, I painted it dark chocolate brown. That made it highly visible.

Now, against our beautiful dark walnut heartpine floors, the same rich color renders it practically invisible and turns my helpful step stool into an invisible tripping trap.

After acquiring bruises and bumps in varying shades on our shins over the past couple of weeks, blundering through the kitchen, tripping and accidentally kicking the unexpected obstacle across the room, we'd reached the end of the line.

Enough!
No more!

After a thorough sanding,
a quick wipe down with deglosser, just to be sure the new paint would stick
and a quick coat of paint using the lovely "Lyndhurst Duchess Blue" we painted our dining room, we fixed his ankle biter type of a problem.

A quick fix that helped my foot stool morph from a drab tripping trap to a peppy step! Yay me!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T06:16:00.000-06:00

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
from my family
to yours!

More elfing around

2011-12-23T07:23:00.000-06:00

Buying the elf on the shelf was the best thing I did this holiday season. Husband and I have been having too much fun thinking up little impish deeds every evening and Little Man has the greatest of times searching and finding the little doll every morning. He gets a bit choked up thinking that in only a few more days he won't be waking up to find our elf "Barrigade" has been secretely ...

decorating and hanging out in the dining room chandelier

putting up our stockings

reading comic books with Bima

making s'mores in the fireplace

working on his whittling chip badge for the Cub Scouts

having a shower after working up a sweat traveling to and fro

I like to move it, move it ...

2011-12-22T07:23:00.000-06:00

When we talked about Christmas here at the Ugly Duckling, we always kind of envisioned our Christmas tree in the living room in front of the big door with the sidelights. That way we would be able to enjoy from the dining room as well since it's in direct line with the pocket doors.

Ever since we moved in, our living room couch had been sitting angled to line up with the fire place and we liked it. In order to make sure the Christmas tree didn't end up in our back, we had to do some furniture shuffling and pushed the couch back against the wall.

When I took this picture I was standing in the archway between vestibule aka the entry hall and our living room. The pocket doors to the dining room are off to the right (as is the TV) and that's husband's rolltop desk to my left.

Did I mention I love my shiny heart pine floors? Yes, the rug is technically too small but it gives you a nice fluffy spot to dig your toes into while showing off most of the beautiful original floors in our Ugly Duckling.

Now the fireplace is no longer center of attention but other than that the new layout makes the room feel bigger and it's growing on us.

Once the tree was up, we did some decorating. This process took days, with an hour here and an hour there squeezed in between chores and guests and work and life.

Usually I tie bows to the end of the branches but with a red cedar that's pretty difficult. Two other possibilities for ribbon placement had made the rounds on the internet, so we gave both a shot to see which one we liked better (best).

Oh yes, I should have warned you. Our tree is not a color coordinated, monochromatic, cleverly designed, hip, trendy affair. It's bright and colorful with cheesy handmade paper ornaments, sparkly bits and bops and even little wooden wind chime ornaments that jingle quietly.

This year we added a bright red ribbon for more punch. You know, once you get used to twinkling colored lights, going all crazy isn't that hard anymore (says she who grew up in a household with a very chic and stylin' silver and white Christmas tree).

Yep, still need to paint that door frame ...

Husband and I both loved the ribbon streamers best plus the ribbon helped stiffen the tip of our tree for better star tree topper attachment.

And here is our living room in all its Christmas-y glory! Lighted garland and stockings on the mantel, the advent wreath on the table and the crowning glory, the Christmas tree all aglow. I'm very happy how our Christmas decor adds a punch of color without clashing with anything. Needless to say it also works really well with our turquoise dining room.

Three more days - are you all set?

Tree Time!

2011-12-21T08:49:00.000-06:00

This past weekend we finally went and got our Christmas tree. We always get a life tree and this is the second year we went and cut our own. This year the winter has been extremely mild and the cut Christmas trees throughout town were looking a sorry lot. Freshly cut will last you a little longer, even if you wait until a week before the big day to put it up like us. Cutting your own Christmas tree in Florida, however, comes with a twist. You see, when you hear "Florida" you don't immediately think "Christmas tree" or "fir tree!". Palm trees and beach party are more like it, right?

Surprisingly, there are a few Christmas tree farms sprinkled throughout the northern part here and there, and there are two in our immediate area. This year we hopped over to Rogers Christmas Tree Farm.

Gorgeous, gorgeous day! Bright, break-your-heart blue skies, a light breeze and balmy 70 degrees. That's my kind of winter :o)

So, here is the twist: Floridian Christmas tree are not fir trees. They don't grow that well down here in the land of sunshine. Sure, you can buy them this time of the year - those Christmas tree tents pop out of the ground like mushrooms after a rain this time of the year - but this close to Christmas they look more dead than alive and are losing needles left, right and center already.

Last year, we discovered the Floridian solution to this problem: pine. Or cedar. So, the Christmas trees you can cut yourself at local Christmas tree farms are shaped liked Christmas trees but they are Sand pines and Leyland pines and maybe Red Cedar. Trust me, they work just fine!

A Winterbird couple from up north were having a hard time trying to wrap their minds around these odd Christmas trees but really, look at them! Don't they look lovely?

All line up in row after row, like tin soldiers waiting for their part in "The Nutcracker". While I have my heart secretly set on a Sand pine, we finally settled on a lovely red Cedar.

Ta-da! Here's Little Man showing off our tree. It was just like ordered: tall but not too tall, a nice point and dense but not too wide at the base.

Under the watchful expert eye of Little Man, husband started cutting the tree. Little Man helped a bit, then moved over to let husband finish.

Our red cedar got a nice shake to get rid of all loose dirt and possible critters, was wrapped into a net for transport and then we strapped it to the roof of my trusted ol' Jeep using our nifty ratcheting straps.

On to the decorating - woo-heee!

The Elf Strikes Again!

2011-12-18T08:00:00.000-06:00

Our Elf "Barrigade" is still going strong and the quest for the elf first thing in the morning has grown into a fun routine. I wrote about our first couple of elfcapades over here and thought I'd show you what he's been up to since then:

One night he became a real beyblader and battled it out with Bima and Donatello

Then we caught him with Little Man's Nintendo DS

Another night he was more of an imp than an elf and drew beards

and glasses and other stuff on our picture frames

Occasionally he can be helpful. Here he helped St. Nikolaus wrap

up Little Man Nikolaus Day presents.

Dressing room

2011-12-17T08:19:00.002-06:00

I can't believe it's been 5!! whole months since I last wrote about our dressing room. Five months?! How did that happen?
Last time I mentioned this former kitchen turned master bedroom suite, I finished sealing the stenciled floors. You can read about that here.

[After]

This is what it looked like then. We built in two shelf towers (his and hers) on either side of the door to the master bath, added rods for hanging clothes and pretty much called it a day. When I finished trimming out the master bath with baseboards and quarter rounds, I used up my left over bits in the dressing room.

Gotta use the momentum when you have it!

Then, when I added the door jamb and frame to the door on the master bathroom side of things, I kept the momentum going and did the same for the other side as well. Yesterday I finally got around to caulking the seams so now things are actually getting to the point of paint!

Sometime ago I also trimmed out the top and bottom of our shelf towers for a nicer, more finished look.

Woop-dee-doo!

[In Progress]

I need to pick up some quarter rounds to finsih off the base molding and touch up the paint. Of course, even though we've been using our dressing room, it's clearly not finished. So, what needs to be done?

finish base molding with quarter round

touch up paint

add light fixture

install threshold to bathroom

fix threshold to bedroom

add a rug

add an ottoman or bench

add a shelf for shoes

add window treatments

Plenty of stuff still left to do, right? Yep, it never ends. Of course, I'll aslo never grow bored.

Visions of sugar-plums ...

2011-12-16T08:50:00.000-06:00

't was the night before Christmas,

when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.

And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap...

It's not quite the night before Christmas yet but I had all kinds of visions dancing in my head when I discovered humongous plums at the local farmers market. That's where I love to shop for our produce - the Farmers Market on Beaver Street - and draw inspiration for our daily meals.

Anyways, plums!
Big, juicy, sweet plums!

They came home with me (along with a metric ton of other produce; we love our veggies and fruit from the farmers market). I'd baked two batches of Pioneer Woman cinnamon rolls (Best recipe ever - find it here) for a Christmas gathering on Saturday and had a small bowl of delicious dough left. Perfect for a German treat called "Prume taat" or in english, "plum tarte". Surprisingly similar, hm?

Anyways, here're my plums all cut up into nice and fairly even slivers. I buttered the cookie sheet and rolled the dough onto it, then dusted the top with flour. It'll bind the juices from your plums once they start cooking and keep your tarte from getting all soggy.

Arrange your plum slivers and drizzle some molten butter over the top. Then sprinkle deliberately with sugar and cinnamon. Can't go wrong with sugar, butter and cinnamon. Ever.

Then it's into the oven for about 20 minutes at approximately 390F. Enjoy the aroma filling your kitchen.

Let it cool off ever so lighly and serve with whipped cream (or without).

Yum!

Yours truly, Dr. Dolittle

2011-12-15T09:18:00.001-06:00

I mentioned yesterday that our weekend ended up somewhat of a whirl. If we haven't spoken on the phone over the past couple of days or met in person, I guess I still owe you an explanation, especially since the whirl ..or whirls kept us from indulging our DIY habits.

Thursday night - I was already in bed curled up with a new book - I heard the husband come home from work. Now, that's nothing unusual. He works late, I'm more of a morning-type person, so we trade more quick hugs and good-night kisses on week nights. Now, coming home at night, the husband has to fend his way through the gaggle? flock? murder? pack of porch cats who are getting their hopes up for a late-night treat. Polly, the female adult cow-cat (she's white with big tiger-striped splotches a la cow print), is always very vocal about her need for a snack. This time, she was making quite a racket, so - curiousity piqued - I mosied downstairs to see what husband was doing that caused such a commotion.

Turns out it was NOT Polly making all that noise.

This loudest meowing EVER was coming from a tiny kitten or rather, a kitten-shaped creature that was just skin and bones. She dove head first into one of the food dishes, ravenous and desperate.

Big wusses that we are, we couldn't help but melt. I scooped her up; featherlight and not an ounce of fat, this kitten must have been without food for days.

For the past week we've been feeding her weaning milk for an extra dose of protein and vitamins, along with kitten soft food and crunchies, and she's slowly starting to plumb up. She's quarantined in our library, away from all the other members of our zoo, and spends her days for the most part like this:

Curled up in a worn sweater of mine and snuggled up against a warm water bottle. Awww - I know! She's adorable: kitten-fierce and a big snuggler, and she was mighty fortunate to have picked our porch. I don't know how long she'd have been able to hang in ...

On Friday (that's the day right after the kitty marched into our lives) we returned to our car from Little Man's Karate class to find a dog flattened to the ground right next to it.

You see where I'm going with this?

Nobody who was out on this block of our 'hood that night recognized him and so ... yes, we took him home. Truth be told, I wasn't planning on keeping him that night. I was hoping I could hook up with a neighbor or a member of our neighborhood's animal rescue since, you know, we have cats. No such luck although our neighborhood animal rescue SACARC came to my rescue and generously provided me with a crate and dog food.

Fergus, as we dubbed our temporary visitor, took well to the crate and our home in general. I'd grown up with a dog and missed having one, but Fergus showed me just how much I miss having a dog.

This young Labrador and Pit Mix is an absolute delight. I swear there is not one aggressive hair on this dog. Over the entire 4 days we spent with him I did not hear one growl, not when touching him while he was eating, not when he was playing, not when we accidentally tripped over him, not even when I reached into his snout to pull out a bone he'd found while on a walk through the neighborhood.

Fergus clearly loved snoozing right next to our feet on a corner of the shaggy rug.

He also enjoyed getting to meet the kitties. Cats had him happily excited unless the cat was Boots; then he was just terrified. She's one grumpy old cat, I'm telling you.

Right now Fergus is over at ACPS so he can be checked for a microchip and to see if there's an owner searching for him. If nothing happens over the next week, SACARC will take him back and find him a loving home (yours, maybe?). We can't keep him, unfortunately, because he got my husband's allergies all riled up. However, he has given us the gift of a crazy-fun weekend and the realization that we could fit a dog right in. We just have to find a dog that's easier on my husband. You know, I really love for him to be able to breathe.

Oh, and he started calling me "Dr. Dolittle"

Oh Look!

2011-12-14T19:19:00.002-06:00

Little Old House went all wintery and christmas-y!

Good thing the temperatures here in North East Florida are still ranging in the (low) 70s: perfect sock weather but not freezing yet!

We've had a whirl of a weekend over here at the Ugly Duckling. Hope yours was great! I'm working on my posts since I was a bit pre-occupied these past couple of days as we ...errm, speak!

Catch you in a bit!

Exterior Dreaming

2011-12-09T07:45:00.000-06:00

As the year is winding down we're gifting ourselves with a little bit of downtime in regards to projects. Naww, we are far from stopping any kind of work but the jobs are smaller, more decorative and contained while we're spending a bigger chunk of our time curled up with a good book, snuggling together watching a movie and just plain enjoying the season (as much as work allows).

It's been 10 1/2 months since we closed on our "Ugly Duckling" and 6 months since we moved in and it's been a whirlwind of home improvement projects ever since. A teeny bit of downtime sure is in order, isn't it?

While we're kind of stationary on the couch, we're happy and eager to plan next year's projects. The biggest one on our list is giving our Ugly Duckling an exterior facelift. It needs it baaaad. The last paint job is failing bad and our house is starting to look like that creepy haunted house at the end of the road. Not to mention we're not too overly crazy about the current depressive blue-grey paint job and dingy blue trim. And the windows need some loving too.

Poking around for inspiration on the 'net, I stumbled across the Sherwin-Williams' color visualizer. Best. new. toy. ever! This fun online tool allows you to upload a picture, define areas to be painted and with the click of your mouse and a drag and a drop you get to "paint" your place in whatever color you dare (and then some)!

You can find the color visualizer here . You need to register first but since that comes with the gift of a $10 off your next purchase coupon, it's worth it. Plus, you get to play with the color visualizer. 'nuff said!

Once you're registered and logged in, you're ready to roll. You can either use a scene provided by Sherwin-Williams or upload your own interior or exterior photo. You then need to "mask" or define the areas you want to paint using a masking tool you might recognize from using Photoshop.

What's really cool is that not only do you get to use -all- of the paint colors by Sherwin-Williams but that they have it neatly organized for you. There are collections by color as well as a collection of historical colors sorted, again, by time period. That's really nifty for us Old House lovers!

Color Collections to choose from

A glimpse of the historical color collections

Here's the Ugly Duckling in its ...ahem, current state (more or less: we have removed the weird handle bar in the middle of the steps, the ugly old awning is gone, mailbox and porch lights have changed and the downstairs window frames were tentatively painted white, just to see what it'd look like)

Our Ugly Duckling is considered a "Vernacular" style house meaning it looks like a typical house of the time and place it was built without following too much of any particular architectural style such as Foursquare, Colonial, Queen Anne, Victorian, etc. It was built in 1914 or 1915 and if you ask me ,it shows a bit of Bungalow flavor with its low-pitched roof and the somewhat prominent eaves. I masked these characteristics to emphasize the architecture through paint. Kind of like putting on make-up.

Playing with the colors from the historical collection, the colors of the Craftman era always seem to work best with their down-to-earth beauty and simplicity.

[Grey doesn't have to look dreary. This is actually pretty sharp looking,

thanks to the crisp contrast of trim to body color]

I especially like it when the front gable is painted a different color than the body. Here I tried some different warm shades of grey and crisp white trim. Yum! Looking so much better!

Don't you love how the color visualizer makes the color change look so natural and real? It's amazing how light and shade are still visible and no detail gets lost. Since you're not using bucket of paints, spending endless hours rolling, brushing or spraying on paint, you can go stir crazy in your color choices to boot!

Here's the Ugly Duckling in daring red and a touch of grey

Sweet and modest in yellow with a bit of brown

Or airy and peaceful in turquoise

Best. Toy. Ever!

So far, I like the turquoise look best on our house but then again I'm usually drawn to blues and greens (case in point: turquoise dining room, teal bedroom, blue-grey bathroom ... you get the idea). What do you think?

We're still in the very very early planning stages of this project. It's going to be a bear of a project - our house is not all that little and has two stories as well and the old paint job is abysmal. I've picked up a couple of DIY books on this topic from the library that make it sound doable even at two-stories, and we're following up on a couple of painter's recommendation from the neighborhood for an estimate to find out just how much we value our sanity.

Pretty-fying the Ugly Duckling on the outside is something I -really- want to do. I want it so much, I'd even consider scaling a ladder taller than my step stool. No kidding.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ...

2011-12-08T07:41:00.000-06:00

Born and raised German in Germany I brought a whole slew of German traditions into husband's and my marriage. Occasionally that leads to rather .... quirky combos such as our Christmas eve meal plan: chicken soup and pizza. Husband's family traditionally served pizza on Christmas eve and for me, Christmas isn't Christmas unless it's heralded by a bowl of steaming chicken soup for lunch on Christmas eve. No kidding. Ask my Mom about the Beef broth debacle from a couple of years ago. It wasn't pretty.

One of our family's traditions was that no Christmas decoration showed up until the first of December or the first Sunday of Advent. After that, the house was fair game. Slowly, over the next couple of weeks, we'd add Christmas decorations building up to the grand finale that was the arrival of the Christmas tree (always fresh! never plastic) just a few days before Christmas eve.

We'd decorate the tree and it would remain unlit until Christmas Eve. In our family, presents are delivered by the "Christkind" (aka the Christ child although it's usually depicted as a golden-haired and rather girly angel) on Christmas eve. The benefit of that is that you never have to wreck your brain trying to find a solution to keep your children from waking you at o'dark on Christmas morning.

Anyways, what with the quirky combo of German and American traditions in our house we started decorating the Ugly Duckling just in time for the first of Advent. I have added bits and bops of Christmas decorations here and there but the tree has still to arrive. It's tentatively slated for this weekend but there's no rush (for me). Our filled stockings magically appear on Christmas eve after chicken soup lunch and pizza dinner, and Santa drops off the remainder of the blessings on Christmas morning.

Anyways, I thought you might enjoy a few pre-Christmas glimpses from the Ugly Duckling so here it goes:

The chalkboard (Love Love LOVE it!) has become our personal countdown to Christmas. I'm always hovering between giddy excitement and barely suppressed panic when I look at the number of days left. How on earth does time fly by so fast? Sheesh!

We added a garland and sparkly lights to our fireplace mantle. While we did have two fireplaces at our old Silver Street home, neither of them were in the livingroom and we enjoy this glittery glimmery eye candy the most. I found those beautiful vintage brass colored glitter snow flakes at Walmart of all places and they are THE.BEST! I'd coat my entire house with them if I could :o)

Our advent wreath. This year I'm loving it simple with some greenery, holly twigs, snow-dusted pine cones and some berries and candy canes for a pop of color.

Our door wreath got a little tweak too and now sports a bright red bow with bells (no whistles) and a fir garland. For starters :o)

Next stop, outdoor lights!

Elfing around

2011-12-07T07:38:00.000-06:00

Right after I discovered that Little Man still believes in Santa, I -had- to get me one of those elves from "The Elf on the Shelf". Target was (is?) selling them for the same price as online but you don't pay shipping and as an added perk you got (get?) a $5 giftcard, so after dropping off the kids at school last week I made a quick detour, hopped into the store and bought me a Santa's helper.

All morning at work, I was distracted by plotting possible elfcapades and especially the arrival of our new friend. There are gazillion webpages out there, if you're lacking for ideas on what to do with your elf, like this one here at Blossom Bunkhouse. Pinterest doesn't leave yo hanging either and provides a treasure trove of ideas.

Husband was very skeptic, I wasn't 100% sure it would work but Little Man's been eating this whole thing about the elf and his escapades up. He's nuts about the little guy and his antics and husband and I are having a great time staging Santa's little helper every night. (We were also thoroughly amused by some bad elf on the shelf escapades we found on the web' and are convinced the elf offers some naughty amusement for adults without children. Just sayin' ...)

Santa mailed our elf. I searched the web until I found a 2011 Santa mailing stamp picture and printed that with our address and Santa's on a sheet of paper. I stuck a real stamp on our package (Little Man doesn't has never paid attention to postage on a package) and continued the lines of the stamp with pencil to make it look just right. Little Man bought it, so it obviously worked!

Our elf's name is "Barrigade", a name Little Man derived from the word "Barricade". I have no clue why but it does have a nice ring to it.

After his first trip to the North Pole to report to Santa, Barrigade ended up making a bed for himself in the downstair's half bath.

The next night, Barrigade - true to his name - barricaded the door to the guest bedroom with toilet paper. Little Man loves to camp out in the guest bedroom on the weekend - his special treat - and so far this was the funniest elfcapade. He did not see that one coming! Neither did the husband. Heh :o)

Barrigade used the cover of the night to bake us some special reindeer cookies. He made a real mess in the kitchen and did not clean up. Bad elf, no cookie!

Last night Barricade went to town with toothpaste! Hopefully B's nice design and handwriting will inspire Little Man to stop smearing his toothpaste over the window (he does that; I don't know why) and expand his artistic toothpaste expressions beyond the occasional smiley face.

I'm looking forward to the next couple of nights, cackling and rubbing my hands gleefully.

An apple a day

2011-12-05T15:22:00.004-06:00

I don't know about you but I believe that apples and cinnamon is a match made in heaven, and fortunately this time of the year it's also the best comfort food to warm your heart on ...ahem, cold days.
Truth be told, it's not really been all that cold here in NE Florida but that's okay in my book. I don't need snow and freezing temperatures to get into the Christmas spirit.

One of my favorite seasonal treats is spiced apple cider caramel from Starbucks. It's sweet and warm and just plain yummy! It's in fact so yummy, that I couldn't stop thinking about recreating it at home for easier access to my treat of the season (without busting the budget).

After some quick experimenting, here's what Little Man and I came up with and have been indulging in ever since. You could almost say it's better than the version from Ye Olde Coffeeshoppe ...

[Oh, baby, watch me stage the ingredients ...]

You'll need apple cider, whipping cream (or whipped cream in a can), cinnamon
and Hershey's Caramel sauce.

[That's my Lucy mug. Little Man chose Linus; and the rest of the
Peanuts gang was in the dishwasher]

Pour some apple cider into your mug and dust with cinnamon.

[This is liquid apple pie ... delicious!]

Nuke your mug with cinnamon-spiced apple cider briefly in your microwave
(or heat it on a stove, without the mug, of course). Depending on how hot you like it
and your settings, 45 seconds is adequate.

Add a splash of caramel sauce (a solid squirt from the bottle - about 2 tbs,
I reckon) and top it off with whipped cream.

Both, the caramel sauce and the cream mellow the acidity of the apple cider
and the cinnamon adds interest and flavor - heaven!

Enjoy!

Meet George!

2011-12-01T07:35:00.000-06:00

I'm obviously a child of the 70s because I looooove shag! After secretely ordering a shag rug for our livingroom about which I haven't written at all and knowing the husband would like it, the last thing missing to absolute shaggy happiness on our livingroom couch was a shaggy pillow.

You know, texture and all that jazz.

That's when I stumbled across this fuzzy darling here at Target. Laaaaaaaaa!

Perfect!

Dear husband looked at it when we brought my shopping loot in and asked "what I wanted to do with it".
The only correct answer in this case?
"Hug it and pet it and call it George."

Here, George (aka "The Yak") is hanging out with his buddies on the livingroom couch

And you know what?

EVERYBODY loves George!

That's strike 2 for shag(gy stuff). Ha!

Anybody else with a hankering for shag?

Christmas made in the South

2011-11-30T07:35:00.000-06:00

In order to kick-start the Christmas season in style this past weekend, my friend Cheryl and I went to "Christmas made in the South", the premier Craft Fair here in Jacksonville.

Fa-la-lalala!

Between seeing all the various lovely and amazing crafts, trying the delicious dips and tasting the heart and soul warming mulled wines, coffees and hot chocolates we had a grand girlfriend time (which was long overdue) and even scored a couple of really cute Christmas presents (Cheryl) and some yummies and additions to the decorating bin (me).

Checking out the goodies

The first vendor booth that magically drew us in was a treasure trove of vintage photoghraphs. We we even met fellow Springfield neighbors for a quick chat over pictures from the first heydays of our neighborhood.

This vendor graciously allowed me to snap pictures of her booth. She sure had the cutest snowman ornaments at the fair!

Cheryl picked up a few more of these bent wire ornaments. The tree sparkled and twinkled and looked simply stunning. Too bad it doesn't go with our current decorating scheme at all.

So lovely!

We spent quite some time playing with the "tester" toys at this stand: puzzles, catapults and other old-fashioned games that just never grow old or boring.

This one won the "best smelling stand" hands down: whimsical ornaments crafted from Cinnamon bark and scented with Gingerbread or Cinnamon oil.

Two of these cute little mice came home with me. Now, the Ugly Duckling smells like

a cinnamon roll.

Puppets! Fuzzy wuzzy handpuppet babies!
They also sold accessories for your puppet baby.

Thoroughly inspired, back home I broke out the first garlands and strings of light to get started on my Christmas decorating. It's a work in progress, happily stretched out over the next couple of weeks. The Christmas tree - contrary to popular American tradition - comes last. In my family the tree was bought just a week before Christmas, got a few days outside to stretch and was brought in and decorated just a few days before Christmas. The many lights on it, however, remained unlit until Christmas eve when the Christkind (english: the Christchild) brought the presents. That's a Christmas memory that's hard to beat: seeing the Christmas tree blazing with brilliant lights, all a-sparkle, while Christmas music played softly in the background. For a few moment, even to us children, the presents were entirely secondary ...

Before we were allowed to open our presents we had to do a little "schtick": it could be reciting a poem, singing a song or playing something on our instrument (once we started taking music lessons). We're continuing some of those traditions with the Little Man and over the past years we've come up with a pretty neat combo of German and American Christmas traditions. This year, since it's our first Christmas at our Ugly Duckling, we won't be traveling but staying home so expect to see a few posts on how we roll at Christmastide :o)

Thanksgiving Day Impressions

2011-11-29T08:37:00.000-06:00

A fridge filled to the brim with all good things

Our stuffing recipes requires at least 5 different bread types. It's a texture thing, really!

Ever noticed how pretty celery is?

Stuffing, just about ready to be mixed and cooked. It's so so SO delicious!
[If given the choice, I'd pick stuffing over the turkey it's so good!]

A "gobble-gobble" appetizer

Here's to German American friendships :o)

Bon appetite!

Quick check-in

2011-11-28T09:34:00.003-06:00

Well, that was a grrrreat four day weekend (in the US courtesy of Thanksgiving)!

The turkey was delicious as was the rest of the meal!
There are plenty of left-overs!
The company was delightful!
Naptime was fabulous!

With Thanksgiving under the ...ahem, belt, we're now headed full-steam for Christmas. I already whipped up our advent wreath just in time for this past Sunday and the first garland along with little lights went up as well. Pictures to follow shortly!

I also got to enjoy some girl-friend-time with my friend Cheryl at the "Christmas Made in the South" Craft Fair this past weekend and I'm planning on sharing some impressions from there as well so stay tuned!

In the meantime, check out the new tab at the top called "Before & Happily After". This will be the place I'm going to showcase our "Befores" and "Afters" because they are oh so good for the soul.

Be back later!
-Micha

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T07:58:00.000-06:00

A Happy Thanksgiving from me to you!

See-through no more

2011-11-23T07:04:00.001-06:00

Not only is the big original entry door sans transom window in the wrong location (i.e. in the living room instead of the vestibule), it also came with an ugly, dirty and broken mini blind.

Just how to get rid of the mini blind without compromising our privacy? The big door opens to our front porch and to the street, and while the Loquat and crape myrtles provide ample privacy for most of the year, right now, things are looking a little bare. Add some light to that and voila, instant movie theater for the neighbors!

Sure they'd much prefer we do our private things in the privacy of our own four walls and encouraged by the success with window frosting in our master bathroom, I decided to frost the center panel.

First, it was bye-bye, nasty, broken mini blind! Good thing it was an early Sunday morning (I naturally wake up at the crack of dawn) and nobody was out and about to see me diy-ing in my pjs.

After a quick cleaning of the glass panel which gave me some time for idle thoughts and musings, I grabbed the tape on the husband's desk and taped off a quick, craftman-style inspired pattern for some quick and easy visual interest

All this happened under the watchful eyes of Ferb (as in "Phineas and Ferb"), one of our porch kittens. There are only two, Ferb and her little brother "Phineas", who have recently shown up on our porch. They look like Seamus's love children but he hasn't let us in on any family relations yet.

After the tape was in place, I went spraying. I've been using Valspar's Frosted Glass on two bathroom windows and now on the door, and there's still some left in the can. A-Ma-Zing!

After several coats I decided the frosting was thick enough for good privacy and applied as evenly as possible so it would look good.

Then it was time to remove the tape! It came off with no problems whatsoever and left beautifully crisp edges. I wouldn't recommend it for taping off on walls though. Hmm, then again the reusable tape might work just as well ....

Husband came down for breakfast and found a door with a new look along with a very-pleased-with-herself wife. While running rampant on all kinds of last-minute projects, we have been enjoying a brighter living room. Of course, now the dinged up molding around the doors is begging to be painted but I guess we're going to have some turkey first!

The Cat's Meow

2011-11-22T07:56:00.000-06:00

Just in case you were wondering who got to take the first bath ever in my beautiful brand-spanking new claw foot tub ...

[So that's where Tim Burton draws his inspiration from ...
Boots looking like the proverbial Halloween cat.

Look for the tail for any indication how fluffy she really is.]

This is Boots, resident feline here at the Ugly Duckling. The bath is part of her regular flea treatment. I don't know about your State but Florida is pretty heavy on fleas and you have to stay on top of it.

Boots came to us almost 8 years ago as a stray, and within no time she moved her soft-pawed self into our hearts and into our home. She's a sweet, gentle roly-poly kind of furball and prefers to sleep next to my pillow on cold nights, provided the sheet is smooth enough to meet her approval. She hates taking a bath, but she's good about it: no claws, no teeth and her escape attempts are half -hearted at best. Afterward, Boots remains upset at me for about half an hour and then she lets me know she's generously forgiven me. Over the past cuple of years she's become more vocal 'talking' to us with unusual almost bird-like chirping sounds and demands treats and attention with something that sounds suspiciously like "Now!".

I never wanted a cat and I HATE HATE HATE litterboxes, but this fluffball is -my- girl, and I don't mind sharing my lovely tub with her.

Totally nuts!

2011-11-20T15:43:00.003-06:00

48 hours before the arrival of the in-laws and 96 hours before Thanksgiving, this is what my house looks like

[Who thought that tackling the pocket doors "in time for Thanksgiving" would be a good idea? And the dining room door ... And the door to the library?]

Arrrgh - Project supplies, mail and other assorted crap along with three boxes of books we need to drop off at Chamblin's Bookmine have taken over the vestibule

Good Lord, what a pile of tools and odds and ends we rounded up upstairs!

Keeping it real, folks, keeping it real. Hopefully and with a little bit of luck you won't get to see any of that by the time the turkey's ready to go. Just don't expect the landscaping to be much to look at...

Flexing some mussels

2011-11-16T07:28:00.002-06:00

Since I haven't really done much else than SPSPP (aka "scrape, patch, sand, prime and paint") baseboards and door molding and I don't want to bore you to death with yet another episode of "How much trim is there in this house?!", I thought I'd toss in a recipe. You know, for versatility and diversity and all.

During a recent cold spell, the husband and I felt a bit peckish for a delicious dish, solely reserved for the colder months of the year: Mussels!

I love love love love eating a heart bowl of mussels on a cold day, not to mention it's a dish that reminds me of home. It's a comfort food of a sort. And since it's one of my favorite dishes, I thought I'd share it here.

Mussels Rhineland Style

Take your biggest pot and add

- 1 stick of butter
- 3 carrots, peeled and diced (or sliced)
- 1 big onion, cut into chunks
- 1 whole celery, cut into chunks
- 1/2 gallon of chicken broth or 1/2 of water and chicken bouillon

Bring to a boil, then allow to simmer for 30 minutes.

Wash your mussels several times in cold water: fill your sink with cold water and let your mussels soak. Empty sink, refill. Discard any broken and open ones.
The husband and I bought 4 pounds (2 nets) which made for a great dinner. If you aren't quite as voracious, you could easily use just one net or 2 pounds.

Taste your vegetable broth to check if the vegetables have infused the broth with flavor. Add the mussels and allow to simmer for 10 minutes.

Grind some fresh black pepper on top. Done!

Serve with some dark bread (pumpernickel if you like that stuff - I don't since it has caraway seeds and/or flavoring) and butter, or do it like the Belgians and add French Fries.

So so SO good!!

P.S.:
My mom says you can freeze the broth with the mussels after you pick them out of their shells. I have never tried that, mainly because there are never any left *sigh*

Obviously

2011-11-15T16:00:00.005-06:00

During last week's painting marathon nothing got away, not even the door to the hallway closet. Since it may or may not stay, we're leaving things "as-is" for now which includes keeping the ugly cheap hollow core door. However, since last week the golden oak eyesore sports a fresh coat of bright and clean white.

[After: White and ... blah]

Something had to happen. For a moment I was contemplating painting it black to match our entry door, but I just couldn't justify the confusion that might create. I also wasn't too keen on drawing too much unwanted attention to the closet door and if anything, black doors are real showstoppers.

So I thought I could label it, right? That would deal with any possible confusion ("Is that the bathroom?"), add a little bit of spiff and satisfy my craving for decorating.

After contemplating just which word to use ("Coats" didn't cut it), I decided to go with the obvious:

"Closet"

Since I don't have any fancy cutting machine, I had to do it the old-fashioned way. I designed my label, printed it out and coated the back with graphite powder for a homemade carbon-copy paper effect.

Here it is, taped into place.

After deciding on the placement close to the knob - centered but not in line with the knob, simply because it looked good to me - I traced it onto the door. The graphite backing (if you don't keep any fancy-schmancy art supplies around you can simply rub the back of your design with a pencil - that works just as well) created a copy of faint outlines on the door: just strong enough to be visible but not too dark to create issue removing any extra lines.

After that I grabbed a small brush and some black-brown acrylic paint and started painting in my label. It wasn't all that easy. Not that the design was complicated, oh no, it was more the placement that made it too high to kneel and to low to comfortably stand while painting. I turned into quite the contortionist and if I had a yoga instructor, I'm sure they'd been quite proud of me.

Here we go, all done! Of course it isn't machine perfection but it's darling. Really!

Now my closet is stating the obvious, or perhaps it's proudly announcing for all to see that it is indeed a closet and not the door to the bathroom!

Got label? What's the latest thing you put a label on?

What? Me?

2011-11-11T08:11:00.001-06:00

Catching up on my favorite blogs after a cra-ay-zy week, I almost ended up spitting tea all over my laptop. Jeanette from This Dusty House had awarded me and my little rambling blog an award! This is my first ever and again it's one of those things I never thought would or could happen.

I mean, really, I'm just writing up the adventures and ramblings and musings revolving around the renovation of our little old house to entertain the family and to make sure we won't forget (and it's also a great place to store information such as paint colors and shopping sources). Now I have acquired 15 followers and average about 2,000 hits a month - still a teeny tiny fish in the big pond of home blogs, but way bigger than this squirt ever thought possible.

So ... BIG Thank you to Jeanette for honoring me and my long winded babbling with run-on sentences with a blog award. I'm floored!

Since I'm German by birth, I chose the "Liebster Blog", not to mention that going on and on about painting trim in various rooms can hardly be considered "versatile". Heh :o) I do, however, feel a bit tickled to expand the topics of this blog. Maybe I'll include some of the stuff I've been cooking lately; the cooler weather entices me to cook more elaborate items rather than the usual Florida summer fare of grilled meat with salad on the side.

Anyways, the one (other) thing about the award that has me stumped is the question to whom to pass it on. "Fewer than 50 followers" is sort of the requirement for the Liebster Blog Award and that will take some research on my part. I "hop" from blog to blog, will follow linked comments and generally don't really keep track of what I'm reading: as long as it piques my interest, I'm there.

If you have a suggestion who I should check out, let me know!

Vesti-beautiful

2011-11-10T08:11:00.001-06:00

Here are the things that my life outside of work and family revolved around for the past week: wood filler, deglosser, paint, brushes and rollers, cleaner and a good cup of tea every now and then to keep me going.

While we'd painted the walls of our entry hall aka the vestibule a while ago, scraping together enough enthusiasm to tackle yet another room's worth of trim took me some time. Oh, but it was so worth it! For more impact, let's go back to where we started:

[Before: Once upon a time our vestibule was a bedroom ...]

Ah yes, it was awful. Like, really really awful. This is what our entry hall looked like when we first toured the house. In order to create a second bedroom for the downstair's apartment of our house, the previous owner had closed up the original archway to the livingroom and the wall toward the staircase. It was teeny tiny, cramped and pretty filthy.

Within a week from closing we tore into those non-original walls and restored the original floorplan.

The impact that reopening those walls had on this area of the house can hardly be captured in pictures. I marvel at it every time I step into our house. Not only made the floorplan sense now but it felt like the house was drawing you in while at the same time appearing much, MUCH larger than before.

After hours of trimming, patching, priming, sanding, refinishing floors, updating electric yet still miles to go in regard to artwork, window treatments, lighting and other decorative finishing touches, we have arrived at this:

Hard to believe it's the same room, no? Or the same house, for that matter. The old heart pine floors look simply A-mazing against the white trim and soft warm "Woodlawn Colonial Gray" walls and the entire vestibule feels open and airy and bright.

Looooove!

Topping it off two-tone

2011-11-09T07:50:00.000-06:00

For the past couple of days I've been a derwish with a paint brush in the entry hall. Everything and everyone including the cat got painted if they weren't fast enough to get away!

One of the few things left to paint, other than the actual staircase, was the newel post Joe built for us to replace the one that had been chopped when the house was converted to a duplex. Looks like it came with the house, doesn't it?

[Before: Hello Newel!]

It's been sitting there primed but un-painted for quite a while. This week, I finally tackled it. You see, the newel post is part of my Nemesis project: the staircase. While we're missing the spindles and handrail along the lower part of the stairs, there are spindles and handrails along the second stretch and the cantilever balcony. Badly painted spindles and handrails. Flaking spindles and handrails. Spindles and handrails with ornate detail and nooks and crannies.

Spindles and handrails that are a bear to strip from old bad nasty paint. It's a project that'll keep me busy for a while.

The downstair's part is easy and was a joy to paint. Just white, though, didn't quite cut it, so I decided to paint the top of the newel post in a dark warm brown, picking up on the beautiful warm walnut brown of our refinished stair treads.

[After: Hellooooo, Newel!]

I love the two-tone look on our newel post. It also comes with the added benefit that it's now much more visible against the other millwork in the hall and Little Man is less likely to run into it. Yes, this has happened before and is quite painful, he can assure you.

Tricking the eye

2011-11-08T07:48:00.002-06:00

There's one not-original feature to the house that I really and truly enjoy: the entry hall coat closet.

When the Ugly Duckling was a Duplex, the former entry hall was closed in and became a bedroom. The teeniest, cramped bedroom you could imagine, especially after the addition of a rather big closet. One of the first projects we tackled after closing on our little old house was to rip open those walls and restore the old floorplan.
However, since we need to be budget-conscious, we decided to postpone the restoration of the original staircase. The millwork is there, all the original trim is safely enclosed behind a drywall cover, so once that is removed all we need to install are spindles and a new wooden handrail. It's going to be beautiful, but it would mean losing this humongous closet of holding, and closet space does come at a premium in old houses.

Anyways, when the closet was built, the previous owner didn't care about matching the trim. They just slapped on some teeny baseboards and quarter rounds and called it a day.

These modern baseboards don't really deserve to be called base boards. I mean look at them! That's not a board. That's a sliver of a piece of wood! About a third of the size of the original baseboards, they appear insubstantial and flimsy.

Since the days of the closet and thus the days of its weeny trim are counted, we weren't going to replace it. That money is going right into the staircase fund.

What's a girl to do? Mismatched trim ain't gonna do it. Yes, it's mostly hidden behind a big ol' steamer trunk but still. It's there, I know it's there - something has to happen.

I have paint and I'm not afraid to use it. Turns out you can trick the eye just fine by painting the wall with the paint used for the baseboards. See what I mean? Here I'm just done priming the area. If you squint, you can't tell that the left side is the side with the wimpy baseboards.

Pennies in paint evened out the mismatched trim. You can catch a glimpse of the steamer trunk
that's usually sitting right in that corner serving as a bench and storage for gloves and hats and scarves (and some more boardgames).

Trim envy

2011-11-07T07:51:00.000-06:00

Here we go again - trim it is for today's post! While the de-texturized zone was drying I made sure to spend the spare time in between coats on other projects around the entry hall. As you might have noticed by now (I have ~~whined~~ reported about it a couple of times already), all of the millwork at the Ugly Duckling is in dire need of some TLC. This usually comes in the form of scraping, patching, sanding, priming and painting or short, SPSPP.

It's now a serious effort to get excited about painting trim. Sure, it's rewarding. There're few things more rewarding than the look of crisp clean white trim. But, man, it's a bore!
Anyways, the original trim in our house has taken quite a beating over the past 97 years - too much to restore it to its stained wood glory. Besides, I prefer white trim and old millwork looks absolutely stunning in pristine white.

So here I am again, scraping off loose paint and filling in with wood filler.

[In-progress: Notice the fine layering of drywall dust on the floor.]

See the corner of the window peaking in on the left of the photo? That's where our big entrance door with the sidelights (and the now missing transom) should be.

It got moved years ago, replacing a window in the livingroom, when the Ugly Duckling was turned into a Duplex. I'm hellbent on squirreling aside enough funds to move the ol' door back to its original location sometime in spring next year. That'd really rock my boat even though it means construction dust and painting everything all over again.

[In-progress: Now with primer!]

Next step, primer! That usually gives you a really good idea of how the end result is going to look. Lovely, don't you think?

All done! yes, I even painted the archway. Isn't it pretty? Phil trimmed this one out for us and he did a beautiful job. It looks like it's been there ever since the house was built and feels just right. I'm so glad we returned the house to its original floor plan as much as we could; it just makes so much more sense and flows beautifully.

And just before it got too dark for pictures I snapped this one with the furniture moved back into place. Yes, we have vintage typewriters all over the place. This is an old German one that I flew in all the way from Hamburg for Christmas one year. The things you do for love ...

Texture all gone!

2011-11-04T07:33:00.001-05:00

This is what the little mess of textured wall above the door looked like when we last saw it.

[In-progress: Good bye, texture!]

It took another three coats to smooth out even the last bump of texture and create a smooth finish like the adjoining drywall. At this point I'm not sure I really want to skimcoat the remaining textured walls in the house. Ripping them out and replacing them with drywall sounds much more appealing and potentially faster than trying to cover up the texture. We'll need some time to think this over, I guess.

[More progress: All nice and even. I also made sure that all adjoining areas
received a thorough dusting of fine drywall dust]

Anyways, once the area was mudded smooth and had time to dry completely, it was time for a quick sanding and a coat of primer. If you forget to prime freshly mudded drywall you end up with spots that "flash". These areas will reflect the light differently and drive you insane. Really. Ahem ... not like I know anything about that. So yes, priming is a must.

Fresh coat of paint and voila - all done!

[After: Mission accomplished - texture eliminated]

I put the drying time between coats of mud and then some to good use and tackled a few other projects in the entry hall to get'er done! 20 days 'till Thanksgiving! How much ~~trim~~ can I possibly ~~paint~~ accomplish in 20 days? Guess we'll find out!

Texture is overrated

2011-11-02T07:20:00.000-05:00

According to some smart interior design books there are five design elements:

line

form

space

color

texture

Frankly, when it comes to walls and ceilings, texture is way overrated and a serious pain to get rid of. Ceilings I can deal with, but textured walls ... not so much. Here at the Ugly Duckling, we have to deal with some textured walls, namely the wall of our staircase, the upstair's hallway and the dressing and master bath aka the former upstair's kitchen, reflective of the design choices of the '80s when the Duckling was, once again, turned into duplex.

I don't mind the textured ceilings so much. It's sort of a sunburst design, and since our ceilings are painted a bright crisp white the texture is hardly noticable.

The walls ... ehh. It's not bad bad. It's just ... I don't know. Weird. Like furry wallpaper. Or green wall-to-wall shag carpeting. Painted Woodlawn Colonial Grey, it's, again, not bad bad but skimcoating it definitely made it onto our project list quite early. Little did we know what we were talking about though our contractor mentioned it'd be "quite a pain in the -you-know-where".

I figured before tackling a big area like our stair case I could practice my skimcoating skills on a small piece. Like that area above our current entry door.
Since that door had been the door to the upstair's unit opening up directly into the enclosed staircase, it had also received the knock-down texture treatment. After we restored the original floorplan, ripping out the wall separating the staircase from the room that was then a bedroom and is now a vestibule again, we had clean smooth drywall for most of the walls except for a small rectangle right above the door.

Awkwaaard.

Here's a close-up of the transition between textured wall and plain drywall, just to make it really obvious.

Super awkward.

Husband wasn't perturbed by it one bit but it kept nagging me. So, after finishing the trim work in the dining room, I decided to move into the vestibule next and to tackle that odd textured rectangle. Better to get over and done with the drywall dust.

The process is rather simple and straightforward: load your mud pan with drywall compound aka 'mud' , slather on and smooth it over. Let it dry. Rinse and repeat.

The 'rinse and repeat' part surprised me. Sure, several thin coats are better than one thick one, but I was simply amazed about just how many coats and how much mud I needed to skimcoat this small area nice and smooth.

Here's an in-progress shot where you can see the white areas of already filled-in texture and the darker grey areas of the raised parts that aren't covered yet.

Uh-mazing.

This also meant that each coat needed its own drying time and it wasn't something I could just finish up in one afternoon or evening. So you're being treated to two entries for a project that measures 2 feet by 3 feet. Hilarious, isn't it?

Needless to say I did put that waiting period between drying coats to good use in the entry hall. Unlike many other couples, we started with the bedrooms and worked our way into the public rooms (usually the master bedroom seems to be last to get any kind of update). I'll update you over the next couple of days to show you what's been happening in the entry hall here at the Ugly Duckling.

Hook'em up!

2011-11-01T07:56:00.002-05:00

The other day, on my way to pick up the Little Man from school, I used the chance to drop into TJ Maxx. It's been forever since I last had had a chance to mosey through the aisles of this store, especially since they closed their store closer to us and moved it out closer to the Beaches, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

There were a couple of interesting home goods to be found, some sparked ideas for other rooms but in an effort to not get carried away, put unnecessary strain on our house budget and stay focussed on the current project area (well, okay, areas), I window shopped for the most part and only scored two really cool hooks for the bathroom which were on the "to buy" list!

Yay me!

Back at home I couldn't wait to grab drill and drywall anchors with screws to get my new hooks up and at the wall! The husband and I each own a bathrobe and those needed a dedicated space!

Tools of the trade: drill and screw.

Making a guest appearance later: level and pencil

Aren't they pretty???? I love love love our new bathrobe hooks!
They came in at $3.99 a pop and they are quite heavy.

I quickly drilled two holes, hammered in the dry wall anchors and screwed in the screws that the hooks hook into and I was done!

Now our bathrobes have a dedicated place and we have a chance to keep our sweet master suite a little tidier! No more bathrobes lounging around where they shouldn't.

Hooks fit for a king and a queen ;o)

And here's a sneak peek of the "closet project" (don't mind the yet unpainted door frame to the dressing room and the equally unpainted plinths of the closet door frame - I will get there eventually): the open doorframe is one side of the former teeny hallway between the upstair's hallway and our then kitchen, now master bathroom. I have to paint the door frame and then hang the door and it will become a closet for towels and other bathroom paraphenalia!

For that huse "negative" aka open space in the middle of our bathroom I'm hoping to find a nice traditional rug in washed out vintage-looking beiges and browns rather than a blah bath mat and maybe add an ottoman for convenient seating [for like when you're brushing teeth :o)]. I'm also on the hunt for baskets and some charming old wire organizer, all to warm up our crisp and clean white bathroom. And art and window treatments. Good thing Calico Corners is having a Sale coming up next week!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T07:07:00.004-05:00

Wishing everybody a spooky, scary, candy-filled and safe Halloween!

We'll be going trick or treating tonight in the 'hood enjoying the hayride a family is organizing for the neighborhood kids. Hopefully this morning's drizzle will have stopped by then.

Oh, and if you enjoyed the vintage Halloween card above, don't forget to swing by at Jacksonville's Karpeles Manuscript Library to see their Vintage Halloween exhibit with photographs of Halloween costumes, postcards and invitations from the time of Springfield's hey days! We dropped in quickly during yesterday's SMG's Halloween Party for the kids in front of the Karpeles and had a great time checking out what Halloween decor would have looked like when our Ugly Duckling smelled of fresh paint and plaster (for the first time).

Preston - Pronto!

2011-10-29T07:59:00.000-05:00

The husband and I have begun working on a few projects that are taking a bit longer while not giving much of 'meat' for daily updates. What with work being ca-ray-ay-zee going on two weeks now and the Little Man taking Karate lessons twice a week, Cub Scouts and my Vampire Diary quality time on Thursday nights, I'm a little hardpressed to find some spare time.

Sure, I can find some time to dabble with projects around the house but obviously not enough time to download pictures, upload them to blogspot and post about it. Booo :o(

But don't fear! DIY woman is here!
And projects are continuing at the Ugly Duckling!

Case in point: the master bathroom.

After finishing walls, updating electricity, updating plumbing, painting, trim out, installing doorframes, a vanity, a claw-foot bath tub and a toilet, I have now added *drum roll*

Accessories!

I shopped around online before settling on Moen's "Preston" series in chrome for our bathroom. It' s simple, yet softly curved lines mimic our vintage style faucets and the price could hardly be beat. In case you hadn't noticed, we are very budget conscious. I'd bought Moen in the past and we like the quality. Thanks to Amazon Prime, our packages arrived within three days of ordering, free of charge. Joy!

I'd ordered a double towel rod, a single towel ring and a toilet tissue holder which I installed with the Little Man's help.

We gathered our tools

measured, leveled and installed the mounting brackets. For the toilet tissue holder we had to adjust the screw placement or else we'd have permanentely screwed a drawer closed. We'd deliberated over whether to buy one of those freestanding and magazine hoding toilet tissue stands but in the end I felt a regular holder screwed into the side of the vanity made more sense. All I could think of was ending up doing business with the holder waaaay out of reach ... oy!

After installing the mounting brackets, all you had to do was slide the fixture base over it and screw it tight.

Pretty, no? And functional to boot! And so civilized!

The double towel trod was a little trickier to install and definitely called for a second pair of hands which is where the Little Man came in. While I held the pieces together, he leveled and marked - DIY kid in action! I love the look and how it's keeping our towels in handy-dandy reach when stepping out of the tub.

There you have it: Our Master Bathroom in its current state. Still pretty bare but we're getting there. We have begun using it on a more consistent basis ever since installing the accessories which - all together - make it feel so much more complete. The towels courtesy of my Mom are probably not going to stay in this bath room. We're generally aiming for a softer vintage look (hard to tell from that stark, crisp black and white contrast, hm?) but I wanted towels on the rods when taking the picture. Yaaaaah, staging ... kind of hard with no window treatments, no rug and no art. We'll get there. Really. Some day soon. And I promise you'll hear all about it.

Halfway

2011-10-25T08:42:00.003-05:00

After a mighty crazy week at work, my DIY spirit was hiding underneath the covers for most of this weekend. It was rather content to do some things I didn't have time for during the week like

read a book

whip up and eat a batch of delicious home-made caramel dip (recipe here)

muck about in the veggie patch

By Sunday afternoon, the laziness wore off a bit and the DIY spirit started to perk up its ears. We gingerly poked at a couple of projects

messed with the old gate (it's the ol' chainlink fence gate but it's better than having to roll part of the fence itself back and forth, gate-style) and halfway got it done. We're missing a hinge and nobody wanted to drive out to the Blue Box to pick up the missing part. Yet.

probed the upsatirs hallway closet and decided it was time to start that project if we ever wanted a chance of clearing out the library which has become a sorry catch-all for everything and ~~the neighbor's~~ our cat.

And then found out that we're going to have lovely guests for Thanksgiving - our FIRST Thanksgiving at the Ugly Duckling - and decided to kick our DIY spirit into gear again to wrap up a few more of those almost finished projects in time for the holidays. God helps us :o)

2011-10-20T09:49:00.000-05:00

With the jamb firmly in place, I finally got to tackle the pretty part: the door casing. That's the fancy schmancy name for the trim that goes around your door frame. I'd picked up two 1x4 boards, 2 plinths and a piece of trim called a "stop" to mimik the existing trim in the house.

Lucky for me, no miter cuts were required for this project!

First up: the plinth. That's the decorative part at the bottom of the door frame. For the most part, the plinths in our house have very little decoration - some our just plain pieces of wood wider than the trim - and so the ones I found at the Blue Box fit the bill quite nicely: they have a little bit of carving which mirrors the top of the baseboards and the price was right too.

After installing the plinths aka nailing them into place, the sides of my door casing came next. All I had to do - thanks to the ingenius design of historic trim in our house -was measure the distance between the top of the plinth and the upper edge of my door opening, cut my boards to size and nail those into place as well.

I'd bought a length of plain "stop" trim to cap off the sides, just like on all the original door casings in our house. Since our bathroom and dressing room are a later addition to the house (years ago, a previous owner added a second story to the originally one-story part housing our kitchen), the ceiling is quite a bit lower as you can see. Thus, the husband and I are musing about bumping out the ceiling for a vaulted and airier headspace. It's not as bad as you'd think - especially since we painted everything white, both rooms feel light and spacious and you notice the low ceiling more like an afterthought.

A short length of a 1x2 board tops it all off. Voila! - historically accurate looking door casing. Oone side down, one more to go!

This whole project didn't take me that long. Of course, now we're back to the basics of caulking between boards and filling in those nail holes, priming and painting. It -never- ends, does it?

Jammin' the jamb

2011-10-19T07:57:00.001-05:00

In our master bathroom we have finally reached the "finishing touches" stage. Over are the days of major construction (ahem, aside from the husband and me musing whether to remove the ceiling to create a vaulted ceiling above the bathroom ... it's really just a crazy idea ...for now ..maybe later. You know, when we've pleasantly forgotten about how rotten a thing dry wall dust really is.) and we have a basic room with working fixtures! Yay us!

[Before: In its former life as Duplex, our master bathroom was the kitchen for the

upstairs apartment. It was nothing but gross and grungy. It gets great light, though.]

And here, for a collective sigh of relief, are two of the "close to the finishing line" shots

[Getting there: baseboard in place but not yet nailed and caulked]

There's very little that's not new. We have

new plumbing
updated electric
new subfloor
partially new drywall
new tile
fresh paint
new baseboards
new fixtures (sink, clawfoot tub and toilet)

The next item on my project list for this room was "frame door" so I investigated the design of our existing doors throughout the house and started poking around on the internet for pointers as to how to frame and trim out the door between our master bath and the adjoining dressing room. The nice thing about a historic home like ours is that you don't have to worry about perfect miter cuts.
While door and window casing is put together from more pieces than the average modern casing, it is cut at square angles and stacked rather than cut at intricate angles that require mega accurate measuring and cutting.
Lucky me!
I found this carpentry ebook online and found it rather helpful in learning to name the various parts of a door frame and how exactly things go together http://www.woodworking-online.com/chapter8/1.html. That's how I learned that a door jamb had to come first. The door jamb is the vertical inside portion of the frame onto which you secure your door.

I hopped over to the Blue Box and after browsing the aisles I decided to pick up this simple door jamb kit. It had all the pieces in the right amounts in the right widths which cut down on any unnecessary guesswork and measuring on my part. I -did- measure my door opening before going to the store, though, to make sure the jamb was wide enough. Live and learn, baby, live and learn.

Fortunately, I got to reap the rewards of having had great contractors build the wall and door opening. The existing door frame was plumb and level so all I really had to do (and did) was measure the length of each side, cut the 'legs' to the appropriate length, measure the space for the header and cut that one as well and then slide the whole frame into the opening and tapping it lightly with the hammer for a nice flush fit.

Tada! Our door way started looking like an actual door way right away, even though the casing aka the trim along the outside of the door frame was still missing. A handful of nails later we had a jamming jamb and were ready to move on to the actual casing. More on that tomorrow!

Weekend Impressions

2011-10-18T07:33:00.003-05:00

Things are starting to look like fall around here .... no, really ...

and we had a small influx of artificial and somewhat spooky birds in our front yard.

Zombies plagued the area between the Veteran Memorial Arena and the Everbank Field Stadium this past Saturday.

We ran for our lives, and won a medal!

Little Man participated in the 99.9 Gator Zombie Chase and had a blast.

We "spookified" our front yard!

No actual thumbs or toes were harmed in the shooting of this picture ;o)

Of course there was some DIYing going on over here at the Ugly Duckling but that's food for another post.

Catching up on the Holidays

2011-10-14T07:18:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I almost died of a heart attack:

2.5 weeks until Halloween

6 weeks until Thanksgiving
10 weeks until Christmas

The extent of my seasonal and holiday decorating so far?

A measly three mums, an updated door wreath, a scare crow, and a pine cone on the fireplace mantel. Wop-wop-woooooop!

So I decided to ramp things up a bit with the focus on Halloween since that's going to be here quicker than instant grits! I knew I wanted some vintage-y looking art for the still-bare walls in the living room, maybe some more things for the mantle and a little bit of Halloween gore in the front yard and on the porch. When I spied this beautiful gallery arrangement on pinterest, I knew I could create something like this with a Halloween twist!

[via pinterest]

I scoured the web for some vintage looking etchings and engravings fit for Halloween and discovered my favorites on the Graphics Fairy webpage. After downloading them I manipulated them using Gimp, the poor people's adobe photoshop. No kidding - it's free and versatile and fun and a great tool when it comes to image retouching and editing.

I lost my picture of the bat somewhere in the fathomless abyss of my computer's files so I'll have to re-do that one and the hot air balloon isn't really ...you know ... Halloween-y, but it's quirky and different and I loved it and that's all there is to it.

After editing them in Gimp which revolved mostly about rendering the background transparent, I printed them on regular white paper. I cut a few pages from an old bible that had been damaged beyond repair and copied the artwork right onto it. Since the pages aren't 8x11 letter size I needed to tape them to regular sheets of paper to run them through the fickle printer but in the end things worked out just great!

I also picked up this four pack of frames at Michaels for just $10 plus tax thanks to a coupon.

With the help of a bit of spray glue I mounted my prints on sheets of off-white linen paper rather than having mats cut to custom size to fit the document frames.

Here they are, all mounted and ready to be framed! I was a bit worried what the spray glue would do to the thin brittle paper of my prints but it worked surprisingly well.

Popping the matted prints into the frames was a matter of minutes, deciding exactly -where- to hang them took me the better part of two hours. I even moved furniture around in the living room considering a different couch placement and with it a new decorating scheme. Eh ...suffice to say, it didn't work as well in real life as I imagined it on paper. So, change of plans, different wall.

The area above husband's roll top desk looked like a good spot. It's in the corner of the living room, catty corner from the couch, and we'd get to enjoy my latest creation from all angles.

After some measuring, leveling and nailing 4 pictures hooks into the wall, the frames went up!

[Oh, look! Unpainted trim!]

Now I need some bats and crows and stuff ... maybe some blood dripping candles? Orange lights? Spiders? Do you have any Halloween favorites?

Mirror, mirror, on the wall

2011-10-13T07:09:00.001-05:00

Isn't it the loveliest of them all?

[Look what I found!]

I discovered this pretty vintage and rather large mirror on one of my quests through the local thift and antique stores. (I should take you along one of my trips some day; that'd be fun!) I'd been searching for a suitable mirror to go with our vanity for a couple of weeks now. At first, had my heart set on the "Ung Drill" Mirror from IKEA but while the husband wasn't opposed I worried it might be a bit too frilly for his taste. Looking for a better compromise I decided to continue looking; IKEA is just a 2.5h drive away and if all else failed, we could just swing by and pick it up during a weekend trip.

This darling mirror with its curvy yet clean lines caught my eyes as soon as I set foot into the store.

I zoomed right in on it.

And then I saw the price tag.

[Quite a splurge ...]

Yep, that's $12.95, ladies.

Muahaha ... and it's MINE!

Score!

I lugged the heavy thing through the store and to the cash register without wasting any time on possible other treasures. Even if we didn't like it for the bathroom, it would still look quite delicious above the fireplace.

[Beautification in progress]

At home I went to work to beautify it. The finish of the frame had some unsightly blemishes, not to mention that I wasn't too crazy about the ...uh, aged finish of the silver paint. In keeping with our minimalistic black and white film noir color scheme for the master bath, I whipped out a can of black spray paint.

It looked like the mirror was putting on a little black dress: the curvy lines started to look classy and sleek, and after following up the coat of paint with a coat of glossy spray poly, the mirror looks like new! I did give the new finish a solid two days to cure before touching it. Patience, baby, I has it (somewhat ... a little .... you know, sometimes)!

I had to replace the hanging wire on the back, drill two holes for hooks into the wall by the vanity but after just a few minutes, some groaning and some grunting (this thing is heavy! And big!), I had it hanging on the wall!

Ohhh .... pretty!

Yep, definitely loving it!

With all of the major bits and pieces in place, it's now finally time for the decorative, finishing touches. Well, alright, that is after the door is finally framed out. Or maybe the husband will take care of that while I run off to say ... Calico Corners and Bed, Bath & Beyond and other places for fabrics and stuff. As you can see we also need a light to go above our vanity. I have a couple of ideas, but need to run them past the husband for input first, so stay tuned as the adventure "master bathroom" continues. (Heh, we're kind of like a bad soap - no end in sight!)

Master Bath: a sink, with feeling!

2011-10-12T07:56:00.000-05:00

Good morning!

I just wanted to let you know that today's entry will be featured as guest post Over at Nette's "This Dusty House"Blog. You can check it out here:

"This Dusty House" is one of my absolute favourites, and checking in on Nette and her latest project is on my daily to-do list.

We both share that we're writing renovating blogs, not decorating blogs. While we occasionally take a break from the bigger DIY projects to toss in an adventure in hanging curtains, spray painting accessories and upholstering a chair, we're still up to our ears in bathroom remodels, total kitchen gut jobs and more drywall dust than we probbly ever wanted.

So hop on over and find out what's going on with this:

[Peekabo - I see you!]

Death by laundry

2011-10-10T07:33:00.002-05:00

I guess one of the biggest lessons (finally) learned is that order only comes through having a space of its own for everything you own.

At the Ugly Duckling, laundry tends to accumulate quickly and infinitely. My normal state of being is "between piles": the unwashed pile o' laundry and the ready-to-fold pile. And once that is under control, you know, for that half an hour a week, the cord to the iron tries to trip you and the ironing board is lurking in the laundry room just waiting for the moment to whack you over the head good.

When I was over at the Blue Box today, I spied with my little eye this nifty little thing:

[Quick and easy laundry organization? Yes, please!]

That sounded like a quick and easy way of securely coralling the wicked iron and its board into a safe corner and a first step to creating some semblance of order for our laundry situation.

So it went into the cart and home with me.

[Before: Into the corner with you!]

Here's the corner I chose for our unruly iron and its partner in crime, the ironing board, before the installing. All that was required were two holes for drywall anchors and then the shelf was screwed into the wall with two screws. That took all of 5 minutes after locating all necessary tools (a drill, a level and a pencil and a screwdriver)

[After: All well-mannered and orderly!]

So much better! Now the iron has a place to go and hangs nicely secured so unexpected whacks over the head are now a thing of the past. The iron has a nice spot to sit and the starch can go right next to it. And me? I'm tickled about tidy it looks.

Now if I could only make the laundry vanish ...

Curse you, Restoration Hardware!

2011-10-09T10:43:00.004-05:00

Good Lord! Have you SEEN the latest Restoration Catalog???

All that tufted glory?
The aviator chic?
The Steampunk sass?

I've been DROOLING over the catalog for the past couple of days ... yeah, well, really ever since it showed up in my mailbox, really.

[source: Restoration Hardware]

[source: Restoration Hardware]

[source: Restoration Hardware]

Who knew that a monochromatic decor scheme could be so sexy?

I wonder if the husband would let me repaint and redecorate the house ....

Master Bath: trim and proper

2011-10-07T07:54:00.000-05:00

And the saga continues (does it ever really end?): right now I'm tackling the basic trim-out of the bathroom with baseboards and some quarter rounds.

Only half an hour into the process, I'd learned my first lesson: shoulda done that -before- installing the toilet and moving in the vanity. Oh well, live and learn and improvise!

Here's what the transition floor to wall looks like without baseboard.

[Before: Something is definitely missing ...]

Yeaaah, not so pretty. Definitely can't leave it like that. We're sticking with the textured walls for now, for the most part because we're sick and tired of drywall dust. I'm toying with the thought of adding wainscoting or batten'n board which I already successfully installed in our master bedroom (read about it here and here). It looks beautiful and would leave us with a smaller area to de-texturize aka skim-coat and sand. We'll see, we'll see .... for now our project list is still plenty long; no need to add new projects just yet. A fresh coat of white paint did a LOT to clean up the look.

[Miter saw (How I wish I had an electric one!), measuring tape, baseboard and a pencil]

For the next three hours I measured, cut, measured some more, cut some more, finagled a baseboard into the tight spot between wall and vanity, maneuvered another piece around the toilet's plumbing and finally had all the pieces I needed for a full trim out. Go me!

Husband was amazed that not once did I cut an angle the wrong way. Maybe I'll be as lucky when it comes to crown molding? One can dream ...

[Getting there: baseboard in place but not yet nailed and caulked]

Nailing the pieces into place (yet another tool for my wishlist - I wish I had a nail gun) went quickly and then it was on to caulking for a nice clean transition between wall and baseboard. I will have to add quarter rounds to mask the fact that our walls aren't 100% straight (*gasp!* Shocking, I know, no straight walls in an old house) but for now I get to marvel at how proper this room is starting to look.

Now it's off to work! After work, I'll make a quick detour to the orange box to pick up the quarter rounds I need for part 2.

Peekaboo window

2011-10-06T09:59:00.000-05:00

Now that our Master Bathroom is complete as far as typical bathroom fixtures are concerned - you know, like a sink, a toilet and a bath tub - we have slowly and rather gingerly begun to use it. No, the bath tub is as of yet still unchristened (can't have my brain go on its usual "Here're the things that I need to finish" spree while taking a bubble bath in my glorious clawfoot tub) but sink and toilet are being subjected to ..ahem, light use.

You know, we seem to forget that there is now an extra bathroom.

Like it's not on our inner house map yet, we gravitate toward the hall bathroom in the mornings and if that's in use, the first step is always toward the stairs to head down to the half bath.

We're hoping this will change once the Master Bath receives its final and homey-fying touches. I've just ordered towel rings, for example, I scored a nifty mirror that needs a few tender loving and caring touch-ups, we need a bath mat and of course, window treatments for a softer, less stark white atmosphere.

And that brings us - finally - to a whole other problem: Privacy.

While I enjoy living in the urban core and don't mind my neighbors up close and personal (and we have sweet neighbors all around us, and in general, the Springfield people rock my boat balancing the line between privacy and neighborly love with perfection), there're two windows that are even in my world of laid-back exhibitionism a bit ...let's say, "iffy". Especially after sunset.

You see, I was using the brand new installed toilet, musing about our DIY to-do list and dangling my legs, when I noticed that at night our brightly lit bathroom would provide an excellent entertainment of the scantily clad sort for the neighbors whose backyards border ours.

So not good.

Some privacy would be nice, especially when using the toilet. Toilet time is not off-limits in my family, but I'd like to keep it in the family and not include my neighbors. I'm sure they appreciate the thought too.

Anyways, on one of our regular trips to the orange box (or was it the blue one?), I picked up a can of this stuff

I've tried window film before and while it does do the job, it's always a big hassle, wrangling those sheets into submission and keeping them from rolling up on you while you're trying to measure and to cut. This sounded much easier (C'mon, it's 'spray' frost - woot!) and since it's removable, it gave me enough freedom to try it without having to commit permanently like with etching cream. If I don't like it or find something better, some nail polish and a razor blade will do the trick!

I wish I could show you a 'Before' picture of that window but it was dark when I decided to do this and I forgot to snap it. It's just a very basic 80s chicken coop window (and it'll be replaced with a proper and much nicer sash window at some point)

[After: Ahh, sweet privacy ....]

No more unwanted flashing the neighbors and I still get a peek of the sky and the tree tops in front of the window. Mission accomplished!

Feeling greatly encouraged I might proceed with my secret plans for a certain window downstairs.

Masterbath: Fixing some more fixtures

2011-09-29T11:17:00.001-05:00

The Master Bathroom Saga continues!

The husband got to spend some time alone at home over the past week and decided to tackle some of those manly jobs from the project bin: he installed the commode aka toilet aka the crapper in our Master bathroom.

Olin, our favorite plumber, told us he was confident we could do that on our own (*gasp!*) and after much googling for information and tutorials on the intarwebs, the husband decided to give it a go. If we got stuck, we had Olin on speed dial. Just in case.

You know, old house and all.

Thanks to our completely updated plumbing, things went pleasantly smoothly. Since we started with a piece of pvc piping sticking out of wall (water supply) and floor (waste pipe), the first order of business were installing faucets and supply lines (wall) and a flange (floor). Husband was a bit concerned about drilling into the tiles to anchor the flange but he found comfort in knowing that the actual toilet would hide any cracks and that it's easy to fix a broken mosaic tile (you just pop'em out and replace them).

[In Progress: Flange and water supply installed]

I was there for the part that revolved in installing the actual bowl. First, the husband stuck the wax ring into place and while he lifted the bowl, I was his guide to make sure he set it down right on top of the wax ring so that the screws slid right through the openings.

[In progress: Just like that we have a toilet bowl!]

Ours is a regular Joe kind of toilet, a two piece commode with an elongated bowl. I just can't get excited over toilets (Designer? One piece? Electric? Light show? Puuuu-lease ...) - as long as it's white, clean and flushes I'm a-okay.

[In progress: Getting the tank on]

After carefully tightening the screws that hold the bowl to the flange (and thus to the floor), husband installed the tank. It felt a bit wobbly at first and it turned out that our anxiety over losing our toilet bowl and/or tank to a crank due to over-tightening the screws lead to a not so sufficient seal, a slightly wobbly tank and after a couple of hours to a minor leak.

Luckily we discovered the leak before it could cause any more trouble than a wet towel from mopping up the small puddle that had collected next to our toilet. We tightened the screws, the tank stopped wobbling and just like that! no more leaking.

Here's the husband checking the seal making sure that no un-authorized drop could sneak by. Yes, we do DIY barefoot, in shorts and with sharp cutting devices next to our bare limps. Do as I say, not do as I do. Shoo-bi-doo :o) But look, we do wear knee pads!

One step closer to a fully fixture-ized master bath!

Stay tuned - we'll be tackling the vanity venture next!

Splish-Splash, I'm taking a bath!

2011-09-28T07:57:00.000-05:00

After my parents' visit in August, followed by my husband's family's visit in September, we were a little sluggish to return to our DIY "fixin' up da house" mode. Sure, we've painted some trim (That one's a no-brainer ...on so many levels), started decorating for fall including replanting and planting some plants and we crafted some window treatments, but overall, we've been laying rather low.
Really. There's only so much DIY you can cram into a day or weekend after work and family and regular household chores.

Anyways, the BIG project that is still underway is, of course, our Master Bath. We were fortunate that the groundwork was part of our 203k renovation so demolition, plumbing and electric and the creation of the wall turning the then kitchen into bathroom and dressing room for a sweet master suite were done by the professionals.

Star of our newly created bathroom is the clawfooted tub rocking a free-standing telephone style faucet we scored for a steal at Cabinetstogo.com in Orlando

[source: cabinetstogo.com]

Looooovely tub! And exactly the kind of clawfoot action an almost 100 year old house needs. Decades of rental life had robbed our little old house most of its vintage touches so it was up to us to add them back in.

[Every which way: Positioning the tub]

We mused over just how to position the tub and finally settled on the spot that positions it parallel to the window to the backyard. Since we're on the same level as the top of the holly tree right next to our house, it makes us feel like we're in a tree house. We also have fun plans for the wall you look at when sitting in the tub that have me rubbing my hands gleefully. More on that later.

Olin, our favorite plumber, advised us to tile the floor first before he'd come by to install the faucet and drain for our tub. This required drilling holes for the drainage and water supplies through layers of tile, mortar, cementboard, plywood subflooring and God only knows how many more layers of floor/ceiling. He did it without breaking a tile. Amazing, this guy! It did, however, take longer than even he did anticipate but after much grumbling and running up and down from bath room to the little cubby in the ceiling above the laundry room where the plumbing is hidden away, he finished it up and left us with the first functioning fixture in our master bath!

And gosh, it's a pretty tub and faucet! I can't wait to see this room finished for a first luxurious bubble bath and ice cream...

Leaves blow

2011-09-26T11:07:00.003-05:00

While it's still sweltering hot during the day, there's no denying that fall has arrived in North East Florida.

Just ask the Crape Myrtle on front of our house. It's fixing to get all nekkid, dropping leaves left, right and center. Grrrr! Adding insult to injury, our next door neighbor's yard service cut the grass next door and used a leaf blower to clean up the side walk in front of her house.

BY. BLOWING. THE. WHOLE. CRAP. ON. MY. PART. OF. THE. SIDEWALK.

I kid you not.
A$$hat. (Pardon my French)
Seriously.

Hell-bent on revenge against both, lawn service man and leaves, I decided that I needed a leafblower. Only armed like that, I'd be able to survive fall.

So I started reading up on leaf blowers. Not like I had many pre-requisites. Electric is fine by me (I drive a gas hog, don't need to add a gas guzzling gardenening tool to my not so green side of life, right?), light weight would be great given that I'm short and not interested in bodybuilder style arms and inexpensive.

[Ta-da: My weapon of mass-leaf-destruction!]

After reading plenty of reviews, it appeared that the cheap-o leaf blower by Troy-Bilt from Lowe's fit my bill just right. Less than $50, enough power to blow stuff around, light weight and electric, it allowed me to check off all of my checkboxes. It also got raving reviews from a lot of guys who are usually the power-tool wielding family members. The hubby and I don't have that much experience with those outdoor tools yet, so we listened to what others had to say.

After much mocking from the husband ("A leaf blower?? Just for the leaves from that tree? Why not sweep? What's wrong with the broom?"), some subtle hinting from yours truly (Quiet blowing with rather innocent eyes and a sweeping motion with an imaginary leaf blower) and we walked home with said blower from the store yesterday. It's been raining, so the leaves are now sticky but the sun is back out and I'll update later with my first experiences!

Kitchen: In for a window treat(ment)

2011-09-22T07:53:00.000-05:00

After all the major updates in our kitchen, followed by painting some baseboard and door frame (read about it here) and adding vintage style open shelving (described here and here and here), it was time to tackle another project on our to-do-list for this room in our home.

While I love having a backyard view from my sink, seeing the ratty old mini blinds every morning just didn't brighten my day, nor did it brighten our kitchen. It just had to go. And fast.

[Before: Meh ... miniblinds]

I'd been patiently waiting for another sale at Calico Corners to snatch up a piece of that adorable "Dahlia" fabric (I talked about my fabric shopping woes here) but again, no luck. They didn't have it in stock and ordering it would take another 7-10 business day.

I'm patient, but not that patient.

So I browsed beautiful fabrics for about an hour, petted some lovely Ikats here, fondled some delicious Matelasse there, and then came across this pretty little number:

[What lovely leaves - Robert Allen Collection]

White linen with a scattering of leaves featuring colors that would work well to pull my yellow and white kitchen and my turquoise and white dining room together. Sold!

At home I pulled up my favorite "Miniblind to Roman Shade" tutorial up from the "Little Green Notebook" and got cracking. It worked great so if you feel crafty and need some easy-breezy window treatments check it out here: Miniblind to Roman Shade Tutorial

Following the instructions I cut out the thin strings that allow the miniblinds to tilt, careful not to cut the main string for the up and down mechanism.

[In Progress: Chop Chop!]

Our house cat "Boots" took off with one of the strings, and after she was done playing catch with it for a while she returned to keep a watchful eye on me to see if I'd create another toy for her during my project.

[In Progress: Extra string removed and ready to tackle step 2]

After that, I removed all but 5 slats and re-attached the bottom slat again before laying the shade skeleton on my fabric.

[In Progress: Fabric cut to size and ready to be attached]

I trimmed my fabric - one yard turned out to be the exact amount of fabric I needed for this project and then started glueing the hems. I usually -never- use any of those hemming tapes and glues. Sewing a straight seam through a sewing machine is easy and comes with the guarantee that IT.WILL.STAY.PUT. Something I can't necessarily say about some tapes I have used in the past.

I consider this a test: if it stays, great. It would have been much more difficult to run this through the sewing machine (but not impossible - just quite pin-ful to make sure the fabric doesn't move). If it doesn't, oh well, then I'll have to sew it after all.

[In-Progress: Looking good!]

So far this project had been surprisingly easy and it progressed swimmingly. Hanging the miniblind turned Roman shade back up, turned out to be a bit tricky and required me to drill a new hole into ancient pine but after just a few more minutes my kitchen window looked much improved!

[After: What a "window" treat!]

What a change! Now I really need to take care of the window trim.
And just for kicks and giggles, here's my "Honey Do" list for the kitchen as of today:

Kitchen:
- ~~rip out old cabinets~~
- ~~rip out linoleum~~
- ~~repair heart pine floors~~
- ~~refinish heart pine floors~~
- ~~re-plumb kitchen~~
- ~~update electrical wiring~~
- ~~hang new drywall~~
- ~~finish new drywall~~
- ~~prep, prime and paint walls~~
- ~~repair base molding and add quarter rounds~~
- ~~prep, prime and paint ceiling~~
- ~~install ceiling fan~~
- ~~install kitchen cabinets~~
- ~~install appliances~~
- ~~install cabinet hardware~~
- ~~prep, prime and paint base molding~~
- ~~prep, prime and paint trim around doorway to breezeway~~
- ~~create open shelving with brackets and boards~~
- ~~create/ add window treatment~~
- ~~add a chalk board somewhere~~
- prep, prime and paint window trim
- finish trimming out the cabinet above the fridge

Optional/Possible future projects:
- update lighting*
- create built-in breakfast nook *
- add small round pedestal table*
- install back splash*
- add crown molding

With new eyes

2011-09-19T08:38:00.003-05:00

After a while you get so embroiled in all of your projects and work - painting, tiling, laying floors, and so much more, that you end up seeing only those things that still need to be tackled, that still need finishing. Sure, you know how far you have come, how much better everything is now, but still.

That's when it's great to have visitors stop by who have seen the ugly nasty dirty ramshackled "Before" in all its glory. Visitors who love you too much to have told you that you were nuts for taking on this project. And visitors who now look at all of your half-finished rooms and projects and marvel at how much everything has changed. For the better, no less.

That's a really nice and very much needed breath of fresh air :o)

It also prompted me to poke through my many folders of pictures for the first ever pictures I took of our Ugly Duckling from our first tour and to team them up with Now pictures. Wow! Wow ... wow ...WHAT WERE WE THINKING?! Sure, it was all mostly "cosmetic" but don't let that fool you. Even cosmetic repairs cost hours of effort, funds, sweat and tears (not so much really, but maybe a groan or two).

Anyways, both the brother-in-law as well as the in-laws were impressed with all the changes (for the better) we'd wrought upon our little old house.

And so are we. Seeing the "Before" and "Now" side by side is really an eye opener, don't you agree?

Fallsification

2011-09-16T20:40:00.004-05:00

Alright, this one's a quicky to tide y'all over until next week. The in-laws are here for a visit (their first after seeing the Ugly Duckling in all its grody glory back in December last year) and we're a leeettle beet beeezy (first with cleaning and tidying up and now with hanging out with the family).

Part of the getting the house ready for the visit from the husband's parents was changing the look of our front door wreath. That wreath hangs there pretty much all year. I'm easy like that. All I do is add seasonal bits and bops to freshen up the look. It doesn't lay claim to an entire afternoon and is very budget friendly to boot.

[Before: The summer look]

Yep, our Duckling had its own duckling: a happy yellow rubber ducky with a bright yellow felt flower that simply pinned on.

After a quick trip to the Dollar Store for some faux fall foliage, the first step was creating a clean slate by removing everything but the big "G". That one is a permanent fixture.

[In Progress: All nekkid!]

Once I'd removed the few summer decor items, I rummaged through my Dollar Store spoils and started wrapping. I'd grabbed a simple vine with colorful, yet not too gaudy looking leaves and a little pumpkin with a small flower arrangement around the stem, and I added these to my wreath. No five minutes later, it looked like this:

[After: All fall-sified!]

Done! Time invested: 10 minutes - tops. Money spent: $2 plus tax. Is it Martha Stewart worthy? Nawwww. I'd be delusional if I thought so but it's not going to stay like that for long. After all, there's Halloween coming up quickly, followed by Thanksgiving (Hurray for Tur-kay!) and finally my favorite season. Christmas!

Bare-naked Back Yard Truth

2011-09-13T11:58:00.001-05:00

While we've been doing some amount of work on the outside of our Ugly Duckling like shift our fence line (here), put up a make-shift patio (here) and getting started on planting some flowers (here), our outdoors is still pretty scruffy looking. Granted, until we replace the weeds with either sod (highly unlikely) , a wildflower lawn (pretty but unlikely) or perennial peanut (most likely), it'll continue to look fairly scruffy unless it's been weedwhacked just the day before. Tamed weeds look a bit more ...ahem, sophisticated than crazy growing ones.

And then there are the leaves . Pointy prickly holly leaves, green holly berries and a scattering of leaves and wilted blooms from the Crape Myrtles. They provide a constant blessing. Add to that a helping of tools and supplies and the need for an exterior paint job for our house and it's not so much "shabby chic" as "in need of TLC".

[Before: Please HGTV my mess!]

Fortunately, the blue box has been having a great sale for anything outdoors going on. A lot of items in the gardening department are discounted at the end of the season, so it's definitel;y worth dropping in and scouting out what your store has to offer. I found plenty of lovely things discounted by as much as 80% without any mentioning in sales flyers anywhere!

[Backyard stoop with curtains]

Curtains make everything look more civilized so I broke out the curtains we had hanging on our big porch over at Silver Street and after a quick run through the washer hung them in our little covered stoop.

One of my lucky finds at the blue box was a table for our backyard. We'd gone tableless until now and had dragged out a table from inside if we felt like having a meal in the back yard, but a dedicated back yard table would be so much nicer. Putting it together was easy-peasy and accomplished quickly, especially with Seamus supervising the project.

[Perfect match!]

Another lucky find was this box of string lights I added to the back stoop for a little sparkle!

Tossing this all together and giving the back yard patio a quick cleaning (you know, like moving all tools and saw horses into the shed and coralling all balls and other toys into a rubbermaid container) actually played a major part in transforming our back yard patio and stoop. Things are starting to come together. Granted, they are temporary fixes - we are planning to build a deck in its stead - but for now they'll serve us well and will be less of an eye sore to our neighbors to boot!

[After: Not too shabby]

Cost breakdown:

pavers: $0 (repurposed from other area of the house)

no-dig edging: $16

3 bags of pea gravel: $10

new table: $25

lights: $7

hanging planter: $0

potatoe vine: $0 (it's a cutting from a plant I had already)

The bext thing about this little spruce up adventure? We are now actually using the back yard for more than just hopping into the pool and working on projects! There's a place to put your drink and a neat little area to sit and read a book. Is it HGTV worthy? Naww, far from it, but it's a lot better than before and that's what counts.

Baby steps, folks, baby steps.

Shelf Life - Part III: The Installation

2011-09-12T22:33:00.000-05:00

Welcome back to the final installment of my kitchen shelf series! It's so nice to see you again!

Aren't you amazed that I can drag out a simple project like this over three posts?

Me too ... then again, I have a bunch of scapegoats I get to blame. There's work, laundry, picking up, feeding the zoo (we have a family cat and a porch cat and guinea pigs), gardening, laundry, mopping floors, fixing a minimum of 2 meals a day (home-cooked, no less), supervising homework, laundry, volunteer work, a new book I picked up at the library and much more.

Anyways, back to the shelves. The last time we saw them they were in pieces: brackets and shelf boards were painted white and ready for their installation. First I attached the brackets to the shelf boards.

[A shelf in the making: attaching the brackets]

After that I whipped out the trusted spray paint and gave the shelves and brackets another coat of white paint. The spray paint worked much better at getting into all the curly curvy corners of the brackets - much much better than a brush!

Then it was off into the kitchen for the installation!

[Before: Empty space between the corner cabinet and the window]

I used a simple wooden measuring stick from the blue box store as my template. I turned the shelves over and marked the spot for the hardware on the measuring stick, then held it against the wall and leveled it.

[All level!]

Once the measuring stick was level, I copied the marks for the hardware. Two drilled holes and a few minutes later, things started to look promising!

[Shelf No. 1 is up!]

This time, my measuring fu was running strong. While I'm usually off by some amount, I hit the nail right on the head this time. The lower shelf ended up nicely even with the bottom of the wall cabinet. Strrrrike!

Rinse and repeat - Shelf No. 2 went up just as quickly and without any problems.

[After: Project "Open Shelves" completed!]

I added a few things to pull the turquoise from the adjacent dining room into the kitchen and voila - all done! Now I have the perfect spot to show off my beautiful "Oresund" mugs from Anthropology.

[Prettiest cups ever!]

So what's next? The window, of course!

Coming to terms with the coffee table

2011-09-09T08:23:00.000-05:00

My husband has this inexplicable thing for this coffee table. It's got to be sentimental, you know, one of the first pieces of furniture he acquired and to quote the husband "it's solid wood!". Right. It's a rectangular, solid wood coffee table. Other than that, it's plain. So plain, it's ugly. When I first encountered The Coffee Table it was golden oak with plenty of bachelor-pad-style stains and water rings. Still, it was solid wood and the husband liked it. Siiiiigh ....

Determined to make do with what we as newly-weds and initially single income family had, I tolerated The Coffee Table. Mostly, I tried to cover it up with runners and table scape arrangements. Then, one day, I had the bright idea to paint it. I'd tried to sand and remove all of the nasty stains but they'd soaked into the wood so thoroughly and deeply, paint was the only way to go because, you know, we couldn't just get a different table and replace my husband's beloved coffee table.

No, I don't think I have old pictures of it. In fact, until today I didn't have any pictures of it at all. No, I really am not crazy about this thing ...

A couple of weeks ago I decided that The Coffee Table was too tall for our current arrangement of furniture and in relation to the fireplace next to it. The Coffee Table was like the gangly awkward teenage cousin that stands out uncomfortably during a family reunion. Something had to happen ....something ...

That's when I broke out the saw and chopped off the legs.

Well, I shortened them and yes, I should have measured twice and cut once because they are now a little too short. Just a bit. like an inch, perhaps. I slapped some casters on them because we always push it around (it's large and often gets in the way or is either too far away or too close) and I needed something to stop it from scratching up my pretty pretty hardwood floors.

Over the next couple of weeks, the stump-legged version of The Coffee Table grew on me. Heh. If I added a shelf by placing it on top of a sheet of plywood cut to size and then added short legs (maybe fat round ones?), it'd actually not be half bad. There'd be room for small baskets underneath to corral and contain the mess of books and toys that seem to collect around it all the time.

Well, I haven't gotten to that part yet. I did, however, paint it again because a dark-brown table against a dark-brown couch against dark-brown floors just wasn't working. No, really.

And NOW I finally have some pictures! Phew! Took me long enough, hm?

I dragged the thing out into the back yard and gave it a thorough sanding. years ago, I'd used heavy-duty floor paint and it had worked like a charm but I figured it'd need some abuse aka sanding before paint would stick to it.

[No turning back now ...]

After sanding I wiped it down with deglosser. Yes, it's painfully obvious how much I want paint to stick. Must be all that flaky paint surrounding me. It's a bad influence.

There's no shortage of paint and primer around this house. On went a coat of primer! It actually held up to the "nail scratch test" once it had dried. It makes me happy when the primer doesn't peel off, yes, it does!

Our livingroom needed a splash of light, but figuring that white would be too bright (and it's really not a piece of furniture that would need any help sticking out like a sore thumb for the most part) so I grabbed the bucket of Woodlawn Colonial Grey and went to town. Well, I painted that is.

Two coats later I started to see the light. Oh my, so much better!

[A clean slate]

However, a grey table with no visual interest whatsoever is about as exciting as a lump of plumber's putty.

Stencil to the rescue!

[I'm loving this stencil. Really, I do]

Two shades of grey and some bright glossy white for a layered effect, and some stenciling later, I was slowly falling in love. This -could- actually work! So here it is in its current state: fresh paint, fresh design and sealed with Varathane for added protection. [A little bit of layering with two shades of grey and white]

Now I need to find some time to run over to the store to have them cut a piece of wood for me to build up that lower shelf I'm thinking about and buy 4 stumpy legs and all will be well with the world.

[All shiny and new-looking]

Shelf Life - Part II

2011-09-08T09:14:00.002-05:00

Ahh, the woes of being a part-time DIYer: there's only so little time during the day when you - between work, family and household chores - you get to squeeze in some much needed project time. I'm still so very very glad we had a contractor to help us get the house to a point where it was safe and in working condition. Although, all things considered, I wish we'd included the trim painting in our initial reno bid. Oh well ... the lessons life teaches you ....

Anyways, after Part I: The Acquisition, today follows part II: The Beautification wherein yours truly describes the many steps leading up to the Grand Finale and Part III: The Installation.

[Before: Yes, I have a blue dropcloth :o) All the better to see the paint splatters!]

[Lined up and ready to roll!]

So a couple of days ago I returned successfully from a trip to the orange box and got started on project "Kitchen shelves". These pretty curvy curly brackets come in natural pine so I had to prime and paint them for my goal of having pretty glossy-white open shelves in my kitchen.

[Messy progress]

That's when things got messy. As cute as the curvy lines are, they are a ... treat to paint. At least with a brush. I needed a small brush to get into all the curvy nooks and crannies and really wished, I'd opted for spray paint.

[After: All prettified!]

Well, I did it. After several coats of paint and some in-between-coats sanding for a nice smooth finish, the brackets are looking all bright and white. Just the way uh-hu-uh-hu I liiiike them! The next afternoon I spent cutting a length of plain ol' 12" white board into 26" shelf boards and painted and primed these too. Wanna see?

Just give me a moment to dig out my camera and upload a picture!

Alright, here's one.

Shelf life - Part I

2011-09-07T09:41:00.000-05:00

For once in my life I'm happily and eagerly swimming with the main stream. While I'm usually completely unaware of brand names, fashion and other things that are "in", this time I'm all line, hook and sinker for white kitchens (check!) with butcher block counter tops (check!) and open shelving (almost check!)!

I mean, what's not to love about sights like this one ...

[via pinterest]

Now that cabinets and butcher block counters are in place, it is time for some open shelving in the kitchen at the Ugly Duckling.

After some browsing online I settled for those little guys to hold my future kitchen shelves:

[source: Homedepot.com]

So far, our kitchen has been very straightforward and simple that I felt it needed a little whimsy in form of old-fashioned curly-cue brackets. They are about $15 a pair which is very budget friendly to boot.

At the first store, those little babies were sold out and back-ordered to boot. I whined about that here, but things started looking up when I discovered at them at a different branch in another part of town. Score! I picked up a 5ft long piece of white board as the top of my shelves and since we had everything else I could possibly need (screws, wood filler, primer, paint, etc.) at home, I was on my merry way in just under an hour after getting lost in the gardening aisles again. Ooops!

This is a three step program ...err, project, I mean. Part I: "The Acquisition" is thus accomplished and we cab move on to part II: "The Beautification" aka the prep & paint stage.

Stay tuned!

Quick little DIY fix

2011-09-06T07:45:00.001-05:00

How's your Labor Day weekend? Did you have fun?

We sure did! Family time, splashing in the pool, watching movies - just some good ol' fashioned family time.

It was only Monday late afternoon when the DIY spirit reared its head again, after 2 days of blissful nothing, and while we were OCD enough to kick start three different projects, I'll share with you the one we actually finished!

Enter the stage: our darling vintage sink from the upstair's hall bathroom.

For now we're keeping the old faucets (my wishlist for house stuff is looooong and they didn't make the top) since, you know, they work and we have a long list of other stuff to do before wrangling with the installation of two tab faucets. What did bother me, though, were the missing "Hot" and "Cold" thingamajiggs.

[Before: Poor faucet, missing its button]

Before you start wondering, those 'inserts' that tell you whether it's the hot or the cold side are called hot and cold buttons. I kid you not. I'd expected something more .... I don't know, special plumber 'lingo, but button? Anyways, if you loose one of those you need - hold on, this is a killer - "replacement hot and cold buttons".

[Replacement buttons]

I found mine near the fittings and valves in the plumbing aisle at the orange box for some measly $4

[This is what they look like from the back ...]

I didn't like how the brushed nickle buttons looked with the chrome faucets, so I decided to go with the chrome pair instead.

Quick and easy - no tools were needed. All I needed to do was pick the right button for each side and press it over the screw in the opening. The crimp-y backside snaps over the screw and - voila! - no more gaping hole!

[After: All fixed!]

That's how I love my DIY projects: quick, easy and without causing side projects and extra work. Yes!

Happy Labor Day!

2011-09-05T08:26:00.000-05:00

[source]

Changing season

2011-09-04T08:38:00.001-05:00

Since Friday's post you know that I needed a pick-me up. What better reason to swing by the blue box to browse the gardening section for some little lovelies for my yard?

Lowe's did not disappoint. In fact, I ended up the kid in the candy store marveling at all the clearance and sales tags in the gardening section. Woot! Even the distressed plant shelf was nicely stocked!

Distressed plant shelf? Well, I don't know about your big home improvement stores but ours here occasionally seem to hire people with not so green thumbs. Thus they end up with a bunch of plants that look mighty disheveled and/or shriveled, and they sell these poor abused lifeforms for very little money. Like a 10th of the original price low. Not always do I end up taking one of these patients back home with me; my own thumbs aren't overly green and certain kinds of plants become death row candidates in my care.

Others, fortunately, do thrive and since the canna lilies I bought for $10 a pop a few weeks ago seem to love their spot and don't object to my care, I picked up 2 of their distressed cousins. Canna lilies grow from bulbs, so unless the bulbs are rotten to the core, they will come back next year! I also decided to take an electric blue salvia home with me and a few other things to pretty up the outside of the Ugly Duckling.

My little plant arrangement next to our entry door had gotten a bit out of control. I'd unknowingly bought a bleeding heart -vine- and it's a really enthusiastic grower! I had to cut it back on a weekly basis and so it always looked disheveled and out of shape (and bounds). It's not like our house needs any help looking disheveled - far from it - so it had to go.

[Before: Potted plant out of control!]

At the blue box, I picked up 3 little yellow Mums (nothing says "Fall is here" like blooming mums!) and splurged on a cute, 2-tiered topiary. Then I got down and dirty and started digging up the existing plants. Crazy growing bleeding heart was earmarked to go into the backyard, along with the potatoe vine, and unknown trailing plant no. 3 got to hang around with its new buddy, the topiary.

[In Progress: Diggin' in]

Out with the old and in with the new - switching up the planter didn't take that long and only half an hour later, our front porch and entry looked much much better!

[After: So much better! All nice and tidy]

Just wish me luck I'll be able to keep this pretty poofy topiary alive!

Blog-iversary: 200 posts!

2011-09-03T07:48:00.000-05:00

Post 100 came and sneaked (snuck?) past unnoticed but this time I caught another big anniversary number:

200 posts!

In two more months it will be exactly one year since we first laid eyes on our Ugly Darling Duckling. And what a year it has been! From first tour to closing date, we spent a rocking and rolling 3 months trying to buy this house all the while our fabulous realtor Teresa held our hands. She was also by our side for the 3 months prior to discovering our house, sending listings, touring houses and coaching us through our very first offer (the one that we walked away from.; read about it here).

With the help of our fantastic contractor team from Glory Homes Inc. and their subcontractors we brought the Ugly Duckling up to speed and code, and finally moved in in May. So far we have (with their help when it comes to the big ticket items and in no particular order)

updated/repaired plumbing in entire house

updated/repaired electricity in entire house

replaced hvac system

repair damaged trim/molding where necessary in entire house

made a few roof repairs as needed

turned downstairs full bath into half bath

installed new fixtures in the half bath

hung a new mirror in the half bath

takeen space from downstairs bath and add to mudroom for laundry space

put vinyl plank flooring down in our mudroom/laundry room

demoed kitchen

salvaged hardwood floors underneath linoleum

installed kitchen cabinets

installed appliances

installed cabinet hardware

sealed butcher block counter tops

went tankless (with our water heater)

opened the wall to staircase to create a single-family home

built and installed a new newel post

installed existing handrail using new vintage-style brackets

opened the wall between entry hall and living room

revealed pocket doors hidden in the walls

refinished all downstairs wood floors

re-open fireplace and inserted a gel fireplace

painted fireplace brick

painted the livingroom, the dinigroom, the kitchen, the laundry room, the half bath

updated the light fixtures in livingroom, upstairs bathroom, kitchen, diningroom, dressing room, guest bedroom, Little Man's cave and the Master Bedroom

spruced up an old brass chandelier

hung cabinets in the laundry room

refinished the stairs

removed linoleum on the landing and upstairs hallway and installed new floors

got a proper door for closet to heat pump

painted the hallway

installed batten and board in the Master bedroom

re-caulked tub in upstairs bathroom

installed a vintage sink

refinished the vintage sink

turned upstairs kitchen into Master bath and walk-in closet by building a wall and creating two rooms out of the existing upstairs kitchen

laid new subflooring in the upstairs bath and dressing room

painted and stenciled the floor in the dressing room

updatee plumbing for future Master bath

built, installed and painted two shelving units for the dressing room

laid tile in Master bath

refinished a vintage dresser to use as vanity in the master bathroom

built a cabinet for the library

built and installed wall-mount shelves in the library

refinished the built-in butler's pantry and decorated with stencils

removed the old ugly awnings on the kitchen window and the hallway window

removed the rusty old handrail from the front steps

created a simple patio

set up an above-ground pool

started the planting in the backyard

spruced up the back porch aka The Stoop

corrected the fence line

installed a new door to our shed

created a new planter bed in the front yard

began planting a butterfly garden

changed the outdoor lighting

removed a couple of unwanted and unnecessary satellite dishes from the side of our house

removed old broken storm doors

moved the vintage mailbox to the actual entry door

installed vintage door bell push button

installed new window hardware on some windows

restrung some window weights

changed the front door hardware

painted our front door

replaced the back door hardware

installed a new porch light

created and hung window treatments in in Master bedroom, library, livingroom, dining room and guest bedroom

upcycled a vintage sewing desk

reupholstered a storage bench

sewed pillow covers

created a gallery wall in the hallway

chopped a tree

Through all of that I managed to write 200 blogposts and take way more than 200 pictures. Our little old house has gone through a major transformation, even though it's still not done, and we're beyond happy to see with our own eyes what we envisioned during our first visit. No, it's not a major historical landmark. Not even a whimsical ornate historic home. It's a modest quaint example of vernazular building styles with bungalow influences of the beginning of the past century, but we love it to bits and pieces. It's a house with character and personality. It's our Ugly Duckling!

So here is to the next 97 years and the next 200 blogspots. We are far having reached the end of the to-do-list yet! Hope you're going to stick around :o)

Shopping woes

2011-09-02T10:41:00.000-05:00

And just like this it's fall in North East Florida!

This morning we woke up to a brilliant blue sky and clean cool air with a hint of autumn crispness to it! Fall!

[Even the purty little cardinal boy checking in on our bird feeder seemed extra special excited this morning]

There are people who claim that there are just two seasons in Florida: hot and not so hot but really, up here in the northern corner (or South Georgia, as I have heard somebody call it) we have actually 4 season just like regular non-tropical folks. Granted, it may be warm enough to fire up the grill in December but we do get frost and sometimes even flurries during winter. Summers are scorching hot with thick humid air and hazy skies and fall and spring are simply brilliant with sunny days and cool nights.

Other than that, though, it's been a craptastic 2 days, at least as far as shopping and school bus transportation are concerned. Sufficient to say we'll stick to carpooling in the morning (who would ever consider sending their 1st grade or 2nd grade student on a 2 hour bus ride, not to mention we only live 17 miles away from the school).

Shopping, now that's a whole other story. See, to finish the kitchen for now I need a) shelves and b) a window treatment.

When I set out to pick up the shelves brackets it turned out they weren't in stock and back-ordered to boot, and over at the fabric store I encountered the same issue with the fabric I'd secretly stalked for the past half year. To add insult to injury, the fabric is available online but for a much higher price than originally anticipated. Meh!

See, I have my heart - kind of - set on a Roman shade made by yours truly from this killer fabric

[Dahlia Aegean via Calico Corners]

It's graphic, it's clean and best of all it brings the color schemes of kitchen (yellow/white), dining room (aqua/white) and living room (grey/white) together.
That's a really difficult color combination when it comes to fabrics. Nothing else seems to really catch my eye, you know? This one here's kind of fun

[Pop Garden Daisey Red via Fabric.com]

and this one's not too shabby if a bit more subdued

[Waverly Circular Motion via Fabric.com]

but I doubt I'd pine over either of them for as long as I've pined for my beloved Dahlia. Then again, I could just go pure white and leave the color pops to decorative items. Right? Meh ...

Or I'll just wait for a sale. Or ... ? Buehler?

Kitchen: Trim and proper

2011-09-01T08:13:00.000-05:00

Veni - Vidi - Picti!

I came - I saw - I painted!

Yaaaaaaaaaa, I did it! I finally conquered the beast that is painting the kitchen trim! I won't go into great detail of how tedious, yet so rewarding this task is (very little beats the sight of clean crisp, freshly painted trim), especially since I have whined, complained and moped about it plenty of times before. I'll just leave you with a few pictures.
Sounds good?
Here we go!

Before: Well, actually it's more of an "in progress" picture. The trim is
cleaned, patched, sanded and primed

More progress: Scooting along the base board and rolling on paint with a little foam roller.
2 nice even and thin coats is what it takes to make this base board look pretty.
Yep, that's a stiff plastic place mat I'm using instead of painter's tape - it worked like a charm!

After: The contrast of our Ugly Duckling's original fabulicious heart-pine floors (stained "Walnut") against crisp white trim makes my heart go pitter-patter!

Starting up again

2011-08-30T06:09:00.001-05:00

After three great weeks, my parents embarked on their flight home again on Sunday. Yesterday morning, they arrived safe and sound in Germany and life is returning to its normal, pre-parental visit state.

That's right, we're back at it and working on polishing our Ugly Duckling.
Since it's Monday though, laundry and general picking-up came first before I spent an hour (or so ...) browsing pinterest for general inspiration and creating two lists: one master list of all the things I want to do and a shorter list of things I want to do this week.

Just as I mentioned earlier here, my Mom pointed out that perhaps we should tackle our project one room at a time, rather than project-hopping and having half-finished rooms all over the place. While in theory this is a great idea, you know since reading this entry he re last week, that things aren't always that easy (one project leading to a multitude of others that weren't planned in the first place or if they were planned, they were on the list for a later time) when restoring/renovating an old home.

Not to mention that I can't stand the thought of painting trim and only trim for the next couple of weeks, every day of the week. Ugh! Shoot. Me. Now! Put me out of my trim painting misery, please!

Anyways, this week the kitchen made the top of the list!

[Before: Just ... gross]

It's close to completion and it'll be nice to have yet another more or less finished room. Heh ... there it is again, almost finished. Let's start with the list, that way it's easier to explain the "almost" bit about it.

[In Progress: Looking so much better already and despite all the
construction dirt, cleaner than before.]

Kitchen:
- ~~rip out old cabinets~~
- ~~rip out linoleum~~
- ~~repair heart pine floors~~
- ~~refinish heart pine floors~~
- ~~re-plumb kitchen~~
- ~~update electrical wiring~~
- ~~hang new drywall~~
- ~~finish new drywall~~
- ~~prep, prime and paint walls~~
- ~~repair base molding and add quarter rounds~~
- ~~prep, prime and paint ceiling~~
- ~~install ceiling fan~~
- ~~install kitchen cabinets~~
- ~~install appliances~~
- ~~install cabinet hardware~~
- prep, prime and paint window trim
- prep, prime and paint base molding
- prep, prime and paint trim around doorway to breezeway
- create open shelving with brackets and boards
- create/ add window treatment
Optional:
- update lighting*
- build built-in breakfast nook *
- add small round pedestal table*
- install back splash*

[After: I looove my new kitchen!]

Optional items are "would be nice to have" items I'm envisioning for our place that don't need to happen right.now. I'm sure I can scramble up enough patience to postpone these for a later time. For now.

Unless there is a delay ordering and/or acquiring certain items on my list (shelf brackets and fabric for my window treatment) , I should be able to wring enough free time out of this week's schedule to get this all wrapped up so stay tuned for bit by bit updates.

Alright, so I won't be writing about every inch of trim I've painted but, you know, share a before and after with you.

Sounds good?