Hall-Mack Dolphin

I'm in the process of kitsching up my bathroom and maybe, just maybe I will have photos by the end of this weekend? I mean really, I have a whole extra "free" day to work on it! Since Frankie (and the dog) moved to the basement the dog cannot wander in and piddle on my rug and shower curtains now so I really don't have an excuse.

This find from the salvage store came just in time as I hadn't motivated myself to re-hang the probably $2 towel ring which came with the house. It takes a whole 5 minutes to do after all! Most of which is spent walking to the basement and finding the drill.

A lovely kitschy Hall-Mack towel ring. I would call it a fish but I guess its official title is dolphin.

Unfortunately I did have to buy this entire box to acquire it:

It is all Hall-Mack but the soap dish is gross with finish wear, not to mention I have no spot for it. There is also a plain gold towel rack and part of a toilet paper holder?? - both rather forlorn and not fish related.

House #2 Update

Just an update about my brother's quest for a house. As you may recall from the post here they lost the seller of his original house. All she had to do was sign over the title and take his check but no one ever found her to finish this last task. I do feel bad for the house because it is really nice and there is all of that fun stuff inside. Darn her! Where did she go?? and now how will she get rid of the house? No one in town is going to list it for her and she obviously isn't going to be able to handle a for sale by owner. The utilities are all still on and she'll have to continue to pay taxes. And yard work? The city will fine her for that one I guess...if they can find her...
He decided it was time to move on and this time I am even more jealous of his find. I will try not to curse it again with a full blown story but it is a fantastic Italianate/Victorian on a double lot. The parts that make me most jealous are the decent sized kitchen, attached garage, cute gardening shed, back staircase and, last but not least, 2 full bathrooms - one a complete original 1900 bathroom and the other is in the 50's addition off the back and, you guessed it, it's pink! I told him I will buy this house from him when he is tired of it, no joke! My only contingency is he has to keep the bathrooms. I already heard him say something about needing to find pink rugs so it sounds like he is taking me up on my offer, though I'll help him man it up a little - black or gray rugs would look better than pink anyways. It is a short sale so he only has to cough up 65Kfor it (OK, a little more with interest and what not) but he isn't closing until July ugh, I hope it's worth the wait and the seller doesn't mysteriously vanish this time!

Weekend Finds

We did get some productive garage saleing done this weekend so it wasn't a total waste! I've been trying to stick to practical items but it's hard to resist some new additions to my ever  expanding troll family.

 Both are in such good shape and include their original tags. Plus I suspect they are actual souvenirs from oversees as the Nyform one (on the right) has a $14 price tag and even small ones like this run $35-$45ish? at the stores, er, store I have seen them at here. I've only bought them used and cheap because most people are terrified by them so I'm not up on current new prices.

My other find was an addition to my other problem:

 another Chair...

But hey! Even this is practical as I've been looking for a vintage rocking chair for the nursery which doesn't have that wicked looking rocking contraption underneath that looks like it would be catching arms and legs of both the cat and the child if one wasn't careful. The chair looked so forlorn sitting out in the parking lot so I couldn't resist also it was cheap and proceeds went to charity so it was a win-win. As my mom and I were excitedly hauling it off I heard one of them saying "I can't believe someone bought that chair!" Ha! I heard that!

"You're going to put this gross thing in our child's room?" was basically Mark's response. No worries, it is actually very clean and sturdy - just the fabric is a little well used. My mom and I went straight to the fabric store and I actually found a nubby orange upholstery fabric which will hide barf stains and blends with the curtains on super duper clearance. Umm, does that normally happen? No! I was going to start chopping at it last night but the cat claimed the chair as soon as she spotted it and decided it was her napping spot for the evening.

It is tagged Paoli Chair Company, Inc. on the bottom along with a 1960 date. It looks like the company/a variation of the company is still in business today as I found a website for them.

Weekend Productivity?

This weekend was not productive. In fact, I feel it is regressing more around here than progressing.

We had to clean out our relatively new (30 yr old) sewer line last summer and they didn't find any tree roots etc. so we were hoping it was a fluke and it just needed a good cleaning but nope, it's backing up again. We called the city hoping it was their 125 year old line but they claim nothing is wrong on their end so it has to be ours. Hopefully someone can come quick, unplug us and run a camera down to find the exact culprit of this situation. Also, hopefully this situation is not occurring under the driveway slab. 

The ants have swarmed the kitchen again. Didn't I have this problem the first summer here? Why yes I did but the ants fell for my traps and gradually died off. This year's crop seem indifferent to my traps despite their obvious attraction to the grape juice which mysteriously appears on my counters every morning.

The air conditioner exploded water all over the basement as it was extra humid on Saturday and something clogged up the hose. 

Last but not least, termites! Didn't we have the house treated for termites before we moved in? Yes, yes we did but my dad found a few on the garage. This was the front middle post which is by itself, the last section of the garage he was repairing and he hadn't seen any others anywhere else. We put some termite killer on it and are hoping that will take care of them and it's not a widespread problem...yet? We'll see about that. Since my dad fixed most of the trim on the garage this weekend hopefully it doesn't just get eaten up again!

 This was the damage done by previous termites and water.

It now looks like this. Yay! Nothing big or exciting but every little bit around here helps.

 Around the door frame is also fresh and new.

Misc. Update

Goodness it has been over a month since my last post!? Part of my excuse is my camera crapped out right in the middle of my last post. This made me cranky since I am OCD about my camera. It carefully stays near my computer but if it does travel it goes into a neoprene case. I was not a happy camper when the lens decided not to focus on anything and the culprit, from reading various help sites, was dirt in the gears or dropping it. My camera doesn't even have a scratch on it but here it sits, mostly dead. I tried my old camera but it takes horrid photos so I finally borrowed my brother's camera. Taking pictures does make me think of my poor lost camera so I'm still not much in the mood but I figured I should force myself to be before I end up with 30 stories to post on here! What have we been up to the past month?

An Ikea run made the list and here is our haul (minus Mark's entertainment cabinet).

This gross rotting board on the back of our garage has been replaced with a fresh piece of outdoor appropriate cedar. Who puts interior trim on a garage??

I haven't put up all the finishing touches in the bathroom yet. Frankie's dog will most likely get excited and hike his leg on anything new i.e. shower curtains and rugs so I was waiting for them to move out but I'm getting antsy so I may take my chances. This is the happy little whale tray I found last weekend which I am hoping to find a good spot for in here because, well, it is just so happy!

My Oddball Collection?

It's obvious I like to collect weird things, the weirder and crazier they are the better and if it is old, that is even better so how did this collection happen?

I'm not sure how I started on the Hallmark Merry Miniatures. I believe it stems from my younger years when I would pick out one or two for my birthday and Christmas. Of course they showed up in .10 boxes at garages sales so I accumulated more. I was so proud of myself because I recently convinced my dad to compartmentalize my printers box further which nearly doubled its little critter capacity. I installed most of my collection (a few larger ones are in overflow on a shelf around the corner), I sorted out the duplicates and even had room for a few oddball little animals I have collected.

And then I went to a garage sale this weekend. My mom and I had gotten separated, I had gone upstairs, she downstairs. When I got downstairs I saw 3, eight foot tables crammed with boxed Hallmark ornaments. They were $1 or $2 apiece so I got excited looking to see if they had any of my little miniatures at a reasonable price. Spotting none, I was browsing the ornaments to see if there were any I "needed" when my mom came back in the room carrying an entire shoebox full of miniatures for $1 a bag! $15 later and this was my haul.

 Hmm, the picture doesn't look like much but I stopped counting at 100 plus there were some pins and ornaments mixed in which I didn't include. Some are duplicates so they will find new homes but I put in an order with my parents for another printers box.

Saying Goodbye to the Hot Tub

I've never had the desire to own a hot tub but since this one came with the house I thought I would give it a try. After all, it might be fun to invite some friends over, do some grilling and have a hot tub party! But alas after 2 years I never even started planning a party which involved the poor little hot tub. The first step would have been to actually clean the hot tub but it still looks like this:

I've been thinking about putting it on craigslist for free just to get it out of here probably for the past year. But I have dealt with craigslist a few times.

I claimed a free shop vac which "worked just fine"...for half the living room.

I tried to buy an antique toilet which "had no cracks at all" after I asked at least 3 times specifically if it was cracked anywhere above the base. I drove to Fremont only to discover a huuuge crack all the way around and through to the inside of the bowl. Did they hope I was blind?

My place of work convinced me to post and be in charge of e-mails from several unused items they had around the office. This resulted in many e-mails involving sending money orders for above the asking price but no actual interested buyers.

I put it off and put it off but finally had enough of looking at that dirty hot tub every day and my dad was here to deal with the electrical so I decided to give it a go, expecting the worst. I received an e-mail within 20 minutes. I left them a message with my address and asked what time they might stop by but of course I never heard another word from them. I'm assuming they drove by, saw how gross it was (despite my warning and included photo) and kept on driving. E-mailer #2 seemed enthusiastic so I called and left a message, he returned my call within 5 mins and said he would definitely take it, sight unseen and mentioned he had removed and installed several hot tubs so he even sounded like he knew what he was doing. Score! He came yesterday, jacked it up and undid all of the electrical but his friend couldn't make it until today with the truck. He left his $150 jack under the hot tub as collateral and sure enough, a huger than expected truck pulled into our yard this afternoon.

(I snuck in a picture from upstairs to avoid any awkwardness)

Whew, I feel I lucked out in this craigslist posting. I was fully expecting someone who had never thought of owning a hot tub until seeing my free ad would show up with a small car and try to bungee it to the top or something ridiculous! I'm sure this guy is going to refurbish it and make a bunch of money from it but that is fine with me. I'm glad our hot tub is going to find a new home and I hope it goes to someone who will enjoy it and actually give it the hot tub party it deserves!

Now I have a whole new, unevenly dirty deck area!

I have some flower pots to put against the fence and...and I don't know what else I can do! Anything pricey and eye catching is out of the question at the moment since it is somewhat visible from the alley. Otherwise cute patio furniture and an awning I saw at Lowe's last weekend come to mind.