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.

Converting Pinch Pleats

Enough ranting for a while and back to my house projects.

I was helping my mom clean out their attic when we came across a box labeled "Cara's Curtains". Fully expecting a pastel Cabbage Patch print to appear when I opened the box I was pleasantly surprised to see this:

 

Apart from the Kliban cats, the rest of the box contained 3 pairs of carefully packed and mint condition vintage curtains. Where did these come from? High school me must have snagged these somewhere, oh, yes, I found a $2.84 Salvation Army price tag on several so that must be where they came from. I guess they didn't match my lavender country 90's room decor but I felt I would have a use for them someday and carefully packed them away. Well, thank you high school Cara for probably splurging and spending $17 on curtains because as a matter of fact I DO now have the perfect spot for them 15 years later!

This is our master bedroom rug which was purchased quick when we moved in. A few months later I was at Target and saw these fantastic (OK, in my admittedly odd opinion of fantastic) shower curtains that I wanted to make into curtains which resulted in this:

They went into our bedroom simply because I couldn't think of another room for them at the time. The greens match the carpet but I always felt the styles were a little off. So these curtains are now going to find a new room and the vintage ones are up.

One slight snag in my curtain hanging was that they were/still are pinch pleats. I know myself too well and know I will be rearranging curtains, rugs etc. someday so I didn't want to mess with investing in a traverse rod and I decided to try and convert them.

I simply basted some shiny fabric onto the back wide enough to slide a curtain rod through

and: 

Here is the result! They still look like pinch pleats and can still be used as pinch pleats but they also fit on a normal rod. I would worry about lining them for protection from sun damage but the mini blinds are still up and these windows are on the north side of the house anyways so very little direct light.

 

I think I need a new spot for my aqua chair now but if I had to go out shopping for curtains, I don't think I could have found a better match for the carpet. They share the same green color and they have the same branchy flower-leaf thing happening.

The Case of the Disappearing Seller

I've been hoping to skip past the drama and post about Frankie's house but it just keeps getting weirder. First off, I must have cursed the closing date by getting prematurely excited. Obviously since I'm writing this, nearly a month later, he STILL has not closed.

Right after I last posted Frankie informed me the seller's agent and/or the bank had not been able to get a hold of the seller (who lives out of state) to finalize the closing time. Umm, OK, she had known the date for a month. I know if I was getting free money from selling a house I inherited I would have that date engraved in my brain or at least written on the calendar. They finally get a hold of her to find she had been in the hospital with her husband and hadn't had time to deal with it. OK, some sympathy goes out to her. (though really, sitting in the hospital with only basic cable daytime television? Seems like the perfect time to catch up on paperwork to me) Anyways, now all should run smoothly...right?

She only had a couple things left to sign and I guess she doesn't believe in faxing or e-mails or something because everything has to be done by snail mail. About a week and a half after the supposed closing date she mailed (yes, snail mailed) an extended letter about how she received the paperwork and wanted to thoroughly read through it when she had time, she still wants to sell the house, so on and so forth and that is the last we have heard from her. She found the time to write this well thought out letter but not sign her name on some papers?? And read through what? The contract is signed so no turning back there. All she needs to sign are the papers saying she accepts money for the house and probably where this money should be deposited. Pretty straight forward.

Closing in on one month after the supposed closing date. The agent had been able to occasionally get a hold of her by phone but now that has been disconnected. The agent is now writing a letter to see if they can get a response about what in the world she is doing.

We just can't figure out why on earth she isn't signing. Does she have second thoughts on selling the house? The agent says she is really (really) elderly so what would she do with a dirty, slightly dilapidated home 600 miles away? Is she just confused about everything and has no family near her to help? In the mean time Frankie maybe should start looking at other houses BUT I'm guessing if he wants out of the contract she is still going to have to sign something, something she will want to read thoroughly through first when she has the time. If they can get that much out of her it might as well be a signature on the closing papers!

Free Fridays!

Three more days until Frankie signs for his house so the countdown is on!

Also my bathroom is soo close to being done. A little more paint, a light fixture hung, dig out my kitsch er, um, decorations and it will be done! *crossing my fingers*

We had snow, snow and more snow Saturday complete with a lack of electricity. With nothing to power our stove or *gasp* microwave Mark decided to venture out on foot for some food. Valentino's is about a block away and on a different electric line so he headed off. An hour later he finally came home with Taco John's. He reported they were frantically loading food onto a truck at Valentino's, Burger King was dark and the grocery store was open but they had employees with flashlights directing customers around the store. No ready made deli food. At this point he decided he had done too much to throw in the towel and go home to a sandwich so Taco John's 12 blocks away was obviously the only solution to our food dilemma.

The patio furniture and deck rail is under there somewhere

Jumping backwards a day when my car could still comfortably leave the alley. Our salvage store has started what they call "Free Fridays" to move out some stuff that has been sitting for too long. I foresee this situation adding to my hoarding of nifty objects which I plan to someday use in this house.

This Friday's find:

I had previously ogled this because they only had $5 on it but couldn't think of a spot for it. Suddenly it was sitting neglected in the free pile and I couldn't resist any longer. It will go in the upstairs sun porch someday after I convince my dad he needs to help put electricity out there. Hey, I even have it hanging from the ceiling out there already so it is kind of put away in its rightful place. If you look at it from outside you may even think it has the ability to light up!

Coca-Cola Ice Box

My parents are still digging stuff of mine out of their house. My neighbors must think I'm crazy (rightly so) because a couple more boxes are brought every visit. This visit brought my 4-H project from 7th grade but first I will tell you about my icebox stoop.

This is where my house's first icebox sat. The kitchen is to the left and up a step and the side door (convenient for ice drop off) is to the right. 

 An overhead view. If you look in the middle and a few boards out from the wall, you can see the hole where the drain pipe was (still is in the basement) so the ice could drain away.

So what is one to do with this space? I was using it for recycling but I am lazy and never seem to motivate myself to drop off said recycling until it is an out of control pile. Not a big problem but this spot is easily viewed from the kitchen since the basement is always open for the cat. Tired of looking at a giant pile of plastic I decided since this spot originally housed an ice box, why not "reinstall" one? Of course I have one...who doesn't??

Back to my 7th grade 4-H project. This one, as many projects did, came from the back of my parent's garage and was purchased at an auction for $5. At that point in my life, while most of my friends were in want of the latest clothing and shoes, I really wanted (I guess I still do) a vintage Coke cooler/machine but had no way of affording one. So my answer to this "need" was to get out the spray paint and make a Coke logo stencil. The ice box was missing a leg and is made from a hodgepodge of cheapy wood so this was a definite improvement.It won a big ribbon and went to the state fair so I was happy.

The top props up and I can cram all of my Coke bears right inside.

  Plus I can store some of my misc. Coke things in the bottom.

Now I just need to do something about that stained up 90's wallpaper in the background, add a few more shelves and my basement stair landing will transform into the perfect Coca-Cola area.