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Making a House a Home with Pictures

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This wall has always been our picture wall from the day we moved into this house.

You can see it here in the first picture Elly took on my old point and shoot camera.

Yet, for the past 4 years, it hadn’t been updated.

Even worse, there were no pictures of Elly in the house aside from one tabletop frame. There are close to a thousand pictures of Elly in my online Picasa photo gallery, but none had been printed and placed in a frame.

So, this past month, I have been updating baby pictures of my godsons with more recent pictures as well as adding more pictures of family.

Elly’s picture got the star treatment it deserved.

It’s a 16 by 20 poster print. The picture is one of my favorites: Elly playing tug-o-war with Jake.

I even framed my favorite piece of her artwork.

The whole house feels brighter and happier.

New Washer Machine

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When we purchased this house 7 years ago, it came with all the appliances we needed. Yet, we fully understood that over the next few years we would have to replace each and every one. They were all older than the hills.

The dishwasher was the first to go. It died in the first year. Technically, it still ran but it didn’t actually clean all the dishes. I lasted 1 month without a dishwasher and it was pure torture.

Last month, I noticed that our washer machine was leaking.

So I started a search for a new washer rather than wait for it to completely die and have to head to the nearby laundromat before a new one could be found. There were only 2 features I wanted a new washer to have: large capacity and a spin cycle. The latter helped narrow the field down. So many new washers, such as all the Whirlpool models, didn’t have a spin only cycle. I was surprised  Surely, I’m not the only person who hand washes her wool sweaters and fancy dresses and uses the spin cycle to get rid of all the excess water.

While visiting Boscovs, I found exactly what I wanted, a GE Energy Star Washer.

It was a GE model just like our current 30+-year-old washer. Obviously, I trusted the brand. It also had the 2 features I wanted. It was large and it had a spin only cycle. Plus, it was on sale.

It took a week for Boscovs to deliver it because it was on backorder. On Saturday, they brought my new washer and took away the old one. I giggled the first time I ran a load in it. It’s huge!

I won’t have to do laundry as often. Woo!

Recent Yard Sale Finds

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Within the past 6 months, I have bought more furniture for this house than I have in the past 7 years. Most of our furniture has been well-loved hand-me-downs. So, it’s been so much fun adding more of our personality to this house.

My latest finds include a tea cart,

a chair to use with with my recently purchased secretary desk (the seat opens up to reveal storage)

and 2 porch chairs.

I’m still on the hunt for a new island. Though I love my island because it takes a kitchen lacking valuable counter space and turns it into a functional space that a chef would cut his left arm off for, I despise the grout in between the tiles.


(ignore the Rice Krispie treats … this picture was taken a year and half ago)

I can’t tell you the amount of flour that have been stuck in those grout lines over the years and how annoying it was to clean it all out. Truly, I’d love to buy the one from Williams Sonoma, but it’s out of my price range. So my hope is to find an old hutch or tall desk that I can place a slab of marble on top. No luck thus far. Why marble, you ask. Nothing is better for rolling pastries and breads out on. Besides, it’s classic and I love classic.

Next Sewing Project: Curtains

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Winter is coming.

The lovely sheer curtains I made for the living room windows were great for the summer. They let in so much light.

They also let in a ton of warmth thanks to the southern exposure, but the AC worked hard to keep us cool.

Although the boiler could keep us warm in the winter, money could be saved if I added another layer or two to the windows. Plus, more curtains will keep me from uncontrollably shivering every time I glanced at the windows and saw only a thin layer of organza separating me from the ice and snow.

The fabric chosen for the living room coordinates with the red in my beloved fireplace.

Yet, the white background color keeps the curtains from being too dark, my main complaint of the original draperies.

The curtains will be lined with warm, heavy flannel. I’ve used flannel in all the previous window dressings made and it does a great job in blocking the bitter cold air that seeps in through the window panes.

Red grommets will be used to hang the curtains. I wanted something that would allow the curtains to be pulled aside easily and still look casual.

Now to go pick up my machine from the shop. After all the dress sewing, it was in need of a tune up.

Paint at Last

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In July, I posted about scraping the last of the primer and paint off of the oil paint in our dining room. Since then, I hadn’t the energy, enthusiasm, or courage to paint the walls again. Not to mention I didn’t have the time since I spent every free moment sewing in order to finish the dresses. So, for 3 months, our dining room has looked like this.

During the 3 months, we periodically had guests visit, but even that wasn’t enough encouragement to get me to pull the paint and brushes out again. I just couldn’t deal with the possibility of defeat again.

Yesterday, all that changed. It was time. The walls had started to annoy me. The carpet was shredding to pieces in yet another spot. It had to go, but it’s such a useful (albeit ugly) drop cloth.

So while Elly played at a friend’s house, I got to painting on a coat of oil-based primer.

When Dan came home and praised my efforts, I told him to not get too happy. If anything goes wrong, even so much as the stripes not being wide enough, I’m slapping up beadboard. No power on this earth could make me scrape those walls again.

Organizing Christmas Presents

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Before Elly, I would just stack all the Christmas presents on the floor in our guest bedroom.
Last year, I had to hide all the toys in the china cabinet and the guest bedroom closet to keep Elly from playing with them.
This year, I needed to hide all the Christmas presents because Elly is remarkably curious and wants to play with anything new whether it’s a toy or not.
With the china cabinet stuffed to the gills with sewing notions and fabric, there was no room to stash presents. The closet was quickly filled and more presents were arriving weekly. Oh how I love to shop for Christmas!
Something had to be done.
Noticing that the oil room was underutilized with just canned produce and mountains of empty boxes, I set about to claim the space for storage.

A little sweeping here plus a few boxes broken down there and I was left with enough room to install metal shelves.

It is out of sight to Elly. Thus, most people should receive their gifts without little tears in the packaging and without any Elly artwork.
Although this shelving unit is helpful to let me see at a glance what gifts I have already purchased, I rely on an app, the Gift List Manager, to keep me on budget and on target. It sure beats the excel spreadsheet system I had before.

A Sewing Bench

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Six years ago, I drug a chair home from a local consignment store to use in my sewing room.

It was the perfect height.

Yet, the more I sewed, the more I grew to realize it was not the perfect sewing chair.

The back of it was just in the way.

In order to reach any tools or notions that were behind me, I had to stand up. Besides I never used the back for support. It was decorative only.

The seat of the chair was too wide and couldn’t slide underneath my sewing cabinet, forcing me to lean forward and hunch over my sewing machine.

The chair was crooked.

Thus, for some time, I have been hunting for a replacement. Every chair I looked at though had at least one of the same problems. Maybe a chair wasn’t what I wanted after all.

So, when I stumbled across a picture of a sewing bench, it was love at first sight. The tricky part was finding one for sale. Etsy pulled the rabbit out of the hat for me.

The height is perfect. The width is perfect. For added bonus, not only is the seat cushioned but it also lifts up to reveal storage.

Now I can get some major sewing done on Elly’s dress in comfort.

Ribbon Storage

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I’ve thrown them in a drawer. I’ve stacked them on a table. I’ve bought plastic containers to hold them only to have the containers break when dropped.

Nothing worked for very long. All the solutions tried either ended taking up precious counter space or were hidden away where I couldn’t see them.

So, when I saw the Cottage Home’s ribbon holder tutorial, I flipped and promptly asked Dan to build me something just like it.

And he did.

No supplies were purchased. He just used what we had on hand: 1 dowel, 1 scrap piece of wood, 1 crystal door knob and some nails.

It’s not as pretty as the one featured on the Cottage Home blog, but it suits me fine. Plus, there is room for growth. Or rather there is room for me to unearth all the ribbon stashed in drawers and add them to the ribbon holder. I just need to accumulate more spools or use up the ribbon on display, whichever comes first.

Sunday Snapshots (of spraying turtles)

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These pictures are from our visit to New York City last weekend. These turtles were in a playground found in the middle of a public park close to where Elly’s Aunt and Uncle live.

In NYC, there is always somebody to play with at the local playgrounds.

Not so in Pottstown. It’s a 50/50 shot as to whether somebody will be at the playground or not. With Elly being 2, the shine has worn off of the playground. It’s no fun if nobody is there to play with her.

Elly’s uncle asked if we would ever move to NYC and the answer is no. We bought this house with the intention that we would die here. Yet, there are perks to NYC, such as lots of playmates, endless variety of great food and, of course the most important, family close by that we love.

But, we’ll stay here. Here is home. Home is good.

Love for the Secretary Desk

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My best friend got her secretary desk first. She related the whole story to me. She told me where she bought it, how much it cost, how she called her husband at work and excitedly prattled the details off to him and how she managed to get it home. Mostly, she went on and on about how it single handily organized all her bills and other paperwork. She was so giddy about it.

I was happy for her, but I did think she was a bit over the top. (Love ya, V!). I mean it was just a desk, right?

Then, I fell in love with a secretary desk. Now I understand all the fuss. I LOVE this desk. It’s amazing.

For the first time since we moved into this house 7 years ago, I finally have a place where I can store and easily access my extensive collection of cards, stationery and writing utensils, including my calligraphy pens and ink.

Before when I wanted to write a letter, I had to pull all my supplies out of the dining room hutch, lay them out on the dining table (for that was the only free surface), write my letters and then pack everything back up into the hutch. It worked. It just wasn’t fun.

Now, take a look.

My cards, stationery and even scrapbooking supplies are organized. Oh, how I love all the little dividers that are built right into the desk. It’s an organizers dream come true. I need more of these desks.

So, of course, my best friend was right.