Been Busy....... can you tell?

There were I dont know how many days, putting up insulation in Scotty's garage. We started when it was really hot out, and ended when it was getting really cold out. Neither of us could go for very long with looking up all the time doing the ceiling, so it took us forever!

What an icky job..... and itchy job too!



Then we headed back up to Brian's brothers and finished the faux wainscoting. For their wedding gift, I offered make their master bedroom all spanking new. Lot's of stripping of wallpaper, paint, and a amazing deal on chair rail molding. Never have seen it on clearance before, but $22 7 ft. pieces of chair rail for $8 bucks each! Saved a ton of money on it !

Scotty then made the molding for wainscoting insets. He got a new router, and he's been having fun with it ever since!

I thought I took a picture of the finished product, but I guess not. It looks really neat when all painted and finished. I came home looking where I could do it in my house! Here's almost finished!





I felt bad because their house had a lot of stairs and 80 year olds and stairs aren't a good match. One days work, and he's out of commission for a while, sad thing is..... so was I at almost half his age! :)

In my never ending quest in not having to get up to let the dogs out, that was accomplished this week! Brian put a doggie door in our sunroom screen door when we moved in here seven years ago, so three seasons out of the year, the dogs just come and go as they please.

Here's Lola trying to figure it out.


But in the winter, it's too cold to leave the slider open to the sunroom w/o losing a ton of heat. But....... Scotty to the rescue!

Lowe's or Home Depot usually have a little section for returned custom items, like custom paint colors for $5 a gallon, or even doors! We went to Lowe's for a piece of plywood to set a dog door in, and instead we found a 20 in. wide door for $5.55! A custom order someone didn't want or whatever, their loss... my doggie door door!



We can just pop it in for winter, and still use the slider to get in and out of the sunroom!

It's Wonderful!



Scotty's Guest Bedroom is done!

His amazing bed he made.... yes made, scroll down the blog to see the "before" pic. This is the most expensive thing in the room, it was $80 for wood.


The cubie thing, and a shelf made from scrap wood and old brackets from my half bath painted white. I covered the clearance shade I got with left over quilting fabric I had.



That I also used for the windows.


Which was left over from a quilt I got years ago for $20, that I made the window treatments out of for my guest bedroom.





Did I say done? I still have to stain the corner desk that he made out of a $20 used table,but that's basically it in there.



What an amazing man! Don't worry he's taken care of for Christmas, I have loaded him up with Peanut butter fudge and cookies!

Now I just have about four more batches of cookies to make, a bit of gift shopping, and a lot of food shopping, and I will be set for Christmas!

M

A Whatchamacallit!

I've been sort of busy latey...... Let's see...... went to Surrey, and after Surrey took a drive down to Redding,CA, for Scotty to pick up more stuff for his house here.

It was basically three days in a car! A mint green Ford Focus, which has got to be the ugliest car out there! Here's a little video.



At Scottys house...... we finished the guest bedroom. I dont have pictures yet, but here's a cute little thing we did for in there instead of a dresser. I no idea what these things are called! I bought the fabric cubes, and Scotty drew it up, and we we're going to leave the top shelves empty. Doggers didn't care one way or another.


But then I asked him if he could make drawers..... Scotty said...... sure! The bottom needed something so I drew out a little scroll, Scotty cut it out and how cute is that!

All done!


Soooooo whatever it's called, Cubie Thing, Cubical, Whatchamacallit...... whatever it's called.........

it's cute!

M

Some Outlandish Humor....

This will only be funny to Gabaldon fans... unless you are a Gabaldon fan w/o a sense of humor, but I haven't met too many of those.

Every year there's a group of us that get together with DG, and I always try to make a card that pokes fun at the whole Jamie thing. He's not real you know!

Here's a few of them...

This would be the year the movie rights were bought for like the ..... upteenth time...

The year Claire's Ring came to be...


This was the year nothing of DG's was out, so I improvised...


I do think the National Enquirers, are my favorites...

This wasn't a card, but back when I posted the Bdays on LOL, years and years, and even more years ago.



I think this was a card, I'm getting old and you really can't expect me to remember this kind of stuff... or any kind of stuff for that matter.




But this was the card last year.
"An Echo of the Bone" was released...

That's all she wrote, or uploaded! :-)

M

My sister told me I needed to update!

......and I always listen to my sister. Right Georgia?

Okay, Ive been a bit busy...... all good things!

Brians brother got married, to a woman I just adore! I kinda wanted to marry her, she's funny and she really gets things done! :-)

Then Scotty and I are finishing up the headboard. The second coat of paint goes on it tomorrow, then I need to pick up some cute knobs and its done.



We're going to make another one after this for Ians room. Im going to put tin or something cool on the back panels.

We also made a desk for Ian, for his apartment at school. He went back yesterday, today we brought out what wouldnt fit in the car. Cassie his cousin now goes to Purdue too! Next weekend, we hope to meet up with Mim and Norm for lunch with both kids.

And the most fun and most time consuming projects lately, I made a website for "Outlander- The Musical", for Diana and two really neat guys in Scotland, Mike and Kevin. Neat guys, Im not sure that how they would describe themselves, but they are both very sweet, very funny, and both love dogs, so there!

The logo was made by a gentleman in Scotland, no idea if he is neat or not! But its much easier to make graphics for a website when you have something to go from.


Website: click here!

Also made some youtubes for it......



This one is of the song snipits, took me forever and of course once uploaded, there was a typo, maybe two *G*, so its all cleaned up. :-)


There's a typo in the first one too, but I really thought his name was spelled that way when I made it, that one was not my fault. :-)

Last weekend my sister Renee came out for the weekend, and then Georgia and Will came for a night too. Saturday night we played Balderdash, and Sunday we sat at the table and ate all day... yum!

Now, once I typed it all out it doesnt look really busy, but really Ive been busy!

M

Scotty's Stripper Bathroom!

I bet that got your attention, an explanation will come later!

Click on any picture to make bigger... alright here we go!

With the exception of the trim around the door that needs to be taken off, sanded and painted, the bathroom is done! It's a very small bathroom, so hard to take pics of but here's the before...

The ceiling was really nasty!


First thing we did, well in this case Brian and Scotty did, was take out the old rusty 1950's tub and put a new one in. Scotty made a frame and side for it, they laid concrete on the floor and set it in, and then I tiled around the top of it, and on top of the bead board side.

And repainted grout.


It looked like the old owners were re-doing the bathroom in the 80's and never finished, so none of the drywall in the corners or ceiling was finished, so I mudded all of that. My shopping karma rubbed off on Scotty and he got a Martha Stewart shelving/drawer unit for 30 bucks!

We painted the bath blue, the same blue as the guest bedroom. Switched out the icky medicine cabinet and light fixture. We also put a wooden cornice up to hide all the curtain rods.

Recognized the light fixture?
If you have been to my house you might, I bought it silver for here, and then I painted it bronze when I first did our li'l bathroom, and when I re-did the bath for the second time, I switched it out. So its back to silver again in its new home. Gotta love spray paint!
I looooove bead board, nothing makes a house look neat and clean like bead board. We did that half-way up the wall, and then Scotty made, yes he made it, trim for it! He also made the little heater frame with towel hooks. It was pretty nasty before, it stuck out two inches from the wall.



The Stripper Pole!
Most of you know Scotty, and know he is 79, and he needs a wee bit of help out of tub. We looked everywhere for all types of grab bars, and found them all overpriced. Sekret Message to the Old Fart Grab Bar Manufacturers, most old people are on a fixed income and can't afford 80 bucks for a grab bar, hence have to use stripper poles! Scotty headed to Lowe's and came home with a shower rod, and then he made a little wooden holder for it at the ceiling.

In this picture you can also see the textured ceiling I did, and Scotty covered up the ugly fan hole, he made crown molding too! I'm thinking I should hire Scotty out!

To make a room that reflected Scotty, besides the Stripper Pole *grin*, I added some pictures. I got this little set in Scotland when I went with my sister in 2001. They are the cutest little minitures of things Scottish. Scotty's father emigrated to the states from Scotland.

(The litte jars I got from Hobby Lobby for a buck each.)

The hard part was finding something for the sides of the heater frame, but I found these brushed steel picture frames that I thought looked a bit masculine. I've tried to put Scotty's initials in every room I've decorated. So far I have the kitchen, bedroom, front room, for his bathroom, I ended up with his last name. I made some graphics and printed it on cardstock. The backgrounds of each letter are pictures of the Whitmore/Redding area where he moved from.


You might have to click on this below to read the picture descriptions.

Yes, I know what you are thinking, why would anyone move away from there, two words.

ADULT CHILDREN!

And that's about it, enuf' huh! Now it's back to finish the guest bedroom, which we stopped in the middle of to do the bathroom.

Just in case you are wondering what an 80 year old stripper looks like...


...yeah, I'm thinking she needs to keep her clothes on too!

The trellis............

Since we put in this little pathway from the garage to the backyard I thought a trellis would look good there. I saw this one on the net...

Found some iron work at Hobby Lobby, and don't be too impressed with my drawings of my plans.

Scotty could some how read that jibberish and went to work.

Then I painted it a nice grey, since I don't care for the grey that Cedar wood turns, I have a whole fence of it, so I thought I would make it a grey I like.

Then last week Brian and I put it up.

It really sets off the bag of garbage nice, dont you think?




Final cost was about 110-120 bucks, not bad!

Anya Seton Month at Historical Tapestry

This is Anya Seton Month at Historical Tapestry, one day of course featured "Katherine" by Anya Seton, which you all know is one of my favorite books!

They are having a contest to win a Roet Shield Pendant... CLICK HERE! You can still enter, just post a comment, you need to put your email in the comments so disguise it a bit, so auto-spammers dinna get at it.
lolmichelle(at)yahoo(dot)com

And, they asked me to write up a little something about how I came about Anya Seton and jewelry, that is CLICK HERE!

Long time ago, years, I've made a webite for the novel... CLICK HERE!

After the website I started a Yahoo Group for the novel, which attracted over 400 people, and they were waaaaay smarter than me concerning all things Katherine and John of Gaunt that I handed it over to a wonderful woman who knows all things Katherine. When I figuring out how to use Windows Movie Maker, I was doing casting for novels I like. So with suggestions from the yahoo group made this...


It was one of my favorites to make, since I made some of the graphics from The Book of Kells.

Soooooo enjoy June otherwise known as Anya Seton Month!

M

Before and Almost After....

People keep asking me whats going on at Scotty's house, well..... lot's of things going, but none of them done. :-)
(As always, just click on pics to make bigger)

Been diggings up some boxwood shrubs here and planting there in the front,, planted some lillys and hostas painted an old milk can I had to match his house. Still have to change out the light fixture, but here's the old and new pic.

Seeded where the pool use to be in Scottys backyard. We still have mega-things to do back there, repair and paint the deck, shovel up and move about 5 million rocks!


Tore out the old tub in the bathroom, unfortunately the old rusty tub isn't showing, more fortunate for you though since it was uuuuuuugly! We replaced that light fixture and medicine cabinet too. built a frame around the heater that was sticking out two inches from the wall, still have to paint and add hooks for towels.

Scotty wanted a spa tub, so Brian and him cemented that to the floor one Saturday. Then Scotty had to crawl under the house yet again, to do some plumbing, and jack up the weight bearing beams a bit. This was the day he was pulling a cement block and yelped, and he heard a pop in his arm... turned out to be a muscle!

Scotty made a wood frame and bead boarded the side. I tiled around the tub and the top of the frame, and re-painted the grout on the wall tile.

I hope to start drywalling this week. We're going to bead board all the way around the bottom wall, and then I have to fix the ceiling, not looking forward to that!

Meanwhile he is still working on the bookcase headboard.


And a verra cool trellis for my house, which is ALMOST done!

Here's the inspiration from the net.


I asked Scotty if we could make it like this? He said, "Yes." I don't know how he knew what I was thinking from my drawing though! :-)



But he did, and he got to work!


Before you know it, one side is done.



The I brought it home in pieces, and he came over the next day and put it together.

Right now it's in the process of being stained grey, some more iron work put in on center top and sides, more rails on top and then it will be ready to be cemented in.

This is the picture of the house when it was up for sale, seven years ago already, on the right, drawn in pink is where the trellis will stand.

And that is where we are at!
M