Navaho white

I offhandedly said to Scott that after the new slip covers I'd been making for the living room, it might be nice to paint the room. We looked at several paint chips at the hardware store and narrowed it down to Benjamin Moore's "Navaho White", a creamy warm off-white, one that I have been wanted to use on some room for years. Well, after I had to make a long trip to Texas, he surprised me by painting the room himself! Not only did he paint the walls but all the trim as well (it really needed it, lots of discolored patches where I had tried to cover up scratches and scuffs). The whole room is much brighter, lighter, and crisper, while still being warm (it is the fireplace room, after all). 

The mermen

 I saw this picture on Pinterest one day and thought "How cute, I'll bet I could make one of those." And so I did. 

After some research on YouTube on how to make soft dolls I took a crack at it with my 'new' sewing machine. Using muslin, I made a first attempt with a pattern I based on the photo. It was a disaster. Wrong proportions and tight in all the wrong places. Back to YouTube. Amending the first pattern I tried again and it worked like a charm. I set this one aside as it didn't have the tat arm like the reference dolls. The first successful attempt sorta came out looking like me! I used an old piece of bandana for the tail fabric. After I finished it I thought it would be fun to do a second one based on Scott (I used the first form that came out nicely). To make sure it resembled him I made the eyes blue and added one of his signature hats and vests. It was my project while he was away for 10 days at his share on Fire Island. I surprised him with it when he got back. He loved it. Now they sit on the sweater shelf in the bedroom. 

After a while I decided the cutest thing would be to make a Travis "merdog". He turned out adorable too. :) 

My slipcover is showing

 The next big projects I wanted to tackle with the sewing machine were slip covers for several pieces of furniture, items that were in sore need of updating or repair. I researched how to make them from several YouTube videos (thank God for the internet!) and one in particular recommended using cotton drop clothes for the fabric. These are very durable, large canvases that painters use. When they're washed they get super soft and the best thing of all is that the upholstery 'fabric' ends up being very cheap, just a little over $2.00 a yard! I just buy the 9' x 12' size right off of Amazon and they show up in no time.

The first thing I tackled was the kitchen bar stool. It had a 'pleather' seat and it had gotten severely worn with age. I chose not to do piping on it, but I did close up the back with several ties. It's much better than the make-shift piece of fabric I had on it previously.

The next project was the 'Martha Washington' chair in the living room, the one from Ethan Allen. It had a red slipcover that was perfectly fine, but I was in the mood to lighten up the color scheme in that room (the eventual project is to lighten the wall color in there, I'm hoping to get to this in the coming Winter).

This week I finished a slipcover for the long window seat cushion in the bay window. This was very challenging. It was the first time I had really undertaken piping, and there was a LOT of it. The piping here went all the way around the top and bottom edges. There are some very minor boo-boos here and there, but overall it came out pretty nice. I'm proud of the effort. 

Cherry picking

 In this house we prefer cherry tomatoes to regular tomatoes. You never seem to need a whole big tomato for a recipe or salad and then you're left with a large chunk that gets mealy and ends up being thrown out. The solution? I always have a basket or two of cherry tomatoes on hand. It allows you to use just the right amount of tomato and there's no waste. But the downside is that they need to be kept at room temperature on the counter and they come in those ugly plastic containers that are so unsightly. 

Who wants one or two of those things sitting on the counter? NOT ME. So I finally decided on a solution. A nice ceramic holder that looks like a paper container that you get at a roadside farmstead or farmer's market. So much nice to look at. I found one on Easy that was nicely priced and I was quite happy to see that it was much larger than I had expected from the picture. It can hold up to two containers of tomatoes. It sits nicely on my kitchen island, I love it. 

The power trip

 I bought Scott a new toy the other day, a power washer. He had been telling me how great they were and when I found out you could get one for only $150 or so I thought 'why not?' 

It arrived by UPS one day shortly after lunch and within an hour he had it unpacked and had started his first project, washing the mold from the front blue stone steps. They now look like the day they were installed. 

He also blasted the trim around the porch door. He still has to finish the rest of the screens on the other sides. Yesterday he tackled the old teak bench in the back yard, the one my father and I assembled almost 20 years ago. It looks brand new.

Lastly, he took on the little brick path on the side of the house. It really evened out the color as one strip of the bricks I put down this past Spring. Now they're all the same color. 

This thing is worth its weight in gold!

Winter water views

 I ran across an aerial view of Sag Harbor online the other day. I realized that just out of frame in this shot IS MY BACKYARD. You can really see how close I am to the water, it's something I should really push if I ever decide to sell. I could bill it as "Winter Water Views" because if you get up on my roof you can see just a little bit of the bay! 

The Robe

 I've been doing small projects with my 'new' sewing machine, the one I got FREE from a yard down the block...mending towels, enlarging bandanas, making a quick slip cover for a chair back. I felt comfortable enough to jump feet first into a big undertaking, a garment using a pattern. I decided a robe would be a great thing, something comfy but not too fitted, so the sewing wouldn't need to be too exacting. I wanted a robe with a hood. In the colder months I like waking up and having my head covered. I found the exact thing I wanted in a Simplicity pattern that I found on Amazon. I needed five and half yards of fabric. There was a nice blue-green, very masculine. It took me a whole day to lay out the pattern on the fabric after it had been washed and then to cut out all the pieces. Then another day to do the pockets and belt loops. The third day I got most of the body of the robe done and the last day I finished the hood and the hemming. At first I thought that the fit was a little too big (I chose to go with LARGE as the size), but on reflection I think it's fine. If I were to make another one I might try the MEDIUM. I learned A LOT about patterns and garment construction thru this process. Thank God for YouTube also. I watched a ton of how-to videos and picked up a lot of tips and tricks that helped a lot. I can't wait to try my next project. 

A bicycle built for one

I was on Nextdoor.com this week and spotted what I thought was a great deal. A stationary bike for only $200 that looked practically brand new. As I zoomed in on the picture I saw that it was a Schwinn, a good brand name.

 I exchanged DM's with  the owner and at the end of the day we agreed that I could drive over to her place and take a look at it. It turned out to be a huge house in the Norhwest Woods, almost near my friend Dean's home. Very modern with an electrical gate all the way around. When I got there the husband (?) greeted me, I think he had Parkinson's. Very nice but shaky and a little hard to understand when he talked. She came to the door, "Hi Ron!". They weren't wearing masks which was a little odd to me, but I was for sure so I took the gamble. They showed me down to their basement which was half home movie theatre, half personal gym. It was VERY luxe. The minute I saw the bike I knew it was an expensive model. If it had been used more than four times I would have been surprised. My plan was to haggle a little but I knew that at $200 it was a bargain, so I let that go. I gave him he money and realized that I could take off the handle bars and seat and it would be easy to fit in the back of the Jeep. It must have weighed FIVE TONS. It was a struggle to get up the stairs, out the house and into the car...but I managed somehow. They were extremely nice and even threw in the mat that the bike sits on. When I got it home and into the basement, again with much effort and strain, I Googled the model. It's worth at least ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. This was the deal of the century...SCORE!! I tried out my first workout on it yesterday and it's perfect. This has been the summer of great deals for sure. 

An old sew-and-sew

The other day Scott told me he saw a bunch of stuff on the curb for free down the block, in front of the big white house with the big screened porch. I walked down there and one of the things was a Sears Kenmore sewing machine. I had just been saying to him recently that I wished I had a sewing machine to do odd little sewing projects. Well, lo and behold, here was one that showed up. I got it home and plugged it in and it worked! I spent a good part of the afternoon yesterday cleaning it up. It was covered with age and grime. I got 98% of it off. It looks almost brand new. The case especially, gleams. Now I have to sit with it and study how to use it. There was no instruction manual. When I was watching some tutorial videos on how to use the machine, the teachers all stated how much they liked these machines from the late 1960s and early 70s. They're really well built, it weighs a TON, very solid. They also said you can buy old instruction manuals for these models on Ebay. I looked there and found ads for sites that sell pdf's of vintage manuals. Sure enough, there was one called SewingMachineManuals.com! AND they had my model # available...the 60 page pdf was only $4.99. I bought it in a heartbeat. The internet can be a wonderful thing for sure. I can't wait to start learning hot to use it!

(Not a) still racoon

We spotted this little fellow not once, but TWICE last week in the vacant lot next to the front yard. Was it a SIGN of some sort??

Let them eat cake

There was a large "social distancing" yard sale last weekend on Main Street. My sister sent me the notice about it that she saw online. It was the house next to the Cove Deli. It was pretty populated with people for being run in the middle of a pandemic. At least everyone was wearing masks! I spotted a nice big white cake plate in the garage out back. I liked it, you can never have enough cake plates. There was no price. I asked one of the guys running the event what the price was. He said "Ten dollars? Five dollars?" I said, "All I've got in my wallet is three dollars". He said fine and it was mine. The lesson? Never settle for the first price no matter what they say!

Living in stereo

I was on Nextdoor.com the other day and saw someone here in the village was giving away a nice stereo system, and Onkyo CD player, component, and tape deck. I immediately wanted it as I no longer have a way to play all my old mix tapes from the 90's. My tape players have all conked out, even both my old Walkmans. I exchanged DM's with the guy giving it away and it was a house just a few blocks away over on Division Street. The house was empty and being sold, it belonged to his mother-in-law. He told me the stereo was nice unit, she was a big jazz fan. I couldn't take the stereo wires that hooked into the speakers because they went behind the wall unit out of reach. I decided to take a gamble and take everything...if it didn't work after I got some new wires, well, I'd just throw it all away. I got on Amazon and found 50 feet of stereo speaker wire for only 10 bucks. I got it yesterday and hooked up the system today...and it works GREAT. The sound is amazing. I'm playing one of my old tapes as I write this. I'll say it again: FREE is the best price in the world!



Right now I have it sitting on top of the cabinet in the TV room. I may put it in the shelves down below, I'd have to drill some holes in the back. I have to measure to sit if it will fit. A good 'project of the future'.

What a crock

I spied a bunch of furniture and household items on the curb in front of a house down the block from me. I sauntered down there of course. The house has seen better days and is for sale. It was mostly junky stuff, ugly furniture, kids' toys, etc...but there was this clay crock jug. Scott said, "you could paint that dark gray and use it for something, maybe an umbrella stand." So I took it. Got it home, sanded it, primed it, and put two coats of gray paint on it. And just like that it modernized it. I'm using to hold all my wrapping papers in the craft room upstairs. Funny, I have been thinking I needed something like that for literally years, something heavy that wouldn't tip over when all the rolls were in it.

BEFORE

AFTER

Addressing a stone

Years ago I put a rock in front of the house next to the driveway with my house number spray painted on it. Over the years the paint faded. I still had the stencil I used in the basement so i re-painted it putting a drop shadow of white behind the black numbers. You can really see it now.

Much mulch

Scott suggested mulching all the 'new' beds when we were done cleaning them out and moving things around. He said it would be the final clean touch to give everything a polished look. He was right. We got a dark brown mulch called "Easthampton Mix" from a place called Easthampton Masonry. They deliver it in a bid dump truck and leave it in a pile on your property, in my case on the driveway. They sell it by the 'yard', so we got 3 altogether. Once we placed it all around we decided we needed another two yards to finish things off, especially the wide expanse in front of the privet on the street (a Herculean that Scott did all by himself that took 4 days). Everything looks great as you can see by these photos.

The small blue bureau

Another example of putting positive energy out into the universe and having it come back to you. I was offering to give Scott one or two of my drawers in my bedroom bureau for him to put his clothes in. He said no worries, he was fine keeping his stuff folded on a chair. Well, THE VERY NEXT DAY I was going into town and a house along the way had a big FREE sign in the front yard with a bunch of odds and ends and small furniture pieces, one of which was a very cute little bureau in an ocean blue color. I came straight home and told Scott about it and we hopped back in the car and went and got it (it was only two blocks from my house). It works perfectly on the side of the bed and holds all of his things neatly. No more piles on the chair and on the floor. I love the way the color works well with the ocean painting we put leaned on top of it.

A case of shingles

I had English ivy in the bed below my dining room windows for years. Not a good idea. The ivy is so strong it would literally get under the shingles and pry them loose. On top of that they covered the pieces on the bottom rows near the foundation and rotted them across the bottom. Lesson learned. I'll never do that again. So Scott pulled them all out a few weeks ago. I wanted to plant new blue hydrangea in that bed but before I could do so I needed to have the shingles replaced. I got estimates from 3 carpenters and went with the middle bid. It only too two guys one afternoon to repair the damage and it looks good. It was a costly mistake but I'm glad it's fixed. Here's a progression of pictures from BEFORE to AFTER...

I realized after the fact that the shingles underneath the sliding glass door were rotted too. So I replaced them myself with the extra shingles that were left over from the job. 

She's a brick house

I've been working on overhauling my yards from top to bottom this Spring with the help of my friend Scott. Aside from clearing out all the beds from leaves, weeds, and overgrown ivy, he suggested I really continue the red brick edging I have in both front and back yards. But where was I going to get more bricks? If memory served they only come in huge pallets of 200 or so, way more than I calculated I needed. I need 50 or 60 at most. I posted a notice on Nextdoor.com, a community newsletter and bulletin board. Coincidentally my next-door neighbor Dan saw my posting and said our other neighbor Ron across the street from me had a pile of bricks he wanted to get rid of. He contacted him and just like that I had my bricks! It must have been the positive energy I was putting out into the universe for them to land right in my lap. It was just enough to finish all the beds and the brick path on the side of the house. Best of all was the cost. FREE is always the best price.