December 2020: Goals Finished

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In the month of December we strove to finish the year strong.  I’ve successfully completed a 12-task list of items every month with the help of family and friends.

In addition to the numbered list below we got a new bed to help with the theme word for the month:  DREAM.

New mattress.

I spruced up our welcome mats even though we didn’t have any visitors.

This is a really quick upgrade.

I finished a sewing project.

Six pillows are finished.

  1.  Sell Christmas decorations.

    I can’t even give these away.

    I listed baskets and serving pieces on marketplace but was unable to sell anything.

    I did sell this decorative Turkish saz.

  2. Read a book:  A Christmas Carol and The Day Christ Was Born.

    Scrooge’s 3rd visitor.

    It was fun to re-read the Dickens classic.

  3. Celebrate Christmas.

    Even in our quarantine we are grateful for an abundant life.

    It was a beautiful, unhurried day.

  4. Finish up and wrap all Christmas gifts.

    Charlie takes care of electric and I decorate the tree. I also wrap the presents.

  5.  Work on back bedroom door.

    While working on this projects I found a number of problems in the Treetops Bedroom.

    The door now closes and fully latches.

  6.  Empty a drawer.  I took all the sweaters and t-shirts out of one drawer and only returned the best sweaters.  The t-shirts are headed to the giveaway box.
  7.  Bake cookies.

    Almond Balls

    I tried a new-to-me recipe which was easy and tasted great.

  8.  Remove one item or box from attic.  This is old hat by now.  The attic is holding half the items it used to — light at the end of the tunnel.

    A big area of the attic has been cleared and cleaned. Ready for Christmas boxes.

    When I return the Christmas boxes to the attic next month they will be more organized and fewer in number than when we pulled them out last month.

  9. Work on kitchen at shore house.

    The kitchen ceiling at the shore house isn’t finished yet but a new lighting fixture has been installed.  (Compare it to the old light.)

    I personally have not been working on the shore house but the residents have come to pick up the large cabinet (that has been stored on my side porch) and new lighting fixtures.

  10. Plan trip to New Orleans.

    The French Quarter of New Orleans.

  11. Pick a word to focus on for the month. My word: DREAM.
  12. Write a goal list for January, 2021.

Jo

Merry Christmas 2020

/ Jo / 2 Comments

This has been quite a year and yet here we are celebrating Christmas again.

Christmas at the shore house.

Thanks for all your comments and questions. I look forward to continuing our conversations.

Dash sends greetings while inspecting every present under the tree.

Have a Blessed Christmas today, tomorrow, and throughout the year.

Jo

Hand-me-downs and Handmades

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Like it or not, most people on my Christmas list this year are getting either an heirloom gift from my collection or something I made myself.

The ornate gold china teapot is both useful and beautiful.

For example, I promised my niece that when she married I would give her a gold teapot that belonged to her grandmother. I have bubble wrapped it and hope it makes the trip to Florida in tact.

Gretchen pattern teapot by Franconia-Krautheim

Ditto for some of the items my son and his wife are getting like the teapot my son’s great-grandfather purchased in 1935 in Berlin, Germany.

All six pillows are finished.

They are also receiving 6 hand crafted throw pillows with a beachy theme made by yours truly.

From left to right: Charlie’s hat, Sug’s hat, my hat.

Both Sug and Charlie are getting knit hats I created earlier in the year when we thought we would be traveling to Iceland this past fall.  Since international travel has been halted this year they will need to hold onto them until a future trip.

You can’t give away what you don’t have — keep some and give some.

As the year winds down and we continue to socially distance I have found ways to keep the dream alive by holding dear what really matters — family and friends.

Jo

Top Home Projects of 2020

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The highlight  project of the year was the bathroom at the shore house mostly accomplished by my son with some input from Sug and me.

The Shore House Bathroom

Before

After

I have listed some of the projects we worked on this past year from most recent to oldest. (The titles are links.)

Recovering My Little Bench

Before

Vanity Bench

Framing Up a Storm

Newly framed paintings

Updated, Painted, and Reassembled

Before

We painted the cabinets in the shore house kitchen.

Installing an Indoor Threshold

Charlie and I installed a new threshold in the laundry room.

Hang a Mural

Before

Sug’s new headboard mural in Glade Cottage.

A Small Souvenir

A vacation souvenir turned into a pendant.

Dying the Hall Runner

Before

I dyed my hall runner.

Finishing Up the Dining Room Table Makeover

Before

I stripped and refinished our dining room table.

Wheelbarrow Repair

New handles on the old wheelbarrow.

Framing the Attic Trap

Before

The attic trap door.

Staining the Shed

The shed at The Glade

My Bedroom Chair

Before

My refurbished cane chair.

My Weekend Trim Fest

The laundry trim has custom details.

Reworking the Garden

New raised garden beds.

Final Shelves in the Master Closet

Shelves were added to empty openings.

Bump-Out: Painted

Before

The bump out was painted to match the shutters.

Ceiling Light in the Closet

Before

A brighter light illuminates the master closet.

I’m working on my project list for 2021.  We have some exciting things planned.

Jo

Jambed Door

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Ever since the new additions were put on the house in 2013 I haven’t been able to fully close the door to the back bedroom.

This door to the back bedroom would not latch.

I thought the stop was on crooked and not allowing the latch to catch in the latch plate so I removed the stop from the jamb.

Without the stop a visible gap is evident.

The door still would not close completely.  I noticed the door was not hanging straight in the doorway so I loosened the bottom hinge from the jamb and tightened the top one.  With the door hanging straighter the latch caught.

The door stop is attached to the hall side of the door. (Paint touch up needed.)

However I needed to reposition the stops I had removed.  Since this is an old house I scraped layers of old paint from the jamb so the stops could be snugly nailed on.

The ancient door to the back bedroom finally latches.

Now guests in the Treetops room can expect privacy.

With the hinges adjusted and the stops replaced, the door now works just fine better than it did before.

Jo

Beachy Pillows

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My plan was to make 6 — 3 small and 3 large — pillows for my son and his wife for Christmas.

Each of these shell rectangles has been hand-quilted with batting and backing.

Years ago I had hand-quilted 6 pieces of fabric with seashells printed on them.

Although the batting and backing had shifted I was careful to sew a straight seam when attaching the borders.

In order to fit the pillow forms — 15″ by 18″ and 20″by 20″ — I added peach wool borders to the rectangular quilted pieces.

The back of the pillow is the same size as the finished front.

I used the overlapped open back method so I wouldn’t have to add a zipper or sew one end closed by hand.

I cut 2 pieces for the back of the pillow and faced one with a cotton strip to finish the edge.

With an overlap between 4″ and 6″ I cut 2 pieces that when overlapped would give me the size of the front piece.

The peach cotton facing finished the exposed edge of the pillow back.

Before sewing the front and back together I sewed a cotton facing to the outer piece so it would have a nice finish without having to hem it.

I sewed strips on all sides of the quilted panel then mitered the corners which helped it form the 3-dimensional shape of the pillow.

The trickiest part of the project was making sure the pieces were in the right order before sewing them together. I laid the pillow cover out as it would be when finished then turned the pieces right sides together.

With the front and back right side together, stitch around all four sides turning at each corner.

It’s not intuitive so assess the order of layers BEFORE stitching them together.

Back of the pillow envelope turned right side out.

I was almost finished the third pillow when my sewing machine stopped working properly.  I had to finish the smaller three pillows by hand.

Although not in my color palette they look nice on my sofa.

Then my machine went to the repair shop where I was informed it was irretrievably broken.

All six pillows are finished.

Charlie bought me a new one as a Christmas present which he let me use as soon as it arrived so I finished the 3 larger pillows as well.

They might brighten up my newly arranged sleeping quarters at the shore house.

They’ll look nice at the shore house.

Jo

A New King

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I have been putting off buying a new mattress because there are so many choices now and it’s a big expense.

Our bed needs an upgrade.

Once upon a time a box spring with a new mattress was de rigueur, now an extra thick mattress seems to be the standard.

Sug and Charlie hustled the old mattress out into the hall.

I finally ordered a new king sized mattress from Parachute made from  layers of pure New Zealand wool, 100% organic cotton, and pocketed steel coils which are hand-tufted together.  I had been waiting for Parachute’s once-a-year sale. (FYI: It took over a week for the delivery company to contact me once the mattress was in my neighborhood 4 miles away from the house.)

The mattress was delivered to our side porch.

The 150-pound mattress was delivered to the side door in a box that seemed too small for its contents.

While this bed was deconstructed we turned the large rug and strengthened the bedframe.

I’m going to try it on top of my box spring.   (While the bed was apart we also turned the bedroom rug 180 degrees.)

I marked the holes for the corner brace and Charlie drilled them then screwed them on.

The corner braces are inside the foot of the bed.

Charlie and I added iron corner braces to the inside of the bottom of the bedframe which had been pulling apart probably due to my modification of the bedframe.

He pulled. she pushed.

Sug and Charlie hauled the boxed mattress up to the bedroom.

I carefully cut through 4 thick layers of plastic to release the mattress.

So glad this chore is finished.

Following the instructions that came with the mattress, we unboxed it on the bedframe + box spring where it bloomed like a rare flower.

This trailer heading for the shore house looks like a float in a parade with the king-sized mattress filling up the back portion.

My son took my 15-year-old but very clean mattress down to the shore house.  I’m not sure what he’s going to do with it.

I have not been paid nor perked for this post.

Jo

Next Stop: Shore House

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When I picked up the free cabinet I found on Facebook Marketplace it turned out to be much larger and heavier than I expected.

The cabinet has been on my porch since before Christmas.

Because it was too big in every way to drag into our house, we left it on the side porch.

Try to picture it in the kitchen after we finish the walls, the ceiling, and the floor.

Then I got the bright idea that it would eventually work in the shore house kitchen when we finally get to working on the kitchen.

I think we will have to build a base something like the one above to support the heavy cabinet which would probably pull the wall down.

In the meantime my son has come with his truck and trailer to transport it to his home at the shore house along with the king size mattress I have replaced.

Thankfully my son’s trailer is large enough to haul both a king-sized mattress and a large cabinet in one trip.

I imagine they will store the cabinet on the enclosed side porch since the screen porch has been taken down.

Jo

Welcome Zhoosh

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Sug and I got started clearing off the porches so we could do a little decorating.

The front porch got a new polar bear mat.

While she swept I decided which door mat would go where.

The highlights have worn away from these useful mats.

All the color had pretty much worn off the black rubber mats which I had purchased last year.

This is a really quick upgrade.

I decided to give them a quick paint treatment much like I did here.   This time I used some old latex paint along with a couple of spray paints I had in my stash.

A little color goes a long way to brighten a wintry day.

I used these newly revised mats on the side porch entrance along with another polar bear coir mat which I also brightened up with some paint.

Happy Winter.

Jo

Bucket List Trip: NOLA

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Ever since my mother told me about her pleasant trip to New Orleans, Louisiana, I have had it on my bucket list to go there.

We’ll be staying near the French Quarter.

To tat end, I have made plane and hotel reservations for February, 2021, providing the Covid-19 virus is under control by then.  New Orleans was also hit again in 2020 with a hurricane which our constituency can help support rebuilding.

Charlie and I have used public transportation is plenty of cities.

We plan to get around using streetcars and public transportation so we won’t be renting a car.  It’s always a challenge but we’ve heard that because it was created in a car-less world and designed for pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages,  New Orleans remains compact and highly walkable, especially in its older neighborhoods.

I plan to eat as many beignets with coffee as possible.

Here’s the itinerary:

Day 1 

The Canal/Algiers Ferry will give a a good view of the city on our first day there.

5 a.m. leave for airport and fly non-stop to New Orleans arriving just after 9 a.m.
Canal/Algiers Ferry    —     Some of the best views of the city are from the Canal Street/Algiers Ferry in the middle of the Mississippi River.   Since 1827, the ferry has traveled across the Mississippi River to Algiers Point, a historic neighborhood with loads of 19th century village charm. Ride the ferry from the French Quarter and stroll the Jazz Walk of Fame in Algiers. We want to discover Confetti Park, a whimsical playground for kids. Grab a bite at any of the nearby cafes and pubs.

Evening – walk around French Quarter

Day 2 

A river cruise helps us get our bearings in an unfamiliar place.

Take a cruise on the steamboat Natchez–a characteristic paddleboat that cruises down the Mississippi and back. Its great narration explains the importance of the river historically as well as pointing out interesting sights along the way.

Day 3 

Saint Louis Cathedral flanked by museums left and right.

French Market,  Frenchmen Street, Saint Louis Cathedral.  Flanking the Saint Louis Cathedral are two historic buildings–the Cabildo and the Presbytere–now housing the city’s top museums.

Day 4 

We’ll be doing a lot of walking.

Garden District

Day 5

Wander around the city.

Day 6

12 noon check out of hotel and fly back home.

Needless to say we’ll be spending a lot of time seeking out cafes and restaurants in search of the famous cuisine of Louisiana.  If you have a favorite haunt don’t hesitate to suggest something to us; that’s why we leave plenty of open time on our schedule.

Jo