Back to Lowes

It was crazy windy here yesterday and I made another discovery. I need weather stripping at exterior doors. There was no apparent air movement around my windows (thank goodness) but there was a steady stream of air coming in around the latch side of the front door. That's a pretty simple fix so I know at least one place I will be shopping on Saturday.

I have gotten so much mail since I moved into the house! Coupons, advertisements for everything I could possibly need for a house, refinance offers, etc. And the phone calls! I get calls every day from some mortgage company or the other that wants to help me lower my mortgage payments or from companies that want to sell me insurance to pay off my mortgage in the event that something catastrophic occurs to me. I just keep the answering machine on all the time and scan my calls. Guess I need to re-register on the "Do Not Call" list!

Baseboard heat

Now that it has gotten to the point where the smoke alarms don't go off every time the heat turns on downstairs, I have learned that I dislike baseboard electric heat for another reason.

Heat on the first floor (where it actually is cold) is rising up the stairwells and heating the rest of the house. Downstairs it continues to be chilly.

I can close the door to the studio so it would not go to the third floor but I am in a quandary as to how to keep some of the heat on the first floor. I HATE the look of ceiling fans but with a 12' ceiling, maybe it wouldn't be too bad if I had one in the living room. At least it would be pushing the heat back to the floor as it circulated up the walls and across the ceiling. Or maybe I could have a small ceiling fan installed at the top of the first stairway...

Anyone else have this problem? Any suggestions?

Home Dec Sewing

Back in the day, I used to do a lot of clothes sewing and home dec sewing. Now that I quilt, it is just about all that I want to do.

I needed pillows for the wicker chairs on my front porch so I decided to make slipcovers for a couple of old pillows that I wasn't using any longer. I found the absolute perfect fabric at Joann's. It has several shades of red and yellow and somewhere in the mix, the exact color that matches my house siding AND the exact color that matches the trim are found.

From Front Porch

(Doesn't my wicker chair look sad? I need to get some spray paint!)

I looked at a couple of pillow cover tutorials but none had the crisp edging all around the pillow that I was looking for so I kind of "winged" it. Since I really like how they look, I am going to make covers for several pillows on my couch that need a little freshening.

A give away at The Restyled Home!

There is a lovely give away over at The Restyled Home. Linda is giving away copies of this book and Homestore gift cards!



The author - Matthew Mead


OOOhhhh - eye candy!



Matthew's book looks wonderful! Even if you don't win a copy, you can purchase it at lots of book stores all over the US. Here's a link to his website: http://www.entertainingsimple.com/index.php?option=com_flippingbook&book_id=2&Itemid=1

Check out Linda's blog and see about getting yourself a book or a gift card!

Need some advice...

When the former owner gutted the first floor of my house, he took out the wall between the living room and dining room. For some totally bizarre reason, he decided to leave the original beam exposed because he thought it was "cool". Well, the exposed beam is driving me crazy mostly because he did such a poor job of trimming it out. My brother wants to put some sort of bead board around it to cover it. I want to box it in with drywall and it will just look like there is an "I" beam in the middle of the room. Thoughts?

Next is the shape of the rooms.

From House photos

I can understand why he took down the wall to open everything up and move light through the space. The problem is that this gives the space a "shotgun" feel and I think it needs something to break up the view going from living room to dining room. Should I put a wall back up with a large opening from LR to DR?...and if I do that tying it to the beam overhead makes the LR & DR the same size. The benefit of the wall would be that I could put my hutch against it making the walking (and sitting space) around the table better. How horrible would a wall of fabric be behind the wing chair? Too Christopher Lowell?

I have looked at decorated shotgun style rooms and nothing looks right to me. I am usually pretty good about picturing something in my mind and then executing the idea but this really has me stumped.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!!

The joys of living in "the country"...

I live in a very small town (population of 2600 in the 2000 census) that was established in 1762. George Washington really DID sleep here! It has many beautiful old homes, narrow streets, barns in the middle of the town, etc. The town is in the midst of farmland...mostly farmed by Mennonite and Amish folk. It is very beautiful and green all around where I live. Why is it so green?


Cows...lots of cows...and lots of cow manure. In the spring and in the fall, the farmers spray the fields with some sort of manure "tea". The smell is pretty horrific. Not as bad as living near the mushroom houses on the other side of the county but pretty smelly nonetheless.

The other day, I noticed a nasty smell in the house. My first thought was the litter box. Then I realized that I recognized the smell. Farmers are spraying. Oh, my goodness! Guess it is too late now to re-think my house purchase!!

Finally - Photos!

First let me say that my photography is horrible. The "before" photos were taken on Sept. 12th and the "after" were taken last night. I still have things to do but there has been a vast improvement.



I have to update my photo of the outside of the house. I love my little porch! I will do that with my next post.