SOMETHING ABOUT SEPTEMBER . . .

Posted on August 30, 2012 by sbranch

ISN’T THERE JUST SOMETHING ABOUT SEPTEMBER, that makes you want to go back to school?  As a child, I found it to be such an exciting time!  New shoes, new clothes, a new beginning, and even though I couldn’t have named it then, it seemed there were so many new opportunities to be CreAtivE!

I loved going to the dime store and picking out a new notebook; that delicious smell of paper and pencils; putting everything neatly into my pencil box; my new schedule with new classes and teachers to learn about. Loved hearing my mom sing (in a much sweeter voice than this :-)) this song she learned from her mom. . . And the (apparently) forever-lasting legacy of my schooldays is that this is the time of year I feel most creative!

These days, I home-school myself! (“Home,” being the operative word!) I give myself the best classes, like fixing up the house, which is what we’re doing now, plus jam-making, old-movie watching while knitting (I always get an A in this), woods-walking in the morning, baking cookies for no reason, just for the smell of it (which I’ll do when I get my kitchen back!),redecorating the house for the season, (I’m throwing in a fall cleaning class, thinking about the holidays, want windows to twinkle).  In homeroom, I’m making a list of goals . . . reading my new book, The Distant Hours  by Kate Morton; I’m on page 43; so far it’s really good!  Riding my stationary bike everyday, and writing and painting our Diary!

♥

 I don’t even mind that my house is destroyed right now.  But you know what was so much fun?  Looking at all the paint-color suggestions you guys came up with!  So many really wonderful colors!   I put them in a list and linked them so you can see them all yourself, in case you have a project going.  I don’t see how you could go wrong with any of these colors!  Paint is such “bang for the buck,” no cheaper way to make more of a splash than a freshly painted room! The starred one below is the one we’re going to try in the kitchen; we’ll paint a strip of color on the wall so we can see what it looks like.  But they were all so tempting!  Thank you for the great suggestions! ♥

Benjamin Moore
Pratt and Lambert 

Sherwin Williams
Every morning since this floor-sanding project began last Monday, I go out before 7am and walk around the house to open the doors to the kitchen (from the outside) so the workmen can get in.  This is how the floor looks this morning with it’s third coat of urethane … isn’t it gorgeous?!  So excited!  We could go ice skating (in socks) in there! It still gets two more coats before we can walk on it.
Of the five doors that go in and out of this house, the new floor blocks off indoor access to three of them.  So we use this side door to go in and out.  We didn’t really plan very well, because Joe has been redoing this porch, finding that the wall around it is rotting, replacing the wood, scraping and sanding. I step over him going back and forth to the fridge in the pantry. “Excuse me honey.”  He loves it.
Martha Stewart
Valspar

Lyndhurst Gallery
Autumn color, so wonderful, I’m already thinking about changing throw rugs and pillows.
When those cups and glasses need to be washed, (Hi Petey) I gather them into a basket and carry them out the screen door, stepping over Joe, around the back of the house, and into the pantry where I wash them in a teensy weensy 1930’s bathroom sink, then carry them back around.  Same with cat food bowls. I took the camera with me this morning, so I could take the pictures of the floor to show you.
Laura Ashley
When I went around to open the other kitchen door, I could hear, but not see, Jack meowing behind the sealed-off door leading to the rest of the house. He was missing me! I’d been gone two full minutes. We’ve grown very attached.
Ralph Lauren 
(couldn’t find Polo Red, but there are lots of other nice colors)
Behr
~And most fun of all~
When I got back to the side door and Jack saw me again, he is so excited he squirms and rolls on his back saying, “Yay, she’s home, I’m not abandoned foodless afterall!!!” Isn’t he the cutest little thing you ever saw???
There’s the little light of my life right now!  His song is, ♫ “wherever you go, what ever you do, as long as we do it together . . .”♪ It’s my song too. We sing it to each other when I throw him the ball!
Tomorrow night, your kids and grandchildren would love to celebrate and learn all about Blue Moons while drinking a Purple Cow!
Have fun everyone!  Big wonderful weekend ahead!
Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , , , , , | 336 Comments

KITCHEN MAKEOVER; before . . . (but not after, yet.)

Posted on August 27, 2012 by sbranch

Hi Girls!  What an August!  And here we go again.  This time it’s a Kitchen Makeover instead of a party!  Thank goodness I have you, my girlfriends, with me; so much more fun when there’s public lamenting!  Ahhh, soothing musica!

Here’s what our kitchen looks like this morning!  Notice anything missing?  The floor man is coming today to sand down and refinish our poor old floor!  Which means there will be sawdust everywhere!  Joe says the workmen will cover the dish hutch with plastic … so we don’t have to move all the dishes out right now, thank goodness.

But we had to remove everything else in the kitchen; everything off the walls, off the shelves.  For the next week there will be no cooking, no making tea, no getting to that fridge or the sink!  The only downstairs bathroom in the house is off the pantry in the back, which would have given us a downstairs sink, plus our other fridge is out there too . . . but the only way to get there, once they start working, is to go out a side door and cross through the garden, and come in the back door of the pantry.  Which would be good, but not that great at 4 am, which is when I get up, when it’s dark and skunks and maniacs are roaming the neighborhood.

Once the floor is dry, we are repainting everything!!!  It’s going to be so clean!  I guess this isn’t much of a “makeover…” Nothing is going to change all that much.  I’m even kind of leaning toward keeping it this color; it’s cheerful, I’ve always liked it, and it goes with everything.  But my girlfriend Elizabeth is here . . . we picked her and her husband Chris up at the ferry yesterday; she’s a decorator and thinks it might look good in light brown.  What do you think?

Right now the dining room is filled with everything from the kitchen, my cookbooks, teacups, wine glasses, wooden spoons and cutting boards; all in the dining room now.  Kitties have to eat in the dining room too.  I don’t know how I’ll be handling that since I can’t get to the sink!  Like camping; soon I’ll be outside washing dishes in a tub with the hose!

We knew we’d never remember where everything went, so we took photos of the kitchen before we took it apart so we’ll know how to put it all back together in a couple of weeks when it’s all done.

Joe put an ice chest in the living room, for the seltzer water and lemonade and ice which we drink all day, plus it has the cream for the coffee and all the tea things.  My studio is in the very next room, so it’s handy.  I’ll just have to fill the kettle from the upstairs bathroom!

We’re lucky to be doing this on just the most gorgeous (dry) summer day!  All the doors and windows are open; the floor should dry very quickly.  I got all our laundry done too since it will be hard to get to the washer and dryer this next week . . . we are ready, and when it’s done I get to decorate it for September!  Oh Boy!

  Besides periodic trips to fill the bird bath and visit the garden, I am painting every day, painting and writing, and making a beautiful book!  I think you are going to love it!  So I’m still in England, basically (in my book-writing imagination), and I promise, I will be taking you back there again very soon!  Hope you all had a wonderful weekend, happy Monday! ♥

Posted in Blog | Tagged | 749 Comments