Amost Famous...

Gentle Readers,
 I'm sure many of you follow some home design blogs.  One day they announce with glee that their home has been featured in a magazine.  We all sigh with envy and wish this would happen to us.  Well, readers, I'm here to tell you that it happened to me.  Yes it did. My five fifteen minutes of fame.  In 1999. In a Canadian magazine.  In a Canadian magazine that is now no more. The magazine ended its reign under the title Canadian Home and Country.

  Here's how  we got featured.  My friend and neighbour dropped by one day with camera in hand and asked if she could take some photos of the house so she could write an article and submit it to said magazine.  Of course I said yes, I mean who wouldn't?  So she proceeded to take tons of pictures of every room in the house with me madly clearing away clutter before her.
This was before digital cameras became the norm so she had to develop the film, write the article, send it away, and hope that it would be accepted.  Time passed and I totally forgot about the whole thing. 

My husband attended his annual meeting in Halifax.  While there, a colleague mentioned to him that she saw the article on our house in Century Home.  What?  Nobody told us.  I scrambled to buy 100 a few copies of the magazine.  Here's what I found when I tore through the magazine:

Waaay back on page 81.  See the article that says, Boxed In?  Yeah.  That's our staircase after I took down the first lot of ugly wall paper.  It doesn't seem like they had photo shop back in the day either, see the nice air freshener sitting on the floor to the right? Classy.  They didn't use my friend's article at all and used this photo with no credit to her.

So, the moral of this tale is Be Careful What You Wish For.  You just might run a magazine out of business.

This Weekend I...

Had Chinese food  for our Friday date night.

Did laundry.

Doggy sat Bmer.

Went to church. was late!

Started reading this book. #1 gave it to me. Hmmm...

Made waffles with raspberries for supper.  My favourite appliance is my waffle maker.  Can you tell?

Share your weekend.  Link up with Keys to the Cottage and tell us all about it.

The Big Flea part 2

When I planned on going to the big flea I decided I wasn't going to buy anything.  I had been sorting and purging all week so I didn't want to have a relapse.  I didn't do too badly I think.
  Here are my junky treasures:

Loyalist Lady and Gentleman lamp.  $15.00  Best price $12.00.  Daughter #1 bargained for her first purchase and I was so impressed that I tried it too. ( I don't usually do that) Score!

My favourite aunt had a lamp like this and as a little girl I thought is was the utmost in Style.  It makes me feel good to look at it and remember my aunt.

I love transfer ware and this was a real score at $6.00.  I thought they would be nice at Thanksgiving.

I didn't argue the price on these.  I collect Meakin and they are dishwasher safe so this was a double score.

My hubby found this for me at $10.00.  Best price - $5.00!

I set it on a cocktail napkin so you can see how small it is.  I love glassware and milk pitchers so this was a triple score.

I love these soft little leather boots.  I don't know why, but I really wanted them.  $10.00 - best price $8.00.  Maybe I will display them with my dad's christening dress. (Yes, they wore dresses back then.)

See how teeny they are?

I probably would have bought more things except this old geezer kept following me around making me very nervous:

And this totally took away my appetite. VEGETARIANS LOOK AWAY NOW! (ff)

Somebody actually bought this thing!?

The Big Flea

This weekend Hubby, #1, and I went to a ginormous flea market that is held every year at this time.  We didn't go last year because of possible heat stroke and I think we forgot about it the year before that, so this year I was determined to go.  Never mind that I've been getting rid of things all summer, I just had to go.

This was my favourite booth.  I love those vintage things, they make me happy.

I really would have liked to buy the tumblers with the scotty dogs on them.  We used to buy peanut butter in them when I was a kid.  The seller wanted $40.00 for them.  No sale.

This stand was great too.

The linens were all beautifully cleaned and starched.

More beautiful linens.

Another happy spot for me.

More vintage goodness.

Lots of antiques.

Tupperware has certainly brightened up!

How do you like this sign?

I hated to leave this behind. not

Love all of these windows, especially the blue ones.

French Coke anyone?

Didn't have to go to Chinatown after all!

A great time was had by all.  We met all kinds of people we knew there.  It was interesting to see their treasures too.  I'll show you the junk treasures that I bought tomorrow.

Found in Translation

We had an unexpected visit Tuesday evening by this little family.

 This is Na Yun and her mama.

This is William and his daddy.  His daddy is sort of like the son we never had.  We just took borrowed him from his parents once in awhile.  Hubby taught him to drive.  He babysat our kids sometimes.  After earning his degree, J (daddy) joined the Navy.  Then he decided to teach in Korea for awhile to pay off his student loans.  Then he met YJ. They got married and a few years later, he became a dad. During all this excitement, he earned a Masters degree in Linguistics from a British university.

They decided to move to Canada and returned here six months ago.  We are so happy! When they first arrived, Na Yun spoke little English and now she switches between Korean and English with no problem at all. William was not yet walking and now he's all over the place.

This is Na Yun in her little Korean dress.  Isn't she a doll?


YJ is a sweetheart and we love her dearly.  She loves to cook and we can't wait for an authentic Korean dinner when they move into their new house. Thankfully, there are several Korean families in our area and at least two authentic Korean food shops so YJ is very happy.  She has made some Korean friends here too. They even had her refrigerator shipped over because our fridges don't keep bean paste at the proper temperature.  Who knew?

This photo was taken in Korea.


So Shannan has her Korean littles and I have mine.  Happy times!

Colour Me HELP!

After watching Hoarders last night I decided to tackle #2's old bedroom for a clearout.  She left a lot of things in there after she got married and I had things stashed away too.

Once I got started it didn't take too long to clear out.  Now Gentle Readers, this is where you come in.  Do you see that wooden wall in the picture?  Should I paint it?  I want to change out the green as well.  I'm sure you lovely readers could help me. I want to keep the pink things and the quilt has a pale green background that I also want to keep.

Here is a better picture of the wall.  As you can see it has never been painted or papered over.

Here is a pre-clean out picture to keep me honest.

This is a wardrobe given to us by friends after they found out we had few closets.  It is now full of prom dresses. That corner has been cleaned up too.

That curtain is going as well.  All the furniture in this room are things that I had as a girl. I managed to get rid of  a bag full of clothes as well as other "stuff".  Go me.  I think I'm on a roll.  There might be some good pickin's at the end of the driveway!

This Weekend I...

Went to a fancy restaurant for date night.

Was a trail riding horse widow all day Saturday.

Read this book:

Had a terrible, awful, horrible, no good, very bad earache.

Ventured out to the storage shed and quickly turned around and left.

Went to church.

Hubby's sister and her hubby dropped by for a visit.

Had a wee nap.

Ate corn on the cob for supper.

Watched Hoarding on TLC.

Did not watch a single movie!

.

While the Cat's Away

My hubby went big rig truckin' this week with his buddy.  You know the kind, you can sleep in them and you hate to get behind them on the highway?

Anyway, I've been looking at my stairs.  These are they:

Shortly after we moved in here, I proceeded to strip wallpaper from every room in this house.  It wasn't pretty.  I truly hated wallpaper after all of that.  I removed the paper from this stairwell also.  A few years ago, my hubby thought wallpaper would look nice there because the walls looked so nice plain.  I agreed, unwillingly, but I did agree.  He picked out the paper and put it up.  I said nothing but I hated it.

Gathering inspiration from another blogger who tends to do things when her husband is away, I stripped off the paper and painted the walls my beloved Cloud white from Benny Moore.

So much better!

When hubby came home today, he noticed the change right away.  And guess what, he loved it!  Why he doesn't just let me make all the decisions around here I'll never know.

Are You Scared Yet?

I mentioned in my weekend update that I had watched the television program on TLC about hoarding.  This show causes me to have panic attacks, but I just Cannot. Look. Away.  We filled up a truck load of stuff:

This is the back of our half ton truck.  Hubby had to make space in our storage shed for hay.  This shed is about the size of a single car garage.

This is what remains:

These are just a few things lounging around outside the shed after the clean out.


Inside the shed now:

Yes, Gentle readers, this is after hubby cleaned it  out.


Do you see what I have to deal with here?

This is stuff that is hanging off the rafters for pete's sake!  There is a doll carriage up there from when I was five years old!!  I could cheerfully get rid of it all, but I have a daughter who has no room for anything at her apartment and a husband who has a very hard time parting with stuff.  My daughter has pack rat tendencies but she comes by it honestly. My mum kept everything and so did my dad. Hubby always told me to get rid of stuff but not to let him see what I was giving away or throwing out because he always said what he didn't see he wouldn't miss.

Daughter #1 happened by before we could dispose of the evidence.  She took things off the truck and admonished me not to try to get rid of her things again!

When we have gotten rid of things before, we usually just put them out at the end of our driveway and without fail, people take everything.  One day my hubby was coming home from work and someone was picking through the offerings.  He told my husband we had the best junk ever.  Who knew?

I think I need to go out to the shed under cover of darkness and abscond with a few truck loads of valuables junk.  If you see anything in those pics that you cannot live without, just let me know.  I'll leave it at the end of the driveway for you.

Picture Perfect

Do you remember my dining room mantle?

Do you remember that I said those pictures had to go?  They are covering up little secret cupboards that are now a secret no longer.  It was hard to find something because there was little wiggle room in the measurements to cover the openings and fit properly above the mantle.  On one of our forays into Homesense, I found these:

 
They are sepia prints of staircases in Paris.  I really like them because they are serene and don't yell "Notice Me!"

I wish I could get a better shot of them, but there is some glare from the glass.

I don't know why Homesense doesn't offer me a job.  I must own half the company by now because of my many purchases and free advertising.

I feel so much better when I walk through the dining room now. I was going to remove those word stickies that came from the dollar store but so many of you liked them so I kept them up there.  Let me know when you want me to take them down.