First Things First.....Who's investigating this?

Can you count the number of times Congress has investigated this person for this and that person for that? Company after company for one thing or another has been investigated. Our tax dollars have paid for all these inquisitions.

Just who is investigating this?

Yeah------I've heard oil companies don't set the price of gas. Yet, which companies are boasting outrageous profits in the weak economy? And the CEO's living high on the....

No, not a pig rat...

(I stole this picture from The House and I, thanks Erin.)

Hog. High on the Hog....

While so many Americans are moving here....

I think I am looking into buying one of these....

So I don't have to worry about the .....

or supporting...... them.

Don't forget to look at the them up there. Look where the top 10 (in oil reserves) are located. Also look at who belongs to OPEC here.

This is also interesting. Check it out. here.

Ok......enough ranting..... I feel my big brother looking over my shoulder.

Yesterday, my Aunt and I went to South Alabama to visit my Grandmother, my Mom, and Papa Joe.

We saw a couple houses for sale.....



The last one is actually much prettier in real life, and has a large rear wing.

And finally this house........(from the open house) has a sale pending sign out front. Yay! new neighbors, Yay! this $$$$ house is selling! Yay! it is 3 doors down. I must bring them scones.

So they will not hate us for being so messy, and so under construction, and so.......

Wait.... One more thing.... I read this from the New York Times on 1912 Bungalow. Take a look at the pics here.

This was the linky-est post ever...Did you get lost?

PS. The news is on TV and Google reported high profits, too.

While Puppy is Away...

The squirrels will play. (refer to previous post)

Also notice in the background, Chris has an early start in keeping the kudzu from taking over.

(In the front half of the back yard, at least.)

Wish us luck. That vine is evil and sneaky.

King of the Kudzu Jungle

Puppy's new favorite spot, looking out over the back yard.

Keeping his family safe and secure from those pesky squirrels.

Chris's deck is getting closer and closer to being complete.

After a long mornings work, while his mom is looking over the taxes,

he sneaks into the living room and curls up in a ball. He thinks she doesn't know he is there.

But she does, that is why she places a sheet over the sofa.

Sunday Walk: Part 15

Open or Closed, Hello or Goodbye, this walk is about Doors.


Hello



Goodbye



Hello



Hello



I don't know why you say, Goodbye?



I say Hello.




Hello...Hello....Hello



Hello....


What do you say?




** Special thanks go out this week to the Beatles. **

There is a Hang-Up in our plans.

Or, lack of ---hang-up.

I know you remember the porch swing. It has been sitting on the front porch for a couple of weeks just waiting to be used. But first it has to be hung.

Easy task, right? There are hooks already there in the porch ceiling. They just need to be moved back a bit, and out a bit. The tape measure is out and estimation is done on just where the ceiling joist should be. A couple of holes are drilled. 16" on center? 18" o.c. ? Just where are those joists?

You say go to the attic to see where the joist are located. No problem, the attic access is about 16"x20" wide. Not too bad, the electricians went there. It is just in the laundry area above the shelf, (full of detergent, cleaners, and dryer sheets) 10' up in the air.

Oh look! Over the porch, only over the porch, tongue and groove flooring is installed.
O.k. So you can't see the location of the joists, without ripping out flooring.



What do you do next?

A. Say ugly words?

B. Have a drink?

C.

Drill creative patterns in the beaded board ceiling.



Why nothing around here is ever easy!!!

The good news is the grass is cut, but the porch swing is still sitting, not swinging.

Planting Annuals & the F- word.

The area directly in front of the house was over grown with ivy. When we moved in, we clean it out a bit removing beer bottles, chip bags and candy bar wrappers.

You know---English Ivy loves Doritos, Snickers, and Bud. Right?

After several "treatments" the ivy is finally gone, leaving a 6" deep layer of dead vines. I used the metal rake to remove the vines and cleaned out the area down to the dirt or soil. (It's dirt to me. )

I found several things.

A horse shoe. --Hey that's Lucky-Right?
A small hook, a battery, a marble, a hose thingy, 1/2 a plastic Easter egg, a baseball pendant, and a hanging basket holder. Woo Hooo!!!

I cleaned up the edge and began to add some of the bricks, that scattered are all over the yard in random places. Then I planted a few annuals.

I need to fill in with some more plants. However, for next week the weather girl is talking about the F- word... (No, not that F-word.)

F....F....Fro...Frost.

So, I decided to stop there for now and spread out some pine straw. The straw is deep enough I can cover up the plants next week with it and use a painter's tarp over it all. I should be able to keep everybody warm and alive.



I still need to gather up some additional bricks and finish cleaning up the edge but as the neighbor said yesterday afternoon, "It looks so much better."

Those scraggly bushes in the back are camellias. From the size of the roots, they look to be original. They are recovering from ivy suffocation, but I think they are going to make it.


*Saturday morning update*

This morning the weather girl is saying the other "F-word".... F....Fr...Freeze..... in the 20's.
Burr... I know some of you are getting snow, which really stinks in April, but this is Georgia people.

I just washed all our washable coats and have them ready to put away for the summer.

In 1950....

James H. Wynn jr. phone number 4253, lived here.

I updated the timeline on the side bar.

I found a city directory that the archives did not have at the library. Our library had some type of flood from sprinklers or something (not rain) a while back, and it was closed. It looks like most of the art books were damaged. All those nice large books are all wavy. The rest of the library looks the same, except for the carpet. It bothers me. Too linear. The lines of the carpet do not line up with the rows of shelving making everything look wop-sided. I know, I should have made a pic.

What is up with libraries, and rif-raf hanging out there? gesh.....

A Window with a View

.......of a dogwood tree.




This is the current view out the sunroom (would have been called a sleeping porch in 1919.)window.

See all that paint on the glass, when the PO had the exterior painted, they didn't scrape any windows. Ugggh... (My Aunt and MIL scraped the front windows the first week we worked on the house. :) ) Since all the windows need refurbishing, and the house needs painting again, the rest of the glass paint stays for now.

Oh... The pollen count today is 2809.

Another Outdoor Furniture Face-lift

The same day Chris brought home the rocker, he brought home this metal patio table.

It was in good shape, just a few small rusty spots.


I cleaned it with 409. It was coated with the powdery white stuff from the old paint. I sanded the rusty spots with a fine sand paper. Then rubbed the table with a fine grade steel wool. Then on to priming, of course.

Painting.

More painting.
Clear coat on Top.


It will need at least one more coat of the clear coat top. But I need to wait until the sun is down a bit. The sun makes it dry too fast.

I was worried that I would not have enough of the Castleton Mist color (2 cans)so I opted to paint the legs gray.

One thing I have learned with all this spray painting is that there never seems to be enough. Always buy a little extra. If you save the receipt you can return un-used cans.

Yellow Finch Wallpaper...

You know I am not a fan of wallpaper, after scraping, and scraping, and scraping, and scraping for months. Really months. The foyer, the dining room, and the hall.
Remember this? I do.

I haven't scraped the final layers off the middle bedroom. I really, really want to take of the old layer of wallboard, down to the plaster, then the wallpaper will come off with the wallboard.

Truthfully, I pretend the middle bedroom doesn't exist. I keep the door closed.


(That pic is old. See, the hall is still pink, it did coordinate with this layer of wallpaper in the bedroom. We really use the room to store trim, baseboards, the kitchen cabinets, still not finished. Chris's Drums, boxes, paint, tools, brushes, and so on. I guess we could say it is our staging room. That sounds nice and all. )

However, I am a fan of pattern. Good pattern. Creative Pattern. Historic pattern. Maybe that comes from the days, as a youngster, I worked for a carpet designer. She taught me so much about pattern. She also spent years restoring a fantastic Victorian House in town. ( I need pics of that house.) Who knows maybe that rubbed off a little as well. Her sister was my 6th grade teacher, and one of my cousins went out with her other sister's daughter. Or maybe they were just friends? (You know --small town)



While blog surfing the other day, I found a wallpaper website. Ooooohhhh! the patterns.



Historic patterns.

Adelphi Paper Hangings looks to be a great source for historic handmade wallpaper.

Looks like a yellow finch to me..


You can see similar patterns to this and this color way is just about any clothing store this spring. It is yellow hot. I am loving all the yellows mixed with blacks, and greys in fashion right now.


At one time there was a slight delay between the colors you see in fashion at clothing stores and when it turned up in interiors. But today, the merchandisers really have to be at the top of their game. There is little to no delay in the trends moving from clothing to interiors.

Look at West Elm. The current catalogue is full of the hot yellows. In order to have those products in the stores, they had to be specked out, ordered, manufactured and shipped out months and months ago.

Also look at this great post. Showing the yellows and blacks, and grays.

Who knows? All the yellow bombardment may have told my little voice to tell me to go with yellow for the door.

I just don't think I could install wallpaper anywhere after all that scraping. But if I did, a handmade block printed paper would be so much better than that vinyl stuff.