93. Goin’ to town and buyin’ the mantel

Mr. H.C. is famous for saying “Well, as Dad used to say…” and then he’ll pop off with some odd phrase, and nine times out of ten, my mom (or grandfather) said it too. It might be just old time country talk, or it might be real Greene County lingo, I’m not sure. But three of four of our parents were Greene County lifers (Clara always made sure to tell you that she was from California!) so this post is lovingly for them — and anyone else who loves the hollows, ridges, and idioms of Greene County.

Over a year ago we wandered into Jan’s Country Nook, a little hardware/antique/secondhand store on the main street of town. The window display drew us in — cast iron ash buckets, galvanized wash tubs, old tools, and a fireplace mantel — together with a jumble of other old and odd items led us into thinking that if we found any diamonds or rhinestones, they might not be too high. After all, we have champagne taste and a beer pocketbook.

We pooshed open the door, but nobody paid us any mind. Two old codgers in red and black plaid wool jackets and orange hunting caps were loudly discussing the pros and cons of the weather, and what it had to do with the price of eggs, and the salt situation in India. One was settin’ a spell on an upside down tub, and the other was leanin’ his elbow on a cluttered ledge. He was big enough to eat hay, and he crowded out the place.  Nearby was a small, thin lady with longish gray hair and a gravelly voice; she was puttin’ in her two cents as well. They both seemed to be hollering at the man who was sittin’ down; could have been he was deaf as a stump, or maybe he just had the flaps of his hat pulled over his ears.

Mr. H.C never met an old tool he didn’t like, and I was chompin’ at the bit for a galvanized washtub, so we were in hog heaven. The wood floor creaked as I walked down the right side, Mr. H.C walked down the left side and we met in the back of the store and conferred. There was a double washtub (on a stand!) but we allowed how it was in pretty bad shape, and Mr. H.C. can be tight-fisted with a dollar. We agreed it wasn’t worth the money, switched places, and moseyed up the other sides.

Old dolls, blue canning jars, and wooden Flexible Flyer sleds mingled with hard-to-find hardware items. Mr.H.C. bought some slotted brass screws that are scarcer than hen’s teeth these days. He was tickled pink to find them.

Mantel

I found this in the archives. Proof of the date of purchase and of the fireplace soot on the finish. We were keepin’ our fingers crossed that it just needed cleaned.

Neither of us can remember who saw it first, but Mr. H.C. is givin’ me credit. It was leaning against the wall and it looked like it had been around the barn once or twice. In fact, we’d been all around Robin Hood’s barn looking at mantels in other places — in the Burgh and in little Worshington — but all the ones we had seen were for the birds, and they were too pricey to boot. We had a rough opening measurement, but not exact, so after we had given it the once-over and allowed how it might do, we had to go back to Apple Hill to be sure it would fit. We told her we only lived down the road a piece, and we’d be back if the crick didn’t rise.

What we had to work with…

Well, we had to redd up the place to make room; the area around the fireplace looked like a cyclone had struck it. But we measured it twice and determined it would fit, so we high-tailed it back to the store.

Seventy-five dollars, firm.

Seventy-five dollars, firm.

I asked her if she would take $65, but she was firm. “The price is $75,” she said.

So we followed her back to the counter and settled up. She must have felt bad for not bargaining with us, so she gave us a handy dandy little 2013 calendar book and pen to make up for it, which I just found and threw away last week.

And to think we pert’near bought one for $150 at Construction Junction down in the city…

coal burning fireplace
The mantel pretty much looked like this for the last 11 months — collecting dust, odds & ends and serving as a tool shelf. All along I had planned on lightly sanding it and experimenting with Annie Sloan’s Chalk paint. I’ve read about it, watched You-tube videos and I was ready for the challenge. Then I added up how much it would cost. Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! It would have been a pretty penny, and we already talked about that beer pocketbook, and Mr. H.C. isn’t the only one who can be tightfisted with a dollar. As Joe would say, “We were feeling too poor to paint and too proud to whitewash.”

So for the next month I worked like a dog — I got paint in my hair and primer on my britches. I reckon I looked like the wild woman of Borneo. Here are some pictures of it getting fixed up…

I reckon I’m gonna try to make my own chalk paint sometime soon; I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about it, and I’ve heard tell all you need is some plaster of paris. And some paint. Wait till you see the dining room chairs…

79. The Corner Dining Room

I know, I know, you’ve seen beautiful pictures of the kitchen, beautiful pictures of the bedroom — you must think we’re about done by now, right?

Today it is back to ugly pictures again, folks.

In between the kitchen and the bedroom is the corner dining room. Well, the living room is there somewhere too, but we’re skipping that for now…

Sapele butcher block counter top

Right next to this lovely peninsula is this not-so-lovely little closet.Dining room closet
Actually, I’ve been working on it, and it is much better than it was. Inside. The doors to this little closet will be charming when they are finished. They were in my sanding room for awhile…Of course, they were painted orange.

I couldn't get all the orange paint sanded off, so I did the best I could and then just primed the heck out of them

I couldn’t get all the orange paint sanded off, so I did the best I could and then just primed the heck out of them

Dining room closet doors painted with Sherwin Williams Steamed Milk Satin

Here they are painted with Sherwin Williams Steamed Milk.

Inside the closet the first floorboard is a white pine plank; the rest of the boards are yellow pine flooring boards. It took MUCH effort to get the two types of wood to stain the same. The front plank has so much stain painted on it, that it may never dry..

 

Notice the good job of matching two different types of wood -- white pine and yellow pine.

I’ve been trying out green samples on the dining room wall. Very light, sort of light, and as dark as I want to go. None of them seemed right.

Greens on the Dining Room wall

Still life with lamp and ladder…

Then one evening while I was poking around on Retrorenovation.com I found the answer! Vintage Wallpaper! All colors of greens in one wall, which is just what I was trying to figure out how I could do! It’s perfect. I hesitantly brought it up to Mr. H.C. who immediately said he was game. (That was before he saw the price! :-) ) Now if I can only decide…I’ve got two samples coming from Hannah’s Treasures. I’ve put three in this blog post — comments please! Which ones do you like?

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Vintage wallpaper from Hannah's Treasures.

Vintage wallpaper from Hannah’s Treasures.

 

 

 

 

I didn’t order a sample for the bold plaid one on the right, because as soon as Mr. H.C. saw that one, he started shaking his head. I think he just doesn’t like it because it reminds him of the wallpaper he put up (on the same wall) for his mom, Clara in the seventies. (See post 1. The Story of Apple Hill Cottage.) Here it is:

This is the wallpaper that covered the door...

This wallpaper covered the door beside it as well… I think it is fitting that this wall be covered in wallpaper again!

Mr. H.C. assures me that it isn’t the wallpaper it reminds him of, it was a pair of his Dad’s golf pants… Okay, well I might give him that; I think my dad had a pair too.

I could go on… and on… about the floor, and the trim, but I won’t. I WILL show you just one more photo of the dining room table treasure though. We found it ages ago at a ReStore for $35, and it has been sitting in the dining room under three layers of plastic and tarps to protect it from all the junk on top of it.

harvest table
The top will be stained a darker, rich wood color. I’ve been thinking all along to paint the legs black, but I think I’ve changed my mind, and I’m going to go with the dark green (Benjamin Moore Peale Green) that is on the wall. And a couple of chairs painted that same dark green? What do you think? That’s at least two questions to comment on!

So, are we wallpaper lovers, or not?

78. random thoughts on painting wood (from a carpenter’s wife…)

I’ve been painting lots of wood lately. Doors, cabinets, woodwork… I love paint. I love color. But I also love wood.

Paint and color and wood can co-exist, but finding that perfect balance is difficult. Rooms with too much wood need color for drama; rooms with too much color scream out for wood to give rest to the eyes. It’s that perfect balance that makes us all sigh and sit down in comfort.

Mr. H.C., the carpenter, hates to paint wood. “When wood is painted, it’s painted,” he says. “And only a huge effort can get it back to its original state, and even then, it might not look good.” (For a very funny post on men and painting wood, read The Decorologist’s post, Why Men Fear Painting Wood)

When I was about fifteen, my mom and dad undertook the making over of the basement in our fifties ranch house. They were on a shoestring budget, but they wanted a room where their teenaged daughters could hang out with their friends. It was a gigantic room — just putting carpet on the floor, a dropped ceiling, a big comfy couch, and room dividers at the ends probably put them over-budget. So Mom was gathering furniture from every attic and garage that she could find. Two of her scores were pretty little washstands. She painted one late-sixties orange. As she was preparing to paint the other (late sixties chartreuse) I stepped in. In my fifteen-year-old wisdom I said, “Mom, why are you painting that pretty washstand? You should never paint wood furniture.”

She gathered together all her parental wisdom and said, “When you’re older, you’ll understand.”

In the infinite circle of life, twenty-five years after she painted it chartreuse, I inherited this charming little washstand. It was still chartreuse. I took it to the local stripper and told him I would pay him well if he could take that paint off for me. A few days later he called me back. “Was this painted in the late sixties?” he asked. “And then maybe antiqued?”

pretty washstand painted in nineties blue stenciled with nineties flowersIt absolutely was.

“Yeah,” he said. “That stuff just can’t be stripped off.”  He sanded the door and then gave up. His advice? “Just paint it. It’s only poplar.” So I painted it early-nineties blue and stenciled it with early-nineties flower stencils. And now, twenty years later, it is relegated to holding craft supplies in my upstairs craft room that is not open to the public.

So many pieces of beautiful old furniture ruined.

And so I learned — Don’t paint it, if it can never be reclaimed.

Truth be told, my mom paid her dues for painting all that wood furniture. (She also painted a carved wooden love seat and several oak pressed-back chairs orange, as well as two beautiful rattan easy chairs chartreuse!) When the trend for country furniture started in the late seventies, she and my dad were early adopters. (The first Country Living magazine was published in 1978  — probably a direct result of all that bad furniture painting and colors of the sixties and early seventies!) They bought beautiful old furniture at auctions and sales, stripped it, and refinished it with natural oil finishes. When she found this  primitive hutch in Uncle Judd’s basement, it was painted a lovely shade of pink and was storage for paint supplies  — a fitting tribute to what often happens to painted furniture…

primitive walnut hutch

Aunt Sara and Uncle Judd were astonished when my mom picked that particular pink piece of furniture. Mom dragged it home (it comes apart in two pieces) and she and Dad lovingly restored it. Mr. H.C. thinks it is walnut. It is a bit quirky, but I love the fact that it is a one-of-a-kind antique, passed down through family, that many hands have touched it, restored it, made it their own. I love the circle that life is.

I understand wanting to make a piece of furniture, or a house, your own — individualizing it. That’s what we are doing with Apple Hill Cottage, after all. DIY is good. But what happens when the DIY goes bad? Let’s face it, that little washstand  I painted and stenciled? I didn’t do such a good job of it. AND fashions change. The turquoise of today will be tomorrow’s outdated color. The white cabinets of today will be dated in ten years.

This is the classic pressed-back chair, and very similar to the one I painted glossy forest green...

This is the classic pressed-back chair, and very similar to the one I painted glossy forest green…

Recently I read a post about “reviving an antique Windsor chair” by painting it blue. I laughed to myself. I did that once. I painted a lovely oak pressed-back chair glossy forest green; BUT I only painted it because it had already been painted orange. (Yes, by my mom — it sat right next to that orange washstand in our basement.) And it was never going back to its beautiful oak original beginnings.

All those rungs? All that carving? All that glossy paint? I repeat:  Don’t paint it, if it can never be reclaimed.

…Which translates into the following rules suggestions for painting wood:

  • Do not paint any family heirlooms.
  • Do not paint anything that might be valuable the way it is.
  • Do not paint anything that has carving or curves or moulding that would be hard to sand back to its original condition.
  • Do not spend any more than $35 on any piece of furniture you are planning to paint. (Well, maybe $50 if you live in a city…)
  • Try to find pine furniture (or poplar) for painting. Or better yet, find something that has already been painted.
  • Paint only furniture that you are willing to refinish or throw away, when your mind (or the fashion) changes.

And our minds change frequently, don’t they?

With all that said, I’m looking for a few cheap dining room chairs to paint….

This lovely painted pressed back chair is from the Irish Lady’s Blog. If you live in Texas, you could drop by her shop and purchase this pretty chair. It looks lots better than the one I painted glossy green (but that’s because glossy forest green is currently out of fashion…)

Emerald green, however, was Pantone‘s color of the year this year. And Tricia at the Domestic Fringe just posted this DIY painted desk. She found the desk set out for the garbage — in which case, it is totally OK to paint. Especially when you can do this to the top:

Desk1

To find directions on how to do something like this to the top of YOUR old desk, see the post on DIY: Trash to Treasure desk renovation..

I have an ugly wood desk in my not-open-to-the-public craft room upstairs. I would love to have that flower top on it… And I could paint the bottom a pretty, rust-colored orange… oh, wait. I can’t paint it orange! It belongs to Mr. H.C., the carpenter who hates to paint wood. But I do have a washstand that could stand to be painted…Maybe orange, huh, Mom?