Vignettes

I took these photos at my uncle's house on the river last night. It's actually an old dormitory, and they use it for entertaining in the summer. There are 12 bedrooms, and I took pictures of many of them. I turned them all into black and whites, because the rooms all had a vintage feel, and black and white felt "right." Some of them are reminiscent of Andrew Wyeth paintings, don't you think?

Cat on a Leash

OK, I'm askin' ya'....isn't this weird?

So, speaking of cats, we didn't go to IKEA on Saturday. What does this have to do with cats, you ask? Well, I've got two of them, and they are both a big PIMA. Every morning at around 4-ish, or 4:22, or 5:13, or whenever they feel the urge, they are outside my bedroom door scratching, pushing, meowing loudly...generally making a big nuisance of themselves. Well, usually I get up, feed them, pee, and go back to bed. Not that that usually stops them. They're back an hour later.

Friday night the shenanigans started at 1:30am, and Tess would NOT shut the heck up. At. All. I was SO tired, and SO annoyed, that finally at 5am, I put her in the basement and closed the door. Ahhhh...peace. But I still had only had about 3.5hrs of sleep. So, when Kathleen came down and knocked on my door at 8am with an expectant look on her face, I said "We're not going" and rolled over, pulling my covers over my head as I rolled. That night was also going to be Jonas Brothers concert night, and I needed SOME sleep, right?!

So Tuesday is IKEA day (because today is orthodontist day), and for the last two nights, I've put BOTH cats down in the basement with their food and their litter, and I've slept like a baby. Peace at last. And they seem no worse for it. Brats.

Lake Houses

Kathleen's grandparents live in a lake community in Ohio about a half an hour outside of Columbus. I took some pictures from the boat over the course of our three day visit, and thought you might enjoy some of these houses as much as I did. Some of the landscaping was really great. There is some BIG money on this lake! This first picture below was taken from the deck on the back of the house. I didn't post a picture of their house for privacy reasons.

I couldn't resist this shot of Kathleen and the dog. That dog was SO good and SO cute the whole time we were there. They also had an adorable cat, Molly, whom Kathleen took out on a leash a couple of times. Now THAT was funny. Who ever heard of a cat on a leash?

Of course I have to share more pics of my kid--she's too photogenic NOT to post them.

Tomorrow morning we're heading down to Elizabeth, NJ to pick up my cabinet and door fronts from IKEA. Then tomorrow night, we're going to see the Jonas Brothers at Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Whoo hoo! LOL. Oy, the things we do for our kids. :-P

Niagara Falls Teaser

We're here on our way home from Ohio, and the halfway point just happens to be Niagara Falls! We had to stay on the NY side, but it's just as lovely from here as it is from Canada. It's been a long day, though, and I'm off to enjoy my cushy bed with crisp white linens. We'll be on our way home tomorrow after enjoying more of the town, and who knows where we'll stop on our way back east. Perhaps some back roads are in order?

G'nite!

Road Trip!

Tomorrow morning (EARLY) I head out to Indianapolis to pick up my darling child from her week-long stay at her friend McKayla's house, and zoo camp. This will be my longest solo road trip yet, and I'm just a little bit nervous. I miss Kathleen, though, so it's going to be worth it!! :) I have books on CD, satellite radio, and my own busy head for company, so it should be fine.

On the way home, we'll be stopping near Columbus, OH, to stay with Kathleen's paternal grandparents, whom she hasn't seen since she was five years old. So THAT should be interesting! Her father is going to drive up from NC to meet us there, which is a good thing. We last saw him in April.

I'm also tossing around the idea of stopping in Niagara Falls for the night on Tuesday, which might be a nice way to break up the long ride home. I've only been once, and Kathleen's never been, so I may surprise her with a little impromptu stay there for the night. There is so much to see there. I'd love to take her to the botanical gardens, the butterfly conservatory, and Niagara on the Lake. I wonder how much we can fit into two short days?! Maybe we'll drive home at night. Hmmm. We'll see.

So that's where I'll be for the week. Stay tuned for pictures from the trip, and of course when I get back, painting will begin in earnest in the kitchen. BF is going to be in TX while we're in IN, so nothing's going to get done for the next week or so. I can't wait to get that kitchen DONE. After the painting gets done, I get to lay the new floor. Yay!

Have a great week, y'all, and I'll catch you on the backside!

Construction Junction

Well, you asked for it, so here it is! My kitchen/woodshop. This is actually a cleaned up version, if you can believe it. BF tends to drop a tool wherever he last used it. It's my job to follow behind and try to keep things somewhat organized, so when he says "Where's the hammer?" I'll be able to put my hands on it.
We were thinking about using that cove molding in the corners, but now we're just going to caulk the corners and skip the molding. It'll look much more seamless that way. Note the stained woodwork that hasn't gotten its first coat of paint. I can't wait to get everything painted out. Even with one shabby coat of white, it's SO much brighter in the kitchen.
Note the new apron under that window over the sink. BF broke the old one when pulling it off to get the wainscoting on. I had to laugh, because he was busting on me for putting the backs of some of the cabinets on backwards. WhatEVER.

My new sink! Yay! My new faucet! Yay! New countertop! Yay!

New plumbing! Yay! Thank GOD I have BF to do this stuff. I could have done all the beadboard and trim, but the plumbing is beyond me. I mean, look at that mess. WTH? He even managed to figure out why the dishwasher wasn't draining properly. I bought it from someone from Craigslist about three months ago, so I didn't even know if the thing was going to work at all. I lucked out! $75 well spent!
I like the cap molding I picked out. What a pain, though, because it doesn't come with a lip to go over the top edge of the paneling. So there is a flat 1.5" piece of wood behind it that pushes it out so it goes over the egde of paneling. An ingenious solution, figured out by me, executed by BF. :)

My new dishwasher! Yay!! (The stove is new too, but the dishwasher is much more exciting, don't you think?)

Last night, when BF was getting irritated with some of my ball-busting, he said..."Go over there and hold those two wires together, will ya'?" Har. Good thing I'm not a dummy. Or I'd be dead.

Oak Hill Kitchen

Nestled in a cute little hamlet about 35 minutes away from my house at the foot of the Catskills, is the Oak Hill Kitchen, which is a wonderful little restaurant run by the Twelve Tribes communities. I'll let you read up on them at their website TwelveTribes.com, and I will not go into any controversy surrounding their way of life. What I saw when I went to the Oak Hill Cafe was a group of relaxed, happy, friendly people, playing music, and sharing food.
That large booth above on the right, is where we had a birthday dinner for my sister. She had discovered this place just the week before, and was dying to go back and share it with us. That "window" in the booth looks downstairs, and gave us a view of the musicians below playing traditional Irish music. I'll tell you what: That day, I had really gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, and didn't even want to go to dinner, much less drive 35 minutes to this place after driving 35 minutes to get home from work. But I'm SO glad I did.
The music was wonderful, and the people so kind, the food was great, and the interior of this place was gorgeous. Look at all that hand-cut/hewn wood! It's just beautiful. They are open 24 hours a day, except for Saturdays, because they observe Shabbat. I know next to nothing about religion, so don't ask me...lol...but from what I've read, they are Christians, just not "regular" ones...lol. Who cares? I am totally a "live and let live" type of person, and this place felt very welcoming. They sort of reminded me of the Amish. The food and atmosphere were more than enough to get me out of my funk on Thursday night. I felt like I had stepped back in time to a kinder, gentler place, and it made me feel good. (Hey Rose...you would have LOVED this place--it was all "peace and love" and I kept thinking about you while I was there! :-))

Here's hoping you all can discover a quiet little "find" in a town near you where you can go to unwind and be at peace.

P.S. I have shamelessly stolen the above pictures from the Oak Hill Kitchen website. I'm hoping they won't mind, since I DID give them such a glowing review! Hee!

A Lidingo Ate My Kitchen!

EDIT and UPDATE for those of you coming via a Google link: see some "during/after" pics here. We're still working on it!

Sorry about the title of this post...I just couldn't resist! Hee! Lidingo is the name that IKEA has given my chosen door front for my cabinets. It's their most traditional looking door, IMO, and as much as I was LOVING the red glass-front modern cabinets, they just weren't going to happen in this house. Maybe when I get that pied-a-terre in NYC someday....heh. I can't get the handles to post for some reason, and it's driving me nuts. I'm using the Takta handles, in brown/black. They are wood, and long and linear. I'm hoping they will add a little contemporary flair to my otherwise traditional kitchen. My original plan was to use oil-rubbed bronze bin pulls, but then I saw those and changed my mind. I hope I was right!!
This is the Boholmen sink I'm using, which I love for its retro feel, and because even though I am going to have a dishwasher, I know that I'll be hand washing dishes as well. I bought my faucet at Grossman's outlet a couple months ago, and it looks great with the sink. It's a brushed nickel finish. It's not awesome like some of those commercial faucets at IKEA, but hey, I'm not made of money either!!

This is the Pragel stone effect black countertop that I'm using. I love it. We put it in for a dry run over the white, and it's awesome. I'm still waiting on the doors for my cabinets, though. They didn't have them in stock at the Paramus store, and I have to pick them up at the Elizabeth store in a few weeks. I'm hoping that BF will have the sink hooked up in the next day or two, and once the sink goes in, the dishwasher can get hooked up, right?! Yay!! But of course first, he is cutting the beadboard paneling and getting that put up. Yesterday I slapped a coat of white paint over all of the stained trim around the windows and the doors. What a difference! It's so much brighter in there now. LOVE it. No pics yet--the place is a wreck. I'll keep you posted!!

Naked Kitchen

So yesterday morning I said to BF: "You know, since we had such a work-filled weekend last week, why don't we take it easy this weekend? The only thing I'd really like to get done is to put the new kitchen sink faucet in, and the new bathroom faucet. What do you think?" And his reply was: "Well, wouldn't you rather get that dishwasher in?" and I of course replied "Well, of COURSE I would LOVE for the dishwasher to be in, but in order for that to happen, we need to replace the countertops."

So without going into how my logic works, suffice it to say that in order to install a dishwasher, Kathleen and I went to Paramus , NJ (2 hour drive) to IKEA and bought four new base cabinets, a new sink, and new countertops for the kitchen. Oh, and a shoe rack for my closet. But I digress.

So while we were gone, BF pulled out all of the old cabinets, and ripped the "tile" paneling off of the walls. I got home and said "So, is the dishwasher hooked up or what?!" *sigh* No dishwasher. But I did get a naked kitchen!

We put together one of the cabinets last night, and he did one this morning. They're pretty simple. Next, when it stops raining, we need to go buy beadboard for the walls. Then we can install the cabinets, then the dishwasher, then the countertops, then the sink, and the faucet. Oh, and when that's all done, I can put in the new floor and paint the walls.

So much for my quick and easy kitchen reno. Oh well. It had to get done sooner or later.

I'm just TIRED today, and I don't feel like working. Is that lame? (Don't answer that.) BF deserves a day off too, doesn't he? So don't hold your breath for the "afters". IKEA didn't even have my door and drawer fronts, so I have to go back to the Elizabeth, NJ IKEA and pick those up in a couple of weeks.

I won't even tell you about the dried up mice carcasses that BF unearthed when ripping out the cabinets. Eeeew. I think we'll seal up some holes.

New Lamps

OK, so that's not a lamp. It's fabric swatches. I'm thinking of slipcovering my sofa in the top one. It's a light chocolatey brown that will hide a multitude of sins. I hope. I can't take the state of the gold damask any more. ANYthing else has got to be an improvement. I'll keep y'all posted.
New lamp #1. I purchased this lamp at The Christmas Tree Shops in Albany. It was the last one they had, so I only got one, and it was a bargain at $25. I love the glass base. I'm NOT in love with the white white shade though. I'm thinking of putting a grosgrain ribbon along the top and bottom edge to give it some interest. We'll see. It also has one of those fluorescent bulbs in it, which is pretty white. I may have to go incandescent to get a better color out of it.

This is lamp #2. I paid $40 for it at KMart, and I love it! I honestly have not been in KMart for years, except for two weeks ago when I bought the Martha Stewart curtain rods. I forget why I went back, but when I did I found this lamp! The base is metal, with a dark almost black finish. Me likey!

Closeup of the herringbone lampshade.