Oodles and oodles

Season opener

 
By happy coincidence, I was thumbing through our pretty boring local weekly newspaper late last night when I happened across an ad for an estate sale. A Thursday estate sale! Just 15 minutes away! With stuff that sounded good! And the fact that the first estate sale of the season coincided with the first day of baseball season could only mean that it would be terrific! Can you tell it's been a long winter without estate sales because I'm using lots of exclamation points?!?!?

Well, it was a great sale. Some of what I found: Christmas ornaments, stacks of pretty crochet, a cute flowered hat, a wooden trug (it's a little cut off in the back), a bread box and one of the best things I've ever found at a sale.

 
I know I would have loved the lady who lived here because she had such cheerful things, many of which she made herself.

 
And because she owned this bread box, and I've been wanting more bread boxes, especially in this pattern.

 
Super-cute dish towel.

Since it's the first day of the sale season for me, I'd like to introduce a new feature this year: the sale rating system. Various points will be awarded in various categories, and deductions also will be made, and at the end of the post, we'll tally up the points and decide whether I'll continue to go to sales or not. It sounds confusing, but it won't be, because I'm using a simple graphic system, in much the same way that movie reviews have stars.

Except I'll be using aprons. No particular reason, except they're cute, and I find them a lot.

Anyway, this sale earns an apron for Drama that Did Not Involve Me, and In Fact Worked to My Advantage.

This was one of those sales where you go, sign up and stay there until the person running the sale hands out the numbers, and then you can leave. Well, the #1 and #2 people on the list left, and the people right behind them on the list complained, and #1 and #2 lost their places. (Which is as it should be. They knew better and the rules were clear.) They were really, really unhappy. It would have been slightly ugly and uncomfortable except I wasn't involved. Also, I moved from #15 to #13.

 
I don't think I've ever bought granny squares before, but these are made out of a lovely, silky thread (not yarn) and have gorgeous colors.

One apron for generally wonderful merchandise.

 
I found a pile of yo-yos.

 
Lovely, lovely fabrics.

The garage opened half an hour before the sale began. That earns one apron.

I could see through the windows in the garage door that there was a lot of Christmas stuff in the corner, but there were 12 people ahead of me and I figured I wouldn't get it. Minus one apron for pre-sale anxiety.

But nobody wanted the Christmas and I got to it first! Lack of direct competition! That's another apron!

 
I was grabbing stuff pretty quick because I was afraid somebody would come to their senses. I thought I knew what was inside this box, and even if I was wrong, it was only $1.

One apron for very good prices at this sale.

I bought so much stuff in the garage I had to scurry down to my car and put my finds in the trunk before the house opened. I had just a minute, so I opened up that dollar box.

 
Yes, yes, yes!!! It was even better than I thought! A complete set of pinecone elves, minty fresh!!!

One apron for finding something that makes me gasp out loud!

 
The elves are eager to know the final tally.

I need to add a few more aprons. One, the sale was close to home.

And the people running the sale were neat, organized and nice as can be.

That's a total of 8 aprons, minus one for pre-sale anxiety, which means:

A seven-apron sale. I'm going to more sales! 

 
 

Thrift success

 
I've been dutifully making my thrift-store rounds every week, but either I'm getting fussier (possible) or the thrift-store inventory has never been worse (very possible). I had better luck this week, though. The two canisters, by the way, were purchased maybe a month ago, but two canisters a post does not make. So this represents everything I've bought this year. The sales can't start soon enough, and as luck would have it, there are a couple this weekend.

So what we have here, in addition to the canisters, are some exceptionally cute red-and-white check juice glasses, and a handmade wooden rooster napkin holder. I have a soft spot for handmade wooden shapes. Also chickens, but I hesitate to mention that. You know how you offhandedly mention that you like chickens, in a sort of global, aren't chickens great? kind of way, and the next thing you know, every holiday brings a new round of chicken collectibles. I don't like chicken collectibles. Unless I can pick them out myself, like the rooster napkin holder, which probably will get made into something else.

 
I went back and forth on whether to buy the bait bucket, but the graphic got me in the end. Also, my inner Farm Chick spoke to me and told me how good it would look at Christmas, kind of hanging casually on a door, filled with pine boughs.

 
Old Pal. Love that. (Plus, a bucket with a shoulder strap. Who knew?)

 
Normally I wouldn't bother with a picture of a single cookie cutter, but there is something very unusual about this gingerbread man.

 
I think he's armed! Doesn't that look like a gun holster? Do you think he's a cowboy or a cop or something? What do you think he's supposed to be?

 

 

 
 

 

The trouble with shopping

 
Do you know why major retailers exist? To annoy me. I can never find what I want in major retail outlets. I went shopping for curtain fabric last week. There is only one major fabric retailer around here, and it has lots of fabric. Unfortunately, at least half of that fabric is printed with Hello Kitty or John Deere motifs. Not the look I had in mind. But how hard could it be to find something in a simple check or stripe in a nice shade of green? Well, very hard. I realized that shopping always makes me feel like there is something wrong with me, because there is nothing even close to the kinds of things I like.

After a long time, I found this checked fabric. Perfect! It was hard to locate because there were only three yards of it left, and that skinny little bolt was kind of hidden by all of the others. I bought the fabric anyway, thinking I could just buy more online. Naturally, it's not available online.

 
Fortunately, the kitchen project has advanced to the point where I could do something other than paint (just look at the sheen on those cupboards!), and so I started installing the new hardware. I love hardware.

  
It was about 10 o'clock Saturday night, and the only thing I had left to do, hardware-wise, was switch these silver drawer pulls for the new black ones. That would take no time at all. Except the holes needed for the new black drawer pulls are about 1/16th of an inch different than the holes for these. Even though they are practically identical. I hate hardware.

 
So after a good night's sleep, I emptied the drawers, got out the drill, drilled new holes, touched up the paint on the drawer fronts and put on the new handles. It only took about two hours longer than I planned.

The next day, I drove to a different fabric store (same chain, different store) about 25 miles away and found more green checked fabric. I really didn't need the five yards left on that bolt, but I took it all. I didn't want to take any chances.

I think this is why I am nervous and procrastinating on ordering the kitchen flooring and countertops. If there's a problem with fabric or drawer pulls, it's frustrating but not a catastrophe. If there's a problem with the floor or counters, it's kind of a big deal. But I'm so close to being done!

 
I saw this book on Suzy's blog, and since I never find what I like in the stores, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me to plan to make my own rugs. I've gotten as far as getting the book. I have a few other things to get done first.

 
There have been a few concerns voiced as of late about my lack of vintage buying. Not to worry: I bought this lovely bread box just a week or so ago. Funny, but I never have trouble finding things I like when I shop at the antique mall. 

 

 

 

 

Change of seasons

 
I used to like to decorate for spring. 

 
The last few years, not so much. This year, not at all. Lately I'm intrigued by the idea of having a house I love so much I don't want to change it. Or at least not a lot. Sometimes I think I rearrange things because I'm never really happy with how they looked in the first place. I think I'd kind of like to have a house where a different tablecloth or a fresh vase of flowers would be enough to satisfy my need for change.

 
Not that I don't love these things ... the fuzzy chicks and bunnies and these lacy little baskets. Just looking at them here makes me smile. But sometimes when I'm packing away one collection and getting out another, I wonder why it feels more like a chore than a joy. Sometimes my stuff does not make me happy.

 
And so I listed all of these pretty things on Etsy (the link is in the sidebar if you want to look) and some of them are gone already. And do you know how it felt to say goodbye to these little treasures and pack them up and send them to new homes?

 
It felt great. It felt liberating.

 
I wonder whether I'm just repainting my house. Maybe I'm rethinking it.
 

 

This *&!#@*! Old House

 
Even before we owned a house, even before we were married, Mr. Oodles and I were devoted to watching "This Old House." I realize, in retrospect, that there were only certain parts of it that I enjoyed. I liked the segments featuring Tommy, and I always admired Norm's work. The plumbing and heating guy, though - I just could not get as excited as he did about pipes and ductwork. (Even though I am a very big fan of both plumbing and heating as a general principle. They just aren't very interesting. Lord knows I've tried. I watched the entire This Old House episode that featured a tour of a toilet factory, and let me tell you, it was excruciating.)

Anyway, it occurred to me during Week #2 of my kitchen-cabinet painting project that the only part of This Old House I really liked was the season finale, just as the house was being finished. A decorator would make a brief on-screen appearance, a few paint colors were mentioned, and voila! the house was done, there was a big party, and the credits rolled. I always felt a little cheated. Like maybe the toilet factory should have made a brief on-screen appearance, and more time might have been devoted to paint colors or furniture selection. You know. The fun stuff. I miss the fun stuff.

That's why I painted the little sewing caddy. I needed something just a little bit fun to get me through painting all those cupboards and drawers. When I found the caddy, it was brown, with a polyester doll of some sort glued on the top. It wanted the doll to be ripped off and thrown away, and then it wanted to be red, and now it is.

 
The thing you forget when you paint your kitchen cupboards is how much stuff is inside of them. And how you really should sort through everything and organize them, since you've got to empty them out anyway. And how that's going to add even more time to a project that can't end quickly enough. Here's what was inside just two drawers. And they really weren't jammed full or all that disorganized. But it was clear I didn't need a lot of what was there.

 
And so this is how it looks now. Isn't it beautiful?

OK, so that's not exactly true. This is the fantasy version of my kitchen drawer. This is how a magazine would style my kitchen drawer. As if all anyone really needed was a rolling pin, a pastry brush, a pie bird and some measuring cups and spoons. It's the same with closets in magazines. My linen closet would be gorgeous if it only needed to hold six white fluffy towels and an apothecary jar full of cotton balls. My coat closet would be stunning if I only needed it to store three coats, a pair of Wellingtons and an adorable straw tote for the beach.

 
This is the real kitchen drawer. Not magazine-worthy. But pretty organized.

Anyway, the kitchen cabinet painting is DONE. I could not be happier. There still are walls to paint (and countertops and flooring to install) but the most tedious part is finished. I celebrated by doing something entirely uncharacteristic and purchased tickets to something that's going to be seriously, wildly fun. 

Do it yourself

 
Let's start with a story. Once, under circumstances that need to remain a bit murky, my daughter and her friend and I were invited to a family's vacation retreat. A vacation retreat is different than a vacation home in that it consists of hundreds of acres, a compound of buildings, better recreational facilities than most towns have, and a large, full-time staff.

The three of us agreed that we would remain completely cool at all times and we would conceal our awe. The first thing we did was pull up to the barn where we had been directed to go first. The doors silently slid open and revealed an underground parking garage, and, as if on cue, the three of us all screamed in amazement. Fortunately, no one was around to see our lowbrow behavior. We managed a veneer of coolness the rest of the visit. We probably just needed to get that scream out of our system.

 
So we're walking through the main building with its ten or fifteen bedrooms, each of which was more beautifully decorated than the one before. A little gushing over the decor was in order, and our guide explained how the lady of the house did all of the rooms herself, and didn't she do an incredible job?

Well, I was impressed. She made all of those pillows? And duvet covers? And curtains? And painted those walls? And then it dawned on me. "Doing it herself" meant that she had chosen the furniture and fabrics and paint. Perhaps she had a decorator at her side, or perhaps she roughed it and looked through paint and fabric samples on her own.  But labor-wise, not so much. It was clear we lived in different universes, and our definition of "do it yourself" was only one of the differences.

 
I think about that now, because when I'm stripping wallpaper and painting walls and unscrewing hardware, there's a lot of time to think about things. I am so intent on doing this project all by myself. Even the parts that would be easier if I had somebody to help me do, like hang the cupboard doors. (Although if and when it comes to flooring and countertops, I'm definitely getting Mr. Oodles involved.) Possibly because at this point in my life, my weeks seem to be consumed with getting hundreds of little things done, and those big, satisfying projects seem few and far between. I think most people's lives work that way.

There are horse-show ribbon photos in this post because they're the only photos I've got at the moment, and they're indirectly related to my project. I decided at some point as well that I wanted to earn all of the money for the makeover. So I look at things I have hidden away in boxes and drawers, like the horse-show ribbons, and think, yes, I do like you. But I'd like a freshly painted dining room more. And so I sell them on eBay.  

This has had the dual benefit of providing cash and making space. This post is getting long, so I'll reveal my complicated, daring business plan soon. It's back to work for me. Those cupboards aren't going to paint themselves. And I'm not going to get anyone else to do the work for me.

  
 

Slow going

 
This whole renovation thing is not going the way I thought it would. I knew it would be a lot of work, and often tedious, but I thought that every few days, I would be able to see progress. Something adorable would emerge, and I would show it to you.

Right now - and possibly for the rest of the year, I really don't know - I am painting my white kitchen cupboards. I'm painting them white. This is not terribly satisfying. And because I'm sanding them, washing them with TSP, priming them and giving them two coats of enamel, it's taking a l-o-n-g time. Also, there's that whole part where you have to take everything out of the cupboards and put it somewhere while you paint.

 
For example, in the only recently adorable dining room.

 
Since the Swanky Swig display area was being painted, the opportunity to take inventory arose. If you have to ask yourself whether I really arranged them by color and pattern and lined them up neatly when I only was moving them to paint, you must not know me very well. (Re the inventory: 40.)

I wanted to respond to some of your comments on my last post - thanks for the little Hoosier love, and for appreciating the pileated woodpecker. He was so pleased that he invited a friend over this week. I didn't take a photo of the two of them, though. Nothing drains the life out of a blog like pileated-woodpecker overload.

 
Because I couldn't stand the thought of painting just cupboards, I pulled out a few yard-sale treasures to be painted. They all were going to be painted white, except for that wee wooden handle on the carrier. (By the way, ignore that patch of bare ground in the yard. That is so day before yesterday. You may have heard that parts of upstate New York got two feet of snow on Sunday. We were fortunate and got only ten inches.)

 
By the time I got around to painting the stool, I really could not bear the thought of looking at any more white. So, as you can see, it is not white.

 
And even though the carrier didn't get a lot of paint, it's got plenty of color.