Oh I'd Love to Paint Those V-Matched Wall Boards

Those of you who've been reading this week know that I have been spending some time at the Country Living Living Room Gallery where I have been looking at lots of spaces trying to come

closer to my own current desires. Much of what I have was dictated by former homes, rooms, and colors.

If you read yesterday's post, you can see the wood planked walls that I have throughout my dining room, living room, and part of my kitchen. All the ceilings are also in this planking throughout and just as I suspected that it would do, it is darkening. I don't like darkening. I'm afraid that soon it will look like this.

When it could look more like this...

not that I'm a lover of white particularly, but it sure brightened up the space.

So these are some rooms I enjoyed, including the first at the top. Again, the first was too much white, but there are so many things I like about it. The furniture, the old tool box as a coffee table (mine's black), the eclectic collection of wall art, etc.

And I also like this room. Hmmmm, strange, because it is dark again. Perhaps it is the bright yellow door or maybe it is the wall of books or maybe it's the furniture or is it the threadbare carpet? Whatever it is, it isn't quite it.

Then there's this number...bright, cheerful, and with my favorite color yellow very prominent. Perhaps this lets me know that I like lots of color. I really do. There's no sense in denying that any longer.

Then I found it! A room where I love nearly every little thing about it. The warmth, the coziness, the color of the walls (well perhaps a titch lighter), the furniture, the reds, the golden hues, the hard wood floors.

Those curtains have to go, but other than that... So what have I learned? Mostly I've learned that rooms that have charmed me from ages and ages ago are still with me. Perhaps I just haven't grown up.

Thanks for looking! Have a great Friday...

Puttering Kind of Day

It's been one of those days where I have been puttering around the house looking at things with a critical eye and thinking what I might be able to do today without painting and without changing things too drastically.

After feeling like a slug for over two weeks, I finally feel like doing something, but that something doesn't include messing things all up. More that it means putting things back together again. As we all know, things do not improve with time without an outside hand (contrary to what all those evolutionists think).

So the one little thing I changed was the shelf over the tv where I took down everything that had been there and gathered my oil lamps and slapped them up instead.

I was taking a cue from Penny @The Comforts of Home who recently disguised her tv by adding pictures to the wall all around it. Did you miss it as I first did? You can take a peek right *here.*

Goodness knows that I've been wailing about my tv and it's nowhere near the size of hers. What do you think? Do my lamps disguise it any? LOL!

Lil's House

The strangest thing happened to me as I was browsing through Country Living's Living Room Gallery last night. Up popped this picture, which tossed me back to the late 50s and early 60s when my great-grandmother's cousin was still living in the shabby home of her childhood directly across the street from my great-grandmother's home. (I've written about my great-grandmother's home ages ago *here.*  ) This is enough of a likeness to remind me of Lil's Federally styled home and those quaint rooms all filled with treasures from the Victorian era. Even the walls and ceilings looked much this way as the house fell into disrepair.

Lil was bedridden at the time and probably well into her 90s. My great-grandmother, in her 80s herself, was Lil's caregiver taking her three square meals a day and probably doing light cleaning and perhaps personal care as well.

We visited Lil whenever we were in town. She had treats on a table beside her bed for such occasions...shortbread cookies with marshmallow toppings covered in coconut. It was like having tea using someone's bed as the dining table.

Lil had married, but never had any children. Now I find myself wondering if having all my great-grandmother's grands and great-grands about ever tried her patience. I don't think so. She had many stories to tell and I remember her telling one about her father who traded rifles with the Indians. In the winter when it was cold, he allowed them to sleep in the house. Lil found it delightful to tiptoe around sleeping Indians to get through the parlor to the dining room for breakfast. Now I find myself wondering what Lil's father was getting in return for the rifles.

The front door to Lil's house was a Palladian style window with either one or two side windows along the door. The front hall was small with a curving staircase to the left. On either side of the front hall were parlors. The one on the right was used for Lil's bedroom in the years that I knew her. Directly behind the parlors were the dining room on the left connecting with the parlor on that side and the old-fashioned kitchen on the right. Behind the kitchen was the shed, which connected to the barn beyond and behind and all around the back of the house were apple orchards.

Those apple orchards were wonderful places to play Hide n' Seek with all of us cousins running wild through the evening shrieking and having great fun. I wonder what Lil thought of all that. I hope that we weren't too loud.

The house was literally falling down around Lil. It was sad even for a young child to see for I certainly did understand that it wasn't good. Eventually Lil passed away and the house sat there looking forlorn for years. What my parents didn't know was that I was a regular visitor there. I used to slip in through the back shed door and wander about through those rooms even going upstairs where I had been strictly forbidden to go. I remember that there was a bedroom with a hole in the floor where I could look right down to the room below. In that bedroom were old books strewn about. I vaguely remember some hymnbooks that my mother gathered up once. There was also an old trunk filled with ancient clothes.

Oh yes, I've had an interesting wander down Memory Lane...

Edited to Add 8/26/2010: Answers to some questions have been given in comments...look for Vee. :D

My Father Says...

In light of all that is going on in the United States these days, the controversy that swirls around the building of a mosque near Ground Zero in NYC, the enormous financial challenges that many of us are facing because of various decisions made in the political arena concerning mortgages, credit cards, and loss of income, I thought that I would discuss tolerance today. In addition, there are a number of personal family matters in my private life that require a decision about being tolerant (or not), and on and on it goes. Anyway,  I'm going to share a family story concerning tolerance without actually connecting the dots. I'll leave that for you to do in your own way and following the dictates of your own heart.

Now, if I've told this story before, please forgive me. I'm getting old and forgetful.

When my son was eight years old, he and my daughter were attending a private Christian school where I also taught. Unbeknownst to me, he was struggling every recess with an overzealous classmate. This classmate was a big bear of a boy who would literally pick my son up, twirl him around, and, as if that weren't enough humiliation, he'd plant a big kiss on my son's lips. Of course, then all the other children would laugh. No playground teacher ever addressed it.

At long last, I did find out what was going on and had a talk with the young man's parents, both of whom were also teachers at the school. Anyway, they both assured me that their son didn't mean anything by it. He was just a big, lovable lug. I told them that since it was bothering my son that their lovable lug needed to cut it out.

Still no action. None. Every day the same story. I tried to be longsuffering and I tried also to encourage longsuffering in my son. Wrong choice. Totally.

One evening, my son was sitting with his head down at the supper table and his dad asked him what the trouble was. The story spilled out and his father listened carefully.

"This is what I want you to do tomorrow" my husband said. "When you see him coming, tell him that you have your father's permission to punch his lights out."

I'm pretty certain that my head spun, but I didn't say too much as I recognized the wisdom of the plan. It proved to be the end of the story. It happened just once. All my son had to do was invoke the name of his father. He didn't even have to punch out the lovable lug's lights. The mere knowledge that my son wasn't going to tolerate being twirled and kissed any longer and that he had his father's permission not to tolerate it were all that was needed. Oh happy day!

Sometimes I think more of us have to get to this place. I think we might be surprised by what our heavenly Father doesn't want us tolerating in the first place. You might try asking Him. I know that I do and often.

Around the House~Mosaic Monday

Hi! My outlook has been pretty myopic lately with being under the weather and all so thought that I'd show you a few things around the house. I've had plenty of time to observe it all that's for sure. 

If you have time for curiosity, I've numbered each photo and told what it is; otherwise, please visit Mary at Little Red House for more fun mosaics.

 
1. a vignette created in a birdbath using my grandmother's silver-plated pitcher, her childhood books, and her hiking boots
 
2.  a rack of platters and plates
 
3. an old dressser scarf tossed over a dark chair in a dark corner
 
4. a real nest with real Scrabble pieces spelling N E S T and a paper bird from Quill Cottage (Miss Sandy has a link to her tutorial in her sidebar.)
 
5. a vintage window filled with vintage images from The Feathered Nest (Dawn also has links to tutorials on her sidebar.)
 
6. a pink conch shell collected in Florida
 
7. an acrylic painting I love
 
8. an apple branch hanging over the kitchen sink in lieu of a curtain
 
9. a gift from my sister-in-law... a vintage wildflower book...thanks, JP!
 
10. a hand cut stencil done by a company in Oklahoma, which I've long forgotten
 
11. a collected hornet's nest hanging from the ledge

Still Chillin'

"When you don't know what to do—
WAIT! God never panics and
is never under pressure."
~Roy Lessin

Wait on the Lord: be of good courage,
and He shall strengthen thine heart:
wait, I say, on the Lord.
~Psalms 27:14

Nil Desperandum...never despair!