These sorts of little abandoned homes tug at my heartstrings and I could spend hours on end sitting and imagining the dreams and hopes and heartaches that might have gone on indoors and out. Spring has softened the features of this house and I admit to complete cowardice and not getting out of the car to peer into those open windows though I did long to do so!
Yesterday I treated myself to a dine-in lunch at a fast food fish place. The food was hot and delicious but I found it even better because of the excellent service. The staff were friendly, busy, and super courteous. I hate to say it but these days it's hard to get both good food and good service in one experience so I was especially pleased and thanked them all before I left.
On my way home I decided to go into the local 'antiques' place. I use the word loosely. There are antiques in the place but mostly there are lots and lots of things in rough groupings and most of it is hardly worth the bother of looking through. I went in solely because I'd read this week's ad in our local paper and there was a word that caught my eye, "books". Enough said, right? I found three books that I thought should make their home with me. One I bought solely for silly sentimentality. The book bore the inscribed name of a young lady and the date, 1918. As well, she'd pasted her bookplate in the front of the book. There's also a lovely colorplate rendition of the heroine of the book inside the cover. The publisher's date is 1918 and the book bears an Atlanta bookstore's label. I am sure this book must have been bought on a trip to Atlanta by the former owner, and she perhaps rode home on the train which ran between towns at that time. I can just see her getting off at one of the small local depots, which are truly lovely buildings (our own is now the public library and the next town over houses the offices of a tire repair/construction office. The book is by Mrs. Humphry Ward and is titled Elizabeth's Campaign.
A second book in not such good shape but by a favored author and being a title I've never read was picked up as well: Faith Baldwin's Office Wife. And a third book in better shape by a favorite author and a favorite title as well, D. E. Stevenson's Miss Buncle's Book.
I am truly not so keen on this shop because of the absolute clutter within but I love the man's ads in the local paper. He writes funny little things about different items. For instance, he has a huge selection of jukeboxes (which he repairs) and a recent ad stated, "Great jukebox. Only played on Sundays by a little old lady, after church." I laugh over his ads every single week.
I wandered down the street to his wife's shop, which is dubbed "The Flea Market" but is on the same order as the typical Antiques Mall so popular now where sellers rent space and offer up their items. I saw lots of interesting things. Like these:
Primitive items, aka hand-made, seemed to abound in the flea market. Aren't these two milking stools cute? Square headed nails on the larger one and the wee one has legs carved from a branch.
I'm seriously thinking I may go back and see if this mixer is in working order. It was marked just $22 and has the two original bowls with it.
This little pitcher has been in the store for quite awhile. I am contemplating it, too...I seem to be leaning towards brown transferware these days.
This old Dutch oven caught my eye because it's a true fireplace cookery piece. There are three legs on the bottom of the pan and I just bet this is a real antique. I didn't even look at the price, because I didn't think I needed it.
Isn't this set of American Tourister luggage just the most fab thing? I used to want a nice set of luggage such as this when I was growing up. It seemed to me the epitome of glamour girl chic. I adore that round train case. Sigh. I am telling you this luggage was a hard thing to walk away from!
Those are the things I looked at. What did I buy? Two more books, modern day things. One by Mameve Medwed and the other by Jennifer Weiner. And these lovely pillowslips which were just $1:
Today I've been a bit busy within the house. First thing this morning, I stripped my bed and loaded up those and the towels to wash. And then, before I even had my second cup of coffee or my breakfast, I began this project:
That was just a couple of coats of paint. The color is called "Apple a Day" and the finished product is a lovely deep tone of red, sort of like a Red Delicious apple. I've had the paint forever. I put another couple of coats of paint on it after I took the photo. Truth time: I'll have to put on another coat or two as well, but I wanted to let it have time to dry all afternoon long so we can close it tonight.
In between coats of paint, I washed and dried bed linens and towels, made up an old fashioned German dish called Remoulade which is a braised round steak rolled up with dill pickle, sliced onion and bacon (I used turkey bacon) and then simmered over low heat. While that simmered I made a banana cream pie. I've been hungry for banana cream pie for a month.
And there were other odd jobs, fun ones and work ones, to be taken care of today as well. Now I'm calling this day done. I have been busy for hours. I want to be relaxed when Chance comes in from work. I think a cup of coffee is the perfect way to end this weekend, don't you?
5 comments:
Love the color of your door! Lovely pillowslips. I can't say that it matches your bedroom decor because I've never seen it. *hint, hint* :)
your door paint is beautiful, and I thought I remembered you buying the paint awhile back. You did a great job. It will look nice all year but won't it especially be nice with a patriotic decoration or a Christmas wreath too?
I am also a big fan of embroidered pillow cases or "slips" as I remember ladies used to call them.
So how much was that piece of Pyrex? I have 3 that same size and shape and use them so often, it just right for leftovers or a small casserole. Jimmy was in an antique mall in OKC over the weekend, he said they had lots of Pyrex and it was expensive. And he has a higher price of what he thinks is expensive than I do.
PS I forgot to add that the bird picture is just lovely! I would love to have a real print of it.
hope you are having a good Monday
Love the color of your door! I love old houses like the one you show. I think of the same thing and always wish I could fix them up to their former glory. The pillowslips were a great find! I just love them.
I'm so glad I saw this post before I bought paint for our back door. We are in the process of replacing our old, blue Masonite siding with log siding. We had the roof replaced last summer with dark green shingles and the first story of the house is made of native stone. Our back door looks awful and we had talked about replacing it. However, we've decided that for now we will just repaint it. I was thinking dark green but after seeing this red door I've changed my mind. Now I just need to find out if David agrees. ;)
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