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25 June 2006
There, That's Done
 We have both James' hobby room curtains up and a shade on the window where the sun comes in during the afternoon. The other room faces east and really doesn't need a shade, especially since the curtains are insulated. It's always amazing to see what a difference curtains make; the room looks more cohesive and complete.It also doesn't echo as much. :-) I tried to find aircraft curtains for him, but all I could find were ones made for very small children, with "Jay-Jay the Jet Plane" type cartoon-y planes on them. I would think there would be ones with jets or even commercial aircraft on them for adolescents or adults who like airplanes.  One More Pic
Here's the Expedit doing its room-dividing duties, from the dining room side, full of cookbooks and games for a Games' Night.I don't like having the knicknacks lined up on top like that, but I haven't found a good shadow box for them yet.  24 June 2006
Pictures, We Got Pictures
Autumn things on the divider overlooking the foyer; see where we hung the America poster? Here is the seashore summer theme in the foyer. You can also see the Autumn Angel I was raving about last week, with her oak leaf wings.  The plain old fan in the library...  ...has a different perspective when it's dark! (Looks like a UFO, doesn't it, with those reflections on the ceiling?) Dig that purple afterglow!  Here's James' fan. He wants to paint the tips of the blades yellow like a standard propellor warning mark.  Thunderstorm over the complex:  Here's Ivy the lamb holding the flag until we get the flag mount put up. She's named after the song...you know, "Mairzy doats..."  With the foyer light on you can see the glass painted leaves around the door a little better. (Sorry it's grainy; it was dusk out.)  21 June 2006
"Round-round, Get-Around, We Get Around..."
I had forgotten to mention that on Saturday night James installed the two ceiling fans downstairs.The fan in the library is just your plain garden variety ceiling fan with light kit, the least expensive that Lowe's sells (this is the one they don't put on display because they want you to buy the fancier ones <g>), three speed reversible for winter, white-or-woodgrain blades depending on which side faces down, simple dome light. I went downstairs to see what he was doing and ended up helping with the blades; everything else went very well and it works perfectly from the switch on the wall. Ironically he had an easier time installing the more complicated fan, the double-fan airplane-looking arrangement in his room. The standard fan has to be installed in order and the blades assembled after you've done all the wiring. You can put together this fan "on the ground," as it were, and then hang it, and then do the wiring. The fan worked fine but the light didn't come on. James checked the wiring twice and then took a closer look at the little halogen bulb. It was broken out of the box! So that means another trip to Lowe's. Can't keep away from that place. In any case, this means unless we are actively having people downstairs we can keep from turning the A/C on there. Even when it's been as warm as it's been it stays about 75°F down there; it's just that the air doesn't circulate without the fans and it gets stuffy. The two bedrooms are perfectly ventilated via the A/C right now, so I expect we do not need to install the ceiling fans there until we go back on open windows in the fall, unless James just wants to get them out of the way. Speaking of "around," I have rotated the decorations in the foyer to reflect summer. It's a sea theme: a lighthouse centerpiece with a shell encrusted seahorse, a big conch shell full of smaller shells, a little wooden rowboat with "oars" and other accountrements, and a little sailboat on a spring bouncing above painted wooden waves. All we need is the scent of the ocean (and maybe some Del's lemonade and doughboys from Iggy's—alas, the lemon-lime soda from Warwick Club is long gone)... 17 June 2006
Leave Them Be!
O frabjous day! We walked into Hobby Lobby this evening and they had started to put their fall flowers out! I ran directly to a beautiful stem of autumn leaves and gave it a hug. They have some gorgeous tall stems of leaves, and also some tall stems with gourds, autumn berries, etc. About three of the leaves and at least one gourd stem in a tall vase with a substantial bottom so it won't tip over, and it will be perfect for the foyer.As we kept wandering around the store, it became obvious that they had been setting up for upcoming seasons. I passed several rows of Christmas greenery and then...got up to the front of the store where they had more autumn decorations, a couple of display towers with fall ornaments on them including wire and leaf-wrapped cornucopias. I fell in love with some of the wood ornaments and promptly bought one: an angel about eight inches high, painted blue with a painted garland of autumn leaves around her skirt; her wings are made of metal cutouts of oak leaves. She has a portrait stand in the back. There were also smaller angels dressed in red with the same oak leaf wings, a carved "autumn" sign, a basket of apples with painted autumn leaves around it, etc. I'll have to go back with more coupons and get some of these pretty things. I also bought a cute, small rowboat complete with a coil of "rope," two oars and two signal flags and a lobster pot under the seat. When I take down the spring decorations in the foyer I will have a seaside summer theme: the rowboat, a lighthouse, a large shell full of small ones, a seahorse made of shells, and a small wooden sailboat cutout that "bounds" over a cutout wave by means of a spring. 10 June 2006
St. Francis Tends His Menagerie
Our garden statue menagerie. I think this is enough.They mostly have literary names, but there are a couple of media entries:  Nibbles is the hero of Elizabeth Taylor's charming memoir about her pet chipmunk, Nibbles and Me. Maeterlinck...what else would you name a bluebird? Cinnabar is from Marguerite Henry's Cinnabar: the One O'Clock Fox. Samantha is from Friendly Persuasion. Pipkin is from Watership Down.  Yes, of course the sea monster is Cecil, as in Beany and.... Lindesfarne is from the comic strip Kevin and Kell. Fiver also from Watership Down. You can't see O'Dell too well. It's a cute resin statue of a Jack Russell terrier burrowing. Since he's a digging dog, I named him after the character on The Life of Riley radio series, "Digger" O'Dell. |
