Bumblebriar

This weeks project: is my Craft Sanctuary, possibly a Sitching Lounge – lovely sounding words aren’t they?  So much better than junk room which is what it looks like today, filled with so many unfinished projects (more like unstarted projects).  

This week I start to put things into motion to make it real as best I can between real jobs and this wish book activity.  I picked up this great table at Goodwill over the weekend for a whopping $10.  I was even willing to pay the $19.99 it was marked but I lucked out and it was 50% off.  It’s a typical farm table, with black legs painted legs and a pine top.  After our 5000 sq ft of hardwood floors we refinished – this is going to be a piece of cake.  I’ve even tried out the lifts for the legs to make it counter height and they fit perfectly!  Love it.  An easy conversion is to use those bed lifts you find at target or anywhere to lift a twin bed and give it some storage height.  They are also the perfect height to lift a small table making it counter height.  I like this solution better so I don’t permanently ugly up some perfectly good legs.  This will let me use the table other places and for other things when I need it, I just have to be sure not to lean or push too hard.

More pictures to come as it progresses.

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We had a couple walls that had some water damage.  The water damage created a unique situation where as the walls are concrete/plaster mix and lathe, covered with a brown coat then a smooth plaster(lime) coat then paint (I did a lot of reading on sites like this historic home preservation, which by the way was an overall great source to learn about the home I am in –  a great read and source of info).   The water, from an upstairs bathroom, mostly drained down between the walls all the way to the basement, but a good amount – or enough, soaked to the surface and separated the brown coat from the very thin plaster coat and it came off in sheets.  Fortunately the source of the leak was corrected, but the damage remained and the homeowners didn’t know what to do, so they left it.

As we were painting and cleaning, it seemed to be unnoticed for a while until we started cleaning the walls and the plaster sheets just came off.  To clean it up you have to keep peeling it away until it stops, and for a horrific amount of time and distance, it didn’t appear to stop.  We got the surface cleaned up, and had to clean off the brown coat down to the plaster/concrete walls, to prep the walls for a smooth finish again.   After a lot of scraping, cleaning, vacuuming and sweeping it up, we had a clean surface to work with.  then in reverse, we smoothed on the plaster (goes on pink – dries white, when it’s ready to sand).  We sanded, swept, vacuumed and repeated, about 2 times to be sure all the areas had a good coating, sanded smooth and sealed.

Then we painted about 2 coats of good quality primer sealer, drying between each.  Only then could we apply the finish paint.  Taking the time for all the steps before, painting was the easiest part.  And we call it success!  I can tell where my work and the craftsmen of old work meet, but I don’t have to point it out to anyone.  I am happy with it and know that it won’t be flaking off anytime soon.

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I found the chandelier of my dreams at Potterybarn.com.  Expensive, yes!  but finally I found a very reasonable facsimile over at Overstock.com – so similar I’m sure it’s done in the same factory overseas.

A few differences: the candle sticks have an orange look, the pin assembly for the crystals is with wire pins and not screws and I noted the electrical wire is white.  But for a difference of over $180, I can work around the things I don’t like.  Having combed through the reviews I can see that others had the same issues and worked around them.  Many spray painted the candle sticks to a lighter color – I can do that.  And others either painted over or used a perm marker to color the pins.  Assembly is the same, that being tedious, but possible.  I assume as well since I have to assemble the hard wiring, I can swap the power cord out for a darker cord.   I even save 10% by being a new customer on Overstock and got free shipping.

So I hit the “purchase” button and await it’s arrival.  I’ll post again when it is received and put it together, hanging in my dining room.

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An interesting thing happened one night.  Yes, 1 night before we moved in, after we had refinished the floors, painted walls and got the house in shape enough to move in.  We showed up to find the sidewalk had been barricaded.

A letter was posted to the barricade, with the previous owners named redacted with a black marker, but clearly articulating a “trip hazard” or two had been reported and requesting contact to fix the said trip hazard or else….  Obvious no one had contacted them, infact it went ignored, passing it off to us.  It of course didn’t say what the or else was, but clearly the city would come and fix the trip hazard at a probably at something above the going rate. 

So the next morning I called and found a very helpful gentleman, who quickly came over to explain the issues.  He was very cooperative and understood we were just moving in.  He was very flexible at how the sidewalk needed to be fixed, which was basically a quick cut, pry up the bad and poor down the new, but at a smooth transition from one section to other so there was no trip hazards.    He gave me an extension of about 2 months, but asked that I keep him updated, but the barricades must remain til it was fixed. 

Well we let it got a couple weeks, but it’s a pain to have the sidewalks barricaded.  people then walk through your yard, get mad, kick at the barricades (like they thought I put them there).  We have some great friends who had experience with sawing concrete and understood what to do.  And who else was helpful?  that’s right, Home Depot, went there and rented a concrete saw, and a blade.  They showed us how to use it and how to make the job quick and easy.  We initially had been set up with some wafer type blades, but when we went out the door he realized that they weren’t the right size and he put a diamond blade on it for us at no extra charge.  We were not good at estimating resources, because we grossly missed the amount of quickcrete we needed and had to make 2 additional trips to get the right amount.  But if that’s the worst of our problems, we are pretty lucky.

It was a relatively clear day, not a downpour, but dry enough for us to pour the quickcrete and cover it with plastic so it could cure over the weekend.

I tell you, the saw cut like butter, he scored it, then cut again likety split.  The long work with prying it up.  We didn’t have a long enough pry bar to get all the leverage needed, but our friend headed to his shop and had a long metal pole that did the job.  We put our teenager to work chipping at the blocks to come up.  I figure those types of experiences are good so they have just enough pain to realize, that’s not what they want to do for the rest of their lives.  Call it motivation to stay in school and get a quality education so you don’t have to do things like that when you grow up.

A bit of bender board and as I mentioned 2 trips to Home Depot for quickcrete and sidewalk was mended.  The trip hazard eliminated.  The city was good about coming out on that Monday to pick up the barricades and you would never know there was one.    A job well done by everyone and so glad this project is behind us.

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This summer I had the opportunity to head south to Corvallis and visit my sister – yes we love to visit, the kids love to visit – but I wanted to learn from her how she made and canned her Marionberry Pie filling.   I got a jar from her last year and it was delicious to say the least, it was clear not milky white and a perfect consistency.  I wanted more, my own this year.

I had some idea that it was some highly complex and complicated process, there would be lots of notes to take, facts and figures to memorize.  Boy was I wrong.   Talk about easy – this was the epitome of easy canning – just my style.  We lived in a canning household as kids – each summer there was tons of canning, all kinds and such a fevered pitch to it as though our lives depended on it, and I suspect it probably was for my parents budget with 8 kids.  I didn’t appreciate that at the time I guess.  But every canning project required so much work from picking sufficient quantities to feed an army, the boiling water on the hot hot days, peeling or scalding and slipping skins, slicing and dicing to get it all right.  I like to can today, but I am selective on what I do.  There is a financial equation as well, sometimes a good sale on peaches is as good as the cost of materials, time and energy of canning my own.

But back to blackberry pie filling and welcome to the new millennium with great farmers markets that bring the produce to me – ready picked and fantastic products like clear-Jel A – a modified food starch.  The process that my sister laid out was as easy as water (or juice), clear-jel, sugar in appropriate quantities, brought to a boil, add my significant quantities of fruit, voila – almost done.  Ladle them into jars, apply lids and rings, waterbath process for 30 min.  and you have Pie Filling.  I was able to get about 24 jars of Marionberry and Razzleberry (marion and raspeberry mix) in our first teaching session.  I only had 3 jars not seal – found out too late and had to toss them, bummer.  But gave about 9 jars out to friends and family that we visited on the road so far this summer – they are great gifts.  So I was feeling selfish and wishing I had some more on hand.  But where would I find Marionberries?  Enter the Farmers Market in Hillsboro!  I got a full flat (6 quarts) of blackberries last weekend and put up about 10 jars of blackberry pie filling – Awesomeness !  I just love to look at the jars and can’t wait to dig into them this winter!  My next try will be the clear-jel A and apples for apple pie filling, I need to get busy!

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Well it doesn’t take long for me to move onto the next thing. Tree is already put away, along with all the ornaments and the low flying holiday decorations.  The larger stuff will be gone soon enough.  I’m already thinking about 2009 and what goals I need to establish and how I set my plans into motion.  Already looking at seed sites.  I am particularly interested in heirloom seeds, a great site is http://smub.it/marygall/heirloom.seeds in Molalla Oregon, not very far from home, but I was very pleased with the seeds I got last year and I’ve ordered several great varieties for this year.

In particular, I’m looking forward to planting the “Cinderella Pumpkins” for this fall.  I’ve already warned Tony about my plans for the entire yard, so he has fair warning. 

I now need to get thinking about what needs to happen to the raised beds and other garden areas.  I’m thinking plenty of Chicken Manure to get the soil heated up.  My biggest plans need to be about getting rid of those pesky gophers, they are gonners this year!