Shutters

We finished this project a while back but I've only now gotten around to taking a photo!  One is missing a slat, but we weren't sure how to reproduce it so we decided it added character :D .  Obviously there is some painting that needs to be finished, but here are the closets I dreamed up and Mr Eclectic built complete with the shutters I painted:

Christmas is coming to the Cottage!

We spent a little time dragging out some of the decorations this week.  The big tree isn't up in the living room yet, but we decorated the dining room and the LAUNDRY ROOM! Yup, the laundry room is (sort of) done.  We still need to do trim work, but the floor (BRICK!!), drywall, wallpaper and beadboard are all up.  Our old tree from our Old House found a home in a corner in there for the holidays, next to a vintage Poloron cooler that doubles as storage.

Here is the dining room decorated for Christmas, 2013:

And the laundry room!

We weren't sure how the brick would perform as a floor in a laundry/mud room.  The dog comes in and out through the room, and we use it as a main door as well.  We found it works perfect!  It looks fantastic and if it gets muddy, you just let it dry then sweep it up or vacuum it.

Curb Find Redo

Found this at the curb so we brought it home to refresh it.  It doesn't really fit in here, so we'll probably sell it.  But it was a fun project!

It was missing one of the drawer pulls and the finish was worn.

Here we go!  I forgot to take pics before I started filling the holes where the original pulls were.

The garden, 2013

Here we are, year #3 (really #2).  Crazy weather-lots of rain and now HOT HOT HOT!

Here are the photos of "before"(year #1), last year (year #2) and this year(year#3)-all about the same time of the year-mid July.

The stone border is still there, but we hadn't trimmed when I took this photo.  Oops.

The "new cottage" and some garden photos

Well, we ended up renting the "new cottage" (our old house) before we even finished it!  Friends of ours lost their lease and wanted it.  With their help we got it done JUST in time-but they moved in so I don't have final photos of it.  Maybe one day we'll buy another place and I can post pics of that one, lol.

So, back to the Cottage!

Some garden photos from this year:

White Feather Hosta (already greening up, we got this at a plant swap so we'll have to wait until next spring to see it in the white stage), a Begonia and an old lantern:

One little white leaf:

A little "pond" in the hosta bed, made from an upside down garbage can lid and stones:

A Cameo hosta, a mini:

And this isn't in the garden-FINALLY getting the shutters painted for the bedroom closet doors!!

Before:

During:

After:

Comparison between one I haven't painted yet and the one I have:

I used a dry brush technique just like the chairs I had posted about before.  It's taking a while, but I LOVE the end result.  We are going to need to put something else on them, they are SO dry.  I'm pondering tung oil, but I am worried it won't absorb enough and might get into the clothes.  I know it's used on milk paint as a sealer for furniture but if I put it on and it doesn't absorb I'm not sure how I'd get it back off!  I have time though, it's supposed to rain again for the next few days so it's going to be at least a week before these are finished.

More destruction!

More drywall has bit the dust...and made enough of it's own!

We are gutting all of the drywall out of the first floor.  The house had blown in *cringe* when we bought it.  Well, blown in can't get into cavities when someone puts a random block in between the studs.  Also, it stinks.  Literally.  And we never could quite get rid of the smell when we lived there.  It's just incredibly messy to get rid of, and not really something you can do when living in a place.  You'll see as I post pics!

I promise it didn't look like this when we lived here.

You'll see a shadow on the bottom of the drywall where the old baseboard was.  This was actually covered when we bought it, there was an additional layer of drywall on top of it and the baseboards were long gone.

This is the wallpaper that was there in the hall when we bought the house.  I had hoped never to see it again! But a little survived-until now!  Imagine a whole wall of it...

A new Cottage!

Well, not really. We are starting to renovate our old house. Yup, our Old House. See, way back when we were 19 and 21, we bought our first house. We didn't sell it when we bought the Cottage, we decided to keep it and use it as a rental. Actually, when we bought the Cottage, we were supposed to use IT as a rental and live in the Old House, at least for a few years. THAT obviously didn't work!

I'll have to find old pics of the place for befores, they are pre-digital. However, here are a few in process pics.

Living Room:

 
Hallway:










Can you believe they filled an outlet box with drywall compound?!



I can't believe that the house never burned down.  A few years after we bought it, we had all new electric put in.  This was old knob and tube that was originally there.

This leads into an exterior chimney.  This was buried in the wall, with a little drywall in it.  When we bought the house, there was a gravity heater in the floor, that was hooked to the same chimney.  Yes, venting into a chimney with a hole that lead into the wall.  We used the gravity heater for about 2 years.  This WILL be fixed.

Ok, I'm playing online here

So, this really has nothing to do with the Cottage, except I like tractors and found this to look at
tractor art and I'm going to admit that I'm going to post more links to stuff there. This is too much fun right now. Like this, which is obviously close to our hearts, living on the lake like we do an all... (I could live with a few less Toronto images though, lol, I want to see the LAKE) lake ontario art

A sunny day on the lake

Not much going on here at the Cottage lately, the weather, like most of the country, has been chilly to say the least.  The wood stove has been doing its job keeping us nice and warm here, thanks to our stacks of wood.  Today I was sitting on the couch looking at the lake and thought this would be a nice image to share.  So, here's a view of the wood stack by the door and the lake beyond!

Antique Wagner Cast Iron Waffle Maker

I bought this for Mr Eclectic this past Christmas.  It has copyright 1910 on it, still needs some seasoning on the outside.  I bought him this one in particular because it has the "high base" for using it on gas stoves.  We made waffles this morning!