I'm Getting Sentimental Over You

Valentine's Day is almost here so I thought I'd join in on the V-day blogging.  Here are a few little ditties that I found while perusing a quaint little antique shop a few weekends ago.  I'm not one to do much decorating for Valentine's Day as I don't really go for the cutesy, cuddly, heart stuff.  However, find me some vintage cards, tins and records and I'm there!  The prices on these antiquated items were better than my local thrift store, so you can imagine my intense desire to... 

"squeal with delight"!!!

but I didn't  (sigh)

I held my potential outburst to myself, remained calm, nonchalant and paid the nice lady the ridiculous low price that was asked.  Ok, so without being overly verbose, let's get on with the "finds" for my decor.

 

The 45 rpm record in the background was a steal bargain for $.50.  This is one of 3 that was in the window display that she so graciously dismantled for me.  That's $1.50 for three old 45's!

The cookie cutters are from my stock acquired from the estate of dh's grandma.

The tins in the foreground were $3.50 each!  I LOVE the graphics...cute huh!?  The OXO cubes were bouillon for soup stock made in England.   The first cubes went into production in 1910.  Here's an advertisement for them way back when and how they're packaged today.  The cube is a little "x", isn't that sweet!?

Anywoo....here's a little vignette that I pulled together for your enjoyment...

Pay no attention to that man thing behind the curtain hanging out behind the lamp...I guess I could have removed it before taking the pic...oh well.

Here's another staging with the "hugs n kisses" box...it is just too stinkin' cute, dontcha think?!

If you can't read the song titles, here they are in clockwise order:
"Temptation" , "Two Hot for Love", and "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You"
The titles and the color of the records was just "too cool for school" if you know what I mean.  Not only that but the "Temptation" record is sung by that hot American-Italian tenor, Mario Lanza.  He would have been the same age as my dad, if he was still alive.  He was the Josh Groban of the 1940-50's.  I don't know about you, and maybe it's because my dad had a nice tenor voice, but tenors just give me goose bumples.  We had a Placido Domingo song sung at our wedding some twenty-something years ago.  But hey, I'm rambling on here. (sorry)


I also found two sweet little Valentine cards that I have slipped in the edge of my hoosier door.  The graphics & colors of the cards were so great back then. 

 

 Do you love the vintage as much as I do?

Happy Valentines Day to my blogging buds!

~ judi ;)

 

Under Construction

Please bear with me as I revamp my blog background.  This blogging business is all new to me and I have decided I want something that's more 'me'.  So, if you happen to see that my blog has changed 10-20 times in the next few days...you'll know why!  

I got excited today when I learned to "LinkWithin".  This html/java is a new language to me, and when I finally understand it, I will be doing the happy dance!

Thanks for being patient.  ~judi ;)

Kitchen Remodel Part 2

As part of a series, here is Part 2 of The 1829 Farmhouse kitchen project.   This project was started in October 2008 and finished December 2009.  This is our journey.

Here is our carpenter removing the ugly retro pink-speckled counters, 

backsplash and end cupboards 

Our carpenter, Ed, had the toughest time pulling out the end base cupboards as they were built onto the subfloor.  He also removed the huge cast iron sink.  We were originally going to have the sink resurfaced but after some advice decided against it.  The metal trim around the edge of the sink must be carefully removed and it doesn't always go back in correctly.  

Not so bad...we were able to get a black e-granite deep & wide (reminds me of a sunday school song) sink to take its place. LOVE it! (stay tuned for those pics)

Here is the kitchen with ugly retro pink-speckled countertop and backsplash removed. 

  (can you hear the clouds parting and the angels singing?)

Th picture above was taken 12 hours before the hot water turn-off valve decided to spring a leak sometime during the night. (the rubber gasket had a pin-size hole in it)  We awoke Sunday morn to smoke alarms going off around 6am.  This was  a bit of a heart thumper to say the least.  We cleared the cobwebs out of our sleepy heads, gathered our thoughts and realized it wasn't a fire but water hissing.   We carefully opened the stairway door to find that our first floor had  been remodeled into a sauna, which wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't needed a kitchen, diningroom & livingroom!  It was like old faithful had taken up residence in our kitchen.

 

Can you see the bucket in lower left corner of pic?  It was filled with water that covered several power tools left by our carpenter.  After the clean-up company came in and dried everything out, they were still working!  Just amazing.

Steam bubbled up paint overhead near the ceiling

Needless, to say, this put our deadline back another week and right before Christmas.

But with ...

"Every adversity, failure, heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit."

~Napoleon Hill

The mess (thankfully) was covered by insurance, required that a portion of the hideous vintage linoleum flooring be removed which in turn led to our beautiful wooden floors (that were lying underneath).

This isn't the recommended way of doing things but alas we didn't have any say in this part of the remodel!

So until next post...