Like Airplanes...

It's a funny feeling I get when I have purchased someone else's old things.  

cute little airplane, found covered in grime and other stuff, at an auction.

Especially at estate auctions, I imagine that this is what my life will be too, with all my stuff being on the block some day.

lamp from the thrift store

However, that doesn't stop me from going and just imagining what I could do with those things, and until the day comes that it is my stuff there, I will continue to enjoy playing with the bits and pieces of other peoples lives.
That seems a little creepy.  I try not to think about it too much, but every once in a while...

...the thought occurs to me and I get a funny little shiver.

So I try to just enjoy these things for what they are, things that someone else enjoyed for awhile and now can be enjoyed again.

Even so, I was a little sad to see this lamp go.  I will comfort myself with the thought that someone else will enjoy it for awhile and it will be, at least, one less thing at MY estate sale.

Have an abundant day!

Diana

THE laundry room door

I really like this door, and it's in our house!

It's the pocket door in the kitchen that goes to the laundry room - (obviously)

It used to be the 'front' door of the house.  My in laws had most of the original doors of our 1918 farmhouse stripped when they owned the farm and they are just too beautiful to throw out.  

When we renovated the front part of the house we planned on removing the closed in porch on the front of the house to replace it with an open veranda.  Since this door would no longer be "inside" the house we needed to replace it with one that was more weather tight.

There it is in its original location.  

There are not a whole lot of windows in our house so we want to take advantage of all the ones we have.  If we put a solid door in the laundry room we were going to lose all the light from the window in there when the door was closed, so we decided to reuse this door.  

However, it's a laundry room, so we wanted a way to block the view.

There is the door in place with the glass still clear, letting in all the light - and the view.

(how do you like our tin ceiling?  I'll post about that later)

My sister-in-law and brother own a sign company and I worked there, getting to know about the many vinyl products available, one of which is 'etched glass' vinyl.  I designed this for our door, cut and applied it myself, (which makes it special to me) but anyone could have this done by a sign company.

We saved some money by reusing the door, but more important, we preserved some of the history of our house.

Have an abundant day!

Diana

See me at:

old glass jar solar lights

I had seen diy "sun" jars on the internet and wanted to make some for myself.

I followed the instructions at apartmenttherapy.com for jars that looked like this:

photo from apartment therapy

They turned out pretty nice, but it was not fun spray painting them with the frosted glass paint, it took a fair number of coats.

I put them outside on my patio table and enjoyed them - for about a month, then they started to fall apart :( .  The paint scratched and the silicone I used failed, causing the light part to separate from the jar lid.

So I called this a lesson and started over.  This time the only thing I bought new were the solar stakes, they had them on sale at Canadian Tire for $0.99. 

They were just the right size to fit the glass insert part of old canning jars.  You unscrew the top part and silicone them to the insert, like this:

Not wanting to use the frosted glass paint again, I decided some velum might work to diffuse the led light.   I cut a piece to form a tube that fit just around the outside of the light part and inside the jar height then taped it in place.  

The best part is I used these for the rest of the summer and they still look like they did when I made them, except the rim on the jar, which turned rusty.

Perfect.

Have an abundant day!

Diana

sharing this with:

Le Chateau de Fleurs

butter box {cooler} build and a STORY

This is a table, with very special storage!  I built this table for a reason, I needed it...

You see, we live on a farm, a nice one, but we do have some special needs once in a while.  Like how to keep boar semen fresh for the little ladies in the barn.  Yup, that's what I said - boar semen.  It is exactly what it sounds like, the seed of the male hog.

Some years ago, we went from using actual boars to buying the swimmers instead.  In order to keep them fresh they needed to be kept at a relatively stable temperature.  The deliveries were usually quite late at night, and in order for us to get to bed on time we would need a place that the delivery person could access without getting too close to the barn - and the house was the most practical solution.  

So we put a beer cooler in the front entrance way of the house for some temporary storage.  Although practical, it was not very attractive and it was a pain to keep putting away and remembering to take it out again for delivery night.  Also, the floor in our entrance is heated, so the cooler needed to be elevated, away from too much heat.  And I really wanted to use the cooler for beer or food once in awhile but was put off by the thought of you know what!  You can see I had a bit of a dilemma.

Then I thought of this butter box I found in an old house my parents were taking down.  It was the perfect size for a sack of boar juice and I thought if I lined it with some 1" Styrofoam it would make an adequate cooler.  Since I needed to have it raised off the floor I went scrounging around in my attic and found the parts of an original banister from the house.  This old house of ours just keeps coughing up treasures - having been built in 1918 and renovated a few times, there are a few leftover parts still hanging around.

The banister parts included enough boards and spindles to make the stand for the bottom as well as a lid for the top.  I added a few hinges and some jack chain, finished the old wood with some leftover ebony polyblend and called it done.

The delivery guy loved it and people always notice and ask about this odd piece of furniture - but I don't always mention it's purpose! 

This is a picture I took a few years ago when it was still in the front entrance being used for it's intended purpose.  Much prettier than that blue cooler I was using.  However, we sold our hogs almost two years ago and this little cutie is no longer needed for keeping the swimmers swimming.

Now it hangs out in the kitchen.  I even considered using it for beer when we are entertaining - now isn't that ironic!

Because I used all found and leftover items, including the hinges, chain and Styrofoam this piece cost me a little bit of sweat - but no actual money was harmed.

Good for you if you read that whole thing without saying eeeeww a few times, {sigh} The stuff was triple bagged, by the way.

Do you like my Laundry room door?  See more here.

Have an abundant day,

Diana

Update:  Our youngest reminded me (after reading this post) that she can remember calling out "the semens here" when we received deliveries, like this was a normal part of every ones life!  Farm kids got it good.