In memoriam

I realized today that it has been exactly one month since I last posted. Many thing have happened between then and now, though not much on the house or in the kitchen (my usual blog topics). My oldest brother Nate's memorial was this past Tuesday. The whole experience is still a bit surreal. Life is moving forward, just as he would have wanted. He will be missed by so many.

Nathaniel Arthur Goddard, Oct 4, 1973 - Oct 4, 2009

Nate and family with new baby, taken just over a year ago

Valance Victory

I finally got the guest bath valance made and hung to match the custom shower curtain. The olive pom-pom fringe was the perfect finishing touch; I was so excited when I found the whole bolt on clearance at Hobby Lobby for just a few dollars. I had to order the Waverly fabric online (from their Colonial Williamsburg collection), but I railroaded the print so I only needed a few yards.

The bamboo poles were at a discount/salvage store; I think they were meant for fishing rods or gardening stakes since they were in the outdoor section, but I thought they would make lovely and inexpensive custom rods. They cut really easily with the miter saw, too. I just wrapped the spot with tape so the pole wouldn't splinter and chopped through. It was hard to find brackets and curtain rings big enough for the large diameter bamboo, but I finally rounded up the right ones at Lowes and Target, respectively. I thought about doing a grommet heading, but I'm happy with the way this turned out. I still need to decide about painting the blind slats or replacing it with a woven shade. Stay tuned for the exciting decorating developments!

Making Contact

Since Jeff and I will soon be in Sandusky with one of the largest gatherings we've enjoyed in recent years, I thought an updated version of the old-fashioned calling card was in order. We haven't seen some of our old friends in quite a long time and are bound to make plenty of new ones. Having a card with address, phone number, and emails will save me from writer's cramp in an attempt to exchange contact information with everyone.

So, I used a site from which I've ordered business cards in the past and designed a "family card". Here's the finished product! (I've blurred the contact information just for Internet privacy, but it's quite legible on the real deal ;-)

Movie Time!

Jeff took me to the city's free "movie in the park" Saturday night to see Singin' in the Rain on the big (inflatable) screen. It was so much fun! We brought our popcorn and drinks, chairs, and a blanket and enjoyed a cool evening breeze under the stars with Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds. Jeff even had fun, too! (Since we've been taking ballroom lessons, he's been more tolerant of dancing scenes in general; and what man can't admire the athleticism and stamina of Gene Kelly ;-)

Jeff had watched a number of my favorite musicals with me in the first few years of our marriage, but he had never seen this one. I'm often quoting my favorite lines and songs ("And I can't stand him", said more like "an' Ih caaan't stan' 'em", and of course the "Good Morning" song), so he finally got to see the context.

Interesting notes: Debbie Reynolds was only 19 years old when she starred in this, her first, movie. Gene Kelly was paid $2500 per week, and she received just $300! She ended up on bed-rest for three days after weeks of training under Gene Kelly himself to prepare for the role. And, to add insult to real physical injury, some of her vocals and tap-dance tapping still were dubbed in by others. But there is no doubt from her later works that she really could dance and sing!

What are we to be called?

Evans' Family Crest

We had someone ask us recently whether, in referring to multiple of us in the Evans family, it should be "Evans" or "Evanses". I know the rule for possessive; since it is a two syllable word and ends in an "s", you just add an apostrophe if speaking of the Evans' house, the Evans' dog, etc. But what if someone isn't talking about our things, but about the plural us? As in, "those wonderful Evans(es)"? I did some research and found this:

When a family name (a proper noun) is pluralized, we almost always simply add an "s." So we go to visit the Smiths, the Kennedys, the Grays, etc.When a family name ends in s, x, ch, sh, or z, however, we form the plural by added -es, as in the Marches, the Maddoxes, the Bushes, the Rodriguezes. Do not form a family name plural by using an apostrophe; that device is reserved for creating possessive forms.

When a proper noun ends in an "s" with a hard "z" sound, we don't add any ending to form the plural: "The Chambers are coming to dinner" (not the Chamberses); "The Hodges used to live here" (not the Hodgeses). There are exceptions even to this: we say "The Joneses are coming over," and we'd probably write "The Stevenses are coming, too." A modest proposal: women whose last names end in "s" (pronounced "z") should marry and take the names of men whose last names do not end with that sound, and eventually this problem will disappear.

Since I failed to follow their suggestion and instead went from a rather simple last name with no troublesome s's at all to one with various rules and too many exceptions, I must now pay the price and try to resolve this. So we Evans(es) end in an "s", but with the "z" sound, so we fit the second rule; but the exception examples of Jones and Stevens sound an awful lot like Evans, so we're back to square one. I think, after this inconclusive research, either way would probably be correct! I will defer to my husband on his preference for the additional "es", since he's had the name longer and has a greater vested interest ;-)

I've been "published"!

Wow, the Internet really gets around! About a month ago I posted my avocado bathroom remodel on one of my favorite sites, the Home Decorating forum at GardenWeb. That site gets a lot of traffic, so you never know who might respond to a post or see a thread. Well, I guess the powers-that-be at iVillage read it and wrote a short item on their Home and Garden digest House Calls! You can view their blurb here.

And here is my original thread at GardenWeb with photos, details, and instructions. I guess I'm going to have to really buckle down and finish some other on-going projects around the house so I don't let my new-found fans down ;-)

Looking up

We returned home well after dark last night following a late dance class, and the full moon was already quite high in the sky. This gave Jeff a perfect opportunity to try out his new telescope, since any astronomical object must be well above the horizon to be seen from our yard with the forest of pine trees sheltering the neighborhood. He strategically parked the pickup truck and used the roof of the cab to steady his new Celestron. So there we were last night, standing in the bed of the truck observing the brilliant moon, and wondering how long it had been since we last had a good long upward look at the sky.

Steaming down here in Alabama

No, I’m not talking about the weather or my emotional state. I’m talking about furniture cleaning; more specifically, upholstery steaming.

Several of my recent furniture acquisitions had stains and general dinginess to the fabric (hence the low prices on them ;-) I knew a good cleaning would take care of most of it, so I rented a Rug Doctor at Home Depot with a gift card and went to town, taking care of some carpet and rugs in the meantime.

The most dramatic improvement was seen in this upholstered club chair and ottoman I just bought last week. I got it from a woman with two small kids and a cat, so it showed lots of grubby fingers, various beverage stains, pet hair, and the occasional marker and paint scribble. It took about two compete passes and a third spot treatment to get it decent-looking. I won't even tell you how dark and dirty the collected water was, but suffice it to say, I knew the machine was working!

I still plan to make fitted arm covers for the rolled arms, as they bore the brunt of the wear and tear, but that will just give me a chance to use some complimentary material in a fun and functional way (I went digging through my fabric closet and found a favorite print I bought almost a year ago; now I have the perfect use for it)! Here's the before and after Rug Doctor makeover.

Before
This lighting actually hides the worst of it!

After

Thanks to my darling Jeff for helping to haul this comfy chair upstairs to my sewing/sitting room!

Close-up

Here's the fabric for arm slipcovers; it's a tad less pink in real life, and the green couldn't be a better match!

A roof over our heads

The new roof is on! It isn't quite as dark as I would like, but Jeff made the insightful remark while we were considering shingle colors that a midtone would hide the plenitude of pine needles that reside on our roof for most of the year. Color is a secondary concern, anyhow; the best part is that it's new and clean and practically free!

We debated whether to upgrade to an architectural shingle (which adds such a great texture and dimension to an otherwise blank, nondescript plane), but we decided it wasn't worth it in an older neighborhood like ours given the relatively short time we will probably dwell here. We will see about painting the trim at a later date; again, something that probably isn't going to happen unless we're here longer than we think.

Before:

After:

Wheeling & Dealing

Craigslist (CL) has been very productive this past week; I sold three items and bought two!

In the spirit of living below our means while still decorating the new house, I’ve developed a system to obtain the furniture and housewares I desire. I can only buy with cash from my little envelope of budgeted funds, and those funds come from selling existing household items. Jeff started me out with a little seed money from the old kitchen appliances I posted on CL back in January, and I've been making deals ever since!

Over the years in Arkansas, I had collected some nice pieces that really suited the historic nature of that house. But not all of it fit or worked with our new home. So my rule is, I only sell items for at least what I paid (sometimes a good bit more ;-), and I use that money to buy a replacement. So far it has worked great! My favorite place to sell is CL, and I buy from CL, thrift stores, consignment shops, classified ads, etc.

I sold this antique couch and bought this leather sofa:

I sold this oriental rug and bought this 9' x 12' sisal one:

I sold this antique sofa (my first piece to reupholster) and bought these chairs:

I sold this canopy bed and bought this daybed:

I don't have a mattress and boxspring yet, but I do have the comforter!

The amazing thing is I have almost twice as much money in my envelope as I did when I started! Of course, it's usually because I fixed up the piece I sold in some way, so the extra money comes from labor and materials invested. But Jeff would call it a "value added process", so I still come out ahead. It's all part of the business analogy; my household goods are like stocks and bonds. I try to buy low and sell high, using and enjoying them in the interim. I'll just have to figure out how to report all this gain to the IRS!

Picnic in Pikeville

It's been a rather busy past week, and a super busy Monday already! I have a few post topics I need to complete and put up, so stay tuned!

We had a great weekend with a church picnic Sunday at Fall Creek Falls State Park near Pikeville, TN. The weather was just glorious; high 70's with just enough breeze and cloud cover to make all the running around comfortable. We hiked to the bottom of the falls, enjoying some amazing views along the way and at the bottom before beginning the climb back to the top. A delicious potluck picnic and some softball filled the rest of the day before the long drive home.

Fall Creek Falls

Foyer Flourishes

Before (in the foyer)

After (in the foyer)

I think I have the finishing touch for the foyer. It may actually be the first room to be completely “done”. I’m sure I’ll continue to tweak things here and there as no room looks lived in and used if it remains static, but for the moment I’m happy with all the details (but I would like a few more plants, if I can get the light they need). The grasscloth wallcovering was a fun homage to the 70's decade of the house; I'm glad I only attempted an accent wall, as it is a bit tricky to hang! The terra cotta fountain is suppose to be an outdoor garden accent, but I like how it ties in the flagstone floor and the trio of vases we bought in Peru.

The missing element was the candles. I bought the chunky floor candle holders on eBay, but always felt they needed something. They were originally a shabby chic distressed look, which was pretty but not to my taste. I painted them a custom color (adapted from SW Moody Blue), the same paint I used on the picture mats for the sketches we bought in Cartegena. The smaller framed photos are all travel pictures we or fellow travelers have taken on various South American visits; I turned some to sepia and framed them in black frames with white mats from Wal-Mart.

Today I popped into a discount variety store on a whim and scored some hand-poured vanilla pillar candles for $1.99 each. They're just the proportion I've been hunting for to cap off the corners. The only thing that remains is to strip the carpet off the stairs and refinish the tread and risers, but that's technically in the stairwell and not the foyer, so I think I can still call the foyer finished!

Before (from the front steps)


After (from the front door)


Before (looking towards Jeff's office)


After
(the wall color is a little off in this photo)


During (view of stairs looking toward family room; I had begun scrapping the popcorn ceiling)


After

Clearance Cache

While on a morning run to Lowes for some home improvement supplies to complete the day's projects, I popped into the garden center to check on any seasonal clearance items. Imagine my delight to discover that they were having a yellow tag "distressed plant" sale. Not just one or two different types, but many varieties all through the outdoor department were marked down to only a few dollars.

We had come in the car, not the truck, but our Dodge Neon has transported wingback chairs, step ladders, multiple bolts of fabric, and just about anything else we stuff in it. So we filled two carts, checked out, and found we had still a bit more room in the car, so I went back again for a few more! Now I have hostas, hydrangeas, mandevilla, day lillies ($.50 each!), ferns, perennial grasses, and some miscellaneous shade plants, all awaiting a new home. Most of the plants are still quite perky and hardly look "distressed", but with some TLC, I'm sure the few fatigued ones will do their part to beautify the landscape soon.

Odyssey into Space Art

Huntsville Skyline

In honor of NASA's 50th anniversary, the Smithsonian Institute put together a national tour titled NASA ART 50 Years of Exploration. It is currently on exhibit at our Huntsville Museum of Art, so Jeff and I took one last afternoon off (before he begins teaching classes next week) to go see it this past Tuesday.

We accidentally wandered into the last exhibit hall first and were initially rather disappointed. It was all very modern and "forward thinking", but not exactly to our taste. It didn't seem to be art that took much talent, just an odd way of thinking on the part of the artist (and the viewer, for that matter). But we quickly realized where the beginning was and found some great works we really enjoyed.

NASA had commissioned established and renowned talent from the very start of the space program to document its progress with fine art. The art was grouped in exhibit halls by the stages of the NASA program; first Mercury, then Gemini, Apollo, the Space Shuttles, etc. We had started in the more futuristic Mars exhibit that looked forward to the NASA missions to come; hence the less concrete, more abstract works. But we loved the acrylics, watercolors, pen sketches, and oil pieces in the exhibits from the 60's and 70's.

My favorites were several of Paul Calle's works. Here is a photo of one of the actual canvases we saw, The Power to Go; in person, the texture and colors are amazing. You can almost feel the heat and energy. Jeff remarked how well the artist had superimposed the color variations of an intense flame, with the white-hot heat in the center and the darkening glow on the perimeter. It was even more personal to realize this was an interpretation of the 7.5 million pounds of thrust produced by the Saturn V rocket, the very same rocket model I drive by in Huntsville on a regular basis.

Paul Calle's "The Power to Go"

Jeff was drawn to a lesser-known Norman Rockwell work called Behind Apollo 11. The bright, talented faces looking upward are so reminiscent of a time when the whole world watched in anticipation of our success. I love that Rockwell included the wives and launch pad workers, who surely worked as tirelessly behind the scenes as the more prominent scientists and administrators did in the public eye.

Norman Rockwell's "Behind Apollo 11"

All in all, it was a fantastic exhibit, so please be sure to visit if it stops at a museum near you!

Silver Sleuth

I’m always drawn to wonderful tablescapes and elegantly attired dinner tables, so for that enjoyment I have acquired various tablecloths, napkins, napkin rings, fine and everyday china and glasses, etc. But fabrics get stained and dirty and china and glassware get broken. So, given that Jeff is a metallurgist and fond of all things metallic, one penchant of mine that he thoroughly endorses is silverware. It isn’t easily damaged, tarnish is simply an interesting chemical reaction (he does study corrosion, after all), and it has intrinsic value beyond its pretty appearance.

I have been collecting three sets of "good" silver; one purchased and two gifted. Until now, I had only identified the first set because it was useful to know the pattern name as I scoured eBay and antique stores for additional pieces. The other two came in more complete sets, so I never bothered to research them. Well, thanks to the instantaneous information available via the Internet, I now have names and dates for the other patterns!

Community Silver Louis XVI

The first set that I’ve been piecing together is Community Silver Louis XVI, dating from 1911. It has some of the most unique, food-specific pieces like a serrated grapefruit spoon, a seafood fork, and the original “spork”, the ice cream fork. I love the baby spoon (at the top of the above picture); it was to be used with a "food pusher", the most rudimentary of implements, but specifically designed for toddlers! I’m currently on the lookout for the demitasse spoon, the tiniest of intricately engraved stirrers for the itty-bitty espresso cups. We rarely drink coffee, but I’m sure I can find a use for such cuteness!

WM. Rogers & Son IS Burgundy

The second set Jeff surprised me with out of the blue for no particular occasion. I was glad to finally find the name and date for it. It is WM. Rogers and Son International Silver in the Burgundy (aka Champaign) pattern from 1934. All the pieces in my set are monogrammed with a lovely scrolled “R”, so we tell guests it stands for “Royalty”! I love that this set bears the mark of someone else who used it well and then passed it on for others to enjoy. Everytime I get it out, I think of the mysterious “R” family who might be glad to know that we are cherishing a set they spent the time and money to select and monogram. (They must have been Southern; who else would need individual long-handled iced tea spoons!)

Old ad for silverware with Betty Crocker coupons
(My Enchantment set is second from the left)

The last silver pattern is more modern but has a great story. It was given to us by Jeff’s mom Fay. Her mother had bought the set through Betty Crocker after saving up coupon points, a very popular incentive program of the day. Jeff’s Grandma Talbert saved the set for Fay’s wedding trousseau, who then passed it down to us one Thanksgiving a few years ago. (I found this great article on NPR about the Betty Crocker program and how it was such a part of people’s lives). I was so excited to find the pattern name, Enchantment (aka Gentle Rose), which is from the 1960’s. It suits our retro 70’s house so well, I’ve been using it a lot lately for less formal company dinners. We have little that is inherited or passed down from family, so this set is unique and very much cherished because of the personal and broader historical significance.