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We have been working on finishing our basement.

It has been a very slow moving project.

We had the basement sheet-rocked in the spring by Mike the ‘morel mushroom guy‘.

We believed we would paint the basement ourselves, but for some reason…

We could not seem to get it done.

So a month ago, we hired a painter….

And now we are ready for the next step.

Which involves using metal folding chairs, blue plumbers tape, an old desk and planks of plywood to determine if we have enough room to put a small bar in the T.V. room.

The blue tape outlines where a narrow back counter would go against the wall with some shelving above it.  The desk indicates a bar.  The X’s on the floor are actually bar-stools and the planks of plywood represent a sectional couch.    As you can see, it is all pretty tight.  It would be nice to have a bar, but I am not sure there is really room.

In the mean time, the Country Doctor has been putting down slate tile in the basement bathroom and we liked the look of it so much that we decided to put the same tile in the ‘proposed bar area’.

Even if we don’t have room for a bar, we still intend to put a counter along the back wall with a small sink and some upper shelving, so the tile will go down in that area.  Not only will it serve to keep some spills off the carpet, but it will also break up the ocean of carpet that will cover the rest of the basement floor.

And that brings us to the current dilemma of choosing a basement carpet.

Here were the initial round of contenders.  We were leaning towards a dark carpet for the obvious reasons… four boys…. orange soda…. potato chips… slumber parties…. show cats…. etc, etc, etc.  We also wanted a very soft carpet for the wrestling matches that always seem to accompany the orange soda/slumber party/show-cat/potato chip/four boys madness that goes on around here!

The boys decided that the best way to choose the carpet was to have a tournament.  Each carpet square got paired up for the first round, except for the carpet square on the end which received a ‘bye’ – yes – ‘a bye’…  a carpet sample received a bye….

I live in a very strange world.

The boys voted by placing a domino on their favorite choice in each pair.

The winning sample in each pair moved ahead to the next round.  Look at how serious they are!  Sometimes I feel very alone in this house.

These two squares fought it out for the championship.  I guess that dark sample won for my family, but not for me.  I was not satisfied at all, and went out and got some different samples.  This time, there was not a carpet tournament bracket, because I brought in a champion with an unfair advantage.

My mom.

We laid out the new samples in the bathroom that has the slate tile down already and also has the same color on the wall as in the living area.

We were looking for a sample that worked with both elements.

We narrowed it down to these four choices.

And then to these two final choices.

Although, I liked the dark carpet because it covers up a multitude of errors, I was a little worried about making the basement space too dreary.

So we decided on the lighter choice.  It has enough ’specks’ in it to disguise a lot of orange soda and it will help to keep the space from becoming too dark which is always a problem in basements.

Now back to deciding if we really have enough space for that bar….

We awoke to snowfall this morning.

The first snowfall of the season…

You’ll have to excuse me for a few minutes while I run around like a ninny and take a few photos.

Believe it or not, I planted two flats of strawberries on Friday afternoon after I got home from work.

The strawberries were scheduled to be thrown into the compost pile at the garden center, as the planting season in Kansas is at it’s end.  I snatched a few doomed flats and brought them home.  It was a beautiful day – warm, slightly overcast, but very nice, as I tucked those strawberries into the dirt.  I hope they will make it.

I even picked a few for my breakfast!

And then spent a few quiet moments with my roses.

How long til Spring?

On a recent drive through the Flint Hills, on my way home from my eldest son’s cross country meet, I meandered through some small towns and found a few great old houses to photograph.

This house was not crumbling at all and was clearly well loved by it’s current owners.

But this one was in dire need of someone who could see past the neglect…

Someone who could bring her back…

Look at that stone, those formidable eaves, the demanding arts and crafts presence!

I wish I could have hitched her to my car and set her in the side yard to nurse back to her former glory.

And then there was the door into the shrubbery!

A house so overtaken with vines, that it felt like an entrance to a secret garden.

I fell head over heels for this house.  As I walked around it, my heart was pounding, my hands were sweating, me knees were weak.  There had to be someway I could turn this house around.  Someway!  Somehow!

Look!  A side balcony!  Look at those third story dormers!

Look!  Another balcony!  IN fact – THREE balconies!  And french doors and TWO chimneys!

Look at the trim details!  Look at the stone lintels!  It has a SLATE roof!  Why doesn’t someone live here?  How could someone NOT be living here?  What is going on?  Is there a grisly past?  Is there a ghost?  Was there a murder?  How can a house like this sit empty?  How?  HOW!!!!

This one is for sale.  If anyone is looking for a great old house for cheap in the middle of Kansas .  I wish that I could buy it!

Frost greeted me like a long lost friend this morning.

 

A long lost friend that I have been waiting for…

 

 

 

 

Because I planted a garden this year.

 

 

 

 

 

And that garden resulted in nine hundred and ninety nine thousand tomatoes.

 

 

 

 

 

They dominated my kitchen counters for months.

In buckets and tubs and every mixing bowl in the house.

 

 

 

 

 

Like the ancient Egyptians of Moses’ time…

I could not stop the blood red tide

Nor defend myself against the massive black swarms

of killer fruit flies…

 

 

 

 

I worked late into the night – cooking, canning, roasting and freezing

 

…All those stupid tomatoes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Waiting for you, Frost 

To come and save me.

Here are the entries for the first ever MSFH 30 Day Mini-Makeover Contest! The entries are all fabulous and I may have to call in a few reinforcements to make a decision… like my mom… and my sister… and maybe my neighbor, Jenny.  Jenny?  Are you there Jenny?  Which one do I pick?  

 

#1

From Lisa –  She turned two $4.00 dull garage sale lamps into brilliant blue creations.

Total Cost – $33.00

 

 

 

#2

From Judy – She rehabilitated a rocking chair she found during a recent garage clean-out.  It is going in her daughter’s room.

Total Cost – $30.00

 

 

#3

From Chris – Hey guess what!  This is from Chris that is married to Jane that is the sister to Liz who is married to Mike with whom we went to England!  Remember? The Mike and Liz leg? Chris and Jane live in the 600 year old house that is beside the Domesday church?  Is this ringing any bells?  Anyway – Chris recently finished the little pergola that is over the bench.  

Total Cost – 60 pounds (60 POUNDS!  POUNDS!  I feel downright cosmopolitan!)

 

 

 

#4

From Leila – A very glam chandelier re-do.

Total Cost $65.00

 

 

#5

Denice  - She re-did her daughters’ room while they were visiting relatives. Beautiful!

Total Cost – $75.00

 

 

#6

From Lorie - A nondescript blue chair is transformed to an attention grabbing animal print. Grrrrrowl!

Total Cost – $0.  (She had everything on hand).

 

 

 

#7

Another one from Leila - An island gets a new top.  (Check out the new paint on all the cabinets too!)

Total Cost – $15.00 (She took the new top for the island off of an old desk.) 

 

 

 

#8

From Dawn – She re-did this chair with her daughter. Whoops! Somehow – I didn’t get the second photo for this project, but it is up now. Sorry Dawn! Love the purple fabric!

Total Cost – $35.00

 

 

 

 

#9

From Mavis  - She re-modeled her husband and her son!  She taught them how to throw away empty containers!  Look how happy her family is about the results! Especially her husband!  Har har har har ha ha ha ho ho ho hee hee hee ha!  

Total Cost – $0.00

 

 

 

 

#10

Stephanie put a new color of paint on the walls.  When I first got this entry, I stared at these two photos for five minutes, maybe longer trying to figure out what the change was.  I don’t have an explanation for that.  I just kept looking at the shelf… it’s the shelf… she changed something on the shelf… what did she move on the shelf?

When I finally realized that she had painted the walls a pretty shade of green, I called 911 and checked myself into the local hospital for an over-nighter.  

Total Cost – $20.00

 

 

 

#11

Poppy – She tricked out the living room… and confessed to spending more than $100.00, but not after she found out about the contest.  Which is the same as the calories in broken cookies right?

Total Cost – $100.00 Plus 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#12

Liz – Re-did a wall over a rainy weekend.  Very cool.  

Total Cost – $40.00

 

 

 

 

#13

 

Carol removed the old spindles, painted and bought some new curtains for a brand new look.  Wow!  Really opened up the room!

Total Cost – $85.00

 

 

 

 

#14

Jennifer cleaned out a flower bed, hauled out the fall decorations and turned the garden debris into jelly!  Now that is a resourceful girl!

Total cost – $0.00

#15

Here is a late entry that was actually not late, but got lost on my computer because I am a doofus.

Sarah forgot to take a before photo – but aside from re-potting the plant on her porch she also painted those bricks onto a cement porch! Those are not real bricks – they are faux! She painted them on! One of her neighbors stopped by and said, “Your porch looks really nice since you cleaned the paint off the bricks” Ha!

Total Cost – $70.00

Thanks to everyone who entered.  This was so much fun for me… and so much easier than doing my own project!  You all are inspiring!  I will post the winners on Friday morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My mom’s brother Chuck passed away a few months ago.  Chuck was a passionate, gourmet cook and he left quite a legacy of pots and pans.

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck had no family of his own, so my mom had the task of organizing his small estate.  April and I both received some of his cookware.

 

 

 

 

 

The copper pots are lovely, but they needed a little cleaning up, so I assembled a few supplies…

 

 

 

Here we have lemons, baking soda, salt and beer.

 

 

 

 

I began by pouring the beer into a tall glass.

 

 

 

 

To clean my copper pots, I am using a wheat beer… a Tallgrass wheat beer.  

 

 

 

 

Spueeze a lemon wedge into your beer.

Please don’t skimp on the lemon… uh… it is for the cleaning.

 

 

 

 

 

Add a dash or two of salt.  Everyone knows that the salt does all the scrubbing.

 

 

 

 

Take a healthy swig to determine if the mixture is correct for your cleaning purposes.

Do you feel clean now?

Good!  

Then you can begin!

 

 

 

 

 

Pick up your first copper pot.

 

 

 

 

Cut another lemon slice and sprinkle salt on it.

 

 

 

 

 

Rub the salted lemon right onto the copper pot.

 

 

 

 

 
Layers of tarnish will immediately begin to disappear underneath the salty scrub.

 

 

It really is amazing how quickly it works.

 

 

 

 

If not all the tarnish disappears easily, you might want to make a simple paste.

 

 

Mix about a half cup of baking soda with about about a tablespoon of salt.

 

 

 

Squeeze in half a lemon.

 

 

 

 

The mixture will be very foamy and you might find yourself hearkening back to a certain junior high science experiment involving a volcanic eruption.   

 

 

 

 

I used the ’spent’ lemon as a scrubber and applied the mixture to the copper pot.

 

 

 

 

I was hoping that the pasty concoction would work to get rid of some of those stubborn spots.

 

 

 

About half way through the pots and pans, I ran out of lemons.

 

 

 

 

I also ran out of beer…

 

 

 

 

 

And my jeans, the table, the floor… everything was covered in pasty lemon juice.

 

 

 

 

But what are a few insufferable hardships in the light of shiny copper pots?!?  

So, I subsituted vinegar for the lemons and made some more paste.

 

 

 

 

To amp up the scrubbing action, I applied the salt right to the pots.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see how the paste reacts with the copper turning the mixture green.

 

 

 

Once I got everything coated in the pasty mixture, I remembered I had some lemon juice in the back of the fridge.

 

 

 

 

 

I used the lemon juice as a rinse agent to wipe off the paste and to get one more layer of tarnish off the old pots.

 

 

 

 

 

Then I rinsed everything in warm water and let them dry.

 

 

 

 

The pots cleaned up very nicely.  

 

 

 

 

 

I suppose I could get even more tarnish off of them if I wanted to, but I don’t mind a bit of ‘patina’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a before shot…

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s an after shot.  

Oooooooooh!

Fancy, shiny pots!

It’s too bad they don’t have a fancy, shiny cook to go with them!

Early this summer, I found three bright orange pumpkins growing in my compost pile.  

It was far too early to carve a jack-o-lantern or even think about pumpkin pie, so I took a few photos of them and then threw them right back into the compost heap.  

 

 

 

 

 

A few weeks ago, I noticed another pumpkin vine growing in the flower bed in front of the house.

 

 

 

 

 

I must have some serious pumpkin mojo going on around here!  

 

 

 

 

 

I wonder what would happen if I actually planted some pumpkin seeds?

They seem to really like it around here.

 

 

 

 

Would the pumpkins take over the place?

Would their tender tendrils reach for my toes?

Would their viscous vines grab me by the throat?

 

 

 

 

Oh dear!

The pumpkin menace!

I think I will content myself with my sweet little volunteer crop and stop the nightmare now!

Way back in April, we planted us a patch o’ tallgrass. Mike and I both love the Flint Hills and the Tall Grass Prairie preserves in our area. We have a few acres on which nothing but brome grows, so we thought it would be interesting to see if we could get some tallgrass established instead.

There was one patch in particular on our land that was almost bare dirt.  That area was the first to spring up with these lovely, tall, uh… grasses a few months ago.

We were so proud!

So many people had told us that it was near to impossible to plant tall grass without first setting off a nuclear bomb and ridding your land of every other growing plant within a hundred mile radius. Evidently tallgrass seed requires bare dirt and very little competition to get established and thrive.

But we decided to ignore all the naysayers and throw the seed down on top of what was already there and see what happened.

And look what we got!

Lots and lots and lots and lots of…..

WEEDS!

Noxious WEEDS!  

This is not tallgrass. This is Giant Foxtail and it is the first weed that springs up on bare dirt in our area.

It is kind of pretty though. Don’t you think?

There is also a bit of honest to goodness tallgrass growing in amongst all the foxtail. It is not a thriving tallgrass prairie yet – but it is much closer than if we had never thrown the seed down in the first place!

In the meantime, I will just admire my pretty patch of weeds!

Yesterday, at work, I found the above pictured caterpillar in a flat of ground cover plants.  He had already nibbled the leaves off of three plants and was rapidly mowing down a fourth.  

I bundled him up with instructions from Cassie and Darla at work on how to care for him and brought him home with enough ground cover to feed him for a while.

 

 

 

 

Jack and Drew helped me assemble a little house for our caterpillar to live in.

 

 

 

 

 

We put three plants in a large glass container.

 

 

 

We added a few sticks for the caterpillar to hang from when he (she?) is ready to build a cocoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We put some window screen material over the top of the container for a lid.

 

 

 

 

 

And tied it on with some twine.

 

 

 

 

 

There’s our guy!  I hope we didn’t freak him out too much.

 

 

 

 

 

We think he is a swallow tail.  It will be fun to watch what happens.  

And now I have something other than the ceiling fan at which to stare.