If It Haint Blue, Don't Paint It

"I want the body & trim white, the shutters
that very dark green that's almost black,
the front door mumble-mumble-mumble,
and the porch ceiling painted in
Benjamin Moore's Morning Sky Blue."

(Now why does this remind me of that famous scene

with Myrna Loy choosing colors in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House?)

And so began the painting of That Old House, 8 days ago. 

Update as of Friday --

Sanding and scraping: done!

Priming: pretty much done.

Painting: first coat of white on about 80% of the house.

Which is all pretty exciting, but what tickled me pink today was something very blue. 

Yesterday, the porch ceiling was primed, and looked like this:

 

Today, it looks like this:

It's blue!

Why blue? 

My mother thought all porch ceilings should be blue because of the legend that blue ceilings

fool bugs into thinking that there is just sky -- air -- above the porch, and they don't nest there.

In the South, there's an old custom of painting porch ceilings haint blue to keep away

haints,

or evil spirits -- haints can't cross water, and apparently aren't the brightest bulbs

in the porch lights if they mistake a blue ceiling for a body of water.  Duh.

Third reason?  That's just my personal one.  Blue is pretty, and calm,

looks like the sky (even if you are not a bug) and helps to make a front porch

the perfect spot to relax and have a morning cup of coffee or an evening apertif.

 It's just one coat so far.  But I love it.

It wasn't until after I'd chosen Morning Sky Blue for the porch ceiling that I realized

we'd used that same color out at the beach house for one of the bedrooms upstairs.

Former sewing room at beach house, now a guest room.  In Morning Sky Blue.

 A good color's a good color, you know?

 As for the color of the front door, I'm going to make you wait for that, for a full reveal.

I hope you like it; I've managed to convert my artist daughter Anne to my side.  Kind of.  Almost.

As for using haint blue paint to keep spirits away from

That Old House, we don't need to do that.

As long as they stop stealing our silverware.

More on that in another post. . . .

Have a wonderful weekend!

You won't believe what our calendar looks like for the next week, as we approach

The Wedding Day on June 25th.  That Old House is going to be crawling with workmen,

and Howard and I have our own projects in the works; check back to see if we get it all done!

   It's a good thing we work best under pressure!  -- Cass

Random Shots for Sunday Favorites

Ah, it is Sunday, this Blogger's Day Of Rest, thanks to Chari of Happy To Design, who hosts Sunday Favorites and lets us recycle old stories. And as you know, recycling is A Good Thing.

Two months ago, my computer was on the fritz,
and had flown home to the Mothership for repair. I improvised.

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(July 21st, Somewhere In New Jersey) -- If you have read my last few posts, you know I have not been able to load new pictures onto my temporary computer -- which is really my daughter Anne's laptop. Very frustrating; I love posting pictures -- usually too many!

So today I went into my blogger pictures album and chose some favorites from past posts -- including the picture that started it all.

Now . . . let's see if I can figure out how to load these pictures . . .
Yes! I can. (I am ridiculously proud of this.)

So, let's flip through a very personal little album of favorite pictures of That Old House.

Ring our high-tech doorbell,

and come on in.

We'll just wander around a bit, ok?
Please excuse any dust -- remember it is a protective coating for fine antiques.

I think my favorite room of all is our parlor. I fell in love with this room, naked.

The parlor was naked, not I.

It's just got such good bones:

(Much nicer than mine, which considering the fact that I am 120 years younger
than this room, is rather humbling. I creak more than these floors do!)

I have pictures of this room, furnished, but it's not done yet to my liking,
and these are favorite pictures I am sharing -- so you get the naked parlor pictures today.

Not so the dining room, which wasn't such a beauty in its naked state:

That's piles and piles of heavy draperies and elaborate lace sheers on the floor. They were donated to a thrift shop, and I hope have found a happy new life. The light fixture went also, replaced by a crystal jobby that looked way bigger in real life than it had on the Internet.

It's a bit over the top, but you can do that in a dining room.

We certainly go over the top at Christmas; I love this room at the holidays!

I wish I had a picture of the rest of the dining room all gussied up for Christmas.

Next year I will take more pictures!

For summer, I had planned on replacing the gold draperies with lots and lots of sheer creamy white -- floaty and dreamy. But, life interfered, and that particular project didn't get done.

We use the dining room a lot; it's cool in the summer, and always tidy and rather serene,
which is more than I can say for the rest of the house!

But this is my favorite use of That Old House:

Packed with young people.

This was taken after our House Blessing party in March -- these are friends of our daughters, who hung on afterward, helped us clean up (bless them), and talked well into the wee hours in the conservatory.

Ah, yes, the conservatory.

The newest part of That Old House is only ten years old, and it's a people magnet. We all love it, and although I am not yet happy with its looks, I do enjoy this room. It's especially fun in the winter:

Great fun, watching the snow fall. Coming downstairs and finding thick ice on the windows...

not as much fun, but at least the ice is all outside, and it's warm inside!

At Christmas, I loved sitting in the study, and looking at the big fresh tree in the conservatory:

Among the favorite pictures I found while browsing the online blogger album,
is this one of the bed in our yellow guest room:

Doesn't that look inviting? Love the light coming through the window, and I wish you could see the glass, closeup. It's incredibly wavy and wiggly, as the glass has melted over the decades into charming patterns. I haven't been able to get good closeups of the wavy glass in any of the rooms. Any hints?

Well I could keep posting pictures till I ran out of them, but

I will close with the picture that started it all:

Back in March 2007, I was browsing through Internet real estate listings, and a picture popped open of an old yellow house, slightly abandoned looking, with crooked dark green shutters, some scraggly landscaping -- and my heart actually skipped a beat. It was love at first sight.

I told my husband that evening that I'd found "our house."

"Fine," said he, "but we've got a contract to buy another house."

Fate intervened, and 12 months after I first saw this listing, we bought That Old House. The honeymoon isn't over yet.

I think it looks a little more lived-in now, but we've got a long way to go:

end of old post

See you Monday! I'm hoping to sneak out to a rummage sale at a
local historical society today. Sshhh... don't tell Howard! -- Cass

Hang It All -- A Craigslist Pairing

A little late in the day, but I'm chiming in with a Metamorphosis Monday post. Thanks to Susan at Between Naps On The Porch for hosting. Visit her here for more transformations.


A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about ordering mirror hangers to hang a large mirror in our dining room. Turns out, we didn't need the hangers, just strong and long brass screws and good wire.

This isn't much of a metamorphosis, but it made me happy.

Here is our Before... below, a sad and lonely sideboard, waiting for love and a humongous mirror:And the other half of our Before: a humongous mirror, waiting to hang over a lonesome sideboard. Clearly, a match made in Heaven.

It was time to unite these two Craigslist bargains. . . . and here's the After:

The sideboard is happy, the mirror is happy, my husband is happy because I'm not saying, "When are you going to hang that mirror?" and I am happy.

Almost.

I am not sure what to put on that old marble top. Any suggestions for a "sideboard-scape?"

Floored!

Happy Friday! Kelli at There Is No Place Like Home
is graciously hosting "Show and Tell Friday," so visit her here if you want to share more Show and Tell blog posts. Click here to be whisked away!

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When I walk on these floors, when I gingerly move furniture so as not to cause damage, when I look at them in sunlight and see the evidence of the hand tools that formed them years ago . . . but especially when I get out the dust mop and go over their worn surfaces, I think of the thousands of times someone else has done just exactly that same thing. And I am floored.

A few people have commented (thank you!)
on the floors in That Old House.

Well, we can't take any credit for them; they have been here for a long time, and are a mixed bag of early and late 19th century wood, and some 20th century replacements.

To have some of the original flooring is a wonderful blessing. In our parlor, the floorboards are up to 16 inches wide:
There are also wide, original floorboards in the attic, the front upstairs hall and the pink bedroom.

I love the marks left by previous owners; they were so practical. The knots in this pine shrank faster than the wood around it, and so some of those knots fell out. Our predecessors cannily cut a square plug, and snugged it into the open hole:

Between the boards, where there was gapping from shrinkage, some talented hands inserted long thin slivers of wood.

Amazing and painstaking work. I don't know who did this, but I'd like to shake his hand! Here's a closeup (click, below, to see it really clearly):

Years ago I rented a circa-1800 house. It had original floors, but with wide shrinkage gaps, and I will never forget spending many hours on my knees, cleaning out those long, schmutz-filled channels. Yuck. I really really appreciate the guy who filled in these gaps!

It's comforting to see that people long ago had little mishaps, too. Evidence: the burn marks on the wood floor, just past the fireplace hearth!

I am glad that the families who lived here before us took such loving care of the house in their stewardship. I hope we can do the same.

Have a wonderful weekend!

A Day for Walls, and the Great Outdoors!

It is Wednesday (although just barely!) and I am participating in What's On Your Walls? and Outdoor Wednesday. You can find the links to the lovely hostesses (thank you, Susan at A Southern Daydreamer, and Barb at Grits and Glamour) who have created these special blogging days, below, so you can visit and see what the other participants have been up to!

Outdoor Wednesday

What's On Your Walls Wednesday


On my walls? Right now, paint, mostly. I haven't hung much in the way of framed things. But the paint? Whoa, baby, that gave me fits.

If I added up all the paint Howard and I have slapped on walls, I'd have -- well, I'd have one heck of a lot of paint. So, when we bought That Old House nearly a year ago, we figured we'd paint it ourselves.

All ten rooms of it.

One room later (in a Sherwin Williams soft green I can't remember the name of) ...

. . . and realizing that there were still 9 rooms to go, my husband suggested to me that the sweetest words in the world are not "Your Ebay item has been shipped," but ... "Pay the man!"

For the first time, we hired painters. Bliss and terror, in one fell swoop.

Bliss, because Danny and his crew gave an amazingly affordable quote for stripping wallpaper, fixing old plaster, and painting. Terror, because Danny handed me the enormous and intimidating Benjamin Moore color fan deck, and said, "Choose your colors. By tomorrow morning."

Yikes! I love color. I am a color junkie. But to choose so many colors from weensy little cardboard rectangles . . . scary stuff!

(The painters used the empty kitchen as their home away from home.)

I begged and got 2 days to make my choices. While Danny and the crew tore off wallpaper, patched, spackled, sanded . . . I sat at a tiny table in our conservatory and pored over those Benjamin Moore colors.

Here's what I finally chose, and what is on my walls!

Our front hall, above. To the left, the parlor in progress. The hallway is Moore's HC-45 Shaker Beige, which we used for the stair well and upstairs hall, also. You can see our red dining room through the doorway, in 1300 Tucson Red. More of that room is here.

Below, the parlor, in its new coat of HC-44 Lenox Tan. Surprisingly, Lenox Tan, Shaker Beige and Tucson Red are among Moore's most popular colors. I had no idea. My daughter Anne says I must have common tastes. Aren't children delightful? Well, she was kidding. She was. Really.

Now... up the front stairs...

The upstairs hall -- you can see the progress. Wallpaper down, walls under repair, spackle and primer on ... and finally the finished hall with its fresh clean paint!

This is the back bedroom, our official "guest room." It started as an aggressive lavender -- two shades -- with a wide floral border. It is now a clear pale yellow -- 198 Cornsilk. I love yellow walls; they make antique wood glow.

The hall bath. It is wearing a fresh coat of HC-143 Wythe Blue. This is a slightly more intense shade of HC-144 Palladian Blue -- the color we put in our master bedroom.

The front bedroom, nominally our daughter Alida's room, although as she is living in California for 5 years of graduate school, it is actually another guest room. It is painted in 015 Soft Shell, a pink that flirts a bit with peach. Very pretty color!

Not shown: my daughter Anne's rooms; she has two connecting rooms across the hall from the pink bedroom, but they are not yet painted. Anne wanted to do them herself. Yeah, that's worked out well. We are negotiating. As for my kitchen, it was due for renovation this year, but we are postponing it; I will live with its gold-ish walls for awhile longer.

Because of all the colors, I used the same paint for all of the woodwork, I-79 Atrium White. I am happy with my color choices, but oh my! I much prefer the usual system -- pick your rugs or fabrics first; you can always have paint mixed to match!

Now... for Outdoor Wednesday ... you can read the explanation, or just skip down to the pictures and enjoy! They are of Corey Creek, an inlet off Peconic Bay, and taken from my parents' front lawn.

Long Island is shaped like a fish, sort of, with its far ends slanting north and east into the cold Atlantic. The two "fins" at Island's end are called the "Forks." The South Fork is home to the fabled and gorgeous Hamptons, with wonderful fishing and farming, a rollicking social scene, and of course -- Ina Garten.

The North Fork is a much smaller land mass, and quieter than its riotous cousin across Peconic Bay. Dozens of vineyards and wineries have rescued the farming business (the climate and soil are almost identical to that of France's Bordeaux region), and the pace of life is slower, and I think sweeter.

In the winter of 1969, my parents saw a classified ad in the Sunday New York Times for a waterfront summer house in Southold, on the North Fork; they drove out and bought it that day.

In the 40 years since, the little house was expanded once, then twice, then again, and then in 1991 it was torn down completely, and my parents built their dream retirement place, a three story house with plenty of bedrooms, multiple decks, and a water view from every window.

This is what you see from their front lawn:
Now, to me, that is the Great Outdoors!
Thanks for visiting!

Am I Blue? Not Anymore! A Blue Monday Metamorphosis

It's another Metamorphosis Monday, and a Blue Monday as well. I've combined these two into one, with a metamorphosis tale that moves from the blues, to . . . well, seeing red!

Visit Smiling Sally for more Blue Mondays, and

Between Naps On The Porch for more magical Monday Metamorphoses.

Thank you, Sally and Susan, for being such gracious hostesses!

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I love flowers in clay pots.
I love brick walls.
I love blue skies.

But, sadly, I didn't love them painted on these walls. This was our powder room, when we bought That Old House nearly a year ago:

This little half bath is at the end of our "butler's pantry," (the rather grand name we give to the passageway between our kitchen and dining room, which we hope to restore someday). There is a walk-in pantry on the other side of that pocket door.

I felt guilty, wanting to repaint this room,
because clearly a lot of time
and effort went into creating it.
But, I got over it:

Goodbye to the blues!

We painted the powder room to match the dining room, Tucson Red, #1300, from Benjamin Moore, with the beadboard wainscoting and woodwork in Moore's Atrium White for some relief from the intense red in such a small space.
A crystal sconce that matches the dining room fixture replaced an undersized brass-plated one. The vanity and sink are serviceable and in good condition, so while I'm not crazy about them, they will stay for now. We replaced a worn faucet with a simple, classic polished nickel one. I love polished nickel; it has the look of old silver to me. My Dad thinks I am nuts. He is a very practical fellow, and told me, "Nickel tarnishes!"

Yes, Dad... that's the whole point! :-)

There is a window over the sink, so I needed a mirror on the opposite wall, and was looking for an old fashioned sort like my grandmothers had in their homes. It needed to be fairly large, and (of course) cheap.

I found it at Home Depot, of all places:

It was only about $30. It's beveled, and there is an
etched-glass floral border around it -- just like I remember.

You never know where that just-right article may come from, do you? I'd spent months looking for the right mirror (sometimes finding the right mirrors for other rooms but not this one!) and there it was, waiting for me, just 6 miles away at the big box store!

Still to be done: curtains!
I'm thinking a nice chintz, or maybe a red & white toile; what do you think?

Next post: Color! And my panic at choosing it
and using it, when I had to choose and use a LOT!