A Cuppa at That Old House, and a "Save The Date!"

Remember these guys, below?

I got them at the huge Visiting Nurse Association Rummage Sale last May. (More on that, later!)
Today, I am using one of them to offer a nice hot cup of tea to you!

Welcome to Thursday, surely one of the busiest days in our virtual community.
I'm piling on the parties:

Tablescape Thursday, hosted by Susan at Between Naps On The Porch.
Vintage Thingies Thursday, hosted by Suzanne at Coloradolady.
And. . .
Thrifty Thursday, hosted by Leigh of Bloggeritaville.

Many thanks to these three ladies for their hosting skills, and inspiration!

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Welcome to That Old House; come for a spot of tea, have you? Sure you don't want to reconsider?
Our coffee is usually better than our tea . . . I'm just saying . . . .

No? Tea it is? All righty, then. Let's just pop into the dining room:

To compensate for the tea-bag tea, I'm using some of my prettiest things.

The teapot is gilt and cobalt, Meissen and quite old:

Lucky me, it was a gift from my in-laws. :-)

I do not make mother-in-law jokes!

A little plate that looks almost the same as the Meissen, but . . . is not. Still, cobalt and gilt:

I got it for a few dollars on Ebay.

The candlestick is one of two Staffordshire pieces I picked up years ago at a tiny antiques shop on Manhattan's East Side. The cheap part of the East Side. Reproductions, but by now almost 30 years old.

At this performance, the role of the napkin will be played by a small guest towel,

very old and well-worn linen, with charming embroidery,

and an intricate hand crocheted edging.

It was in a box of assorted old stuff I got at a yard sale.

The napkin ring is one of the pair that my grandparents used;

it is a heavy, hand carved shell.

And the tea cup!

One of six gilt and cobalt lustreware sweeties I got at the VNA Rummage Sale in May. From Japan, and some age on them.

Now -- a question for all you tabletop mavens out there.
When the dinnerware is elaborate, as is this tea cup, should the flatware be simple, or equally elaborate?

What do you like better. . . .

. . . the tea cup with the very vintage Georgian pattern spoon, a simple classic design,

. . . or the tea cup paired with the swirly, vintage Blenheim pattern spoon?

Side by side.

I only have a few pieces of Blenheim, but I have scads of the Georgian silverplate flatware -- much of it monogrammed with "L" for our last name, and "H" for Howard, and "C" for ... me! I even have some coffee spoons monogrammed with "D" and Dion says they are for him. Fat chance.

I will buy old silverplated flatware with any monogram, and it is just serendipity that nearly all of the Georgian pattern -- bought in many batches -- is marked with an appropriate monogram!

I actually polished the spoons for this post. Hastily, but still . . . .

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And about that Visiting Nurse Association Rummage Sale? If you are in New Jersey, near New Jersey, want to fly to New Jersey, mark your calendars for October 2, 3, and 4. It's the largest and longest-running rummage sale in the state, and it is amazing.

Visit here if you want a little more info.

For more about what I snagged at the VNA Rummage Sale in May, go here. . . and here!

Happy Hunting. Now scat! Go visit other thrifty, vintage, table-topping posts! I think I hear the kettle whistling . . . . -- Cass

Cleavage and a Volunteer on Outdoor Wednesday!

Today's Blog Headlines:

Brazen Tomatoes Flaunt Their Cleavage!
or
The Real Tomatoes of New Jersey!
or
????
C'mon, help me out. What would your headline be?

It's Outdoor Wednesday at That Old House -- click here to visit other posts about the Great Outdoors; there are always amazing photographs to marvel over, and lots of entries.

Thanks to Susan of A Southern Daydreamer for hosting

one of the most popular blog parties!

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I never got a proper vegetable patch planted this summer; instead I just tucked in herbs and a few tomato plants here and there. The tomatoes did surprisingly well, as you can tell in this photo from earlier in the summer:

This morning I plucked three ripe fruits off one plant. Like many homegrown tomatoes that aren't sprayed,
and that suffer brutal neglect on the part of the gardener, they are not exactly gorgeous:

History tells us that they will taste wonderful, despite their plug-ugly faces.

But. . . I think my tomatoes have tried to beautify themselves. Take a look at this:

My tomatoes went and got silicone implants.

My, how perky!

Yes, even the third tomato off this plant looks like ....

Three of them. This tomato plant was particularly well-endowed.

I'm going to feel like a plastic surgeon cutting these babies up. Scalpel!

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Sigh . . . it is coming on autumn. The wax begonias, bless their little hearts, are still pumping out the blooms along the conservatory foundation.
They will probably last till nearly Thanksgiving.

Black eyed Susans are still in bloom, although not quite as exuberantly as in August:

Near them, in the border, the phlox is fast pooping out:

Back in late spring, in front of the ferns in the border, I found a small plant hanging over the low stone retaining wall; I thought it was a weed and nearly yanked it, but then I looked closer at its foliage. Very small mum-like leaves, so I left it and watched it slowly grow larger and larger, all summer. This is our mystery plant now:

Yeah, it grew pretty big.

And has lots of buds.

Clearly it is some sort of mum. The flowers are dinky -- maybe only an inch across.

But they are a lovely spot of color in a border that's mostly fading flowers now:

Meanwhile, across from this Mystery Mum, the rose bush behind the house which hasn't bloomed since June,
and whose blooms were eaten by deer anyway, popped out this little rose:

One rose. Talk about a late bloomer! I hope the deer don't find it.

We had enough rain this summer that we never had the usual brown August lawn. (We don't water our lawn; I believe in survival of the fittest, and tough love.) But, sadly, it's beginning to play host to falling leaves. Just a few so far, but I know they are there:

Those are footsteps in the grass, not brown spots. :-)


Thanks for visiting That Old House on Outdoor Wednesday. Now go check out what others are looking out in the Great Outdoors, for there is no better decorator anywhere than Mother Nature.

Please leave a comment if you have time, on any blog you visit;
it's lovely to know someone came by and it is especially encouraging to new bloggers.

Happy Mid-Week! --- Cass

It's Coming On Autumn At That Old House!

It is September 1st, and That Old House is reluctant to relinquish Summer.

Do over!

On this Second Time Around and Three Or More Tuesday, I am going
to drag myself into a Fall-ready attitude, which for me always means:

What am I going to get accomplished before Thanksgiving?

Check at the end of the post for links to the these blog parties,

to see what others are up to this first day of September.

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Every Fall I write up a To Be Done By Thanksgiving list, a list much dreaded by my dear husband.

My TBDBT list can include something as simple as "clean the chandelier bulbs in the center hall," to something as not-simple as "construct a 2-car garage in the side yard."

Clearly, my TBDBT list is a Wish List. Not everything will be accomplished, at least not by this Thanksgiving, but it gives some structure to my project planning after a summer of just sort of drifting from one can of spray paint to another.

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But there are three things on my list that I really must accomplish, and I want to share them with you so you can keep me honest and focused and remind me of what I want to accomplish, and also send threatening emails to my husband if he's caught napping on the sofa on a Saturday afternoon instead of doing my bidding.

So, the Top Three Things on my TBDBT List:

Goal #1: Make the butler's pantry usable. Up until this past weekend, it looked like this:

It was an interim, slapped-together fixup, but it worked, especially as a hot beverage station for big parties. Then, that little pine chest of drawers got a new coat of white spray paint, and made its way to my daughter Anne's new apartment. Now the butler's pantry looks like this:

And I've got boxes full of stuff like this, things that were stored in the dresser:

And things piled on my kitchen shelves and counters like this:

Yeah, it's a mess.

The butler's pantry needs storage space and counter space.

Any ideas? We need, again, a temporary fix.

Eventually I want the upper cabinets replaced with glass-front ones that will go to the ceiling, and shallow base cupboards, ideally with a bar sink . . . but that's not going to happen this year!

I'll let you know what we come up with, and if you have any brainstorms, let me know.

Goal #2: Cutting the isthmus in the kitchen down to size, and adding shelves above it.

What is the isthmus? Take a look at this picture of our kitchen, before we moved in. There's a deep counter on the left -- it is 40-inches deep, and 60-inches long. It would make a great island, but it's attached along one side, and it's too deep to be practical.


It's not an island, it's not a peninsula -- we just gave it the name isthmus because that seemed better than calling it what it is: stupid huge awkward counter that attracts junk like a magnet.

But I have a cunning plan.

It involves sweat equity, re-purposing parts of the original, and the loose change I've got piled up in a Williamsburg earthenware pitcher. It's a cheap fix, and I was going to outline it all for you, but I'll spare you, and just show you the pictures when it is done.

I'm challenging myself to do it with spare change, emptying out my purse and the ash tray in my car.
Love those CoinStar machines.

Goal #3: Replace kitchen faucet.

It's leaking. I'm working on Howard to do it himself, as he's replaced faucets before, and he is way cheaper than a plumber. (I can't pay plumbers with the same currency I use to pay Howard, if ya know what I mean . . . .)

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Meanwhile, there are way more than 3 things already on my TBDBT list, including
doing something to the center front hall, which looks awfully, well, awful right now.

And paint the old brass of this fixture to a bronze-y color, to go with the new faucet in this bath:

There are several curtains that need taking down and re-sewing, among them the draperies in
our master bedroom, which I haven't shared with you yet. It's so unfinished!

The little swags on the four parlor windows are okay, but I need to take them down,
tweak them, and re-hang them with loops and tassels for tiebacks.

The yellow guest room draperies have the wrong lining. Gotta fix them!

Plus there are the perennial things on the list: polish the old silver, locate the table linens, press the napkins, design centerpieces, assign serving dishes to side dishes, count bed linens and assign beds to overnight guests, and stop Howard from going all Hunter-Gatherer on us and bringing home a 36 pound turkey that won't fit in the roasting pan.

I love my Thanksgiving To-Do List. :-)

Now, you want to be scared? Like, really really scared?
Take a look at this picture, for it is a peek into the future:

Aaarrgghhh!!! I can hear the screams all the way in New Jersey!
Yes, that's our kitchen, early December 2008, with about half -- just half -- of the Christmas decoration storage boxes down from the attic.
I need a 12-step program.

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I hope you'll get a kick out of seeing just which of the

TBDBT items I get done before Turkey Day!

Meanwhile, for 2nd Time Around Tuesday, I shared some of my Second Hand House, and some of its special issues. I will be creatively re-using some secondhand items (including some you saw today) as we tackle The List.

Do you keep a list, too?

Visit Diane at A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words for
Second Time Around Tuesday. Click here!

And as always on Tuesday, don't miss joining Tam at
The Gypsy's Corner for Three Or More Tuesday. Click!

Happy September. Oh, how it pains me to say that. . . . Cass