This Weekend Toss post is part of a Write 31 Days series hosted by The Nester. Today I was inspired to take some impromptu pictures of vignettes around my house. The Nester’s theme this month is Vignette Me so who better to be my inspiration for noticing the vignettes all around my home.
You can right click any of the images and open in a new tab to see a larger version.
Blue glass vignette in the kitchen. You will notice the roof of my little dilapidated garage showing through the window behind the blue bottles. The blue vintage sugar and creamer set was a gift from my cousin. The windows were found at antique shops. the white ceramic vase with blue flowers in the bottom, middle photo is from Slovakia and was a gift from my sister when she lived there.
Music Room vignette. 1. Looking through the doorway to the left of our small entry into the music room. Yes, I have a cows head hanging above the door. She needs a name, any ideas? 2. Chairs in the music room, with blue pillows, stained glass window and open door on the book hutch that found me. 3. chair by stained glass window, vintage mirror hanging on door.
Vignette in the Living Room – Collections on Shelves: crocks, books turned backwards, bow ties from a friends estate and match boxes from my Dad’s collection
Sweet Vignette in the living room of found objects: pink leaf dish (I heart leaves), sweet little birds, depression glass lid that has lost it’s container, pretty embroidered scarf, basket with doily and mirror ball.Street Roll Vignette. Why yes, I have lived on all these streets! I decided I needed to embrace all the moves and give them a place of honor. I like to think that our adventures in moving have taken us down roads less traveled, hence the title of my street roll.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. Psalm 119:105
Sunday Vignette: Reading lamp, table with Bibles and devotional book and a copy of A Million Little Ways by Emily Freeman. The lamp came from the estate of a family friend. You can see my blue bottle tree through the window. Also part of the house next door.
What kind of Vignettes do you see in your home? They are practically everywhere if you just look for them.
Vignetting in grace,
Teresa
Trees and Roof-line Vignette across the street from my front porch. See? Vignettes are everywhere.
Click the images below for the Nester’s Vignette Me, Prompted to Write, or to check out other Write 31 Day participants.
The Nester who inspired me to check out my vignettes.My 31 Day series
Today’s post is Part of a 31 Day writing series where I choose moments from my life and let them be my writing prompt for the day. Today, due to the furnace guy being here, things were topsy turvy; well, ok, they have been for awhile now. In the ensuing scramble to move stuff out of his way, a table came into play, that may find a new home as my worktable. All the thoughts swirling around prompted me to write a rather long discourse on the history of my various tables. I apologize in advance if it bores you to tears, but I feel so much better having mentally let go of the disquietude about my tables. This is rather late in the day, but since it is not yet midnight, it is day 7. For the complete series click the image below.
I just finished cleaning fuzz off the top of a table. Yes, you heard correctly. Fuzz. From the top of a table. This table was a yard sale purchase about four years ago. We were in the middle of a remodel and had not yet moved into the little house as we have come to call it. It was Court Day weekend and the neighbor across the street was getting rid of some of her junk nice things and I immediately spied this table. I wrangled it from her for twenty bucks.
I put it in the kitchen where it immediately became a work table for the remodel crew. The top was somewhat tacky – bad paint job is my guess. I didn’t really need the table, especially two years later when I officially moved into the little house with three other tables and promptly added two more. Long story. But, it has been a well-known fact in my family for quite some time now that my mom and I have a thing for tables. And chairs. Apparently.
This particular table was finally delegated to the laundry room where it had aspirations of being the folding table. Ha! Wait for it, you know where this is going, don’t you? Of course it became the pile table. Anyway, back to the fuzz. A couple years ago I purchased a cheap, plastic, flannel backed (cringe) table cloth on a whim and used it for a while in my kitchen until I tired of it and decided to use it on the table in the laundry room. Last week, in preparation for the furnace guy coming to work on our heat system, I cleared off the table and removed the cheap, plastic, flannel backed (cringe) table cloth.
This is where things get a little fuzzy. Yes, the fuzz from the backing on that cheap, plastic, flannel backed (cringe) table cloth had stuck to the tacky finish on that junk table from my neighbor (I don’t have a picture). I was imagining that it might need a sander taken to it and a fresh paint job. Then, just today, I got a bright idea. I figured that a sudsy rag and a little elbow grease might just do the trick. It did. The table is now fuzz free, sitting in the middle of my bedroom (remember the furnace guy), blocking access to my husbands dresser, waiting to be moved.
Where, you ask? Back to the laundry room? Oh no, that would be too easy. I’m thinking by the kitchen window where it will become my new, old, work desk – without the cheap, plastic, flannel backed (cringe) table cloth. I am trying to figure out all kinds of angles so that I don’t have to paint the tacky top. Stay tuned. My father seems to think that I am on a three week cycle of playing musical tables so, it is of course, possible, that I may decide to sell or take it to storage.
Speaking of, I recently took my big, long, holds lots of stuff, work table to storage because ever since we moved in the new piano, we have had one piece of furniture too many and every time we do a move around, there is always a piece of furniture table that seems to be floating in limbo waiting for a home.
Currently, we have my grandma’s table in the middle of the kitchen, sitting where the center Island table used to be. The center Island table is by the window, where grandpa’s little desk used to be. My grandpa’s little desk is now in the little, middle room with the blue ceiling, that was originally going to be my little French dining room. We also have a drop-leaf table, inherited from a family friend, sitting in the little, middle room with the blue ceiling, in the spot where my Grandma’s table used to be, before my husband’s new piano took that space. (you can breathe now)
My grandma’s table in the little, middle room with the blue ceiling -you can see the center Island table in the background. This was BP (before piano).
The piano and the middle room were not getting along for various reasons and much to my profound regret delight, I sacrificed my work room and my aforementioned work table (that has enough leaves to stretch out to 8 or 9 feet) for the greater good – my husband’s need for a piano studio so he could offer piano lessons.
I was going to use the drop-leaf table as my new work table in the small, middle room with the blue ceiling. I was ready to embrace the new space, but alas, the piano studio was apparently not big enough for an office as well, so I found myself, once again sharing a work table with Mr. Piano and then, there was an issue with the drop-leaf leg and one day I found myself working at my kitchen table, surrounded by my office crates, that have still not found a home since the recent studio organization.
Then, on top of that, today, I also found myself surrounded by crates from the utility room (remember the furnace guy) and well, it’s just a little crazy up in here what with tables that need homes and crates that need sorting.
Did I mention that there is also a sweet, little round table, inherited from the same family friend, sitting in the living room (I’ve seriously considered moving my office in there)? At one time, before we officially moved to the little house, the sweet, little round table sat (you guessed it) in the little, middle room with the blue ceiling. That room has a serious identity crisis.
The end.
Only, not really. All of this, to say, that I am having a crisis of space. Will the tables shift yet again, so that I can have my own little corner to call my mine? Stay tuned. The saga of the musical tables will continue. Once I get it all sorted.
When someone asks me my favorite anything – book, movie, historical period, food etc. – I have trouble narrowing down my choice to just one. I always have more than one favorite. Therefore, I can’t have just one favorite color. I have a few. When I was in school blue was everybody’s favorite color so I chose yellow because I wanted to be different. Turns out yellow is not my favorite color. Blue is. Two shades to be exact. And about fifty shades of white. And orange. Yep. Orange. And pink has even crept onto the list over the past few years….
I told my husband I was in the mood to move things around. I asked him what his thoughts were. His reply, “Not today. Or ever for that matter. We’ve already done that.” He’s right about having already done that. The most recent move around was for him. To make room for this:
After twenty-four years with his Roland RD-300S digital piano, that he literally wore out, and another year and a half without a piano at all, it was time to go shopping. The boy definitely worked hard for this piano.
After six years of classes, recitals and a bear of a dissertation in order to earn that piece of paper that says he has his DMA (Doctoral of Musical Arts), he deserved new ivories. He did his homework and found a great deal, saving close to four thousand off full retail. Plus they threw in the padded, adjustable piano seat and a set of headphones (mainly for me for those early morning, late night practice sessions).
So, we finally had the new keys, the next step was to find a place for the piano. Which means, in the mood or not, we were moving furniture around. Over the past few months (due to being gifted with other people’s stuff, long story) I have become quite creative with furniture arrangement. And according to my sister, I am the only person she knows who can move more furniture in and yet make a room look bigger. It is a gift.
My husband’s music is also a gift, so I am happy we were able to make room for his new toy. You may remember my post about our little French Country Dining Room that wasn’t. As it turns out, good thing it wasn’t, because as much as I love my husband, having to deconstruct the room I had imagined would have hurt worse than giving up the room that was. And, for the foreseeable future may never be. However, we will make music and I’d say that’s a great trade-off. Life is all about giving up plans for the better good.
I thought you might enjoy a picture of the little room from it’s very humble beginnings to where it is today, which is still humble, but fresher.
This is sort of a before – the ceiling had already been replaced and some paint. but the blue was original and the original ceiling was popped and cracking in places.
This was after the walls were painted and the floors were stripped / sanded. Why yes, we are from the future. (not sure about that date)After the floors were finished. I originally wanted to stain the floors dark and leave them with a matte finish. Due to their age and other arguments from my contractor brother, we went with the natural finish and a more traditional gloss finish. For the age of the house and the shape they were in they turned out great.This was before we moved in full time, back when it was just a weekend get away. This room was mainly staged, holding the place of the French Country dream that was to come.Other side looking into the kitchen.The view after we officially moved into the house in June of 2012 (this picture was taken at Christmas 2012) – the bookshelves were not intended for this room originally, but they had to go somewhere when we gave up our apartment in Louisville.After we made space for the piano. (ignore the messy kitchen through the door – it became a catch all for a few hours that day.And, after the piano arrived. Due to the size of the room etc, we placed it in the middle facing out, so that when Rocky plays he doesn’t feel like he has his back to people walking through. So, for now this is our teeny, tiny music room – kitchen to the left, library / workroom/ dining room to the right and bathroom straight across. It works for now.
I apologize for the quality of most of these pictures – I am not a professional photographer and If I have a picture that turns out great it is usually by accident, or with some help from picmonkey.com. There were too many for me to edit tonight. I just wanted to give you an idea of the journey of my little French Country Dining Room that never was. Maybe one of these days I’ll get brave and show you more of the Little House – aka StoneLeaf Cottage.
In the meantime, I feel that restless moodiness that speaks of change. Change that usually involves moving furniture.
Today’s post centers around my little French Country Dining Room. That has been a thorn in my side for a while. I had a dream. A dream of simple grace. My grandmothers wooden table with the muslin table cloth my mother made for it in the seventies (with blue fringe around the bottom) and cane chairs painted white. I would have a white large mirror (the one I found at Home Goods was gone when I went back) leaning against one wall and possibly a piece of white painted furniture for storage etc. The walls would be a shade of white and the ceiling would be painted Martha Stewart enamelware blue. My accessories would be a combo of French Country and shabby chic. It wasn’t all planned out because, of course, part of the journey of decorating is in the unknown – the part that happens over time.
Well, it happened. Over time. The chaos, the misdirected decor and the clutter. I wish I had taken a picture this morning. But, if I’m being totally honest, a part of me is glad (if you change the l and a around you get a totally different word. glad I caught that). I am glad that you didn’t have to see the mess that had become of my little dining room.
Oh, I do have the enamelware blue ceiling and walls that are bleached muslin. I do have the dining table with the fringe on the bottom table cloth. I do have the cane chairs painted white. Ok, so only two of them made it under the paint brush. But, we were on track. And then we moved out of our apartment (our other home) and had to squeeze a lot of stuff into one house. So, I had to add my dark bookshelves to the dining room and an extra chest of drawers and a bench. And the look was a little more eclectic and not the simple grace of French Country and Shabby Chic that I had intended.
Then, we sorted through an estate of a family friend and acquired more junk lovely stuff. Then I helped my cousin go through some of my Aunt’s things and acquired a few family mementos. My dining room became hoarder central (and my kitchen counters too, if I am going to be completely honest). Seriously. So, today in addition to doing some basic cleaning, I decided it was time to get the chaos under control. I thought it was time we unwrapped simplicity in the dining room.
I found a home for everything (not all in the dining room), did some rearranging of accessories, pulled out a quilt of my grandmother’s to make a topper for the muslin table cloth and what I was left with was a little bit country and a little bit shabby (not so much French or Chic). But I did unwrap a lovely gift. A gift that was more than simplicity.
A gift that brought order, a gift that properly displayed memories. A gift that brought balance because now I can walk through the room without worrying that my friends and family are going to report me to the hoarder police.
I also learned that simple order is more important than a specific decorating style. I still have a dream, but in the meantime I am enjoying the simplicity of a gift unwrapped.
I will leave you with a few more pictures of my little shabby country dining room with it’s enamelware blue ceiling. (Keep in mind that these pictures were taken after dark by a non-professional photo taker.)
Drop-cloth curtains, blue ceiling, garden bench, grandmother’s quilt and another of her quilt tops on the chair.
This quilt of my grandmother’s is all done by hand, at the time of her death my grandparents had been married for 73 years that was 10 years ago – I am guessing this quilt is probably 75- 83 years old. The enamel wash basin on the table has a light blue rim, I found it at an Antique shop. It is the center piece for now, subject to change when something better comes along. The linens on the back of the chairs were from the estate of a family friend.
Teresa L Hardymon 