UP THE APPLES AND PEARS ..........

Sitting amongst the fallen autumn harvest of windfall apples the other day, I was reminded of cockney rhyming slang. To explain....a Cockney is someone who is born within the sound of Bow Bells in East London. I think that, maybe, some of you have heard of Cockney rhyming slang. Apples and pears means stairs. Brown bread - dead.......Boat race - face....... Dog and bone - phone ........ Frog and toad - road ......... Plates of meat - feet ......... Trouble and strife - wife and there are many, many more. So, today we are talking about the good old apples and pears - stairs. .......... and how about these for a set of stairs. You do feel a bit dizzy when you get to the top. My friend has a spiral staircase and it's not something to attempt after a glass of wine.....or two !!

That plant reminds me of the plant that is dying when E.T. is dying and then it comes back to life when E.T. starts to get better.......... a lovely old staircase.

A beautiful blank canvass, ready for someone to bring it to life.

I love a collection of pictures on a staircase.

See ..... I told you that spiral staircases make you dizzy. She has had to stop for a while to try and get her centre of gravity back !!

Now, forgive me for repeating myself. This is obviously the same photograph as the earlier one but I didn't realise as this one is much 'whiter' than the other version and it has been taken at a different angle. Someone was obviously playing with photoshop and it has messed up my post, because I thought that they were different staircases !!! Oh, never mind, have another look at it....it is a lovely room. It deserves a second look.

More pictures up the stairs....looks good, doesn't it ?

This one just makes it into the 'Apples and Pears' post. You can just see the stairs in the bottom left hand corner. What a gorgeous open plan house.

Well, I'm off up the apples and pears to my Uncle Ted with a nice cup of rosy lee.

Nite nite.

Jackie

Furniture is Here!

It's a week early! I'm both excited and nervous all at the same time! Why you ask is it still covered in plastic? Well, the delivery guys just left for one, and for two, we have an issue with our floor finish that the floor guy has to deal with tomorrow (hopefully) and although no dust will be created, I don't want to unwrap them until he's done.

So pictures are a bit premature but I thought I'd give you a sneek peek as to what we've been up to the past few weeks. We never did break into a waltz like I described in my fantasy BUT we did accomplish something equally as romantic and painted all the windows! I'm kidding, although I do find it very attractive when Hubby is working on the house - why is that? (wink, wink Hubby)



I also painted the fireplace bricks white!

After priming the bricks to cover up the glue stains, I had a panic attack and questioned what I had done. Joan at For the Love of a House (my dear friend) calmed me down (I love her!).

I wish I didn't have to paint them but when I spoke to a local mason, he told me that the blond bricks weren't original to the house. Meaning, that at some point probably in the 60's, the fireplace surround was rebuilt and that's why they didn't match the gray bricks on the exterior chimney...which has made me contemplate painting the bricks gray as I'm not completely sold on the white. Thoughts? Do you like the white?

Once again, Joan came to my rescue (she does that a lot) and sent me some Sherwin Williams colors to try and upon doing so, I discovered this amazing digital tool they offer on their web site where you can upload your personal photo and try different paint colors (I'll post them soon). It's been so helpful in determining what shade of grey may work as I wouldn't want it to look too flat, too dark or like concrete!



My other update is the new mirror over the fireplace. I absolutely love the botanical detail on the frame. I was in an antique shop in Portland, one of my favorites, when I stumbled across it- on sale. Was I looking for a new mirror for over the fireplace, not really, but my Great-Great Grandparent's mirror never looked quite proportionate to the size of the mantle (I've relocated it to the guest room for now).

When I saw the mirror, I put a hold on it and then went to another favorite antique store to see what other similar items were out there. I discovered that compared to other mirrors of similar size and style, the one I had on hold was a really great deal so I went back and bought it. It was $120, normally priced at $195.

I hope that we'll be able to unwrap our furniture by tomorrow - although I'm sure we'll take a few peeks before then! I normally don't get very nervous about new purchases but typically that's because I don't spend as much money and they're also not purchased sight unseen (we didn't get to actually see our chosen fabrics on the pieces).

So again, excited and nervous all at the same time! Hubby is more calm and Lucy just wants to know what all the fuss is about.

The Sauna

When we bought our house, there were several outbuildings scattered throughout the property. There was the old sheep barn that was collapsing in beyond repair, there was an aluminum shed, a quirky wood shed, a pole barn, the barn with the guest quarters, and the sauna (pictured above).

The old sheep barn, the aluminum shed and the quirky wood shed all got hauled away to the rebuild it center. The rest we kept, including the sauna.



I'll give you a quick tour. It's a small two room sauna that reminds me of the old rustic camps I use to visit in Maine.



I can tell you that Hubby was beyond thrilled when he discovered this building on our first tour of the property and imagined sitting in here after a long day of skiing. The above room is the changing room and has lots of old vintage towel racks, old hooks, a little vanity and benches to sit on.



Even Lucy was excited about the sauna. Here she is taking in the ambiance of the old steam room. Aren't the benches classic? And see the old shower faucet hanging from the cross beam?



But Hubby's dream came to a screeching halt when the house inspector warned us that the above water tank was a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode. In other words, don't use the sauna in its current incarnation - ever.

Hubby had ideas to update the system but when we realized that all of the wood in the steam room had been coated with urethane, we knew we'd have to reside the whole interior as to not get high on toxic fumes. The charred wall was also a deterrent - obviously the barrel stove was a fire hazard.

So it sat.



Until one day a couple of winters ago, we put my old treadmill in the changing area and started using the space as a workout room. And that's when we decided that the building would serve us much better as a home gym than a sauna.

Let me just say that we're not gym people. We know this because we bought gym memberships a year ago this month and pretty much never went. This was mostly due to the inconvenience of driving into town all the time. When we did go, all we used were the treadmill (which I had at home) and the elliptical machine (which we just bought).

So instead of renewing our very costly gym membership, we've decided to use the funds to create a home gym, conveniently located within walking distance from the house. We'll be tearing out the wall in the middle in order to create a large one room space so that both the treadmill and the elliptical machine will fit side by side. These will go where the steam benches are now.

We'll insulate the vaulted ceiling, perhaps add a sink since there's already an existing water line, and paint everything white. We have some extra tongue and groove flooring left over from the porch, which we'll use to cover up the concrete floor. We'll paint the floors historic gray as they already have primer on them. We also plan to replace the plywood door with the old french exterior door we removed from the main house.

So that's the plan but I can't say for sure when the cosmetic stuff will happen! But I'll keep you posted!

AFTER PHOTOS HERE!