THE ART OF DECEPTION!

Deception!  What does that really mean?  Well according to Mr Webster it means to mislead, elude or cause to err.  We think of it as a negative thing.

In my case I call deceit "the cheap way out"!  Let me explain!  My use of deceit is in decorating as in faux finishes, tromp'loi, or Fool The Eye".  An example is when one makes a wall look like plaster when it is really sheet rock.
You probably know about the faux finishes, these are techniques used to add texture to a wall or furniture, even fabric.  There is sponging, ragging, color wash, and on and on.  There are also an infinite number of finishes because they can be anything you want to try, let your imagination go wild and try any tool, brush, rag, sponges, dirt, sticks...you get the picture!  These are ways that can be used to make a different look.
I like the colonial uses of "fool the eye".  They are combing, marbeling, graining, just to name a few.

This is our front door.

          This door is metal.  It was dented by soccer balls, baseballs, you name it!  I didn't want to buy a new door so I used a combination of graining and combing.  It has worked pretty well over the years. 

 I have also used it in the kitchen.  Our cabinets are pretty old, not cute old just OLD.  We contemplated putting in new cabinets until we saw the cost.  I decided to try to disguise the wear and tear with some faux finishes.  I decided on this graining, but there are lots of other ways this could have been done.

These are the doors to the pantry.

 These are the kitchen cabinets.
These have held up pretty well for a while!

Just to give you an idea of others ways graining and combing can be used to transform an object to look like something else!!
This is a graining project that I did at an office building.

This is a metal door that was red.  It was primed in this picture

 Here it is with the base coat.

This is the finished door, made to look like a wooden door.

This picture was taken before it was completely dry so it has a sort of film look.  That goes away when it it dry.

So if you are thinking about replacing doors or kitchen cabinets this could be an alternative.  It is cheaper to paint the old doors than to buy new ones:)
Even a coat of paint and no graining can transform kitchen cabinets.
I did ours a few years ago, so now the actual cabinet doors are falling apart.  I guess it is time to look for new doors if not all new cabinets:)

Take a look around at nature, as in bark on the trees or leaves, and imagine that design on something in the house!

Here's hoping y'all have a happy "deceitful" day and take some time to play with paint!!!!

RAINY DAYS AND CANDLES

As y'all may have read on this blog before, I work as a guide in the Mary Washington House.  The house belonged to the Mother of George Washington.

Well sometimes I just sit in there and wonder what it was like in 1772 when Mary moved to town from her farm a few miles away.  I was also thinking how peaceful it is without the sound of the heat kicking on or the refrigerator ice falling down.

Today is is a cold rainy day!  I love these rainy days, but today I turned off all of the lights just to see how it would be without electricity!  It was so dark that the camera would not take the picture with the flash off! I didn't get very good pictures but here are the ones I took.

I couldn't get a good representation of how dark and rainy it is.

Even with candles and some flash on the camera it is still pretty dark but not as dark as it really was.

I suppose the next time I complain about the electric bill I will remember what it might be like without electricity!   AND THE PLUMBING of that time!!!  We all know about privies but did you know that in that time, at least here in VA, the only months they bathed were June, July, and August!!!  That includes their hair as well!!  They were very afraid of catching the consumption (bad cold) that they felt it was only safe to immerse yourself into a bath tub in those hot months!  I may have mentioned this before, but I have to say it again:)

SOOOOOOO as I sit here and wait for my left over pizza to heat up, the one that was delivered to our door last night, I have decided that I was meant to LIVE in an old home WITH electricity, plumbing, internet, cable...... well you get the picture:)

I will go now and turn on a few lights and get out the electric vacuum cleaner and get to work!

I hope you have a great day today!!

SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!

I thought that I would share some of my favorite things.  I love to walk around the house and just look at my favorite things!  Then I realized that most of them remind me of friends.  Here are some pictures!

I love a warm cozy fireplace also the dog toys:)

I love pie safes!! This was from one of my favorite antique stores owned by Becky!!

The lamp I bought from my friend Bobbi and the little chest of drawers from Sandra.  Every time I see these I think of them and all of the fun times we spent together!

I love wooden bowls and Arnold Cats!

I love Gaudy Welsh!! My friend Barbara introduced me to that!!  Some of these I have purchased from her! She has  great antiques!!

I love dried hydrangeas !!!

I love shiny pewter!

love old baskets!

My favorite ironstone has a little or a lot of that great brownish color of age!!

I have had this papier mache reindeer since high school!! 

Love the ironstone and staffordshire dogs!

Cute baby dogs!

AHHHH..... TIN!!

These are real blue birds eggs that we found in our blue bird box, the mother was killed and the father cried and cried!!!  When he didn't come back I took them!  They are so sweet and sad at the same time!!  I love them so much!

Easter bunnies are soooo fun!!!

I love cows!! I probably won't ever get to have my own so these have to do!!

 

 I miss my friends, but I am so blessed with these things to remind me of them every day!!

Take time to go "shopping" in your home, you may be surprised what you find!!:)

A LITTLE PROJECT!!

Here are some pictures of a little project that I love!!!

This is an alcove in my studio.  In this picture you can see the little bench with a blue band bowl.  THAT was the kitty feeding station:)  But now we have lost our kitty and I hate seeing her little bowls.  SOOO I decided to use that space for storage.

Here is the alcove empty.

These are two doors that were on an old fireplace.  My friend, Susan had the whole mantle and used part of it to make a table!
SOOOO I bought what she had left for my little project!  Our carpenter that built the new office took them to his shop and made a GREAT cabinet out of them.  He made the cabinet fit perfectly into the alcove! 

Here it is in the alcove!!!  I still need to paint some, but I have filled it up completely! :)

 

  I just love it!

 

 I was so sad to have to have our kitty put down, she was so sick.   I was giving her an I V at night to hydrate her and finally it just wasn't working.  She let me know that she was ready.  That day I held her most of the day and put her in the widow that she loved so she could look out! 

 I still miss her everyday!  She gave us 19years of happiness!!!

                                                

                I think our little Nikki Kitty would really like this! :)

PROCRASTINATION LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!

SOOOOOOOO,  I NEED to get busy, cleaning out closets and cupboards repaint the stairs touch up the doors finish the 2nd coat of paint in the office, AND don't EVEN mention my poor little studio!!!  

SOOOOOOO, what am I doing, yep just sitting in the tavern room "thinking"!!!  That is important to do too, right?   I got up early with the greatest of intentions to really get to work!! BUT I  got my coffee lit my candles and just enjoyed watching the beginning of the day!   There is just something so beautiful about the light coming in through the windows, even if it isn't the sun.  I love to hear the birds singing.  It makes me wonder what this area was like in the 1800's.  I guess working at the Mary Washington House museum (The home of George Washington's Mom), sort of gets me wondering about the 1800's.  We live on Clairborn Creek, which was an encampment for the, dare I say Yankee, calvary.  We find bullets and our neighbor found some brass buttons!! Imagine those things still here after all that time!  I always say I was meant to live in that era, but when I think of NO indoor plumbing, NO snuggly claw foot tub, and only bathing during the months of June, July, and August.  I realize I was just meant to live in an OLD house in the 21st century:)  I am not "woman" enough to live like the Colonial women!!

SOOOOOO here I go procrastinating AGAIN!!!

Not so great but you get the idea:)

Nice light in the new office, I love the big windows!!

I thought this was kinda cool :)

Here are a couple pictures that I took this morning, I am having trouble with my camera so they are not great!

OK I am outa here!!

Hope your day is great and take a minute to "Listen to the Birds"!!

Winter, where ARE YOU!!!

I wish winter would really come!!!  I thought it was January, isn't that a winter month?  So far we have only had one afternoon of snow and it didn't stick.  I can live with the "no-sticking" but I would love to see a little falling, ok ALOT falling!!!!

 OK, no more complaining.  I thought I would share the finished office project!

 The sheetrock is finished and we are working on the ceiling.










just a shot of the bead board in the process of the faux finishing and aging.

 finally on the ceiling!! with the fake beams, which are painted with brown paint then pulled out with the brush, that lets the grain show through.

The cabinets are installed and the floors are in!!  The cabinets were made by the contractor, not the greatest, but my husband LOVES them:)   The floors are lumber from Lowes that was sanded and stained, then coated with poly.

The  office has been great, we finally have all the electronics hooked up and he is moved in!  It took a LONG time, it seems anyway, but it is finished and in use!
NOW I get to work on the little room that his office was in originally!  That will be a process too!!  THAT I am looking forward to since it needs paint and everything, I am thinking of a really primitive wall finish.  I will share it all when I complete the plan!

We are very busy at the Mary Washington House this Jan.  the gift shop is closed and we will be working on the inventory!  I have spent several DAYS trying to put together a list of volunteers in a format that all of the volunteers can open in their e-mail.  I finally found a calendar template to use!!  I am not real savvy when it comes to the computer, but this has been fun to figure out!
Volunteers are so important to our historic homes here in Fredericksburg!!  We share our love of great old homes! And it is so neat to be standing in the home where George Washington last saw his Mom before he became President.  She knew that he was to be the First President of our Country but didn't live to see him in office!!   She was a strong woman in Colonial times, even in our time!!  Widowed at a young age with 5 children to raise and a farm to keep up!!  She chose not to remarry, which was usually done in that time, and ran the farm on her own up to the age of 64, when Her eldest son, George, convinced her to move to town!!!  She lived to the age of 87! Not very many people in that era lived to that age!  WHAT A WOMAN:)
Sorry I got on a "Mary Washington" tangent:) LOL
Anyway I am off to work on some inventory!! 
Volunteering is a great gift! Why not volunteer today:)
Happy Jan. and I hope you are getting some snow in your area!





 

Christmas in the Un-Farmhouse!!!

 I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas!!

We almost had an Un-Christmas!!:)  With all the construction going on I was hesitant to bring out the decorations and feather trees, since they are antiques and I didn't want them to get dusty!  There STILL seems to be construction dust everywhere!  So the decorating was a little sparse.  I did put some lights on the porch outside which I rarely do because I like the simple "lights in the windows and wreaths"! 

 Every year around Thanksgiving we take the screens off the windows and just after Thanksgiving up go the wreaths!  THIS year is has not been cold enough to take the screens off, since I have had the windows open ALOT!!! we have left them on, so NO wreaths!  Even now I have the window open!!! JAN6th  where is the snow?  CRAZY!!!   It has been nice to be able to open the windows but I always hope for a WHITE Christmas!

SO our Holiday Season started out just fine with everyone home for Thanksgiving!  I made an arrangement for the front door in one of my favorite baskets.  I usually have a large square wreath to which I add fresh leaves and fall things.  I have been bored with the usual decorations, so I decided to use my basket!! Well it lasted about 2 hours or so!!!!!  

Poor little basket!

THANK YOU Mr Squirrel:)

THIS is what I found on the door not so long after I made it!!  I should have thought about the corn! I had to just laugh! and wish the squirrels Happy Thanksgiving!!!  I almost always put corn on the square wreath and they never bothered it at all!! Oh well live and learn:) Hope I remember that next year :)

 At least the crafty squirrels could not get to the centerpiece inside!! :)

I decided to go back to my original plans for Christmas (back to the 1900's when I decorated my first apt)!  I was always going to use fresh greens and fruit for the whole season!   Somewhere along the way the "store bought" things began to show up THEN the antiques!  When the children were little I added some new things to the greens.   As they grew older I added the antiques.  The antiques have taken over! I still always use lots of fresh greens but I can't resist the antiques!

The Nutcracker guard the pineapples!  :)

Here are some of the greens on the mantle, it doesn't show up that well, but we have everything on there including nandina leaves.  I have not used the nandina before but I really like it! It is so light and airy!

The outside got some fresh greens also!

A note about using fresh greens....  A few years ago I was lucky enough to be asked to help decorate a room in the historic home of James Madison,  Montpielier.  We used loads of greens from the property and they told us to spray them with "Mop&Glo" wax.  It only works with Mop&Glo, but it preserves the greens for a really long time.  I forgot about that and have not used it in awhile,  but I am going to make a note to try it next year!!

 

 

A few of my favorite ornaments for the tree!

Nutcrackers peeking out of the new office windows!

Even with all of the construction and turmoil our holiday was great, just not long 

enough!!

I have lots of pictures to share of the office so I will post them all at once:)  I am now going to take down the tree!  I always hate taking it down because it doesn't seem dried yet:)  AND I really didn't get the chance to look at it much this year!  OK maybe I will wait until tomorrow!  As Miss Scarlett said "Tomorra is anothea day"!