Monthly Archives: March 2010

A Trip To The Loo

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For anyone not already in the know, a loo here in the UK is slang for toilet. While my new bathroom has one of those, it’s so much more than I initially envisioned when John said that he was building me a room of my own and a bathroom too. I have not done much of the physical work beyond painting and decorating, but I have had the final say in every aspect with the exception of the bathtub’s location. Based on the size I wanted, it could only go in one way and John did a great job making everything fit. He designed the shower in the master bath to accommodate a few more inches in mine since the two bathrooms are back to back. My goal was to make my bathroom unfussy, attractive, and functional without overwhelming the space and I love how it turned out.

The wall color is called Treacle Delight and it’s actually slightly warmer looking than in this image. As much as I love this space, there are a few quirks I want to explain because they’re the kind of things I would probably notice and say, ” I wonder why she did that? “

So in anticipation of some possible questions you may have, here are a few answers in advance. I made a change in the toilet placement that required a box (shelf behind toilet) to cover some of the pipes because the major lines were in place and couldn’t be moved. The creative angle of the toilet paper holder is necessary to because I wanted it on that side and it is too tight to go in the regular way. The last thing I might have done differently is the placement of the radiator. I thought that I would have the bath towel rails hanging above it so the towels might be warmed by its heat, but after the radiator was in place, I decided I wanted the towel rails on the other side of the bathroom. It was too late to move the radiator by then.  A clear plus to having the radiator on the side near the toilet becomes obvious on a cold morning.

I chose the art for this room carefully. The painting and ceramic face you see are two art pieces that I brought from America. I took a large stick from the moor, shaped it up to suit my needs and attached some stems from a cotton plant to echo the rows of cotton in the silkscreen print above.

‘Spirits of the Field’ is the work of my friend Mollye Daughtry, who hails from Alabama, but calls Atlanta home.

The face is one I bought from Michael Barnes, an artist I met in 2004 at The Dogwood Festival in Atlanta Georgia. I noticed on his website, that he will be back this year in a booth at The Dogwood Festival. Look for him if you get a chance and please say hello for me.

Here you can see the repurposed window John used so my space could have more light. Because there are no windows to the outside, these two (the second one is on the other side of the door) provide borrowed light that makes the space seem larger and brighter.

Initially I wanted subway tile in my bathtub area, but all could find were large tiles. I discovered this subway tile look and thought it really worked. (It’s a Laura Ashley tile)

I had the mirrors over the sink made to order (from an online site) and wanted to have two of them for several reasons. One was that I wanted to give the impression that two people could use the sink at the same time even though it will just be me. I’ll show you the second reason later. (notice the other window)

John made the sink stand for me based on my loose directions. I gave him a couple of photographs of some I liked from the internet and asked him to modify and merge them into one for me. I love what he was able to create.  Oh … and my white waste bin in the corner is glass, so if you’ve over for a visit … please be careful what you drop in it. John put all the hardwood floors in as well.

I love the back ledge on the sink. I am still looking for just the right soap dispenser.

I picked these out too. John likes them because they’re energy-efficient.

The sink came with these hand towel holders which I’m using until I decide if I want something else. I think I’m going to stick with these.

Now … back to those mirrors. When the addition was built, my bathroom wall was part of the old exterior wall and had a window in it. John suggested we use the window inset to create a bathroom medicine cabinet even though it only extended about halfway behind the mirrored space.

The cabinet is behind the mirror on the right.

It is a deep, tall, space … perfect for hiding all my stuff.

A last look … what do you think?

My Room Of One’s Own Is Ready For The Big Reveal

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Although my new space is finally ready for sharing, I am going to be a bit mean and show it to you a little at a time this week. After months of planning and work it feels too special to just pop a overall shot or two of it up on the internet without a closer look at certain areas and maybe a story or two along the way. If fact, today I am going to show you my chair redo which I gave you a glance at in it’s original state here. Even though it was only about 25 years old, the fabric had faded and needed some updating especially since it was going to be housed in my new space.

(The pictures of the redo are not my best, but I was so focused on the work I had to remind myself to snap a few of the process.)

This is how the chair looked before I took the pliers and assorted other tools to it.

You can’t tell from this picture, but the fabric was past it’s day.

It had about 5 yards of decorative nails that needed to be removed.

Even though they were in strips, they didn’t give up their position easily.

The real challenge was in getting the staples out. That took more hours and muscle than I would have believed before I started the project.

As I took things apart, I noted how it was all put together and took photographs when I remembered so I could refer back if I needed to see how it looked originally.

Hmm, now what to do here with these fabric covered buttons. Since I was going with a less than traditional fabric color choice, I decided to use a different look here as well.

After taking it all apart, I laid the pieces of fabric out to use as a pattern placing it on top of my green piece. A quick look told me that in order to get a proper cut to my fabric, the pieces I was using as a pattern needed a touch of the iron.

Using my lovely steam iron that I had suggested as a gift for Christmas, I carefully ironed away all of the wrinkles.

Then I pinned it down and cut my replacement pieces.

Here you can see the padding underneath waiting for its new covering. It still retained the previous shape and I was careful not to damage it when I was taking off the rusty-orange colored original fabric.

Having the space already in place for the tufted spots made it easy to replace the covered buttons with the clear ones I used.

This is the back of the chair minus the padding that I set aside to be reused later.

I checked my measurements before I began to staple it down.

Here you see the padding.

This is a close-up of the buttons and tufting. The clear buttons show green through them which I really like.

This photograph shows you the finished chair with the new look. I’ll be back tomorrow with more from my new space.

Stalking The Beast Of North Cornwall-Part II

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Going back again to the sloping Cornish coastline, I am making good on my promise to show you what I discovered attached to the other end of the big horn.

First … I try to sneak up on them.

Oops … Did they hear me coming?  I think I heard one of them saying,” Isn’t it a bit early for the tourists ? “

” Tourists … that one in the bushes with the camera has paparazzi written all over her and did you see that bearded guy with the video camera? ”  ” Sheesh, March is just a bit early to have to start pretending we don’t see them. ”

After taking more photographs than you would want to see of wild goats, I have a few more of our walk from Strangles Beach to Crackington Haven to share with you. Crackington Haven is the beach you see in the distance.

John is sitting in a perfect spot for enjoying the beach and a view of the cliffs.

Here you see John trying to take a short cut to the beach, but after it got a bit dangerous, he turned back and climbed up the cliff to find a safer way down. Once we were back on the path, we saw the sign below.

It says, Danger Unstable Cliff.

The rocks on this beach are amazing and there is a great deal written about the geology of the area.

I really wanted to slip this rock with a V in my pocket.

This striped one was really hard (no pun intended) to leave behind too.

I do read directions sometimes though … and even follow them.

I mean look at all these rocks … would anyone really miss one or two? As much as I wanted the two above, I took only photographs and left the rocks behind on the beach.

Stalking The Great Beast Of North Cornwall

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Saturday was so light and bright that John and I packed a couple of sandwiches and took off for a coast path walk. With all the cold winter weather we have had this year, I was dying to feel the sun on my face. After noting what time John hoped to leave, I grabbed my backpack and camera, filled up a water bottle and headed for the car. It is rare that I am in the car waiting for John, but I was so ready see the ocean and stretch my legs that I slapped together my standard lunch of peanut butter & jelly on toasted wheat bread and took my place in the passenger seat. Yes, you heard that right … my place in the passenger seat.

Although I do drive here from time to time, I don’t generally (read, never) drive when we travel together.  This type of control would have been hard to relinquish a few years ago. The truth is, there is an art to backing up in the narrow lanes here especially in a car with a clutch and a gear shift on the left hand side of the car, oh yeah … and add to that, the fact that the steering wheel is on the right where I am used to having my passengers sit. John doesn’t insist on driving and would certainly be fine with my taking the wheel, but for some reason I am okay with just enjoying the ride.

I drove a great deal in my earlier life. It went with the job. I was always in traffic rushing to the next sales call, trying to look composed and put together as I dashed in and out of hospital parking garages while struggling under the weight of giant bags filled to overflowing with medical literature, drug samples, and company freebies. These days, I am content to move a bit slower and last Saturday was one of those days. We started our walk in a new place, one known for having had Thomas Hardy walk across its sandy pebble beaches during his courting days with Emma Gifford, the woman would become his wife. I did not know that bit of history when I asked John if it was named Strangles Beach for any sinister reasons.

There were a few unusual things we saw on our walk. John is trying to show you something we see in places at times along the coast path. Can you guess what it is used for …

If you answered, ” So dogs can get through the stile, silly ” then you would be right!  Okay, maybe silly was not a required part of the answer.

When we went to step up and over the stile, we discovered someone had left some pretty deep foot prints. We spent the next few minutes of our walk trying to decide how it was done.

As we were heading up the path, John nodded in the direction of the hill above and said,  ” Look at that ”  So I closed my left eye and squinted in the direction he had indicated. I only wear one contact to adjust a distance vision deficit. Simply put, I am short-sighted and if something is more than 8 to 10 feet from me and I’m not wearing glasses or contacts, it’s a big blur. I have yet to experience the long-arm syndrome that seems to begin to plague many people in their late forties, so I just wear one contact for distance in my dominant eye and nothing in the left one leaving me able to see close up without the reading specs I would need if I had a contact for distance in each eye. I have had no problem with my squinty eye method until lately.

As I near my next big birthday decade this fall, I may soon have to concede that two contacts are better than one especially if I want to be able to distinguish things like the blobby shapes on the hillside from a distance.

After realizing that I could not tell what he was seeing that was so fascinating, I crept up to the side of the hill, approaching from behind to get a better look at what John assured me were not just sheep.

Climbing into the bracken and prickly gorse bushes, I saw something curvy sticking up that looked like a horn of unusual size for animals found in the fields here where we’ve walked. (Can you see it? ) Right … well I barely could, so deeper down the side of the hill ( mountain cliff ) I went until I was able to see a bit more.  I will be back a little later today to show you what I saw.

Music & Memories In A Full House

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John and I drove to Exeter earlier this week for MIJ’s funeral, passing Dartmoor where we had spent hours in the past walking the moor with MIJ and Ray. We arrived early and found there were loads of people already there, clustering together in small groups in the way that people who know each other tend to do especially at sad and solemn events.

They were dressed in a variety of ways and it was easy to distinguish MIJ’s walking club buddies in boots and comfy clothes, from her belly dancing friends who jingled softly when they walked, the dangling coins on their belts moving in response to the motion of their hips.

MIJ was very specific about her final arrangements and although I had an idea from Ray of the simplicity of the ceremony to come, I was still slightly unprepared for such an unusual service.

You can see in the photo I discreetly snapped from the back of the chapel that her coffin was made of wicker. Instead of expensive flowers, she asked that Ray pick a few wild flowers if there were any to be had and although you can’t see them clearly, there is a small collection of snowdrops along with a shell from her garden and several other types of flowers that Ray had picked that morning.

What was most moving to me, causing me dissolve into tears at first sight was the image of her hiking boots near the foot of her coffin. A few years ago she had asked John to put three or four songs on a CD to be used at her funeral one day. This music made up the bulk of her service with just a short bit of verse, a poem she had written that was read by her son. I wish I had a copy of it to include in this post, but the one below made me think of the simplicity of her service and how little fuss she wanted to be made.

I have to say that for a brief moment when her coffin was carried in, I imagined MIJ sitting atop the coffin balanced in between the flowers and the boots in a dress I like to think of as her dance hall look from when we went to a fancy dress party on New Year’s Eve. I swear I could just about see her riding up there with her legs crossed wearing a flirty smile while surveying the room to see who had come to say goodbye. 

Life Goes On

If I should go before the rest of you

Break not a flower

Nor inscribe a stone

Nor when I am gone

Speak in a Sunday voice

But be the usual selves

That I have known

 

Weep if you must

Parting is hell

But life goes on

So …. sing as well

~Joyce Grenfell

Ray & MIJ (in her dance hall dress), & Me – 12/2008

 

 

 

 

 

Reaching For More

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If you click on the photo above you can see a mix of postcard messages and photographs from a visit to Scotland in 2004. I fell in mad, mad, love with the area the year before while on vacation with my daughter Miranda. At the time of our visit in 2003, I was on the cusp of making a major career decision and I was scared as most would be of doing something I might regret. Deep inside most of us know when it is time to make a change, but we find ways to rationalize not moving on.

Miranda and I traveled a bit that year doing an Outward Bound experience in Colorado, followed by our trip to the UK which included a few days in Amsterdam and Barcelona. It was during this break from my job that I began to enjoy my life again and somewhere along the way, I got my smile back.

By my second visit in the spring of 2004, I had left my corporate job and was taking some time to figure out what to do next. As I traveled around Scotland, I bought postcards in different locations and wrote messages on them before mailing them back myself in America. Friends who had picked up my mail and looked after my cats while I was gone joked with feigned huffiness that they had not received any postcards, but there were about ten waiting for me at home. The card below is one of the ten and underneath it you can see a message I wrote to myself.

I wrote the words above after taking a wrong turn at the end of the bridge that connects the Isle of Skye to the rest of Scotland. A wrong turn put me in a position to capture the image below reminding me that sometimes leaving the path is a good thing.

Today a blogging friend of mine left her corporate life behind for a new one. Some of you may have seen Mariellen’s comments here at GOTJ. If you have not been by her place you should, she’s a great writer with tons of life experiences to share. I can’t wait to see the new directions she will go as she begins this next phase of her life. If you have a minute, I bet she would appreciate a kind message of support over at her place.

The Real Worker Bee

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Now while I would never think of John as just a worker bee, (which would make me the queen, right) he is definitely the one who makes things happen here. As an example, do you see those hats on the wall … last Saturday I said quite casually, ” What do you think about a long wooden strip here with pegs to display my special hats from home ? ”  A few hours later, I was putting three generations of my family hats on a lovely hat rack made by a man who makes me feel like all I need do is ask.

I loved hearing about your projects yesterday and would like to do a post with links to your blog or include a photograph of your projects here at GOTJ. You decide, but I think it would be fun to have a community Show & Tell page. If you’re interested, leave me a comment below and I’ll be in touch.

Believing Can Make It So

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The Before Picture

This chair belonged to John’s parents. He inherited it after they died and has had it for about 13 of its 25 years. The chair does not really go with the living room as it exists now and John would tell you that he has never been in love with it. In fact, we tried to give it away to his niece Liz and her partner Tom when they decided to move in together, but they politely declined citing lack of space. They are in their mid twenties and I think perhaps having something that looked like a ” grandma chair ” was not what they had in mind for their first place together. Since John didn’t mind the idea of giving it away, he was also okay with me using it in my new space.

Feeling that my new studio needed more than just the daybed or desk chair for sitting, I decided to update the chair and make it a bit more funky. It had a faded polyester velveteen fabric that was a rusty, orangey-red color and several people pointed out that it fit the color scheme for my space. I felt like it needed reupholstering so I set out to make it happen. As is my way, I believed it was possible to do it myself.

It sat in the living room for a while with my fabric choice, a lime colored shade of green draped over it, and later in my developing space as it was being finished. When friends and family stopped by to have a look at our renovation/extension progress, they would see the chair and I always mentioned that I was planning to reupholster it for my studio.

I cannot tell you how many people said, ” Oh, you know how to reupholster furniture …” or something similar. Well, I did not know how to do it having never done it before, but like many things, I never assumed for one minute that it was beyond my ability. My response to those who asked was usually, ” No I haven’t, but I can work it out.”

I did consider that being a tufted chair would make it a bit more difficult, but the hardest part was taking the old tacks and staples out. After John watched me digging and yanking staples for several nights in a row, he encouraged me to give it away thinking it was too much bother. Suggesting that I quit in the middle of a difficult project only motivates me more. It’s like one child saying, ” Go on, I dare you …” to another child.

He walked into my studio space last night to find me hard at work on my chair and after seeing the tufting, said with some surprise how good he thought it was looking. My goal in sharing this story is two fold, one is my excitement in working it out for myself and the other is to encourage others to take a chance on trying new things even if you don’t know how it’s done. I think believing you can do it will often carry you along while sorting out the details of how to do it.

My ” new ” chair is almost complete and I will be back in a few days with some photographs that show the steps I went through as well as the finished product.

I would love for you to share an example of something you did that people questioned was possible or perhaps a project you have been considering.