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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

 

 

 

 

 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The Day The Antiques Roadshow Came To Lanhydrock

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The first time I visited Lanhydrock it looked like much the photograph above. John and I went early in the day hoping to get a good look at the gardens and although there were more people about than you see here, I managed to get this shot with the family alone in the middle pane of glass as they walked up the path. I love how tightly they stayed together and I have to say I was holding my breath hoping no one else would rush in as I waited for them the hit the spot I had in mind. We are fortunate to live close enough to ride our bikes to Lanhydrock and it remains one of my very favorite of the National Trust Properties that I have had the good fortune to visit.

Two years ago this summer, Lanhydrock played host to the Antiques Roadshow and John graciously agreed to go along with me as I brought a few pieces from America in for a closer inspection and evaluation.

We thought we should get there early because of expected crowds so after parking the car, we joined what looked like a group of early birds like us and headed for the main grounds.

Is this the back of the queue? Looks like I spoke too soon about beating the crowd.

Hmmm … that woman looks familiar.

Yes, it’s Fiona, Fiona Bruce!

It seemed as if Fiona was everywhere that day, but John remembers one place in particular when he tells the story of our afternoon at Lanhydrock. (I’ll say more about that later) We did a fair amount of standing in lines as we waited to have the items I brought appraised, but with all the activity going on there was a lot to see.

Notice the man with the green bag on the dolly or sack trolley as John would call it …

I had to sneak a quick picture of what looked like a carved stone of some kind.

The fancy ceremonial necklace on this man tells me he is the Mayor of Bodmin. Well, it really tells me he is the Mayor of somewhere, but I assumed it was Bodmin, based on Lanhydrock’s proximity.

After waiting patiently, I finally got a chance to learn a bit about a painting I had bought in America. It is painted on silk and I bought in an antique store about 10 years ago. I’ve kept it covered and in the closet for much of that time as it looked so fragile and old. (That is me on the right.)

This is the painting. It is signed, I.Weiss and bears the date Jan 1, 1841. I paid $28 for it and it was appraised at 200 to 300 BPS which translates to about $300 to $450 US dollars. Not a bad investment for a pretty piece of work.

Who’s this … why it’s Fiona Bruce again … and the story I said I finish that John likes to tell about our day at the Roadshow… well, when we were waiting in one of the lines, our line was blocking the path and when Fiona Bruce needed to break through she came straight to where John was standing and made eye contact with him as he stepped to one side to open a pathway through the line. As she passed in front of him, she smiled and said, ” Thank you.”  So if you asked him about the day, he’ll be more than happy to tell you about the ” conversation ” he had with Fiona Bruce.

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I Thought Those Sheets Were Clean

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If you have slept in our guest bed anytime in the last year, the cleanliness of your sheets may be questionable. When I first moved to Cornwall, I used John’s choice in laundry detergent for a short while, but given the lack of a tumble dryer combined with John’s desire to buy the cheapest best value soap powder, I found my line dried clothes felt a bit like cardboard. So I launched a campaign for something that would satisfy my requirements and went in search of a laundry soap that would not have an overbearing fragrance or be too hard on my clothing.

After several trips to Morrisons, I found what I thought was just about perfect. I read a lot of packaging information while trying to decide which one would work best. You would think it would not be too difficult, but being an American living in Britain can sometimes make product recognition a little confusing. Even if it has a name I recognize it is often packaged in a completely unfamiliar way or smells differently than the American version. For the record, I have yet to find an unscented laundry soap over here, but I thought using the product below that was made for babies was a good compromise. It had an acceptable smell and it left my clothes soft.

I think it was an easy mistake to make, I mean it looks like liquid laundry soap … right? It clearly reads 42 WASHES at the top. I see wash and I think detergent which seemed reasonable until I tried to buy some more yesterday in a different store. Something in the display made me think hmmm … followed by, uh oh!

Do you see what I see in the box midway down? That’s right, the words, ” Comfort clothes conditioner.”  In America this would be referred to as fabric softener, a product designed to make your clothing soft to the touch, not to wash away dirt.

Okay, so now I’m better equipped with the bottle of Surf detergent above, but you should have seen the look on the faces of the two women who were stocking shelves at Trago Mills when I said, ” You mean Comfort concentrate is not laundry soap.”

I can’t say for sure, but I think I saw a smirk and a head shake pass between them. I was too busy thinking about how long it had been since my clothes had seen a bit of soap. On the positive side, it’s nice to know that my itchy skin is more likely due to excess fabric softener instead of early menopause.

If you happen to be some of our friends or family that have been planning a visit this year … rest assured, I have it sorted now and you will definitely have clean sheets.

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The Light Of Friendship

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I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are places on the moor where clumps of trees stand so tightly together that it is possible to step in through an opening and find yourself in a dark place with no light. Moss covers the rocks that line the forest floor, but you cannot see the beauty of the green or even your way clearly, without the light that sometimes manages to find its way in.

Your words and support over the last few days have been like a light in the forest working your way into my dark places. We think so often that we are strong on our own and there have many times when I have had to be, but the kind way in which you reached out to me through your comments was deeply appreciated and something I needed. It meant a great deal to me and I wanted to be sure you knew what a difference it made. Thank you .