A blessed Thanksgiving to all...

Wishing you and your families

the happiest Thanksgiving

possible!



Inspiration from Romantic Homes magazine...

Good morning!

While we were away, I received my December copy of Romantic Homes magazine, which was chock full of holiday decorating eye candy. Since I need to make this a quick post, here is a glimpse of what you will see in this issue. I wish I had a little more time to sit down and read the whole thing today!

I'm sorry that these photos are a little dark, but I think you get the idea!

Have a wonderful day.



Birdsong Cottage: The little old single wide mobile home that could...

Hello!

The time finally came for putting this year's final decorating touches on our little jewel, our diamond in the rough. After several five-hour trips to go up to the mountains and work on her whenever we could, and many weeks of ripping out old carpeting, replacing rotted sub flooring, installing laminate flooring and new baseboards, never-ending painting, much of which was over cheap and ugly old paneling, working on the old furnace that was original to the house, correcting bad electrical wiring, putting in new lighting, installing a new ceiling fan and moving an old one, replacing doorknobs, painting a bunch of old furniture, cleaning up and rebuilding a rotted and bad-smelling vanity and broom closet, and making an ugly old bathroom look pretty on a minimal budget, we have turned our vintage 1969 single wide mobile home into a little gem.

When built, our place was nothing but red carpeting and cheap dark faux wood paneling. Though most of the paneling had later been painted gold to match the gold carpeting that replaced the red, much of it still looked like this...

...and the insides of most of the cabinets and the broom closet looked like this...

Now, our freshly painted and lined cabinets look like what you see below...

...along with a tidy, and also repainted, laminate-floored broom closet that looks like this...

I can't tell you what all of this did to remedy the musty smell of this old place!

Now for the fun stuff! Besides the hung leaded glass windows on the TV wall in the living room (shown in an earlier post)...

...we also hung a a couple more pieces of reproduction art by Billy Jacobs...

We finally got the antique foot board up in our bedroom, after figuring out how to do it without the bed rails that didn't fit...

...and some pretty curtains purchased at half price from Kohl's now replace the ugly old paneled sliding closet doors that didn't slide anyway (and whose wood we used to replace the rotted bottom of the bathroom vanity and the rotted sub flooring in the broom closet) ...

The bathroom hutch now has some pretties in it...

...and our little Miss Phoebe watches down over all...

Yesterday we bid our little cottage goodbye until spring. She will be winterized later this week. After forming such a close bond with her during the last few months, I was sad to leave her sitting there alone for the cold winter months to come. But I look forward to seeing her again in the spring when I will finish painting all the trim and work on the window coverings. We will also start working on the guest room, the porch and the outside of the place. And most of all, we look forward to being able to enjoy all that those beautiful mountains have to offer.

Thank you so much for keeping me company on this journey!

XO

Sue

Birdsong Cottage: Some random pieces for the guest room...

Hello there!

A while ago we bought a vintage fan originally intending to put it in the bathroom. But then we bought the hutch and there wasn't enough room at the top of it to accommodate the fan. So we decided to use it in the guest room instead.

Yesterday we went on our last mountain jaunt of the season looking for something to set the fan on. The gal that works at the antique furniture store that we go to knows that I use Annie Sloan paint and took me in the back room to show me a piece she was getting ready to work on. She had painted the top to sample some paint she had mixed. Needless to say, I loved the piece even in its very raw state and asked her if she would sell it as it was. She gave me a deal, and here it is...

I'm not yet sure how I will paint it, but I have all winter to think about it. Can't you just picture what it will look like with this little beauty on top...

...and maybe some plants on the steps?

And lastly, this little desk, which I showed you in an earlier post, will go next to the bed. I painted the legs the last time we were up here...

Have a wonderful day!

XO

Sue

For the love of vintage iron beds...

Hello everybody!

We will be leaving to go back home tomorrow and closing up Birdsong for the winter. Since we didn't have much to do yesterday, Hubby suggested that we go for a ride. Big mistake. 

We went to our favorite consignment store, LuLu's, up in Fletcher, NC, outside of Asheville, and spotted a beautiful vintage black twin-sized iron bed, which included not only the headboard and footboard, but the original, and still functional, bed rails. So...the conversation went something like this...

Hubby: I really like that bed frame.

Me: We already have one.

Hubby: But it's really a good price.

Me: But you just finished building the base for the other one yesterday.

Hubby: But I like this more than the other one. And it has good rails, so we won't need that frame.

Me: Well what are we going to do with the other one?

Hubby: I don't know.

Me: Let's look around for awhile.

(Ten minutes pass.)

Me: Let's go look at that bed again. 

Hubby: Why?

Me: I have an idea.

Hubby: Oh no...

Me: Just hear me out.

Hubby: OK.

Me: Since you put all the work into building that nice frame for the other bed, next year when we decorate our screen porch, why don't we make it into sort of a settee and use it out there?

Hubby: OK.

So, needless to say, we came home with another bed for our little guest room! Since the room is very small and the headboard is so tall, we had to put it in a different spot than we had originally intended, but it still looks pretty good. 

Here is the headboard...

...and the pretty detail...

...and the footboard...

Behind the footboard is the original set that you saw me paint this summer. It is sitting in the small alcove between the closet and wall. I'm not yet sure what I will do for bedding in here as we will not really work on this room until next spring.

Have a great weekend!

XO

Sue

A visit to Tuesday Morning...

Hello and greetings from Birdsong!

The other day Mr. Perch and I decided to check out the local Tuesday Morning now that we've gotten to the point that we can actually put out some decorating accents! Too bad we're up here for the last time this year. 

We're still trying to maintain a clean cottage look free of too much clutter, and besides, who wants to have to dust all kinds of junque when you're in a vacation home? Ha!

We came home with this lovely lamp. Please pardon the plastic wrap that I am leaving on until next spring. Let IT collect the dust instead of the shade!

We also found this pretty throw in taupe, beige, and grey. With the freezing weather that we're having, we were glad to find it at half price!

Have you found any good deals this week?

Stay warm!

XO

Sue

Picture frame play...

Hello friends!

Several months ago I started collecting large ornate old picture frames painted in creamy shades of white. My original intent was to hang them in groups on the wall going up along the staircase in our "real house". I postponed doing that for awhile and ultimately decided that our decor was a tad too traditional for this look. Last week we brought them up here to Birdsong and they found a nice home on the wall next to the couch. 

They fill the wall space that is by the entrance to the hallway...

You can see in the photo below that these frames were in less than perfect shape. Awhile ago I even dropped one myself and had to glue parts of it back together!

What would you do with these old beauties?

Have a wonderful day!

XO

Sue

Needful Things: A first visit to an antique mall...

Hello there! I hope you're doing well!

The other day we paid our first visit to a local antique mall not far from Birdsong called Needful Things. They had several booths with many great items in all price ranges. Hubby made the comment that it was a "two-day trip", and this was certainly true, as we only got to see about half of what they had. We did manage to come home with a few things.

A footstool to place in front of our not-yet-slip-covered arm chair...

We love that it was made from the bottom of an old child's chair! Note the two curved legs...

The fabric is such a good match to our color scheme...

At a fabric booth I found this bird-print linen fabric...

...and at $6.00 per yard, you couldn't go wrong...

This burlap pillow cover had to come home to Birdsong, and came from the same booth as the stool. Though shown below on the couch, it will likely end up in the guest room...

Pardon the lack of window treatments!! That will be next season's project...

Have you discovered any treasures for your nest lately?

XO

Sue

A salute to VETERANS...

Speaking as one who is married to a veteran, I thank all of them for their service to this country. I hope that we can take a few minutes today to show our appreciation for the sacrifices that they and their families have made.

Sue

Birdsong Cottage: Finally some bedroom decor...

Good morning from the (cold!) mountains! We are up here putting some final decorating touches on our little getaway cottage (a/k/a vintage single wide mobile home) while getting ready to close it down for the winter.

Though I've previously shared some photos of random pieces of furniture in our master bedroom, I haven't yet done so with the bed itself, mainly because I hadn't really done anything to dress it up. Until now, we were so busy with the messy part of the remodeling I was afraid to put anything nice on the bed. Also, we ran into issues with the old headboards and footboards that we bought this past summer, as they don't fit modern bed frames (we knew this when we bought them). So we ended up bolting the headboard to the wall and are doing without the footboard for now. This week Mr. Perch is going to work on the ones we bought for the guest room.

We dressed the bed with a down alternative quilt, and used three of the four throw pillows that came with the living room couch. Too many pillows on a couch just get in the way when people want to sit down, in my opinion, anyway!  We have not yet painted the trim work in here, so have not yet replaced the old shades that came with the place. They will go out next year when I decide what I really want to do with the window coverings throughout...

The fan above is the one that we took down from over the breakfast bar when we rewired the living room to accommodate the new ceiling fan in there. This is Hubby's side of the bed with a night table that is not too girly...

...and my side of bed with a night stand that is!...

A better shot of the head board. The reproduction painting above is by an artist named Billy Jacobs. We love his work and have two more pieces in our living room here, as well as one in the guest room in "Real House"...

Thanks for coming by and sharing more of the Birdsong saga with me!

XO

Sue

Reminders of the coming of winter...

Good morning!

With the colder weather coming, especially in the mountains, we are getting ready to go up to Birdsong to get that cottage ready for winter. We will be doing some final cleanup, then have it winterized and not return until the spring. I will try to post from my iPhone while I am gone, but if you don't hear from me for a week or so, you know where I am! (You can always tell when I post from my iPhone because in its Blogger app I can never figure out how to center the photos on the blog post. Oops!!)

In the meantime, here is a winter-kind-of-old-photo for you to use in your art, or however you wish. I thought it was really a different sort of photo. Sorry about that line on the left!

I can't help but wonder what this group

was doing.

What do you think?

They were sure having a good time!





The Golden Gems of Life...

Good morning friends!

Do you ever see something in an antique store that you wish you could afford, but know you can't? Something that your heart tells you to splurge on, but then your mind steps in and says: "Better be careful"? Such was the case recently when I saw a wonderful old book in a shop. It was originally being sold for more than $100, and then reduced to $80-something. Still too expensive. So, on the sly, I wrote down the title of the book and saved it for future reference. Well, not-so-future reference. Like, as soon as I got home. The book is "The Golden Gems of Life", by S.C. Ferguson and E.A. Allen, and published in 1883 by Central Publishing House, Cincinnati. According to the preface of the book, "the design of this work is to rouse to honorable effort those who are wasting their time and energies through indifference to life's prizes". It discusses subjects such as home, fathers and mothers, infancy, brothers and sisters, friends, temperance, envy, slander, politeness, and so on, and includes beautiful illustrations to go with many of the sections. Though it was written long ago, and I haven't by any means read the whole book, perhaps some of this book has some relevance to today's society. I also thought that copies of some of its pages might be fodder for future art projects.

I did a Google search on it and was disappointed to see them selling for $300 and upward. Hmmm...maybe I should have sprung for the $80. No...still too expensive. A little more playing with Internet searches, and what do you know, one sprang up on Amazon being sold by a dealer of used books. These books would all be used. Of course. They were published in the 1880's. Five dollars. FIVE DOLLARS! Plus $3 or so in shipping. No way. Even an older edition than the one I saw in the antique store. And marked as being in reasonably good shape. And it was! Even a little too good to be able to crack the binding enough to be able to take good photos of it. But here goes anyway!

Beautiful spine and cover...

Opening pages...

Childhood...

Friendship...

Courtship...

Aging...

Married life...

And, surprisingly, there was no illustration

for "married life",

so here is one from my own collection

for you...

What golden gem of life guides you today?