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