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?



  

Carolina sky and a beautiful fall day...

Welcome to The Perch!

It occurred to me that I have posted so many photos of Birdsong Cottage these last few months that I have been neglecting sharing any of  "Real Home". Since today was such a beautiful fall day, I thought I would walk around outside and take some photos. Pretty soon the beauty of Autumn will be gone and nothing more than a fleeting memory. Is it really already time to turn back the clocks? Oh, my!

I couldn't help but admire the beauty in

bloom on the street that we live on...

...beautiful Carolina sky in all its glory right above our home...

...the leaves surrounding our little gazebo

on the edge of the woods...

...the sky is always more blue,

and the trees always more colorful

at this time of the year...

...even around the little birdhouse...

Welcome to our porch and our fall flag.

The black cat looks so much like our

Rosie...

Are you taking in the beauty of the season

where you live?

I hope that you're having a beautiful day!



My kind of shopping, even in the fall...

Hello, friends! The other morning we went to our favorite garden center (you can read more about this great place here) to pick up some replacement shrubs for ones that met their demise this summer. At this time of the year, they are raising beautiful Poinsettias to sell for Christmas, not only to individuals, but to businesses and churches as well. I only had a few moments to snap these photos, but am sharing them below. I will go back again as we get closer to Christmas so that I can show you the variety of colors that they raise.

Though I'm not quite ready to play with Christmas yet, it's nice to see some of what lies ahead!

Have a great day.