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?