Life at Longacre, Part Two

~Inside Longacre House~

Gentle Readers, please forgive how long it’s taken me to get this posted. I honestly didn’t mean for the delay to be this long, but like the man said, “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.” :-P Plus we sold some of our furniture and bought a few new pieces, so all the pictures I’d taken were obsolete and I had to take new ones! AAH!

But they’re all taken, and now that choir concerts and Easter cantatas and festivities are over, I have some free time to finish my virtual tour of Longacre. So pull up a chair and enjoy! (And don't forget to click on the pix to enlarge!)

* * *

Well, now that I’ve given you a look about the accessible grounds, it’s time to head back up the hill for a tour of Longacre House.

I feel I should mention here, first, that our settling on this house, out of all the homes we looked at, was totally a God-thing. I’ve never seen His hand at work so transparently, so blatantly obvious. We looked at several other places, but one by one, God eliminated them. They were either too old and run down, too close to the road…or too both. This one, while it initially wasn’t my first choice, was the only one that was well-kept and livable (apart from a strong cat-odor in the carpet), and wonder of wonders, the price was right in our budget, even though we took a loss on the sale of Prairie Cottage! Awesome! :-D And just for the record, my “But I don’t want this place” feelings vanished on Moving Day, and all at once it just felt like home…even amid the chaos that is moving in. :-)

 

Peter did an amazing job of packing the moving van

Built in 1972, what is now Longacre House is actually a mobile/manufactured home (which is partly why it was such a steal) that the former owners used as a sort of Summer home. It had already been updated with double-pane windows, a heat-pump (which kept us nice and cool in the Summer and warm when the weather turned cooler), as well as a new coat of paint inside and out, and some laminate and linoleum flooring. We ripped out the ginormous carpet in the main part of the house (with the help of some old friends from California, who dropped in just eight days after Moving Day, to help us out), and Peter installed laminate flooring to match what was already in the house. Our California friends bought him a chop-saw and the right kind of blade for laminate flooring, to make the installation easier.

Peter likes his new "toy"!

Installing the floorboards

But here I am, yacking away about the house, when you’re likely champing at the bit to see the pictures. So then, let’s take a look about, shall we?

 Front entry and porch, seen from the High Road. The former owners had a dog, so they rigged this sturdy gate to keep it on the porch. This Spring, we were delighted to discover Spanish bluebells...

Pix don't do them justice

(and one lone "pinkbell" :-))

 tulips and narcissus...

 in the attempt at flower beds by the crumbling cement pathway, as well as some culinary herbs, California poppies, crocuses, and a rose that say clearly, “We’re not dead yet!”

The PORCH! I still can’t get over how big this is! Who wants to come over for a barbecue? :-D

And now, do come in the house itself and have a look-see!

The plaque, depicting "The Last Supper," was
a housewarming gift from "Aunt" Patty
when we moved to Idaho

Entry, seen from the front door. Here’s where guests can sit and remove their shoes if they wish. This piece of furniture is actually a TV stand, and we still keep our DVD collection in it. Please excuse that ugly strip of unpainted paneling…and get used to the sight from now on, because the former owners left some of the funky ’70s paneling unpainted, and we did some remodeling and haven’t had time to paint. That’s a project for this Summer (Lord willing).

Entry (by the door) and hallway, with a glimpse of Peter’s room. The original third bedroom had been converted into a den at some point, so we hired an excellent handyman (recommended by Aunt Betty) to frame it in again. Poor Peter had to sleep in the living room for several weeks during construction (quoth he, “My room kinda doesn’t exist yet”). Some in-progress photos:

 

Peter ripping out the countertop and mini-sink (???)

...with some "help" from Mister Licorice

Framed in!

 Due to limited space, our handyman installed a cool pocket-door (which you can see in the entry photo above). 

Peter put up the massive computer desk and abundant shelving himself, including the ones in the new closet (“Shelves in the closet—happy thought indeed.”)

All of which the cats heartily approve :-))

Further down the hall is the abode of one Tom Wild Rose. :-) 

Thanks to my mom for making this composite image!

 I’m loving the soothing aqua/pale-blue color they painted it, as it fits the feel of my French Provincial furniture. You’ll note that I left off the “unicorn horn” bits of my bedposts (seen here); they just felt too grand, too imposing…presumptuous, even. The simplified look fits the feel of the room better, IMHO.

The window beside the bed faces East, and it’ll be perfect for hanging my prism collection in…once I figure out how to attach them to the blinds….

The closet! Oh, I am so happy about this! One thing I’ve missed these past five years in Idaho is all the storage I had in California, so I'm thrilled to have a real closet again, plus the two cupboards and drawers for craft books and beading supplies. As you can see, the former owners didn’t bother to paint this wall, but hopefully we can find some more of this color next year….

And now, let’s see the rest of the house, wot?

Living room (seen from the entry). Behind the wing-chair are the book closet...

and my jewelry bench, where I use my God-given talents to create unique beaded jewelry. :-)

Living room, seen from jewelry bench

 The lovely oak corner armoire holds the TV, VCR and DVD player, as well as some larger game-boards that wouldn’t fit with our other games. Like the arbor-seat outside, this came with the house, and we were so thrilled! 

Living/dining room, seen from entry

 This house was listed as being 1380 square feet, but after being cramped in the barely-1000sf Prairie Cottage for five years (and the even smaller hotel room for four days before Moving Day), it looks way bigger! We’re loving the spacious, open living room and looking forward to having people over to visit.

Mom’s new piano. We were NOT of the mind to haul our old one down from North Idaho, LOL. Mom bought this one from a local fellow who says it was probably built in the ’60s. It has a much nicer, less “crassy” tone than the other one.

And obviously it has the Mister Licorice stamp of approval! :-P

The Dining Room. Our friends from California helped us replace the ugly, ’70’s-does-Medieval hanging lamp with a much nicer one during their visit. It’s also much safer for people who happen to be over five-foot-nothin’ (which is pretty much everyone of our acquaintance, LOL).

The wall behind the table houses a built-in china hutch and used to have funky, gold-streaked mirror-panels. As you can see, we’ve replaced them with cherished family heirlooms—in fact, pretty much everything displayed in or on the hutch is an heirloom, and they all have a story.

Across from that is the new plant shelf we built to house some African violets and a maidenhair fern. We’ve missed having house-plants!

Behind that is what we call the Kitty Kastle. You know those scratch-posts they sell for cats, with shelves for Kitty to nap on and tunnels to explore, all covered in carpet? That’s what this is, on steroids! 
There was an old-as-dirt woodstove in this corner, but because it was so old, it couldn’t be certified, so we wouldn’t have been able to use it. The former owners left us the name of a fellow who hauls off metal and stuff for scrap, so we had him take the old stove off our hands. And because we live in a rural area where there are possibly predators (and neighbors with dogs), we decided our cats will be indoor-only cats…which meant they needed something to sharpen their claws on. So, with the help of Aunt Betty and Cousin Brenda, we built this!

The Kitchen. While not as big or efficient as the one at Prairie Cottage (there’s also no possibility of making it so, either), it serves us well enough and has one thing the other kitchen didn’t—a pantry!

Enclosed and shelved by our handyman;
door hung and racks installed by Peter :-D

Mom’s room. I still can’t get over how big this room is! As you can see, it’s plenty spacious enough for typical bedroom furniture, plus a nice custom-built computer desk. 

(The desk was originally under the matching shelf, but that arrangement didn’t work, so we rearranged things, and the room is much better organized now.)

So that’s pretty much it. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little snippet of life in the G family household. Thanks for stopping by!

(For the record, I don’t think I’ll do any more Real Life posts. Life happens so fast—changes before I can finish writing my post. So if y’all want to know what’s going on with me, just shoot me an e-mail at tomwildrose@gmail.com…or better yet, drop by for a visit! You can also follow me on Etsy and Pinterest.

From now on, I’d like this blog to focus on my writing (be prepared for interruptions by the Peanut Gallery!), and I’ll probably be posting pix of my jewelry in shameless self-promotion every now and again. :-P 

Until next time, Gentle Readers,

God bless,

~“Tom”~

"In the Good Old Summertime...."

The weather today was PERFECT to welcome Lady Summer to the Northern Hemisphere! A little over 70, with a light breeze and some pretty puffy clouds in a brilliant blue sky. *Happy sigh*

To celebrate this First Day of Summer, we opened all doors and even some windows, wore short sleeves and no shoes, and I made us smoothies for lunch. And I have a feeling it won't be the last time, as smoothies are pretty much a staple for lunchtime in the Hot Season--so refreshing, and more filling than fruit juice (better for you, too). Unfortunately, I made this batch a little too sweet, what with being out of practice and all. :-( Aw well, I'll know not to add so much sugar next time, wot?

  
God gave us a lovely surprise in the front corner of our lawn this year:

These rosebushes (there are at least two) put out nothing but stems and leaves for three Summers in a row. No blooms--not even any buds--nothing. Earlier this year, fed up with roses that don't bloom, we decided to rip them out, so Mom cut them way back...and then we never got around to actually digging them up.

And they smell good, too!

Boy, are we glad!
This Spring the canes put on a profusion of buds--every "arm" of these roses is loaded! At first I figured they'd be white with a pinkish blush, like the other roses along that fence. I must admit I rather hoped they'd be red instead, and they are--and what a beautiful, deep, velvety red, at that! They remind me of the ones Grandma Burcham (Mom's mom) planted at the old house. I tried to root some cuttings of them (and many of our other roses) before we moved, but sadly, there just wasn't room in the car for the pots. :-( But now it's like God has given us back Grandma Burcham's roses right here in Idaho! Awesome!

"Eglantine"--washed, pressed and ready to wear

By God's grace, I have finished that pink bodiced petticoat mentioned in my last post--christened "Eglantine," after the dainty, apple-scented Sweet Briar roses I love so much (and which we discovered growing through the fence on the East lawn). "Eglantine" is made from the remainder of a cotton-poly bedsheet I bought at a yard sale several years ago. I used some of it to make a "pirate"-style shirt a few years back, and despite that being rather poofy, there was still enough material left in the sheet to make a decent slip out of! Awesome!

I used the bodice and skirt of Simplicity 9936 (circa 1972), with a few tweaks, of course! "Eglantine" was pretty much a mock-up of this lovely pattern, as I have a few Empire-waisted frocks in my head, and this pattern looked like just what I'd need (the multiple necklines will come in handy for other projects, too).

via VintagePatterns.com

I made the neckline higher than the pattern, and than my previous bodiced petticoat, because I figured it wouldn't show as much under my Pink Shirtwaist. Plus I have a couple pink dresses in the planning stages that will require an opaque "undergown," and the place this neckline falls is right where I like it--not so high it chafes and chokes, nor so low that I can't bend over. :-P
We originally cut the bodice 1/2" longer than the pattern piece, just because I've had high-waisted things hit me too high in the past. However, when I sewed it to the skirt, we found the bodice to be too long! Amazing. So yay! An Empire pattern I can actually use as-is! PTL!
The skirt in this pattern is rather narrower than the drawing shows, and since I like my skirts with a bit of flare to them, we moved the pattern piece an inch or so back from the fold of the fabric. I think we added some flare to the sides, too. The result is a slim, A-line skirt that looks narrow but is actually pretty roomy. I made a master pattern from the fabric pieces after we'd gotten the fit right, so now I can begin cutting out some dresses with it! :-D

Until next time, Gentle Readers,
God bless, and Happy Summer!
~"Tom"~

A Spot of Gardening

Despite several gloomy days (with or without drizzle), the plant life in Post Falls has come to life as only Lady Spring can make it do, and our little place is no exception. Just two or three weeks ago, we began to see baby leaves on The Guardians, the Dryad's Throne, The Cottonwood and the Other Poplar, and now, with a bit of welcome sunshine now and then...well, see for yourself!

The Guardians, seen from back yard

The Dryad's Throne

The Cottonwood

The Other Poplar (behind The Cottonwood)

Snow-capped Mt. Spokane, seen over the back hedge

 God has provided several loverly new flowers to pretty up our yard and fill in the gaps in the flowers beds we put in last year. The H family down the street gave us a bleeding heart, and as you can see from the pictures, it's happy just sitting in the pot! Eventually we plan to continue this little bed all the way around the front of the house and around the corner, to help soften it up, hide the blank wall on that side of the house, and to disguise the cats' fenced-in yard a bit.

 The snow-on-the-mountain (or is it snow-in-Summer?) Mrs. H gave us last year is growing nicely and will probably fill up the whole bed by Summertime. The bushy plant in the picture is a Johnson's Blue Cranesbill, which is looking decidedly less leggy this year. There's a pink cranesbill on the left end of the bed, and we bought a Jacob's Ladder to fill in the spot on the right end. No pix yet, but I'll try to get some when they bloom.

  

Mom and I were so thrilled a couple weeks ago to find these beauties at Lowes. Pansies are some of my favorite flowers (apart from roses and violets, of course)—so cheerful, so dainty, and they come in so many colors! Seriously, I don't recall ever seeing an ugly pansy. The only downside, of course, is that they're annuals, so you have to plant them year after year, although sometimes they do come back. We had one lone pansy of the dozen or so we bought last year come back from the root, so we said no more pansies and started looking for primroses instead. We had some in California and had great success with them. Well! Not only did we find some at Lowes for about 60 cents apiece (no one else in the CdA area had them anymore), but we found these perennial pansies also! It said so right on the tag: “Columbine Viola—Mounding perennial.” Awesome!

Columbine, with Veronica behind

We also picked up a columbine, which I've been wanting for quite a while now.

But we'll have to wait 'till next year to see what colors of primroses we got, as they were all done blooming when we bought them.

Last year we put in a big flower bed—with some help from the H family—along the side wall of our work building (picture below). As you can see, there's a lot of blank wall there. Boring. So we got some delphiniums to hide it...eventually. Right now they're only about 18” tall and just starting to bud, but if all goes well, by Summertime they'll turn into six-foot-tall spikes of blue and purple and lavender. :-D Again, pix coming when they bloom.

Summer 2011

We also bought an Oriental poppy, a red geum (which looks a bit like a cross between a peony and a rose with different leaves) and a couple (mystery color) Canterbury Bells. But our gardening endeavors didn't stop at planting new flowers—we also moved several things around. Like putting the smaller plants in front instead of in back, and moving the GIANT 'mum to the back of the bed where it wouldn't overshadow the smaller plants. :-P We also potted several flowers because they turned out to be Barbie-pink instead of the soft baby-pink or blue we had hoped for. We just don't go in for a lot of hot pink. One has already found a good home (one of Mom's adult cello students!), and I plan to make a sign and set these “Free Flowers” along the roadside for anyone to adopt who wants them.

(Yaknow, I don't tend to realize how lacking in photos I am until I start writing up my posts....)

And now, Gentle Readers, pictures of the blouse I hinted at last week—I call it “Sea Breeze” because of the color-scheme. This is what it looked like before:

Again with the crummy photos

 As I mentioned last week, my Mom made this dress for herself back in the '80s, re-using the fabric from a costume from her Ballet company. She used McCall's 4122, View B. When I was about fourteen or fifteen, she gave the dress to me, and I wore it for a while, but it never really hung well on me. Sometime after I graduated from high school (give or take a year), I noticed that the print of the dress blended beautifully with some jade-green poplin in my “stash,” which was slated to be made up into a vest and capris. The rest, as they say, is history.

...about five years of history. Mostly this poor thing sitting around in boxes, all cut up or half-finished, waiting for me to get my lazy bum in gear and sew. And by God's aid, I have finished it—hallelujah!

And this is what is looks like now, as of last week:

Close-up of print

Back view

I don't know if it shows in the picture, but there is a circular “yoke” in self-fabric at the neck. I used Butterick 5348 for that and the white muslin lining. The neck of the blouse is gathered and “sandwiched” between the yoke and the lining, with the yoke turned under and top-stitched down. The rest of the blouse was cut from a pattern I drafted several years ago, based on a Vogue pattern (the number of which I've forgotten now). The sleeves are the original dress sleeves (that was why I drafted the bodice pattern in the first place—I wanted a peasant blouse with set-in sleeves, and I didn't have one ready-made).

The “waist” (Empire height) is gathered with elastic, which Mom showed me how to stretch as I stitched it to the fabric (after she very kindly marked it for me). In order to give the waist a little definition, I cut a strip of the capris fabric (the vest idea is out) and sewed it into a thin, topstitched ribbon, hand-sewing it to the front of the blouse, leaving it loose in back to be tied. This was so the elastic would have plenty of room to stretch.

The next step is to alter the matching capris, as they're a bit too wide in the waist and in sore need of side-pockets. Sure, it'd be easier to make a casing and put elastic in there, but I prefer fitted trousers to gathered ones. Plus cutting them down will allow me to cut a tab in the sides for the pockets to attach to, whereas I couldn't do that with them as-is. Clear as mud, right? ;-)

Today Mom and I had a little fun. This past week we've been looking over our sewing projects and making lists of notions we need for all of them. Today we headed out to Jo-Ann's and Hancock to get them, so we'll have them when we're ready to start on those projects. We found pretty much everything we needed (Mom found a few things at the CdA Hospice Thrift), so we're pretty much set to sit down and sew, sew, sew!

Which brings me to a rather miraculous happenstance....

My camera turns things blue!!!

For several months I've been drooling over this purple/lavender Paisley at Jo-Ann's, but I wasn't sure it was really my color (too pinkish, perhaps). But I have this pair of reddish-purple capris that have nothing to go with them, and lo and behold, the Paisley blended pretty well! The fabric looked a bit faded next to the capris, but I didn't pay much mind to that, especially when Mom did a color-test on me and said there wasn't any change in my complexion from the fabric to my Chinese Blue blouse (one of my best colors). So I took it up to the counter to be cut, asking for a yard and a half. That ought to make a nice Summer blouse, wot? But when the lady started measuring the fabric, there wasn't enough. However, there was another piece of fabric under it—and much richer-looking, to boot. What do you know—there was exactly 1 ½ yards, plus an extra 6” left on the bolt! God be praised! It looks equally smashing with purple or lilac (and I do have a pair of lilac/deep-lavender capris in the works), and I'm so thrilled with the color-scheme. I don't recall ever seeing it that rich/deep before. Is that a God-thing, or what? :-D

With Purple Capris (and color closer to real life)

Don't know exactly how to make it up yet, but definitely something simple, without a lot of details, to let the fabric speak for itself.

Until next time, Gentle Readers,

God bless, and enjoy the sunshine!

~“Tom”~