Is the Wood Wall still standing?

4/28/2015

Bonjour mes amis!

Today, I'm going to have to take a break from showing you the city of Caen, France to reveal a big project I worked on that I haven't told you about.

My daughter, Ms. Sapphire, moved to Colorado some three years ago.  As sad as it is to have her living away, it has sure given us a fun place to visit!  Ms. Sapphire is a hard worker and a good saver, and she recently purchased a new home all on her own.  We are so proud of her!

3 Story Townhome!

I really wanted to go see her new home and help with the Decorating!  But...we made a plan for a project or two as well.

Ms. Sapphire's builder wanted about $3,000 to put molding around all of her windows.  I found that ridiculous, and told her not to have them do it, that I would help get it done.  (Wait!  What did I just get myself into?)

Then, in another moment of insanity, I gave Ms. Sapphire a recommendation for obtaining hardware for her kitchen and bathroom cabinets (build.com...which, by the way, did not disappoint!  Wonderful, heavy, good quality hardware at a good price)!  I  told her I would bring my guides for installing the hardware.  (What?  Another big project!  45 pieces of hardware!?!)

What was I thinking?

She's a working girl!  (Though she did take time off!)

Heading up there with so many projects meant I really had to work,

and work hard,

and, by the way,

do it all in one week!

So, what do I do next?  I see Ms. Sapphire's great new home, and I tell her that she needs a feature wall in her livingroom, like a big reclaimed wood wall!  (Did I just say that?  That's another huge project!)  Oh!  You can bet your bottom dollar that Ms. Sapphire was all about that.

So, what did we do?

We headed to Home Depot, of course, to buy wood...

To build a wall!

An 8 foot wide, by 10 foot tall wall!

Mind you, at this point, we were so excited and eager to get started...

After purchasing the wood, we cut the wood down so we could make it resemble a pieced wood floor (after very careful calculations), and then we beat on the wood to give it some character with whatever tools we could find!  Following that, we stained the wood using strong tea, and followed up with the Vinegar and Steel Wool concoction that you can find instructions for all over the Internet!  We loved the varying shades of the browns and greys!

Construction began in the afternoon in the livingroom.  Ms Sapphire did not want lots of holes in her walls, so we chose to put up two boards, screwing them into the studs, and then, we would screw the wall into those boards.  We put four black screws in each board, two on each end.  Of course, we had to pre-drill the holes.  Even with two of us, the work took hours!

We got pretty far along, and then realized we better make sure we could lift this thing.  We may or may not have removed a few boards!

We moved right along though, with barely a stop for dinner.  And then, as it got later and later, I begged Ms. Sapphire to stop for the night and finish in the morning.  No!  She was determined that we complete the wall that night.

So, we did!

And Ms. Sapphire even vacuumed up afterward!  (You will note that we did not bring the wall boards all the way to the floor.  We figured a new sofa would cover this area, and this way, Ms. Sapphire has access to the electricity for some cool lighting)!

At 1:04 AM, the work was done, and we headed to bed to veg in front of a little Downton Abby (since Ms. Sapphire hasn't watched the whole series yet)!

That was a hard days work, but the payoff was big!  Even Ms. Sapphire's neighbor (who is a handyman) came to inspect our work, and was super impressed!

And when I say the payoff was big, look at the space now that Ms. Sapphire got her new sofa and has done some decorating!  Wow!  (I'm pretty sure Ms. Sapphire's Pup, Luka, loves his new home too)!

And here's a few closeups, just after the new sofa arrived!

Don't you just love the texture of all that wood?

Quite a Statement!

And, I love all the selections that Ms. Sapphire has made for her new Home!

And yes, the morning after we constructed this wood wall, I came down the stairs, and asked Ms. Sapphire...

"Is the Wood Wall still standing?"

Yeah!  We did good work together, and it was so nice having the time with my daughter.

As a reward for all our hard work, we took a little trip to Steamboat Springs together even though she had to go there for work anyway!  We had a great time!

Come back next time when I will reveal our other projects!
Have a "Jewel" of a Day!
Jan

Just in time for warmer weather!

1/16/15

Bonjour mes amis!

How did gift-giving go for you this Christmas?  Did you have returns to make?  Did everything fit right?

I always try to really think hard about things I think people will like in my gift-giving, and this year, I ended up making two things for Dr. J that I thought might be meaningful for him.

First off, I took a great deal of time to go through all of our photos from our time in Europe, while we lived in France in 2012 and 2013.  Dr. J LOVES Stained-Glass Windows.  I know I mentioned it frequently in past posts, but I'm telling you, it was like a moth being drawn to flame!  If Dr. J saw an old Church or Cathedral that just might have stained-glass windows, we had to go check it out.



So, I put together an Album for him of all the best photos that we took of stained-glass windows, and labeled the Album,

Une année de Vitraux!

(Translated, A year of Stained-Glass Windows!)

All in all, I came up with about 200 photos.  I got the photos printed up and arranged them in an Album, and then pain-stakingly went through and labeled them, where the photo was taken and when.

Dr. J was touched, although, it has meant more and more to him as he looks through and remembers all those visits, and studies the photos for detail.  His favorite window is this one...

Don't you love how the guy is holding his own head?  We saw a number of windows like this in France.  Personally, my favorites were the fleur-de-lis shaped ones, but I'm sure that doesn't surprise you.

I gave Dr. J a second gift that I made for him too, however, I had to give it to him unfinished...

Dr. J has an afghan that his Grandma (now deceased) made for him many years ago.  He treasures that thing.  He wraps up in it every night while he's reading in bed, and is always mindful to take good care of it.

SO, I thought he should have something from me that I crocheted.  I found an excellent free pattern for a thermal scarf made with wool yarn through Lion Brand Yarn Company (because you know we need thermal scarves in Texas)!  I just thought the pattern looked like the most masculine scarf, and that then he'd have something from me to wrap around himself too.  (I also thought that the pattern had a bit of a window-like look, and would be a fitting gift to give with the Stained-glass Photo Album...a bit of a stretch I guess, but hey...work with me here!)

I bought two balls of yarn like the instructions said, and got started.  After completely using up the two balls, I realized that I was really only about half way through the length I should have had.  I headed back to the store to try to get more yarn, but couldn't match the dye-lot, so I took my chances and just bought two more skeins.

By this time though, Dr. J was home every night, and there was NO WAY I could complete it in time for Christmas, without him seeing me working on it.

So, I wrapped up the scarf, and still gave it to him on Christmas, promising to finish it soon!

I did get the scarf finished a few days later, and proudly handed him the completed project.

He put it around his neck, and then took it off and folded it in half length-wise and tried it on again,

and that's when my heart sunk...

I could tell he wasn't going to be too happy about wearing this.  He said he liked it, but right away I knew it would never get used.  It needed to be skinnier.  The scarf made up kind of stiff because of the yarn, but...

I HAD FOLLOWED THE PATTERN EXACTLY!!!

I almost got angry.
He asked if it could be a little skinnier?
And I said, "not unless I start it all over"!

Sweet man that he is...he didn't want me to have to do that.  But goodness!  All that hard work, and for him not to wear it EVER?

I didn't want that, so...

I remade the whole thing, at about half the width it was, and now it's ready for him to wear.  When I gave it to him again, he kept it around his neck the whole rest of the evening to show me he liked it.  I was so pleased, since now I do believe he will wear it!

BUT NOW WE'RE SUPPOSED TO HAVE TEMPERATURES IN THE MID-60'S FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS, AND HE DOESN'T EVEN NEED A SCARF!

Ugh!  Who knows?  Maybe we'll have another little cold snap...

I'll have to have a little talk with the Groundhog in the next couple weeks!

I hope you had better luck with your gift giving this year!

Have a "Jewel" of a weekend!
Jan

Top Ten Photographs!?!

7/24/2014

Bonjour mes amis!

I have a huge Decorating Goal ahead of me.  I want to make a wall of photographs in our Gameroom from our awesome year spent in France, and other parts of Europe.  But how do I choose?  We have thousands of photos!  There are definitely some that stand out, so those will be easy.  I still haven't decided how many photos I will use, but I know I want the BEST OF THE BEST!!!

So, I'm carefully looking through ALL the thousands of pictures and trying to narrow it down.  Today, I want to share a beginning TOP TEN EIGHTEEN (you must know by now that I can't actually stick to TEN on a Top Ten)!  These will MOST DEFINITELY make the Wall...I think!

Unbelievably, the photos I'm sharing today are only from the first three months we lived in France!

I'm in trouble!

How will I ever narrow these down?

I guess there will be another Post of the 2nd three months, the 3rd three months, etc., etc.!

Can you see why this is so difficult?

We had an extraordinary Year!

I could probably do a Post on Top Ten Stained Glass Windows...
And even that would be hard to pare down!

I guess it's time to shut the door on this Post for now...

Thank goodness I have some awesome photos of fabulous doors!

I do wish you a "Jewel" of a Day!
Jan

The View from my Shower...

6/9/2014

Bonjour mes amis!

This is the view from my all new Shower into our Master Bathroom!

This is Dr. J's Sink area...

And, my Sink area...

Before I show you the actual "after" pictures of the Shower, let's take a look at some "before" pictures of our bathroom...

All in all, it doesn't look too bad with the white tile, but you are seeing the walls painted, after I removed all the wallpaper...

The shiny brass framework and foggy glass had to go...

The bathroom just really needed an upgrade...
That tiny broken tile on the front left of the tub surround always bothered me!

And don't you love the Shell sink?

Atleast there was tile in the toilet area...but white?

The carpet was the other thing that needed to go!  I always hated the darkness along the edge of the light carpet!

And now, for the "after" pictures!

The New Showerhead...and check out my favorite...the Hand Held Shower!  I requested this.  After having one in France for the whole year, I discovered how much easier it was to keep the Shower clean and rinsed with this...

And, we added a bench as well...because Dr. J said that "we are not getting any younger..."!

I requested recess boxes for holding shampoo and other items...

Here's a fuller view of the corner...

With the new tile, fixtures and chair molding we added, the bathtub looks like a brand new one!

And, all my pretty things still look just beautiful with the new Marble countertops...

We kept the same footprint, and even the same cabinetry...

We also had the walls painted a nice light color...Valspar "Asiago"!

(I know...I took this picture before we changed out the toilet handle to oil-rubbed bronze!)

Some closeups...
Dr. J won out with the choice of the Marble, and it's just beautiful!

I really wanted this travertine chair molding to cap off the tile surround, and for decoration in the Shower!

This is the lighting we put in before our move to France...

I love old chandeliers, and Dr. J will be putting a small one in the commode area for me as well.  Why not?

Here's the close up on the Shower.  We went with a frameless door, and LOVE it!

Hope you enjoyed the tour today!

I think I'll go workout now, so I need a Shower, and can enjoy my "jewel" of a bathroom again!
Jan