So, this house looks to me like a cottage. And I have come to think of it as such. A giant cottage in an urban neighborhood, but nonetheless...

We decided Miss 43 needed some cottage jewelry, so after looking through my tear sheets and wish lists we decided to buy a window box. We actually spotted it last year at Hooks and Lattice, and saved up enough to buy it.
Installing it on this stone requires special and complicated equipment, something to which J. is fortunate to have access.

In this case, it's called a "hammer drill" and it does both of those things.


So, one hammer drills holes, inserts a few giant screw anchors into the sill, and then puts in a few really long screws. I was terrified we were going to somehow crack the sill, the windows would fall out, and then cats and insects alike would come and go at will.

But this did not happen. The magic of catastrophic thinking is still failing me.

A helper cat is not necessary to complete this project, but you may want to have one standing by just in case.

It looks beautiful...from the house. From the street it's nearly invisible. Need...more...red...flowers.

No...wait, what I REALLY need is a flowerbed!

No...wider! Dig, man, dig!
For someone who doesn't really care about gardening, I'm getting a lot of things planted.

Garbage Update.

Remember the garbage flowers from the dump? Well, they're in bloom and although I spent all winter hoping they would not be purple (like the others), they turned out to be purple (not quite like the others). Here are the existing ones:


















and the garbage flowers:


I like their fluffyruffleness. And the blooms are bigger than the older ones too.


But I was really hoping for another color.

Oh well. You get what you pay for.











*shut up, i'm gorgeous!*

Let There Be Light (fixtures)

I'm just about done with winter. I can't get much done except start cocktailing about 7p.m., then bemoan the fact it's 30 degrees and I can't sit on the screen porch without a squall suit. My inner fixer says "paint", but my rational mind says "don't die from fumes".
So, in looking for winter projects, I've been replacing light fixtures.


This, when we moved in, was a filthy metal fixture with a bare bulb among many other filthy fixtures with bare bulbs, masquerading as the light fixture in the hallway.

In the early days of living here, Dad found this globe in a box of came-with-the-house garbage and put it up. No washing, cleaning, or anything. So there it has been for 2 years, full of bugs, covered with paint, and just uh-huh-glee. Look at that giant paint smudge on the metal. This is highly indicative of the Commitment to Quality the previous owners had. Meh.

Something possessed me and I spent an hour on the ladder cleaning the metal. If you have not yet experienced Barkeeper's Friend, let me tell you: it is the bomb. You can get it around places at about $3.99 a can. Miraculous, I tell you. It removes everything. Except that paint. You need stripper for that.

Anyway, one hour and another globe from the garbage box later, we have this:
















Look at that shine! So what the globe doesn't really go with the fixture; I don't really care. It makes a lovely golden light in the hall and the globe has really pretty detail on it. Which you won't be able to see unless I relocate the fixture to eye level.

But I know it's there.

And...We're Back!

Miss 43 in Winter! She looks quite nice in white, don't you think?

I got a new camera for Christmas, y'all, and then a new computer to upload stuff so that it doesn't take half my life trying to do something simple. There should be more frequent posting.

Yeah. Really, this time, I mean it.