Sharing Shadymont, My Mountain Cottage

Whew!  I'm too pooped to pop!!! We had an outdoor workday today.  Hubby pressure washed the front porch, mud room stoop, and the patio outside the basement.  While he did all that, I re-painted our front porch rockers, and a small table to go between the rockers.  I moved some of my plants around to the screened porch.  I had some on the front porch, and some on the screened porch.  Now most of them are on the screened porch.  It will make it easier to water them plus we can see them from the family room.  I also mowed about 2 acres of yard, and threw a flower arrangement together for the front porch.   I re-painted the rockers because I had painted them earlier in the Spring with a flat black paint.  That just didn't look good.  So today, they got a coat of glossy black paint.  So much better!! These steps lead to the mud room.  My verbena wasn't doing well on the front porch, so I will see if it does better with more sun.  Those are my tomato plants on the litt

Hoosier or baker's cabinets have been around since the early 1900's.  My mother had one in her kitchen.  I remember the flour bin, the metal drawer and the  porcelain work surface trimmed with red.  The drawer pulls were also red.  At some point in time, the top of the Hoosier was removed.  I think my Dad may have traded it to the next door neighbor along with a wash-stand for a set of cabinets for the kitchen.  (If my memory is correct). Anyway, I came to have the bottom of the Hoosier cabinet.  It has set in the basement of the two homes I have owned for 25 or 30 years.  I'm sorry to say it was in horrible condition.   I recently decided I would at least clean it up a bit and paint it.  So here is what it looked like before.  What a mess!!!   I know, it was horrible. The condition was so poor, and the wood so soft, I was afraid to do a lot of sanding.  However, I sanded it lightly before and after priming it.  Here is a shot of the work surface.  You can

Today I am sharing a few areas at our little get-away.  The furniture there is a combination of pieces my husband had, and some that were in his family for years.  We saw no need to buy new when we had so much stuff already, so we made what we had work.   Just look at this old antique vanity dresser.  I just love the round mirror with the scalloped trim.  The stack of books are actual ones I found going through my MIL's things.  I tied them up with string. If you'll look in the mirror, you will see the matching chest of drawers, although it looks more black.  Do you see the trim on the front of the dresser drawers?  The area where the little angel sits, opens up.  I'm not sure what those were used for.  Maybe to store jewelry??? There is one on each side.  Unfortunately all the knobs had been replaced.    The twin beds that my husband and his brother slept on when they were small boys are in the room.  The linens are quite old, but in fabulous condition.

Quite some time back, I sewed a shade cover for my rooster lamp out of burlap and cotton trim.  I had quite a bit of the materials left over, and decided to use the scraps to recover this little lamp shade.  You can see that the shade has seen better days, maybe a little water damage. I gathered my supplies together, glue gun,  scissors, glue stick, burlap, and trim.   At first I tried wrapping some burlap garland around the shade, but it raveled too much, and didn't give the look I wanted, so I switched to burlap fabric.  I simply wrapped the burlap around the shade and cut accordingly, allowing enough fabric to fold over and glue down. I then placed the burlap on the shade at the seam area and ran a bead of hot glue on the shade, and attached the burlap.  Next, I folded the burlap over at the top and bottom of the shade and glued it in place, making little tucks in the burlap to adjust it to fit the shade.  Once the glue dried, I simply wrapped the trim aro

I've been moving things around again.  I rearranged the family room a couple of weeks ago. Switched some shelves around, then yesterday, I rearranged some tabletops. Here are some of the changes. I liked the way the family room was arranged, but it was rather crowded on one end, so I decided it was time for a change.  We don't use these french doors, so furniture placement is not a big deal.   I moved the accent table from it's old spot where the love seat sits to the wall where the recliner was.   The love seat was sitting where the recliner is.  This opened up quite a bit of room and allows traffic to go through the door you see to the breakfast nook and sun room.  That area was blocked by the love seat and recliner.  I'm enjoying the more open arrangement. You'll also notice that I changed out the table top in the corner. I switched the tall lamp with the burgundy shade with the rooster lamp in the dining room. I decided to move some white items un

I think the little fairy gardens everyone is making are so cute.  So I made one....sort of.  I received this pot of succulents from my boss a couple of months ago when I retired.  I looked through a couple of drawers of "junk" for some small items to add to it to make it a garden. I found the Saint Joseph given to us by our former realtor.  You may or may not be familiar with the story that if you want to sell a home, you need to bury a Saint Joseph in the ground in front of the home.  When hubby and I first married, we had 3 homes between us, and something needed to go.  We decided to sell the older home near Atlanta.  It stayed on the market for what seemed like forever.  So, our realtor bought a Saint Joseph and planted it in the yard and shortly after, the home sold. (Now granted, it probably had nothing to do with the St. Joseph), but it's kinda neat to think it did. She gave us the statute as a symbol of good luck.  I placed the statute, a rose, seashell, and a

I have been wanting to go back to the Hen's Nest Consignment Store about 30 miles away.  So finally today, I decided to drive there.  I walked through it a couple of times but didn't buy anything.  They had a couple of things I would love to have, but y'all know how cheap I am, so I talked myself right out of them.  :(  As I was sitting at a traffic light to turn left to start back home, I was looking at the shops across the way, when what to my wandering eyes should appear, but a HUGE Consignment Shop that I had not heard about!  Now what's up with that!  Anyway, I just drove straight over there and had myself a look-see.  Oh my..... lots of clothing, but also lots of home decor items.  Be still my heart!! I just took my time and browsed through.  Now, some of the items were priced like new, but some had decent prices.  So a couple of smalls did come home with me.  Seven dollars and forty-seven cents worth to be exact.  Wanna see what I bought?? This hat box (still h