More National Folk Farmhouse Projects

My goodness, we have SUNSHINE streaming in! That big glowing yellow orb in the sky has been missing for over a week in our parts. It looks so good coming in, flooding the newly painted kitchen with bright sunshine. This is what I was waiting for!

My new Dracaena plant from Aldi last week has been craving sunshine down in the she shed too! I really like the colors of this plant. It's very unusual. I hope to keep it growing for years to come.

Steve is still finishing up a couple more junctions and new wire replacements up in the attic today. Our temperature is up in the mid-forties. That's so very strange for Wisconsin. He was able to crawl up in the attic which is being warmed by the sunshine and the nicer temperatures. One year ago today we were 30 below zero How amazing is that?

While Steve is busy working up in the attic I am available to hand him a few tools and items here and there.  I run them up the ladder so he can access stuff without having to go up and down. While he is doing that, I'm doing a couple other little projects myself...

Since we mounted the TV on a wall bracket in the living room, I didn't like the look of the power cord and antenna wires dangling down underneath it. They make this really cool plastic strip that you can snap open, enclose the wires, and snap it shut again. It mounts to the wall with an adhesive strip. 

I bought a long piece that I cut into two sections.  I will use part of it for the tv in the livingroom and then the other part down in the she shed behind my quilting machine. It will help keep the wires tight to the wall and not tangling into the tracks as I go back and forth with the quilting machine. Very nice. I painted the livingroom piece a matching color for the wall and mounted it under the TV today. I was careful to use a level to make sure it goes directly up and down and not tilted. Once it's stuck, it really stays there!

Last night we ran a couple errands down to Green Bay. We picked up some new tires for the car because they are getting in rather worn shape and one is developing a wobble by the sidewall or wear bands. Time to replace them. While we were down in Green Bay, we happened to just walk through Home Depot, "just to see". You know how that goes??

Lo and behold I found a beautiful piece of matching trim egg and dart molding that was 10 ft long! I didn't think they had it.  On their website it said they only had eight foot long pieces and I needed a nine foot piece. While we happened to be walking through the store looking at things, I found the piece that was 10 ft long! Score!  It was only a $1.97 a foot, so it was under $20 for the entire piece.  When I painted the mantle 2 weeks ago, I wanted a piece of egg and dart 3 inch wide molding to match the trim we have over the doorways and window sills. 

We happily loaded it in the car with the last foot or so hanging out the rear window to get it home. Now I can paint it up and Steve can nail it to front edge of the mantle. It will cover up some of the rougher areas that the painting effort two weeks ago didn't really disguise.

Then we decided to pop into Menards, you know, "just to see". LOL!

Well, we wandered past the rolls of vinyl flooring and I knew that the vinyl flooring I had in the bathroom at our house in Chilton was now discontinued. The Menards in Marinette no longer carries it. I've been having my eye on it, for a sale, in case we find a 12-foot by 12-foot remnant to put in our bathroom here in Oconto.

Wow, look at that! Not only was there a perfect size roll left in the remnant pile, but it was on sale for an extra 10% off the marked price on top of it. Score!

We really didn't plan on buying bathroom flooring right now, but when it's on sale, and discontinued, I guess we can't pass it up. If we don't buy it now, we will never have the chance again for that brand and style and color. We can store it away in the garage until we're ready to start that project (somewhere down the line).  We paid for it and have to go back today to pick it up with the Tracker and trailer.

I love our bathroom off the master bedroom in this house, but I did not like the flooring. It's like a patchwork fake brown slate tile looking stuff that is way too crazy of a pattern. Especially with the beautiful pattern wallpaper on the wall, I didn't like pattern in both places. It's too busy looking. 

Underneath, there is hardwood flooring. The sellers told us they never had that room's floor refinished when they did the rest of the house. It's awfully tough to have wood flooring in a wet bathroom. This wide sheet of vinyl flooring makes a lot more sense.  I just don't care for the color and pattern they chose.

This stuff that we bought is called "White Cement". It's kind of a creamy mottled color with no distinct pattern or striping. Just makes a nice smooth even floor that will coordinate well with the wallpaper, trim, clawfoot tub, shower and the pedestal sink etc.  Steve said at the same time he would like to swap out the toilet for a taller one with elongated bowl. The one that's in there is a little smaller shorter and has a round bowl. So that will be the perfect time to replace the toilet when we change the flooring!  Here is the sample piece laying on top of the present bathroom floor. 

Another thing to consider is that when that flooring had been installed by the previous owners, he didn't allow it to "float" --- instead he nailed it down through the baseboard and quarter round trim tight to the floor. That is wrong, because this type of vinyl flooring needs to be able to expand and contract. There's a very pronounced wrinkle during the summer months and less of a wrinkle during the winter months. But the wrinkle is still there and it's because it was incorrectly installed in the first place. We will be sure to install this new piece correctly because we have done it before, and I think it will be a nice finish to the master bathroom.

(see the wrinkle near the rug and corner to the right?

It gets bigger in the summer and goes 

all of the way across the floor to the toilet)

Since we are going to buzz back to Menards today to pick up the roll of flooring we bought last night, (we couldn't haul it home in the car) we are also going to grab a 4 by 8 sheet of beadboard paneling. I figured out how to cut enough beadboard panels to enhance my kitchen. I want to put them on the ends of the cabinets, the ends of the coffee bar, and three little panels in the recessed area of the doors on the island. It will give it more of a "farmhouse look" of beadboard cabinets and I think it will finish things off nicely.

So that's it for new projects on our National Folk Farmhouse --- 

that will keep us busy this next week or so.

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As I mentioned in my last blog I have been working on a new quilt. I bought this really cute little kit at Joann's Fabrics right before we moved. I didn't have time to start it, because we were busy packing and sorting and moving. So I decided it was time to pre-wash the fabrics and get it going. 

The kit only makes a 70 inch by 70 inch quilt. That really isn't big enough to cover a bed. I kind of thought maybe I would find some coordinating fabric so I could make the quilt bigger by adding borders and wider spaces between the blocks. I mentioned on my quilting list on Facebook that I had this kit and I was going to shop for some coordinating fabrics. What a surprise to find out that another gal on my list had also bought the exact same kit on clearance. She didn't think she would ever get around to using it. So she sold it to me for exactly what she paid for it, plus a little bit more for shipping. She popped it in the mail and now I have enough fabric between the two kits to make a complete quilt. Big enough to fit on our King Size bed. Or I can just make it and sell it on my Etsy site for some income.

After prewashing the fabrics,

I have to carefully cut them to the correct sizes.

These are the two main block patterns. 

Coming together nicely!

The other quilt that I mentioned in my last blog, I finally finished it up. It is one that I had started a long time ago.

I had stopped at a rummage sale about a year or so ago. A lady was selling quilting kits that had once belonged to her mother. She said her mother had never been able to finish them up. I am not sure if she passed away or just unable to finish due to a health situation. I didn't ask. One kit had been started and had about half of the blocks assembled. I bought it to finish it up. 

My sister had visited me that very same week and saw the blocks. She was attracted to it and asked me a couple of times what I was going to do with it. She had even sent me a book with that particular pattern on the front cover. I knew she liked that and I kept that in the back of my mind over the last year and a half.

I finally got it done, and I had my old neighbor Connie embroider a tag for a special occasion. She has one of those fancy embroidery machines that does such neat lettering and made the tag.

This is my first attempt ever at flanged binding. 

I really like the way it came out. 

It adds a little strip of green 

before the red binding around the edge

This is my favorite free motion pattern I call it hooks and swirls. I do it all free hand on the quilting frame while moving the machine around the quilt, kinda like "drawing with thread".

Here is the finished quilt: 

Once finished, I packed it up and sent the quilt to my sister.  She lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan so I popped it in the mail to her. 

Unbeknownst to me, she had popped a surprise gift package in the mail, on the same day, to me. Now isn't that wonderful? We must have been on the same wavelength. She does so many nice things for everyone else.

She's been through a lot of stuff this last year recovering from a motorcycle accident. I felt she needed a little something extra “just because”. She felt the same way for me and sent me some things, “just because”.

Well, it's time to wrap this up and hit the road. Have to buzz down to Green Bay for 30 miles and get that flooring.   Onward to another Fix It Up Adventure at our National Folk Farmhouse!