Karla's Cottage

Painting number 2, lost in the roses

Here is another little birdie friend in the 2nd painting I've done for over the mantel.

 

Last spring, I found this top half of an old, ornate door at a flea market.   It still had its wavy glass and I thought it would be the ideal frame for a painting above the fireplace on the rock wall.  The first painting I did had too much going on, I needed something more simple that could hang high and still look good from across the room.

For the background, I tore pages from a vintage book titled, "Birds in Kansas" and glued them to a foam core board.  Some pages were yellowed, so those were scattered around randomly with the whiter pages for a nice piecework pattern.

After that, I started in on painting the pot for the topiary I'd planned.  At this point, it looks a little like Groot. 

I think my family would have enjoyed the picture if I'd left it like this.  We all adore Starlord and Groot.

Here is a close up of the roses.

And this is the nest in the mossy pot.

Doing the two paintings for the mantel was so much fun for me. I used to be a painter, mostly watercolors.  But in the gallery world, I always felt slighted and looked down upon because my subjects were too "pretty".  No edge, no drama, no angst. Just pretty and happy. My style didn't fit into that scene and I kind of drifted away from this over time.

Maybe now, being older, I just don't care what others think, so I can paint what I want without feeling like I'm lacking. I might be doing more painting in the future. I didn't realize how much I'd missed it, till I got lost in these roses.

 

Inspiration for a painting

Last month at Good JuJu I stumbled across the perfect curtains for the new addition. They are not what I was looking for, and I hadn't even planned on curtains. I thought I'd go with shades covered by lace sheers (I'd bought a boxful of vintage ones at an estate sale for $6, that just needed a little repair and hemming to fit).

But when I saw a pile of these, perfectly faded, soft colored, old barkcloth panels in great condition, I fell in love.  I've had a thing for barkcloth since I was a kid and spent time in my Grandma's cabana room on the side of her Sarasota trailer.  She had curtains and seat covers, all in mismatched tropical patterns, in that nubby, old material.  Later on, when I discovered that cool, old fabric was made in ROSES too, I was enamoured with it.  

Silly me, I debated the purchase of these for about a half hour of dithering, and almost walked away.  I wasn't quite sure if they would fit the windows, and fabric wasn't on my shopping list that day. 

Then, I came to my senses and realized that 6 long panels and one extra length valance of beautiful, vintage fabric for only $150 was a deal I should never walk away from.  Even if they did not fit the windows, I could make pillows and slipcovers, it was a lot of material.

And I was right, they didn't fit the windows. Though, there is a deep hem, and with some finagling, I can make them work.

Once I had the curtains, my plans for the room changed up a tad.  I needed a coordinating something or other for over the mantel and I decided to paint some pink roses in the style of old postcards to hang up there.

And the picture should have a bird in it.

Here are some of the steps of the work.

And here is the finished painting.

Trouble is, it was too small and too busy for the giant frame I had in mind.  I needed an enormous anchor piece on that 15' stone wall, and this needed to be closer to eye level to enjoy, not up so high. I'll still use it on the mantel, but will set in directly on the mantel and lean it against the larger painting.  I'll post about that one later.

PS- Before this gets framed, I hope to get some copies made for my shop. I'll let you know.

Bragging about beautiful babies part two

Well, it isn't Dewdrop's birthday, but after showing all those special Sugarwings photos I had to slide in some of our littlest grandfairy too.

This kid is now a kindergartener!!!!!!!!!!!

We've been trying to squeeze in as much summer fun as we could before school started.  But with the remodeling project, and then my poor, old, aching back acting up, we didn't do as much as we usually do.  But the house is 90% done now, my massage therapist son fixed my back, so life can go back to normal soon.  

The weather still feels summery, heck, it IS summer. School starts way, way too early!  I always associated Labor Day with back to school.  Not mid-August. 

Classes begin earlier now, yet, hopefully we can still get some summer action going to enjoy the last rays of sun.  I think a relaxing pool afternoon after they get picked up one day is in order for this week.  I sure could use one.  I need to celebrate getting this room done.

Well, once it is done, that is.... I need to whip up some curtains soon. Those westward facing windows with no covers are reminding me that summer  certainly is still here.  That room heats up fast.

 

A decade of JOY with Sugarwings

We spent Sunday out on the lake to celebrate Sugarwings' and her Hippy Chick mama's birthday.  Since they are a couple of days apart we did a combo  party with a leisurely al fresco luncheon before our float on the pontoon.  What a great day!  Both grand fairies lost their fear of tubing  at faster than the slowest speed the boat would go, and bounced around out there, bopping on the waves and grinning ear to ear, even trying a few tricks. 

A day like that is a reminder of just how lucky I am to have all these people in my life.  

The last ten years with this girl have been some of the best times anyone could ever have.

It's hard to believe a decade of good times with my little sprite has already gone by.  I'll leave you with some of my favorite photos of her.

Some on the fly design ideas to fix a problem in our remodel project

When the siding on the old part of the house was being pulled off to add a room on, I was excited to see planks of wood underneath. Kind of ship-lappy, but not quite.  I had planned on doing a similar style on the ceiling, but after seeing it already existed on the wall, I decided to sheet rock the ceiling and not the wall, to use the wood siding as is, but with some patches of new wood added in since there wasn't quite enough old stuff to finish the whole thing.

 I should have supervised the nailing of the planks so that the old wood was pieced back in a mixed fashion. Instead it was used in blocks of all old wood, then blocks of all new wood.  Once primed, it was very obvious that two kinds of wood were used, one smooth and the other, wonderfully textured.  

In a blocky, stripy pattern.  

Luckily, I have the world's best contractor on the job!  He and I pulled some of the remnants of the old planks out of the trash heap, and he patch worked it into the area that was a big swatch of all new wood.

This was just enough patching to make it look like it wasn't patched, if that makes sense.  It was no longer a striped pattern that stood out, it is now a more random, piece work look, and not noticeable.

The trouble was, that the whole peak was all brand new boards and there wasn't enough old bits to patch it.  So, I decided to add some trim to make it look like it was meant to be that way.

Once again, we went out to the scrap pile in the yard, and found some leftover strips that were big enough to create a cottagey design on the wall.

And I found some decorative pieces in my stash to age it up a bit.

Hopefully, this makes the top portion where the wood was a completely different type of wood, seem like it was meant to be that way, not like we ran out of boards and had to make do?

I'd like to find a wonderfully old strip of scalloped wood to go across the bottom piece of trim and age it up even more. My son can nail that up for me later when I snag the perfect chunk of wood.  But I'm happy for now, with this quick fix with things on hand.

Another change I had to make was paint color.  Originally, this 15' peaked wall was to be a faded, duck egg blue.  But, I didn't want the wall colored and the trim white, that sounded too busy to me.

So, the top triangle area and all the trim is painted gloss white to match the trim in the rest of the room and the wall below is egg shell finish in the same color of white.  It blends together nicely (Its not all painted in the photo).

I also didn't want to have the top and bottom sections in different colors, because it would have given the illusion that the ceiling was lower and we love that vaulted ceiling.

Here is the finished wall.  The photo is taken from outside because the floors were just stained and coated and the smell is so strong that my eyes were watering, just standing by the open door.  It is sooooo bad that I can't imagine it ever dissipating.

But the floors are looking great!!  And someday it will dry and the smell will be gone, all the little details can be finished, and we will be DONE!

What's left?  The mantle, lighting, touch up paint and trim, then the front porch. The exterior is being painted, but that doesn't get in my way of foofing up and and soaking up the joy of the new room.  I'm getting excited now, the work is winding down.  

By the way, lots more photos to come. You probably guessed that, huh?

A dog cottage for Honey

My son built this cottage for Honey, Sugarwings picked out the colors, pink for the walls because it is her favorite and Honey colored shingles for the roof to match the dog. I thought of adding the pickets after we took out part of the fence to add the new addition to our house.

My boy designed it, from some vague, rambling descriptions I told him.  

Thanks, Adam, it is cute as can be!!

Keep Calm and "Just look at the Flowers, Karla."

It is pure chaos around here with the remodel going on.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited about the whole project and I have no complaints. It is going perfectly well.

But it isn't for the faint of heart.  It seems like every corner of my world has been affected, so I'm trying to concentrate on the areas that still have some pretty left in them. Like this view.  

If I'd turned the camera around, you'd have seen that all the plants and tables were pulled away from the house and the patio was a turmoil-ed spot too.

Because when we went to replace some siding that the puppy ate, we realized that a large percentage of the siding had to be redone due to water damage, and now we have to repaint the entire exterior, not just the addition.

In both photos, the tan boards are the new ones.

It will be wonderful to have a freshly painted home, once it is all done, but for now, it does add to the rest of the mess. 

I think the process is starting to bug me now, because the level of chaos has quadrupled while the floors all get re-stained.  Every bit of furniture, and all of my doodads have been stashed here there and every where.  We parceled out our belongings between the bedroom, bathrooms, breezeway, studio, and garage.

The studio got off light, with only a chair and the sofa stored out here.  Although, we are also using it as a temporary kitchen until the floor is done.

Which is very, very tempting to me as I work.  All day, I keep thinking about the snack items right across the room from me.  I might have strolled over to check on the cracker and treat levels a few times as I painted.  

You know, just to  make sure we had plenty.

Although, it is the studio itself that gives me the will to live through this current job.  I look back at what we went through to build this addition, and know how very, very, very worth it that was.  I adore my studio.  And then I think about all of the other big redos we have accomplished in the 20 odd years it took to transform a 900 sq ft home into a 5,000 sq ft home a bit at a time, and think how much I love the final transformation.

Of course, some people might have just bought a bigger house.

Or moved (and I wondered at times when we had the floor open to the Hell Pit below our house, if moving was still an option).

We haven't done it the easy way.  Every few years, we tackled another area. We have had a lot of tearing up and tearing down and adding on.  We added rooms in the attic. We tore out walls and made rooms bigger. We added a second house and tied it on with a breezeway.  We did it piece by piece as we could afford it (financially, as well as emotionally).

Our house is a weird, hodgepodge of meandering rooms. 

And I LOVE each and every one of them.  Just like I'll love the new hearth room this winter as I sit by the fire with a good book.  The short amount of time the workers are here might feel like a lifetime while the house is torn up and we are camping in the office and eating sandwiches in the studio, but in a true lifetime span of living in a home we love, that is a small amount of time to sacrifice.

Soon, it will be done and I'll have the fun of gathering up pretty things to fill the space with.  

I'll leave you with more in progress photos.

 

Visitors from around the world

During our family gathering, and right after my son and husband rescued our foundation from falling into the Hell Pit below us, we had some visitors from Japan.  Kia had just returned from there on a student exchange trip. And in trade out, a couple of 12 year old boys from Japan came to stay with her family afterwards.

Our house was (and still is now) pretty torn up, but we had space to set up another table to host a big dinner party for the boys.  We fixed some traditional American, summertime foods- mac and cheese, potato salad, baked beans, hot dogs, and ice cream cones.  

Then, we took them outside for a ride on the Gator through the woods.

Later, they went out on the boat and got to do some tubing.  There were plenty of scheduled activities for them with their group, but we tried to show them a little bit of Kansas life in July.  BBQ, boating, 4 wheeling, and family time, what more could a kid want, no matter what part of the world he is from?

 

Murals of the past

When Guncle Randy was here, he spent some time with his life long buddy, Susie.  I dropped him off at her Kansas City home and she gave us a tour of some of the murals I had painted for her what seemed like eons ago.  We figured out it was back in 2002, not as long ago as I had guessed.  This is the master suite, and at the time, Randy helped me do the rag rolling technique on the walls, then I added the palm trees.

The kitchen was also painted with a ragged on glaze over the gold color they had applied, and I added faux bricks along with a window onto a French countryside.

It was a pleasant surprise to see them still there.  

I'd forgotten about the bricks, those were something I used to do a lot of years ago.

 

Yet another blast from the past was this little kitty.  

Back in the day, even before I was a muralist, I painted tee shirts.

Garfield was a mascot for Embassy Suites, where Susie was head of sales, and she commissioned me to make up some painted tees for her staff.

She dredged this one up to answer the door in when I came to visit.  

Funny thing, I had just met one of my son's friends the day before and got to talking about her dad who used to make wooden toys for Sliver Dollar City.  I told her that the amusement park used to send me boxes of toys and dolls to do portraits of onto tee shirts to sell there.  And she said that as a child, she had a hand painted teddy bear shirt from there. That must've been one that I had done.

So, after not thinking about those shirt paintings for ages, all of a sudden, two thoughtful remembrances came up within days.  I found it very touching to know that artwork I'd long moved on from was a fond memory for another person.  

Farm to Table centerpieces and a little bit of craft time is better than none at all.

During our mini reunion, I whipped up some centerpieces for a dinner party my husband was going to host in Chicago.  Sadly, I had to cancel attending and helping with the decor, but I still wanted to do at least a little bit for it.

The theme for the dinner was "farm to table".    I had big plans for the look, and had started a Pinterest board with all sorts of ideas and daydreams. It was disappointing to miss out on it all.

Well, I couldn't do it all from long distance, but I could send a boxful of things they could possibly use. So, I filled burlap wrapped peat pots with oasis foam, covered that in moss and topped it all off with one of our own eggs (blown out) and some feathers from our ladies our in the coop.  

They are finished with twine and an acorn charm.

From "our farm" to their table.  

While hanging out in the studio with Guncle Randy and Terry, I also made a bracelet for my daughter-in-law.  With labradorite, amethyst, moonstone, ruby, and fluorite beads.

For this one, I added some dangled beads.

Typically, I'm rather prolific out in the studio, but I'm not quite up to speed right now.  Randy made up for it, by whipping out one page after another in a book he was making.

As well as doing pages in a couple of other books that he brought.

 

This was the cover of the journal he finished while here.

It was a garden theme, and I made a little sign for him to color and add to the book.

I'll leave you with more pics from his pretty book.