cottage – Page 29 – Karla's Cottage

Happy New Year, and some Zero Dollar Decorating

By Karla Nathan / January 1, 2013

Happy New Year!

I'm starting off mine with a little bit of a redo. My husband has had some vacation time, and we've been enjoying reading by the wood stove in the kitchen. Since we have spent so much time there, I shuffled some things around and set up a comfy spot for us to relax in.

There is something about this time of year that compels me to rearrange, redo, lighten up, edit. Over the course of a year, as I scrounge flea markets and garage sales, I tend to accumulate and add cool, beloved junk to our home. When cold weather hits, and the January 1st marker of new beginnings rolls around, I start to rethink my look.

I still love my junk, and always will, but feel like I need less of it around in January. Maybe its partially the excesses of Christmas that make me crave tranquility.

Being cooped up indoors so much makes me want less stuff around, cleaner lines. And a new view.

Combining my urge to edit, the compulsion to redecorate, along with our love of roasting our toes by the fire, led me to a drastic, but FREE change.

I took the leaves out of the table, and turned it around, moved the island (that is why I built it with wheels!) and shopped in my own living room for a recliner. The second chair in our Archie/Edith setup is just one from the dining table, with a soft pillow for the small of my back and a footstool.

When Sugarwings came over, she loved it and said that my table was soooo cute, since it looked so tiny with no leaves. I doubt if she has seen it set up this way before, I like having a huge table.

Does the room look fantastic this way? No, not really. To me, its all just a little off, and a bit odd too. But its very functional, comfortable, and only temporary for the cold spell. (but heck, if I wanted perfection and high gloss style, I probably wouldn't have a wood stove in the dining room to start with)

And I am enjoying the change.

Change is a good word for the 1st. This is the perfect time to look around at things we've grown accustomed to, or complacent with. It's a time to think about what really works and what we can do to make it better.

A time for looking at things in a new way, to see what makes us and the ones we love more comfy in our every day lives, whether its as simple as moving a recliner to an unexpected spot or totally rethinking some bigger issues. Getting rid of old habits that don't make sense today, things that you are doing by rote, just because that is how you've been doing it that way.

Could a simple change in the New Year bring pleasure or ease to your life?

Over the river and through the woods

cottage, dogs, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), family, holiday decor, puppies!

By Karla Nathan / December 11, 2012

Its been much more fallish than wintery around here lately and we've been taking advantage of that weather. Last week, we crossed the creek and went out in the woods to cut down a tree for the Hippy Chick and her roomies. They wanted to set up a nature tree outdoors for the birds and animals and are going to garland it with popcorn and berries, and make birdseed ornies to hang on it.

We've got tons of scrub cedars, that it never hurts to clear out a bit, so we all trouped off into the woods to pick a pretty one for them.

Dorothy Rosebud was a big chicken, and had to be carried across the creek, and through most of the underbrush. Twinkle and Albie Brave and Strong ran off ahead were so busy that all the pictures I tried to get of them were just blurs. They ran non-stop and explored every fallen leaf.

Cedars aren't the best trees for indoors, but I think it will be a good one for the birdies to have their snacks arranged on outside. I hear that it was a bit sappy, the girls had a Griswald-ish time getting the sticky off of themselves!

While it was nice outside, I took some time to clean up the yard and move furniture into the shed.

These chairs are brand new from an estate sale, I'm looking forward to figuring out where to use them next spring. I got 4 chairs and a table for $20. They are meant for indoors, but have metal frames, so I'm thinking that if I cover the seats in something waterproof, they will be good in the yard.

Some day, I'll do something fun with this shed. It used to be my antique store, now the other half of it is the chicken coop. It might be nice to turn this half into a play house for the fairy grand babies. The new estate sale table is not going to be good for outdoors, even though the chairs can work outside. So, leaving it in the shed can be a start for making the play area next year.

Well, at least its something to day dream about once the long, cold winter hits!

I've added some neutral toned mini wreaths with millinery to my Etsy shop.

As well as a few more trees.

Some not so neutral pretties too!

The last couple of weeks, I've been trying to accommodate as many special orders as I could, but I'm now officially out of stock, after what is listed is gone. So, what is pictured is all that there is.

Sorry I can't do any special packages for you now, but I can't even find any dark trees to fix up, the stores all sold out early this year, so I am too! I made quite a few tree runs this season, and now its time to move on.

At the time I am writing this, there is still a good selection in the shop, especially the ones that I have decorated.

Thanks to everyone who shopped with me this year, I appreciate all the tree sales!

The adventures of Trapper Tom and the Giant Cat

cottage, guncles, kitties

By Karla Nathan / September 16, 2012

We have been under siege for a while around here. Sandy was sitting on the deck, and saw a Giant Cat of some kind, (bob cat?) step out of the flower bed, scoop up a chicken, and calmly walk away.

In broad daylight!

So, we called Critter Catchers and had some traps set around the property, and have had all the animals and kids on lock down.

The children have to stay in the yard by me, not run around the property to play, and the kitties get locked up in the breezeway every night. The little dogs only get to go out in the fence, or stay by our side if we are out.

The poor chickens have been cooped up in the coop since their sweet little red sister was stolen away.

We've got 3 large traps set, and baited with nasty smelling dead creatures. So, being outside isn't all that pleasant any way. On hot days, nothing smells worse than a 3 day old, skinned weasel.

The trappers say that big cats only need to eat every few days, and that they have a range of territory, it might be a while before it comes back through.

He showed us all the signs and tracks in the woods of where the cat had been. This is a footprint, and is as large as Sandy's hand!

I wanted to make a plaster cast of the print, but didn't get to it in time, and rain ruined the trail. I've checked the woods daily, but have not seen any new tracks. Which, I guess is good, but it doesn't mean the beast is gone, I feel like he is waiting for us to let the ladies back out of the coop so he can stroll by and nab another one!

In the meantime, we have trapped an entire raccoon family. A large male, smaller female and 5 pups. Are they called pups? Cubs, maybe?

Trapper Tom retrieves them, and takes the cage to the river to let them out. If my husband is around, he will dump the coons or possums himself. He and the grands load up the big, red, pick up truck and head to the Kansas River and let them go. There is a caged coon behind the hen house right now, and my husband is out of town, so I'll keep it fed till tomorrow when he can unload it. That's better than us paying the trapper to keep coming up to empty the traps and I don't particularly want to do it myself.

Our count so far:

7 Coons

6 Possums

0 Giant Cats

Almost 3 weeks of checking traps and locking down pets

This is one thing that freaked me out. Trapper Tom showed us this area out in the woods where we had dumped straw from the hen house. On the pile was a selection of toys. Some were decorations taken from the tree house in the fairy trail, the others were dog toys.

I was told that this is where the Giant Cat likes to play. Trapper Tom says that a bobcat will play like a house cat and will collect toys. He was probably attracted to some of the feathers and the chicken scent in the pile of straw, so chose this spot to make a play house. It gives me the creeps to think he might have been attracted to the scent of kids in the tree house when he stole toys from there. Ugh. And where did he get the dog toys? From someones yard? I hope the dog he took it from is ok.

(artwork by Guncle Randy)

Attack of Big Baby

cottage

By Karla Nathan / September 15, 2012

This is Big Baby. She is adored by Dewdrop, but freaks Aunt Sandy out, because Dewdrop was leaving her in odd places and Aunt Sandy kept stumbling across her.

So, my husband and I decided to surprise Aunt Sandy with some scary Big Baby sightings. He duct taped the knife to her hand, and sat her in his sister's chair. Sandy shrieked, then laughed and from that point, the game was on.

That had been a mild start. Its escalated since then.

Aunt Sandy retaliated by tying her to our head board and smearing her with red watercolor paint.

Next, I hung her in Sandy's bathroom, to greet her as she stepped into the shower.

Then, Sandy and my husband snuck Big Baby up on the garage door opener to hang over my car as I pulled into the garage after my bookclub meeting Monday night.

Now its my turn, so I've stuffed Big Baby into the fridge just in time for Sandy to start thinking about lunch. Of course, there is a chance that Ryan will get hungry before Aunt Sandy does, but that's okay too. I'll enjoy hearing him squeal. Maybe he will take a turn in hiding her. He is a horror movie fan, he might come up with some good ideas.

A mid summer zero dollar decorating redo

cottage, dogs, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), flowers, redos

By Karla Nathan / July 8, 2012

Dang, its hot. Feels like it has been hot forever. In Kansas, we typically get a stretch of 100 degree plus days, but not this early in the year. It makes me quake in my boots (or flip flops) just contemplating what July and August will have in store after June blasted us with this heat.

To get the temperature off my mind, I decided to cottage-up my living room a bit. Ithought strewing some roses about would be a cheerful summery thing to do.

I'm afraid this photo doesn't look as cheery as it should, I took it at night, and the windows are dark.

Since my walls and furniture are neutral, its easy to change the whole look of the room with a few accents. Throw pillows, curtains, and knicky knacks make a quick change when you start with an all ivory room.

It probably took longer for me to get the wrinkles out of the old curtains than it did to redo all of this. I popped these rose curtains in the dryer on fluff while I took down the vintage lace ones, and packed away all of the pillows and a few other things from around the room as they were fluffing up.

When the curtains were ready, it was a fast redo, because we were due to meet friends on the lake. This was a spur of the moment plan, and I only had about 30 minutes to spare.

Over the years, I've made a few different slip covers for my big sofa cushion, and have collected curtains and pillows at clearance sales and garage sales. I keep a linen closet full of cheap, but pretty extras to switch out when the mood hits me.

This time, I tried draping the bottom of the couch with a bed skirt. The front ruffle shows, the rest is wadded up under the cushion. Hopefuly it will stay in place, it might not.

The look I was going for was an "explosion" of roses. I think I got it… Few match, but I like the way they go together anyway. You can't really tell from the photos, but the brown slip cover on the big cushion has pink roses and blue pailseys on it, so it matches a bit better in person than it seems to in the picture.

This chair was in the studio. After bringing it in, I topped the garden table with a floral drape panel, and added a couple rosey elements to the arrangement on top.

The sheer panel on the other small table (previous photo) is also a curtain. I had three of these panels in my breezeway and they were shredded by raccoons. So, I trimmed off the bottoms that were ragged, used one on the table and the other two in the windows. As long as I don't move the couch, no one will know about the shredding.

Well, I guess that's not true, I just told everyone about the rips…

My china cabinets are over stuffed anyway, so these items won't be missed in it and they add to the flowery feel of the living room now.

It didn't take much, a couple of pieces for each table arrangement gave me the rose garden effect I wanted.

I think I'll hang a framed rose print on the window frame and pin a big, fat millinery bloom in red to the lamp.

In the fall, I'll want to change it around again, so wasn't striving for perfection. Its a temporary, fun look that I didn't take very seriously. I do love my white on white/ivory room most of the time, but I appreciate it more when I change it up a bit sometimes.

So, this redo took about a half hour, using things I had around the house or packed away. The only cost was $2 for the bouquet of roses. My local grocery store has markdown roses for $2 a dozen every week.

When the dish ran away with the spoon, where did they go?

cottage, parties

By Karla Nathan / April 21, 2012

Last week, we planned a dinner party and had some of my husband's work friends over. It was a good excuse to get the house all spiffed up, and also to buy some new silverware since we didn't have quite enough forks. Who knows where they go? Forks are one of the things that seem to slip away into the atmosphere, like lids to sippy cups, and single socks. Every once in a while, coffee cups up and vanish too.

One day, we'll have so many that I am trying to force the cabinet door shut without an avalanche of mugs. Then, a couple of weeks later, I realize that the the shelves are half empty.

I guess its some sort of Hickory Dickory Dock variation where the forks run away with the cups.

So, I hit the stores in search of some new, and affordable silverware. I didn't want to spend much, but wanted something that felt good to hold and eat off of. In the past, I've picked up handfuls of Walmart forks, that are sold individually. Or bought partial sets at estate sales.

But dang it, I'm almost 54 and I wanted a whole, brand new, grown up set of silverware!

On the other hand, I'm cheap and didn't want to pay grown up silverware prices.

I checked out Target, World Market, Pier One, and TJ Maxx without much luck. Next, I tried Tuesday Morning, and found just what a needed, a full setting for 12 people, only 50 bucks, and they were a little old fashioned looking, plus felt good to bite down on.

Part of my search required biting down on the silverware while I was shopping. My husband thought that was awful, that I'd spent the morning out at stores biting forks, but I found some that felt good, looked good and were not too expensive.

The party was nice, the company was good, and we had matching silverware to eat off off. That is the only time that has ever happened in my home. I've always been a mismatched silver setter. This was nice!

And my house is clean. Now, if only I can keep it that way till Birdsong, but I have a feeling that I'll have to give it another going over. We tend to mess things up quickly around here.

In the backyard

cottage, flowers

By Karla Nathan / April 12, 2012

The chicken coop isn't the only area that has been getting some sprucing up. Sugarwing's Daddy has been helping me in the yard. It was his idea to move my old bike over to this tree, and I think it was a good one.

There are pink begonias planted in the baskets,but they are still tiny right now. Most of the Spring plants have finished and we are moving on to the summer blooms already, so these begonias should be taking off soon. Of course, in a normal year, I'd be worried about getting a late freeze, but I don't feel one coming on this year.

Seriously? Roses already?

Now, I'm NOT complaining. Just perplexed. And a little bit worried.

What a year. Winter was so mild and Spring so lovely. Will Summer be a scorcher?

We live over an aquifer and have great well water, so I'm prepared to spend the summer watering.

But for right now, I'm loving every second of this rare Spring heat. I've got more yard work done by March than I usually have done by June.

And we have had nice, new gravel spread in the courtyards and sidewalks.

Well, it started out nice and fresh… but now, it already has gopher mounds in it!!

Last fall, we took out a few sickly trees. These stumps never got hauled off, so I turned them into planter holders. I've planted lots of viney things in these whiskey barrels, so I hope to see trailing vines cover up most of the stumps in a couple of months. (the barrels are from the Home Depot and they get them from the Jack Daniels factory. When I bought them, I could still smell the whiskey!)

How is Spring where you are at? Is it weirdly wonderful there too?

I heard on NPR the other day that over 7000 temperature records have been broken for the Midwest in March and so far in April!

A home for the hens

cottage, dogs, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), Hens

By Karla Nathan / April 10, 2012

Everyone around here is excited about the rehab of the chicken coop!

This old building has been through many transformations, and as good as I can guess, this will be its third time to serve as a home to a flock of birds. Its also been a woodworking shop, an antique store, a dog run, a hang out for my Jr High school age boys, and lately, a storage shed..

Now, back to being a chicken coop!

When I used this for an antique store, we ran electricity out to it, put on a new roof and painted it all a barely there, blush pink. I think the ladies will enjoy nesting in that flattering color. They will feel so pretty in the ambient lighting and soft pink walls.

(we still need to hang the feeder, right now, its just sitting under the bench. If we tried to feed them there, they would argue over access to the goodies. And it needs to be hung up so it doesn't get pooped in as much. They will be pooping in it no matter what, but higher is better)

We've provided a couple of mirrors so they can check themselves out. I hear that chickens enjoy looking at themselves.

There are also lots of roosting materials, an old lawn chair, and branches screwed to the walls all around like a jungle gym.

The old painting on the wall is simply for their enjoyment.

A couple of chandeliers that no longer work were hung up for more roosting, and for lighting, I hung a ceramic lamp with a cracked base that was laying out in the shed.

The bench we built to set the nesting boxes on is just the right height to store bales of straw. They slide right under it, and don't leave space for the hens to roost (and poop) on the straw.

No ETA on when the girls will be moving in. But we are set and ready to welcome them to their new home.

The building has two sides, the long, narrow one that the ladies will be calling home, and a big square room next to it that the cats like to hang out in.

This side is where we keep lawn furniture in the winter, supposedly. But other things tend to accumlate too.

I've valiently tried to not let things pile up in here, but I'm glad I let a few things slip, because this is the place I raided to find the pretties for the coop. Nothing nice, just some old beat up stuff too nice to toss and I'm glad it had piled up there for me to dig through!

I'll let you know what the girls think of it all when they move in.

Birdie Bed Banner

cottage, how to's, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / March 4, 2012

Everyday, I am loving our new, plush, lush, cozy bed more and more. Its hard to pull myself out of it every morning and I find that its pretty nice to lay there, sip my coffee and check emails on my IPad instead of heading over to the cold studio, turning on the heat and reading my emails while waiting for the room to warm up. Especially this week, I've had a kidney infection and that extra laying around time in the morning has been welcome.

As a matter of fact, I stayed tucked in all day on the 29th, and got good and rested up. At least it was an extra bonus day on the calander so, I don't consider it a real day off.

(years and years ago, from Country Almanac- by the way, the stylist pulled pillows from all over the house to pile into this picture and I never thought they matched)

We've never had a head board that we could actually lean against while sitting up in bed and reading or watching TV before. I've always gone for found objects, cool junk, or vintage iron headboards in the past.

(before this new bed, I used a mantel as a head board)

Even with a stack of pillows, all of my previous beds were not good for leaning against.

Our padded head board with soft pillows against it has completely won me over. But I thought the vast expanse of linen was a little too plain for my taste, no matter how nice it was to lean on.

It kind of reminded me of an inspiration board, so I thought I'd turn it into one. But I didn't want anything to ruin its comfiness factor.

I decided to print some vintage pictures onto some soft, old, lawn hankies, and simply pin them up with pearl topped pins. The linen covered padding is nice and tight, and deep, so the pins went straight down in, and I don't have to worry about them poking into my skull. That would certainly have taken away most of the comfiness.

I pinned a few soft flowers and some lace up between the pictures to make it look like a banner.

In my stash, I have zillions of old pictures and books, but I wasn't in the mood to sift through it all till I found just the right ones. So, I made a quick visit to the Graphics Fairy and grabbed a couple of pretty drawings of birds and roses. I had to do a little bit of editing to get them just as I liked, but not much. This is two pieces that I edited together. As the kids from Glee would say, its a "mash up" of images.

Beth prints on fabric all the time, I'd never tried it this way. I've used purchased sheets of canvas, but its expensive and I didn't want it stiff like the stuff I've bought before. She sent me home with the materials I needed and it was every bit as easy as she said it would be. I practiced on a couple of other pieces before I pulled out the vintage, embroidered hankies.

First, I ironed the hankies, then pressed one onto a full page Avery label, and smoothed it out. A hankie isn't quite the same shape, so I trimmed the edges really good. My worry was that something would tangle up inside the printer and it would be all screwed up like the bobbin part of my sewing machine is right now. But that is another project story and one that didn't turn out as nice as this one did. You don't want to hear about it, and I don't want to think about it. I'm avoiding that sewing machine, with its giant web of thread.

Anyway, I smoothed the hankie onto the sticky backing of the label, trimmed it up, and slid it through the printer, no problems.

You can't really tell from the photos, but the cloth has some pretty little hand done touches to it.

So far, they seem to stay in place, even with pillows bunched up against them while I'm reading and enjoying my coffee. I purposely hung them a little tousled and messy, so if they ended up that way it would look natural.

And the whole room feels serene, not busy like previous incarnations of the space.

PS- thanks to all of you who have purchased my Three Wire Workshops! (nest, crown, and wreath) Its selling well, and I appreciate that.

and another PS- notice the Google Friend Connector is missing from my side bar? Yep, they are no longer working on Typepad blogs as of March 1st. If you want more information on how to follow a blog, Marianne has done some homework and explains it all very well here.

She also has a good tutorial on using Google Reader here

and here.

I have asked Hope, who designed my blog, to add a connect button for all of these various ways to follow a blog for me. She'll be doing that soon.

It was hard to get out of bed today

cottage

By Karla Nathan / February 8, 2012

Friday night, Sugarwings had a high fever and climbed into bed with us. Well, we've always had a full sized mattress and been happy with it, but she has had a recent growth spurt and we were really pinched for space with her between us.

Especially with that boulder of a cast on her arm.

Recently we had ordered a new mattress, since we'd been waking up with stiff necks and sore backs because of what felt like a ditch in the middle of our old mattress,.

We were supposed to pick up our new, back saving mattress on Saturday. Instead, we called to see if there were any queen sized available, and luckily, not only was one in stock, it was on sale and we got a refund, so it cost less than the smaller order that we cancelled!

The trouble is, when you change mattress sizes, everything in the room changes. I didn't have bedding, or a frame to fit it. I figured I'd have a mattress on the floor for a while till I could search and hunt for the perfect thrifted or junked bed to fix up, but I just happened to see a frame marked 75% off that looked like "me" as I walked down the aisles of Nebraska Furniture Mart.

We got home, took down the cobbled together mantel and mirror and small rolling bed frame that we'd been using, and saw that I'd painted the room a couple of times since hanging that giant mirror. So, wall repair and painting had to happen before the bed was assembled.

And of course, it was not just a bigger mattress, the frame was bigger, stuck out past the dimensions of a bigger mattress. Silly of me to measure mattresses and think, "another 5 inches?? That won't make a difference at all" Because the frame itself adds even more than that. We didn't have a head board or foot board before, our little metal frame rolled right up to the wall.

Seriously, a little planning might have been smart.

This was all a spur of the moment idea. We went from happy with our full sized mattress set up with thrift store finds, to a dream come true, luxury B&B style, brand new from a real store, foofed up, twice the size of our old one, shabby chic, nest of a bed, all in a couple of hours without really thinking it through.

Here is the before. I really thought I was happy with that. But my oh my! Our new bed is wonderful.

Its huge. Almost waist height for me. I need a step stool.

I also have to hope that this bed means no more back problems, because if I am having a Back Attack, I won't be able to haul myself up there.

And since its so high up, I figured the dogs couldn't get up without invitation and help, so I splurged on all white, wonderful, fluffy bedding, thinking I'd be in charge of when they came up and could just say no if they were particularly stinky or muddy.

But no, they must sprout wings when I'm not looking, because they seem to get up on the bed easier than I can.

Never, ever, have I slept in a bed that is so luxurious and cozy. The new sheets and blankets are deep and thick, the bed itself is the perfect mix of firm, supportive and soft. Its a memory foam blend, with spring support, and the best thing I've ever laid down upon.

I don't think I could come up with enough gushy cliches to say how much I adore my new bed. Its like sleeping on a cloud. Its heavenly! I feel like a princess, in this lush nest.

And my still white, not yet dog messed, covers are as pretty unmade as they are pulled up.

Since the frame is so much larger than the size we've had sitting in that exact same spot for over 20 years, we've whacked our knees on the foot board a couple times. I'm going to have to rearrange the furniture a bit to make sure that doesn't happen again.

I started by moving this chair from the bedroom to the bathroom.

And this chair from the bathroom to the studio.

That won't be the end of it. Now the furniture roulette begins. Its a good thing I have a perfect new, comfy mattress, because my back will need the rest. I'll be scooting furniture around the house from one room to another till I get this all figured out.

I wasn't the only one to get a new "big girl bed", Sugarwings has one too. Its not like me to be buying new stuff willy nilly like this. I own very few items from real stores. My stuff comes from junk stores, antique shops, and garage sales. But I tell ya, I can get used to living this way.

The girl's room is getting a bit of a redo also. Pictures to come as I get it done, and get my own room all done so that my new bed feels at home here.