cottage – Page 30 – Karla's Cottage

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.