I have the skills after all.

I was reading this post on hobbies that help you save money. It probably would be impossible to come up with a complete list, but I notice that he leaves out sewing, and I thought I'd tell you the story of Joseph's 3 suits.
See this handsome guy? (You thought it was all girls over here, right? There are three boys too, and of course a dear husband...but we don't let them into LMLD, unless for illustration purposes.)

We had a crisis of the exchequer when we realized that he needed a suit for job interviews in his senior year last year. Dear Santa got him a good-looking set of duds, but there was a little problem. You see, this amazing person has the need for a small size around the waist...and he has very long arms and legs! The jacket fit him across the shoulders fine, but the sleeves were too short. Since the cuff was that placket style with buttons, I thought I wasn't up to fixing it myself.

I had a local tailor do it, and she charged $35. Don't get me wrong. This is actually a good price for a finicky job that has to look just right. I have done my share of sewing -- and I thought I knew enough not to tackle tailoring.

Then he got an internship in Washington, D. C., for the summer. He needed at least two more suits! No way could we afford even the cheap one Santa had gotten at Kohl's, let alone two more, let alone alterations. What's a mother to do?

Off we marched to Goodwill. A prayer to his Guardian Angel later, we found two really nice suits that fit him perfectly (for $15 each!) -- except for the sleeves.

Well, I decided to go for it. And you know what? I did it! I fixed the sleeves, and one day at work when he was wearing one of the Goodwill suits that I had fixed (the one in the picture), Joseph got a compliment from a guy at work (a natty dresser himself) -- "Say, that's a nice suit you're wearing! Who's your tailor?"

Tee hee. Monsieur Bonnevolonte!

I'd estimate that this combination of thrifting and sewing saved our family about $320 -- the cost of two suits similar to the first (not that they had the variety at the store), plus the alterations, minus the $30 for the Goodwill suits. Not bad!

More house doings

If you are interested in seeing some more work being done on the kitchen and the outside of our house, go over to our family blog, Happy Despite Them, and check it out!

A little project that only took...a year?

I have so many things to tell you about. I can hardly choose. Meanwhile, Bridget has an important post about a jar picnic...but she's not ready at the moment, so shhh...

I thought I'd show you this project that I did as we finished the kitchen.

Last year Sukie found this bedside table at a yard sale. It is the sort of thing I really, really don't like. I was not thrilled. It's so...colonial.

Plus, she left it...around. It's the sort of thing I sell at a yard sale, and try hard not to buy. Once again, I will say that this "before" picture makes this look a bit nicer than it really was. This color was atrocious. For one thing, it was flat. For another, not evenly applied. For another, ugly.

But since we had the black paint out to paint the island, I thought I'd get a few things off my list. I'll show you the mirror that's been hanging out in the garage for even longer than a year. Soon.

First I thought I'd paint the table blue (even though the black paint was out). But the blue I have is not satisfactory (I'm very committed to using paint I have to do these projects, and I want you to know that I already had the black paint before we even decided about the island.
But I think I had it because I bought it long ago to paint the island. Never mind about that) . Say, do you like the pulls we chose for the island?
I think I used the blue for the porch ceiling. It's not aqua enough for me for a table. I tried mixing it with some white and stuff lying around in the garage (by stuff I mean other colors, not any old stuff in the garage). But it didn't do anything for me.

So I went for black after all, leaving the blue inside the drawer, which I think is just right!

And Sukie did pick out the drawer pull. I'm not casting aspersions on her. She painted the kitchen walls, after all. She is a good child.
I know that we carefully put the original pull and screws in a ziploc bag, and I further know I gave her a pretty hard time about leaving that bag...around. I made her take it to her room (which is on the third floor, and our ceilings, and hence stairs, are high/long). I think I was overwhelmed at the time (not now though! ahem). But we couldn't find it and honestly, it was the sort of thing I really don't like anyway. I like this one.

Now that I look at these pictures, I think the blue would not have gone with the blue of her trim! Good call!


I sort of like it now!

Little Guilty Pleasures

The library near Little Gidding has an ongoing used-book sale; I love to pop in there from time to time on my way home from work. Lately, I've been obsessed with snatching up back issues of Gourmet, which can be had for a mere 25 cents each, and which I then pore over at home. I cook from them too! (heck, I figure a guilty pleasure that only costs a quarter can't be that bad - especially if it results in tasty food to boot!)

Usually I'll find one or two there, but now that my collection is growing I often encounter doubles of issues I already have. I'm also a bit picky; I don't really like the restaurant and travel issues (I don't do all that much fancy traveling/eating out). I'm also not crazy about November issues, of which there also seems to be a high proportion on the secondhand Gourmet market (I feel that a girl will cook a very limited number of turkey dinners in her single life; so far my count is zero).

In any case, the last time I went there, I found a whopping twenty new (to me) issues. I gleefully paid my five dollars, struggled out the door with them and my library books all in my arms, and am now making my way through this exciting new stash:


In one of them (the August 2008 issue to be specific), Sukie found an article that included recipes for picnic meals that you pack layered in jars. I cannot begin to tell you how appealing we find this idea.

I just don't like fake...but real is not perfect either.

I'm too much of a closet hippie to go with fake flowers. I can't do it. I'm also too lazy and too cheap. I can do this:

....because I have grapevines in my yard and probably my mother started it or maybe she made the whole thing! I might have put it in what we call the "nook" of the deck simply because there was already a nail there!

But I'm also too impatient to deal with real flowers, other than maybe zinnias, which last for a long time and then sort of die in place without shedding or anything messy like that. Because you know that what sheds will just stay there for a long time before I get to cleaning it up...




Well, despite these protestations, I did this in Bridget's room.


It's really 90s. I don't even approve of it. But I did it anyway. For one thing, that netting (Bridget calls this her "comfort zone") doesn't balance -- the beads on the opening cause the whole thing to tip forward. So I needed something to weigh it down and make it level. Not that it's really level.


Every year around this time I go to my bank and notice their lush hydrangeas. And every year, a little beyond this time, I notice that their landscapers have come and brutally shorn the hydrangeas of their blossoms. And every year I think, "I should just ask them if I can cut those blossoms before the bad landscapers come."

Well, this year I did it. I was dressed a little nicer than usual and thought I'd just take advantage of not looking super crazy and go ask. And do you know what the nice lady said? She said, "Absolutely!"

I thought she was going to say "Absolutely not" but she didn't. I got two bags of blossoms!


Hydrangeas are perfect for lazy people like me. You don't have to do anything to them other than make sure they don't get crushed. They will dry in a vase (no water, obviously).

Or in a basket.


The big ones can be hung to dry.

The flowers are real. The beam is fake! :)
Thanks to the Nesting Place for the link!

Dark 70s wood, bad! Bright yellow paint, good!

Here are the kitchen pictures I've been promising you, the world, and you, Rosie. To the world I will say that Suzanne painted the walls and Rosie painted the cupboards.

Here are some before pictures.


Oh, we were living in a dark, dark world. If anything, these pictures make it look better than it really was -- more shiny and clean. I don't know why that would be. I really hated these cupboards. I really think the rounded corners on the island scream 70s. Ugh.
Something like this corner cupboard (for some reason in our family we call this "the rounding thing") seemed like it just had to be ripped out. I got depressed every time I opened it, which was a lot, since I don't have a lot of cupboards.

Some things in this kitchen are good things. It's pretty cool to have a fireplace in the kitchen, although I'm finding out that it's far better to have your chimney go up the side of your house than come up the middle, simply because you need to rent a big expensive boom to reach to it when it comes time to put in a liner or do anything else that involves putting weight on it.

And if your back were to that window you would be looking at my table and the sliding door which leads out to a pretty, shady deck, as you will see. So that's all good.

But some things are just bad choices, and I have no idea how to fix them without spending megabucks. For instance, that one little window over the sink on the left.

It could be bigger, or there could be three of them...very little light comes in here spring and fall. I have no southern light at all -- great choice for Massachusetts! Way to make the winters seem long and particularly cold! And how will I fix that? And I really hate that island (but soon you will see how not terrible it looks in the "after" pictures)!

And how about how my work area goes out towards the mudroom there, right in the traffic pattern. Sigh.

And besides being paralyzed by the thought that my problems can only be solved by an architect, a designer, and $80,000, I hate the thought of living like this, even for a little while:

But thanks to the girls, here's what I have now:




I don't know about you, but I can't keep my fridge cleared off, so hopefully you can overlook that and other signs of real life going on here. I also want you to know that the yellow appears deeper in real life. It's called Hawthorne Yellow by Benjamin Moore, and the cabinets are in their Aura paint...maybe I'll tell you about that later, if you remind me.
Do you like it?
Please notice my window mistreatments/abuse (go here for more on this and the reason I have a colander hanging way up there).

You will also notice that the plates don't go all the way across.



I have found something out about myself: I can only handle this many plates. Some kind friends will give me others, saying "here's a plate for your wall!" and I am so grateful, but I can't take down and dust more than this, and I can't coordinate more than this, and this is what I'm sticking with. I have these over here, but they are little (and the one above the doorway, in the picture above -- that one is from Portugal -- thanks Rosie!):

This fridge is sort of too big looking for this space, but I'm keeping it because it's the only one in the dent-and-scratch that was big enough for us and cheap enough for us and yet (sort of) fit; it's got those nifty double doors, which I love because the stupid design of my kitchen actually doesn't allow for the door to open left OR right (if it opens to the left, I have to reach around it while I'm working. If to the right, everyone will get in my way when they are getting stuff). Also, freezer on the bottom just makes sense. I'm up here -- here's where my eyes are -- why do I have to be bending down to get the lettuce? Hmmm?

When you turn around with the sink at your back, you now see this:
My pantry (remember the video?) is off to the left in this picture, and to the right of my fireplace, which I'm not going to show you...
...no, I'm not going to show you this:

Which is what you see when the table is behind you and the sliding door is on your right. Yes, a half-pulled-out wood-burning insert and a yanked-out fender, and a canning pot (see all those pears in those other pictures? Well.) -- and a really bad floor. This is all Phase III and will be reported on later. For now, think about this:

... the one really good plate I have up there above the sink. It depicts the Fairbanks House in Dedham, Massachusetts -- the oldest frame house in America. People like to dispute that as soon as you say it, but note well: I said oldest FRAME house. We used to live up the street from this house, and my mother-in-law gave me this plate. The others on that wall are from Marshall's :)

I need to take off the little magnet thingies on those open cabinets. Do you like or hate that I left the cabinets open? How about that bottom one? I gotta tell you -- it's a whole lot easier to get the pots out without the doors... maybe I need classier pots, though.

More details later (can you wait? Can you?). Rosie gets impatient with long posts, and this one's gone on long enough!

Sitting upon the Sit-Upon

So I made this Sit-Upon around June, but I just am getting around to posting about it. In my book 'A Daring Book for Girls' I found to a way to make the Sit-Upon. A comfy little mat to place and sit upon anywhere, any time.
I did not use water proof material, (in other words I broke the rules=:) but I think it turned out looking pretty good!

















I had many choices of upholstery samples that I could use; I chose the darker red to use on the side facing down, and a lighter shade for sitting upon.
(Although now people have started sitting on the red side)

















At first while I was making the Sit-Upon I threaded the material with my fingers. As you can guess that did not go very quickly.
Mom had the great idea to get a large needle for those holes:)
wow! How genius!

















So, at first it was just a free for all, and everyone sort of just took the Sit-Upon and sat upon it. But I made a new system. On the beautiful black board in our beautiful kitchen I wrote who got the Sit-Upon. Now I take in all the remarks about tiredness, stress and the lack of sitting on the Sit-Upon. then I decide who gets it, and I write it on the board!
















I am pretty proud of what a success it is!