I adore older homes.

They have nooks, crannies, charm, character and…built ins!

We bought our home new in 1986.  It now qualifies as an older home, but it didn’t come with nooks or crannies.  We made those.  It didn’t come with much character, but it has plenty now. Charm?  It’s getting there.

I guess you could say that our home had one built in…a wet bar.  I removed it after a few years and it’s now a nook. Not as cozy as I would like it to be, but that’s okay, now I get to imagine all of the possible levels of cozy that might fit just right into this little nook.

It could end up being a bit more functional that it is now.   Maybe a “built in” bench seat” with storage space underneath, a cushion and some pillows.  And place to curl up and read like so…

I think this is pretty cozy.

You might not find me for a few days if this were in my home.

Then again maybe a nice overstuffed chair or small sofa would be just as nice.

I’ll even take the cuddly little pooch with the cozy chair.  I don’t mind sharing. If this were your space to play with, what would you prefer? Functional or Cozy? How would you play this space?

peace.love.rust

February 1, 2011

High temperature: 23

Wind chill: sub zero

February 1, 2012

Predicted high today: 73

Wind chill: 70

Gotta love Texas weather!

peace.love.rust

After the curb appeal. After the front porch. After the front door comes the entry area. The area where you welcome your guests into your home. This has always been a favorite of mine in home decor. I like to look at photos of pretty entry ways. Some are defined as entry halls, some are cavernous, some are cozy, some are defined by platform of tile or wood and there you have it. Regardless of the size, this is still the first and the last area of your home that your guests see. Therefore, I love to decorate it.

Like I need an excuse to fluff in my home.

Minus a rug and a updated light, my entry area is all but done. Well there is one more project that will be repainted or moved, but we won’t discuss that right now. Mr. Rust might have an issue with me removing an object that takes two mollies to secure it to the wall.

About a year ago Mr. Rust and I went to market…the flea market that is. And I found three pine tables for $100. The three consist of one sofa table, a large rectangular coffee table and one side accent table. My thought was that they would serve a need in my home right now, but they would also be perfect for Riley went she moved into her first place. For over a year they have vegetated in our home with thoughts of painting them, but there were always other things to get done. That is until, the sofa table just happened to take up residence in my entry way. Okay, now we’ve moved from “thinking” about painting to “getting it done”.

We had just completed the painting of all the woodwork and the last thing I needed right at Christmas, was another project.  Besides my husband would have taken me to the woodshed had I even thought about painting furniture.  So I bit my tongue and moved on.

But now…all of the dust has cleared and I now have free reign to wield my paint brush whenever I please.   And so I did!

I really thought I knew just exactly what color I wanted to paint this table too.  That is until I painted it gray and then I had second thoughts.  This is not a rare occurrence in our life.  In fact everyone is so used to it, that no one even so much as blinked an eye as this table sat just like this for about a week.  Right smack in the middle of my entry way.  Nice first impression, huh?  You betcha!  At the least it was a great conversation starter.   And then this little project got added to the “goals” and this is where the story gets good!

Enter the second color, not a full coating but a nice liberal dry brushing of Annie Sloan Chalk paint in my favorite color, Coco.  Yum!

and then I went to town with  my sandpaper!

and all of that wonderful chalky goodness was collected and dabbed into the crevice that was bugging me.  All of which pretty much wiped away when I was wiping down before I applied the dark wax.

The table will now be fought over when Riley does get a place… I’m claiming it because it’s so wonderfully awesome now!

I love the way the bluish gray peeks out from the crevices and corners.  And can I just say that Annie Sloan Chalk Paint can make the ugliest piece of furniture look like a million bucks.  Even the scratches look awesome!

and then we fluff…

and then you tell me the black shelf  might have to go or get repainted…

oh!  look…what’s that on the drawer?

Oh snap!  it’s a little touch of funky…

some vintage and rust. more fluffing and…

It’s a wrap!

You just never know what kinds of wonderful you can create when you paint!  Sometimes you know exactly how it will turn out and other times it’s a complete surprise.

This indeed turned out better than I expected.

Now about that black shelf.

…to be continued!

peace.love.rust
Linking up @ Sharing my style @

It All Started With Paint

Miss Mustard Seed

What a  fun day we had.  Mr. Rust and I were up and ready to go Saturday morning.  The one thing we wanted to get done over the weekend, was get my cross collection up off the floor.  When we began the den redo back in November, we removed everything from four rooms.  I had crosses all over the house.  I have to admit that it is amazing how much one can accumulate over time.  And you never really know how many items you have in a collection until you pull it all together in one display.  It’s really awesome and a bit emotional because every cross we’ve collected over time, has it’s own story.

If you recall, we had decided to use this wall in our den.  I asked several loved ones to give their opinion on which wall we should use, in the end we all made the right decision.  Not just for how it looks, but because it took this size of wall to display the whole collection.

Remember, this was how it looked before we got busy.

and now it looks like this…

this is what you see walking into our den from the kitchen/dining room area.

you definitely know where a person’s eyes will land…it’s a bit hard to miss.

and this is what you see coming into the den from the entry hall…

and this is the wall when you walk into the room from the sun room…

in fact the only time you don’t see the wall of crosses, is when you walk into the room from the bedroom area.  As you can guess, our home is not that large.  It’s cozy, and the den is the center of our home…making it a perfect place for a beautiful wall of crosses and scripture tablets.

I can happily say that we achieved what we sat out to accomplish.  Remember this all started because this wall …the “cross wall”, was the wall that needed something to break it up.  I think we did it.  But the best part of the whole day was sitting down to look at it.  We know longer want to face the television, we now have a “gallery” to look at.   And…I left room for just a few more   Only a few though, we’ve already got 22 crosses on the wall, for sure there will be 23 and then maybe I’ll hang one of my beaded Ichthys (Christian fish) designs .

One more goal checked off our long list of things to get done.

peace.love.rust
Linking up and Sharing my style at:

Savvy Southern Style

The Shabby Creek Cottage

Stuff and Nonsense

This is how I stage a wall collage, it’s the only safe place in my home. Yes, I suppose most people would use the floor, but then I would have eight paws and two wet noses in my way and crawling around in the floor, moving things here and there, just isn’t as fun as it used to be.

My goal this weekend is to get these from here…

to here…the back wall of the den.

and to get this table painted…

I didn’t get a photo of the table before I got the first coat of paint on.

I painted it one color and lived with it for a week, this weekend it’s getting another coat of something.

Who knows?

This morning it looked like this…

but not now!

Busy weekend and we got a lot done.  Hope you stick around…you don’t wanna miss these reveals.

peace.love.rust

Monday: Laundry Day

oh goody mom’s taking all the fluffy stuff off of the bed

and tossing it onto the floor

i must hurry

have to grab my Barney

get into position

okay mom

i’m ready!

ahhhh…

here’s the best part… she will get side tracked by an email or phone call and forget all about me and the laundry

this will be the best nap ever

…until next Monday.

What a smart dog I have.  He was right. I did get distracted by a couple of phone calls and a project. Rudy caught up on some much needed rest.  Weekends are ruff rough on our little fur buddies.  They like to follow everyone around and try their best to keep up.  They are happy to see Monday morning when it’s just back to Mom and the laundry

peace.love.rust

One year ago I received a gift. Today I finally got up the nerve to use it. Well…okay, not nerve. I finally picked out a place to use it. Vinyl lettering for walls; a test in patience. I passed the test and the wall turned out nice.

We have this small alcove in our den that used to have a wet bar built in and I removed it with place to possibly put in built in book cases or a desk area. But we never got around to that…maybe someday. For now it’s just an alcove, and a great area to add some words.

First I hung on of my wire crosses. It once hung next to the front door, but since the redo things will live in different areas, partly because the board and batten walls are posing a bit of a design challenge for me. I feel confident that I will master the challenge but it may take a bit more planning.

I placed the cross off center to allow room for the lettering.

Then added the first word…”Family”

Easy enough. Just can’t rush through it.

At this point I felt like success was within reach.

and then…

I hit a wall.  No pun intended.

The sentence that was supposed to sit right under the word “Family”, really didn’t, at least not like in the photo on the packaging.  No big deal really, I got it in position and began rubbing.  I really expected this would work just like the first word.  Nope. it didn’t. and it was a tedious process.  The letters came out okay.  I can see where the bad places are; but know one else will notice.

More photos will be added over time, but for now it’s just this one.

And there sits that cedar chest, still begging for a coat of paint.   hum…it looks off center, I just noticed.

So now this area is checked off my list.

Today was filled with touch up painting and word art on the wall.  Things are moving right along…that is until I tear up something else   We hit 77 degrees today.  I had windows and doors open, it was pretty awesome, for the end of January that is.

peace.love.rust
Linking up & Sharing my style @

Katherine’s Corner

]]> http://rustiqueartblog.com/his-promise/feed/ 2 http://rustiqueartblog.com/a-puppy-and-a-teapot/ http://rustiqueartblog.com/a-puppy-and-a-teapot/#comments Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:10:27 +0000 Cindi Albright http://rustiqueartblog.com/?p=2889

That title almost sounds like the title of a children’s book…but it’s not.  It’s a real story of vintage pottery found in my stash.

I’m still putting things back in place, slowly but surely this too shall pass and things will be back to normal. Who am I kidding, normal is boring. Let’s just say things will be back in place. This would be a great time to raise my picket sign in protest to dusting. You see if I had not dusted since I moved everything, then it’s quite possible I would still have some memory (albeit an impression in the dust) as to where things were before I moved them. I should’ve taken a photo with my phone to have for quick reference.

Wouldn’t that have been smart?

Since I’ve been unearthing things from the depths of my closets, I’ve found a few little beauties that I forgot I had. Oldies but goodies…with a lot of history.

I love this little sweetie.  For as long as I can remember this cute little planter sat in my Granny’s bathroom.  I’m not sure when, but at some point in time, my Granny blessed me and told me I could have it.  I suppose these were very popular back in the early 60′s.

Although I’m not exactly sure of what they were used for, there is not much room for much of anything once dirt is added. Maybe a very small plant, but probably better for rooting plants rather than growing them.  There are no markings or stamps on this little cutie, so I’m not sure what company made her.  Doesn’t matter.  I don’t plan on selling this one.  She will be handed down to a special little girl… someday.

Then I found my teapot.  It’s been sitting safely in a cabinet.  It was really dusty so I pulled it down and cleaned it up.  I’m not sure if it’s rare or just hard to find details about it.  I’ve searched several places online to find out more about it, but so far I’ve come up empty.

Made by Arthur Wood of England it’s stamped #4204.  This side depicts a dinning scene and is titled “Mary and the fat Boy”

This side depicts a scene from Oliver Twist possibly.  It’s titled “Oliver asks for More”.  The glaze still holds it’s luster, the gold detail is still in tact, there is some crazing, which is to be expected with glazed pottery of this age.  It’s age is undetermined since I can’t find any information on this specific style, but I do know that it was given to my mom in 1959 from one of her aunts.   My mom gifted it to me when I was 16.   This is one of my favorite pieces in my collection of vintage pottery.  I’m not sure who will receive this wonderful little teapot, but it will be awhile before I let it go.  I still enjoy looking at it and using it in my decor.

In other news…

The winners for the Furnace Hills Coffee giveaway have been chosen and notified.  Congratulations to Autumn (entry #10) and Susan(entry #61)

peace.love.rust

Considering it took me 25 years to remove something that I didn’t like in my home, the fact that it took me a few months to complete the new hearth is like… a blink of an eye.

It all began one Sunday morning when the desire to remove the brick hearth around my fireplace, moved me into action.

I don’t know for sure, but I think demolition is my best side!

Two sledge hammers, two railroad spikes, my son and I removed about 75 bricks via several trips to the back yard. Jake and I had it all clean up, spic and span before Mr. Rust returned home from shuttle driving at the church.

When he left it look like this and then it looked like this…

Then for a few months, while we repainted the walls and added board and batten, it looked like this…

And now it looks…

DONE!

WOOOHOOO!

We used 12 x 12 raw slate tiles from Home Depot.  Mr. Rust and I sifted through stacks and stacks of broken boxes of slate to find 14 good tiles.  Once complete we were able to take back the extra tile.  Total cost of this redo…about $45 when all was said and done.

This goes into to the books as one of my favorite projects of 2011.  I’ve never once regretted tearing the hearth out and now that the tile is laid, I can move on to my next adventure.

I’ll give you a hint…It will be old, made of iron, ornate and rusty!

Any guesses?

Now…

have  you entered my coffee giveaway?

There is still time!

peace. love. rust.