Beating the Winter Blues & Cabin Fever...# 2

Nice lemon tree!
(Glad you poop proofed the bird bath! lol!!)

It's another cold day.
This is what I did yesterday.
I will remodel the vanity and I wanted special knobs so I am using GF studio to make clay ones.
I will go back today and make 15 more but different method..
http://smilebox.com/playBlog/4d6a4d774d7a67334d6a6b3d0d0a&blogview=true

I, too, picked the last lemon off the Meyer lemon tree, but it hasn't started to rebloom yet.....just love the smell!

This is day #2 of the Knob projest/ The knobs will be bisque fired then I return to the studio for the glazing and fireing.
http://smilebox.com/playBlog/4d6a4d774e4463344e54633d0d0a&blogview=true

Nice.

Ge1836, Love your reckless abandon. I need to loosen up a bit. No wise cracks, victor. I go back to the studio for a couple of days tomorrow and will try to be more creative. Patti

I had to go back to forms I had made years ago. I just transposed things to ajust to the knob hardware.
Working in her studio was a blast. I go back tomorrow to sand the rough spots. I wish you lived closer.We could hang out.

I'm sure many would like their knobs to have the form they did years ago.

You've been looking in the mirror

ge1836 ,thank you, I enjoyed seeing the photo series of the project, it helped me understand the process.

Thank gawd it finally happened.
I was waiting for a Victorism.

Cool Jo!

LOL! Victor.

Love the slide shows, and those knobs are looking fabulous! You are so creative. I would not have been able to think so far out of the box. Mine would have been just round or square or whatever. I would have wanted to use a cookie cutter. LOL! I miss working with clay.

Karen

Thanks

Great job, Jo.....very creative knobs, & the colors will go great with your glass tile!

Keep your fingers crossed.They arent glazed and fired yet

That's always a scary process!

Off to Boston in a few minutes to go to my pottery studio space for a couple of days to play in the clay. I will take inspiration from Ge1836 and her fancy knobs.

I have to drive DH and the dogs are going to Hyannis first so they can go back to ACK today. DH has a hockey game tonight. He is now the oldest one still playing which is fine except when the young bucks come to play when they are on break. It is suppose to be no-checking, but he has managed to break a whole bunch of stuff over the years. Nuts.

No winter blues for us so far. Too busy. I even managed to tick another thing off my project list yesterday. I cleaned out a linen closet. Rule # ?...It takes less room to fold than to stuff. That simple task has been on my to do list for several years. But "gotter done".

DH crawled under the kitchen yesterday and put in some more insulation along the north wall where we often have frozen pipes. He was frozen by the time he finished. We do drain that section of the house when we leave. It takes a couple of minutes, but better safe than sorry.

I spent Monday doing detailed drawing of a plan to gut that part of the house and rebuild the kitchen with insulated walls, windows and to redo the laundry and back bath, and a pantry. They are all in terrible shape, but this pipe dream will depend on getting a great estimate. The plan will be minimal in expense as it will have no overhead cabinets, and I will reuse the existing wooden floors as well as all the, not ideal, but still serviceable appliances. Not a perfect project, but I would be so happy to finally get something done that puts the current refrig in the kitchen instead of the pantry and to banish the knotty pine cabinets to a free pile and to have some counter space. Patti

I was never fond of knotty pine for some reason, even though I love most wood. I guess it was a 1950's "rec room" concept.

Yep, you don't want the thought of frozen pipes hanging around in the back of your mind, it can spoil a vacation.

Patti, my sister has had kitchen pipes freeze a couple of times.Her plumber said leave the cupboard doors open.

and let the faucet drip

correct. We have been doing that quite often this winter. still only 25°, We need snow melting weather.

We do leave the cabinet doors open and water dripping, but the holes in the foundation absolutely mandate that we drain the kitchen/laundry area each time we come and go from Dec until March or they freeze no matter. But that does help for sure for minor cold snaps or while we are up here. Got down to about 5 last night. It is a simple procedure and keeps us from worrying. Our dear neighbor pops over whenever he thinks best. They use the house whenever they want for overflow, especially at Thanksgiving as we normally have t-day in Nantucket. Good exchange.

The other thing we must always remember to do is to close all the toilet lids or we sometimes come back to finding a dead mouse floating in the bowl. Not pretty. Mice have not been a big issue this year. Last year they were terrible. Not sure why. We keep all the stuff in the kitchen draws in plastic bags so that keeps them uninterested in those draws.

It is a 1790's house so no way to keep them out. If we final do the kitchen section which was add in the 1850's then that will help as that part is on a rubble foundation and totally leaky with no insulation. We fixed the old part up some years ago, so it is all good except it needs a new tin roof at some point. Love it up here in any season. Patti

ohhhh man

Your snow in front of the house is higher than ours. We could see out of the lower windows all right.

I'm off to the GF 's studio for the last day. I want to make some square plates a couple of mugs and a tray for sweet quick breads and a candle house for the deck this summer.
Thats the wish and intent. I will report later this afternoon with pix of what actually happened.

Porch is smelling nice again with a new wave of tangerine blooms!

nice!!!

Victor, what is the temperature range of your porch?

I'm guessing it gets a lot of sun.

I keep a small heater going, plus it gets great AM sun. Humidity from the hot tub and a ceiling fan for air movement. Ranges from 60-90.

There are different schools of thought on how often a container plant should be rotated, so that all sides of the plant get sunlight evenly.

My mother's rule was, "a quarter-turn a day"; she would water daily, and just habitually do the quater-turn.

If Victor, or anyone else, has ideas about container plants, I'd love to hear them.

stick with your mothers rule - i only do it when i think about it - although my containers are for trees not flowers

Yes, turning is good.

But not so fast as to make it dizzy. ^_^

I'm really getting into the idea of growing trees in containers, both indoors and outdoors, instead of just annuals.

"wha" (Bill) had a photo about a year ago of a lovely japanese maple outdoors, but in a container, that was quite exquisite. The size and shaping did NOT seem to be bonsai, and it seemed like the perfect accent for the garden spot.

I remember reading of a woman that would strip ALL the leaves off her indoor JM in August, and it would re-leaf and thrive until its next "haircut" the following August.

I might be more apt to try it if I had some definitive instructions to go by.

That will be nice to get that remodeling project done, Patti, even if it is a tight budget one. I will still look nice when all's said and done. I think this is the first time I'm seeing pics of your place in Vermont. Nice! I would think the mice would still be able to get into the toilets, even with the lids closed. They can squeeze into the smallest spaces. Have fun working with the clay!

I was at Lowe's today admiring all the nice houseplants they had in. I was so wanting to get at least one, but I have a few hundred dollars worth of car repairs to do this weekend, so no plants now. Bummer!

Karen

Last year I had my never ending mosaic project to fill the winter gardening void. This year I did almost no mosaic work and spent a whole bunch of money on plants. I better think about a winter project for next year.

Beautiful, Patti!! What a lovely place you have....in snow as well as summer!

JoAnn - I like your knobs a whole lot better than mine!! Yours have such soothing colors!

I spent the afternoon smashing and nipping the pieces of china I bought today for mozaic creations. $1.00 each for some lovely Staffordshire English bone china pieces....love to find such fun things! Hank and I met 23 years ago today, so we went out to dinner and he bought me some daffodils just as he did the day after our first date. Then he had 5 dozen delivered....not this time, but after all, we must live within our retirement means now. lol Happy Day all day! :) AND - I love Wednesday nights because I get to watch Modern Family. Love that show! Yippee!

Happy (warm) Anniversary Louise!!

Thanks, Weeze! :)