Shabby to shabby chic Wardrobe makeover!

At last!  Only had this wardrobe about 7 years, bought second hand  and knew it was just what was needed for our guest bedroom - as it is a multipurpose item (they used to be called "gentlemen's wardrobes").  So, this is what it looked like before:

 It has a hanging space, a cupboard (used to have sliding doors of some kind but those were long gone by the time I got it.... a drop down desk top (with pidgeon holes for envelopes, pens etc in this space) and then below that four good sized drawers.  It also originally had a covered wire especially to hang ties on the inside of the long door.

OH made two doors for the top space, mounted on piano hinges, and we had two little handles from other furniture, long gone and never used..... and also affixed a magnet to close the desk top as the key was gone and the lock b.uggered.

 So, full of tringum trangums which everyone has around the house, here it was in its former dowdy glory.

And now! Da da!

New doors and handles

 complete with tree for December guests!

 Drawers

 Desk top

and here she is in all her shabby glory.  Better in daylight perhaps, so I may do the pics again, but it was very satisfying getting it finished to tone in with the rest of the room.  So at last, room complete.

PS - in case you are wondering why the paint job looks as though it didn't go on very well, that it how I meant her to look, Honestly!!!

The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price Purveyor of Superior Funerals - Wendy Jones

The cover of this short novel is just perfect.  A shapely ankle, a nice waist, and a 

dress that Wilfred wonders how the wearer gets out of.......and that's the problem, for instead of asking the wearer how she undoes the dress, he suddenly proposes.  A batchelor and virgin at 27, Wilfred is the village  undertaker, and a rush of testosterone on a hot day leads him into a life he does not want, nor is he prepared for.  For the wearer of the yellow dress, Grace, the doctor's daughter, says yes.   Not so bad perhaps, except that Wilfred soon realises that he has no feelings for Grace, and we, the readers, also realise that Grace has a secret of her own, one she is unlikely to ever share.

Lovely writing style, conjuring up the small mindedness of village life in the 1920s, how important it was to have a career that would not fail you, and how important keeping up appearances was then.  The descriptions throughout - the polishing of the hearse, the brushing of the jacket, the willow pattern plates that dinner is served on at the doctor's house, bring this village and the story within it to life.  The author, Wendy Jones has captured the feelings of the three main characters so well, and although Wilfred starts off as a quiet, shy, keep your head down kind of man, just see what happens when true love gives him the strength to blossom.

Daniel Pennac's "Reader's Bill of Rights"

Now I found this today, reproduced on another blog..... and I am sure no-one will mind me reproducing it all over again!

Daniel Pennac's "Reader's Bill of Rights"


1. The right to not read

2. The right to skip pages

3. The right to not finish

4. The right to reread

5. The right to read anything

6. The right to escapism

7. The right to read anywhere

8. The right to browse

9. The right to read out loud

10. The right to not defend your tastes

King Peggy - Peggielene Bartels and Eleanor Herman

King Peggy is Peggieline Bartels, a US citizen, and a secretary at the Ghanian Embassy in Washington.  Well, for around 11 months of each year, anyway.  But for the other month or so, she is the King of Otuam, a fishing village of around 7,000 souls most of whom are poor, and jobless.

When the ancestors chose her from the list of possibles (along with some of the village elders - more of that as the book unfolds) it was more than a shock.  She had a life elsewhere.  The last time she had visited the village was several years before, when her mother died.  So to step off the plane and be treated like royalty was something else again.  But it didn't take long for Peggy to realise that several things were wrong.  The village taxes were gone - and as they had been paid, someone must have recieved them and spent them.  Village land had been sold off, again, no money to show for it.  Her elders were at first very respectful, but only superficially, as it soon became obvious that a woman's place was not on the throne, but being subserviant to her male elders and betters. 

Peggy is not a rich woman.  She has to work, and lives in a one bedroom apartment in Maryland, USA.  In Otuam she is king, although the palace is only cement block built, leaky and is falling apart, and there is no money to bury the former king who has been in the fridge at the morgue for some time.  How to give him a good burial, how to raise money for clean water in the town, how to get more kids into school - and that's just for starters, for Peggy is king for life, and there is much to be done.  How she sets out to achieve those aims, get the village on her side, show up the people who have stolen village money and are trying to belittle her is Peggy's story.  She is assisted in the writing of this book by journalist Eleanor Herman, who herself paid for one of the two bore-holes bringing clean water up into the town, and has accompanied Peggy on two trips to Otuam.  Nice interview with King Peggy here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoKei1lqk58&feature=related

Alexander McCall Smith says "this is an astonishing and wonderful book about a real-life Mma Ramotswe.  It is an utter joy".  He's right.  It is.

The yellow and white border - Part 2.

If you look in the bar on my home page under Garden You will find the start of my yellow and white border.  It doesn't look much different now, except for the addition of paved edging, which you can just see in the last pic here.  Now for the second part of that border, which is cleared and ready for the off.   Dull colours, grey day, exposure on camera a bit off but its the best I can do for now. 

                                                   

Now what you can see is the second half of the border, with fence posts up, wire on and topsoil added.  This has taken a while because we had a 30 year old Escalonia  in this area, which was up 12 ft+ high, and probably 15 ft in across.  It ate up half the grass as well, and was getting to the stage where it was not flowering abundantly anymore.  We cut it back by two thirds last year hoping that we would feel benevolent.... but no.  So out it had to come, and our great gardening jobber, Alan, arrived with a stump grinder, as once it was cut down to soil level there was still a load to get rid of.  The tree stump you see is not it!  That's Buddlia, "Dark Knight" the best and darkest purple.  Yes, I know it's in the yellow and white border, but it's so good each summer it has to stay.  The paved edge at the beginning, laid on sand, has settled in well, and will continue to the end of this border. 

So nothing else happening here until the Spring now, except for bulbs to be planted in various spots in the garden next month, for a good show in the spring.  More news on this next year.

Brooklyn Flea, and two nice guys we met there!

Yes, yes, I know!  this is my third post about New York - so you can tell I was pretty enamoured with it all, and I may have to bore you all with some more.   Now I want to tell you about Brooklyn's Saturday Flea Market - Get off at Lafayette on the C train and it's only a few blocks.  But you really MUST GO!  Not least because at the gate, for $10 only, you can buy a heavy canvas tote bag with FLEA BAG printed on it.  This is likely to be my favourite bag for a very long time.

We went on a Sunny Saturday in early October.  Loads of stalls, interesting mix of s/h clothes, furniture with good food, drinks not owned by a conglomerate (you know what I mean).  Nice craft stuff too, and in the middle of all the loveliness we found Mike and Frank of "Frank Fanzio Designs" whose website is http://frankfaziodesign.com/Photo_Gallery.html.  They are upcyclers (and so am I, so I was more than interested to stop, look and chat), and the day we saw them, they had a good mix of things I would have bought if I was living locally.  In particular, two dining chairs painted in seriously bright colours, with even brighter seat pads which I loved.  I could imagine them in a kitchen cheering me up on a cold rainy day.  I also saw a table that would have gone with them beautifully had it not already had a sold label on it.  Painted shabby chic style, and the thing that delighted me most was that on the long side of the table was one drawer, and, "hey presto!" a pull out preparation block for a bit of extra space.  I don't live in the US, so no chance of me buying either, but they were lovely guys - with some lovely stuff for sale.  I don't sell my own upcycled stuff, but for a look, click on House+UPCYCLING in the bar on my home page.

Rizzoli's - A Little New York Bookshop on 57th Street

My last morning in New York I just had to fit in a bookshop (bookstore to you Americans).  I found that on the same street as my hotel was a small-ish bookshop called Rizzoli's.  So there was just time to pop in there on my way back from seeing Bloomingdales before I got back to the hotel to await my airport transport.

It's a very narrow shop, on three floors.  It seems to specialise in coffee table books of the best kind, so if you like architecture, ballet, theatre, photographic tomes, this may well be worth spending an hour inside!  I was directed to the top floor for paperback fiction, and with only 10 minutes to look round I really didn't know where to start, and was then really confused, as whilst there were plenty of books, it seemed that, with the exception of a small amount of multiples, most books were just singles.  So I knew I would not have time to read along each shelf (and add to that the fact that I'd have to have my head turned sideways to read the spines!).  I did spot a Maeve Binchey there, but my book of choice was a New York Times bestseller, Rules of Civility by Amor Towles which I found in a pile of 3 only on the counter. 

Lovely old built in bookcases, floor to ceiling, and an eclectic selection of CDs also available for sale (1930s dance band music playing whilst I was there).  The ceilings are glorious rococco plasterwork, and they had a great selection of greetings cards too.  I would certainly give this lovely little shop more time if I had longer..... but I was flying home, and it was the only bookshop I had time for!