Ye Olde Red Brick House

Just realized I hit 100 posts!   It has been 4 years in my beautiful brick home...   I posted for the first time on July 8, 2009 .  

just collecting when you have 100 of one item? Seriously, found like 20 more skeleton keys and hooks since my last post.   Now, I'm supposed to be organizing my vintage books, yet here I am, posting again. I have a serious case of ADD going on today. Maybe too much coffee with a dose of procrastination?   My vintage book collection... minus the ones that are still in Amazon.com and ebay.com boxes. I love love love vintage books. I actually read them. My favorite is Sir Walter Scott and I have every one of his old books, original editions, probably 3 times over. I am also addicted to stuff about the old Hollywood stars, Marilyn, James Dean, Elvis, etc.... except those books aren't as old.   This bookshelf is all my home décor and home maintenance books.... and I've looked through every one of them at least 20 times. I LOVE books. Believe it or not, I have another entire bookshelf of chick lit (Devil Wears Prada type of books) and another whole shelf of diet books, and spir...

I started cleaning and organizing again, but had to stop so I could show you an obsession of mine. I wonder if there is a support group for collecting cast iron hooks, fake skeleton keys, etc.?   I live in an old house, and almost every door at one time, had a skeleton key. (Some day, when I win the lottery, I will call a smart locksmith and have him make me some skeleton keys that work.)   Anyway, back to the subject... I started collecting skeleton keys when I moved in. Real ones, which I can't find because I have so much crap. But, I have found plenty of fake cast iron ones at Marshalls, Ross, Hobby Lobby, etc.   Some of them are made with hooks, which led me to another collection... I love hooks, everywhere! However, I haven't painted any walls but my bedroom and bathroom, so haven't hung any of my awesome collection on the wall! They sit in a box, collecting dust in my craft room.   There are so many uses for hooks...   I use them in my room, for purses... ...

Bet that got your attention. LOL   So, since I cannot scrape any paint until Sunday (tomorrow), I decided to do some organizing this morning. Cleaning my room was the main thing on the agenda today. So, I was up at 6:30 am so I could fit in some blog reading. (By the way, I have two favorite new blogs to read) Must reads: Bye Bye, Brooklyn  and A City Girl's Country Dream   Warning you though, they are addicting. I read City Girls blog, the ENTIRE BLOG, in one week.   Anyways, I read a few blogs, ate breakfast and got started. I put away a few things in my room, emptied about 20 bags from Michaels Crafts, Hobby Lobby and JoAnn's Fabrics... as I am a scrapbook and journaling addict that loves buying stickers, paper and other fun stuff, like every weekend. The thing is, I have a scrapbook room, so I had to go put the stuff in there, but it was a mess. So, I had to organize all my paper goodies.   Then, before long, I was having a hot flash as my house was 85 ...

My back and neck hurt soooo bad. I'll be so happy when I finish! Todays project was the center beam that separates the dining and living room.  BEFORE: Got the entire bottom of the beam stripped by using the heat gun. It's so much quicker and easier then using Citri-strip. The heat gun was more difficult in this area, would not scrape off very well... so resorted to the Citri-strip. (This adds at least 2 more hours to stripping time due to having to scrape, scrub with mineral spirits, wipe down, rinse) AFTER: 7 hours later Heat gun flakes are so much easier to clean up! Compared to Citri-strip mixed w/ paint (eww)

Ever since I got the RH side of the porch repaired, ALL I think about is the LH side.   It doesn't help that neighbors point out how crappy it looks. :( I've had comments from "Wow, that side looks great, too bad they couldn't fix the other side!" to "They did such a great job, why didn't they do all the bricks around the repair?"   I have an entire house of brick. The mason could not repair every brick mortar that looks bad, otherwise he'd by working on my house for weeks instead of 3 days. I wish I could afford the other side to be repaired, but it just isn't in the budget.   Soooo, to get my mind off of the bricks, I started working on the dining room again.   I haven't really worked on stripping paint since November 2010 .   The main reason is because my daughter lives here with here with my grand-daughter and I don't want her inhaling the Citri-strip fumes. However, she goes to her dad's house all day on Sundays. So, today I ...