God Bless Lowes

This past week was quite eventful.
I became a Grandmother on Thursday. Little Liam did not come into this world easily.
My sisters and I were in Madison Wednesday Night until 2 in the morning.
We simply could not leave until we were sure that Linds was okay.

So I went to work Thursday on 2 hours sleep (2 hours of just dozing actually) and then Hubby had a doctor's appointment as well. He called me from home to say that with this new medication he is on, his muscles are really locking up and he wasn't sure if he could actually get down our front stairs.

He did make it down them, but it was scary and difficult for him.
You see, last fall, before Hubby got sick, we had put up new stairs at the front of our house, but never got to put up the railings. So Hubby has been having to lean on the window ledge as he comes down the steps.

Well, it's almost spring now, and after this terror, I decided that this would be the weekend that I would do something about railings.

I looked at the railings that Hubby bought and have no clue how to assemble such a thing. However, I COULD install a simple hand rail. But I would need hardware with a very long arm on it because there is a space between the side of the house and the steps.

I started out at Menard's. Their sales people were not very helpful. All they would do is point in a direction and go back to what they were doing (acting like they were busy). I didn't find the hardware I was hoping for, so we went to Lowes.

We went to the hardware section and I explained to the sales person what I had in mind. I told him I wanted to keep it simple doing this. He showed me what they had, and it was basically the same stuff Menard's had.

He said he could order me a longer arm, but I told him I really didn't want to put this project on hold. I asked him if they had any brackets that would work for a project like mine and he showed us a few that might work. And then he lead us to the iron hand rails and started explaining how easy these were to install.

I listened to him explain and understood most of what he was saying, but then he pulled out some base posts and I was completely lost, wondering how I was going to mount those to the house. So I became frustrated and was about ready to just walk out.

I said "Thank you, but that's just a bit much for me. I need something simple that I can do TODAY to solve this problem." The look on his face somehow made me continue "You see, my husband has cancer and he is having a very hard time getting in and out of our house. I need to install railings NOW and they need to be something simple that I can do."

Frank the Sales Guy looked at me and said "Well I can come and install them on Tuesday if you like."

My Mother-in-law and I both looked at each other and then at him "You'd do that?"

Well it IS Lent. I try to do a good deed as often as I can, and It really sounds like you could use a good deed."

Then he said he would also buy the parts and I could pay him back - so that I would get his employee discount on the parts! What a guy!

He called me when he got home from work and said (like a true Wisconsinite) "Hi! This is Frank from The Lowes. Can I come see your steps?" He looked at the steps and said he is sure he could do this job in about an hour. He'll be back Tuesday.

God bless Lowes! And God bless Frank from The Lowes! There really ARE angels among us!

Inspiration

I love to visit Apartment Therapy's site for ideas and Home Decor inspiration. I'm always looking for new ideas to keep our home interesting (also having an inspiring space makes me feel like cleaning it more often!), and what better place to find such inspiring ideas than touring other people's homes!

Some days there is nothing that screams "Groovy" to me on that web site. But today, I found oodles of ideas!

For example, I have one last table in our garage that is waiting to be stripped and refinished. I scored two of these tables at The Restore in Appleton (That is the place that gives me Store-gasms!)

I've been holding off on working on this table because I want to try something different with each one (also, I can really only do this through spring and summer when it is warm in the garage and I have the option of working in the driveway in the sunshine!). Well, today I have found my inspiration!
What a great idea for a table top! And I just happen to have some left over poly from when we refinished our living room floor that I can use to seal in the pennies once they are adhered to the surface! That will deter patina from setting in.

Now to decide if I will do them all face up or all face down, or mix it up to annoy some of my OCD friends. It's a good thing I have to wait for spring, because I need to start saving more pennies!

Our new bedroom needs a great deal of attention as well. I know I need to finish fixing the ceiling and putting up moulding, but I also want to do something cool with it to make it more inviting. This room has great space constraints, so I need to choose wisely what I will do with it.

I have been collecting vintage votive cups for years, and have ended up putting most of them in storage because I just don't have the room to display them all. But if I made a bunch of little display boxes as pictured below, I could have a lot of fun displaying my votives on them.



The awesome part about this idea is that I don't need to use solid wood to make the boxes. They won't be holding a great deal of weight. I could make them out of squares of Balsa Wood and glue them together, attaching sturdy fasteners to the back so they hang proper. And because they would be made of balsa, I can also make little edges on the tops of each one with left over balsa so that the candles never slide off and fall. It will be an inexpensive and simple project. I like that!

I would hang them lower on the wall though and hang an interesting picture above them. Half the fun of decorating is borrowing ideas and making them your own.

Another groovy idea that I spotted on Apartment Therapy is this spice rack!


What a great idea! Labeling the cork stopper with the name of each spice makes them easy to spot. And I love the idea of having them all in a small enough space that they could actually live beside our stove! This would be fun for anyone with space constraints. It might even make me enjoy cooking more! Well, okay, I already do enjoy cooking. It's the dirty dishes that I actually hate. Maybe some day Apartment Therapy will come up with a fun idea for those as well!

These are a Few of my Favourite Things

I love lazy Saturdays. I get up, I surf the net, I snort down a whole pot of coffee, and then the rest of the family awakens. Sweet!

Even more fun, I discovered a few new blogs from blog surfing from one to the next, and bookmarking them this past week. So this morning, I got to sit and actually page through the many fashion blogs out there. Dang! I wish I was in my 20's again, because if I were, I could SO rock that genre! These young gals hit the thrift stores and create totally unique wardrobes with their found treasures paired with incredibly cute shoes and accessories. To some, such as my hubby, it may sound quite lame. But to me, it is very inspiring. I wish I could take it to the extremes they take it to, but I know that if I tried, folks would just look at me and say "Oh, look! She's wearing all the 80's shit from her attic today!" Sure. Like the shit I wore in high school would even fit me today! (Well, maybe it would??) But anyway, reading those blogs really makes me want to go thrift store shopping!

And that is exactly what we did today. Saint Vinny's has recently moved to its new location and we were fortunate enough to come during their grand opening celebration. As part of their celebration, they were also holding a silent auction on some of their finer donated items. I am still crestfallen. They had an amazing vintage coffee table with a tooled leather top, and ultra-ornate legs in perfect condition. Be still my heart! And there was a pair of Museum Quality Hand Carved chairs that even caught Hubby's attention. The wood portion of them were very decorative and antique. Someone had covered them in cheetah patterned fabric which made them even more eye catching. I wanted these items in my living room! So I started the bids on all items. They said to come back at 1PM to see if you won.

When we came back at 1PM, the groovy table was gone, and the bids on the chairs had raised $30 each. I kept upping the bids trying to insure that I got them. But in the end, a young gal who reminded me a lot of My #1 Son's friend Sarah came up and asked "Are you Brenda? We're bidding against each other on those chairs." And I said "Yes, I love them." Then her mother asked "Are you a collector or are you bidding to take them home?" Well, I admitted that if I WERE a collector, these chairs would be quite a find at the low price they were going for, but no, I just wanted them in my home. My opponent said she had just redecorated her den in a jungle motif and really wanted these chairs as well. And then her Mommy gave me THAT look.
Spoiler: "Mommy didn't need to say it, but Mommy was prepared to throw money at this auction to ensure her little girl gets those chairs, so I may as well stop bidding.".

So yeah, I lost that bid too. But I did come home with a few Elvis Collector books that I can post up on Craigs List and double the value. And I also found some very cute shoes, brand new, and 3 outfits for work, which is good because this time of year I tend to feel like I wear the same 4 outfits day after day, week after week.

Oh, and I realized this week, with the odd weather we had (snow and rain Monday, snow Tuesday, rain Wednesday and Thursday, 80 degrees Friday, and then rain again today), that this gal really doesn't have a mid- weather jacket to wear. I have Winter. I have Cool Summer. No Spring jacket. So I rectified that as well with a long black spring dress coat. It's probably too dressy to wear with my wellies on a rainy day, but, hey! I love me wellies! I'm gonna wear them every time it rains!

It's good that we got in this shopping expedition today, though. Little Oc gets fixed next Friday, so I have a feeling next Saturday we'll all be taking turns telling her "Don't Lick That."

So how did you shake the rain from your soul today?