It's Alll About Me!

Welcome to Natasha's Party! She reminds us that it is important to take time out for ourselves, and I will write more about this theme another time as I would like to elaborate upon it, but for now, a huge "THANK YOU" to Natasha for inspiring us to do a little something for ourselves.

Well, maybe it is only partly about me! I can't get used to the idea of bragging on myself, so-to-speak.
Oh the plans were in the works after reading Natasha Burns idea to host a party featuring the things we said we would do by today.
Well, for me, that meant wait until the last minute because naturally other things came first.

Because I had said I would join the party, I was in a panic yesterday.
No, the stairs were not refinished as I had thought they would be. The day I had set aside to work on the stairs was taken by an emergency and then never got replaced. But the chair - oh that darned chair - it was staring at me throughout all of the six weeks we had been given to complete our projects and still went untouched.
So yesterday I began my work in earnest.

This is the chair that needs attention . . .

In this picture it is all clean and ready to go.

I scrubbed the chair and set it to dry in front of the fire.
I plodded through mounds of fabric to determine which I would select for the cushion.
I chose a vintage cotton chintz that would look nice with the paint colour.


Then looked at the paint I had on hand.
Then today, bright and early, I set about some light sanding and some final cleaning before I began the process of painting the chair.

Farrow and Ball Traditional Paint

The chair has been painted, and the sewing has commenced, but alas, I have failed the challenge as my chair is not yet complete.
I will continue working on it later tonight and add photographs of the progress.
Then I will visit your little websites and have a look at what all of you have managed to complete. I can't wait! It is so exciting!
More to come . . .
xxx
Maggie

Addendum: Well, the best plans are well . . . stopped! LOL!
Oh the mistakes I have made on the chair's cushion!
You can see from the image above that I had cut out shaped, fitted cushion covers. My intention was to make a proper fitted cushion cover complete with piping.
But since this is a rather low sitting chair, I wanted to try to raise it up a bit. So I figured that padding the springs first would be a good idea, and then, topping that with my lovely cushion.

Umm, well, that didn't work out visually, although it did make the chair oh so comfortable to sit upon! With the added height, the cushion looked awkward and too high on the seat, so I have decided to scrap that idea and just wrap the cover instead.
I haven't done it yet, well not to any sort of professional-looking product, anyway, but I have taken a photo to show you how it will look, (even if a bit frumpy right now) when it is completed.
At least this way you can see the paint, too!
I am off now to have a look at your lovely creations and to be inspired!

Slumber Party!

Not a bed but a sweet little place for the flowers on my porch in America to nestle in a child's wicker baby buggy. We used it on the porch in the summer and in the dining room in the winter filled with poinsettias.

Oh so much fun!
I have never been invited to an on-line slumber party before, and I am not even sure if my participation is going to work, or not, but here goes!

My little nest here in England is still evolving. There is still lots of work to do but we have made a huge dent in it thus far.
My room at my home in America was fitted with a genuine antique double bed, bought on ebay, and fetched from Ohio to New York state in the back of a Dodge Caravan.
I regularly used antique sheets on it - my favourite one being a set from Italy - in pure linen.
Here is a photograph of my room in Williamsville, New York:. . . and then this is one of the two matching four poster beds in the guest room.



We worked on the house here in England, all the time, my first year here, changing rooms, removing walls, installing doors, removing doors, sanding floors, rewiring and installing new fittings, and so much more!
Because my children were arriving in December for our first English Christmas, my husband and I needed to find beds fast!
So we found three single beds on ebay from two different sellers.
One antique iron bed was purchased in London from a gorgeous bedroom way up on about the fourth or fifth floor, in a home that was situated within sight of Harrods.
It had been imported from America (like me!) by its owners who were downsizing and wanting to sell it.The other beds were a set of matching single beds, purchased also in London, but from an entirely different set of circumstances. These beds were being sold by their owners who were newly emigrated from Italy. The beds had belonged to the grandmother of the wife, and had been hand-made in Italy long, long ago. This photograph is just one of the pair of them. It resides in our guest room, where I typically use it as a table for my cutting board for working on my projects! When my very talented friend comes to visit us from the US, I will put her to work painting floral wreaths in the top curvy bit of each bed.


All three beds were in need of some painting so my husband had them stripped and then repainted in powder coating.
The two Italian beds are in our guest room, and the American bed is in my daughter's room.

We wanted to buy our bed as an antique, too, but to get an antique one as a king size bed (equal to our queen size in US terminology) would have cost thousands, so we settled for a reproduction - well - for now anyway! This is our bed made up in a duvet from the Pottery Barn in the Iznik range. No curtains yet! LOL! We have them now - a lovely dotted Swiss white cotton.
My favourite pastime is designing and making over houses. And we have had so much fun doing this one. There is always something new to do and to chat about but today is all about beds!

Next time more on my obsession with vintage linens!
Oh, I could write a book . . .

In the News

My daughter is safe.
Thank God.
She and her fiancée were going 'home' for the weekend, to Buffalo yesterday.
Her fiancée, Joe, works for Continental airlines, and they typically fly out of Newark, to Buffalo, on the small commuter jets run by the subsidiary company, Colgan. The flight takes about 50 minutes once in the air, and is a very inexpensive and fast way for them to get to Buffalo.

My husband woke me last night at about 5:00 am to break the news to me that one of Continental's planes had crashed in Clarence, just about five miles from the Buffalo airport.
He didn't know that my daughter, Elizabeth, and her fiancée Joe, was traveling to Buffalo for the weekend.

In shock, and disbelief, I was up instantly but without comprehension of what I was doing.
Trying to locate her new mobile phone number and shaking uncontrollably, I stuttered that she and Joe were on the plane.

We take it for granted that the commuter flights are safe; they are so frequent between Buffalo and Newark. I hadn't even asked her which flight she was taking. All I knew was that she said they were leaving late in the day.
There is a late afternoon flight that leaves around 4pm. Being a weekday, it would be full of business persons returning to Buffalo, or, making connections to Toronto.
The kids must fly stand-by and would have been bumped to the doomed flight if the 4:00 flight they wanted was full.
But all this was meaningless; all I could think of was that she and Joe were on the flight that crashed.

My darling Jim remained calm and located the elusive phone number and dialed it for me. I never could have done it - my hands and whole body were shaking.

I was so very frightened that the phone would go immediately to her voice mail.
But when she answered, I was never so happy to hear anyone's voice in my life.
Although relieved, relief would not be instant: my uncontrollable shaking would not stop for another 30 minutes or so.

Elizabeth and Joe had driven to Buffalo from Brooklyn, risking winter weather driving conditions, journeying for over 7 hours when they could have been there in less than an hour.
And I thanked God for that decision.

She knew something was wrong from the sound of my voice, and she immediately panicked thinking it was someone here who was ill.
She hadn't yet heard of the crash and we were breaking the news to her from over 3,000 miles away. We spoke for a little bit and then she had to go as her phone had a call waiting.
She was up most of the evening with people ringing her to check to make sure she was all right.

I was up all night as I just couldn't go back to sleep and I turned to CNN to keep me updated on the events as they unfolded throughout the day.

I understand just how the victims' families feel with a sense of disbelief, pain, and shock at their losses. The only difference is that my experience had a happy ending. But during the moments of panic before I knew she had not boarded the ill fated plane, I was walking in their shoes; unaware of what lay ahead and just how I was going to ever live without my beautiful daughter and her loving fiancée.
My heart truly goes out to all of the families involved, as my prayers are with them, and will remain so as time passes.

. . . and here comes more of it!

We have barely escaped from last week's snows, and now there is more heading our way.
All news points to being snowed-in again tomorrow.
I pray they close the university, as my daughter is supposed to head back tomorrow and I do not want to drive in it if it is as bad as they expect.
I thought I would share a video of what it looks like, snowing in our garden about an hour ago, when there was still enough light to capture it.
Never did this before so I will hope for the best!



And here is one more to help keep you warm!