I could almost weep!!!

Please do not be frightened....
this is Dan's section of the basement- my section is much prettier and filled with vintage and antique garden ornaments! (Dan is in the process of organizing the space, so pardon the mess;) 
Messy as it appears, this is where magical things happen for the house!   Note the large barn room chandelier on the floor getting ready to get ready to be wired.

 It was on this worktable yesterday afternoon, while looking for one of the original doorknobs from the farmhouse that I wanted to show to the carpenter in hopes of using it on the barn half bath door, that I found...

...this box of miscellaneous lamp parts and finials. 

In the ten years that I was an antiques dealer we made and sold many lamps.   So, whenever we were out antiquing and found interesting bits and pieces for lamps we would buy them knowing we would eventually find a use for them.  The items in this particular box (we have many such boxes) were individually purchased and probably thrown in the box some 7 to 10 years ago;  long forgotten, and packed and shipped from Dallas to New Hampshire.

My eye went to one of the solid brass finials, then I saw the other- a pair, perfect.  I immediately thought of a pair of antique wooden balusters that we purchased a couple of months ago and are going to turn into lamps that will sit on a sofa table in the barn room.  The scale seemed right.

One of the pair of balusters on another work table.

The balusters will be waxed and we will use an antique glazed-terra-cotta square (we purchased a box of these from a dealer in Kansas City years ago) as the base.  Yet to be determined is if the baluster will go like this or upside down.

Isn't it crazy how perfectly the finial and the baluster go together?!!  They look like they were made for each other, yes?!

  The brass finials will have to be drilled to accommodate the top of a harp, as they are solid and not originally lamp finials.  I have no idea what they were used for, but so glad we picked them up somewhere along the way.  Lesson:  if you love it buy it, you'll always find a home for it- even if it is years later!

Garden Art

It's our first Spring in the house! I'm just starting to think about designing beds and landscapes.

Today I went looking for antique and vintage garden objects for the porches, gardens and grounds.
Here is a sampling of what I found....



pair of vintage concrete urns with great patina

old dovecote and an antique iron pediment from a building in Portland, Oregon


pair of large vintage concrete finials with wonderful patina



new, but lovely pair of very large jardinieres


pair of old light fixtures


antique iron birdhouse



misc. iron pieces


old iron baskets



concrete balusters and old birdbath, and glazed terracotta base

vintage stepping stones

antique French iron cross on antique iron base from Birmingham, Alabama

French fountain

old copper tub

pair of iron railings with leaves

pair of concrete planters from a nunnery in New Orleans



Antique iron gas light fixtures from San Fransisco, antique iron urn with copper floats

old zinc roof finials from Texas buildings

seahorse armillary sphere on concrete baluster base

vintage and antique watering cans galore!

Oh, wait........... did I mention I was "looking" in my basement and garage?!!

sometime it's just not pretty....

Lest you start to think that I'm just another "pretty picture" blog :) or that I only show you the edited version of life here at the farmhouse, rest assured I show you the good, the bad, the ugly... and this is ugly!!
We've been having record rains here in the Northeast, rivers are flooding across our state and region. Even though our house sits on the top of a hill the ground is so saturated that the basement began to "retain water."

(Before I go any further, let me say that I am very grateful that this was our mere inconvenience, as many homes across the region were reported to have had up to 8 feet of water in the basement plus flooded houses.)
In one area of our basement it was a good two inches. Dan used the shop-vac to remove 160 gallons of water last night, and then this morning Dan and our wonderful, fabulous painter/handyman Seth removed another 250 gallons and put in a sump pump. For my Southern family and friends who aren't familiar with this animal it involved having to cut through the concrete floor, digging down about a foot and a half and placing a submersible pump in the hole that removes all the water from underneath the house when the hole fills up with water. Did I mention it's not pretty?!!

This is a sump pump.

Dan's worktable (we found it at an estate sale in Dallas- isn't it a great table?!) had to be moved to put in the sump pump. You can see the pump underneath the worktable towards the back wall.

Okay, maybe a couple of 'fun' pictures.... !
Pile of vintage caps and old ceiling medallions, plus extra harps that we use in making lamps.


Antique cash register stand that Dan uses for small nuts and bolts (also found at an estate sale in Dallas). Old radiators taken from the house are in the background.

It turned out to be a really good day, as Ella got to go to her favorite store...Lowes!
Ella loves Lowes- even more than Petco!! To watch her wiggle and waggle into the store you'd think they were handing out treats.... well, actually they do give her dog cookies!!

That's one happy girl!

Then the day only got better, when we had to go to Home Depot too!!

Luckily it is supposed to be in the 70's this weekend, so we look forward to drying out!!

in progress...

before:

chandelier in the basement being waxed:

And while we're in the basement, here is a shot of our Buderus propane-fueled boiler. This unit heats the water for our heating system in the house, and the radiant heat in the garage floor. In the background of the third photo you see our tankless Rinnai water heater. We don't worry about running out of hot water as our plumbers installed this same single unit in a laundromat that had 22 washing machines!


Oh, and by the way........

in case you were wondering.... Ella loves the tractor!

(What you don't see in this photo is Dan eating lunch on the tractor.... shrimp salad on an ironstone plate, water in a glass, and a cloth napkin.... we're fancy farm people!! Actually, I just couldn't get him to come in for lunch, so I took it to him!)