Camp Whimsy

My New Old Cupboard is Complete and It is Fabulous!

Before Strauss's accident we finished our new old cupboard I introduced you to in this post. Waiting five years to find the right piece of furniture was definitely worth the wait! Here is a look...

...I painted the inside of the shelves my standard grey. The cupboard did not have a back, so...

...my husband fixed that. I chose a vintage wall paper I found on ebay to cover the back panel. It has a grey background with little cream colored pagodas and oriental figures which is a good compliment to my oriental collection the cupboard holds.

The wall paper turned out great. I was glad to have my husband's help to keep everything level and square.

We moved the cupboard into the house and attached the back panel. 

Before moving the cupboard in I sanded down the patches of brown paint on the drawers to reveal some of the wood underneath. I think I will be doing a bit more sanding over time because I really liked the look of the wood. 

I was so happy to have the cupboard ready to fill up! I saved the original hardware and my husband worked on putting the back on while I loaded the cupboard...

...with my collection. The picture above is the old cupboard I was using. I have been seriously collecting oriental things for about five years, I didn't think I had so much, but wait until you see it in the new big cupboard...

...voila! Love it! I had so much fun filling up the new cupboard and displaying my collection! It is so much lighter than the old cupboard I had, so my collection is easier to see.

This is a fuzzy picture, but this section of the cupboard has an extra tall compartment that I was able to hang my lantern from San Francisco's China Town. The figurines of the man and woman on the upper shelf are very special to me. I inherited them almost 20 years ago from my great grandmother Eva. As a small child I remember visiting her home where she had a big collection of these oriental people. They sat on the ledge between her kitchen and dining room and I remember crawling up on her sofa by the ledge to get a closer look. I think it was these figures that inspired me to collect oriental things in the first place. They still have their original price tags on their bottoms, from McLellan's, 69 cents each. She wrote 1954, Alpena Michigan on the bottom. Also the tall porcelain figurine of the man dressed in yellow standing behind them was my great grandmothers. My grandmother gave it to me three years ago and said she remembers it in my great grandmother's home in the 1950's. The lower shelf holds my collection of vintage tea and ginger boxes. They have the most beautiful graphics. I will show them to you in a post I am working on. 

 

 Most of my colllection is a bit kitschy. I collect anything with pagodas, lanterns and geishas. I collect oriental tea pots and tea boxes. I collect little oriental people figurines, mostly made in Japan or marked occupied Japan. I also have some cloissone vases and little boxes. I like colorful things that make me smile when I look at them. I have some little oriental screens and geisha ware dishes. The tea set pictured above has such sweet pagodas on it. It is a children's set from the 40's or early 50's. Most of the things in my collection are from that period.

This area of the cupboard has most of my oriental tea pots. The bright blue pot is marked Japan. The brown pot with gold fans on the right was given to me last year by my grandmother. She received it as a wedding gift in Michigan in 1956. I love it! The top shelf has my blue and white pieces. I have a few pieces of blue willow china and also a saucer and tea pot that are vintage souvenirs from the Golden Gate Park Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco that I found at an estate sale last fall.

I am so very happy with our new old cupboard! It is exactly what I had been looking for, a large cupboard with glass doors to display my collection on the top and storage on the bottom. The drawers are great for holding my candles and also my non-Christmas holiday decorations for Valentines, Chinese New Year, Mardi Gras, Halloween and Fourth of July. My mom suggested finding a beautiful rectangular vintage basket to set on top of the cupboard. My oriental collection is not highly collectible. There isn't a significant value to any of the items. But I love each little piece and grouped together it makes for a lovely collection. Guests in our home always seem to like to look at it.

Here is the before and after. You can see that the size of the new cupboard fits the room much better than the cupboard I had there previously. I moved the old cupboard I had to my husband's study and he loves it for his vintage books. The price of the new cupboard was $225 which I thought was very reasonable, after I purchased the wall paper and back for the cupboard I still have under $300 in it.  I would expect to pay about twice that amount for a piece this size in most shops. Plus it is old, which makes it special. You won't find this cupboard in Pottery Barn! If you like this post on my new old cupboard by all means give it a link and share with your friends! 

 

 

On the Mend

Strauss is on the mend! He is having good days and hard nights, but I am hopeful that the nights will gradually get better. Yesterday we went to his appointment down at UC Davis and the surgeon and doctor said we will be able to get another x-ray in four weeks to see if the cast can come off. That was great news compared to the 6-8 weeks they originally said in the hospital. This experience has been sort of like bringing home your first new born baby. We were exhausted, a bit scared to handle him or change him. We were unsure. And I never thought I would have to pack a diaper bag again in my life but yesterday I got out my old diaper bag and loaded it with diapers, wipes, snacks, a sippy cup, and a bed pan for the ride down to the doctor. I have often said that I wanted a third child but when Strauss came along I had my hands full with him and decided a third might not be the best decision for our family. So now I have my chance to have a third baby experience! I am thankful that ultimately Strauss will heal, that although this was a scary and hard experience for us, in the end it is only a broken bone and not a bad disease or worse that happened to Strauss. Audrey has been with my mom since the accident and we are thankful that she has had a wonderful time at Nana's and for the help it was to us to be able to give all of our care to Strauss. We think she will come home tonight and are looking forward to that. My husband and I got antibiotics on Tuesday and are feeling much better than we were. God has been here with us throughout this experience, comforting us and giving us the strength, hope and patience we needed. The scariest part for my husband and I was having Strauss under anesthesia at both hospitals. When Strauss began to open his eyes ever so slightly and moaned a quiet, "mommy..", that was the sweetest sound I have ever heard. Like the first time you hear your baby cry when he is delivered. I was never so glad to hear his little voice as I was in those moments. I know that we will find God's purpose in all of this and we will be a stronger family in the end. 

Strauss is Broken

Well Strauss is broken. Saturday evening he fell off our bed while playing with Audrey and he has a spiral fracture on his left femur. We spent six hours at our local emergency room, took an hour ambulance ride down to UC Davis medical center in Sacramento and spent 14 hours at their pediatric emergency center. He was sedated at the local hospital to get the leg in a splint and also went under during the casting procedure. He has a cast that covers his whole left leg, the right leg down to his knee, and up to his chest. He can not walk or use the bathroom. He is itchy and pretty unhappy with not being able to walk or move himself. My husband and I are sick on top of it and we could use prayer to feel better so we have an easier time in a difficult situation.  I am so thankful that ultimately he will heal and I am thankful that he received such good care at the hospital. God really is our refuge and an ever present help in trouble. Please pray for Strauss to have more relief from pain, to have less itching, success with the bed pan and to adjust to this situation. Oh how I love my sweet little boy. 

Out with the old, in with the new...

Happy New Year to you. This post is a bit of a rambler, so don't say I didn't warn you....how is your new year going? Mine is going well. Here is what I have been up to this week...

Time to change out the slipcover on the sofa for a clean one. I have had several people tell me I was crazy for having a white sofa with small children. Hello people, have you heard of bleach and slipcovers? Really though, these slipcovers cost only 50 bucks, so I have two sets, one that is on the couch getting dirty and one that is clean and ready to go. About every 3 or 4 months I just remove the old dirty covers and replace with the clean covers. I vacuum out the sofa when I change the covers. The big cover is too big for my washer (I soak it in the tub) so I don't change it every time. I soak the cushion covers in the washing machine for a good long time and haven't had a problem with stains. 

When I am done I have a nice clean, somewhat wrinkled sofa. The wrinkles fade in a few days.

January is a good time to tackle some projects you have been putting off. I bought the paint to paint our coffee table last April. Since the weather has been unusually warm and spring-like I thought it was a good time to paint...

...voila! Now it matches the other vintage tables I have in my living area. My house is full of greys, whites, and soft blues. The paint in my house is the same paint that we painted when we built five years ago. Over time I am adding more to the home as I find new (old) furniture.  Here is a look at my very grey living room. I used to think of grey as a rather gloomy color, but having lived with this look for some time I find it quite cozy and calming.

(click on the above picture to enlarge) I am slow to add things to my home. I would rather wait to find the piece I have in mind than to put just any old thing in my home...

...and with that said, I am giving you one last look at this sweet cupboard which holds my oriental collection. I have had this cupboard since we lived in our first home. I bought it at an estate sale about seven years ago. I am thinking I will move it to my husband's study (for his ever expanding book collection). We have 11 foot ceilings in our living room and I have always wanted a hutch here that would look a bit more substantial, (plus my once little oriental collection is not so little now and I need more cupboard space!). I have waited five years to find the piece I wanted. I was looking for something with glass cabinets on the top and storage on the bottom...

...so here is the new cupboard I found. It was a built in from a local home that I found from an antique dealer. The paint is fairly ratty, so we gave it a light sanding. I am going to try the cupboard in our home without painting it to start with and see how I like it. I did have to paint the inside of the shelves, which were orange. This picture shows them primed and ready for (grey) paint. I finished the painting yesterday and will be wall papering a panel for the back of the cabinet. I found a vintage wall paper, grey with white oriental scenes, on ebay. I am excited to finish this project this weekend and can't wait to show you! The cupboard is slightly taller than the existing cupboard I have and is about twice as wide as the existing cupboard. 

The bottoms of the new (old) cabinet drawers were warped and needed to be replaced. No problem for a handy husband. This guy can fix anything. Mostly that is a positive thing. Except in the current case of my broken washing machine. Which has been broken for 8 days, waiting on a part to come in the mail. Sometimes I wish my husband wasn't so handy, like in this case.  I would have liked a new washing machine, delivered the same day the old one broke. However it is nice to spend 20 bucks on a part rather than have to replace the whole machine. But come on Fed Ex, let's go. I've got a mountain of laundry to do. Seriously. A mountain.

I am glad for a fresh new year. I am glad for a slower routine following the busy holiday season. I am glad for my two children who bring me great joy each day and I am also glad for a can of grey paint and a new cupboard. Out with the old. In with the new. Happy New Year.  

 

Afternoon At The Stable

Last week I took the kids to the new stable to visit my sister and Ace. When we drove up to the stable Audrey exclaimed, "Oh, it's just like I always dreamed it would be." First we watched Ace get saddled.

We met many of Ace's new friends.

We watched as Ace got warmed up in the round pen outside.

Then we moved into the arena to watch Genevieve ride.

We are good watchers.

Genevieve is a good rider. Ace is a good horse.

After riding Strauss helped brush Ace down. Audrey is excited to start riding when she gets a little older. Horses are beautiful creatures.