April Showers??!!

Our first daffodil opened despite that they're receiving moisture in the form of snow!

The Easter Bunny had better wear his boots because it's coming down like gangbusters!

Wishing all of you a very Happy Easter!

Brief Interlude….

Bush Antiques

I’m getting very excited, it’s that time of year when all the postcards start flowing into my mailbox for upcoming shows and antique container deliveries from Europe. This postcard above is announcing a new container from France for Bush Antiques in New Orleans. Love the images dealers choose to present an antique piece.

French campaign bed

French toile bed

Beds in every size and to fit every taste!

Michael Trapp

This postcard from Michael Trapp was announcing he’s open for the season! He closes shop during the winter months so he can shop…. rough life huh?

16th century Italian tin glazed wine jars

I purchased one of these wine jars from Michael for my new kitchen and can be seen here and I think I own that green one right there in the middle, love it!

Pair of Neapolitan Bronze Torchiers

I’m loving these small torchieres and they’re reasonably priced, I might have to break down and buy them but don’t tell mister man! If you live on the east coast Michael's shop is always worth a visit but he's only open on Saturday and Sundays.

Brimfield Antiques

Then we have my absolute favorite, held three times a year in Brimfield Massachusetts is the Brimfield Antique Show. This show comes in and takes over the entire town spreading for miles on end with dealers from every part of the world. If you go home without a truckload of treasures then you just weren't looking hard enough!

The day before Brimfield opens to the public and to kick things off is the Antique Textile and Vintage Fashion Show. Dealers from all over the world set up here and because I deal only in European goods you know I'm first in line for this show. I leave broke, tired but extremely happy because I finally get to see in person and touch the things I'm purchasing first hand.

The textile show offers so much more then just my type of textiles, European and really old, they also offer antique clothing, grain sacks and furniture, if it’s cloth this show offers it. For someone like me who lives out in the country with nothing around the Brimfield Show and a host of others like Round Top in Texas offers so much during the summer months. Just to be able to touch and see is intoxicating when I typically buy from dealers on the computer. Just two more weeks and we're shopping! I'm getting very giddy!

Details: Mister man Built a little somethin'

While the upstairs of the barn was being spray insulated the downstairs was fast coming along. One of those things was the staircase that mister man felt the need to change in the design, something else that cost more money! Even though mister man was building the stonewalls and he was using leftover granite blocks it still cost extra to have half the lower barn dug out as seen here.

While these pictures don’t look like much yet it will. The staircase is 42” wide and goes up and takes a 90-degree angle.

Here you can start to see the walls coming together with cement and granite blocks. The cement blocks will be hidden under the treads so no sense in wasting expensive antique granite blocks.

The brick you see in the middle of the wall won’t show either but since mister man had cement blocks and granite blocks in that one pass he had to make the granite as wide as the cement to keep things even. All kinds of tricks! You can see here that as you start up the stairs they face out the back of the French doors.

Mister man allowing a rare picture of himself but he worked his tail off to finish the walls in two days time. This picture was snapped after spending a fourteen-hour day up to his knickers in cement and stone. He usually looks so much better but someone was tired!

The next morning after having an acid bath to wash all the stone dust off the walls. The cement block area under the stairs will be storage.

The stairs are actually going to be wood since building the rises and treads out of stone would have meant building the underneath as a solid structure. It would have been heavy and not cost efficient. See how the treads will hide the cement block and you’ll be left with just the pretty antique block showing…love it!

Above view looking down the staircase.

While the staircase walls were being built our contractors were busy finishing up the rest of the downstairs that included mister man’s workshop and the main barn area. This is a view of mister man’s workshop, remember how dark and dank the place was, look below….

Not a very welcoming room huh?

Here’s a view of the barn floor where we decided to make it pretty. Since the back wall is stone boulders, one sidewall was granite block, we decided the floor should reflect all the stone. Very easy to do by tossing small stones in on the wet cement to give it texture.

If you look at the top of the picture you see what looks like two small rooms. The one on the left is storage under the staircase, the other holds all the heating units for the radiant floor heat upstairs.

Close up of what the finished floor looks like....

That raised back cement step just in front of the boulder wall is actually a French drain since water could still tickle down through the ground and out the boulder wall but so far no water so our contractors have done their job! As you can see the whole barn is really starting to take shape.

Up next, buttoning her up!