Luck of the Irish

Two weeks ago tomorrow, my daughter Bethany was coming home late from her dietitian job at a nursing home. The drive is mostly country road with a few sharp turns, and runs past a prison*. [*Not important to the story, just giving some local color.] On that particular Monday night, there was another Cleveland area winter storm brewing and she was encountering intermittent white-outs. As she was driving through a squall, there was an abrupt turn in the road, and as she applied her brakes, the anti-lock system took control of her vehicle and flipped her 5 or more times down a ravine. She landed with wheels up.

All her airbags deployed and most of her windows were shattered. Hanging upside down, she tried to reason, "How do I get down?  Where is my phone?  Can I get service?  How do I get out?"

Unaware of whether the side doors of the van would open due to trees or mechanical failure, she headed for the back, and was hindered by seats hanging from what was now the ceiling. She unhinged them and folded them into the floor. Alas, the clearest, widest route to escape had no door handle!

As she scrambled up the snowy hillside in her dress heels, she remembered the words of her mother,  "to always be prepared in case of an emergency....dress for the weather in case you are stranded."

Other drivers had stopped and were already contacting the police and fire rescue squad, who even though they hoisted huge working lights to ready the area for the tow vehicle; the scene was nothing but BLIZZARD.

Last week, as she was searching for a new vehicle, she returned to the crash site for some closure, and to see what the area looked like in the non-snowy, daylight. Amidst the broken glass she found two items that had fallen out of her van. The first was a Despicable Me firefighter minnion...[Thank you to all firefighters for their valiant service]

...and the other, was one of my Irish Flag pins, that I handmade/carved to sell for St. Patrick's Day last year. 

Each had an Irish quote inside, and Bethany's read:

"May the Irish hills caress you.

May her lakes and rivers bless you.

May the luck of the Irish enfold you. 

May the blessings of St. Patrick behold you."

Our family has always had a special love for St. Patrick. When the kids were growing up, we attended or marched in every Cleveland St. Patrick's Day parade, (much to the wrath of their teachers). Our youngest is named Paddy. Alisa's Claire was born on the 16th, and instead of passing out cigars, all the docs and nurses she worked with at the Cleveland Clinic (where she is still the BEST nurse) got handed a corned beef sandwich, as they paraded in to see her new offspring.

There is a prayer called St. Patrick's Breastplate, that is like a shield of protection against harm, the crux of which is this:

Christ with me,

Christ before me,

Christ behind me,

Christ in me,

Christ beneath me,

Christ on my right,

Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down, 

Christ when I sit down, 

Christ when I arise, 

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

I thank the Lord for sparing my child; for allowing her to walk away without a blemish. Her vehicle has already been replaced in almost a replica of the former one. And, in solidarity with her old van, did not start when she tried to leave for work today. Ouch!

~.~.~.~.~

I am still making and selling my Irish Flag pins which are handcrafted out of recycled wood. They are all sizes and textures. Some have nail or worm holes and each are unique as to the wood used. They are carved, sanded, hand painted, distressed, aged, glazed, and poly coated for durability, and to be "bleed-free" on clothing. All the pins have a safety clasp. They are reasonably priced at $5.00 each, or 3 for $10.00. This year, for each one that I sell, I am donating $1.00 to St. Malachi's Back Door Ministry, for purchase of peanut butter and jelly and bread. St. Malachi's is the on other side of the bridge from Downtown Cleveland, and the gateway to the Flats. Its ministries are legend, from feeding the poor, teaching them skills, keeping them "dry", and, when they are dying, caring and loving them to their Maker. Once upon a time, I worked for them doing just that....

There is still time to mail the pins before March 17th. I would only charge what postage I have to pay.

I am embarrassed to say that this is my favorite of the 20 or so quotes that I put with the pins. I know that He would admonish me at the thought of wishing someone harm. Maybe that is why "I" limp!

As ever,

La Verne

hope&salvage

PS Happy Birthday Meredith; and Magee in Heaven

Go Big or Go Home

Daughter-in-law Angie, who broke her fibula on black ice, last week while bike riding with the family, had given me an old stereo cabinet that the neighbors were tossing out. The cabinet had a glass front, removable shelves and no backing. I thought it had possibilities to become a portable linen cabinet. It took me almost a year to shove it from room to room, deciding what color to paint it. This was the original look:

I knew the rich brown tone would be an advantage when distressing the piece.

A few years ago, I picked up several bundles of single beadboard for $6 at ReStore. The tongue and groove made the back easy to assemble. I gave it a quick stain so the interior would match the outside after I painted it. The color has no name as I was using a couple of combined Oops paints. 

A view of the finished inside.

After distressing.

After glazing.

THEN, I went off the reservation. I can say that and be politically correct, because I am like 1/32 Native American on my mother's side. That, and Irish. [You will be hearing from the Irish side soon] 

I had fully intended to etch the word LINENS, plus some opaque designs into the glass. I surely watched enough less than interesting You Tube videos on how to do it. A trip to the big box store did not produce the etching cream, and I did not feel like driving anywhere else in the ice, so back-tracked to a "4 the Love of Wood" blog I remembered where Kristy took an old cabinet and made new doors for it, painting the word APOTHECARY on the glass. It looks fabulous. Co-incidentally, she she re-posted that column this week. It can be seen here.  http://4theloveofwood.blogspot.ca/2012/06/not-just-any-word-will-do-how-to.html 

This is where the Go Big or Go Home bit comes in. I thought I could invoke some high school art classes and produce sort of a Van Gogh's Sunflowers Revisited. Pretty much a FAIL. Unless someone out there says, "Oh, that is just what I am looking for..." I painted the flowers from the inside, but had to paint them in reverse as to how they would be seen through the glass. That meant the seeds had to be painted first, and then layer on the rest. Finally, I painted over top of all the glass, so there would be no see-through parts.

A close-up.  

Plenty of space for towels and toilet paper.

I am not a matchy-matchy person, so I was going to "phone-a-friend" to borrow some nice ones, but decided to keep it real.

 

A finished photo (for now). I may still get my razor blade out and de-flower the cabinet. 

By the way, Angie survived the week up north with 'helpful' relative visits, and will be going back home to C'bus with the kidlets and her crutches awaiting news of healing progress. I soooo have empathy for her.

 (no bathroom on the first floor)!

As for the cabinet, I tried to Go Big, but in retrospect,  I should have just Gone Home.

Linked to Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday.

POST SCRIPT: This piece is now PLAIN.

~.~.~.~.~

I will post about my Irish pins in the next day or two. Can mail out of state in time for St. Paddy's Day.

As ever,

La Verne

hope&salvage

Blue Bayou

******Warning: This post is PICTURE HEAVY******

Whenever I think of Blue Bayou, I think of my husband and Crystal Gayle. I'm sure they never met, but he was crazy about her voice. He would sing her songs over and over. And over. One time he was at a lady's house all day installing a bathroom, singing aloud as though no one else was near. The lady finally stopped him and said, "You are by far the happiest plumber I have ever met, but do you know any other songs?"

I've never really been a "blue" person. If someone asked what my favorite color was, the answer would be "red", "green", "black", "brown", but never blue. However, this past year, in deciding colors to paint furniture, I usually resort to shades of blues. I don't know why.

Back when I was a quilter, before the house fire, when I had hundreds of yards of fabric stacked on several bookcases and in bins, I would group fabrics by shades, tones and colors by the hour. Every Quilter's Newsletter and Quiltmaker would be open or bookmarked, or rubber-banded to a series of fabrics intended for a quilt. Hardly any were blue. Michael James, the dominant male quilter on the scene in the 70's and 80's, had made a statement about color that always stuck in my head. Paraphrasing, he said that fabric manufacturers had a 7 year rotation on colors so at the end of that cycle, the buying public was so 'starved' for a certain color that had been absent from the landscape, that they would immediately go out and BUY it.I started paying attention to see how true that was. One year the trend would be jewel tones and the next would be red, white and blue. Then, on to pastels, primary colors, then neons. He was right.

A little more than a year ago, when I realized that I could 'paint' a piece of furniture without Deus ex Machina coming down from the sky and punishing me by removing my arms, I started to think again about color and choices that were trending in contrast to stained and varnished furniture. In the past, furniture always meant a shade of BROWN to me. But, I have come to realize that most of the pieces I paint are BLUE! I bet that blew right by you.... Here are some of my samples:

         
Donated to a fundraiser for friends, Kat & Stevan's IVF.

   

         

  

  

          

          

   

                                                                         

  

  

Donated to fundraiser for B Fab Relay for Life (Brunswick) in honor of daughter-in-law, Jen's Mom.

                                                Checkerboard Table in progress                                                                   Well, "don't that make my brown eyes blue"..... [Actually, they're hazel.]

As ever,
La Verne
hope&salvage

The L A Z Y pallet top dresser

In September of 2012, I was looking at free Craigslist ads and spotted one for a not-gently used dresser in Cleveland. It was missing a drawer, had no handles, and had a pressed board top. If you don't hop on these gifts right away, they have a way of escaping into quicker hands. It was night-time, and I had no slaves children to help me pick it up. I would have to wrestle it off a porch with a hand dolly by myself. Fortunately, the giver and his son helped me load it in the van.

I wish you could see the richness of this color. It is called Antique Tin. I think the other is just a Van Dyke Brown.

 Unfortunately, I could not find the original pictures before I did anything to it. This picture was taken after I had already started painting, and had removed the old top. The coloring is different because here it is in the garage, and in natural light. 

What I love about Craigslist, is you see people over and over again. Last summer I put some items free on C'list and this former owner came and got a leather tool belt from me. I should dig up his email address and send him this posting of his old dresser.

These pallet boards I  acquired from a young boy in Parma who recycles them from a parts factory where he works. He uses these savings to pay for college. I first made a base of 1/4" luan and glued and nailed the pallet boards on. Very rustic. 

I framed out the inside where the drawer was missing, and built an interior box out of old ReStore wood. I sealed any spaces with Bondo, sanded and painted. The drawer handles were new and came from Habitat's ReStore. I added a new panel to the back.

A good sized basket would make this alcove an excellent place for socks, belts, coin dishes, or a clock radio. You could even park a TV on top, drill out the back and put a DVD player inside. 

This piece is no longer available.

~.~.~.~.~

Remember my "Culling the Herd" post about burning an oak dresser for wood stove fuel? Well, I had a change of heart as the saw was in my hand. It survives to live another life. The drawers are gone, but the unveiling of the transformed piece is about 3 weeks away. I'm thinking 'little girl' and 'doors'. 

~.~.~.~.~

Happy Birthday Andrew, Neil and Paddy. Life is soooooo good. 

As ever,

The Mom

hope&salvage

Culling the herd

While many women consider jewelry to be their best friend, or shoes, or Prada purses, my choice runs to furniture. Curb furniture, specifically. Years ago, as we ran for our lives when our house caught fire, I thought not of the keys to my van, my credit cards, or even baby photos, I wanted to save my kitchen table. Let me say it is not just any table, it came from a distant relative, one, Harriet Beecher Stowe. It was 42" round, made of oak with a single pedestal and missing its leaves. I had refinished it many times. I often thought my cousin/aunt/whatever might have penned Uncle Tom's Cabin while sitting at it. But alas, there were children to save and it was just a momentary thought. How it came into my possession may be considered something of a "steal". When our family first moved to Cleveland it was considered the trendy thing, to own a Formica table with chrome legs. Grey or pink or tan, with speckles preferably. Matching chairs with uncomfortable seats completed the set nicely. The Harriet Beecher Stowe table was relegated to the basement. I let it be known to my parents that when they died, I wanted the table. I think I even said it to their faces. Many times.

Fast forward four years to high school graduation. They would be moving to DC, and I would be staying behind. The Cleveland that I didn't like became the place I couldn't leave. I would be getting an apartment down the street with my younger sister, Michelle. [Notice to Folks:] "I can't wait till you die, I'm taking the table NOW!"

Adam and the "All you need is love Harriet Beecher Stowe table"

The table was one of the few (less than 25) items that survived the fire. It needed a do-over but was intact. When it left my possession a few years ago to take up residence at son and new daughter-in-law's house in Columbus, the caveat was....it must stay in the family! Within a week, I combed Craigslist for another one. Sure, it wouldn't have the same lineage, but I needed my feet under a table with history. The table I found came from Brecksville. It was the last vestige of a restaurant that the owner's mother had opened with hard earned savings of $1200.00 during the Depression, which she invested in near the steel mills. I needed a bib to keep the drool from running down my chin, but plunked over the pittance he asked for. I restored it in two days.

The Steel Mill reclaimed table

Scuttlebutt is that HBS is coming back home, and the Columbus people are itching for a newer, rectangular table, one of which I happen to have in my 'stash'. That would make the 'steel mill' table up for grabs to the right family. No worries, I have 3 round oak tables waiting for some 'love' in the garage. Which brings me to this post.....

This past month has been rather calamitous, not like having your child diagnosed with a terrible illness, but would certainly register on the Life Stress scale. There were the several weeks of flu/pneumonia/bronchitis (that still seems to be visiting). Two-day-a-week physical therapy with a TENS unit plus 14 do-it-yourself sessions. Right now PT is the band-aid for knee replacement. When I try to do an analogy in my head, I envision The Black Knight from The Life of Brian referring to his missing limbs as "merely a flesh wound". Then there were the hundreds of thousands of gallons of water that poured out of my newly thawed pipes, the search for the leaks, daily traversing open joists to get to the shower, many dehumidifiers, two air movers, and a frozen partridge in a crawl space. The utility bills for gas, electric and water are starting to dribble in; think a teensy bit less than the national debt. Oh, and the topper, today house taxes were due. And, paid, thanks to all who subsidized that effort by availing themselves of my refurbishings even though a house was meant to have walking space in addition to furnishings (Bethany).

If you are all thinking....."will she get to the POINT!" I will. Nobody that I know and love died this week, although I know people who had that experience. While I was pinched for cash to make that deposit yesterday, I had pennies to roll and cans to recycle, and a last minute sale came through on Craigslist which made me flush (what an awful word-seriously, when I didn't have water a few weeks ago, I wished I could FLUSH). Faith and prayers are answered daily, and my resources are abundant. So what does that have to do with culling the herd?

The Sacrifice (with Phoenix in waiting)

Today, I prepared to burn an oak dresser for fuel for my wood stove. Who'd a thunk it? It was a free Craigslist find that I scrubbed the living mold off of. It was missing a wooden caster and would in the future require some major life support to be 'functionable' (new word, add it to your dictionary.)  It felt like Sophie's Choice. I surveyed my garage for the most accessible piece, yet with the least emotional attachment. It was the right decision. All the hardware was removed for future use. I saved the drawer fronts, top, sides and some of the slats for sign making. The back would be transplanted to a dresser in waiting. And, I'm warm! What is is that worth? I can hear the furniture talking amongst themselves already. The piano knows his name has been bandied about as 'next' and he is in the closest proximity to the stove, cannot keep a tune, has p l e n t y of nice maple hardwood and parts that can be re-purposed, and takes up some mighty valuable real estate in my living room. I'm feeling a might like Dr. Zhivago.

What do people do who can't afford heat, water, groceries, gas, mortgage payments, taxes, college repayments debt, car notes, health insurance, or even have a contingency plan. I am so grateful for even the 'grey' days that habit my life. Sometimes, when I compare myself to Job, I realize I'm not even in the same pasture.

Be well, stay warm
La Verne
hope&salvage

PS:  In case while reading this, you think I gave short shrift to the fact that our house was on fire and some of my children and myself were within, let me share what daughter, Alisa said in summing up... It occurred a few days after Christmas, and there were many house fires that winter; many had fatalities. She said: "We had a fire, not a funeral." Perspective.