Our Little Cabin in the Woods-Part Two

Do you remember last year when we painted our big house?  Just in case you missed it, here's a picture of the front entry area.  It shows all of the colors we used.

Here's a picture showing the garden shed behind the house, where we used the matching color scheme, once again.

Well, we absolutely LOVE everything about that Sherwin-Williams paint and those colors, so we decided to use the same exact color scheme on the cabin, and all future cabins.  

The exterior walls are Sherwin-Williams Majolica Green.  Porch ceiling is Swimming, in keeping with the southern tradition to paint porch ceilings blue...(There's a story there! Read about it here.)  We trimmed it in white and finished it off with my favorite part, the bright turquoise (actually, Gulfstream) door.

The paint part of this project was the easiest part.  Why?  Basically,  because we have the best Sherwin-Williams in the world, right here close by, in Spanish Fort, Alabama.  Did you know that they keep up with all of your paint project details in their computer? When I go in for paint for the next cabin, I can just tell them it's for the cabin exterior, or whatever, and they can easily find it, because they keep notes for every paint mixed!  

Stacy Burgos helped me the first time I visited, and I was so impressed with the level of service she offered-it was second to none.  And, you know what?  She even took my paint to the car for me after it was all mixed!   What other paint store does that?  

Then, as we talked and they found out we would be building a "village" of matching cabins, the manager, Tommy Duncan, offered me a nice discount.  I really appreciate the help, as those dollars added up on this little cabin, and wherever we can save, it really makes a difference.  

As a way to show my appreciation for their help, I had a sign made for the front yard of the cabin during our last vintage and antiques market.  

Now that this one is finished (it took long enough!) we're already thinking about the second one!  Hopefully, the next one will go a little more smoothly and faster. (It was not easy retrofitting and trying to work with a building that was already partially built...lots of things didn't work out for our plans for the building, so things needed to be moved around, and that took lots of time)  One thing is already figured out-the paint from our local Sherwin-Williams. Stacy and Tommy, I'll be seeing you again soon!!  Thank you for your help and great service!

Our Little Cabin in the Woods-Part One

I hope you haven't been holding your breath waiting for us to finish the cabin!  Like most everything we try to tackle these days, it has taken about three times as long as it should have...and we're still not totally finished, but I'm going to share it anyway, because we're just sooo close to being finished, and I can't wait any longer!

When we purchased the land next door, this structure was already there.  The 16' x 24' building was built on sight.  It has a front porch and a gambrel style roof which allows space for two sleeping lofts inside, one in front and the other in the back.  It was covered in white vinyl siding on the sides and back, but had cedar on the exterior of the front wall, inside the porch.  The inside was unfinished, but had a small wood stove and a window unit air conditioner in the wall.

What We Did...

On the exterior, we removed the vinyl siding (I forgot to take a "before" pic with the vinyl siding.) but here's what it looked like after it was taken down.  See the door leaning up against the back wall?  We added that so that we would have a back entry.  We also removed the window unit air conditioner that was in the wall...you can see where the hole was filled in.

New back door with awning...

Front porch area is now trimmed in cedar to match the front cedar wall.

Color scheme that we chose to use is the same as what we used on our house last spring...more about that in the next blog post.

We needed to add new air conditioning, as we had removed the old window unit, so we went with a ductless system by Samsung, and we love it!  It works by remote control, and keeps the place at a constant temperature, even automatically switching from a/c to heat, when needed.   It's also energy efficient.  (Samsung did not give us anything for mentioning this product.)

We also needed to connect it to the septic tank so that we could add a bathroom. That required ditch-digging.  

We removed the ceiling fan. (I borrowed this picture from Hope Contracting's Facebook page...Hope Contracting did most of the work for us.)

Insulation went up.

...then the metal ceiling!  I was so excited about using corrulated metal on the inside, and I do love it as much as I thought I would!  Oh, and see the black wall up on the end of the loft?  That's chalkboard paint!  Just imagine camping out and playing tic-tac-toe up there while you're supposed to be sleeping!  I plan to add some funky picture frames to the wall so that kids can create their own wall art within the frames...

And, here's my sweet hubby hanging the funky green chandelier!

That's all I'll share today...this post is taking me three times as long as it should, too!  I only have about a thousand pictures to look through after four months of working on the place!  

Be watching for part two where I'll share the bathroom and some more interior work real soon.

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My Vintage Market Days Experience-Part One

Wow!  What a week...there was so much anticipation and excitement leading up to the big Vintage Market Days event.  When set-up day finally arrived, vendors flew in like a tornado...and created a wonderland of vintage and antiques treasures.  On opening day, the shoppers crowded into The Grounds of Mobile in huge droves and shopped.  After three days, just as quickly as it all came together, it was over, and all of us in our sweaty glory tore it all apart and went home... already planning the next one.  I now know how it must have felt for the carnies and circus performers who traveled around from city to city in days gone by. (I would have been the Gypsy Fortune Teller!) It was a good kind of tired.

So, I've already given you a hint at what my little shop looked like.  Did you catch it?  If you know me or have followed me much at all, you know I'm fascinated with all things "gypsy" and that's just naturally the theme that I pull together...It started with my banners that would show my logo and business name, but with markets that are away from home, it becomes "The Traveling Show."  The large banner that was on the back wall right in the center featured a gypsy lady setting up housekeeping under a tree.  She was putting out her washtubs and a bird in a cage.  I design my signs to go with what I'm selling, and in this case it was a pair of ninety-year-old chairs with their original berry colored fabric.  To pull it all together and tell a story, I bordered the banner with that same berry color.  To complete the vignette, I added the bird cage on a stand, wash bucket, basket, and a broom, among some other things...greenery was then draped over the top to give the appearance of the tree under which the vardo was parked. 

To continue the gypsy theme, the front table centerpiece was another banner with a dancing gypsy girl, playing a tambourine.  I had a tambourine that I had purchased years ago on Beale Street in Memphis, and it had developed a hole and was pretty tattered.  I remembered a song about a hole in a tambourine, so I used a line from that on the banner with the girl to tell that story.  Although the table of merchandise did get picked apart and purchased, the star of the day was the actual banner.  I couldn't believe that people wanted the banner!  So, I sold it, along with the tambourine....then I took orders for more.  Funny thing though is that everyone wanted me to find them a tambourine with a hole in it to go with their banners!  You just never know what's going to sell at these events.  Oh, the large one on the back wall sold, too!  And that buyer is wanting me to make more....so, maybe that'll be my "thing"...those banners.  I think I'll make more (three, or four....or five!) for the next event.

As I said, the table of "gypsy goodies" was picked over the first day, so I had to pull together another vignette early Saturday morning so that it would be fresh and pretty for the second day shoppers. This next pic is what the same table looked like the next morning.  It's still filled with things that gypsies would have had in the vardo, but these items could have just as well been found in any farmhouse.

The other side of my little store had more treasures set up in a little vignette on a buggy seat...

Directly behind this vignette was the youth bed which got lots of attention, but no buyer.  It's a great piece with lots of details and folds up to travel or store away when not in use.  I filled it with hay (because it was the first day of fall!) and then added an assortment of pumpkins and treasures...

At the foot of the little bed, I had a turquoise blue chest with original chippy paint. On top of that, I added two tiny chairs-a white chippy one and a stained wood rocker.  Oh, and I had to put some candy down at kid level!

Of course, there was more-ironstone, t-shirts, and some other pretty gypsy style things...

Well, that's a look inside my Down in the Delta-The Traveling Show space at the very first Vintage Market Days of Mobile.  I'm happy to report that I had GREAT shoppers who took home many of my finds to enjoy in their own homes.  I did still have lots of fun things to pack up for the next event, so if you like anything pictured here, just ask me...I might still have it.

That's part one of the two-part VMD recap.  Tomorrow I'll share with you the bigger picture, more about the entire experience.  Hope you'll check back for that.

Thanks for dropping by!

A Welcoming Entrance

I'm happy to report that the pretty entrance to the venue, Pimperl Place, is being built!  It looks like a small project, but in reality, it takes a lot of coordination between contractors and time to actually make it happen.  Just to refresh your memory...here's a picture of what I wanted the gate to look like.  I used a picture of a gate that I found online to get the basic shape and then I overlaid that picture with my Down in the Delta logo, minus the words.  This is very similar to what we will actually have.

The first contractor would be the concrete man, followed by the stone mason.  In our case, I luckily found one man who does both, which is unusual!  That saved us a little time and headache, plus he turned out to be really good at both.  If you live in Baldwin or Mobile County and need concrete or stone work, Kenneth Gaines is the man to call.

What slowed the project start was the rain.  We've had so much rain over the last couple of months, that it threw Kenney behind on his jobs that were scheduled before ours.  The rain finally let up a week or so ago and he got caught up, so he was ready to work our job.

Up above, you can see how we took the palette of stone apart so that we could lay it out to easily see the shapes of each piece.  My husband put them out on a long goose-neck trailer. Kenny and his son are hard at work in the next picture.

This picture was taken from the driver's seat of my car as I came into the driveway. You can see the existing old gate in front of my car, and the two newly finished columns set back from that.  We are going to reposition the road a bit, which is why it looks off center with the columns.  Also,  you are probably wondering why the new gate is so far back from the old one.  We own the property all the way up to the existing gate, but the power company has an easement that extends twenty-five feet back, so we just decided to move the location of the entrance back to that line so that they don't have to come and get us every time they want to come down the easement to trim trees.  

This weekend, hubby and I will be ditch-digging and running the electrical service needed to operate the gate, lights, etc.  Then the gate contractor is supposed to come out on Tuesday to get "field measurements" so that the gate is built to fit perfectly.  While that's going on, the tree removal experts will show up to take out some trees that are on the new fence line. Hubby normally cuts down our trees, but these are so close to the power lines out on the highway that we decided it would be better to hire someone who has a bucket truck to do it. Once the trees are down, the fence contractor can then come in and put up the fence that will run parallel to the highway.  

It seems like we've been waiting months to get this project started, so you can only imagine how happy I am to see it finally coming together.  

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Harper Lee is Gone

The leading news story this morning was about the death of Harper Lee.  Even though she wasn't big on the celeb thing and doing interviews, it was special just knowing she was there in Monroeville, right up the road a bit...it's going to be different now.  What she did for humanity, the lessons she taught us, in that one little book was---is---so BIG.  May she rest in peace.

I thought I would share my experience with an event that was spun off from the existence of the book, or "Mockingbird" as everyone calls it-The Alabama Writers Symposium, a celebration of writers from our great state. This was a blog post from several years ago...

Alabama Writers Symposium in Monroeville

It's almost April, and I was reminded of a wonderful event that we have

each year, in April, right here in my own back yard...so I wanted to share

it with you.  We are so very fortunate to live just a short distance from

Monroeville, Alabama, home of writers Harper Lee and Truman Capote.

Each year, Alabama Southern Community College hosts The Alabama

Writers Symposium (the lack of an apostrophe in "writers"is intentional...it's about the writers, not owned by them), an event that brings together many Alabama writers and readers for a weekend of lectures,

readings, discussions, art and a portrayal of the famous and still popular

book, To Kill a Mockingbird.   It's unlike any event I've ever attended. 

As you read this, the tickets are most probably just about sold out, if not

already...if you want to go, try to get tickets today; if they are gone, put it

on your calendar for a "must see" next year.  The brochure, outlining the

schedule of events and ticket options can be found and downloaded here 

on the college website. Dates are Thursday, April 24-Saturday, April 26.

The play is a highlight of the weekend...Local individuals are the actors,

some of whom have portrayed several different characters as they've

grown up.  The stage is a collection of stick-built backdrops, miniature

buildings such as homes with porches, that were constructed outside,

behind the old courthouse.  The play begins there...

...then moves inside to the courtroom where it continues.  It is so "real"

that you will get goosebumps, and that's a promise. I encourage anyone

who can make the trip to go, and plan to stay the entire weekend.  It is

even worth a drive across the country!  Just go see...You will be glad

you did.

Now, let me tell you a little bit about my experience there a few years

ago.  

I once co-owned an art gallery, Best Friends Gallery (Same story

with the "missing" apostrophe...it was meant to be a gathering place

for new best friends, and about friendship, not about ownership at all...),

located in Bay Minette.   Anyway, the art director of the college, 

Susan Brown, visited our gallery one Saturday, and asked if we would

like to be the featured gallery at the art show that was a part of

the Writers Symposium each year.  Well, of course we did!  It was an

experience that I will never forget, and I loved every minute of it.  I met

some well known writers, such as Winston Groom, Watt Key, Tom Franklin,

Mark Childress, and William Cobb (even had breakfast at the table with Mr.

Cobb in our motel lobby!), and purchased autographed books...We attended

many wonderful events during the weekend, were treated like royalty during

our entire stay...and, we gained a new friend in Susan!  We absolutely

loved showing the work of our artists, and were so proud of the collection

of work that we were able to bring.

Here are some pictures of the art show.

I actually purchased the cows above...

I hope you enjoyed that quick little tour of the show...for me, a trip down

memory lane.  I think looking back on it, I'm even more proud of it now than

I was then.  We have some extremely talented artists and writers, right

here in Alabama!  

And, here are more pictures of the inside of the courthouse, which is

now a museum dedicated to the book, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Well, that's it for my Monroeville memories. 

And, here's the painting that I was inspired to paint shortly after this event.

It hangs in my house as a reminder of "Mockingbird" and Monroeville.