They strutted and stomped, she lay and retreated, and the dance continued, while I watched like I was Marlin Perkins of the neighborhood. Thing One was able to enjoy some of it with me since we were headed to his bus stop when we encountered this scene in the middle of the road. They made me think of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles…..the dominant tom with his backups had a very Motown performance vibe to it.

For those who participated in the Moon vs. Mushroom lamp vote on Instagram/FB..the Moon won in the end, simply because I liked the Mushroom in the dining room. I need to reshoot all these rooms in their entirety, but it has been so dark out for so long, I got tired of waiting. When the light returns…better photos will emerge.

And a major art rearrange in this corner…not loving it, but am rolling with it for now.

The entry feels more open without the deco buffet….

I have some fun things I hope I can share with you soon, but I can’t yet…in the meantime we are scrambling to make these things happen…cryptic, I know, but it hopefully explains our lack of progress on other fronts.

I have thrown up a few of these updated pics on the house tour since I realized they were pretty old, but when I re-shoot in good flat light, I’ll swap them out since these really are terrible. Please let the wet darkness end……

Nice Homecrest collection here…..but….

I did get one thing…well actually 2, you know I have a weakness for pairs.

A pair of vintage butterflies. They crave my love.  I need to get the ones I already have powder coated, so I’ll throw these into the mix. We have gotten to the point where we almost exclusively sit in the butterflies when hanging out on the deck. I’m starting to consider selling some of my Homecrest since it requires cushions, and with no covered porches, it’s just a hassle.  Especially given the increasingly rainy Nashville climate.

There has been zero movement in the pantry situation, but I have managed to rearrange half the house again, so I now need to re-shoot pretty much everything.

Have a great weekend!

Ah, such fools we are. I would think we’d have become bitter and jaded after the number of snags and bumps we have hit over the years of renovating together, but we get this blinding surge of optimism and excitement that a new project inevitably brings….such that makes the memory of all previous disappointments somehow fade away into the land of the forgotten. Deep down, we KNOW there will be a problem, but it doesn’t deter our giddy renovation fueled endorphin rush.

The latest version of said rush was in full swing last weekend when I posted our progress on Instagram…

Cabinets up, with some cardboard thrown on for countertops to hold a few light tools. SO CLOSE. We need the matching quartz counter, some filler strips and a backsplash. Easy, right?

WRONG. Both the quartz (Silestone Blanco Maple) and the backsplash, Porcelanosa Stick Wenge have been discontinued. We thought we had enough tiles left for the backsplash, but we don’t.

This is what you get for procrastinating 4 years to finish your kitchen. We are now searching ebay and stone dealers for offcuts and leftovers. When we demoed the original kitchen, we saved the white Corian countertop to use down in the workshop. For the moment, that will be our counter, so thankfully, we are able to use this space while we search,  but our completion date is now in limbo.

The Corian and the cabinets are very different tones of white, so it can’t stay, but we need to formulate a plan B in case we can’t find our matches. Dark stained butcher block is emerging as a logical second material, but we’ll see. Learn from us people, and don’t procrastinate if you plan to match materials, because even the safest, most popular style can disappear on you while you blink.

We’ve had house guests for the past week, continuing through this week, so we are grateful just to have it functioning and the messy chaos gone. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more!

We had full understanding that there would be some tedious times at IKEA, but the promise of Swedish meatballs, the Georgia Aquarium, and a hotel swimming pool seemed to make waiting in line at the IKEA kitchen department seem like an pretty good trade.

We’ve been to the Georgia Aquarium before, but it still thrills, and we saw the new (to us) Dolphin Show which was a surprisingly big production. (No cameras in the dolphin show).

The weather was warm and Spring-like so we toodled around Centennial Park in the afternoon.

We got back to Nashville loaded up with cabinets and a few other bits from IKEA..namely a print and frame that I only discovered was damaged once I unwrapped it at home…ARGH!!! I try to be SO careful when I’m there, since returns are not exactly an easy option.  I should note that getting our cabinet order pulled took LESS time than waiting in the returns area to swap out a damaged drawer front. NO LIE.

That said, I’m living with the plexi-crack right now until I can’t stand it.  I’ll either remove the plexi completely or get a piece cut, which will probably cost more than the frame did.

I hit the flea for a speedshop before it was time to jump back in the car and head down to Tims Ford State Park in Franklin County, TN for a long weekend with the WHOLE family…pooch included.

As you can see, the cabin is not glamorous and could use a little TLC, but it was clean and architecturally pleasing. I wish more of my pitiful phone photos had turned out (forgot to pack the DSLR) so you could see it better…very similar in style to our house. There were decks off each of the 2 bedrooms, which sadly only housed our bikes since it was too cold and rainy to sit out there.

We (of course) renovated the whole interior in our minds for less than $1000, and think that the parks would do well to embrace the metal siding scenario. We woke every morning to the VERY familiar sound of squirrels chewing cedar. Yep. Only my oldest readers will understand exactly how much we know about this. We can see that they are trying their best to keep replacing the cedar on these cabins, but we know only too well, they won’t win, and it will cost more over the years to keep replacing cedar than to clad that cabin. Hey, Tennessee State Parks lodging division…call me! I have some fab budget friendly improvement plans…

The picture above was taken during the 10 minutes the sun seemed to appear our whole stay…but it was fine and we still had fun. We had the beautiful bike trails all to ourselves and very little in the way of noisy neighbors. No wifi or cell service in the cabin, so that meant some good old fashioned fun with Haikubes and Borderline.

Otto had a temper tantrum over being left in his crate while we went out to eat and shredded his bed into nothing, so we stopped by the Dollar General up the road and found him a cute zebra print rug. (The only dog beds available were for mini-dogs.) This cute melamine set was only $5. I need to spend more time in the Dollar General, clearly.

On our last day, we had to stop in the Swiss Pantry to bring home some tasty treats. My kids live for bacon, so this was a no-brainer.

Now we are back to assembling cabinets, and getting the pantry finished up.  I hope to be able to show a “before and after” within the week…fingers crossed!

What did I bring home? Two things….

I got a deal on the nesting teak bowls since a couple of the “petals” were damaged and another piece of string art.

I have more to share..the pantry is coming along and some recent local travels I’ll try and get posted in the next day.

We decided after taking out the wall last weekend that it was worth the splurge to get an electrician in. The CC is pretty good with electrics, but he’s one guy with a day job, and for what we need done, a team of 2 guys is going to get us ready to roll in about 4-6 hours. They come early Friday morning, which means Friday night, we can start busting out some progress. We have one lot of cabinets sitting in the garage waiting for assembly. I’ll probably drive to Atlanta sometime next week to get the second lot and the other bits like handles etc…

As a reminder of what we had on this wall of the kitchen…this is as it was the day we looked at the house….

…and this is how we’ve been living with it.

We eliminated all the wasted space behind those tiny bi-fold doors, but never quite finished.

It’s a project, so that means only one thing….OTTOBOMB.

This is our highly scientific way of showing the electrician where we generally want the outlets.

More later….I HOPE!

The artists who play will likely end up standing next to you after their set to hear the rest of the show. It’s super casual, very intimate (capacity 500) and just an all around amazing experience. There’s no booze, therefore the shows are “all ages”, so we took the Things for a unique concert experience. We got MIXED REVIEWS. I know. In 15 years, I’ll be looking for a follow up review.

We went on a walking cave tour before the show, which was not only educational and beautiful, but also gave us first choice of seats before the general admission is allowed in. Even if you’re not interested, do the 11am tour if you want to sit up front. You have the option to forgo the climb up and down through the Mountain Room for the Christian based sound and light show, and can rejoin the group when it’s time to head into the show. I might skip that if I do it again, but since it was our first time, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I knew from my research I had 6 minutes of controversial Creationism in the tour, so I was prepared and it was fine. It makes them happy, and who am I to let my discomfort with organized religion ruin their fun, or mine? We’re there for a positive experience.

Once in, we grabbed some food and sat down to watch a few sound checks and take in the scene before the rest of the groups arrived. I really can’t recommend this enough for anyone who enjoys music. It’s a pretty special place that seems to work its magic on all those who perform there…everyone seemed genuinely thrilled to be a part of it all.

Our lineup was Yonder Mountain String Band, The Infamous Stringdusters, The North Mississippi Allstars and The Wood Brothers.

An all around outstanding day, not soon to be forgotten.

For information on air dates/channels for the PBS series, go here.

This is the second, and to date, my most “famous” RTH item since the intended recipient was informed of her loss. What I found for her instead was actually a much better fit and has been greatly enjoyed, but when she saw the one that got away, I got the dagger eyes, and luckily, forgiveness. Right, Lauri?!?

For those new to the series, the gist is: I go vintage shopping to find something great and unique for a specific person. I buy said something. I cannot give it away. I have named this series Road to Hell
(or RTH for sensitive ears) because, as the saying goes;  The road to hell is paved with good intentions. My intentions really are quite good…until they aren’t.

This gem is still one of my favorite finds. It was scooped up at Garden Point Antiques in Etowah, Arkansas several years ago…maybe 6 or 7? It is a replica of a vintage Gucci design and marked TAN under each petal and the base. The Gucci pieces sell for hundreds, mine…notsomuch, but I don’t care. I bought it because it was unique and fun, even though I don’t smoke. I doesn’t really scream “ashtray” anyway.

How was I outed? Girlfriend one (shopping companion) to girlfriend 2 (gift recipient) said in a conversation of that day’s treasure hunting and finds, “…..  and I saw the one you didn’t get!” and we are still laughing about it…BUSTED. I’ll leave it to her in my will, so it will find its way eventually.

]]> http://modfrugal.com/2013/03/rth-series-metal-petals/feed/ 2 http://modfrugal.com/2013/02/road-to-hell-series/ http://modfrugal.com/2013/02/road-to-hell-series/#comments Fri, 01 Mar 2013 03:38:52 +0000 ModFruGal http://modfrugal.com/?p=13893 So, while most of us would never want to admit we’ve been anything but generous and selfless stalwarts of society, reeking of rainbows and unicorns, there is also that pesky thing called reality.

Something less selfless happened today that is a semi-regular occurrence.  I feel the shame, but I still do the deed…again and again.

I go vintage shopping to find something great and unique for a specific person. I buy said something. I cannot give it away.  NOTE: This only happens with vintage finds. If there is something new I’m buying for someone else, rare angst.  I know I can get one myself should I decide I want to pursue it.  Eccentric vintage modern fabulousness? WAY harder.

It gets worse.

Then, to ease my guilt, I end up buying something a wee bit more extravagant for the giftee, as some bizarre rationalization for keeping something they never even knew about. WHO AM I?!

So, all that to say, I am starting a series called the Road to Hell, so I can show which items have made me such a selfish, greedy lost cause. Because, as the saying goes;  The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

We’ll start with today’s transgression. A brass owl nutcracker, found at the new and improved Old Made Good. For all those nuts I crack.

Yes, he’s missing an eye (sound familiar?)

So, go on, admit it…what is your favorite “gift” that never made it to the intended recipient?