Mockingbird Hill Cottage — Page 1659 — Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Kitchen, Part One

November 11, 2009 at 10:16 am by Claudia

I write this from Charlotte, NC. Nothing but rain since I arrived, courtesy of Tropical Storm Ida. I saw South Pacific last night – what a spectacular production! It is the National Tour of the recent Lincoln Center revival and I have to tell you it is superb. They just don’t write gorgeous musicals like this one anymore. I am here to work with an opera singer who will be replacing the lead for 5 weeks. He is Welsh and he has to have a French dialect. In the small world category, I ran into a cast member who is a friend of both my husband and I. I love when that happens!

You asked for photos of the kitchen – so here goes. It is very hard to get a good shot in that room because there are so many windows. Don’t get me wrong, we love the windows. The sunlight that pours into the kitchen is one of the things we fell in love with when we saw the cottage. I’ve given it a go and we’ll see how you like them.

Our kitchen and living room are one big open space. We don’t have a dining room, but we have an eating area in the kitchen. The photo at the top of this post looks into the kitchen from the living room. Because there are so many windows, there isn’t a lot of wall space for cupboards – hence my kitchen island.

You may have noticed that the stove and dishwasher are black and the refrigerator is white. The kitchen came that way. I am not especially fond of black appliances (my husband likes them), but we are not about to buy new ones at this point. We also have tile countertops – I don’t like them, either. Some day…

We bought this hutch several years ago when we first moved out East. It had metal 50’s handles on the doors and I replaced them with glass handles. There is a lot of pottery inside those glass doors and I will share it with you on another post. If you look at the top shelf on the right, you will see the McCoy pottery that was in my old header (now on my awards page.) I used to have a large collection of Fiesta that I sold but I kept a few things, like the mixing bowls on top of the hutch – next to our cow, Monty. Say hello to Monty!

This bench is next to the hutch (and right below the new chalkboard.) I love its hinged top, which allows storage for all sorts of hammers, staple guns, and containers of spackle. The cushions on either end are by Martha Stewart for Kmart – I’ve had them a long time. The center cushion is one of a set of two that I got in San Diego. I like the mix of fabrics. (Those are ‘dog towels’ under the bench – we have to wipe dirty, muddy paws quite frequently!)

I was standing right next to the island when I took this photo. You can see the door, our handy-dandy pantry and the table and chairs.

A different view – you see all the windows? Lots of light, thank goodness, but they don’t make for the best photos. You can see our paper towel holder behind the table. It is a industrial chain display that we bought at auction and repurposed with some dowels. I know it is funky, but that’s why we love it!

Here is a closer look. You’d think we’d always have plenty of paper towels on hand…you’d be wrong!

Back to the table. Those legs are the reason I fell in love with it. We wanted a round table. Heidi found this at auction for her store. There is a post somewhere in this blog about how I hounded her until she finally gave up and let me have it. It is perfect and it even has two leaves!

My husband loves this kitchen because the ceilings are so high! Our cottage was built in 1891, so most of the ceilings are quite low and Don is over 6’4″. As you look toward the living room, you see this sign. It is a reproduction (originals were so expensive) and we love it. I’ll give you a close-up:

And here is the view from the kitchen to the living room – complete with furry creatures.

In Part 2, I plan on sharing some of the pottery, china and little treasures that live in the kitchen. Hope you liked the tour – it certainly isn’t high tech, but it is bright, cheery and cozy and we love it.

Chalkboard Tutorial

November 9, 2009 at 9:32 am by Claudia

Hi there, everyone! I am not a carpenter. Let’s just get that out in the open. I do lot of small jobs around the house and I have made a plate rack and the chalkboard. I’d like to do more in the future, including building a wall of bookshelves in the den. But I digress. Here, as best I can, is what I did to build the chalkboard.

I started with this:

which was originally a piece on the rear of my sideboard-turned-kitchen-island:

It consisted of three pieces that were screwed into the back of the sideboard and attached to each other with metal connections that were about the size of a razor blade. I had to have my husband help pull them apart. After much head scratching, I finally figured out how to remove the metal pieces. I then filled the screw holes with wood putty.

I positioned the three pieces the way I wanted them and used wood glue to hold them together. Originally I thought I would nail them together, but I ended up getting some mending plates which I used to screw them together in the back. Those, along with the wood glue, did the trick.

This is the point where I mention one of my errors. I had planned to use some neat molding on the bottom to form the fourth edge of the chalkboard. I trotted off to Lowe’s and came home with a big long piece of what I thought was the perfect choice. As I was measuring and cutting a piece to use, I realized that there was no flat surface on the top side of the molding. It had a lot of neat curves (that I had planned to use to hold an eraser and chalk), but there was no flat edge wide enough to screw to the frame. After several curse words, I scrambled around looking for piece of scrap wood. I found one in the shed, measured and cut again, and that is what you see in this photo. I attached it to the rest of the frame with wood glue and screws.

In the meantime, I measured and cut (with a hand saw) a piece of plywood for the chalkboard. I sanded and painted it with 2 coats of primer. Okay, time for another error: As I looked at the sanded plywood, the slight ridges in the wood began to worry me. I ran to my laptop, googled ‘chalkboards’ and ‘wood.’ In one of the posts, a warning against using anything but the smoothest wood was given. Apparently, if the surface is uneven it is harder to erase the board. Uh oh. Fast forward to the next morning. I went to the shed, got some of the beadboard paneling left over from the sideboard redo and cut a piece to fit the frame. The back side of the beadboard is very smooth. Again, I painted and primed.

I also primed the frame. Two coats.

Time for the chalkboard paint. I used Valspar, but there are many different manufacturers out there. I used a foam roller, but you can also use a spray.

Here it is on the plywood. I did it all over again for the smooth version. I used 2 coats of chalkboard paint and it was more than enough. You are supposed to wait quite a while between coats, but I just waited 2 hours (because at this point I was on my second piece of wood.)

Time for the paint. I used this paint on the mantel shelf in my sewing area. It is one of those 8 oz. Valspar sample cans. The color is Mermaid’s Song in Satin. This time I mixed in a little ivory paint to mute it a bit. However, when I looked at it under the kitchen lights (which are built-in ceiling lights) the color seemed too intense. What to do? Antique it. I didn’t want to run to the store again (at this point, I was in my flannel pajamas) so I looked through my acrylic paints and found this:

Perfect.

Using a foam brush, I painted the stain on in small sections, immediately wiping it off with a rag. You have to play around with it, but it works beautifully. I took the paint brush and filled in all the crevices in the carved design, still wiping much of it off. If you fill in these crevices, the carving stands out beautifully. I decided the whole thing is like putting on stage makeup. Many is the time I had to highlight and shadow my face to create wrinkles where there were none. Same idea.

Once it was dry, I screwed the chalkboard into the back of the frame, added a hanger and I was done! A word about the chalkboard paint: you should let it dry for 48 hours before you put the whole thing together. And you need to cure the chalkboard before you write on it. Take the side of a piece of chalk and rub it all over the chalkboard, then erase it. You’ve cured it and now you can write wonderful little messages on your chalkboard!

Like this:

I am off to Charlotte, NC for a few days to work on the National Tour of South Pacific. But I have a post or two up my sleeve in the meantime. Have a great Monday!

Edited to add: I am linking up to this party at Cottage Instincts.

Trees in the Late Afternoon

November 8, 2009 at 9:25 am by Claudia

Late Friday afternoon, I ventured outside with my camera. The sky was moody and lit by the setting sun – I had to take some photos of our trees, the mountains and the beautiful sky.