New Joinery Chairs

They've actually been finished for a couple of weeks but we were never able to make it into the workshop to pick them up during their business hours.

We bought four side chairs to match the two armchairs that came with the dining room table. We had them use the fabric that we used for our living room morris chairs. Now we just need to recover the seats on the original two armchairs to match. 

It will take a while for the cherry wood to darken so they'll look lighter than the rest of the furniture for a while.

This was definitely a splurge. The Joinery makes beautiful furniture but it is more expensive than we are typically willing to pay. I definitely prefer to buy used whenever I am lucky enough to find it but I looked for a set of four matching cherry chairs for more than a year before I finally broke down and ordered these.

Small Victories

It's probably been at least six months since this table was last cleared. I'm finally getting my act together and cleaning again.

Back in February, I ordered four side chairs that match these arm chairs. Joinery already sent me photos of the wood pieces a couple weeks ago, so I'm hoping any day now.

We finished assembling three more racks. Three more to go.

Living Room Cabinet

Jeff and I are thrilled that we've finally put the last piece of furniture into place in our living room! It's not perfect, but it's absolutely going to tide us over until we relocate to our retirement quarters. A little confession here: I snagged this piece from FB Marketplace a few months back without fully grasping how large it is. Sure, the listing had measurements, but did I measure our space? Nope! Lesson learned.

We initially wanted it against the other wall, but there is a floor register in that corner, and alas, it has no feet to lift it up. So, we made do and shifted it to the other wall where it only partially covers the vent. 

Giving it a good polish with Feed-N-Wax has made it look fantastic. I'm looking forward to finally unloading the plastic file tubs of office supplies that have been kicking around the dining room for several months.

After scrolling back through earlier posts, I now realize I never mentioned we also swapped out our dining room table. The amish cherry table we got back in August 2015 was lovely, but the chairs were wobbly and were beyond saving. So when I stumbled upon an absolutely stunning Joinery table on Craigslist in September 2022, it was too good to pass up. It came with just two matching chairs, but I hoped I'd eventually find more. I was even ready to part with the two original chairs when I found a set that would work. 

After unsuccessfully searching for more than a year, this past February, we finally decided to just order four matching Kelly chairs from The Joinery. They're expected to arrive in about six months, and we can hardly wait!

I'm grateful my husband was able to go back to work so we can afford to make some changes. It's been fun reworking our living space this year.

Dining Room Rug Cleaned

Our dining room rug was looking pretty grungy so we decided to have it cleaned. We took it into Renaissance Rug Cleaning a few weeks ago and finally picked it up today. It looks much nicer, they even managed to get the barbeque sauce off it.

We spent more on the cleaning than we did when we bought it used, but I think it was worth it because I really do like the pattern and colors. We dropped off the living room rug when we picked this one up. I'd never had rugs cleaned before so I decided to start with the cheap one first, just in case I wasn't happy with the results.

Once I spend a bit more time tidying up the dining room, I'll take photos of it in place.

I also found a set of solid cherry joinery furniture for the living room. The pieces are currently at In-Ex Upholstery company; they're being recovered with green/earthtone fabrics.

They lived in a sunroom and have some sun-fade damage on the arms, but I'm sure I can repair it. That's the advantage of solid wood furniture. Once we get the cleaned living room rug back, I'll have them deliver the finished furniture.

New-to-Us Rug

I've had a saved search in craigslist for a hand-knotted rug for quite a while now. I was looking to replace the dining room rug which we had bought on Overstock back in late-2011. While I had liked the rug, it proved to not be very durable. Shasta started licking it nervously when we had a friend live with us for a month, and made holes in it.

The rug we're getting rid of

My craigslist search brought this up last Friday. 

I excitedly made arrangements to go out and see the rug. Now, I would quibble with the seller that the rug was in excellent condition; it has some non-trivial damage. But it was a hand-knotted rug made by Nature's Loom and the colors were perfect for our dining room and the price was right so we brought it home with us.

Dog approved.

Alex Vertikoff's Photos

In stark contrast to the ugly pictures outside, I have been given permission to share the photographs Alex Vertikoff took of our house back in July 2013. They turned out really beautiful!

I'm a little embarrassed about this one. I wasn't expecting him to include the sewing room in the background so I didn't have it totally cleaned up. The rainbow of threads is pretty though. LOL

New-to-Us Dining Room Set

Jeff didn't like our old rectangular dining room table, so I occasionally poked around on craigslist for a replacement set; last week I found one. It is clearly not new. The previous owners were up front about having enjoyed this set for 12 years. It is solid cherry and was made by Amish Heritage Furniture. (Apparently they used to have a store in Portland.)

We had a few days to sell off our old set on craigslist and I set a pretty low price to get it gone fast. It worked; it went the next day. And fortunately, there was a pretty small difference between their prices.

We lucked out and the seller needed to rent a truck for work so he offered to bring it to us. Score!! (Excuse the mess in the dining room, it's still full of construction supplies, i.e. tile.)

Tragically, those table runners I made won't fit the new table. Oh well. I wonder if I can turn them into something else; maybe place mats. LOL

In other news, our floor refinisher had a change of schedule and he is working on my sewing room floor this week.

Maybe not the most intelligent thing to do right before we demo the bathroom, but I can't deal with not having my sewing and guest rooms for the next many months. We will protect it well before we start demo.

Misc. Period Pictures

I've been poking through period publications looking for bathrooms. As usual, when I see an interesting picture I will take a screenshot. I'll share them here, in case you guys are interested.

Cheery green house exterior from "The Color Book" c. 1920s

Color Suggestions for House Exteriors from Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company Paint Catalog, 1923.

I'll put a break into this post so it won't have to load all the images everytime folks visit the blog.

Dining Room Runners Finished

Finally, I got myself in gear to finish my stencilled dining room runners. I finished sewing the linen runners back in March, and I cut the stencil over two weeks ago. I don't know why it's taken me so long to finish this project because when I finally turned my attention to the task, it really only took me a couple hours. I guess I am just really deadline-driven.

Before starting, I sprayed the backside of the stencils with Krylon Easy Tack Repositionable Adhesive Spray (first lay down newspaper to protect the surface below). You really only have to let the stuff dry for a few minutes—I let it dry for 2 weeks!

Before starting in on the fabric, I test the stencil and the color selections on paper because it is much easier to fix a mistake on paper than on the fabric. I used the same color palette as I used for the dining room curtains so these would complement each other.

When I started in on the linen runners, I would align the stencil then put a bit of masking tape where the register marks went and fill that mark so I could correctly line up the second stencil.

Then I would apply the oil paint with my stencil brushes. I use Shiva Oil Paintstiks using the techniques described by Amy Miller in Stenciling the Arts & Crafts Home; they have worked really well for me. I can't recommend her book enough if you would like to learn how to do stenciling.

Then I repeated the process five more times. Finally, another task checked off the list. As usual these need to be ironed, but I need to wait until they dry first.

The light was especially good in the dining room yesterday, so I posted a few updated photos on the Before and After page.

Period Book: The Home Beautiful (1915)

This week's book is really just a woodwork sales brochure. I thought the pictures were beautiful, even though they're mostly all black and white, so I decided to share them here on the blog. The brochure is called The Home Beautiful and was published by Farley & Loetscher Mfg. Co. in 1915 showing their suggestions for interior woodwork. "A book of practical information for builders of up-to-date homes."

This is another post with a lot of pictures, so I'm going to insert a page break. If you want to see all the pictures, you'll have to open the post.

Cutting a New Stencil

Now that the dining room is basically finished and put back together, I finally found the motivation to work on the one last project I want to do for this room — stencil the linen table runners I made back in March.

Today I cut out the stencil design I lifted from a 1913 Gibson catalog (specifically, the top right one in this image below):

Since I still have the silhouette cameo, I went ahead and "etched" the design into the mylar first. It's probably faster than hand-tracing the design onto the plastic and then cutting with a craft knife.

Then I carefully went over the lines with a craft knife and finished cutting through the mylar where needed.

It took an hour or two to finish hand-cutting these, but I think I managed to get a pretty decent two-part stencil out of the effort.

Next up, painting practice and putting the stencil on the runners.