Day 10

Here's more of the (unpainted, Lauren!) kitchen - the window wall, with some close-up details. Seriously, it needs major work. And it's the one place I would *really* put some money if I had it, cuz I know an outdated (read: gross) kitchen can really cost me final value dollars. That's the corner of the fridge, photo left...like the oven on the opposite wall, it blocks the base cabinet, and there's a big empty space photo left of the cabinets/counter (where u see the mop).

Those things hanging on the wall, are my color inspirations - they've been hanging there for at least ten years, ha, they don't call me Swifty for nothing!

Apple green walls, black and white toile window valances, white base cabinets with open shelving on the wall, black soapstone countertops and some red accessories. That was the vision. Ain't happening now.

This is my whopping huge straight-sided ironstone pitcher collection. I used to have more, but some were curvy pitchers and I decided to narrow the theme. Of course, these are harder to find.

My favorite kitchen accessory is my bunny butter dish. I got the original almost 20 years ago...about 10 years ago the bunny part fell on the floor and broke...I went through three other butter dishes over the next few years, never really happy with any of them, while I searched for my same bunny one - finally found one on ebay (yay), and have been butter-dish-happy ever since.

Day 2

This little vignette on top of a bookcase right inside the front door. I collect vintage aqua american pottery, so this lamp was a real find for me! I especially love the molded roses and leaves spilling down the front. Doesn't matter that I've never replaced the wiring, nor that I can't find a shade to suit the old harp. I don't need it to work. I just need it to look nice.

The painting of the woman in the grey dress, walking along some coastal hills...ahh, from the 1930s (so I'm told), and I think she just looks like she has so much joy. I want to be her some day. She reminds of a character from "Enchanted April" - a delightful, must-see movie.

The picture of the two sweet little bridesmaids in the gilt frame - my daughter and cousin (my cousin's grand-daughter, I never remember how cousins are "removed"). Baseball player Orel Hershiser took the picture at a family wedding (he's not family, but friends of).

The large floral - now that's a historic piece! I was newly separated in 1997, had never heard of ebay (sigh, can you imagine??), but a girlfriend was buying a lot of jewelry there, and it got me hooked. I started buying little things - a $2 vintage red glass heart brooch for my daughter for Valentine's Day...a brown transferware plate for my collection...small things. But I started spending a little more and a little more...on a meager salary, a now-single parent. The day that painting arrived in the mail - I'd paid $75 for it, and it's...average-ness...brought me back to reality, and I was like, whoa, what am I DOING?? I couldn't afford luxuries like that! But I realized I had stuff in my OWN basement that I could probably sell on ebay. My mother had been a real garage sale hound/hoarder, and I had saved so many of her things after she died in 1990. Anyway, I decided if I wanted to continue BUYING on ebay, that I'd need to SELL on ebay to subsidize the habit. And so I did. I became an ebay seller, and 10 years later, I'm still an ebay seller! All thanks to that painting!