A great table straight from the trash

I just got this table out of the trash, just a few doors down from my house. It has a wooden top and the metal base folds up very easily. I will repaint the top, with an oil-based enamel, and make one very small repair to the hardware on the bottom, then I'll have a brandy new, great little table. It will make a perfect addition to my porch, which I am in the middle of painting, and which I'm looking forward to decorating when I'm done. It is just the right size for playing scrabble, which should convince a certain someone (we'll call him Mr. Happy, 'cause he's a pretty upbeat guy) that dragging things out of the trash isn't quite so awful after all...

A Little Revolving Gallery

A few months back I posted about how I reclaimed a dirty old box that I found in my basement. It was just right for displaying a few of the smaller pieces from my collection of green handled kitchen utensils. But I also had in mind that I could rotate various things through it: use it as a little revolving gallery of things I collect. So the other day I took out the utensils, threw (well, lightly tossed, really) them back in with the rest of that collection, and then put into the box a new collection that I just started when I was in Brighton, England recently: old b&w photos of people with their dogs. Dogs can make people very happy (mine makes me happy), so I love these photos because they capture a happy moment in the lives of people I'll never know. I'd like to someday have enough of this collection to fill up a small wall with them. You have to look carefully to find the dog here: because the dog blends in so well with the uniforms!. And in this photo I can imagine that the dogs are tired because they've just returned home from a good walk.

A New Use for 'Tin' Cans

Now, this is not a particularly new idea, and so I take no credit for it as some sort of original thing. I assume that the idea of putting empty 'tin' cans to use after their contents had been eaten is virtually as old as the 'tin' can itself. (I keep putting 'tin' in quotes like because they are longer actually made of tin, and haven't been for a long time now.) I can just imagine that the person who invented the 'tin' can (was it one of the Shakers?) immediately sold the idea to others by saying "And after you eat the green beans, you've got a great way to organize your rusty nail collection..."! So, nothing new here. But my basement is short on space because it has concrete block walls that I have no idea how to attach anything to, like shelves. So, I have to put whatever space I do have to parsimonious use. I attached these empty tomato cans to a wooden wall with metal screws and a drill and they make a pretty handy way to store some of my painting supplies. I'll probably add more as I make more soup, spaghetti sauce, etc. I like how the labels look, and I think you could easily repeat this with all sorts of different kinds of cans to great effect.

Nice Old Hooks on a Board

Here's another slightly crummy, definitely old, thing I found in my house when I bought it, though this time in the garage, rather than the basement, where I found this dirty old box. This set of hooks on a board was in the garage, where, for all I know, it had been for 100 years, used to hang up the sundry things we keep in our garages. Check out the hooks, aren't they great? And they are all in perfect shape. So, I cleaned it up, both the wood and the hooks, with a wire brush, then I put two coats of polyurethane on both the wood and the hooks. I decided to poly the hooks so that they wouldn't leave rust spots on anything wet that might end up hung on them. I considered painting the hooks black and putting poly on the wood, but decided against it because 1) that would take longer, which would mean that I would get less done that day, and 2) I like the look of the 'raw' iron. Once it was dry, I hung it up next to the shower stall in the back bedroom. I love how the browns of the wall, the wood, and the hooks all complement one another.

Not very fancy, but an easy way to recycle...

So, a while after I had finished painting my living and dining rooms, I was FINALLY able to start having people over again, which was a good thing, since being able to entertain well is a good deal of the reason I wanted a house to being with. Anyway, on two separate occasions, two friends commented that as lovely as the place was (and I must admit, they are right there), my paintings were hung too damn high. So, I dutifully went about the business of lowering them. (These were gay men after all. What was I suppposed to do? Ignore the advice of two gay men on a matter like this?) After I had lowered the art, which DID look better, I had another problem: little holes where the higher picture hangers had been. So I had to spackle and paint them. This little styrofoam thingy came in quite handy. The little rollers are perfect for these kinds of little jobs, but you really do have spread the paint around on it before applying it to the wall. (I learned this the hard way, which resulted in splattered paint and much swearing and running for a wet rag.) So, my method is to dip the roller (carefully) directly into the can to pick up a little paint, then use the styrofoam thing (there must be an actual word for this, but I cannot find it at the moment) to distribute the paint around on the roller, before going to the wall. And it cleans up very easily. I didn't know why I saved it when I did, but now I'm glad I did!

Saving Christmas Past

So, in my own view, decorating the outside of your house with Christmas lights comes in four distinct varities. First, there is the elegant look: little white lights, green garlands, red bows, single bulbs in windows. This is fine, although when a town or village does nothing but this, (and I do have a particular NY upstate village in mind here), it makes me think that they think they are just a little too precious. Second, there is the artsy, funky look, such as when someone puts out nothing but little lights of one color. A house I fondly remember from my childhood in Needham, Mass had little blue lights strung along every, and I do remember it as every, line of the house. The effect was very cool. You couldn't quite see the house, just the outline of it. Third, you can always go with a vintage, nostalgic look. I'll say more about that in a minute. Of course, what we really want out there in the vast world of Christmas lights, is a nice mix of these three styles, so that when you walk your dog late at night, you can appreciate the unending variety of human artistic ambitions. Last, there is the ugly. I'm not going to catalog all the many ways in which Christmas lights can go wrong, or, well, I'd get myself worked up into a snit. But I think you know what I have in mind. The little white lights that come as a net and everyone, or at least nearly everyone where I live, just lays across the top of their carefully manicured yews. Or the house that is just overdone, but with no particular theme or idea in mind. (Good things my next-door neighbors don't have a computer, or I'd have to shut up now.). Don't get me wrong, I'm all for over-the-top Christmas lights, and I aspire to have that kind of house one day. But just going back to Walmart to get another blinking or moving or huge Christmas thing because it turns out that there is another square foot between the trash cans and the birdbath (and the garage roof is already full) is not exactly what I have in mind. The newest things in the ugly category, though, are those huge, inflatable figures and such. What the hell? Okay, I feel a snit coming on, so I better move on.
My preference is for the big, colored bulbs of my childhood. Like these:
They look very retro and cool, especially when you've got a lot of them. I've decided that this is going to be the Christmas lights look for me. So, here's the thing: they can be hard to find. When I do find them cheap at thrift stores, they often don't work. I could buy them new, but I want so many of them that I'm going to have to rent a cherry picker to put them up. It turns out, though that the more recently produced ones have little fuses in their plugs, which get blown, which is why they don't work and they end up at thrift stores. The fuses look like this:Now, I could replace the fuses, but then they would just blow again (and I do intend to have the kind, or should I say quantity, of lights that would blow a fuse). So, I realized that I could just replace the plugs, like this:So, for four dollars each (the strings cost me $2 at my local Salvation Army and the new plugs cost $2 at Home Depot), I've got three new strings of old-fashioned lights.
Safety first? I say Christmas first! Anyway, for those of you who do worry about this kind of thing, my lights get plugged into GFI outdoor outlets, so the fuses are redundant anyway. I know today is Christmas Eve, so I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but I'm already excited about next year's lights!