My Creation Became A Reality

After nearly five years into my cozy 1940's cottage home, I still had not found a way to display my white dish collection? My poor kitchen cabinets were overflowing with Ironstone and Pfaltzgraff. 

The dining room is where I wanted to show them off, but it is not a big room and needs all the floor space it could possibly keep. A hutch would just not be a good solution. Hummm~What if it hung on the wall and didn't take up any of my floor space?  
Time to doodle! (That's what I do best!)

Me thinking: I like the Welsh design simplicity, add some tongue and grove for backing, the shelves need to be deeper than a plate rack to hold my collection, and paint it cream~ of course!

Now I jostled around with the idea of taking an old hutch top and converting it into what I wanted, but that would be outside my skill set indeed. I searched the thrift stores to see what a hutch top would cost, but no such luck. A few weeks later a co-worker, who we will call Jeff came into my office during lunch and saw the doodle-page laying in front of me and asked "What's this?" I laughed and said, "A creation waiting for a maker". Boy was that the right person to say that to, come to find out Jeff, is a wood worker. He looked at what I had on my sketch and said "let me give you a quote on what it would take to build this".

Well folks, it could not have turned out any better.
With a little tweak here and there this is the final product. 
 I love it - love it - love it.

 You are welcome to use my design, just give

credit where credit is due please.

Send me photos of  your hutch creations and I'll post them here.

Don't you just love Garage Sales!

Our Kentucky weather has only just recently started to cooperate to where the area can blossom into the 'Garage Sale' season. Yes this is a true season that falls in between Spring and Summer ;-)

My first venture was last Saturday morning ~ while the hub was still asleep~ a sweet little lady down the street had all her wears out for viewing and to sell her precious goods. I stopped by to take a look and boy did I hit the mother-load. She had some beautiful things ~ well, to garage sale goers they were beautiful. It was crowded and I surveyed the area quickly to spy if anything cream or white popped out at me. There at the far table was a worn bushel basket full of white dishes that read

~ Ironstone Dinner Ware, 12 piece setting, mix & match Iroquois pattern, $25.00 ~

 ...."Heaven, glorious heaven you are mine", I thought. Looking more closely the set included a serving platter and the salt & pepper, a little grungy but in good shape. I could see a crack or two in one or two of the plates, but really this wasn't going to stop me from grabbing these beauties. I purchased them lock-stock-and bushel basket and quickly loaded them into my vehicle.  

I continued to look around and the little lady followed me telling me different things about her glassware. Some were in lots of fives, some twos, and threes, but I could tell they were all old. She said, as she pointed to some darling juice glasses; " I remember drinking out of these at my grandmothers when I was a child and I'm 80 now". I complimented her on looking so good at her age and she blushed. How precious was her story and of course I bought those as well for $2. She continued with "Here are three matching water glasses, it would be a shame to leave them" (man she was on a roll wasn't she) - she's right, I'll take those too for $1.    I often set a table for two and will use them with joy.

I love the delicate intertwining lace pattern that boarders each glass.

If you knows what pattern this is please send me an email or post a comment below to let me know.

 Once at home I washed everything and surveyed my find.

This was a collection in itself, I thought.

Most were in great shape and noticed a variety of  markings on the back of each one.

There were: 6 place settings of the Iroquois China by Fridoline USA.,

2 place settings of the Joshua Crabtree Esq. Commemorative China by Iroquois-Denisco Collection,

4 place settings of the Dover Group-White Dover Ironstone USA.

~ The cups (on the right) had 2 different markings~

The Henry Ford Museum - Greenfield Village

The Museum Collection Simpson LTD - Edison Institute

What a wonderful day it was!

Rainey Daye

I've been dog setting.

Rainey Daye is my daughter Amanda’s six year old Weimaraner and my grand puppy.

(I know it’s sad that I only have a grand puppy, but I love her)

She is staying with me for 3 to 4 weeks while my daughter is traveling.

Why is she staying with me and not at a kennel you ask? Well, there is no place like Ganny’s (thats what she calls me) as she is recovering from a broken foot. To be more accurate a broken toe bone, the bone leading from the toe to the ankle (Do dogs have ankles?)  Yeap, she jumped down from a picnic table after getting very excited about who-knows-what ; a cat, a squirrel, the mail man, or something just simply moved!  She landed wrong and came limping up to Amanda with a dangling digit.

After a trip to her vet, Rainey came out sporting a pretty pink cast. (To match her collar of course)

Anyway, it’s been a very exhausting 3 plus weeks. When you are not a dog owner yourself, you have to find a whole new daily routine. You must get up earlier in order for her to eat, drink, and be merry (wee-wee) before you leave her for the day. One trying experience was while I was at work her little bandaged paw began to swell (poor baby). When returning home that afternoon she greeted me at the door with her cast gnawed half way off and her paws was 5 times the size it should be. Dear Lord, my heart started pounding as I started talk’n to Jesus to help me get the rest of it off with out further harm to her. I felt like such a heel for not checking on her at lunch as I had during the first part of the week, but dogs are smart, she knew it was swelling and that the remedy was - get this thing off me!
I immediately jumped on the cell phone in speaker-mode and called my local veterinarian, telling them “I’m bringing her in". Then called Amanda, who was in California, to have her vet in Nashville faxed the necessary x-rays and information into my vet.
~ Good Grief ~

The KY veterinarian hospital kept her overnight to keep an eye on her and to observe any further swelling for the next few hours. I picked her up the next afternoon and all was well. They left the cast off her foot and said she was to stay off of it except to go wee-wee and to remain calm – CALM! Does anyone with a Weimaraner know that this word is NOT within a weimies vocabulary! Oh well, I did my best and she is doing superb.

Her mommy flew back into Nashville yesterday and I drove Rainey home to be reunited with her.  The next day, Amanda sent me this picture; with the caption “will she ever learn!”

Oh well, here’s hoping for the best Rain-Rain.

Let the Blogging begin !

For a year now all my friends have said "You should blog"! Well here I go, I'm giving it a try, check back in a few days to see if they were right.