Late August This and a Bit of That in Our Bedroom.....

  

Welcome to Debbie-Dabble Blog!!

I am so happy you decided to stop by!!

This is going to be a post sharing what I have been up to over the weekend......

First of all, HAPPY SEPTEMBER!!!!!!!

 

And HAPPY FALL!!!!!!!

YES! September is the beginning of Meteorological Fall and that is good enough in my book!!

I bid this horrific Summer of record Heat and Humidity FAREWELL!!!!!

It was the 2nd HOTTEST Summer on record in our area!!!!!

I always say that I would be the one moving North and not South and Canada is looking better and better to me, all things considered!!!!

I have been very busy over the last few days giving our bedroom a deep cleaning......

But first, with cooler temperatures and a bit of Mother Nature's own watering, my flowers in our back yard have exploded!!!!!

NOW they are looking like what they should have looked like a few weeks ago!!!!!

All of a sudden , these impatiens seemed to have doubled in size!!!!

 

 

 

Finally, these started to fill in.....

 

 

These were looking dead and have now made a bit of a come back!!!

 

 

And look at the blooms on these New Guinea Impatiens!!

The begonias are flourishing!!!!

I was able to catch this little guy having lunch.......

Apparently, he was able to make off with the bread that my neighbor incessantly throws out for the birds and squirrels......

And he finished the entire piece of bread!!!!!

He's looking a bit bloated!!!

And off he goes.......

I started giving our Bedroom a deep cleaning last week and it took me 4 days to finish it!!

Our bedroom is as large as our Living Room....16' by 20'!!

I started with doing a bit of a repair on this crack in the corner of our ceiling that occured from settling of our house.....

 When we first move in 42 years ago, we paneled the wall to the left as an accent wall behind the bed which used to be on that wall so there is a border strip in the corner.....

Joe spackled it that last time and he did not do a good job so being the carpenter's daughter that I am and after being taught what to do by my Dad, I did the spackling this time......

This was the first coat of spackling.....

I then sanded it twice after putting on one more coat and when I went to get out paint to paint over it, I found that the half of a gallon of paint left over from this room was as solid as a rock!!!!

I did rip the paper off the can that had paint on it and sent Joe down to Lowe's to have them match it and make up a sample size container of paint for me.....

The sample containers only cost $4.00..

Then the "Might as Well's" took over......

While many on the blogs and on face book are sharing how they canned the fruits of their Garden Labors, I decided I would finally do what I wanted to do with a box of canning jars that I bought at a yard sale several years ago.....

I went through every can of paint and stain that we had in our Storage Room, stirred and mixed them and if there was half a can or less, I poured them into the canning jars for storage, getting rid of about 15 cans of paint and stain!!!!

Of course, Joe had to ask me why I was saving the paint from all our rooms......

DUH??????

For touch ups or if a leak happens, etc.....

Anyway, that gave me a lot more room in our storage room so I re-organized the top shelf that is above the door into the room and the right side top shelf.....

These cans are more than 3/4 full....

And what would I do without my Kilz!!!!

Stains and paint thinners.....

Now you know what happens once you do a project like this and clear out almost 2 shelves?????

 

Those "Might as Well's" come roaring back!!!

 

So I "Might as well" clean out the WHOLE storage room and reorganize it and rearrange it, much to Joe's dismay!! 

This actually was one of the projects I have on my 2-3 year list of things to do in my retirement!!

I will be starting this project today which should keep me busy for 2-3 days while Joe disparately looks for something to do!!!!.....

And by the way, as fate would have it, the paint I needed for our bedroom was the ONLY one that was as solid as a rock!!!

Back to cleaning our bedroom......

16 years ago, after my Mother passed away, I inherited her antique Waterfall bedroom furniture that was bought for her by her parents when she was 16 years old.....

It is now 85 years old as my parents would be 101 years old this year.....

I re-did our entire bedroom at that time because of that furniture and I bought these drapes from the J.C. Penney catalog.....

That's a blast from the past, isn't it??????

I added the trim to the valances myself but the floral drapes have an abundance of color.......

Blue, ivory, rose, green, burgundy and gold.......

The drapery ad matching bed linens, which are long gone after 16 years, were shown in the catalog against gold walls.....

Even though my bedroom had been painted blue since we bought our house, I loved the warm gold walls so I chose to paint our bedroom gold.....

 

You know me....... NO WHITE WALLS in my house!!!!

HOWEVER......

When we bought our townhouse, even though it was brand new, it had the cheapest shag carpeting you have ever seen....

So 2 years after buying our house, we replaced all the carpeting.....

Being 22 years old and incredibly STUPID at the time, I chose a blue rung for our bedroom because the bedroom was "Blue" at the time.....

And not just a subtle blue rug, a royal blue rug!!!!!

And like so many plans of mine that never came to fruition, even though I am on my 5th floor treatment in the Living Room and Dining Room and 3rd in the Kitchen, Bathrooms and upstairs Hall, I never got around to replacing the carpeting in the Bedrooms after our sons moved out like I had planned......

And at this late stage of the game, I have no intention of doing so now......

So in observance of my early retirement plan of using what we have and not spending money on things not needed, I decided that I would use the rugs, that I had stored down our storage shed, from the Dining Room before I bought new ones last year......

This was the runner that Joe kept getting his chair tangled up in......

I put it in front of the door into the room, Joe's closet and it goes right over to my side of our bed.....

This is one of 2  fairly expensive wool rugs that I bought from Penney's when we first had our Pergo Max flooring installed but Joe also kept getting tangled up in them with his chair.......

You do see a theme going on here with Joe and his chair in our Dining Room ( we eat in the Dining Room daily), don't you??????

Since there is burgundy in those drapes which I love and I am keeping forever, I thought the burgundy rugs would look okay.....

I put the area rug that I bought at Lowe's after the wool rugs did not work out and used it along with the runner that did not work out in the Dining Room with Joe's chair, here in the sitting area of the bedroom............

 You see in this picture of the rugs I currently have in the Dining room that since the area rug is not big enough to go under the entire table and prevent Joe from wrecking havoc with my rugs every time he pulls his chair out, I put the runner behind the table against the wall.......

So far, so good......

I did have another area rug here but it was positioned differently and had seen better days but nothing that a cleaning could not help so we donated it to Salvation Army...

The one thing that I learned from over 10 years of running our church Flea Market is that people buy things with the intention of using them sometimes for totally different reasons than what they were designed for....

Maybe someone would use this rug in a basement area to put on a concrete floor or in a garage storage area......

So don't think that because it does not look as good as it did when first bought that something can not be donated..... 

The one thing that really annoys me to no end is when people carelessly throw away things that others may want or need.....

 Okay, I KNOW my Victorian style is not the "In Style" thing right now but I don't really care as it is MY style and the style that gives me a warm and cozy feeling when I walk in my front door....

When I was working and had a particularly bad night at work which was about every night, I would feel my home wrap it's loving arms around me when I walked in that door in the mornings.... 

And after all, isn't that what everyone would hope to feel when they walk into their home????

So this is my Bedroom.....

What I call my Victorian style meets Joe's Pittsburgh Sports style!!!!!

Did I mention how thrilled he was when he found out I was painting our bedroom gold??????

This is to the right when you walk into our bedroom.....

That string hanging is from our attic pull down steps......

 

This is the Wardrobe of my Mother's Waterfall bedroom furniture...

 

Waterfall furniture was popular in the 1920's to 1940's and the bedroom sets were often called "Newlywed Furniture" because young couples could not afford a home of their own and lived with their parents until they could...

 

The cedar lined closet is on the left and the top door on the right is also cedar lined for storage of sweaters.... 

Many of my Readers  have mentioned in the past that they enjoy hearing the stories behind my furniture....

When my parents bought a new bedroom set for themselves, this set became mine when I was in my early teens....

Now I wanted a French Provincial bedroom set so my Dad painstakingly carted each piece of this set down to our basement, stripped it and then "antiqued" it using a kit....

All so I could have my "French Provincial" looking bedroom set

He even put large rollers on each large piece so it could easily be moved....

When my Dad passed away and my mother sold their home 3 months after his passing and moved into a Senior apartment building, the only furniture she kept was this set, which became her bedroom furniture again, buying all brand new furniture for her apartment.....

I asked her if I could have this furniture along with her hope chest when she passed....

And now it is mine again......

 

Joe's infamous Pittsburgh corner is in the alcove.......

 

 

Yes, I cleaned every single one of those little Hockey men on those shelves!!!!!

  And this is where my stationary bike is.....

Yesterday, I finally had my one year post op Knee Replacement surgery follow up visit with my Orthopedic Surgeon since it had been canceled because of the Pandemic....

I elected to do a phone visit as they are not allowing anyone to wait in the waiting room so you call when you get there, they register you over the phone and then you wait in your car until it is your turn and they come out to take you in then.....

Most times, he runs late because he spends time with his patients making hospital rounds in the morning so even though my appointment was one of the first ones, I knew I would be waiting which I truly hate to do so I opted for a telephone visit as I did not feel there was any reason for him to see me in person......

I do not do or want to do video conferencing calls even though our son, Joey, could hook it up with no problem....

The best advice my Ortho Surgeon ever gave me was to buy a stationary bike and when I told him that I do 5 miles in 20 minutes 5 times a week, he said he wishes that the majority of his patients would listen to him like I did and that he could bring me in to talk to patients on the importance of doing this both pre op and post op...... 

I am glad that I had my own bike so I could continue my knee exercises during this pandemic as I have friends that had to stop going to Physical Therapy and Cardiac Rehab when they all were forced to close....

I have it positioned so I can watch TV while on my bike.....

My Vanity and my Jewelry Armoire next to it.....

I have been asked in the past if I actually sit here and the answer is yes, because this is where I apply my makeup.....

 

 

I have a light up make mirror on the right side...

 

 

Next to the Vanity, where incidentally I had my Wedding picture taken of my Mother helping me put on my veil while sitting in front of this mirror, is the TV Entertainment Center along with the TV that used to be in our Living Room.....

 We moved it up here in the bedroom when Joe wanted a larger TV to watch his Hockey games on and I said he had to first find an entertainment center large enough to put the TV in before I would allow such a big black box in my Victorian style Living Room!!!! 

Of course, I had to decorate the top of the piece!!!!

This French Provincial chair, upholstered in gold velvet like fabric, that I bought at a church Flea Market is where I sit and watch TV at times.......

Now what are the chances of finding a chair like this???????

I painted this table, that my Dad had originally stained for me many years ago, blue because I had bought blue paint to paint the entire bedroom set........

But since this furniture is now promised to my Great Niece Caitlin, who adores it, and loves the current finish on it, it will stay as is with the finish that my Father so painstakingly did for me when I was a teenager......

   I bet he never thought all those years ago that he would not only be refinishing this set for me but for his Great Granddaughter and I know he is just thrilled.....

I am skipping the corner of the bedroom where I had to do the crack repair as it is not finished as of yet.... 

I moved our bed into the corner many years ago so I would have storage behind it....

Even though I do have the bed to this set, this is Joe's Great, Great Grandfather's bed......

It is so high with a new mattress and box spring on it that it comes up to my waist and I need a step stool to get up into it!!!!

As you can see, you can also store shoes in it!!!

A few years ago, I bought a gold comforter set on Clearance in Penney's to match the original set since the comforter was shot......

And isn't it funny that the original color of the Pittsburgh Penguins Team was blue and not the gold, black and white like it is now!!!!! 

And that is why a free throw that Joe got as a Season Ticket Holder to the Wilkes Barre Scranton Penguins AHL Hockey team is on the bed.......

I hung drapes and ivory lace curtains behind the bed to hide the storage behind it....

I created this chandy above the bed by threading a swag chandy, bought at Target on Clearance, through a $5 flea market brass chandy....

I decorated it with crystal ornaments, floral swags and tulle.....

On Joe's side of the bed is his dresser......

 Yes, he has more clothes in here in addition to all his closet in our double closet even after donating 3 bags of clothes to Salvation Army!!!!!

My Dad left the original Bakelite handles and knobs on the furniture and I am so glad that he did not replace them!!!!!

Next to the dress is a small night stand that I placed baskets in that I spray painted blue......

 

I have a round table on my side of the bed......

You can see that by putting the table up on bed risers, it is the same height of the nightstand on Joe's side....

The other wool rug is over by Joe's dresser......

On the side of the bed on the left is Joe's closet which I shared in a previous post after he went through all his clothes.....

 I think you can see why it took me so long to deep clean this room!!!

Now I need to clean out and go through things stored behind and under the bed, in my Mother's Hope Chest which is in the corner that I have yet to share and the storage in the bottom area of the TV Entertainment Center.... 

One more thing.....

Did you know that there is a Nation Wide Shortage of major appliances??????

Because of the initial shut down of factories during the Pandemic and the importation of parts from over seas, there is a waiting list for major appliances such as washers, dryers and ovens......

And God forbid you need a refrigerator!!!!!

People are buying smaller , simpler refrigerators as second ones to put in a garage or basement because they are hoarding, no, excuse me, buying extra food during this time......

Well, as fate would have it, my refrigerator is not cooling as it should and actually stopped running on Sunday , leaving a puddle of water on my Kitchen floor......

I got it to come back on by fiddling with the temperature control dial ......

But as a precaution, our son, Joey, took almost everything from our freezer, which was packed because of Joe doing Boredom Shopping, to his apartment......

When I pulled up Lowe's and Home Depot online, there is a big warning about the shortage of major appliances.....

I panicked and sent Joe immediately down to Lowes which is right next to our townhouse development.... 

I am very limited in the size refrigerator I can put in the Kitchen because it has to fit between the Dining Room wall and the counter....

So that means a basic 18 cu. ft. refrigerator........

I am not picky as I do not need or want one with an ice maker or anything fancy for only the 2 of us but I did want a white one as I do not care for Stainless Steel.....

Too cold and industrial looking for my Country French Victorian looking Kitchen.....

Well, along with the shortage, apparently these are the type of refrigerators that people are looking for as second refrigerators so none were in stock and it would take until October to get one in!!!!!

Joe pleaded with the sales man stating that ours can die at any time so he was kind enough to look in the back and found ONE white discontinued model!!!!!!

A GE Hotpoint one.....

It was only $598 on sale to boot!!!

SOLD!!!!!

Okay, not only is there a back log of getting stock in but because of the increased demand, there is a back log on Deliveries!!!!

So even though they have it in the store which is directly on the side of our development, they are not able to deliver it until October!!!!!

Joe said he would have to go and look elsewhere , even though secretly he figured it would be the same story wherever he went.....

The sale man then said he would speak with the manager who was able to move delivery up to this coming Sunday.....

I told Joe to take it.....

They explained that their trucks are loaded to the hilt and they can not deliver over a certain length of time or they would lose their CDL licensing.....

So far, the refrigerator is still running but we are keeping a cooler with ice in it just in case.....

Since I stopped working and retired, we have replaced our Hot Water Heater, a Microwave, 2 Air Conditioners and now a Refrigerator!!! 

Thank God I thought to have a reserve of money for emergencies in retirement and were able to pay cash for everything and not have to finance anything or worse, put it on a charge card!!!!

This is why I continuously say that I am tired of being a Home Owner and being responsible for all of this and in a few years, before I need yet another new roof, we will be looking into selling this house and moving into the apartment complex where our sons live which are maintenance free and come with all appliances!!!!!

This is what my Mother did shortly after my Dad passed away because she knew that, financially, she would never be able to keep the large ranch house that they lived in....

It was the smartest thing that she ever did!!!

 I hope you will stop by to visit again soon!!

Stay safe, healthy and most of all, HAPPY!!

Thanks to those who took the time out of their busy day to spend a little bit of time with me!!

If you do not have a blog, PLEASE  give me some way to reply to your comment, maybe by including your email in your comment.  If I can not find a way to reach you, I will reply on the post where you commented so please check back......

I am linking up to these parties:

THURSDAY
Vintage Charm
Share Your Style Thursday Link Up Party
 Encouraging Hearts and Home Party
Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop 
Grace at Home Party

FRIDAY
 Funtastic Friday
Friday Favorites
Home Matters Linky Party
Farm House Fridays
Flaunt It Fridays

 SATURDAY
Saturday Sparks
Pink Saturday-Anything Goes!!

 
SUNDAY
Snickerdoodle Sunday
Silver Pennies Sunday
Happiness is Homemade Linky Party

 MONDAY 
Inspire Me Monday
Love Your Creativity Link Party
Busy Monday

Over the Moon Linky Party
 Handmade Monday
You Are The Star Blog Hop
Metamorphosis Monday
Little Cottage Link Party

Meraki Link Party

TUESDAY
Inspire Me Tuesdays
Lou Lou Girl's Linky Party
 All About Home Party
Tuesdays with a Twist
 Farm Fresh Tuesdays Blog Hop
Celebrate Your Story Link Party!!
Tuesday Turn About Link Party

WEDNESDAY
 Oh My Heartsie Wonderful Wednesdays
Beautifully Made Link Party
Keep in Touch Party

Fluster's Creative Muster Wednesday's

Ducks in a Row Wonderful Wednesdays Blog Hop
Party in Your PJ's
Waste Not Wednesday
Charming Homes and Gardens Wednesday Link Party

Please take some time to visit these terrific hosts and all those joining in on the fun!