Hardware Bins

This hardware bin (or cubby, as I call it)  is one of my very favorite items.  I found it in an antique store in Hood River on my way to the antique show one year.  I was in my car so I had to make a trip back a few days later to pick it up.  I love it.  I had it in my kitchen in our other house.  It looked really cute loaded with vintage kitchen items.  It then went into storage for two years.  I missed it a lot.  I was hoping it would fit in the layout of our new home and it did.  It now has a perfect spot in our home.

Can you imagine the excitement when I went to an estate sale this morning at a plumbing business that had been around for 50 years.  That guy had bins on every wall in every room.  I bought a couple of them.  Dad got some for his shop.  A friend was there putting her name on some.  They were priced to move out fast.

Here's one of them.  It was a steal at $15.

Now where will we put them.  As much as I would love to have another in the house there is just no room.  I don't even think I could fit one in the Shabby Shack.  The bigger one of the two will go in Gareld's shop.  They were just too good to pass up.  Right place at the right time.  I love it when that happens.  We were in such a hurry to get on the road to Kennewick or I may have gotten carried away and bought more.

Priorities....my playhouse porch.

So we really should be working on porches for the house but look what we are doing instead.

Brace it up.

I helped by measuring.

Today I painted it.

We put up a fence to keep the critters out....especially cats and skunks.

It's looking pretty awesome.

Tomorrow we will add rocks to the ends and put in the steps and it will be finished.  I always wanted a covered porch!



Man Cave

We finally worked on Gareld's room and his trophies have a new home.  After spending a couple years at his friend, Doug's house, they are on the wall down in the shop.  These are the five animals he got on his trip to Africa in 2004.

I told him to bring home souvenirs so he bought these four mats that I framed.  They are pieced together out of plant material.  He did pretty good in the shopping department.

We have a few family furniture pieces we wanted to save but had no room in the house for them.  The old gun cabinet/desk between the windows was his dad's.  The table behind the couch expands to 12' and is great for family dinners and was his mom's.  The rocker is one Gareld bought me when I was pregnant with Jeremy.  They all found a good home here.

The bigger the room, the bigger the gun safe.

I brought the branches from Union when we moved.  The chainsaw carved bear was from his parents.  They picked up two on a trip to the coast one year and each son got one.

Another wall of head mounts.  A couple didn't make the cut.  There's still room to add more.

I bought a couch and loveseat before we got the house set up.  They both wouldn't fit in the living room so the loveseat ended up down here.

The huge thing in the corner was a gun cabinet at one time.  We are going to use it for the TV.  See the Pachinko game.  We have had it for almost 20 years.  I want it out where it can be played.  I have to order replacement steel balls but they are available on ebay.  He will mount it to the wall for the grandkids to have fun with when they come to stay.

I love this wall.  Those are old targets in the frames.  You can't see the kill shot lines but they are pretty neat.  I got them at a yard sale a long time ago and knew we would have a place for them eventually.  I was looking at the antique show for the perfect sign to hang above the door but I never found just the right thing.  I decided I could make one myself.  I wanted it to look like a guy slapped it together to direct his buddies to camp and it turned out just how I wanted it to.

A very nice room.

Happy Fourth of July

I have a flag and a flag pole and neither of them are out today.  Shame on me!  I should be flying the colors.  I love the freedom we enjoy in this bountiful country.  My son spent two tours in Iraq and made it home so I am grateful.  Three cheers for the red, white and blue.

Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater

We planted 104 pumpkin plants and that is just a start.  I decided to plant some corn at the bottom of the pasture since the pumpkins didn't even take up two thirds of the space.  I bought the seeds today.  The package said plant in June and allow 75 days to harvest so they should have time to grow into corn stalks for decoration.  Fingers crossed.  Figuring out the watering system is another story.  We are on the second type of sprinkler and we got a timer.  Trying to cover the most amount of ground with each move.  Then there are weeds to pull.  This is going to be a lot of work.  Good thing I have excellent helpers!

Dad's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads in my life: my Dads, my kids Dad and my son who is an great daddy to Wyatt.  I have two Dads as do many kids in today's world.  I never have thought of them as "real" Dad, "birth" Dad, or "step" Dad.  If anything they have been California Dad and Oregon Dad.  Oregon Dad was Utah Dad for awhile.



Harry Richard Lee Jr. is my Dad.  I was named  Stephanie Jeanne Lee because they liked the name and then they used "S" names from there.  If I were a boy I would have been Brian Scott.  Jeanne is my mom's middle name.  I had a teacher at college comment on how pretty that name was and how well it went together 9 letters, then 6, then 3.  Each name having 2 e's.  There are four of us kids with this dad.  Me, Sandra Maur Lee, Stephan Richard Lee and Suci Jeanne Lee.  When he remarried he got two kids with the deal and then he and Elsie had four more.  His oldest son was killed in an accident at age 23.  Losing a brother is awful but losing a son is so much worse I'm sure.

This is my other Dad, Antone Venard Pedro.  He's been my dad since I was 7.  He already had three kids in his home and he agreed to take on four more.  Then he and mom had two together.  Being a parent myself now I see what a big decision that was.  He's done a great job raising 9 kids.  His oldest son was killed at age 23.  I can't even imagine the hurt and loss.

 We learned good old fashioned hard work from him.  I'm a farm kid and I had chores.  He also "hired" us to swath hay, buck bales, move sprinkler pipe, and build pivot systems.  We raised animals and had pigs to show at stock show.  He is a hard worker himself.  He will also help anyone that needs him and his expertise.  We sure needed him to get our shop built.

 We spent part of our summer vacations with Dad in Porterville, CA.  He would drive up and get us or Mom and Dad dropped us off.  We would go boating, swimming, camping and to the theme parks.  Disneyland is a special place to me because we went there with him so many times.  As I have had my kids we continued to go to see him and go to Disneyland.  We went to work with him some days.  We hung out in the hot California sun and waited for the ice cream truck to come around.

 Always working on something.  He's a neat man and I'm glad he's one of my dads.

 Many memories in the making.  I'm glad he stayed my Dad.

Catlike Reflexes...

Oh my goodness!  Look what happened.  I was hoping to give you pictures of the finished shop today.  I was up on the ladder painting the trim.  The ladder, mind you, is on a incline.  I tried to keep my heavy side on the uphill slant.  I guess both sides are heavy and as I was starting down, the ladder fell sideways.  What's a girl to do?  Fall sideways with the ladder or jump off backwards and hit the ground on your backside.  I went off backwards and the full can of paint hit the ground too.

Look at that wasted paint.  Now I have to buy a new can of gray AND a can of white to cover my mess.

These are big, thick splatters and I was afraid it wouldn't cover very well so I had to wipe them out.

Now look at it.  People driving by are going to think I'm trying out some new painting technique.

Paint splattered my plants, pots and metal birds.

Meanwhile back at the ranch Gareld was spraying weeds.  He mowed the grass and then anything the mower can't get to is going to get the weed killer. Our rock wall is hiding behind all the tall weeds.  There's alot to do to keep up with the property.  Luckily I have no broken bones and I can get back to work.