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We had some warm weather, but it went down to below freezing this last week. But, there are still signs of spring! Longer evenings, blue skies, and the cottonwoods by the river ready to burst into leaves!
And I am ready to shed my long johns for lighter, breezier clothing! (I don't think I've ever worn long johns more than this winter).
I had a trip down memory lane recently about one of my favourite spring shirts when I was a kid in the mid-1980s. It was this lovely white cotton blouse with pastel flowers. I am wearing it in the picture below with white stirrup pants.
It looks like my sister, dog, and I were posing in the early spring (R.I.P. Bessy!). Luckily, I can give you a closer look at the pattern of shirt because I recently found the shoulder pads! So here is a blast from the past from over 25 years ago!
When I organized our crap in the basement a couple of weeks ago I had a look in my Barbie box, and there they were! I must have thought they were decent pillows for Barbie's bed.
Then on Friday I had a few minutes to look over the spring fashions in the mall, and found a very reminiscent shirt!
Now, I just have to wait until the temperatures get above freezing again. Hus agreed it was a very 80s pattern.
We've been organizing a corner of our basement.
Actually, first Hus had to destroy a corner of our basement! Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures, but one corner had a cold room and a creepy little darkroom circa late 1960s. Our nephew immediately dubbed it the 'kill room' since there was a shower stall immediately outside of it (He's a Dexter fan). Well the creepiness started to get to us, especially since there was no window in the room, but the outside of the house has one where the room is! Who puts walls over windows? Also the coldness was starting to get to us. The cold room was immediate below our rather chilly bedroom. So over a few weekends, Hus pulled it all out. The dark room was so shoddily built, that he didn't even need tools!
Lo and behold, the window that the wall was erected over, was open a crack. For over forty years! In Edmonton! It gets cold here; this weekend it hit a low of -38 celsius! So with the window now closed and air circulating throughout our basement, our house is much warmer and cozier.
But where to put all of our storage? Another trip to Ikea for utility shelving. But I wanted to incorporate something 'vintage' from the mess that we pulled out, so we saved this groovy, psychedelic shelf liner to gussy up the boring shelving:
And I cut out some bunting for the shelving:
Close up:
This is the extent of my DIY decorating skills. At least everything is contained now, in a non-creepy space.
When we moved provinces this summer, we came dining table-less. We now have three places to sit (four - if you count TV trays at the couch).
We needed something immediately, so IKEA came to the rescue to furnish our kitchen in August.
It is a small space, so we bought this bamboo-veneered table. A better picture is here. Since the two ends flip up it has come in handy the few times we've had guests. We decided on the Sigurd chairs, which have a great design but aren't the most comfortable to sit in.
Then in October, I decided that I needed some cheap seating for my 70s rumpus room basement bar. Not wanting to spend much, I found this vintage '50s metal card table on kijiji. I had never seen anything like this before. It's in pretty good condition, and made by Cooey Metal Products. Due to the wonders of the internet I found out that the company operated on Ontario from 1941 to 1989. Unfortunately, the plant contaminated the site, which the province is still trying to get cleaned up.
The weird thing is, is two weeks after I bought the table, Hus came home with two of the same card tables in red (no chairs). He got them for free while helping clean out an office at his work. One is in our basement pantry now, and the other is in the garage awaiting a purpose.
And just two weekends ago, I found a use for the money that I made at our moving-out yard sale in the summer. It took months and months of trolling on kijiji, but I finally found a '60s teak dining set!
The solid top comes off and two "wings" come out from the ends to expand the table. I'm not in love with the mushroom colour upholstery, but that can be changed at some point. The important thing is that it is in great condition, was a reasonable price, and is small enough to fit in the space. We had to pass over so many beautiful ones that would have just been too large. Now I just have to find a buffet & hutch. Hopefully it doesn't take another 8 months!
