Spring Decor

Spring is finally making its beautiful entrance to our area.  Despite roller coaster temperatures, we are now having daytime highs in the 50's and 60's. On the occasional day it's been in the 70's.  It's been wonderful weather to work in the garden cleaning up the last of the leaves. We're having mulch delivered next week so this job needs to be done.  This last month has been a very hard one for our family.  I'm so thankful that Spring has come to us just in time.

 Each one of us has lived through some devastation, some loneliness, some weather superstorm or spiritual superstorm, when we look at each other we must say, I understand. I understand how you feel because I have been there myself. We must support each other and empathize with each other because each of us is more alike than we are unalike.
Maya Angelou

Thank you, dear blogging friends for being there for me. ♥

Meanwhile, life goes on as they say. I've enjoyed changing the inside decor to Spring.  Our new mantle in the living room has been so much fun to decorate.

  

We decided to still hang our John Shaw print  above the new mantle.  We love it in our living room. 

On the left side of the mantel I placed our pierced Rose Medallion plate along with two glass bunnies and a Lefton girl that reminds me of Anne Shirley.  My sister, Susan gave her to me as well as the two pink bunnies.  She knew I loved Depression glass and even though they are not from that era they go well with my pink Depression glass collection.  

   

Adding a little nest just made sense.

On the right side I added a Valerie Parr Hill arrangement for height.  Along with my Mama's egg and a swan and a little girl figurine they seem happy to grace the mantle.

I've had this bunny for many years and he wanted to be front and center.

I'll share our Florida room mantle and other decor soon.  Are you decorating for Spring?

Our New Living Room Mantel

We have lived in our home for 44 years.  I was in my 20's when we built our home.  Our children were one and four when we moved in.  It's hard to believe how quickly time has passed.  Now my babies have their own babies and their own homes.  We never thought this home would be the home we would stay in for this long.  I guess we are the type of folks that put down roots really deep.  Over the years we have been through many decorating stages.  We are quite lucky that our home was built when the standards were strong in the construction field.  Adding a large room to the back of our home really helped us make the decision to stay here. 

Our brick mason was a wonderful man who added many special touches to our home. He never complained when we asked him to build semi circular steps and brick planters on our patio or curved openings to our family room fireplace.  When it was time for him to build the living room fireplace he suggested a brick mantel that stepped down in the front.  What did I know?  It sounded fine with me at the time.  After all we had many other decisions to make.  Such as green appliances in the kitchen and blue tub and toilet in the bathroom and green toilet in the master bath. Yes, I really did choose those items.  I still live with some of those decisions!!  Remember the 70's?  The styles were really something then.

Well that brick mantel is something I really don't like.  Over the years there were many other places for our money to go.  So the brick mantel has taken a back seat to other improvements we wanted to make.  I've been looking for years at an option to make this mantel more to my liking.   Grayden is retired and has more time to do some of the improvements that his wife requests.  I am thrilled with the project we have been working on this month.

Years ago Grayden installed crown dentil moulding in our living room, dining room and hallway.  We wanted to use this same crown dentil molding in the new mantel.  Considering this mouding was made so many years ago we had problems finding a match.  After searching the internet and the local building supplies we came up empty.  Grayden suggested we check one more place that I knew would not have it.  Well, they didn't have it, but they ordered it for us!  Yay--we were set!

Here are the steps to our new mantel.  We all worked together to get to the finish line.  Thank you Grayden and Samuel.

First thing was building a flat top box to fit snugly on the brick mantel.

Then Grayden mitered the crown moulding and nailed it to the box.
  

Then it was attached to the brick mantel.

It was then ready to have the nail holes filled with wood filler and primed.

Samuel was a huge help with the small tedious painting around the dentils.  

The mantel has now had two coats of paint along with a primer.  I can't wait to decorate the new mantel, but I must allow the paint to cure.

I'm so happy with this style and I feel it looks more appropriate in our living room. Next I want to paint this fireplace screen. It's quite old.  I'm thinking black.  What do you think?

Catching Up

When uploading photos to One Drive I realized I had not shared some fun family times of last month.  Even though these are a few weeks old I do enjoy remembering the good times.   

We went down to visit the boys over President's Day weekend.  They had gotten a trampoline from Santa that their Dad was putting together when we arrived.  If any of you have ever had the pleasure of putting one together you know it's not hard, but quite time consuming.  The boys were delighted beyond belief at the finished project!

Yes the weather was warmer last month than this month.  Alex loves to wear Bermuda shorts on days that are 60 and above.  

Of course the big kids had to give it a try.

I have a lot more sense than these guys, so I declined the temptation.

Miles came home to stay with us for the weekend.  It's the first time he has done that without his brother.  We thoroughly enjoyed the alone time with just him.  

Ferry Farm had a celebration honoring George Washington's birthday.  Miles wanted to go so we ventured out for a little history lesson and fun at Washington's Boyhood home.  I've mentioned before about the building of the home on the original foundation.  We took this opportunity to see it up close.

First you must partake of birthday cake!

And a little sip of cherry tea!

Then off to play Colonial games.

We walked over to the site of the home construction.  It's so exciting to see the home coming together.

The home is being built as close as possible to original building methods.  Hand forged nails can be seen on the building.

Miles wanted to run down the hill to the river.  The Washington home sits at the top of the hill overlooking the Rappahannock River and the city of Fredericksburg. 

That's him in the burgundy shirt.

We reminded Miles that George Washington must have run up and down this hill as a child, just like you did!

Hello Friends

Happy March, my friends.  This last month has been a tough one for us.  A tiny 3 1/2 month old baby in our family has passed away.  I must say it has been impossible for me to write or even visit you.  I know these things happen, but I'm once again at a loss for coming to terms at this death.  To me a baby at the beginning of its life has many hopes and dreams to come.  I know that the Heavenly Father had other plans for this infant and she is resting in His arms.  If you will keep my loved ones in your prayers it would be so appreciated.

2 Kings 20:5

“I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you.”

Leaning on our faith and hope for our eternal home will sustain us during this time.