Good Night All

These two lambs make me very sleepy🥱😴

Sleep well. xo

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MOVIE to WATCH: Educating Rita (1983) with Michael Caine

This is one of my favorite movies! I watched it on YouTube last night and thoroughly enjoyed it once again. I have always loved Michael Caine. Julie Walters is the other star.

If you want to go directly to YouTube to watch this free film, click on the link provided below. Enjoy. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeDf0dHBhBI

Have a fabulous long Memorial Day weekend. xo

Irish Cottage with Daffodils

Just lovely. The clumps of daffodils scattered over the lawn are perfect. Have a great Memorial Day Weekend. xo via

A Corner of My Bedroom Showing AC Decorative Vent Cover

I haven't featured any photos of my bedroom lately. Here's a photo of the ceiling vent cover and some of my bookshelves. I love my blue and white checked curtains that have been remade over and over since 1972. They started out life in a NYC rental for sliding glass doors going out to a terrace. I purchased the fabric on the lower east side. xo

Handyman Coming Today to Attach My Ceiling Projects

I repainted the Regio Register air conditioning vent covers yesterday, just in time. This afternoon at 4:00 my young handyman is coming to put them back in place. He wasn't expecting the project to be so advanced and I'm sure he was secretly thrilled I had done so much by myself. The two very large ones are for a vertical wall in the attic. The rest go in the ceiling on my main floor. They are heavy and I thing I will somehow have to help holding each one in place while he drills them. I got a tube super tacky construction adhesive that "grabs" in 30 seconds but I'm not putting much trust that it will work but maybe it will. I have a long telescoping pole with a lambswool covered blade on the end for washing windows outside. Maybe I can hold these in place somehow if needed. Wish me luck. Will post photos later.

For anyone who hasn't been following this project, click the link for the complete history. 

https://contentinacottage.blogspot.com/2022/05/my-tools-of-trade.html

xo

It was definitely a two-person job and all 7 vent covers are back in place. I had everything very organized and we were finished in an hour. 

My telescoping window washing pole came in very handy. I pushed the rod with the lamb's wool cover against each ceiling mounted vent cover after the construction adhesive was applied while my handyman screwed them in place. It's dipping down to 45° tonight so I have no need for air conditioning but when it gets hot, I'm ready with all the louvers in the open position. In the fall, it will be a snap to close them. Another project completed successfully. I am thrilled. xo

Morning after in my bathroom. Nothing fell down from 5 ceiling-mounted installations during the night😂 The two large ones in the attic were wall mounted and were a snap to put back. The only hard thing about those two was turning one in another direction so I could get my screwdriver inside to open and close the fins of he louvers. Luckily it was square so the placement of the screws didn't matter. Believe me, these things took a lot of engineering and I had to orchestrate every step. I think my young handman appreciated all of my prep work and he probably learned a lot in the process. I have already shared him with one of my girlfriends who needs window boxed installed.

Classical Architecture in Houston Texas

If that's a sleeping porch over the open porch, I'm in love. 

You can't have too many porches, can you?  

The rocking chair porch too.

Found on Instagram 

Curtis & Windham Architects

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cdoqkn-vQse/

 

17th Century Hand Embroidered Bed Hanging

In the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in The American Wing. See many more detailed photos here. Cotton/Linen embroidered with red wool. Size is 76" x 74" with a scalloped border. Intensely embroidered all over! The design was stamped on the fabric in England but probably embroidered in the New World. The panel descended in the Clapp family, members of which emigrated from England to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1680. It's amazing this needlework survived isn't it? Enjoy!

Gorgeous Outdoor Cat

Gorgeous cat in a beautiful setting. via 

Have a great weekend. xo

My Tools of The Trade

Doesn't everybody's kitchen counter look like this? I am in the midst of one of the hardest projects I have ever undertaken. Think trying to fit a square peg into a round hole! All of my central air conditioning ducts are in the ceilings and they don't have louvers behind the grilles and are always ON. In the winter all the warm air escapes making my house colder than it should be. I ordered the louvers and am in the midst of retrofitting them behind the decorative grilles made by Reggio Registers. My ceilings are plaster from the late 1930s and it took me over 3 hours on one hole yesterday chiseling out the ragged edges to get one louver in place. You know I don't admit defeat easily so I am all caffeinated and ready to attack the one over the other French door in my living room. 

My Grilles are in this design, 

painted the same color as the ceilings.

https://www.reggioregister.com/

Louvers look like this.

Wish me luck. Sometimes I wonder why almost nothing in my life is easy and ordinary? Is this because I live in an old house or do I just look for seemingly impossible projects to make my life easier that actually make my life harder while the work is being done? That is the question. xo

Workin' wear. Yesterday I didn't have a hat and didn't put on goggles or a mask until well into the project. Today it was all about Safety First.

Today's louver was inserted in 15 minutes. YAY!

I have ordered some white pliable clay that will air dry in 24 hours and be hard enough to drill thru (fingers crossed). I thought that would be neater than spackle. I want to encapsulate all this stuff that looks like crumbling concrete. It should be delivered today. I still have to scrape all the gunk from behind the grilles that stuck when removing them. To close the louver, I have to attach the grille in the proper direction so I can reach thru one of the openings with a screwdriver to close the louvers for winter. This can only work in one direction so I have to make sure it's correct before screws are inserted. 

The DAS clay is made in Italy! 

It looks like a block of Cream Cheese.

It initially looks a little gray but dries bright white

This clay comes in a terracotta color too.

Would be great for flower pot repairs.

Here is my first encapsulation after a overnight drying session.

It's not pretty but functional. I had to rebuild an area behind the left screw hole because material behind it fell out and I had to completely rebuild the right-hand screw hole because the chunk fell out. All of this unsightly mess is completely covered by the grille. 

Larger view of the construction site.

xo

BEST JOYFUL MOTHER'S DAY for AN OWL (Video)

For the last two years, a hopeful owl named Luna has tried to be a mom. Sadly, however, despite her best efforts, things just didn’t pan out. “Not only did her eggs fail to hatch this year, but she also lost her clutch last year,” Robert E. Fuller, a British wildlife rehabilitator, wrote. But this year, Luna’s wish finally came true. 

When Fuller came to learn of two owl chicks who’d become orphaned and were in need of a parent, his thoughts turned to Luna. Knowing that her maternal instincts were going unfulfilled again this year, he decided to introduce Luna to the two needy babies.

Fuller placed them inside her nest, awaiting her return. But would she accept them?

Footage of what happened in the video above erased all doubt. 

Have you ever seen such a joyful reaction?????? 

Love at first sight.🦉♡♡ 

This wonderful story was found here.

Watch this 28 minute film when you have time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN3gfeFtpz4  

It's by 

Robert E.Fuller too and is entitled 

Tawny Owl Chicks Flourish Against All Odds 🐥 |Tawny Owls of Ash Wood 🦉

PS: I read some of the comments on YouTube and found this one. 

 "Even better is knowing Luna was a foster owlet too." 

Isn't that amazing????? Do you think she remembers she was a foster child? 

This story just keeps getting better and better. 

Another commenter said HE WAS RAISED BY OWLS😂

Old Fashioned Laundry Room

I have a "thing" for old porcelain sinks and this is one that's new to me. Love the overhead pull-down drying rack. This might be a country kitchen too. Anyway, there are other laundry rooms here for you to check out. My own kitchen sink wears many hats as a potting shed sink, dish-washing sink, hand-laundry sink, hair-washing sink, and can rise to many more non-culinary occasions when called upon. XO

A New Way to Exercise

Click on this link to watch.

Turn on the sound.

This is the most amazing thing EVER.

So inspiring.

The lady in the suit can really cut a rug.

Enjoy. xo

Great Screen Porch

Pretty nice, isn't it? So simple and classic.

Screened in porches always bring back fond summer memories. Photo found here. xo

New Antique Chair in My Living Room

This Gothic Revival chair between my TV and a sofa (not shown) to the right has a mate that lives in my entrance vestibule. It's perfect there when I need to sit and put on my boots or put down a parcel. I bought the pair several weeks ago at a local garage sale. This morning I put a blooming geranium on this one for a Sunday morning photo shoot. It's a dreary day having rained all night and that's fine with me. 

I have had a young handyman working off and on for weeks doing odd jobs I cannot do myself (like sheetrock removal and replacement for a soffit in a bathroom). Water damage is the worst and I had two episodes over the years in my cottage. One was when the pan under attic central air conditioning unit overflowed and found a path all the way to my mother's quarters in my walk-out lower level, too nice to be called a basement. The other time I had water was due to a roof leak. The ceiling in the hallway near my first floor bedroom needed scraping, spackling, and painting. I found other places in both bedrooms that had peeling plaster that needed repair too. So there was sanding in those rooms too before painting. The first floor repairs were finished a week or two ago and everything's back in order after two deep vacuuming sessions.

The soffit had to be totally replaced in a full bath downstairs and some other ceiling repairs down there too requiring spackling, sanding, and painting. He did a great job and I am very pleased. The paint matches perfectly too. I got everything back in order in the kitchen and hallway down there and today I will do the bedroom and sitting room. I just need to put all the drop cloths back where they belong and do a deep vacuum cleaning and I will be all set. My laundry list is getting shorter but there are still things to do. There is an old saying, "Life is 90% maintenance" and that sounds about right, doesn't it? Those who aren't homeowners spend it on self care. DIY homeowners ask themselves whether they should get a manicure or weed the garden? I have never had a manicure and have no plans to get one😂

Enjoy your Sunday. xo

Here is a closeup of the back of the chair. A small piece of moulding is missing from the center column. The companion chair in my vestibule is missing all three little pieces at the columns' bases. I might try carving the replacement one of these days. xo

Great Kitchen in Edinburgh Scotland

I found more photos and an article about a kitchen I blogged about recently and loved here. I thought it might be in France but turns out it's in Edinburgh in a Georgian Apartment. Now I love it even more. Read the article and see more photos here. Enjoy. xo

 

Two Easy Chairs Beside Fireplace

I like this chair arrangement a lot. You will enjoy seeing the rest of this Washington townhouse decorated for Christmas here. Sorry it's out of season but I couldn't wait.🎄

Tiny Hand-Written Book by 13 Year Old Charlotte Brontë 1829

Think tinier than a playing card. 

April 26, 2022: A tiny manuscript by then-teenage author Charlotte Brontë will be returned to the parsonage where she lived her entire life. Friends of the National Libraries (FNL), a British nonprofit, purchased the book, which contains Brontë’s only remaining unpublished poetry, for $1.25 million, and will donate it to the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, England, per a museum release. The article says you need a magnifying glass in order to read her poems. Read the Smithsonian Magazine article here. 

Sold by James Cummins Bookseller, New York City at the Park Avenue Armory's 62nd Annual New York International Antiquarian Book Fair (NYIABF). I know him personally and have sold a few rare books to him and bought many from him in his NJ Shop. This is such an exciting find, isn't it?

Screen Door Season is Upon Us

This screen door is perfectly designed for this Dutch door. When the bottom door is closed and the glazed Dutch door is open you see nothing but the plain screen. Love it! via

This is a delightful entrance foyer, isn't it?

Sheep Portrait

At first I thought this was a 6-legged sheep and then I saw the outline of an extra ear. It's a lovely portrait, isn't it? via

Wonderful Setting

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I trued to find out more about this photo to no avail. I want to see more! Hope you all had a nice Mother's Day. xo