We bought our house without walking through it first, crazy, yes, regrets, at first, but we have created a space that is now completely our own. Let me give a little backstory. My parents have been in Florida for 20 years, and I always knew we would wind up down here. My father was hit by a car in his 40's and partially disabled. He was then hit again ( yes again), and is now paralyzed. With them getting older, it was inevitable we would wind up down here. We wanted a home near the water, and because this community has homes that sell quickly, we knew we had to jump on any home that came up for sale. We sent my mom to look at the home ( who must have had blinders on ) and bought the home based on photos. Lesson learned, the photos you see online look nothing like the house in person. We flew down for the home inspection and walked through the house for the first time after we made an offer. My photos will speak for themselves, but then there is smell. The owner smoked, had an old dog and did not clean. Luckily I am the HGTV addict and convinced my hubby that he needed to look beneath the dirt, smell and colors. I convinced him that under it all, I could create a beautiful home ( and it was a bargain ). We spent 1 full week cleaning before we made the actual move, and thank goodness we did. Our first night was a nightmare, picture an empty, dirty smelly house and us sleeping on an air mattress with no television. My poor hubby literally walked into the house, started to walk in circles and kept repeating "do you see everything we have to do?" After I walked him off the edge of the cliff, and half a bottle of spiced rum later, he did chill down. Then 2 months later came the move. Of course it snowed, we have never had snow that early in December, ever. I won't even go into the 1,000 mile drive from hell, needless to say at the end of the drive, much more alcohol was consumed. We tackled the house one room at a time, so of course our bedroom was first. I had free reign to pick out colors and decor, so I had a great time. I decided on a pastel color scheme, we are under a lot of trees, and the house felt so dark, so the pastels worked great. We love resale stores and finding bargains, luckily we scored a bedroom set when we came down in October. We took our bed from home and combined it with the dressers and nightstand from the resale store. The bed and other nightstand fit perfect in the spare room. I love the contrast of the darker wood with the light walls, and honestly you cannot even tell it is the same room ( thank goodness ). Once we got the first room done, hubby started to chill a little, until other crazy things went well, but that will be posted in the future. Always the bargain hunter, the found this beautiful comforter set at Walmart, the colors just all seem to go together. I am happy with the outcome, it is Florida like with a calming feel.
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I am working Mother's Day as usual, which is fine since I have no kids. I love people's expressions when I tell them I have no kids. I have heard everything from "It's never too late " ( um, yes, at almost 50 are you out of your mind ), to "Well, you could always adopt" ( after I explain my medical condition). Again, no, I am perfectly happy thank you very much. No, I do not feel like I missed out on anything, and no, I never had a strong burning desire to have kids.
Am I selfish? No, I don't think so, I have worked in pediatrics in the medical field for 19 years and I love coming home to just my husband and my cat. I don't get that warm fuzzy feeling when people say they are having a baby, I never got all that excited when all my friends had kids. I think some people just don't have that in them and that is fine. I am glad I never took the chance, my parents are not the warm fuzzy types, so maybe I inherited that. My husband married late in life and never had that urge either. I just don't understand especially in this day and age why people still feel like they HAVE to have kids. What I find really interesting is how many people I know who love their kids but admit that they sometimes regret having them. I think if you interviewed people off the record, many would admit the same thing. So, I get a Mother's Day card from my cat, sometimes flowers, this year, I just splurged on some Bath and Body Works. So Happy Mother's Day to all you fur baby moms out there, and just remember, your fur baby will never look like this. Yes, well, we have not even moved yet, we are in the final stages, but yes, we have been planning this for five years. I really recommend taking your time to plan out a move because moving, well as exciting as it can be, really sucks.
We started planning five years ago when my husband lost his corporate job at the age of fifty. Let's face it, it was hard enough to get a job then let alone being older. It pushed us to start making our getting the hell out of here plans. We decided to sell our 5 bedroom 2 bathroom house ( way too big for just the 2 of us anyway) and downsize to a 2 bedroom apartment, next door. Yep, we moved to the next house over. Our friends were living in a big old house which at one point had an apartment upstairs, so they converted the upstairs back to an apartment for us, which gave them income and a smaller space for all of us to take care of. This forced us for big purge number one. We put all our extra furniture on Craigs List, had a yard sale, and donated a whole truck of stuff. We are basically minimalist kind of people anyway, so shifting into a small space was not very difficult. We have just 2 sets of sheets, 2 sets of towels, and a single small closet with clothes. I am not a shopper, I despise it, so that definitely makes living in a small space easy. My biggest purge was my Christmas decorations, we had 2 trees and rooms of decorations, I have whittled that down to 2 totes, and that includes the tree. We are now planning our final move, to Florida from Delaware, with an 18 year old cat ( that may be a long blog post in itself ). We are not moving until December, but yes, I am already on a roll. We are only taking a 5 x 8 moving trailer, so we are taking our bed and kitchen table and boxes, that is it. I don't understand how people become so attached to items that they have to pay a fortune to move them. Moving is expensive, personally I would rather sell what little we have left and buy new fun furniture. I have already bagged up winter clothes and other items we are not using right now and they are being donated. I always donate to Vietnam Veterans of America, you can schedule online and they will come right to your front door, I highly recommend them if they are in your area. Here is where you can look up their information. We do not have kids, so we are lucky we don't have to worry about toys and things like that, but if you do, I would start planning really early. We visited U Haul and checked out boxes and other moving supplies. I have a notebook where I track prices of supplies and all other move related information. I even took an entire day and researched doctors, dentists, eye doctors etc and made a list of potential candidates. We are still waiting to see what is going on with health care reform, but at least I started to do my homework. We actually go to settlement next month, but are not moving until December. The house was owned by an older woman who has health issues, so the house needs a whole lot of cleaning. In fact, we may have to buy stock in some cleaning supplies. Our plan ( have you noticed we are big planners ) is to go down in the fall and scrub the place down, buy a few pieces of furniture and at least get it sort of up to speed before December. We figured this way when we get there the worst cleaning will be done and we can concentrate on getting in ( with the ancient cat ). If you have a lot of stuff or kids, I really recommend you start planning your move way in advance to make it less stressful. And since I mentioned him so much, here is the ancient, nearly toothless kitty who will join us on our next adventure. What do you give mom for Mother's Day? Roses, flowers, candy? Why not give her something that is handmade in America and will last forever? We have a variety of handmade décor that would make a perfect gift for mom. So celebrate mom's special day in a unique way. I also have digital art prints as well. For a list including those, you can head on over to my gift guide that is located on this site. As always, thanks for supporting small business!
Inspiration for creating products is really all around you. We are lucky to have a schedule where we are off Monday through Friday. Three seasons out of the year we spend those days in Maryland crabbing, fishing and boating. We are outdoor people and just thrive being out on the water. We also love to travel, and I love exploring what different states have to offer. Based on those loves, I created a product line that includes crabs and fish, yes, it is a small niche market, but it is a passion, and I absolutely love making them. It is probably wrong to have a favorite, but I absolutely adore this guy. The idea just popped in my head when we were down in Maryland, and I knew I just had to make it. We have a quirky sense of humor as well, and wanted to create items that are not to be taken too seriously. These are all inspired by our little slice of heaven. We also wanted to create signs that you will never find in a store.
We create these signs out of select pine wood, and are handmade here in America, which we believe is really important. Even the saw tooth hangers we buy are made in America. So support small business, show off your love of the outdoors, and support handmade in America! Thank you all for your business and support... Dawn and Greg I had a request from a coworker who wanted two signs in a certain color and sign design. Absolutely! I love to make something different, and here is how it is done. Here is what you need for this technique:
Here is the reclaimed wood that I used. Now, after sanding the heck out of the wood, I painted them with a rough coat of paint, since these will be rustic, I am not too picky with how well it looks, these get sanded again after the paint dries. My coworker wanted a certain saying and had a rough idea of the design, so I created the design in Photoshop for her and let her see the mock up to make sure she liked it. I measured the sign and then put the dimensions in Photoshop and created the sign design. I colorized the wood in Photoshop and added the design to it so she could get a rough idea of what it would look like. I then did the same thing to the other design. Once I got the ok, it is time to get to work. I use an ink transfer technique for my signs, I am going for rustic, so this works just fine. I have an inkjet printer and I use transparency paper. You will see all kinds of tutorials on adding gel medium with this technique, but I just use the plain old transparency and my ink jet. There are some very important points to note here:
Once your lovely creation has dried, I seal it up good with spar urethane. I let my hubby drill the holes in the one sign, I am not real great with power tools. I just looped the jute rope through and tied a good knot. On the other sign, I put a saw tooth hanger on the back. While these are sealed, they are not to be put outside, the ink transfer does not hold up in rain, I learned that from making my own signs.
So there you go! I love custom orders, so come visit the shop! Dawn |
AuthorHi! My name is Dawn and I am the owner, designer, and creator of The Quirky Image. I just retired after 25 years in the medical field, and am living the dream in sunny Florida with my husband. Archives
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