Barbarian Days: A Family Doctor's Home in the 1920s & 1930s (the Home of Author Robert E Howard)

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Cross Plains, Texas, and toured the Robert E Howard home as part of their "Barbarian Days Festival".  Howard's father was Dr. Isaac M. Howard. This simple frame house served as the family home, and, also, sometimes, doubled as Dr Howard's office where patients were seen. The home was continually in use as a place to live for various families from the time Dr Howard sold it until Cross Plains' Operation Pride recovered it for preservation in 1989.

 Since that time, they have worked to furnish it with period furnishings and house those artifacts they can obtain (such as the camel inkwell that stood on Howard's desk - a gift from Cecil Lotief, local Cross Plains  dry goods merchant - and first Texas legislator who had been born in Lebanon. He was first elected in 1932). Other furnishings are close copies of items either known to have been there, or true to the period.  Below is a photo of Bob Howard in front of this house, circa 1925.

My main interest was that I enjoy touring simple historical homes: the kind of house in which ordinary citizens lived a hundred years ago. In this case, the home of an ordinary small-town family physician. During that epoch in American history, there were similarities among all Americans of frugality, economy of space and furnishings, and natural closeness of proximity to household members and neighbors, that is readily apparent when we walk through such a home and consider how life would be lived in it.

 By today's standards, the author's cell-like bedroom/study (below) is tiny, cramped, and simple. But by the standards of the day (continuing even up into the 1970s in most of the country), it was probably much like the rooms of Howard's own unmarried peers. The room offered simple comfort, privacy, a bright and airy place in which to write and attend to the voluminous correspondence an author would keep up in that era when postcards and letters would be mailed daily for the same purposes email and messaging would serve today. 

The bare bulb was a common feature of most homes until new homes built in the prosperous 1950s and 60s popularized inexpensive, built-in light fixtures. My grandmother's house had several while I was growing up.  Our current house still had bare bulbs in the mid-1940s during WWII, when Rita's family first moved here, and it was the first time they had electricity. This house at that time had 4 rooms - and her family rented one of them out to a soldier and his wife, who kept all their household goods in that one small bedroom, brought pots out to cook and went back into their room to eat their meals! This gives an idea of how economically indoor space was used during these earlier eras.

 Porches were converted into bedrooms more often than not - and existing windows and doors were just left intact. During pre-electric times, such windows and doors still had use for ventilation and light, just like the transoms found above interior doors in so many old homes. If not needed to carry daylight and breezes, these unused windows and doors were often covered permanently with a heavy curtain or drape to block light and drafts, and furniture would be placed in front of it as though it were a solid wall.

My mother's house, of similar or slightly earlier vintage as this one, has two such converted porches: one very similar to this one resulted in her kitchen having a window-to-nowhere (well, technically, a window-into-the-next-room). Her kitchen also has another window that faces into the remaining screened "sleeping porch" that could have been, if needed, similarly converted. The other converted porch left a door-to-nowhere behind the sofa in her living room (but alas, there is no "door into summer"!).

Not only were bedrooms added to accommodate growing families, but also young adults tended to live at home until they married, and were given their own space by adding a room or converting a porch. Our house has a converted porch that we now use as the laundry room. but which once turned a crowded 4-room house into a three-bedroom home  and housed a family's sons, who had previously slept in the living room.

From the back, it is each to see the flat roof of the addition - also very common for what is known as "lean-to" add-ons. Our house has a similar flat roof over the portion added in the 1970s.
 

 I was particularly interested to see the plate block for Dr. Howard's original bookplate (or Ex Libris as some call them). It is a linoleum cut and bears the doctor's own signature. A corresponding print from it is framed with it, but I couldn't tell whether the plate was designed to make prints onto gummed paper for application, or to print directly onto a book's fore-leaf.

 The docents at the museum, all members of Cross Plains' Project Pride, were wonderful, and I appreciated their friendly guidance through the tour. Here is one of these nice ladies with the Cross Plains Centennial Quilt, displayed in Mr and Mrs Howard's bedroom of the home, to which she had contributed a square. Each block was made by local women to celebrate the town's history, and its recovery from the devastating wild fires that burned 130 homes and killed two people in 2005.

 We wrapped up the day with the Barbarian Festival in a lovely, oak-shaded park, complete with live music, free watermelon (courtesy of AMA-Techtel), Conan the Barbarian artwork, and fabulous food. There was even a car show. This is an annual event and it was a lot of fun. I hope we will be able to go again from time to time!

Much more about Howard, his writing, his family, and life can be found at various places, including REH: Two-Gun Raconteur, REHupa (the Robert E Howard United Press Association), and the Robert E Howard Foundation.

7/4/12 Update: Thanks to OpiningOnline.com for the link! :-)

A Fresh Strawberry Cake for a Springtime Birthday Dinner

Our granddaughter (or "Grand angel" as Paul calls her) asked for a strawberry cake and filet mignon for her birthday. Oh boy! I got to set a pretty pink table and use my pretty "new" flea market dishes, along with my old family pieces!

The footed iced tea glasses, in the Mayfair pattern, are heirlooms: they belonged to Big Grandmother - my great-grandmother, Mema's mother. I inherited her pink depression glass, mostly in the Cherry Blossom pattern - the cake plate is one of those pieces.

The plates are a recent find, with hand-painted wild roses in pink with green leaves. They look very much like Franciscan's Desert Rose. They were made by Villeroy and Bach, a good brand, but they were quite dirty from having been packed in newspaper and so were priced very cheap. A good scrub with my glass cooktop cleaner (I use Ceramabrite - it's basically a polishing glass wax) took the stains right off.

 

My table is oval, and it is impossible to find tablecloths in that shape, so I end up using oblong ones. This vintage damask linen is one of the few oval table cloths I have. The pink is such a pretty shade.

Paul cooked a lovely meal: filet mignon, baked potato, our own asparagus with a saffron sauce. For starters, he made a hot chicken dip that she'd also requested - one of her mother's recipes. It was yummy, and I'll share the recipe for that another time.

Here's the recipe for the cake - it got raves all around and has a lovely fresh taste. Keeps so well in the refigerator. It is one I will make again: nice and cool for a summer barbeque, and it is best if made in advance. That's important for me: things I can make up the night before, to save time and fit my schedule.

Pretty & Pink Fresh Strawberry Cake

Ingredients

1 boxed yellow cake mix
3 tablespoons flour
1 small box strawberry gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
3 1/2 cups of strawberries (a one pound carton)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1 8 ounce package cream cheese
3 to 4 cups powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour three round cake pans.

Pour the water into a large mixing bowl and sprinkle gelatin on top. Let it sit to dissolve.

Wash the berries. Pick out 5 or 6 pretty strawberries for garnish and set them aside. Hull the rest of them. Take another cup full of whole, hulled berries and set them aside - they will be sliced for the layers later.

Take one cup of strawberries and chop finely. Add them to the mixing bowl with gelatin, and beat on high for a couple of minutes, then add the remaining ingredients: cake mix, flour, eggs, oil. Beat at medium speed for 5 minutes.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cake pans. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool cakes in the pans 5 or 10 minutes, then turn out and complete cooling on wire racks.

Chop one cup of strawberries finely and sprinkle with sugar in a small bowl. Let them sit a few minutes to draw excess liquid out, then drain them.

Whip the cream and set aside. Cream the butter, cream cheese, sugar and the drained, chopped strawberries until light and fluffy then add the whipped cream. If necessary, add more powdered sugar until the frosting holds peaks. Refrigerate the frosting until you are ready to ice the cake.

Slice the rest of the strawberries (except the ones to be used for garnish - leave them aside for now) into very thin slices.

When layers are cool, place one on a cake plate. Spread frosting on top evenly to the edges. Arrange half of your thinly sliced strawberries all over the top of this layer, then put the next cake layer on top of that and repeat, using the rest of the thinly sliced berries on this layer.

Top with the 3rd layer and frost the top and sides thickly with the frosting.

Do not garnish until right before serving, as the juice from cut berries will drip down the sides of the cake. To avoid this, you could garnish with a single whole berry in the center.

When ready to serve, add the strawberries for garnish - in this photo, Paul showed me how to fan the center one by leaving the hull on, and slicing through from bottom to top, leaving the slices attached at the hull end, then twist slightly to fan it out. The other berries were simply cut in half and arranged around it.

Store this cake in the refrigerator and serve chilled. It keeps beautifully and is best made a day or two before.

Enjoy!

Proud Mom Says "Hello Beautiful New Kitchen! "

Kids. You bring them into the world, feed them their spinach, teach them the things you know, worry about them constantly, and what do you get?

Well, this summer, I got a gorgeous new kitchen!

And all I asked Devin to do was to take off the old counter top and put down new cement board so that I could tile the counter.

Did he listen? Nooooooo. He said we needed new cabinets, nicer ones. I said we couldn't afford that. He said That's ok, he would build them. And he did.

Aren't they marvelous? They have a kind of Arts & Crafts character that fits well with the house, and help the tiny kitchen feel more substantial. I still need to paint the ceiling and do a few other things but couldn't wait any longer to share the pictures!

He raised the upper cabinet on the far left so that Paul's Kitchenaid mixer would fit under it. So finally, we don't have to store it elsewhere and haul it over to the counter to use it. As a result, I've used the stand mixer more in the past couple of months than I did in the past five years!

The glass doors were his idea too. That lets us show off some of the vintage dishes we've collected, and that we use daily.


The kitchen sink was the only splurge I made (it cost more than the dishwasher - which, BTW, I got from a small Sears Catalog Store for a very good price). Originally, I wanted an undivided deep sink, but no porcelain enamel ones were available locally, so I settled for this one, which has a low divider only a few inches high. It really gives us the best of both worlds! Our largest bowls and cookie sheets will fit under the faucet, yet we can still run a sink of dish water.

It's a good thing Devin is strong... he swears the sink weighs 300 pounds!  Can I help it if cast iron is heavy? ;-)

The tile work was a joint Son/Mom project and I did a lot of the work (Devin made the complex cuts and laid the straight lines). I still have to finish the trim tiles around the top of the back splash - couldn't install them until he'd completed trimming out the cabinets.

I used plain white 4"x 4" tiles. At 16 cents each, they are a great bargain. The glass mosaic accent tiles came in 12x12 sheets and we cut them apart to highlight the backsplash.We learned long ago to never never never use white grout! The grout used here is called "earth" color: it is exactly the same color as coffee stains. On purpose. I sealed it anyway but with that dark color, no matter how much coffee we manage to spill all over the counter the grout will always look good. :-)

Instead of using tile to edge the countertops, Devin used wood trim, stained and finished to match the cabinets themselves. As a result, the whole thing looks like a piece of furniture with the top integral to the base.

When I got ready to tile the divider that separates the kitchen from the living room (the only remaining original cabinet), the sheets were on clearance, so I was able to get enough to complete the entire top for about $30. It is dressier than the others, so makes for a nice transition.

I've shared Devin's handiwork on here before. He and Nicolas both enjoy woodworking. Their great-grandfather taught them the basics in his shop from the time they were small. Watching either of them work, I'm reminded of how Nandy worked: patient, methodical, thoughtful. Devin made an interesting observation while he was here. He commented that he's come to realize that Nandy was "a practical carpenter" - his work was always made with an eye to being useful, good for its purpose, rather than designed for appearance.


Devin's artistic talent joins his practical heritage in the things he builds, so the results reflect fine design and lasting beauty, as well as being perfectly formed for their function.

Devin and Sandy are moving in about a month to the Irving Texas area. Sandy has started a new job, and we thought for a while they would move far away. After he rushed to complete the kitchen before their move, they learned that instead she can work from Texas. So Irving it is. We are so delighted they will still be nearby.

And not just because he keeps remodeling the house for us! Heh!

A Few More Examples of Vintage Mexican Pottery

For those of us in the Southwest, the fusion of cultures has always been evident in our lives, and a big part of the reason we are so passionate about the places we live.

Who are we? We're Texans. We aren't Swedish-Texans or Mexican-Texans or African-Texans or German-Texans or Vietnamese-Texans or Spanish-Texans or Californian-Texans or New Yorker-Texans. No matter where we're from or how we grew up, we aren't hyphenated: we're all one. The American Melting Pot is alive and well and still doing its good work in Texas.

This applies to our decorating styles as well as the way we live and go about our business every day. And Mexican pottery is a part of the exuberant style that characterizes Texas homes of all sorts.

Some of Pecan Corner's more popular posts, week in and week out, are about collecting vintage Mexican pottery. So I thought I'd show off some more of my collection, and add a little information about the styles and types.

The pieces that stay with me are special in their own right - my focus has always been simply whether I love the individual piece. As antiquers, though, we've sold a lot of it over the years, and I tend to sell things if the price shoots up - mainly so I don't have to worry about breaking something valuable! So while I never needed to learn about it in order to collect, I did learn some things in order to sell those pieces that don't need to stay in my house.

There was a time where Mexican pottery chicken casseroles were as common in Texas homes as Singer sewing machines. For years, we bought them weekly and sold them just as quickly. So many of them have moved in to larger collections now that they are harder to find. This one was a present from Paul a couple of years ago. We think the "come hither" look in her eyes is adorable.

This pottery skillet is done in a style called "Fantasia", for obvious reasons. Most commonly found in the blue decoration on cream colored background like this one, it can also be found in other colors, such as green
on terracotta ground. The all-over pattern of stylized florals and animals in a single color is the telltale characteristic. Paul loves this, and is partial to the blue-and-cream.

The urn-shaped vases in this group are my favorite type of ware, called "Petatillo". The detailed crosshatching filling all the space surrounding the main images make it immediately recognizable. Written in pencil on the bottom of the largest one is "Guadalahara Bought in Tampico 1939". The middle-sized one has the partial remains of its original paper label "La Casa Del _____ Monterrey".

This colorful wall plate is purely decorative, and made of "burnished ware", meaning the partially-dried clay was rubbed, or burnished, to a sheen with a stick. Probably made in Tonala, this technique was shared by pueblo Indian potters, including the famous San Ildefonso wares. It isn't as highly fired as the lead-glazed redware that is my favorite, so it didn't last as long, but it has a character all its own.

My bean pots are just that: bean pots. Made for households to cook in, utilitarian but still decorated to make the work a little more pleasant. we all love pretty dishes, no matter what culture we come from. And that may be almost instinctual - pottery making was one of mankind's earliest arts, and those early pieces are identifiable because they are decorated.

In our globally-uniform professionally-marketed designer-driven retail culture, everything is the same, no matter where it is from. Machine-made or hand-made doesn't change that, and we can find ourselves driven from novelty to novelty in a fruitless search for the authentic and original.

This old pottery is both of those things. Authentic and produced by people who sold it to make a living using the materials at hand and the techniques developed by their grandfathers, original in the work of each artist that painted it using his own ideas and natural talent to express himself that day.

It is what it is. There's very little we can truthfully say that about these days.

6/6/11 Update: Thanks to Pat @ SIGIS for the link! :-)

Refinishing the Bath Tub

As I mentioned in the bathroom remodeling post, our choices with the worn-nearly-down-to-metal porcelain enamelled cast iron tub were to (a) bring in a cutting torch and cut it in half to enable two power-lifters to carry it out through the door or (b) tear out the entire exterior wall of the room including removing the weight-bearing framing in order to hoist it out that way.

We chose (c): give the ugly tub a make-over and restore its erstwhile beauty.

I had planned to have a professional come refinish the tub, but no one local does this. So, I bought a two-part spray epoxy kit called "Magic ReNew Tub and Tile Refinishing", and did it myself.

Some years ago, I used spray Appliance Epoxy to paint a built-in oven exterior with good and lasting results. So I figured, as bad as this tub was, I certainly couldn't make it worse by trying.

If we only had one bathroom, we'd have had to arrange to shower at a friend's and brush our teeth in the kitchen for the couple of weeks this project required. As it was, we have two so just kept the door shut on this one.

The hardest part was cleaning and prep. This took a long time (several repetitive hours over the course of a week), but the final result will not work if the preparation is not scrupulous. Any residue of soap or oil hidden in a scratch will prevent the epoxy from adhering and cause it to peel.  I was careful not to stay on my knees too much and did as much work as possible from a crouch or sitting position.

I removed the drain cover and overflow cover before starting. The I put on my goggles, my rubber gloves, and set to work. I scrubbed, cleaned with TSP (per directions on refinishing kit & using all precautions listed on the TSP package itself), sanded, steel wooled.. then scrubbed, cleaned with TSP, sanded, steel wooled... some more for at least three times. I'd work on it after work each evening until I gave out, then start over the next day.

After the final final rinse, I let it dry for several days. That's another essential - absolute dryness.  Then I  masked EVERYTHING.

Seriously, this job can't be done without covering everything from the floor to walls with sheets and paper, as the spray paint will drift and settle and is impossible to remove. I left it all masked until the whole job was finished.

I followed all instructions carefully, especially the safety instructions, and including the interesting chill one/heat one method for mixing the contents of the two cans.

This task requires an experienced hand with canned spray paint. It would be wise to practice by repainting a set of wicker lawn furniture or something until one gets comfortable with the on/off, back/forth motion that covers without drips. I applied the several coats of epoxy over a course of days in the evenings, and closed that bathroom off completely to allow the full length of time to cure undisturbed.

While I will not be volunteering to do this for anyone else, and I still would recommend a professional if you can possibly get one, I am VERY happy with the results for a "homemade" job of it.

Bluebird Bathroom Remodel

This house is over a hundred years old, and when we bought it, we locked the door on the old smallest bathroom until we could get it redone. As it turned out, my eldest, Devin, took the bull by the horns and rebuilt it. What a wonderful thing a son is! :-)

Here's the finished product:

And here's the scary "before":

The old floor had rotted, except for that under the cast iron tub, so he took it down to earth and built a new subfloor for the main part of the room. While the floor was out, he also did some leveling and reinforcing.

Tearing into an old house is always an adventure. (Maybe I'll post pictures nexxt Halloween ;-) )The original wall is solid wood boards, and backs up on a bedroom. Not wanting to lose space in either room by messing with the wall, we made the choices to limit what we did there. Thus, the single high electrical outlet is still the only one; and the medicine cabinet hangs on the wall instead of being recessed.

The room is 3 feet wide by 8 feet long, not counting the tub enclosure/hot water heater closet. Replaced the toilet and added a small pedestal sink to free up as much space as possible, but removing half a ton of bathtub wasn't happening, so I refinished it (more on that later, in my next post).

The new window went into the same hole the old one came out of - again to avoid a cascade of consequences: the solid wood exterior wall, the exterior siding, and more important, the location of structural elements.

We did add a shower, which this bath had never had, and the window placement presented a clallenge there. The window extends into the shower enclosure past the edge of the tub, so there isn't a wall area to attach a curtain rod on that end.  We handled that by using a curved shower rod - worked like a charm!

Paul said "I can't believe you actually had a laundry bag with bluebirds on it!"  It has been in the laundry room for a while but it never really "fit" in there - this is a much nicer spot for it. It pays sometimes to be a packrat.

The pale baby blue and white are comforting in such a small room. The curtains are a pair of crisp cotton pillowcases with a rod pocket sewn into the top. The soft vintage embroidery at the wide hem is touched with blue.

These little sconce shelves are made of metal - iron, I think.




This little guy is from the 1960s heyday of ceramic and chalkware figural wall art. He's made of ceramic and I love his pretty googly eyes!

This glass Blue Bird of Happiness hides in the medicine cabinet, along with an antique Victorian Sunday School card and assorted pretty guest soaps,  ready to promote a smile from a visitor.

The bluebirds were a sort of accident - I didn't have to buy a single one. Who knew there were so many blue bird themed items lurking around my house?

The famed Bluebird of Happiness does live in one's own backyard... and kitchen cupboard... and desk drawer... and linen closet... and laundry room... Hee!

The entire project took Devin several days of hard work over the course of a couple of months  - rushing down here to work on his days off when he wasn't needed at home (he lives four hours away).  The demolition was the most difficult part. What an amazing rennovation once it was complete!

What an amazing son to do this for us. Thank you so much Honey!

If You Love Paris

Erin Elizabeth, of the blog My Heart Belongs To Me (link from the sidebar as well), recently traveled to France with her sister Neile. Her posts overflow with memorable photos of Paris - can you smell the rain on the avenue, the clementines in the market, the flowers on the vendor's corner, the sugar from the treat shop window?

The "love locks" along the Seine made my heart melt. What a romantic little memento to leave along the way in a love story!

From mossy tombs to modern museums, from french fashion to fresh design, from morning of the day to the lively night, Erin's posts make for a lovely armchair afternoon in the city of light.

we’ll always have paris

paris. day 1.

paris. day 2.

paris. day 3.

paris. day 4.

paris. day 5.

paris. day 6.

Vintage Bedroom Design: Classic Blue and Yellow and Duncan Phyfe

I love this room. It started with a set of little vases from the Spode Blue Room collection - classic English florals in blue, on a yellow ground. It has taken a long time, since many things I'm using are vintage, or need to match exactly. Still looking for Duncan Phife bedside tables, and I need another half yard of fabric to make a shade for the door, but patience has paid off. Now that it is nearly finished, it is as pretty as I had hoped. And Paul likes it too - by avoiding ruffles and frills, I was able to keep it from being too feminine, even despite the floral pattern.

Paul had already suggested yellow for the room, and we matched the wall paint to the porcelain in the Spode vases, which I found while shopping with Devin and Sandy and all the kids at TJ Maxx. That was a fun day!


Next I went hunting for an old fashioned bed spread. We don't like comforters because we sleep under quilts, and comforters are too heavy, too slippery. At the time, I couldn't find one anywhere. I've since discovered that the best places for real bedspreads are companies like Miles Kimball, Lillian Vernon, Walter Drake, and such - great prices and pretty selections.

Anyway, I couldn't find one, so I ended up buying a beautiful Waverly fabric "Claremont", that was being closed out at Hancock Fabrics, and making my own spread and shams. My spread is simple, with no ruffles or piping. The shams were shockingly easy to make - I just looked at the ones I had and copied the pattern. Our padded headboard was originally covered with white cotton duck, from when we lived on the beach, and the new cover for it is just a case that slides on - easy as pie. I even made an "antimacassar" for Paul to rest his head against, since he likes to sit in bed and watch tv.

Instructions for making the padded, upholstered cornice board are in the post right below this one. Nick made the frame for me and it was very easy to cover and hang. Paul has commented several times how much he likes it. Since we both prefer simple window treatments, this finishes the window nicely.

Here again is furniture on legs: up off the floor seems to help create more space. The room is bright, sunny, and cheerful, no matter how dreary the weather.


I searched for over a year for a chair, and found this perfect leather wingback in an antique shop that Nick and Lani took me to on South Congress Street in Austin. It was in pristine condition, matched my swatch perfectly and priced to sell. What fun we had that day, and the chair reminds me of them each time I see it!

The picture above the chair was my souvenir from a visit to Westminster Abbey, a signed and numbered print by Angela Fielder. The Heron Rookery print above the chest of drawers is from Kenspeckle - link in my sidebar, I think that one is still available. And the picture above the bed is an original, vintage 1952, by Dura M Clarke.

Remember I said we collect what we like, and only one has to like it? That picture "The Aegeans" is one of those. Paul loved it from the minute he first saw it and I did not. However, after putting it in a new mat, with a new frame, and hanging in the right spot, I find I am enjoying it more as time goes by. It works beautifully over the padded headboard.


While we search for matching bedside tables, a vintage mexican tile tray tops a small cabinet next to the bed.

The rug I found in an antiques mall in Abilene. Isn't it wonderful? A large brass tray gives Paul a place to put his keys and change at night, and the book box caddy was a gift from Devin and Sandy - perfect dresser-top storage. And because this is a real room, there's Paul's "Marine Dad" cap on one side of the mirror and his Florida Gators cap on the other. I mean, let's be honest: where an American Man lives, there's gonna be a gimmee cap! :-)


The room has the updated 1940's look that works in this house. Comfortable and cheery, easy to live in. Our decorating style is very eclectic but here, I wanted that old fashioned fully coordinated everything matching look. By keeping the rest of the color scheme bright with the same tones repeated everywhere, the dark furniture feels fresh and serves as the accent color, its red shine reflecting light back into the room.

I hurt my back on Friday working in the yard, so I spent the next two days immobile in this room. Despite the forced inactivity, and Saturday's dreary, raining weather, the light and colors kept my mood buoyant.

The coordination - matching furniture and fabrics - is soothing and comforting. Even if "matchy matchy" is out of fashion right now, by next year it will be back in style and I'll be two steps ahead!

How To Make a Padded Upholstered Cornice Board

This is an easy project that gives a lot of pop for the effort. Nick built the cornice board frame, and I finally got it covered and hung last week. It's one of the finishing touches in my bedroom re-do (which will be my next blog post so check back to see the result!).

Because our windows are a standard length, he was able to build it out of a single 1x12 board. This made construction much simpler. Ultimately, a cornice is a 3 sided box (no back on it, as the wall it hangs against becomes the back).


The height of the cornice board should be about 1/5 the length of the window. Just measure the window and divide the height by five. If you are using floor length or puddling drapes, you might want a taller cornice, but for most windows, the one-fifth ratio is ideal.

How far the finished cornice box extends from the wall depends on your other window treatments. If, like me, you are only using blinds or shades, it only needs to come out 4 or 5 inches from the wall. About.com and DIY Network both have good step-by-step instructions for how to measure and build one.



I sprayed the board with spray adhesive, and covered it with one layer of polyester batting. The batting should extend around over the front edges but should not cover the thin back edge that will be against the wall, nor is it needed on the top.


The fabric is upholstery-weight Waverly, a pattern named "Claremont". Having a pattern to match in the fabric meant a bit of creative cutting and very careful measuring to be sure the pattern matched along the full length of the board.

When measuring and cutting the fabric, allow a good 4 to 6 inches extra so that you will have plenty of selvege to staple into. Remember you are wrapping the edges too, all the way around to the back. Excess can be trimmed later, but there's no way to fix it if you cut too much off beforehand.




This fabric also required a seam in the length (it goes over a double window). The seam is located in the exact center, so as not to annoy us every time we look at it, and pattern matched exactly along the widest point in the pattern. That little trick also helps hide the seam from the eye.



I didn't iron the center seam until after the cornice was otherwise completed, then used an iron to set the crease in the seam - don't slide the iron as that might stretch the fabric.

I stapled the fabric to the back sides of the board, starting in the center of the top edge, alternating stapling one side of the top edge, then the other, and eyeing up the pattern with each staple, to be sure it matched its opposite. It will be done faster if you go slowly during this process.

The reason for starting with the top edge is that the top is the first thing you will see when it is hanging. A little error on the bottom edge might go unnoticed but the top needs to be perfect.

Do the same with the bottom edge, being careful (1) not to stretch the fabric (you don't want puckers), and (2) to use a straight edge to be sure the pattern runs straight from top to bottom as well as side to side.


Lastly, staple the sides, folding and tucking the corners. After trimming excess, I used white glue to smooth down the cut edges inside the board. If your board is going to be in a location where the inside will be visible, you could finish the inside fabric edge by gluing ribbon or seam binding over the cut edge.

Paul used L brackets to hang it for me, first attaching the brackets to the wall, using a level, then settling the cornice on them, marking the holes, and drilling small pilot holes in the board before setting it in place perfectly.

How many L brackets you use, and how carefully you hang depends a lot on whether you want to merchandise the top of it or not. If you plan to set things on it, be sure to hang it into studs or with anchors, like you would any shelf.



Isn't it great? We are very happy with the results. Next post: better photos of this bedroom, and how pretty it turned out!

Sept 2011 UPDATE: Per request, here is a close up of the middle seam, which is nearly invisible from an ordinary vantage point in the room. Details in the comments. Click to enlarge so you can see how the seam looks up close.

Laundry Room Decorating: A Cheerful Haven for Ironing

When we first saw this house (before we bought it), the laundry room was used like a closet. Tiers of jam-packed clothes racks went around the room, and the windows were shuttered with hanging garments. Although it had been done up with a laundry themed border, the closed window blinds and clutter made the room a cave to escape from - quickly.

With little more than paint, sunlight, and a few photographs, it's become one of my favorite places in the house. I love ironing in this room. I keep the blinds open to let the sun stream in, and can look out upon the neighborhood and a shady yard while I press our shirts.


Did you ever notice that all over the world, laundry is done in exactly the same ways? These photos show laundry hanging on lines to dry outside an apartment in Cuba, an Adobe in Bolivia, hung by soliders from a military tank in Israel, and an American sailor guarding uniform shirts drying on regimented clotheslines.

I bought the photos from Allposters.com and framed them with inexpensive mats and frames (that I spray painted white) from Hobby Lobby. All Posters has a great selection of laundry photos, and I ordered each of them in the same size. Remember when choosing to get ones that have similar orientations - either horizontal or vertical - if you want them to match as I have done. There were some superb ones that were oriented vertically, but because I had my heart set on using the tank, the others needed to be horizontal as well. As an aside, they had fantastic customer service, and I will buy from them again.



It took some doing to scrape off the 4 layers of different wallpaper border that had been successively painted and papered over! The wall you don't see was turned into a make-do floor to ceiling cabinet by the previous owners, with deep shelves and whole sheets of plywood on hinges for doors, which close with screen hooks. I just painted them the same color as the walls
and they melt away from view.


A vintage globe bank collects the change that comes out of pockets. The graniteware bucket has hydrangeas on it and serves as a little waste basket, catching the dryer lint. It sits on a white washcloth so that it won't mar the top of the dryer.

Above the windows, hanging plant brackets hold the coat hangers while I am ironing, then fold away when done. I got these brackets at the Dollar Store for $1.50 each, whereas special decorative hooks from the home improvement stores were around $12 each. These work perfectly for their purpose.


I save those little packets of silica gel and lay in the window sills to absorb moisture in case the windows sweat in winter. I deliberately choose to keep the window treatments plain, mini blinds only, partly because of the hooks above them while ironing, but also to make it easier to keep the room clean and dust free. Curtains tend to hide windows and collect cobwebs. With just blinds, I can open them up and the light streams in over clean sills and through clear windows.


Everything as much as possible is up off the floor to make cleaning easy, including the tiny bakers rack that holds laundry supplies, and since the shelves are wire, they don't get dusty. The rack for the iron and ironing board also came from the dollar store, as did the ticking clothespin bag (and the clothes pins). Take a walk down the laundry aisle in your dollar
stores and older grocery stores - you will be amazed!

The embroidered blue bird laundry bag is a vintage one. This is also the room in which I keep a vintage calendar that corresponds to the current year. It is a perfect escape tool for daydreaming while ironing - happy days indeed!