The bedroom accent wall

On April 1, 2013 By stefrobrtsIn mighty, navi, TheRanchoLeave a comment

I was reading on my favorite vintage-house blog, Retro Renovation, about vintage houses that featured wall murals. I guess it was a thing back in the day. So I went searching around on the web for vintage wall murals, and found a site which features just about any image you can imagine, blown up to wall size. Intrigued by the boldness of a wall-sized image, I started searching for 70’s style images in the colors I was interested in, and found one I thought was pretty awesome and 70s looking. Only problem – wall size murals cost about $200. That’s a lot of money to pay and then decide you hate it. On the other hand, if I painted it myself, for the cost of less than $50 in supplies, I could decide if I liked it or not, and then just paint it all a solid color if it was not to my taste.

And hey, I was home sick anyway this weekend, so why not have a little fun?

I laid out the tape by hand, following the top half of the image above as a pattern.

At this point the first layer of colors are in, and I can’t wait to get the tape off and see how it looks with white outlines.

I laid on a second coat of all the colors late last night, and this morning, stripped off the masking tape to see how it looks with white outlines – I love it!

The masking tape had a lot of bleed-under that needs to be touched up.

All the touch-ups are done, and the final touch is a piece of wall art we picked up a few months ago. I knew it was going to fit perfectly in here somewhere!

And the outdoors/geese theme bedroom is complete. We love it!

Art around The Rancho

On March 27, 2013 By stefrobrtsIn art, barclay, navi, photography, TheRancho3 Comments

We have been having so much fun picking up art for our new home, decorating it with little fun things that make us happy. Really, to me even the furniture seems like art, since it’s all old and unique – it’s unlikely to find similar pieces to the ones we’ve found.

Let’s start with the centerpiece of the bedroom – the geese painting. We found this at an antique store in Portland, but I went home and thought about it for a day before going back to buy it. It wasn’t expensive, I just wasn’t sure about it. I’m glad we got it though, the colors are great for the bedroom, and it started giving us a nature theme to decorate around.

I like the style of it – it feels 70s to me. The way the clouds are just shapes with no definition but the geese look more realistic. The trees and brown grass and reflections in the water, well, that all reminded me of our home in the country and our visits to the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge.

It appears to be an actual painting, not just a print. That’s kind of cool to know we have something which someone actually created with their own hands. Good job, ‘Jane’, whoever you are!

Now we have a goose/nature theme going on in the bedroom. We were buying our couches at another antique store when I spotted these wall plaques, and had to have them:

A closer look:

These were probably part of a triptych, with the center piece being a clock, but the clock is gone. I saw a very similar set with flowers instead of geese on them. But I’m happy to have these, they look great on the wall behind the TV.

There are more bedroom geese coming, but I have one more wall to paint before I show those off. Maybe this weekend.

In the front room we have the Japanese silk paintings, which I’ve shown off before, and the picture of Barclay, and I just added a matching picture of Navi, so these two make a cute set on the wall.

And then there’s the Matador…

Every 70s home needs a Matador! Dave grew up with a Matador painting over the fireplace in his parent’s house. We saw this one on CL for $40, but it was about an hour away. Eventually we saw it in an antique store for $100 and we thought, well, they must have bought it and marked it up and now it was way out of our price range, which was too bad because it was pretty impressive in person. It’s a print with painted highlights. Then we saw it on CL again the next week! There were two of them in town! So we ran out to the folks selling it for $40 and bought it. As the lady handed it to us she gave us a funny look and said ‘Are you sure this fits into your décor?’, in a way that indicated she didn’t think it could possibly fit into ANYONE’S décor! Oh yes, we assured her. And it fits very nicely into the living room, particularly with the yellow couches. We LOVE the Matador!

My latest acquisition was a Goodwill find. This afternoon after volunteering at the barn, I went back up to Battle Ground to order food at our favorite Thai place and bring it home. I had a little time to kill so I went to Goodwill to look for frames I could buy and put my own photography in, and spotted this:

Hmmm, I thought, that’s pretty groovy. It says John Eastman, 1973 on it. I couldn’t decide if I should buy it or not though – fully framed and behind glass, it was a whole $4. Maybe I am a little cheap!

So I called Dave after I picked up our food and asked him what he thought, and he was like ‘duh, for $4? GO GET IT!’ So I went back, and poking around found another one! (the lines down the middle are reflections)

And yeah, they are pretty groovy. I hung them in the kitchen, which is the only place we still have some bare walls!

So that’s it for now. We’re having so much fun decorating our vintage house. Just wait until you see what I have planned to finish off the bedroom!

Hiking to Steigerwald Wildlife Refuge

On March 27, 2013 By stefrobrtsIn hiking, outdoors, scenic2 Comments

Sunday I headed out with a few friends to walk on the Washougal Dike Trail. It starts at Steamboat Landing (note: there are no steamboats anymore!) and goes to Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge. It was a bright sunny morning, and the Columbia River looked pretty and blue. I’m glad it gave us a little taste of that before returning to March’s standard—issue grey.

As we walked along the Dike we enjoyed the cottonwood trees that lined the river.

Steigerwald looks a lot like Ridgefield, and it’s probably closer to our new home, so I guess we should get used to coming out here.

This shot of the ducks with Mt Hood in the background was my favorite shot of the day.

I was a little partial to these leaning cottonwoods too.

We saw evidence of wildlife other than just the feathered kind.

Soon we came to the end of the road…

Time to head back.

On the way back we stopped at Cottonwood Beach for lunch before continuing towards town. We saw (though I did not get pictures of) several people horseback riding on the beach.

The sky was overcast and grey as we trudged back to the car. It was six miles all together, not a bad distance for a first hike of spring. It was nice and flat, just to get us in the mood for hiking again! It was very windy the whole way! But a nice walk with friends all the same.

Engine pulling day!

On March 15, 2013 By stefrobrtsIn mustang1 Comment

Let me kill the suspense right up front – the engine is still in the car.

I scheduled ‘engine pulling day’ and put it on my calendar a month or so ago, hoping that if I set a deadline and said it would happen, it would finally happen. So on Saturday morning Dave and I went and rented the engine lift, brought it home, and then he had to go to rehearsal. I puttered around for a bit, and then our friend Scott (Daddy to the other two Eskimos who stay with us occasionally) came over and helped me get a bunch of stuff done to it. We pulled the driveshaft, disconnected the shifter, and pulled out a bunch of AC parts that were going to get in the way, including the carburetor, radiator and tranny cooler. We were definitely getting closer, but by the end of Saturday, we were pooped, and the engine hadn’t budged!

On Sunday Dave helped me, and we got the exhaust on one side disconnected, but the other side was being a bear about it, and wouldn’t budge. I was still sore from the previous day. I forgot how much exercise was involved – getting down on the floor, getting back up, crawling underneath, rolling around, scooting back out, stretching, pushing, pulling, shoving, lifting – I worked on the car for about ten hours, and I was drained by the end of Saturday. Sunday I was beat.

Me, under the car, contemplating an inaccessible bolt…

So we gave up, doused the stubborn bolts with WD-40, and returned the lift without even assembling it. When we returned the lift to the rental place at Parkrose Hardware (a great, locally owned hardware store) we also picked up a few items I needed for finishing up organizing my tools, pegs and socket organizers. I got a new retractable droplight too. So my garage is pretty well outfitted now, and my hand tools are all hung up where I can easily access them, and can easily see if something is not where it belongs. I even seem to have extra room, which I wasn’t expecting considering I’m squeezing everything into a much smaller space than I had before.

Having the tools mounted on the wall right in front of the car is really nice, it’s handy to grab a tool when I need it. The signs and license plates brighten it up a bit.

Today I went out in the garage after work, and looked at that engine, and thought about how defeated I felt giving up on Sunday. Then I saw a hose I thought I could remove. I put on my gloves and went for it. An hour or so later I’d removed several things, bagged and tagged them, and started plotting my next move. That’s when I realized that ‘Engine Pulling Day’ was a mistake. Putting pressure on my project wasn’t what I needed. Projects are supposed to be fun. It’s good that I got busy and finally made some progress, but renting the lift to try and pressure myself into achieving a BIG goal just made me miserable and defeated when I couldn’t do it. Today I was making tiny progress on my car, but most of all I was enjoying myself. I was blowing off a little steam, the gears in my head were turning as I figured out my next move, and that’s the stuff I really enjoy.

We’ll rent the lift again some other time, when things really are all ready to go. Until then I will enjoy chipping away at the project, and sit out in the garage with my pony, dreaming about how great it will feel to drive it down the road, and know I made it happen. That’s the best part of the project, but a project like this isn’t all about the destination, it’s about the journey, and there’s no need to rush it.

A Cover for the Caravel

On February 17, 2013November 25, 2020 By stefrobrtsIn airstream, TheRancho3 Comments

In answer to your question, Lisa, we have tried to seal all the leaks in the trailer, but there always seem to be some we missed – Airstreams have a LOT of seams! And hey, it’s 45 years old this year (and it’s our 10th year with it, so obviously it’s a keeper) and we want it to last many more years, so we splurged and bought a nice carport for it.

Today a crew came out and assembled it in 2 hours flat. No problems. It is awesome!

The cover is a little taller than I expected, but for years we’ve been parking the trailer under a vinyl carport that it barely fit under, and the frame of the carport would bump the vents on top of the trailer if it wasn’t perfectly centered. This gives us plenty of room to maneuver.

Note the mud tracks – we had a terrible downpour while it was being installed, and Dave kept getting the van with it’s stupid one-wheel-drive stuck in the mud trying to put the trailer back. Why do they even bother to build a truck that doesn’t at least have limited slip? Anyway, we finally got it back there. We would have liked to set it further back, but this will do for now.

Feels good to have the last big project done. The trailer is part of the family, and I’m not completely happy unless it’s safe and secure like the rest of us.

New fence

On February 16, 2013November 25, 2020 By stefrobrtsIn airstream, TheRancho2 Comments

When we lived on our little farm, we built all the fences we needed. We built rail fences out of treated wood, built our own gates, put up field fences with pound-in posts, cemented in more gateposts than I care to count – did all that stuff ourselves. But now that we are in a neighborhood, I wanted our backyard fence to be done fast, and look good, and that meant someone who knew what they were doing should do it!

We had two reasons for putting up a fence. First of all, our neighbors across the street have pit bulls, and I do not trust them to keep them in their own yard, and I didn’t feel safe with our four foot gate on each end of the backyard. I wanted to make sure my dogs stay IN the backyard, and their dogs stay OUT.

Second of all, and probably most important, our view of the neighbor’s backyard really dominated our yard. No matter what we did, we were looking at this:

Woodpiles, old bird cages, stacks of tires, and blue tarps. Lovely.

So we called a few companies and chose one, Fenceman, with a reasonable price, and they seemed competent when Dave talked to them and had them out. They have a technique using metal posts, which is supposed to make the fence last longer, since wood posts rot out. We walked around the neighborhood looking at other fences they had installed, and they all looked nice and solid.

So two weeks ago they came out and put in the posts, set in concrete. This week they came and finished it. Ta-dah!

Wow! What a difference! Now the only garbage we need to worry about is our own!

We only had the sides of the yard fenced, and left the back alone – it already has a 6ft chain link fence between us and the water tower park, so we can enjoy the view. This makes the backyard feel so much more private!

They also put in a nice 60/40 gate in front of the trailer, so we can open it up all the way to get it out. Next project: Today guys are delivering our new aluminum carport for the trailer. It has leaks so it needs to be under cover to keep it dry inside. I’ve been running a heater in there all winter to drive out the dampness so it wouldn’t mildew from the leaks.

So overall I couldn’t be happier. They did a super nice job on the new fence, the backyard is private and secure for the dogs, and the trailer is barely visible from the street now. We like the new fence so much, I think we’ll have them back to do a nice picket fence around the front yard sometime in the future. Once we’ve recovered from paying for this one!

Rancho Fantastico!

On February 11, 2013November 25, 2020 By stefrobrtsIn TheRancho3 Comments

More fun at the antique stores!

Earlier this week I saw a lovely yellow/gold couch and loveseat set on Craigslist, at one of our favorite antique stores, priced very reasonably. We zipped over there after work and checked them out, found them to be in like-new condition (thank goodness for little old ladies who kept their furniture covered back in the day) and decided to buy them. We loaded them up in the van.

Photo: Just in.. Vintage 1960's brocade sofa $sold
Vintage brocade love seat $sold

Our new couches on display at St Johns Vintage

Unfortunately Dave had spent the day before working out in the yard getting ready for the new fence, and tweaked his back, so loading them up in the van was about all he had left. We left them in the van for a few days, taking them on a tour around town as I did my errands. This weekend we finally got up the umph to go for it, and haul out the old couches. Unfortunately they had to go to the dump because nobody wants a used couch – at least not if it has any cat scratches on the ends. Seems like such a waste! But none of the thrift stores we tried would take them, so to the dump they went. In went the new couches. Then we headed off to the antique stores to look for some end tables and find something for the dogs to sit up on and look out the windows.

We not only found a nice end table, but we found a lamp we liked at the same store as the sofas, and then were browsing the ads at Modern Pink, and spotted another identical lamp in the background of on of their pictures! So off we went to snatch that lamp up. Now we had a set of lamps! It’s really tricky to find a pair of matching vintage lamps! And the wood on them matches the wood on the swag lamp we already have.

Then we went on a tour of Hawthorn antique stores and swung by Vintage Pink (Modern Pink’s sister store), and found a little sofa/chair thing, which probably used to be the corner piece in a sectional, but it’s close to the same color as our new sofas, and the perfect size for the dogs to jump up on and sit to look out the window.

Then we swung by a thrift store in Oregon City for one more goodie we saw in a CL ad, and picked up a console stereo with the same 60’s lines we were collecting in the rest of the house. It’s perfect for our cable box and XBox to sit on, and hides the mess of cords behind them. We got it home and tested it out, and it even worked!

Awesome!

Put it all together…

Love it! And the total cost – less than a single new couch from a furniture store! Now the room feels really open. It seems bigger without the oversized modern couches. We also got rid of the coffee table, so the room is open for the dogs to play and wrestle.

Since we were on such a roll, we also picked up this little corner table up off of CL. A little more storage in the kitchen, and room for the microwave (sorry dogs, no more watching the microwave go round and round).

We had to angle the table fit the new corner table.

We have been having so much fun finding goodies for the house, and it has been so inexpensive! It’s fantastic to be able to fill the house and spend so little money overall. We love the style of the 60s, since it’s what we grew up with. I feel like it has made our home feel so ‘homey’ in a hurry.

When we were at one of the antique stores, the guy said it was great my husband and I had the same taste in furniture, we were just having a blast picking stuff out. He said we would not believe the bickering he listens to sometimes when folks can’t agree! Luckily we haven’t had that problem – yet – anyway! Mostly we’re just having so much fun picking out stuff to make our home look the way we want it to look, with a specific style, instead of the mish-mash of hand-me-downs and put-together furniture we’ve always had.

Our master bedroom – now with nightstands!

On February 3, 2013November 25, 2020 By stefrobrtsIn navi, TheRancho4 Comments

I finally scored a set of nightstands that will fit into our vintage bedroom. Turns out finding sets of nightstands from the 60s is harder than you’d think, because we were told having a set of nightstands wasn’t popular back then like it is now. So we’ve been searching for a couple months without any luck.

Yesterday I went to a consignment shop in downtown Vancouver on my way home from rehearsal. I wasn’t expecting much, but I was on the lookout for nightstands and a couch. As I wandered through, I spotted a couple little nightstands, dark wood, little legs – perfect. The couple ahead of me looked at them first as I hung back.

‘I think they’re sold,’ the wife said. ‘They’re over here with all the other sold stuff.’

Indeed they were in the sold area, but they didn’t have any stickers on them one way or the other, so I went straight to the first employee I could find and asked about them.

‘Oh yeah, they just came in, we haven’t priced them yet. The person who prices them will be in on Wednesday.’ I’m sure I gave her a look of desperation that said that was much too long to wait! ‘Let me go ask..’ she offered.

I hung around waiting, until she came back – ‘$40 each.’ Oh yeah! I’ll take them. I called Dave to bring the van down immediately! We had considered paying more than that for nightstands that weren’t nearly as close to what we wanted in style, or needed to be refinished.

I think they go very well with the headboard. Now we’re talking about painting the wall behind the bed an accent color, and finding a piece of wall art for it. We’re still looking for a perfect bedspread too.

A week or so ago we got our special order pull down shade for the window, and got a nice heavy curtain to go over it with a fun vintage-looking pattern. That helps keep it dark so we can sleep in on the weekends, and keeps it warmer by insulating the window. My guitar is hanging in the bedroom too. I like having the guitar hanging up because it keeps it safe from dogs, but makes it really convenient to just grab off the wall and play.

And I’ve shown off our pretty vintage dressers before, but I don’t think I’ve shared the cool vintage painting we picked up of Canadian Geese landing on a lake. I really like it, and it has an interesting style that matches up with the rest of the room.

Overall I’m really happy with how the bedroom has turned out. So much nicer than our previous style of looking like we still lived in a dorm room with mismatched furniture! For once we’ve actually purchased furniture on purpose, and tried to match things up. I feel like such a grown-up!

Dog TV

On January 24, 2013November 25, 2020 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, navi, TheRancho1 Comment

We didn’t have room for the microwave in the kitchen (vintage kitchens don’t have built-in microwave ovens!) and so we kept it on a shelf in the garage, right outside the door to the kitchen. It was close, but awful cold and inconvenient. We had a little table we replaced with something more ‘period’ and I stuck it in the corner of the dining room and put the microwave on it. I didn’t realize I was inventing a new dog entertainment system.

Watch my lunch go round ‘ round!

Navi growled at Barclay until he backed off – ‘It’s MINE’ she said! Barclay just barked in protest! Surprise guys, neither of you get it – it’s mine!

Around the firepit

On January 24, 2013May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, dave, navi, TheRancho3 Comments

A couple weeks ago we took advantage of a mild afternoon when it wasn’t raining for a short time, to try out our new firepit.

Our primary reason was to get rid of a whole box of old financial papers which we couldn’t recycle, and it would have taken forever to shred. The fire made short work of them, and also gave us an afternoon of entertainment.

Towards the end I brought the dogs out but kept them on leash. Navi isn’t as close tot he fire as it looks. Barclay actually just laid down in the grass and took a nap. It was quite relaxing to just sit and look into the coals and watch the flames dance around, and the red light as they burned from within was fascinating. I could sit and watch a campfire all evening.