2020 Christmas Card & Painted Cabinet

 This is our 2020 Christmas Card.  Past cards tell about all our activities, traveling, visits from family & friends, and family news.  This year there were no visitors, no traveling and all outside activities were cancelled.   The big BUT in all of this is we have had lots of time for home improvement projects.  If you read my past posts for the year you will see everything we have done.  Currently, we have started the master bath project.  New counter tops, sinks and faucets will be installed soon.  Roger has painted the walls and as soon as counter tops are done he will tile the floor and wall.  That should take us to the end of the year.  In January we will do the master bedroom. 

 From the time we bought our first house in 1960 we have had a ton of fun renovating each home we have lived in.  Back then we had no HGTV  to give us inspiration.  I think my inspiration came from my mother who was way ahead of her time with the interior design projects she worked on while I was growing up.  She had no formal training but was a natural when it came to visualizing how to renovate a place.  When I was 7 my parents bought a dilapidated old house and converted it into apartments.  My mom did the interior design and my dad did the work.  The apartments were open concept long before anyone knew what that meant.  When her friends saw what she did they asked her to help with their homes and one of the first things she did was knock down walls.  I grew up seeing this done so when we bought our first house I told Roger to imagine how good things would look if we knocked down a wall to open things up.  He had never done any construction work before but said he would give it a try.  He was a fast learner and by the time we moved out of that house he built a large addition on the back of the house and had mastered many construction skills.  The rest is history.  We have enjoyed renovating each and every place where we have lived for the past 60 years! 

In my last post I mentioned my next project would be a small 2 door cabinet.  Here is a before photo.

Here are a couple of after photos.

I had fun painting this.  The bird pattern is from a get-well card that Roger's cousin Mickey received.  He said he would like me to do a painting based on the card.  This was shortly before we moved to NC and sadly he passed away before I had time to paint it.  About a year later, his wife Carol asked if I would do the painting for her in memory of Mickey.  After I finished the first one I did 2 more based on that design.  The cabinet above is the forth time I used the same idea.  Here are photos of the 3 canvas paintings I did based on Mickey's card.

The painting I am working on now is one that I am doing for myself.  One of my most popular paintings in "Endless Rose".  I have lost count of how many versions of this painting I have done over the years.  Every time I sold one I would paint another.  The last one  sold at the Owl & Rabbit Galley in May.  I decided it was time to paint "Endless Rose" to keep for myself.  I am going to hang it in my sitting room in the loft.

Merry Christmas to all!

Loft area remodel and my latest painting project

 When we moved here in July of 2018 I set up my art studio in our large loft area.  Here is a photo of what it looked like at that time.

In February of 2019 we got a new lounge chair for our living room and moved the old one up stairs to the loft.  A month later we decided we needed a futon because we were having a lot of company and sometimes we need more sleeping area than just our guest room.  We moved the grids that you see in the above photo to make room for the chair and futon.  Below is a photo of the new additions.

In July of 2019 our grand-daughter Samantha moved in with us and, since she is an artist, we rearranged the studio so that she and I could share the space.  The next photo shows how we did that.

When Sam got married and moved out a month ago it was time to make another change in the loft.  I had an idea that I would like to divide the large loft into two rooms.  My thought was to build a wall to allow for a nice sitting room and a separate art studio.  My reason for this was because my studio is always messy looking no matter how hard I try to keep it neat.  I really did not need all the space in the loft now that I did not have to share it with someone.  It would be nice to have guests not have to see all my mess and also have the comfy sitting room along with the guest room.

Roger and I talked my idea over and did a lot of measuring and decided it would be possible to divide the area into two rooms but we also wondered how it would look.  We would hate to start such a major project and then not like the results.  That is when I came up with another idea.  (My brain is always working overtime!)  I suggested that we "build" a temporary wall using my grid wall panels.  When they are stretched out side by side they total 16 feet which was the exact size of the wall we would build.  So, that is what we did.  Once they were up I remembered that I had some curtains stored away that I had from my house in Michigan.  Again, they were the exact size the we need to back the grid wall panels and also make a doorway into the art studio.  The photos below show the results of this transformation from one large room into two rooms.  The first set of photos are the sitting room.

When you pull back the curtain you enter the art studio.

Welcome to my new studio.  It is more than enough room for me.  I have my painting area, an area for my sewing machine, a table for prepping canvas and another table for framing.  I love it and when it is a mess all I have to do is pull the curtain!

I am so glad we decided to put up the grids as a temporary wall to see if we wanted to build a permanent wall.  Once we saw how nice it looked we made a decision on what we would do.  What we decided is that we would leave it as is and save ourselves the expense and work of putting up a solid 2X4 wall.  The way it is now serves the purpose of dividing the area into two rooms and if we decide in the future that we want to open the loft up again it will be easy to do. 

The last time I did a painting was in February.  When the pandemic started I lost interest in canvas painting because I knew everything would be closed and I there would not be any art shows or contests.  I did not want to build up a large inventory of paintings with nowhere to show them so I started doodling.  If you look at my past posts for 2020 you can see some of the doodles I have done through out the year.  

When  the loft area completed I looked at the old beat up coffee table I had in the sitting room and had a vision of it becoming an artistic focal point in the room.  My desire for painting came back.  Most of you know how much I love to paint roses so that is what I did on the coffee table.  Here is the new and improved coffee table.

When I finished the table Roger suggested another project for me.  We had moved a small 2 door cabinet from our bedroom to the loft and once we had it in place we thought the color did not look good in the room.  Here is a photo of that cabinet and also a before photo of the coffee table.

Before I did the table Roger painted the cabinet in a more pleasing color.  If you scroll back to the sitting room photos you will see the re-painted cabinet.  When Roger saw what I did with the coffee table he said I should do some decorative painting on the doors of the cabinet.  I liked that idea so that will be my next project.  I have been tossing around some thoughts of what subject I will paint on the doors and will get out my sketch pad and put those ideas on paper later today.  You can look forward to my next blog post featuring the finished cabinet.

Samantha & Andrew's Wedding

Our grand-daughter Samantha and Andrew got married on Nov. 1, 2020 in an Airbnb in Waynesville, NC.  It was a beautiful venue in the mountains.  It was a small wedding with only close family attending.  Here are a few photos.

 

Now that we are "empty-nesters" again we have begun our home improvement projects starting with the upstairs where Sam stayed while living with us.  We are almost finished so I will be posting photos soon.

Paintings from the past and wedding news.

 Things have been busy here as we prepare for our grand-daughter Samantha's wedding which will happen on November 1.  The wedding will be in Waynesville, NC and she and Andrew will be living in Spartenburg, SC. The wedding will be small with only immediate family members for a total of 15 people. Because of COVID we will wear masks and social distance. 

 Sam has lived with us for about 15 months and has accumulated a lot of stuff including furniture.  For that reason we took a trip to Spartenburg a few weeks ago to take a load of her things to their new apartment. We still have another car load to take a couple of weeks after the wedding. 

 Sam is making all her flower arrangements and bouquet which made me think of all the flower paintings I have done over the years.  Since one of my favorite things to paint is roses I decided to post photos of many of the rose paintings I have done in the past.  

I will start with one of my personal favorite paintings which is appropriately  titled "I Love to Paint Roses".  This painting was sold at an art show in Tucson.

My most popular rose painting is "Endless Rose".  I have done many versions of this painting and everyone has sold.  This is the first version that I painted.  I had no idea of how many times I would paint this large red rose when I painted it for the first time.

Here are four more paintings featuring roses that sold at art shows.  The first two I did in Tucson and have a Mexican vibe.  The first is titled "Red Roses in Talavera Vase".

It sold at an art fair to a couple who had bought other paintings from me in the past.  I decided to do another version of this painting to enter in an art competition but changed the rose color to white.  I won third place with this painting titled "White Roses in Talavera Vase".  This painting sold in Michigan to a fellow artist who is an art collector.

 

I did this cross painting featuring roses titled "In the Garden" and sold it at an art fair in Tucson.

This next painting was done in MI during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  It is titled "Hope for a Cure".  It sold at a gallery show.

While in Tucson I had a couple of commissions for paintings that featured roses.  The first is a large painting that a friend had me do for her bedroom.  It is called "Appreciation of Friendship".

The other commissioned painting was done for Trina who bought many paintings from me over the years I lived it Tucson.  We became friends because of my art.  I titled it "Trina's Flowers".

I did a number of rose paintings that I gave as gifts.  The first one was done for our grand-daughter Laura and her husband Patrick.  They were into a wine theme and she sent me photos of wine bottles that they liked and I came up with this painting titled "Wine and Roses".  It is also one of my favorite paintings that I have done.

Our son Brian and wife Sarah requested a painting of a certain size to cover an electric panel in a room in their apartment.  I came up with this which I called "Rose Trio".

I did another painting at the request of Brian and Sarah but now that I think of it, I was going to gift it to them but they insisted on paying me for it.  This painting has special meaning to our family.  Our daughter Sharon, who passed away, loved yellow roses so I did a painting of them in memory of her.  I'm not sure what happened to the first version of the painting.  I may have sold it or gifted it to someone (my memory fails me).  I will have to go through old records to see if I can find out what happened to it. Anyway, I did this version for Brian and Sarah titled "Roses for Sharon".

This next painting was not exactly a gift but was a barter situation.  There is a B& B in Tucson called The Royal Elizabeth.  A ladies group that I belonged to took a tour of the place and I took a photo of the wall paper in one of the rooms and did a painting based on that wall paper titled "Royal Elizabeth Rose".  I showed it to the owners and said I would give it to them in exchange for a night in the B&B they agreed.  The bonus to them was that some friends of ours decided to book a night there at the same time.  We had a fun time with our friends at the B&B that weekend!

I have two rose paintings that I have hanging in my house.  I did the first on in years ago in Tucson that I hung in my master bath, then in Michigan I had it in my guest bath and now here in NC I have it in my master bath again.  It is one of the first large rose paintings I did.  I call it "Ala Georgia O'Keeffe".

The last painting I am showing  is one that I did in Michigan.  I showed it there but it did not sell so I brought it with me when I moved to NC.  When we renovated our powder room  I decided it would look good hanging there.  It is titled "Radiant Roses".  

The gold frame did not go with the color scheme of the room so I painted it silver.  Here is the painting hanging in the powder room in the silver frame.

I have done many more rose paintings both on canvas and on craft items, too many to show in this post.  I hope you have enjoyed seeing those that I did post.

My next post will be about the wedding and about our next  home improvement projects which will include the master bedroom and bath.  When that is done we will do our stairway and loft area. We love our home improvement projects as much as I love to paint roses!

Labor Day 2020, Office/Sunroom remodel and doodles

 It is over a month since my last blog post.  When I got to the blogsite today I found they made changes.  I hate when I have to figure out all the new updates.  The new option icons are much smaller and harder to see.  Hopefully this will come out okay.

Since my last blogpost we have installed new tile in our office/sunroom and refaced the fireplace. Here is a before picture of the old fireplace and the old tile.  I took it after we emptied the room and Roger was beginning to work.  You will see him on his hands and knees on the floor.  Samples of the new tile is on the hearth of the fireplace.  The old tile had a huge crack going across the room and the grout was dirty so we decided to replace it.  The green marble fireplace did not look good with the new tile so we refaced it with something that would match.  We used a border tile as an edging at the doorways and around the hearth of the fireplace.

Here is the after picture of the fireplace and floor.  We found a fireplace screen at a yard sale that I thought would add a nice touch to the room.  If you click on the photos the will enlarge to show detail.

The room looks so much brighter with the white tile which looks like marble. 

Since the quarantine started we have been working on puzzles.  We had an old folding table that we set up in the middle of the room.  With everything looking so nice and new we hated to use that old table so we bought a nicer looking folding table that matches the furniture in the room.  Here is the new puzzle table.

We had painted the room when we first moved in so there was no need to paint. We are happy with our nice bright room.  Our next project will probably be our bedroom and master bath but we will not start working on that until after the first of the year.

I continue to doodle and have a few more to show you.  

These three feature animals. The top one was an accident.  As I was working on it one of the designs looked like a goose to me so I added a second one in the bottom right side.  That gave me the idea to do a couple more that had an animal in the design.  I did a cat on one and an elephant on the other.  

Here are two more doodles.  One is free form and the other a more balance design.

Happy Labor Day to all!