I'm so over it....

......the snow, the cold, and paint scraping.

I am so hoping that we have this intense cold and snow and then that will be it.  I guess I have gotten soft with these past mild winters but this year it is COLD with a capital C O L D.

There really hasn't been much new on the home front.  R is still working on prepping the ceiling in the kitchen for bead board plywood.  He is currently working on the small area to the west of the big beam. It is slow going because even though the area is small there are a lot of corners and odd variations in height.  His level is getting quite the workout.

I'm busy working on the last wall in the living room.  I am so glad that I made up my mind that this wall would take 1 month.  The first section that I scraped went quickly.  No problems and no damage discovered.

I moved the china cabinet and started the area next to the window. Oh boy.  It appears that there was a lot of peeling paint in this area and they decided to use caulk like drywall compound. It was troweled on the wall and then texturized to match the texture of the wall.  I can only get about 75% of it off.  The remaining will need sanding.

Seriously, who does that sort of thing?  I keep telling myself that it will look so much better when I paint and that it will be so worth it in the end.

To occupy my mind while I scrape, I've been pondering 2 or 3 open shelves in the kitchen.  I say 3 and R says 2.  I think we will need to do a mock up before I order the brackets.  Yes, I said ordered. Originally, we were going to make our own but I was surfing for bracket designs and found out that I can order them cheaper than making them.  We will paint them white so we need either pine or poplar and it's looking like I can get them for around 15 bucks each.

I've been scouting Flint Faience Tile for some time now.  If you are unfamiliar with Flint Faience Tile please check it out.  In a nutshell......FFT was hand made and handpainted at a GM factory here in the Flint area from 1921 to 1933.  You can find it in some very prestigious places.  The factory that made the tiles also made spark plugs specifically AC Spark Plugs.  GM started making tiles to make use of the kilns on weekends and off shifts when they needed to keep the kilns running but were not producing spark plugs.

These tiles are beautiful.  A lot of the colorful Art Deco bathrooms of the 20's and 30's were decorated with Flint Faience Tile.  We still need to verify if our house has FF tile but now that we know that our house was built in the mid 20's it looks more and more like it has Flint Faience.  

If you have a house built in the 20's and 30's and you are thinking of installing new tile in a vintage pattern please get the book Flint Faience Tiles A to Z by Carney and Galvas.  This book is to die for over and over again.  272 pages of pure goodness.  The book can be used for ideas even those they no longer make this tile.  I spoke with one of the authors on the phone and he indicated that the molds were sold to the Mosaic Tile Company of Zanesville  Ohio.  It's a pricey book but you will see why when you get it.  It is chock full of photos.

I have a broken black towel bar bracket in my master bath.  I purchased a vintage set at a salvage place to replace it so I am hoping when I have it replaced that I will be able to see if it is in sized with Flint Faience on the back.

But anyways back to my score.  I purchased a small decorative tile that I plan on framing.  It is so cute. I'll show you a photo as soon as I get it.

Other than that..............we are just trying to stay warm.  Spring cannot come too soon.  Three weeks into winter and I am sooooooooooooo over it.