Mar 24, 2011

Weekend Scores: Vespucci High River Antiques

Sorry almost a full weekend behind - cracks throw me off. This week's Weekend Scores are from Vespucci High River Antiques in High River, AB. They deal mainly in MCM. They have a fabulous collection of lights, glasses and decorative items organized by colour and/or type. The antique store is in the town's old court building and upstairs is nearly untouched. Original trim, high ceilings wooden floors, decorative trim and a beautiful central skylight. Fun to explore and pretend to lock your mom in the jail cell. ha ha. The girls came with me this trip. Lily has been antiquing since she was really little and has a good eye for treasures. For the littler one, I'm focusing on just getting her to stop running around the breakables.

High River is a quick puddle jump south from Calgary and is a sweet little town to saunter through. Plus, there's an authentic diner behind High River Antiques complete with swivel stools at the bar, juke boxes at each table and quirky, lovely staff.

Some images of the store:

Wall o' black panthers


Sleeping Beauty's spindle whorl


Upstairs in the old courtroom - most of the furniture is upstairs


Turban Kings


Lights and glasses


Carnival glass


Lights hanging from the pressed tin ceiling


Pondering this for my living room....


A perfect balance of mime and light.


Two orange lights = double love


Meanwhile, at a store nearby. Stumped on where to pick up a Scrunchie? Look no further, High River has a whole stand of them!



And below some of my scores:


I love succulents. But needed some pots for display. High River Antiques had loads of these German-made pots


Pots


Kid's treasure


Purple ash tray. Even though we don't smoke, they're fun catch all's for bedside tables or front entryway tables.


I'm a sucker for rainbows. This one now adds a punch of colour on my living room couch.



I bought this one with the intention of spray painting it some fun colour. It looks fantastic just as it is in the living room.




Relaxing after a long day of treasure hunting.

LP


Mar 20, 2011

Cracks are Whack.

Finally some signs of winter's end. It's a late winter for C-town this year. Coldest temperatures in March in over 100 years. I feel I've earned by 'Winter' badge this year. But with melting comes water. And water seems to love all areas of our house.

I swear, Prairie House shows off when anyone comes to visit. Inevitably a critical element of the house has failed; ie toilet has broken, something has flooded or or fallen off; when it's been completely problem-free to that point.

My mom came to visit this weekend from the coast and as I was setting up her bed in the rec room, I noticed that the carpet near the north wall was damp. Eeeeffffff. My first instinct was to figure out a way to not tell hubby. It would stress him out - I could run out and rent an industrial heater, move all the furniture by myself. My mom assured me that was not a wise move and made me call him. He was calm. I was wrong. Sometimes that happens.

He got home and quickly assessed that it was one of the large cracks in on the north wall that we had put o
ff sealing so we could fix something else that had neglected maintenance for the past 10 + years.

Crack in basement we have been tracking since we moved in.

As an aside, our neighbours house was built the same year and our neighbour is religious about maintenance. The difference between our house and his is shocking. Cracked stucco, poorly preforming windows, yellowed and chipping paint, etc. etc. etc. etc vs. none of that next door. It will take some time for us to just take care of past maintenance issues, let alone tackle things we'd actually like to do. Like El Pinko. Sigh.

This weekend's El Pinko fund went into emergency basement crack seals. Unfortunately for us, the crack was behind the tongue and groove wooden panelling in the basement. Hubby traipsed upstairs with hammer in hand like a doctor delivering bad news. "I'm afraid we're going to have to operate" (read: remove wall panelling to reveal the crack and pull up the brand newcarpeting"). I told him he couldn't touch a thing before he had an experts opinion, and within the hour, he was in the rec room removing wall panelling in the back corner of the room.

I may actually have hubby guest post the procedure because I was too traumatized to even go down there. He did try his best to minimize the damage to the panels but it's so dry in Calgary
that much of the wood just splintered. The exposed crack ran from the window down to the corner of the house. And enough water was leaking in with the recent melting of the glaciers in our yard that it had soaked through the carpet underlay and carpet.

Wee little meddlesome crack - bottom left corner of basement

We hired Calgary-based HBD Basement Foundation Protection who were great. They showed up on time the next day (we were triaged - this company doesn't usually work Saturdays) and had the crack in the rec room and a large crack in the basement filled and repaired within a few hours.

Hubby has filled in for me on the photo comments....

Grant, our "crack" crack repairman drilling injection holes at an angle to connect with the void inside the foundation.


After drilling, one way valves (aka. grease nipples [LP - hee hee]) were plugged into each hole to injection port for the resin.

I forget the name of this compound but it was applied over the crack to help keep the resin in the wall during activation and expansion.

The magic resin is then pumped into the crack using an air powered gun. This is when things get messy.


Once injected, the resin expands and can weep out through any hole, void, or space connected to the visible crack. Kinda like the character "pizza the hut" from the movie Spaceballs. sorry, it's the only comparison I could make..........and this is why Laura doesn't let me write in her blog. :-)


The End - nothing pretty about the 'after'

Now the big issue after the repair. What can we possibly do with this corner now that the wall panels are irreparable?

LP

Mar 9, 2011

Let There be Light


Poor poor kitchen. Lit by an embarrassing exoskeleton of a light. With no light cover.

We've been looking for a replacement for some time now but I'm fussy and not in a hurry and tragically indecisive. I've narrowed the search down to 6 contenders and was hoping for some insight from any readers out there. I am officially stuck.

All lights are from
Lumens in the US.


Kitchen shot for visualization

This little chrome woven light is tops on my list. Well priced to at $100. P652 Pendant by George Kovacs


This was the # uno for a long time. Classic mid century modern globe. I do like it but it just seems so predictable. As far as lumination and price ($55!!!), however, this one is the front runner. Rondo Pendant by Eglo

A more fabulous version of the classic globe. Way more pricey ($750 US for the 'Medium' version) and not convinced it's appropriate for a kitchen. Mirror Ball Pendant by Tom Dixon


I really like this light and would love to do the orange. But - will the kitchen look like a creamsicle? This light blue colour is quite lovely as well. Well priced too ($300). FLY Suspension Lamp by Kartell
Red/orange decor is McDonald's secret weapon for making you eat quickly and leave. Not a desireable quality for a kitchen.
This lamp is a more elegant take on the original Le Klint. $470. Le Clint 171 Pendant by Illuminating Experiences

Some tough choices. Hardly made easier by the stress over the impending bidding frenzy for the current kitchen light after I post on EBay. ha ha.

LP