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

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 off 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

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

Weekend Scores: Mid Century Inspired Spring Collection at Superstore

It has been cruel and cold here in C-town of late. -30 with windchill. So we've all been pretty cooped up in the Prairie House. Yesterday we had a bit of a reprieve (warmed up to a balmy -6) so I ventured out to Superstore. For you non-Canadian readers out there, Superstore is Canada's answer to Target - but with groceries. I'm one of the few lucky women whose husband prefers to do the grocery shopping. Either that or he is secretly annoyed with the extra purchases I bring home after every grocery trip. Joe Fresh clothing is at Superstore. Joseph Mimran is the creative director of the line and also designs for Club Monaco. It's dangerous to even walk by. Butter? No I forgot to get butter but look at these adorable boyfriend crop pants! ay. We always starve during the weeks I grocery shop.

Anyways. After being inundated with cold and bleak and white and slushy mud for months, Superstore's new Spring home line which was just launched is the antithesis to life in Calgary since last November. And with inspiration from mid century modern colours and designs. The most coveted items? A pink bathroom collection! I sent hubby back today to pick up some items for El Pinko (I wasn't allowed to go).

Flamingo pink bathroom accessories. Flamingo not included.

Same collection in yellow, and green and aqua (not shown).

Shower curtains

Bird clock - I picked this one up for baby's room

Picnic tablecloths

Oh colour, how I've missed you.

LP

Ice Ice Baby

I've been in the heritage business since 2005. Educated and trained on the westcoast where rain boots reign, water, naturally, is the number one enemy to any heritage home. The ultimate goal of any successful heritage project on the coast is to keep water out and mitigate any areas damaged by water that got in. By the time I left Vancouver, me and water issues, well, we were tight.

But since moving to Calgary (1 year ago today!!!), I have to be honest, this ice thing is really throwing me under the bus. I understand the basic physics of freeze/thaw but had no idea the extent of its potential wrath. And again, correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Calgary a semi arid desert?

Feathered ice on our bedroom window. Coldest room in the house. Which is why I resort to sleeping on the couch on especially cold nights.

We've had an 'unusually usual' cold winter and snowy winter this year - unusual because of the excessively long stints of cold (below -20) and usual because, well it's Calgary and the weather here is totally nutty. I wonder, on days like today, when it's -24/blizzard and meanwhile in Vancouver, the crocuses are blooming, why people 140+ years ago decided to settle here, build a mud hut and call it a day? Am I just not bred right for Prairie life? Too much Mediteranean blood? Do I need to just buck up and finally purchase a function > fashion winter coat?*

Ice Dam gone wild, Banff, Alberta, 1910 (Photo courtesy of Peel's Prairie Province PC007250)

Freeze-thaw, apart from its obvious effects, is sneaky - a trickster - causing the house to shift so that doors that once opened smoothly get stuck, floors to sink slightly. And as soon as it melts, everything shifts back the other way.

My lazy susan corner cupboard in the kitchen, for example, has developed a stick on one side. I am holding back from sanding it down as I'm sure it will work itself out in the Spring. The floor in the downstairs bathroom is dipping down towards the outer wall. We have ICE on the interiors of our windows that we didn't restore last summer.

Anyone up for a snow cone from my living room window?

Even more exciting is the massive ice damming wreaking havoc on our roof. Ice dam? I thought roofs were supposed to be waterproof?? Well, as it turns out, we have no insulation in our attic. And while this makes for an extraordinary show of icicles, the lack of insulation leads to heat escape, causing ice in the eavestroughs to freeze and thaw. This ice backs up into the soffits, then the roof, further freezing and thawing with the temperatures. When the ice expands inside the attic, it pushes roof nails out, which causes leaks like the one in Lily's room this past summer.

When the ice in the attic thaws, it of course causes all kinds of interior leaks depending on how far back the ice has made it in your roof. Like the one in our kitchen window sash a couple of weeks ago.

In short, ice dams are like having your very own glacier. In the attic. Lucky us...

There are solutions. And they are actually quite simple. Add insulation and venting. Keep ice build-up free from eavestroughs over the winter and snow build-up clear from roofs. We know what we have to do. Yet, knee deep (in snow) in the midst of a winter that doesn't appear to be ending, with the occasional water leak in the kitchen and a pet glacier in the attic, we are struggling with putting up the money for what we should do, in lieu of booking a trip to Mexico.

At this moment... Mexico is winning...

LP

* I'm having a hard time with this... why is it so difficult for anyone to design a coat that is both warm and cute?

Hallway After'ish

Not nearly finished - but getting there...

To Do:

Front hallway tile: Black & White weave mosaic tile

Refinish $5 table (midnight blue?)

Simple mouldings and some pictures.

= hall happiness.

LP

My Valentine...

Well I must have done something right this Valentine's Day because look what hubs picked up for me from my 'store of want',* Kit in downtown Calgary on Saturday.

Eames Hang-It-All in all its fantastic glory. My first Eames...

Jumpy claps!!!

And why did I have to photograph it on my dining room table 2 days after it arrived to its new home? Well, could be because the wall looks like this....

Reason #2035 why hubs is in a sales job (but he's still really cute)

FYI: Plaster walls do not like screws and anchors. I did read online tonight that masking tape helps when drilling into plaster walls. We'll give it a shot tomorrow and hopefully post some 'after' shots.

LP

*Store of want: a store that contains within it everything that embodies your idea of a perfect life. Kit is that store to me. Dwell magazine in a store. Sigh.

The Hallway Makeunder

Our hallways have been one of the more frustrating spaces in the house. Remember this lil' before nugget?

All wallpapery and penitentiary and pink. In the summer we had them painted by Janet's Painting who I from time to time have the urge to call just to hear her stories and make my house look pretty.

The base of the hallway wall, for WHATEVER outrageous reason, is faux concrete block. Funny I haven't come across that design in other MCM houses nor has it had a revival of any sort since then. Weird. As we found out, the only colour that looks good on faux concrete block are shades of concrete block.

Faux concrete block and baby who thinks she's helping.

Original entryway tiles. Not sure of the name of this tile (it's like a lino) but I spent one long long evening cleaning them with a toothbrush and they still looked like this.

As I automatically default to 'purist', we left the baseboards in their original untouched, albeit rough original state after having the walls repainted. Ever since we painted the hallway, there's just been no love. It just feels old and dowdy and still a tad penitentiary.

And the table I picked up at the Interfaith for $5 with the glue globs on top is not doing it any favours.

So recently inspired by my girlfriend's office, owner of Speckles & Weeds - an adorable and witty local greeting card company - we decided to paint the baseboards a glossy version of the same grey (Benjamin Moore's Escarpment CC-518).

Speckles & Weeds boardroom

This is a big deal for my purist roots. Like piercing your daughter's ears when she's 6. Below inspiration for the rest of our plans for the hallway. I'll post some 'afters' tomorrow.

Hallway inspiration. Eames Hang it All that I'm currently saving my allowance for. Merci Door Sixteen

LP