The Wall A/C Cover

Sometimes there are "things" on the wall that we would like to cover, permanently or by season, such as this air conditioner unit in our bedroom wall. In this case, the cover also works as an insulator, keeping out cold air.

My first job was to find a fabric that I felt would go well with the decor. I found a print with a somewhat southwestern theme online. I had done some final dimension calculating and made sure I ordered enough. You will read about the fabric dimensions later on in this post.

For the wood pieces, I then measured around the unit in the wall, adding about 3" to each width and length dimension (or 1-1/2" per each outside edge). This is so that there is plenty of clearance between the wood framing and the outside of the wall unit. So if the width was 20", I called it 23". The length 18", I called it 21". Add up the total inches of wood needed (+23" +23" +21" +21" = 88") and purchase 1/2" X 2" wood boards in lengths that will allow you to cut whole sections of the final required 4 lengths of framing. Cut the wood pieces to the predetermined lengths and using metal brackets inside each corner, assemble them so that the wide wood dimension comes out from the wall surface (you want depth). It may be that the item you are covering is deeper. In that case, just adjust the size of wood board you will need. If you are handy with a table saw, you can cut custom sizes. It should be noted that the larger the wood, the heavier the final product will be, so using a 2"x 4" board would probably not work well.

If this needs to be an insulating frame, use some type of heavy material for the first layer of covering. I used a table cloth padding material I found at the fabric store. Add an extra 10" to each overall dimension previously calculated so that you will have about 5" per side to pull over and staple to the back of the frame. Lay the material face UP on the floor, making sure that if there is a pattern, that it is straight. Cut it to dimension.

Turn the material face down and center the wooden frame on it. Starting with one side, staple the material in to the back in the middle of the board. Go to the opposite side and pull the material slightly to remove slack and staple it also to the back in the middle of the board. Do this on the other two edges and then work your way around the frame until the side edges are stapled. Finish it by making a neat corner as shown below.

It should now be ready to hang.

Magazine pics from the early 1950's

Recently my husband brought home an old scrap book of recipes that his late mother had put together. I haven't looked at all of the recipes and will probably post some later on, but some of the magazine pictures she had cut out and pasted in to the scrapbook were interesting. Here are some for you to enjoy along with some dialog I've added. Note: the pictures are wrinkled because they were pasted and it's been a long time. You can click on any one of them to enlarge it for better viewing.

Christmas decor in the boudoir year round! Red gumdrop upholstered stools. Matching......things.....

Someone handed me this guitar and well, I'm trying to hold my arm like I think I'm supposed to hold it and no one is telling me it's wrong and they went ahead and took the picture and everyone is smiling - on the outside....

My mother-in-law, baking from scratch. My generation is so much more modern and I'll prove it by making dinner from a can. I'm so over with basting. I've much more important things to do like starch my aprons and iron the ruffles so they are nice and stiff and fluffy looking.

So I said, "Ralph, it's time you tried tea. This tea. Well, Ralph told me tea was for sissy boys and he didn't think it would go over well with the guys on poker night. I told him that he and his poker boys could go jump in the river, for all I care. It just made me so mad. That's why I wanted you to come over, Evelyn. You are obviously so cultured with your fine clothing
in palest shade of yellow with matching flattish hat and brown band. I knew you would appreciate this tea. Don't you love my trellis?

Honey, it's great, but why did you decide to cover the kitchen wall with this really wild taffeta curtain material stuff and why did we have to dress in formal attire so I could meet the new refrigerator? I just hope there is something good to eat in there. I'm going to go slip into something more comfortable like my soft woolen trousers with cuffs and my burgundy quilted smoking jacket with cravat. Why don't you just whip me up some nice meaty dish that would appeal to my manly appetite?

Yes, at one point, there was a burning cigarette in my hand. I am a fallen, smoking, trashy women of the streets or at least I was until someone glued a gardenia like flower over the stinking weed that was held ever so delicately between my nicotine stained fingers. Whatever. If you look close enough, you can see a curl of smoke coming up behind the flower. The smoking gardenia.

We are the flower women of music (???) by the punch bowl of pink punch and the pendulum(???) on folding chairs and we are having a swell time.

After my bath this morning in perfumed bath salts from Paris, I just lay here all day in my cool organza dress reading my favorite fashion magazine trying not to think about anything that might give me wrinkles or sweat stains and waiting until my true love comes home from the office to sweep me in his arms and well, I can't say anymore.......

I vant to suck your blud

Darling. Darling. My man. My man. Here in the morning as we prepare to eat our 3 minute boiled eggs in their cute holders on the multi-colored brick deck with pink geraniums at the window and our wrought iron furniture including a flower pot attached to the side filled with pretty petunias, I long for you to hold me in your skinny arms against your concave chest.

VALENTINE'S DAY

This is one of my computer generated greeting cards with robots.

Home Stuff #1

I like to create unique things for my home. Over the years I've custom painted tables and lamps. I've painted my own art to hang on the walls. I painted our own custom door greeting (to be shared in a later post). There's a lot of stuff. I thought I'd start including some of the ideas I've come up with and maybe, just maybe, you might be inspired to do your own thing if your tastes run along the same lines.

The first thing is three things. They are cloth covered frames hanging on the wall above our eggplant colored sectional in the upstairs living room.

Obviously, the fabric is the star of this attraction. I found it on a website called Contemporary Cloth. There are many vintage designs to choose from. This one, a barkcloth atomic design is one my favorites although it was hard to choose between it and several other very 1950's funky stuff. I've posted a couple of the designs below.

Anyway, we needed something in the retro line to match our pink retro lampshades. I ordered these online and matched them to some pole style modern glass tables we found at Home Depot. This also will be featured at another time.

My husband helped make the frames for the atomic wall art. In a nutshell, I first decided the finished size of each piece, we purchased the necessary approx. 1/2" x 2" boards, brackets to connect the frame corners and tablecloth lining for an undercover. The undercover might not be necessary, but I felt it gave a smoother look. Table cloth liner is a thick soft, sort of cottony material. Then it was a matter of assembly, careful cutting, careful lining up of fabric on frame so the pattern was straight, stapling of cloth and then hanging.

In case you are wondering about the pink painting on the wall under the art. This is a long river of pink paint that I applied along one wall in the livingroom. I used a Ralph Lauren suede finish paint. HOWEVER, after doing it, I wasn't and still am not sure I like it. But, it is a little thick and removing it would be difficult, time consuming and would probably involve removing the exisiting wall texture which would then have to be re-done making sure it matched the rest of the the wall texture. Ewwww! It's not bad, it's just not exactly what I thought it would turn out to be.

My Rant About Television

Bye, bye analog reception - February 19, 2009. as the U.S. switches all television reception to digital whether we like it or not.

OK. So. We have 2 televisions. One has "rabbit ears" with reception of only two channels and very soon to be obsolete, the other is hooked up to nothing but electricity and the DVD player. It's an older Sony bigger screen television and I suspect it is also not digital. The rabbit ears TV is kept on a shelf in the closet, only used if there is something newsworthy that must be viewed. The last time we had it down was when a tornado hit a nearby town and that was in May of last year. I do plan, if the Academy awards are on one of the two channels we get, to watch it, my one frivolous television viewing experience. This will be my last year to view it via an analog signal. Will we purchase an analog to digital converter box? Possibly. We'll first need to see what is involved in getting the government subsidy for purchasing one of the boxes.

"No television" has been the norm around here for well over 10 years. When we moved from our prior home, where we did have cable, we opted not to fork out the money for cable and to see what happened. I think we can safely say that any negative things about not having cable TV are overwhelmingly outweighed by the positive aspects. My husband now reads books, not a lot, but certainly more than previously. Escaping interaction with each other by watching television shows - not. Seeking alternative options, like creative pursuits for both of us, hobbies (building radio controlled airplanes for Merle) and learning guitar (both of us) .

This does not mean that we don't view the television, DVD, laptop or movie theatre screen for entertainment. We rent movies and go to the movies. We have purchased DVDs and we have Netflix Instant Watch. The BIG, BIG difference here is that our viewing choices are limited. With cable, you have a range of options that includes a little good stuff along with a lot of bad stuff. We don't have the option of bad stuff that is easily viewed with the push of a button, so there is little danger of our being tempted to sit and vegetate on unhealthy material. We try to stick with movies that are rated PG-13 or lower. Not always, but most of the time.

We are not sports fans, so missing sports is not a problem.

The Internet presents options for bad stuff if we want to go there. So far, I think we have been pretty good about not going there.

Our daughter and her husband also do not pay for cable at this time. For how long they will be able to resist it, who knows. If they can resist it and raise our grandson without it, it will be a good thing. Youngsters today are raised around screens - television, computer, handheld video games, cell phones, etc.. Technology. It's a whole different world from the one I grew up in where the only television I viewed was at my grandmother's house on a rare occasion. Roy Rogers. Wyatt Earp. Howdy Doody. Yeah, that old fashioned stuff.

I read and still read a lot. I visit the library about once per week. Finding something interesting to read is a bit of a challenge, but I pick up several books hoping that I'll like at least one of them. My tastes run somewhere between classic literature and John Grisham. Some high tones, a good fairly fast paced story and not too thick.

Toss the cable and save some money. Be different.