Weekend Wrap-Up

Two auctions this weekend equated into 2 great loads of vintage goodness that will be listed in my Etsy shop in the next few weeks.  Now that's something to look forward to!

Yesterday's auction was in central Missouri's countryside.  Here's where I parked:

During the auction, a few guys grabbed their fishing poles and fished.  :)  Picturesque, eh?

Here's a preview of a few treasures from yesterday:

I have quite a few thoughts about the last two auctions that will require an entirely new blog post.  Coming soon!  Hope your weekend was equally as lovely.

A Good Day at the Auction

I was a tad worried that the Buick Encore would be a tight fit for my auction finds after trading in the Chevy Equinox.  It came down to the Encore or the Toyota FJ.  The Encore won because it has OnStar, but it wins in my book because look at this:

See that teeny-tiny hatchback trunk area?  It just won't work for us, I told my husband at the car lot.

But oh it does:

I took off the hatchback cover and stored it in the front seat and suddenly, I'm driving a station wagon!  It was a good day at the auction!

September Auctions

I was heading home from the cottage 2 weeks ago for the day to get some errands run.  Our little lake neighborhood is at least 15 minutes from anything, so it's a bit of a drive for most.  At the next road from the cottage, there was an auction sign pointing towards the gravel road!  Wow!  What?  An auction so close to the cottage?

I immediately did a quick u-turn and headed over to the auction which was located at a house that included a barn.  It sits high on a hill pretty much in the woods by itself on an acre and a half of land.  The house had been closed up since 2008 when the last owner passed away.  I was beside myself and decided to stay for the day.

Am I glad I did!  I purchased a few primitives for sale and many things for us to keep.  I also toured the house, which was still in its' great 1950's state.  The house was for sale, so it was opened to us onlookers.

Here are a few interior pictures:

See the swan on the bath/shower door?  The entire bathroom was done in this shiny tile.  Very retro, indeed.

This was the front bedroom.  The living room and bedroom all had the wonderful wagon wheel lights. Each bedroom was a different color.  It was so interesting to walk through.

I picked up a few treasures for sale including this handmade doll chair:

I waited nearly the entire auction to bid on the chair.  I just love its primitive, chippy paint appearance.  A few items ended up at Delavan Cottage like these crocks, the heavy metal stool and 2 quilts:

Because the auction was pretty much in the boondocks, I paid $8 total for all the crocks.  The stool was $3.  The quilt on the left was $5 and the one on the right was $1.  I was tickled!

Last Sunday I drove down to southern Missouri for a farm auction at a century-old farmhouse.  It was a truly enjoyable day.  The farmhouse and 80 acres are currently under a silent auction to sell, so the house was open to walk through.

I posted on facebook:  Sunday's auction was at a family farm outside Golden City, Missouri. The farmhouse was at least 100 years old. There were boxes upon boxes of family pictures at the auction. Souvenirs from New York and other places in the country were there, as well. I drew some information about the family just by going through remnants that were headed up for sale. When I went inside the house, it was the first time in which every single square inch had the same wallpaper both upstairs in down. And it had wall-to-wall carpeting, even over all the thresholds. There were flowers inside the cabinets, too. But what I liked best was the view out of her kitchen window. It made sense to me. Bunny Hall was a cheerful soul. She led an interesting life that put her back at the family farm for a time before moving to Sarcoxie. At the end of her life, the family possessions as well as the farm and 80 acres are being dispersed. This was one of those auctions I felt privileged to attend. You can read about Bunny at the link below. 

http://www.housh-goodwinfuneralhome.com/sitemaker/sites/houshg0/obit.cgi?user=1007842Hall

 

Everything I purchased, but for one item, is heading down to Delavan Cottage like a wood quilt rack for $3 and a few pottery pieces.  The one item I purchased to sell is this neat picture in a tin oval frame titled, "Jesus in the Temple.

The chair as well as the picture are both listed on Etsy along with several new listings!  I have several new items to list in the next week and I'm going to be busy this weekend with 2 auctions.  One on Friday and another Saturday.

So check the Etsy shop for new treasures!

Delavan Cottage: The First Two Weeks

I've been painting and going to auctions and antiquing.  Oh my, it's been fun!  Want to see what I've been up to?

I painted the main living/kitchen area of Delavan Cottage, our guest cottage at the lake.

It was slow going since I was painting over wallpaper.  It is textured and very adhered to the wall, so painting it was the best idea.  I used Benjamin Moore's Palladian Blue paint.

So, so glad to see that green go!

We're going to put up dentil crown moulding and baseboards, as well, so that's why I didn't paint to the top or bottom.

I have started to paint the kitchen cabinetry with Pale Lemon paint by Glidden, but paint-matched it to Behr Premium-Plus.  I must say, after using Benjamin Moore, Behr's paint just isn't close to the quality. But I marched forward with 2 gallons of paint:

All the cabinets will be coated with 3 coats of Martha Stewart's Glitter Paint in Icecap. That's pretty much where I ended.  The top cabinet and pull-away cabinets have all been painted.  The sink cabinet and pantry are still to go.  I've been busy!

In between the painting, I have hit up a few antique shops.  Here are a few of my finds for the cottage:

I wanted a farm table to seat 6 and after shopping at new furniture stores and seeing prices at $895 and up, we found this table for $60 and with the table and all 6 mis-matched chairs, it was $168.  Yay!

The large canvas painting was just $15!  It looks great as the mantle focal point.  I'm finally home from nearly 2 weeks at the cottage.  I'll be back down in a bit to continue the process but it's time to focus on making money instead of spending it!  The auction circuit has been great and I'll blog about that next time!

Where's Waldo, I mean Johanna?

You might be wondering where the heck I am and why did my blog suddenly stop in July?  Why is my Etsy shop on vacation mode so frequently?  Where is the world is Johanna?  ::wink:wink::  Or not.

In any case, let me fill you in on the details.  My husband and I own a 1930's log cabin at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri as our vacation spot.  We purchased her in 2005 and lovingly named her, Moonlight Cocktail Cottage.

The photo above was taken just two weeks ago.

I have a flickr folder with many Moonlight Cocktail Cottage photos that I've taken over the years.

MOONLIGHT COCKTAIL COTTAGE PHOTOS

We've done loads of work to this place.  I need to dig out my external hard drive to show you the before-before pictures and believe me, you wouldn't recognize the place.  The entire 3 lots had dirt so every time it rained, everything turned to mud.  We had stones brought in to cover the lots.  I then created the garden spaces by hand-carrying and laying every single flagstone rock from home in my Honda Element.  

The flagstone rock was actually part of a stone fence from my husband's ranch out in Alma, Kansas where he grew up.  We brought lots of it to our Kansas home and built up around our fish pond.  We had a fire in 2005 because the pump in the pond caught on fire, which burned the deck and started to burn the outside wall of the house, so some of the rock is black from the fire. We never put in another fish pond because that was traumatic enough and I don't want another water pump outside, so the rock was sitting in the back yard awaiting a new project.

Digging up new garden spaces in the Missouri Ozarks is NOT easy.  They call all the rocks dug up, Ozark potatoes, and they couldn't be more correct.  You can't place a spade anywhere in the ground without hitting rock, so this garden is always a work in very-slow progress.

I painted every single paintable wall in the interior.  We had our kitchen somewhat remodeled.  My husband and I repainted the exterior, added a shed and painted that, too.  We also had a new roof installed last year.  Over the course of 8 years, Moonlight Cocktail Cottage has evolved into what it is today and still, it's a work in progress.  I always have projects in my mind to tackle.

You'll notice in the next two pictures just a peek of the cottage next to ours (The first picture is much older since it still has the old white roof, which has since been replaced):

Our property includes three lots, so it's nice and spacious.  In the picture above, there are still two open lots to the right of the white vehicle.  To the left is an open space and then the next door cottage.  When we purchased our place in June of 2005, no one came down to the place next door.  Ever.  As the years ticked by, my husband and I looked longingly next door wishing someone would love on the house.  It NEEDED work and loving hands like our place had gotten.  :)

Three years ago, we looked at the county tax records and found the names of the owners who lived Kansas.  My husband called and left a message inquiring if they'd ever want to sell the place because we would be interested.  We never heard back.

A couple of years ago, a local investor bought the property from the owners who didn't call us back.  He's a great guy and can sell ice to an Eskimo, so it's no surprise.  He then brought in a dumpster and cleaned the place out.  It had been sitting vacant for at least 6 years and I'm sure more than that because no one in the neighborhood can remember the last times the owners were down.  

He did the bare minimum to make it sellable and then sold it to a couple who wanted to downsize their lake house.  They came in and completely rewired everything and put in a 220 amp service as well as redid all the plumbing.  The owner's wife really wanted lake front (we're on the 2nd tier), so they sold it back to the investor and he went ahead and had the interior and exterior painted.  A new closet was built in the back bedroom and then it was put back on the market.

The house is close enough to ours that we hoped no one rowdy would buy it.  If they came down from the city and partied late into the night, it would ruin our peace and quiet.  And, having a place in the Missouri Ozarks, you always run the chance of someone buying it and quickly junking it up.  Our neighborhood doesn't have any rules, so anything can be done.  This means my husband and I still really wanted to buy the house.

This year we refinanced our home in Kansas to get in a much lower rate. So much of the year has been spent readying our home for inspection. We closed on our refi August 9th and both of us breathed a huge sigh of relief.  We were scheduled for a lake vac the 3rd week of August, so we met up with the investor and looked over the cottage next door and decided we were finally in a position to take it on.  We closed on the cottage August 24th.  With this added cottage and lot, we now own nearly an acre of land. Who would have ever thought in my lifetime I would be so incredibly blessed beyond belief! God is always good!

Yay!

Here are all the before pictures:

The house is 720 square feet and includes a glorious screened-in porch, a main room with a wall-to-wall fireplace and kitchen, there's a back bedroom with a door that leads to the landing and then a full bathroom.

Right away, we placed a few things from our cottage inside this cottage to make it homey.  We also bought a new kitchen light fixture at Menard's, my new favorite hardware store.  My Dad was also down visiting, so he installed the light fixture and it looks GREAT!

I love the views out of the side windows:

This is our kitchen window view!  You'll notice yellow paint on the trees.  That's the Ozarks' way of marking property lines!  ;)

The cottage was built in 1950 so there are just a few vintage touches left; this door knob in the bathroom is one.  Isn't it terrific?

And last but not least is the screened in porch.  It has been a lifelong dream to have a screened porch.

So these are the reasons why I haven't been blogging much, if at all, and why my shop has been on vacation more than not. It will take quite some time to do everything that we plan to this cottage but we hope to have it open by next summer for guests.  I'm going to have to work very hard with my Etsy shop because all of my money earned will go towards the cottage and first on the agenda is to buy a new refrigerator and stove.  :)

But I have one last vacation ahead of me this upcoming week.  The shop will remain open, but shipping of items purchased will occur the week after next.  :)  Meanwhile, I'm going to stop by the hardware store to pick up some Benjamin Moore paint and head on down to the cottage for 4-5 days.

Keep watch!  I'll be blogging about the cottage every step of the way!