Betty's corner of the world: Before and After

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Before and After

"BEFORE"

Our house is 95 years old and has a full basement that my husband uses as a workshop .. Somebody built a 'bomb shelter' below the basement ..We think it must have been during the Cuban crises when people were building shelters. We have always used the 'shelter' to store piles of junk, but my husband has always called it his 'wine cellar' ..So while he was gone for a couple of days our daughters and I cleaned it out, painted it and turned it into a real "wine cellar" to surprise him...The two little pictures above where hung there to cover the two 'air vents'..This is a little passage way to the shelter door.

"AFTER"

We bought a mirror at a yard sale and replaced it with a print of a wine label he had designed for a friend who was bottling wine ... The picture is special to him because he only has one bottle of the wine left and his friend has since passed away.
If you'll notice the 'cork rug' we made from cutting corks in half and hot gluing them onto a rubber mat. ..Funny but not so funny story about the 'rug' ... It took hours and hours to cut and glue the corks and on the day we were working on the cellar we put the 'rug' outside, upside down on the driveway .. well, the 90 degree sun 'melted' the glue and they all fell off! ...So they had to re-glue the whole thing over again...lol

"BEFORE"

You can see from this picture that it was filled with years of junk.

"AFTER"

This is a view of what he saw when he got home ...

He has since improved on it and is now adding some nice lighting to the room.

Don't mind the women behind the door ... Yes, that's me.

We needed more corks for the rug!...lol

I found the door in a junk store and

my grand daughter painted and decoupaged it.

Thanks Natalie.. great job.

It was a fun project and Joe loves it.

Thanks to Tina, Natalie & Jaime for all your help

and to everyone who drank the wine

so we could have enough corks for the rug.

2 comments:

The Single NesterAugust 7, 2011 at 11:28 AM
How awesome! I hear the mandolins of Italy in the background!
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SueAugust 7, 2011 at 12:23 PM
Crack me up girl- drink that wine so you can have corks! LOL Your surprise for Joe turned out well, Betty! Aren't you just such a sweetie. I bought a box of corks at a yard sale so I have oodles and oodles of them. I don't drink enough of the vino to have use for my intended projects. Not that I don't appreciate a good bottle of red, however~ grin....
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BIRTHDAYS

January, February and March are our "birthday months" ... We have so many birthdays at this time of the year that it makes your head spin ... Although every single one of them is so important, we sometimes just can't celebrate each one like we should .. But we all know we are special and that we are loved by our big family.

There have been all kinds of parties and celebrations, some are big and some may be having pizza at our local pizza place ..but we always have fun.

One of the celebrations that stands out in our family memories is the one where my son-in-law invited about 20 people over for an early brunch since my dauther Jennifer works nights he knew she would be sleeping ... he had us all stand around her bed and outside their big picture window were everyone could look in and she could see everyone outside. ...Well, she woke up to a bunch of "fire crackers" that he lit outside the window... Oh yeah! ...It was not pretty when she jumped up out of a dead sleep ... Saying .."what the hell"!!!! along with a few other words #@%$$#&**##@!!!! .. especially when she raealized that there were 15 people standing around her bed.. she wanted to kill her dear hubby ..but she laughed and has never forgotten her 40th birthday ......So that tells you what kind of a family we have ... there's always something that is good for a laugh ...and it makes for great dinner stories.... So I am saying ....* HAPPY BIRTHDAY* to all of us who will be or has been celebrating a birthday .... I love you all ..and I am blessed. :^)

So that gives you an idea of what kind of a family we are ...

A Birthday Gift From Louie & Yoly

A GIFT FROM RITA

What a wonderful surprise I got today when the postman left a package at my door! .. I was having a regular day doing what I do ..then I found a package on my porch .. I had no idea who it was from .. then I saw that it was from my niece Rita Reade ..I can't tell you how thrilled I was shen I saw what she had sent me ..."A beautiful bag full of trinkets" ....I just love every single thing in the bag and the bag is a treasure in itself .. and guess what? .. It's not even my birthday!... I don't think I've ever gotten a gift in the mail for no reason at all .. and don't you just love getting packages in the mail? .. Thank you soo much Rita for all the beautiful things and for making my day soo special... I love you ... Hugz ...Tia Betty

Yard sale weekend

Last Saturday was a city wide yard sale in a near by beach town called Morro Bay ...it's about a 15 minute drive from our town ...I went with two of my daughters, Julie and Jennifer. ..They picked me up at 6:30 am ...we wanted to be the "early birds" so we could get the best "prizes" ..of course everyone else had the same idea ... Tina, our oldest daughter also followed in her car with cousin Pam ... we had to take two cars to have enough room for our treasures ... good thing we did take two cars because they were both 'packed' when we came home ... It was such a fun day. One of the things I bought was a service for 12 set of Spring looking dishes .. but when I put them on my table they just 'didn't work for me' ..so Tina is going to try to sell them at her yard sale next weekend.... You can't win them all.