A Tiny Bit of Progress

Tags

Aslan's Tent, Decor, Design, Flooring, Kara, Lighting, Narnia, Spare Oom

Although I was still sick in bed last week, I could use the telephone!  I went surfing through the Yellow Pages and discovered that my favorite local cleaner for Oriental rugs, Interior Care, Inc., also does carpets.  A few days later a young man was here to clean the ferret-stained, dust-choked Aslan’s Tent along with a well-lived-in chair in the living room.

Herb and I had gotten the furniture out so every square inch of the carpet is now as clean and good as new.

Yesterday, poor Herb had a busy Sunday doing all the things I had (graciously) consented could wait till the weekend so he could study for his finals and write his papers.  The thing about “Honey-Do” lists is they just don’t go away quietly!

First he got the plywood cut at Lowe’s for the Dawn Treader berths and carried all four very heavy pieces upstairs.  Halfway through, his foot slipped on the stairs, the plywood shot backwards down the stairs, and Herb went bounding stiff-legged after it, still hanging on.  He jammed his ankle, poor guy, and was limping badly by bedtime, but it’s “pretty good” this morning.

After the plywood was ensconced in a berth (because once the Wardrobe is in place, we’d never get it in there!), Herb started moving furniture.  I helped him move the dresser in, and he brought the antique twin beds from storage at Kara’s house and set them up.

Next, he brought the daybed over from storage in Kara’s house, and we set it up together.  The rest of Spare Oom is a wreck, but now I can figure out where to move the rest of the furniture and then start putting the room together.  Bit by bit it’ll get done.

This morning I began to feel a tiny bit human again, so I started on decorating Aslan’s Tent.  Obviously, we need a king-sized mattress so this is just temporary.  One thing I did do from bed with my wonderful iPad was research king bed sizes to learn that the base provided by our two twin box springs will perfectly fit a regular king.  I’m not buying a mattress online; I’ll let my “fingers do the walking” to find out where I want to try out and buy a mattress.

The quilt is one Kara doesn’t use any more; we brought the bedside table back from Morocco along with the mint tea pot; and we bought the pink tea glasses in the Arab Quarter of Marseilles before we left France in 2001.

For now I’m leaving the silk screen prints made by two of our once-little girls and the beautiful garland handmade by a friend, although I’ll switch to Moroccan fabrics on the door.  This larger bedside table is Moroccan, too, although I bought it for a song in an antique shop.  Both the tables were beautifully polished by High Point Antiques in Chattanooga.  Next, I’ll take them this little leather Moroccan lamp (a gift from our kids) to repair the curlicue that got knocked off.

This really IS the fun part!  I love decorating!

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Busy As a . . . Flat-tailed, Dam-building Rodent!

Tags

Aslan, Colors & Paint, Decor, Lighting, Mimi's Cave, The Lodge, Wardrobe

This was the 45th day of construction, and since it was Saturday, I was the only one working.  I think you’ll agree, though, that I deserve to count it as a day building Narnia!

I got four of these decorative wood pieces at Hobby Lobby, then stained them with the same stain as the berths, followed by two coats of polyurethane.  The final step was applying the Rub ‘n Buff, also from Hobby Lobby.  They will decorate the sides of the berths when we get them built.

Adding the finishing touch to the ceiling light in The Lodge was a simple as climbing on a ladder.  I stuffed the light into the fish basket, then hung the basket from the chain with an S-hook.  Voila!  My version of Pottery Barn’s $99 light fixture for well less than half the price.

You may remember this lion corbel from Van Dykes’ Restorers.  When I first bought him, I thought Ben would be building a faux wardrobe, and I called him “The Wardrobe Lion,” thinking he would be the ornament on top.  Once Stuart recommended that I buy an actual wardrobe, I decided to put this handsome Aslan inside Narnia above where the Wardrobe opens into the room.  Two coats of stain and two coats of poly, and Aslan’s ready and waiting to be hung in place.

Most of my day was spent finishing The Lodge.

Well, not quite “finishing” since Ben isn’t finished nailing all the logs up–but I’ll let you peek, anyway!

This was lots harder than staining the berths, and the door was pretty tricky, too.  This Olympic Maximum Stain & Sealant Semi-Transparent wood protector from Lowe’s gives a mildew-resistant, water-resistant stain.  It’s meant for decks, and I imagine that would be fairly straight-forward.  Putting it on vertical walls with lots of joints and corners and edges was a whole different matter!  It’s meant to go on in one thin coat, but I found that a thin coat was impossible to brush on.  So I brushed one log at a time, then wiped it back with a lint-free rag.  I’m happy with the end result, but after two days of working on this, my right arm is about dead!

The door was extremely tricky, but so is staining a door.  There’s a certain amount of technique to always brush on and wipe off in the direction of the grain of each panel of the door.  A little at a time is definitely the way to go, along with frequent stirring of the product.  And have more clean rags on hand than you think you’ll need, because you’ll still need more!

One tip I learned is, don’t kick the bucket!  I mean, don’t accidentally kick your bucket of stain and flip the stirring stick out.

This is what happens when you do.  Of course it happened to the hall side of the door that is supposed to be stained with Minwax.  And Olympic Maximum does NOT come off once it’s on!  I’ll see if some sanding will help and hope my English Chestnut color is dark enough to hide a few sins.

This was the first wall I did.  Right after it went on I wasn’t too happy with the color, but I trusted the process–which means, stain a sample of the actual wood you’ll be staining, and then trust your choice!

The final task of the day (and a fun treat after the door!) was staining the wooden switch-plate covers I got at Ace Hardware of Chickamauga.  They need some poly, but they were a nice way to end my day.

One final thing I did before creeping painfully down the stairs to wash my brush was to check out the light coming in through the window of Mimi’s Cave.

Ahh, now that’s a view to warm the heart of a weary worker!  (And remind her that she needs to clean the windows!)

On the Fourth Day

Tags

Cair Paravel Library, Dawn Treader, Design, God the Creator, Lighting, Narnia, The Lodge

“Then God said, ‘Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night.  Let them mark off the seasons, days, and years.  Let these lights in the sky shine down on the earth.’  And that is what happened.  God made two great lights–the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night.  He also made the stars.  God set these lights in the sky . . . and God saw that it was good.  And the evening passed and morning came, marking the fourth day.”  Genesis 1:14-19

If you count construction days, today was Day 44, but it was like the fourth day of creation.  It wasn’t quite as quick as God saying “Let there be light” and there was light.  It involved a whole day’s work by the crew from Helton Electrical, Chris, Nick and Jacob (and yes, his friends call themselves Team Jacob!)

Jacob got initiated into working at my house:  you never know when you’ll be on candid camera.  Chris and Nick already know!  After everything was cleaned up and they were gone, I gave Herb the Grand Tour.

First, Cair Paravel (can I call it the Library when there aren’t any shelves?)

You can see the great job Ben did yesterday covering the double LVL to make it look like a beam.  (I stained and poly’d the boards.)  It was really not a one man job, so David helped Ben hold the boards up.  He made cardboard templates to help him be sure of the tricky cuts and angles that were involved.

And thank you, Kara, for the beautiful light from your studio!  I took Chris and his crew over to her house this morning to “harvest” fixtures, but I made sure they knew that SHE was the one who offered them!  And I provided others they could put in for her so we weren’t leaving her in the dark.

 I love the reflections this light casts on the ceiling, and I can’t wait till the golden glaze in on the ceiling and walls to see how it looks then.

Next, on to The Lodge.

I had a limited amount of time to put the deck stain on these walls, so I made sure to do the one that would get the light fixture; no taping that way.

The main fixture still needs its fish basket, but it looks great.

Next, on to Mimi’s Cave.

We ran out of light bulbs, but I love the chandelier (another one from Kara).  And Kara, I really did tell them you were keeping the dangly crystals, but I guess they didn’t hear me.  Don’t worry, I’ll give them back.

And finally, Narnia!

The girls’ side with the Sun that Kara found in an antique store and the Lamp Post.

The boys’ side.

And a close-up one of the Dawn Treader berths with its ship-shape light for reading in bed and the porthole for bugging one’s sibling who’s trying to read in bed.

Chris and I were discussing his job, and he said he thinks he has the best job in construction because he gets to come back at the end and (after some hard work, of course) make everything look great with the flip of a switch.  I think their part is one of the most exciting because it’s such a sudden change.  The other stuff has happened gradually over 44 days, but suddenly after one single day, THIS IS REALLY LOOKING LIKE NARNIA!  This is what I’ve been seeing in my head for months and months!

Operation Lamp-Post

Tags

Dawn Treader, Decor, Lighting, Narnia

Back in August, I found the perfect Lamp-Post at Lowe’s.

Except it wasn’t perfect.  It had a very un-Narnian Lamp-Post gold and black finish.  But I figured that was nothing I couldn’t cure with a can or two of black spray paint.

So I headed to the garage with two cans of Rust-Oleum satin finish black paint.  Today everything was good and dry, so I put the Lamp-Post together and tried it out in Narnia.

Now that’s a Lamp-Post worthy of Lantern Waste!

I found the perfect ship lights for the Dawn Treader berths at Lowe’s, too.

Except they weren’t perfect, either.  Lowe’s had either black or white to choose from, and the portholes (which will be below the lights) are brushed aluminum.  I opted for white, figuring it would be less obvious if the silver gets scratched through. I spent a few minutes taking apart the ship lights and applying masking tape before spraying them with some Rust-Oleum Brilliant Metal Finish in a brushed silver color.

Now that’s more like it!  There’s not much you can’t fix with either duct tape, hot glue, or spray paint!

Treasure Trove

Tags

Aslan's Tent, Cair Paravel Library, Dawn Treader, Decor, Flooring, Kara, Lighting, Narnia

All was not lost during our Molasses Period.  To ease the frustration of w.a.i.t.i.n.g., I started digging through things I had packed away when we moved to this smaller house.  My plastic storage bins were a treasure trove of Narnia-bilia!

These two beautiful Korean floor cushions will be perfect on the Stone Table for someone to sit on and read.

These cushions I bought years ago at Southeastern Salvage fit into the Moroccan-Run-Amok theme of Aslan’s Tent.  I kind of like the poetic sound of that, but we could also call the theme Bazaar Style, a term I recently encountered in a decorating book.

I was VERY excited when I found this batik we bought in the Central African Republic in 1985.  It looks exactly like a scene from “The Horse and His Boy” except Shasta never went after Aslan with a spear–he was too terrified!

I have lots of Moroccan shawls and pieces of fabric collected from our travels to Spain and Morocco as well as from the Arab Quarter in Marseille when we lived in the south of France.  If anyone wants to visit North Africa without actually going there, Marseille’s Arab Quarter makes a good substitute–minus the camels!!

To celebrate our anniversary late in June, I  told Herb that one thing I wanted to do was go to Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsboro, AL.  There I found the perfect little Eustace-dragon.

These enormous lengths of brightly colored pieced fabric were a steal at $6 apiece at Unclaimed Baggage.  I’m planning to use them to help make the sides of Aslan’s Tent.  The purple fabric and green rug fit right in.  Kara has a satiny lavender comforter she doesn’t use any more, and it is made to order for this color scheme.

“Just checking” at Lowes’ one day I found our perfect Lamppost.  We’ll paint it black, as one of the online reviewers had done, and we think Aslan will feel right at home!

During an earlier trip to Southeastern Salvage with Kara, we picked out the sink for The Lodge bathroom.  We bought the dark bronze drain and waterfall faucet to go with it.  It has a definite lodg-ish look to it!  And I converted Kara to a Southeastern Salvage fan!

Shortly after that we were bumming at Go Fish on the North Shore in Chattanooga and found this fabulous mirror to go above the sink.  It would make any lodge-builder happy!  I had thought of making one, but I can’t buy a plain mirror and make it for what this cost.

The last treasure I found in a rare moment when I wasn’t even thinking about Narnia.  I went into Tractor Supply with Didi one day, and there was our Lodge trash can, sitting right there!  It looks like the inhabitants emptied a barrel of salted fish and turned it into a bathroom waste basket.

This great old fishing basket I’ve hung onto for several years will encase a simple pendant light in The Lodge.  It will give the look of an expensive chicken-wire-covered light fixture I found online–and it’s an original!

My plan for the ceiling treatment involves fish nets from Hobby Lobby with twigs and driftwood intertwined in the nets, then hung from the ceiling.  At least, that’s the plan!

Kara has some great chandeliers in her house which she’s said we can take.  One is this forest fantasy one which I plan to use in the Library at Cair Paravel.  Of course, we’ll have the electrician put the banal big box store bulbs back up for her.  (Gotta love that alliteration!)

Kara’s living room chandelier will look marvelous in Aslan’s Tent.  I’m glad she has such excellent taste!  Fortunately, I have a nice freebie we can hang for her in its place.

Credit for the most brilliant (excuse the pun) lighting idea for Narnia goes to . . . KARA!  She originally offered us her fabulous 70’s “sun” lamp.  Then one day she called me from one of my favorite antiquing haunts, Knitting Mill Antiques, to say she’d found one just like it, except it was ready to hang as a chandelier.  When I asked the dealer’s best price, he said $99, just what I had wished I could get it for.  

Since ours is sitting in a box, Kara’s will make a good stand-in.  I can’t wait to see what kind of beautiful patterns the “sun” casts on the Narnian sky! 

I finally followed Kara’s advice, and on my way home one day I stopped at Lumber Liquidators. There I found a beautiful hand-scraped bamboo flooring that looks like it was taken from the “Dawn Treader’s” deck.  It’s a good thing I didn’t actually buy it that day even though the sale was almost over (stay tuned to find out why), but even the regular price comes in under the flooring allowance Stuart’s estimate gives us.  

With such a deck underfoot, all we need is the rocking of the ship to make the GKs feel like they’re really on board with Prince Caspian . . .  Never fear, I have a plan for that!