He says the walls are coming down easily.

Dad gives DD a few demo tips.

Having fun. BTW, she wrote on the wall just before she began to demo it. Just in case you were wondering how long the marker had been on the wall…

Making good progress…

The new closet will fit behind the bedroom door, in an unused space. Putting it there (and removing the old closet) will make more floor space for DD. We probably won’t get the new closet installed before the holidays, but at least we’ve taken a step in the right direction.

~~Rhonda

Some things don’t change, however. Our need for meaningful prayer, for instance. I found a little book published in 1916, called God’s Minute: A Book of 365 Daily Prayers Sixty Seconds Long for Home Worship. The prayers are written by 365 clergymen and laymen. The prayers are short, but inspiring. I’ve been using them during the prayer and Bible time that opens our school day, adding our personal prayers and prayer for a particular missionary each day. For my daughter’s sake, I read the Thee/Thou as You. Following is today’s prayer.

September Sixteenth

Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving. Ps. 95:2

O Lord God, our Father, Saviour and Guide, by Whose gracious and bountiful providence we have been nourished and sustained until this hour, and in Whose redemptive, all-embracing love we greatly rejoice, accept we beseech Thee, the sincere and profound gratitude of our hearts for Thine unfailing mercy and goodness. Pardon, we implore Thee, all our failings, faults and follies. By the Spirit dwelling with us, sweeten our dispositions and chasten all our appetites and desires. Sanctify our home, light it with the lamp of Thy presence continually, and warm it with the fire of Thy love.

Make Thy way plain before our eyes, and lead us onward and upward. Sanctify unto us all our trials and difficulties. Help us over the hard places, and in the smooth places suffer us not to forget our constant need of Thee. Quicken and intensify our love to Thee, and help us to be compassionate and generous in all our dealings with our fellow-men. Enable us to do justly and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with Thee. May we not be overcome of evil, but may we overcome evil with good.

O let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish Thou the righteous. And may the whole earth be filled with Thy glory! Amen.

~~Rhonda

See, just like Grandma used to make. Forked and glittered…I mean sugared…and ready to pop in the oven.

The above is in a disposable plate as it was made for a bake sale. Here are two pies ready to pop in the oven, made in two of my pie plates. I can just about guarantee that the one in the back has peaches in it because that’s the red pie plate I always use for peach pie. And those cinnamon roses to the right…oh, yum!

Anyhoo, I’ve been collecting pie plates for years and I think it’s all Grandma’s fault. The first ceramic plate I ever received was a wedding gift in 1977. The second plate I obtained was purchased at Branson, Missouri, when I and the ladies from my church took a field trip there. That was sometime in the early eighties…rough estimate…not sure just when we went down there…After that, I began picking them up at craft fairs, while on vacation, as gifts, etc. I am sure I have 10 or more that aren’t shown in these pictures. There isn’t enough room to display them all. They sit on pegs in the kitchen. To get one down, I have to have someone climb on the counter…not entirely convenient, but they *do* look nice up there.

That empty space on the left must be for a pie plate with a pie in it… The plate with the flowers came from a potter at a Rendezvous. I have several plates from the same potter, though I don’t know his/her name. The tree pie plate was a gift from a dear friend. She loves trees. There’s more to that story that I won’t share here, but, girlfriend, you know who you are. Much love. The doily plate is the one I picked up in Branson when my Bible study ladies took a field trip there.

Many pie plates are in browns, greys, muted blues. I’m always on the lookout for something in a different color, like the pink one in this photo. One of my favorites.

I found the brown one somewhere in Tennessee while on vacation. And isn’t the little kitty plate cute? Yes, I’ve made little pies in it. The dark wine red plate is one of my favorites for peach pie.

More Rendezvous pie plates in this picture. And the one on the right is a dark hunter green.

Here are three of my five or six Christmas pie plates. I put them up for the holidays.

The one with the blue painting inside the rim was a gift. The next one I found at the Cedarhurst Craft Fair. I love the detail of the hand painted design. I usually get a lot of comments on the next one, which I bought in Kentucky somewhere. People seem to like the swirls and the mix of colors.

In this picture, you get an idea of how the pegs that hold the pie plates and the curtains run over the cabinets as well as over the windows. To the right, they also run over the refrigerator. The ceiling is 12′ high, by the way. Our kitchen was, at one time, an enclosed back porch. One reason I had to paint the ceiling blue.

And they aren’t just for pie. We make corn bread in them.

And apple cake.

Just to mention a couple of things. I use the plates a lot. Seems there’s no sense in having them, if they aren’t used.

When we moved into our current home, my friend Liz made this counted cross stitch for me. She knows I love to bake pie.

Here’s my Grandma (on the right) and her sister Iva as they peeled apples together. Both have since passed away, but pie plates will always remind me of Grandma.

~~Rhonda

The guest room used to look like this:

We bought this house in 1994 and renovated it before moving into the house in 1996. The wallpaper, carpet, and colors were chosen then. So it was overdue for a makeover.

We painted in blues and white, with some cream and yellow accents.

To the right of the bed is a lowboy dresser that used to be in the scrapbook room. Several pieces of furniture played musical chairs during the past few months.

On the top of the little dresser is an Advent box and a rosemary tree. The Advent box came from Target in 2008. They had several styles and colors. This one seemed just right for the guest room.

To the right is the bookcase that came from DH’s family.

On top the bookcase are lighted buildings that are replicas of the county courthouse and the historic jail house in my home town. The jail is now a county museum. The book “Tale of Three Trees” stands in front of three fir trees in silver flower pots.

And in front of the bookcase is the Christmas tree. The tree is placed there so it can be seen down the hall as you look into the addition from the music room (formerly the office, before the desk wandered off to the library…now the “music room” because the piano lives there).

Turning to the right and facing the north wall, we see the north window, a small table, a vintage chair and a corner cabinet I found on Craig’s List.

I still need to put the doors back on the bottom section, but the cabinet fits perfectly in this corner. The cabinet was stained. I sanded and painted it for the guest room. The white glass lightning rod balls on the bottom shelf are from my husband’s family farm and the blue one is from the house my paternal grandparents lived in.

My friend Laurie made the drapes. Aren’t they beautiful? It was her idea to hang them over the door, as well, which preserves the look of the lovely beveled glass but also provides privacy for the guest room when the drapes are pulled over the door.

To the right of the door is another vintage chair, painted blue. and then the armoire, which you can see in the first picture of this post used to be stained, but is now painted white with a blue interior.

The dried hydrangeas on top the armoire are from our garden.

Next is the comfy chair and the aluminum Christmas tree. The tree sparkles and shimmers in the sunlight coming through the south window.

On the other side of the window is a nightstand that had been in the attic. Works well here.

That brings us back to the bed. DH made the head board from a door his parents had acquired from their church years ago.

The guest room is so peaceful that sometimes I go in there for quiet time. Especially in the mornings when the sun is shining through the window. ~~Rhonda

Last year, it looked like this…that’s a full size mattress.

We want to have a queen size bed in the guest room, though, so, for now, the queen mattress is sitting on a simple metal frame.

I do have a plan to have a bed made for the guest room. We had two large pine trees taken down last year and the wood was milled and saved. I want to use that and two old doors to make the new bed. But for now, we decided to hang an old door on the wall as a headboard.

The door came from the church my in-laws attended for years. This is what it looked like in our basement…not a promising start.

But DH cleaned it up, sanded it, and painted it.

Using the instructions on Martha’s site, DH modified the plans a bit and secured the door to the wall. Instead of a 2×4, he used a 2×6. The picture shows it after it has been cut on a 45 degree angle to make a cleat to hang the door on the wall. One piece is secured to the wall studs and the other piece is secured to the door.

The top cleat was made a bit shorter than the door to make it easy to adjust the headboard to the right or left without having the cleat show. He also added a small cleat to the bottom of the door to make it a bit more secure.

After hanging the headboard, DH put my angel pictures back up, centered over the headboard. The pictures are blown up copies of vintage Christmas postcards. By the way, the white spots on the pictures are reflections from the sun shining off the aluminum Christmas tree in the window.

The headboard makes the whole room look more finished. I love it!

~~Rhonda

Laurie saw this idea in a decorating magazine. So cute! And it leaves the beveled glass door panes free of covering, which I like a lot. Here, they are pulled to the left.

They can stand at both sides of the door.

Or be pulled shut when privacy is wanted. I have the panels for the window on the left wall in this picture. Laurie is working on the ones for the opposite larger window. For the holidays, we repurposed sheer panels that came from the master bedroom, which got new panels this year. These look perfect in this room and I plan to leave them up, under the drapes.

I *love* them. Exactly what I had in mind. BTW, I also love, love, love the darker blue ceiling! This room has 8′ ceilings and I was worried the dark color would not work. But it looks great and gets a lot of compliments when visitors see the room.

~~Rhonda

The pink tree turned out very cute! Not sure why DD didn’t want it on a box this year. But it’s her room, her tree. If she wants it on the floor when I’d prefer it on a box, no big deal.

The pink tree has been a big hit.

For the open house, we taped the plans for her room to the end of the bed.

The overall plan:

DD is excited about what is happening in her room. We’re looking forward to more progress on the bed this week!

~~Rhonda

DH has been painting the room for the past several days. A little more work on the woodwork and the painting will be done.

The lime green is in a small indention in the wall. Her desk will be placed in front of this window. The closet to the right will be removed after Christmas and a new closet will be built to the right of the door to the room (which is where I was standing when I took the picture).

The carpenter is building a two story bed nook (the bedroom ceiling is 12′). The upper story will be a second bed for company, as well as a library nook for DD. The bed will have walls, windows, and steps up to the upper part. Each bed will have a ledge for a clock, a lamp, etc. Gary wired the outlets for us last week. Above the ledge will be shelves for books, display, etc.

I’m looking forward to posting pictures of this room when it is completed!

~~Rhonda

We have a carpenter building a double decker bed (ceilings are 12′). He hopes to have the bed done before the open house. He will also build a desk area with shelves and cubbies, and put in a new closet with a bench seat that can serve as her “launch pad.” The pictured closet was added in the 1920′s and we will remove it after the end of the year. The launch pad is a place for her to prepare for the next day…a place to set out her clothes, her shoes, her book bag, etc.

The upper bunk will serve as a guest bed and as a reading nook. There will be shelves on the wall for her books, a lamp, and an outlet for other needs. DD has been *extremely* patient while this all takes longer than we had planned. The desk and closet will have to wait until after the Christmas festivities. But we are hoping the bed will be done soon!

~~Rhonda

The large floral will be used for curtains.

My DEAR friend Laurie came over Sunday evening and volunteered to make the curtains for me. I almost cried. :’-) Happy tears. {{{{{{{{Laurie}}}}}}}} She is coming by today to help figure yardage and I’ll order the fabric online to take advantage of a big savings. I’ll also be able to get it more quickly than I can from the fabric store, as the online store has it in stock and can ship it immediately.

~~Rhonda