Saturday Style: My Victorian House

For my Saturday Style post this week I am going to share my love of Victorian houses and how we came to own one.

When my DH and I were dating we used to drive through old neighborhoods in Salt Lake City where we met attending school at the University of Utah.  We both loved old homes and hoped to one day own one.  As our family grew, however, our dream dimmed, because our large family would require a large home, and large  Historic Homes in Salt Lake City were just out of our price range.

We later moved to Utah county with my husband's work, old homes were more affordable here, but still beyond us.  We finally decided to build a Victorian style home, and that is the position we were in when 'Broadstone', the name we have since given our home, came into our lives.

I first saw this red sandstone beauty when my antiquing partner Trish and I traveled to a small town 20 minutes south of Orem, where we lived, to attend an estate sale.  It was pretty much love at first site for me.  Trish's husband is a realtor and she offered to have him show us the house.  At the time we had a building lot in Highland, 20 minutes north of Orem, and where looking at Victorian house plans.

As we drove up to the home, Cliff, the realtor, asked my DH what the chances were that we would buy this house.  Scott said 4%.  But as we looked at the house, much of which was in very bad shape, he started throwing out statements like "Well, we could just ..."
Or "All we would need to do for this is to ..."  By the time we went to bed that night we had decided to make the house our own.  Features like the fireplace to the right, and the wonderful stained glass windows helped us both fall in lovely fairly quickly.

We were not in a position to move into the house just then, so we took two months to replace the various heating issues with two furnaces, re plaster walls that had been washed away by a leaking roof, and redo the plumbing in the main bathroom.  These taken care of we rented the house for two years

We, moved in September of 1999 and have worked on the house ever since.  The carpeting shown on the stars replaced sculpted gold carpet from the 70's.  The figural newel post light fixture is actually a modern reproduction, but we know from talking to a former owner, who grew up in the house from 1911 until 1930 that there was such a fixture originally.

Thanks for coming along and sharing my love of Victorian houses, I will have future posts about the history of the house and our work on it.  Hope you love V houses too!

Punching Your Own Paper Lace.

Today for my Friday Favorites, I am going to share a favorite paper art tool.  If you look at the three items on the right, an invitation, a hang tag and a spring theme clay pot, you will probably see one thing in common.

I have always loved paper lace since I started making Valentines as a child.  Sometimes the straight lace pieces are hard to find, but with this lace cutting tool, you can make your own.

The one I own is part of Martha Stewart's line, but there are other patterns and other makers as well.  I even found that I can do long sections of lace by using cash register tape, as shown below.

In this picture the punch is folded up as you would store it, taking less room.

In this picture it is in its operating position.  With the flaps down, you can reposition your paper after each punch, to allow for the coninuous design.

I hope you have enjoyed sharing one of my favorite tools.

Spice Tins Looking Vintage!

Yep, its Thrifty Thursday once more, and time to share another thrifty project.  When I first saw this spice set at a garage sale last summer, I knew it had possibilities. 

However this is what it looked like when I found it.  The dark outdated colors were sort of dreary.  I longed to lighten it up and give it softer touches.

I used spray paint I had on hand and painted them white.  I then brushed the wood holder in two colors of blue and then went in search of a great label design.  I found this sweet wreath on Graphics Fairy, and it even came in assorted colors, so of course I choose the blue.

This photo shows the hand brushed details on the rack and on the lids of the individual spice canisters.  I had  a lot of fun with that.

When I was photographing them, I noticed this antique flat basket, and wondered how they would look displayed on it.  I liked seeing one more color in the ocean spectrum added in.  Of course the lace would be impractical in the kitchen, but it still looks sweet.

Thanks for coming along on my thrifty tour. 

Spice Set (Garage Sale) -   $2

paints from stock on hand  -  0

paper and ink from stock on hand.  - 0

Mod Podge from stock on hand - 0