the beauty of chippy paint...

i can't stop looking at this cabinet everytime i pass by it in the old plumbing store.  and the apple green color of the bead board below tugs at my heart strings.  i'm sure it's painted with lead based paint...but i don't plan on licking it so i'm safe.   i'd like to take it off the wall and put it my house, but for now there's no room... i'll have to be satisfied with appreciating it right where it's at.

lighting up my life...

after squinting to see things on my desk for the past month, we finally made it to lowe's to pick out a light for over the desk.  we found the right configuration that would provide plenty of light, but didn't like any of the shades available.  that's when my husband said, hey, let's use mason jars.  i looked at him in astonishment!  had he been reading my flea market magazines again?  i loved the idea, so we bought the lights and he hung them.  but with so much stuff still packed away, i couldn't find the jars i wanted.  my trusty bed springs are never far away so we made a little change in plan and were both very pleased with the outcome.  now i just have to get some edison light bulbs to complete the look.  i swear, that man never ceases to amaze me.

what we found...

just discovered another door to different area of basement.  it was covered with snow when we first looked at the building and didn't know it was there.  now it's open...let's go in!

first discovery, this great old ladder, plus i think we counted 5 old farm house sinks and backs.

found this stuck up on a ledge.  so far we've found 4 old screen doors, one of them will soon be decked out with this rainbo bread screen!

this was an area of basement that we didn't know existed.  it's completely separated from the front basement by rock, although we thought we could see light through the rocks.  but we never expected to find such a great space with more treasures!

digging in...

as i'm looking around, i'm feeling like i'm the luckiest girl alive.  everywhere i look, as far as the eye can see, is a sea of junk.  this is a shot of the parts room in the old plumbing store.  first off, i'm in love with the bins, they will be great for display in the vendor boardwalk we hope to open by fall.  then i start looking in the bins...

a bucket of old escutcheons...

a boxful of old stove dampers...

another bucket of knobs and doodads...

boxes and boxes of old ductwork and stove pipe.  these will make great dividers on the boardwalk. 

 with marigold mercantile well on it's way, i do my usual 'ready for something else' routine.  i can hardly sleep at night, keep my thoughts straight or take time to eat.  it's all just too wonderful! 

hubby wants to trade up...

after seeing this custom chopper in las vegas, terry announced he was ready to trade in his harley on it.  good luck with that.  although i'm not a big fan of cycles, i had to admit that this was truly a work of art.  in fact, i'm not a big fan of las vegas either.  i've hardly ventured out of our room, just long enough to try and find something under $20 to eat.  but it's been great to be with family and get to watch the grandkids while adults lose their money as fast as they can.  terry is still searching for the .99 cent shrimp cocktails that he remembers from the early 70's.  he's just sure they're out there somewhere...good luck with that also!

after 5 days of intensive bookwork at my sister's in washington state, hibernating in our room has felt heavenly.  every  year, i take her a boat load of transactions to figure out.  in looking back over an insane streak of buying/selling/trading over the last 2 years, it's a wonder anyone can figure it out. 

 it all started in march 2010, when the love affair with victor colorado that started in the early 80's began to bloom.  we purchased our first fixer upper, sight unseen, over the internet.  a fixer upper to us would qualify as a 'needs a good bulldozer' to most people.  but it turned out great, so we purchased 3 more.  then we traded the first one for the building we opened our store in and renovated it.  then we renovated the 2nd one to move into since we traded the first one we were living in.  then we sold the 4th one to my brother.  then we traded the 3rd one for another building downtown.  then we bought an old hotel and adjacent plumbing store. 

so, the moral to this tale is that, truly...love is blind.

mirror mirror on the wall...

who's the craziest of all?

him?  for loading huge harley cycle in the back of teeny tiny pickup, or...

me? for over loading teeny tiny pickup with junk and driving 18 hrs with it from az to co 

long story short... when we left az last year with our caravan, there wasn't enough room for all the 'treasures' i had found, some had to wait to be toted until this winter's trip.   in the meantime, a new game plan suddenly came together when new cycle was purchased in az.  somehow it took priority over my junk.  so i was given 2 options.  a.  make a whirlwind 2 day trip back to co with it, or...b.   it was all going to the dump.  i already had plans for the antique drafting table (turned upside down on top).  it is going to function as kitchen island in area we're renovating for dwelling behind our store.  so like a good marine...i leave no one behind!  it really wasn't much of a decision, just load it up and off i go. 

2 hrs into the trip at 4 am somewhere in NM, the van starts overheating.  i cripped along 60 miles to find a station open at that time of dark thirty and looked in the radiator and coolant tank...empty.  took almost a gallon of coolant to fill them.  but the indicator never pegged out in red, just fluctuated back and forth, so thankfully no damage was done to the engine.  that's why the 18 hr drive going.  coming back, i was literally able to fly and made it in 14 hrs, pulling into driveway just as sun was sinking over the tucson mountains. 

so...you decide, who's the real crazy...maybe both?