Sweet Valentine's in Elora

It has been so crazy cold lately, it's making February a very rough, long month.  Tonight, -25C (that's -13F) with a stiff wind... 

Our kitchen window has been blessed with some marvelous frost but it's getting a little tiresome, not to mention hard on the nerves as our walks are reduced to 5-10 minute hurry-hurrys to get the job done and run back inside.  

These rats were a Hallowe'en gift from my sister and they're still in the window, only they look like they're about to run off to Florida!!

Still we has bold and intrepid guests who braved the weather and came to Elora for Valentines and we treated them to chocolates and I hand-dipped strawberries in dark chocolate so they'd know we love our guests!  

And finally I have my display corner set up pretty much the way I want it.  I love sharing my critters, so when you're here at the house, please feel free to visit with my creations and ask questions!  

February Fun

We had wonderful fun continuing to furnish our Flying Leap Bed and Breakfast!  February happens to be a great month to pick up antiques as both the St. Jacobs Antiques Market and Market Road Antiques have winter sales.  We went last Tuesday and found some gems, here's the best of the loot:

I spotted these folding chairs back in September but at the time we had no idea if we had any use for them.  They're "Stakmore", stamped on the bottom of each seat, and from the 1940s, reupholstered but the curved wood backs and curved seat rails are gorgeous and they're comfy!   And they fold nearly flat!  On sale we got the set for $70.00; I'm happy they waited for me!  It looks like Stakmore has been making folding furniture since 1922.  Come sit on our lawn in one of these cool chairs!

This is a lovely 1950s-1960s rosewood Victorian side chair with a carved foliage crest, serpentine seat rail supports (per the hang tag) and there are massive springs in the seat.  At $56 it was a steal except that the upholstery on the seat is discolored.  This is going to be a project, to clean and then stain the white fabric with beet juice for a natural burgundy color and then it will be in our Fox Hole guest room.  

If anyone has any advice on using natural juices as dyes, I'd love to hear from you!  Thank you Sarah for the information on milk paints, available at Honeychurch Lane!

We needed a big picture to hang over the bed in our Meadow room and we both knew this was it when we laid eyes on it!  It isn't from an antiques market but from the St. Jacob's Furniture House.  

The red leaves pop and the frame is perfect for the room.  There's a stone house in the background where it's quite misty... you can imagine faeries or a dog running around back in that fog.  

Back to the antiques markets, Mom also fell in love with this framed watercolor signed "Dardarian Oct 1990".  It's very peaceful and again my favorite time of year.

And just the perfect little carved corner shelf called out to us!  Mounted in the Creature Comfort bathroom it's just right as a bubble-bath shelf!  How's that for indulgence?

Awaiting Spring...

Before the snow, my sister took these photos, capturing the elegant beauty of Nature before she's covered with a thick, white blanket and getting her beauty sleep. 

And then there's the contrast between Nature and man-made objects, like the Elora Mill, standing currently empty but also awaiting a grand rebirth.

 

And what of the abandoned structures across from the Elora Mill?  Time will tell...

(Thank you for the photos, Doris!)

It's all about holes

Over the past few months, we've been busy filling holes!  In our bedroom we filled a hole where a stove pipe had at one time served a stove in what was the schoolroom (the addition at the back of the house).

In our bathroom the wind whistled through the holes in the bare brick wall!  Brrr!!!  This bathroom/entryway is also an addition, and this wall was an outside wall before the1940s.  The part behind the mirror has a chimney space which backs onto the current kitchen; this chimney now works great for the range hood fan but the holes were very drafty!  Foam insulation solved the problem but the brick, handmade red stretcher brick, is crumbling and needs some kind of gentle sealer to preserve and keep the brick from turning into dust!  

This hole is a mystery!  It's in one of our rooms and probably was created when the forced air ducts were installed or the electrical was updated.  What to do with a huge hole in antique pine flooring?  Well, we found a floor grill at an antique market and screwed it down, removing any danger!  

And here's a neat find!  Our red parlour/dining room was a light green!  This would certainly have been a  brighter room, and still stayed with the Victorian decor.  Instead of going with the masculine red for the parlour, this would have embraced the feminine dining room with a gentle color.  In the meantime, this hole needs some putty and a dab of paint!

Dodged a bullet

So this red building in the downtown core is going to be demolished.  According to the local paper, the owners asked for and received a permit to demolish it after discovering extensive rot from water and termite damage.  They were planning to restore the building and open it as a tea house but ran into these insurmountable issues... Funny thing is, Mom and I were looking at this house last summer and wondering if we could open a doggy bakery or other little shop here.  The upper floor is where the owners could live and there's a yard.  For some reason, after contacting the realtor, we never followed up... PHEW!!!  What a disaster that would have been!!!  

(Note the adorable critter clinging to the light pole?  That's an escapee from Tim Murton's Twilight Zoo!)

Update, March 30th:  The old red building is now entirely gone, there's a huge hole where it was once, and this is a visual of the building that soon will replace it:  The Secret Garden Tea House!

A sense of place

I found these two books at the public library (libraries are wonder-filled!) and found them both to offer interesting things to say about living along a racing river.  Almost every day I walk along the Irvine River gurgling, whirling and dancing at the bottom of the Gorge and it's always beautiful, and somehow mind-quieting. In "A Living River by the Door", Sylvia Galbraith writes, "The act of looking at flowing water provokes instant revery and remove from one's day.  The river water in perpetual departure exerts a relentless tug on the spirit, and instills a constant, if veiled, awareness that over the horizon on all sides lie the vast freshwater lakes that define this countryside, and the imaginative landscape of all living here."  I only partial agree, but it started me thinking about my relationship to the River.  I think the constant arriving and departing of the water creates a very deep sense of "here" and "right now".  I'm not inspired to think about where the water has been or where it's going, or a need to dream about elsewhere, I feel my feet become very rooted to the spot, not letting the flow take me away from a strong attachment and awareness of where I am.

  

Living in such a natural area is easy on the senses and the soul.  I hope to cultivate this appreciation and never take it for granted!

My Christmas present

Perhaps you've experienced this:  when you move into a new home, you want to make it yours.  Especially in the spaces where you'll spend the most time you want to make it as cozy as possible, suiting your particular tastes.  So, for my Christmas present I wished for paint.  Yup, paint.  Since it was approaching Christmas and we hadn't yet set up our living room, I wanted to have it painted before we unpacked all the fragiles, hung pictures, etc... and Mom agreed.  Our living room (as opposed to the guests' living room/parlour) was painted a brown/green color, what I snarkily referred to as an army camouflage, which made the whole room seem darker and smaller than it actually was.  We picked something called "Touch of Midas" and hired a painter as we dreaded the ceiling and, like magic, went from this:  

varnish splattered on the baseboards

 and over-painted

and this dark color... to this:

stripes!

No, this was just after the first coats.  

What a change!  

 Eventually we had eternal sunshine:

The new color has just a little bit of orange in it that picks up the color in the pine floor and now it's a room where I look forward to sitting in my comfy chair, basking in the light and reading a good book... someday!  Maybe soon!

I have to say that our painter Ryley Wright did a lovely job, working around our B&B schedule and making the entire process pretty painless.  Thank you, Ryley!