Tasha Could Make That

Vintage knitting, sewing, and a lifetime of craftiness

Made and Making No. 4

by 19 Comments

Happy Friday! I know I never did post a Made and Making last Friday, but I was just too busy with my dad in town. So today’s rendition wraps up a couple of weeks. There’s a lot that went on in the Golly Ranch House that I’ll talk about soon (small but important projects like replacing receptacles, and finding some interesting tidbits on prior wall treatments and tile in the house), but for now you’ll get a couple of small tastes of what we’ve been up to.
{all images link to Flickr for full size}
Clockwise from upper left

1. New retro porch light. Oh good grief, was our light situation sad on our deck/porch. It was an old, rusted fixture with no globe and a bare light bulb under the covered portion (that I kind of think of as the porch), and then on the uncovered portion (that I think of as the deck, which is a couple of steps down), a huge honking fixture that was ugly. It looked like it could have been several decades old, until I looked closely inside and saw a tell-tale modern sticker. Its fate was then sealed when we saw the same one at Home Depot! Bye bye. So instead, we found this very cute, inexpensive light to replace the one on the porch and just ditched the ugly one. I’ll show better photos later, but the upper edge is scalloped! What could be more 50s than that for our little ranch! And for only $20, it was a good deal, too.
2. Green skirt in the living room. I’ve really been wearing my bias-cut green skirt a ton. Here I’ve paired it with a Jitterbuggin blouse (same one in my blog header). I took a gamble recently and ordered some twill that had a bit of stretch to it to make a couple more versions, and it was a mistake. The stretch content is just all wrong for me. So I’ll have to send it back and pick out something else. This is in our living room, which as you can see is still un-decorated. That rectangular white spot on the wall behind me is one of two glass block nooks in the living room.
3. Zinnia about to bloom. I decided way too late to plant the zinnia seeds that Mel’s mom brought over this spring, but I had the seeds and a container so I went ahead. And they’ve been growing like crazy! They’re now just about to bloom as you can see.
4. Freshly painted cold air return covers. Unexciting looking, yes. While my dad was here we were going to replace our cold air return covers, however the same size new ones actually ended up being about 3/4″ too big, so it would have involved cutting the baseboards and base shoe. Instead of all that hassle, I scrubbed them down and sanded them to get rid of as much of the years of latex paint as I could, and spray painted them glossy white. They aren’t perfect, but they look SO much better now.
5. Spiral cut hot dogs. While he was here, my dad saw a video on how to spiral cut hot dogs for the grill, so we had to try it. Fun! In this pic you can see a bit of our original 1950s half round display shelves in our kitchen, which are currently holding a bunch of my vintage Pyrex and my Juice-O-Mat. Eventually, we’ll be swapping out these 90s/2000s counter tops for a more 50s look.
6. Red Queen sweater in progress. Yes, this is not my Unicorn and Lion sweater, but my Red Queen sweater. I mentioned it in my Coronation Knits blog tour post, and then suddenly had the urge to pick it up again after several months and I’ve been flying along.

Remember, this evening the Coronation Knits giveaway closes, so last call for entries!

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Comments

  3. Moe says

    I love the new light fixture! I have seen those before — both the originals as well as the reproductions. They are so cute. Changing light fixtures was one of the things we did first too. It makes such a difference. We have stalled out on the bathroom and hallway lights though and with the year anniversary of us being in the house coming up, I feel like I should get on that before we just get used to them and apathy sets in.

    I am still loving that skirt of yours so much!

    Reply

    • Tasha says

      Because of the weather here we have a lot of ceiling fans, so my dad did switch two of them out to nicer ones… really no such thing as a 50s looking celiing fan but at least they aren’t hideous. And we had one added in our bedroom! Makes things so less miserable when it’s hot and humid out and the a/c is on.

      Our foyer and hall light fixtures will probably stay for awhile… not original, but definitely fit the house. That just leaves the hideous 80s Broadway style one in the bathroom. That is totally going the next time my dad is in town! 😉

      Reply

  4. Trina44 says

    We are doing the same thing, little by little. Menards has great light fixtures, we’ve replaced our kitchen lights and bathroom lights with retro style lights from Menards.

    Reply

    • Trina44 says

      We bought our kitchen lights there that were the same as the one I had in the 1920’s house I grew up in, a classic never dies! Plus, I think it was around 12 dollars.

      Reply

  5. eileensbasement says

    It all looks great! I can’t wait to see the finished sweater; I’m thinking of knitting something stranded for the Ravelympics . . . I’m thinking Eunny Jang’s Autumn Rose pullover which I bought everything for YEARS ago!

    Reply

    • Tasha says

      That’s super impressive if you do that for Ravelympics! I’m plotting out some fair isle legwarmers for fall/winter… if the yarn arrives in time (ordering Jamieson & Smith from the UK), that’ll be my project!

      Reply

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