521 Lake Street’s Penny Rug !

I will warn you ahead of time lots of photos and a rather long post! :)

I have a dear friend I first met when I started blogging named Elizabeth. She has a magical site called Bluebird Papercrafts aka Creative Breathing. When I first saw her blog I was so taken aback by all of her talent for crafts and writing the most touching beautiful posts of the memories she has of her past.

We have become friends over the last two years and she has blessed me with many of her handmade items. I have them for every season! They are my treasures!!!!! When my life was in turmoil this last year Elizabeth was always there with a kind word or deed. Recently, she made me one of her coveted penny rugs. And not just any penny rug but a 521 Lake Street Penny rug! I knew it had to be a very special place that this beautiful piece of artwork resided. To keep it safe I decided to frame it. I envisioned a Red frame with a cute pale yellow matt. So, I went to Michaels and with the lest expensive thin painted red wood frame and just the glass it was $116.00…..are you ready????? AFTER THE 60% off coupon! Can you say RIP OFF????

SO my friend Cheri and I got creative and went to Home Goods looking for an inexpensive art piece in the right size frame…..here is what we got!

Pretty plain and ugly right now….but look at what we paid for it!!!!!

My kind of deal on the budget of the unemployed!

So I brought it home, took it apart and here are the steps it took to make it a perfect frame for my penny rug!

One can of Banner Red Krylon Paint $2.50

First coat of four coats..

Now, matting as we all know can be very expensive, so as Cheri and I went to Hobby Lobby to check out a single matt, we walked by the poster board…..this color is perfect!!!!!! Sorry for the poor photo, kind of forgot my tutorial…:)

Poster Board, two sheets (just in case) $ on sale for $1.06. Now, when times are better, and I am sure they will be soon, I plan on getting this matted correctly, but this works perfect for right now……

The frame had these horrible thick ugly staples, that I could not bend, so I had to pull them all out….to paint the frame. I wanted to keep the glass safe and clean it up, as there was a film on it.

So afterwards we tried staples…no good. So for right now, it is the good old duct tape method!

I used some glue dots to keep the penny rug stuck to the poster board…..so here is the finished product!!!!!! Drum roll please…..

And on the wall……

Never am very good t taking a straight on photo!

This is my entry way….so everyone who comes in gets to see my wonderful 521 Lake Street Penny Rug!!!!!!

Total Cost: $25.00 and some change. Happy Dance here!!!!!

Elizabeth, you have my heart! Thank you seems so not enough!!!!! I will cherish this very special loving tribute to my favorite place always!!!!!

Thanks everyone for stopping by and sharing this wonderful piece of art with me!

Back at 521 Lake Street

" Home is where the Heart is, lie it East or lie it West, and my heart is with the dear ones in the old Home nest"

Well, my camera got here just fine, and I have a lot of photos to show you….to begin with I want to show you some new photos of 521 Lake Street.

We went to the courthouse and looked up the property address and found out that the land for this house was sold in 1867! We couldn't locate which person built the home, but it was shortly after that time….

The story goes that my grandpa bought this house without my Grandma even knowing…so we went on a hunt to see who and when they bought it. Grandpa bought the house from a man named Pier, who just happened to work where Grandpa did! Aha!!!! The mortgage was made out to both of my grandparents in the amount of …are you ready????? $4000.00 in 1947… I don’t have any photo of it when it was newer but here are the ones I took while I was just there….

This is the street, the yellow house is it…

They recently put siding on it and painted and spruced up the exterior. It was always this color.

As you can see, it is a good sized home. I am going to walk around it now, to show you the sides….

This was the bay window that was in the dining room, Grandma had her plants here, I remember some pretty flowers that were purple and had fuzzy soft leaves…

This is standing on the other side of the bay window. I am sure whoever was home ( a bunch of college kids) thought I was nuts!!!!

I am standing where my grandma’s garden was….this is the porch we all sat on, and it is attached to the kitchen. I remember as a kid getting those little pellets at the 4th of July and lighting a match to them and they became “snakes”….right on this sidewalk you see here.

Now I am on the other side of the house, the room above the kitchen with the green fence around it never was there before, that is the walk- in attic…some poor person has that for a room! HOT!!!!!!!!! and very COLD!!!!!!

This is the side porch, we never used it, don’t know why…..I do have a couple of group family shots on it. If I were to buy this house, this area would become a bathroom…no downstairs bathroom….unless the landlord put on in…..

This was taken where Grandpa’s garage was, they tore that down this year…..but the big purple bush???? It is a HUGE Lilac bush/tree!

I so wish I could own this home some day…..it has so many great memories for me!

In my next post I am going to show you a house that might be coming up for sale that is also a dream come true! More soon! And of course all of my goodies!!!! Have to get busy taking photos as soon as they arrive from UPS. Thanks for coming by and sharing this very special house tour with me!

The Magical House of the Harstads

Hello! This is my first post on my brand new blog! I really hope to be able to post at least every other day. I feel like at this point, I have a lot to share. This blog is in memory of my Grandma & Grandpa Harstad. The photo above is their house in Wisconsin. We lived in Ohio, so the family got to see them once a year most years, maybe twice if we were lucky to go for Christmas. I know it doesn't look like much, but it was a magical place for me! My brother and I were the only grandchildren that lived quite a ways away and rarely got to "come home", so Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josie were always happy to see us. The first thing we did after giving them a hug was to run to the pantry and get a cookie out of one of the large mouthed jars Grandma kept them in. Chocolate Chip and Sugar were my favorites! I have these jars in my kitchen now to remind me of those times. Even now, after all of these years, the little town they lived in feels like "home" to me. It is still as comfortable as ever to be there. So, please pull up a chair and stay awhile! I will be adding a lot of fun things to this blog....as soon as I figure out how! :)