I was hard at work yesterday and I'm one tired puppy this evening as I write this. The leaves are just beginning to fall off the trees in the backyard and every afternoon for an hour or so, the sun has been streaming in so brightly, I can't really view the monitor or work at my computer. During the spring and summer months, it's not a problem.
So, I decided to fold the shutters back across the windows. That involved popping them off their hinges which took way longer than you would think. They are heavy and are bi-folded back behind the desk so the process was slow and difficult.
I also decided to remove ALL the glass from the tops of all surfaces and clean underneath where little particles had become trapped where the glass sections meet. What a job! It took a few hours to move the monitors, router, modem, lamps etc...clean the glass on both sides, all the surfaces and get the pins out of the shutters and reattach them in the closed position. It was a great workout.
I totally forgot to take a pic during daylight hours, but here's how the office looks in the evening by lamplight with the shutters in place and the lower louvers closed for privacy. I'll take a pic tomorrow during daylight hours and add it to this post. I know I'll miss the wide-open view, but this will be a lot cozier and more practical/insulating for winter.
A photo early this morning...looks so different with the shutters in place. By the way, if you're considering plantation shutters for your home, I created a detailed post about how to shop for them and what to look for in THIS post.
I've been in an organizing, cleaning and "get-stuff-done" mood lately. Once I finished in the office, I decided to tackle another wee job that's been bugging me. You may remember this doll house I've blogged about in the past. (I shared a full tour of the outside of the house in THIS post and the inside of the dollhouse in THIS post.) When I bought this little house, I never planned on furnishing the inside--I just loved it for the cute exterior. I have a fondness for yellow houses as seen in THIS post where I shared pics of our first two homes.
It just dawned on me how much the house in the BNOTP banner/header looks like the dollhouse I bought so many years ago. Isn't that funny?! They even both have dormer windows on the sides, and a rocking chair on the front porch. The rocking chair came with the dollhouse. Wonder if I should paint the door Heritage Red like I've painted my front door HERE and like the one in the banner?
Okay, I got sidetracked...back to the story. lol When I stumbled across this cute house in a local antique store a few years ago, it was decorated with garland and wreaths as you see here, but the garland was really grungy and falling apart due to age. So I removed the old garland and wreaths and bought new garland and ribbon. I made the little wreaths from the garland and little red bows from the ribbon. Then I hung them on all the windows, along with the garland along the porch rails. When I hung all the new wreaths and garland, I used a hot glue gun to attach them because I had no intentions of ever removing it. Ha! Bad idea, that was.
About 8 months ago, I got a wild hair and decided I didn't want the house to be decorated for Christmas all year long. Instead, I wanted it decorated this way just at Christmastime. This house lives in the guest room and I thought it would be pretty to decorate the outside for the different seasons/holidays. So, I removed all the garland which was NOT easy since it was all hot glued on. Who would do such a thing?! ;)
Unfortunately, I had a big ole mess once I removed it. The hot glue wouldn't budge and it had bits of garland stuck in it. Not good. I wasn't sure how I was ever going to get it all off. It would not peel up like hot glue sometimes does. It was really stuck down.
A few months later, I saw this baby for sale at Home Depot. I've always wanted a Dremel and now I had a good reason to buy one. I finally got it out today and put it to work sanding off the hot glue and stuck-on greenery.
Here's the attachment you use for sanding with the Dremel. It worked quite well, although I'll have to replace the little sand paper thingy called a drum sander, since it's caked with hot glue now. You can buy 6 replacement drum sanders online for only $1. Totally worth it to get the hot glue off.
As you can see, it did a great job. It would have taken me forever getting it all off by hand because it's in about 8-9 places on the porch of this little house. The porch has always needed another coat of paint. The original white paint was very thin and always looked kind of dirty, so I didn't mind that the Dremel took a bit of paint with it. That was actually necessary to get all the hot glue off.
I started repainting the porch this evening--will share how it looks when that's complete. I've been wondering how I was going to re-attach the garland at Christmastime, removing it afterwards without damaging the paint. What would be strong enough to hold the garland and wreaths, but would let go once the holiday season had past?
Recently, I was perusing the wonderful Before and Afters linked up for our weekly Metamorphosis Monday party and someone (sorry, can't remember who it was now) had used a product I had never heard of before called Museum Putty. Have you heard of it? It's especially made to protect beautiful collectibles and artifacts from falling off pedestals, walls, shelves, etc... during an earthquake.
Since I've been determined to find a way to decorate this cute house at Christmastime, I decided to give Museum Putty a try. I ordered it on Amazon, and I actually ended up ordering Museum Wax (instead of Museum Putty) because it's clear and I thought it would be less likely to show behind the greenery.
Over the next few days, I'll paint the dollhouse porch. Once it's good and dry, I'll reattach all the garland and wreaths with Museum Wax. I gave it a test try today and it appeared to work well. We'll see. The proof is in the pudding--or in this case, the wax. Have you ever used Museum Putty or Museum Wax? I bet I'll find lots of uses for this stuff, now that I have it.
Update: In the comments, Lee suggested a product called "Mini Hold." She said it's available in craft stores for miniatures. I'll try both it and the Museum Wax and will report back later how they both worked for this job. Thanks, Lee!
See you this evening for Tablescape Thursday!
