Trash and Treasure Monday!

Been a while since I hosted a Trash and Treasure Monday but I have been on the hunt recently for new items to redecorate our new (or soon to be) newly remodeled bathroom downstairs. One of my friends who owns a store next to ours had this piece out in front of her store and I almost fell out of my chair I was so in love with it! I could clearly see it white and sitting in my new bathroom all loaded up with supplies. It was meant to be! So I snatched it up and took it home and immediately started refinishing it before I remembered I needed to take a before picture! 

So its not that impressive right? Just a simple country cabinet right? 

But with a little white paint and some sandpaper it looks completely AMAZING!

We also found this beautiful antique desk for the store this weekend, but as the pictures show it took a beating and needed a lot of love. 

Four hours worth of sanding later...

Ready to be painted!

I loved this olive green- the picture makes it look yellow but its really a soft green color. 

And all finished up and ready for the store!

I hope all is well in your world! 

Hitting Gold.

“The most essential factor is persistence - the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come.”

-James Whitcomb Riley

After hours of searching I finally can see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. I found my first picture of Our Little 1900's house! It only dates back to 1951 or 52 but thats 60 years and a great start! Check out our Palm trees?! If you zoom a lot the house number reads 709 Johnson Street.

This picture was actually listed under my neighbors house since it was her husbands family that were Realtors back in the day. The house was listed with them in 1951!



We also discovered that Peggy Hodges was a Strawberry Festival Queen back in 1949. I am pretty sure she was a cousin of James R. Hodges who owned our home.

We were so excited to get more information that we decided to make the trip out to the Tampa Courthouse so we could search through older records. Our local records only date back to 1965- the Tampa records go ALL the way back. 

We discovered Washington Park (Our Subdivision) was plotted in 1907 so most likely the subdivision came after our home was built. We tracked the original deed from when James R. bought it in 1951 from William  M. Avery and Mary Frances. When we pulled up the microfilm of the actual deed only the signatures were on the document! All of the legal information and descriptions had been whited out. 

So we had to put in a special request to have them bring the original book of documents up from storage, which will be about a week.

So for now things are on hold until next week. I am sure people think I'm nuts for going to this much trouble on the chance I might get a picture or two from the original family. And perhaps I am, but something is pushing me on and I can't ignore it. Its just one of those things that must be done. Somethings never change.

Discoveries.

Theres a house just a few blocks from our home that I have always loved. I have no idea what it was about the house that made me stare at it every time I drove by. I can't even recall the number of times I told Mr.Major how badly I wanted to go inside and see the layout. It was almost like my own personal ghost house, a place that sent shivers down my spine at the mere thought of entering.

 I noticed a few weeks ago that contractors were coming in and removing a lot of the over grown trees, as well as the roof tiles. I was so excited to think that perhaps they were going to renovate it to become a Lawyers office or something similar. Weeks went by, and  it seemed like nothing else was happening, the old house sat looking even more dilapidated then before. And then one morning on my way to work I came across the house in shambles with a bulldozer in the middle of the mess tearing away at over 100 years of history. Its the first time Ive cried over a house that wasn't mine. I had never even set foot inside. 

Fast forward to the present...

Mr.Major and I went to the photo archives this weekend to see if we could find any information on our house but no one could help us until Tuesday. We were told that the Hodges were a well known family in Plant City, they were involved in a number of trades including Pharmacy, Military, Fruit Packing, and Insurance and owned several properties around town. One of them included the recent house that was demolished just a few blocks from my own. 

He went on to tell us that before demolishing the house the contractor went into the attic and discovered an old suitcase full of pictures and documents. He submitted them to the Archives building and they were currently scanning in all of the photos for their records. 

I can't help but feel like the pieces of our puzzle are just now starting to come together- and I really owe it all to that old house I loved so much. While I am sorry its gone- I likely never would have heard about that suitcase had it not piqued my interest again in our own old houses history.

I was so eager to get more information I decided to see if I could dig up some on my own at home and actually surprised myself with some of my findings. 

The furthest back we could track the deeds to for our home was to James Russel Hodges (b. 1925-2002). I spoke with one of my oldest neighbors who confirmed with me that he was a disabled WWII veteran and needed a lot of help getting around so his mother lived with him for the majority of his years in our home. 

I discovered that James was the second oldest child born into his family, and had four other siblings. In 1943 he joined the US Army and by 1945 was discharged due to injuries sustained during combat at the age of 20. He never married or had children. 

As far as I can see only one of his four siblings ended up marrying and having children and one of them I am currently trying to track down- James would have been her Great Uncle. I don't expect her to have personally known him but I am hopeful she will have some pictures of the family. 

Hopefully tomorrow will bring more answers. 

A Ghostly Presence and A Chatty Neighbor.

With the recent renovations certain ghostly occurances have been taking place once again in the Major household. Both Mr. Major and I have come to terms with the idea of another occupant in the guest room, and for the most part we leave it go on its ghostly way and for a long time things have quieted down. During the Christmas season we moved our dogs crate into the guest room to keep him calm while we had our feast downstairs. Pretty much the entire time he was up there he was and in the following days he would bark for no apparent reason, so we eventually moved him back downstairs. 

A few weeks after that we began to refinish the floors in that room. We started closing the door to keep the pets out when we weren't working in there, but in the morning we would find the door was open. So we started firmly wedging the door closed with a sock but the next morning the door would be open and the sock would be several feet away from the door. 

Last Tuesday I was sitting downstairs watching TV when I herd what sounded like moving upstairs. (Directly upstairs from the TV room is the guest room). I wrote it off as the cats chasing each other but it continued on so I went upstairs to check on them but none of the animals were in the guest room. So I wedged the door closed and went back downstairs. Not five minutes later the noise started again, and so I checked again to find nothing. This went on the rest of the afternoon until I finally stopped checking and just accepted my ghost was having a good laugh on my part. 

When we finally finished the floors I went in and snapped a few pictures so I could brag on my handy work but after reviewing them I noticed something weird. So I went back and snapped a few more pictures of the room and then a few more of the other rooms for good measure, but I couldn't recreate my original picture. You might have to click to enlarge the photo but I think it might be our ghost. 

Typically I would write off something like this as dust but, I had just finished sealing the floor in this room, so any presence of dust had likely been paved over with three coats of polyurethane. Not to mention blue dust seems a bit rare.

Regardless I snapped a few pictures during the day with all of the new furniture in the room for your viewing pleasure. 

Since the floors have been redone and the furniture replaced I figured things would quiet down again but no such luck. This bed was neatly made the night before, and the next morning this is what I found. (The door stayed shut all night and the cats were out as well.) So much for things quieting down.

Mr. Major and I ran into one of our neighbors this afternoon who told us she recently came across a picture of our home in the archives. She said we used to have palm trees in our front yard. She also gave us quite a bit of information on the previous owners that explained SO MUCH about the spotty work thats been done here. I am entirely giddy that we might find an actual picture of our home this week! Wish me luck!

Quick Shabby Chic Chair

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.  ~From the television show The Wonder Years

When my mom downsized her house over the summer she got rid of a TON of furniture. I snagged a couple pieces from her - one of them being this vintage ladder back chair. When I was little and we were living in South Carolina my parents owned a restaurant and the entire place was decked out with these chairs. I wanted to keep one for old times sake but really wanted it to be a piece that went well in the parlor. 

  

So I picked out a spray paint I liked and got to work. In my shabby chic experience, spray paint can either be a friend or foe- but I have found some tricks to distressing pieces quickly and efficiently. The trick is to lightly sand your piece, spray paint it the desired color and wait until the paint is tacky before sanding in the places you want to distress. You should get something like this...

The entire project takes me about twenty minutes and I really love the country look it added to our Parlor. 

Wishing you well. 

Trash and Treasure Monday!

Lately I haven't been finding much for me while out Treasure hunting on the weekends. When you run a store it tends to make you think things are much less hard to come by since you see so much of it every week! This weekend I found some amazing deals for myself and some for the store- both of which I am going to share with you since its been a while since our last Trash and Treasure Monday! So.. here goes nothing!

I found my new favorite Martha Stewart book! She had some wonderful ideas in here on repurposing items you find while treasure hunting. Since I am remodeling my DS Bath I was hoping to come across some ideas I could use for inspiration.

And boy was I right! I immediately fell in love with this assorted bottle arrangement. So I went off searching...

 I had bought this cute little Oil lamp a while back but I broke the glass globe that sat on top and never could find a replacement. So I unscrewed the metal part and viola! One ornate repurposed glass vase.

More found bottles... Arent these glass soda bottles too cool?

I am still planning on having a few shelves with various items on them ie cotton, swabs, facial pads. And I figured these would be perfect for them.

I loved this huge apothecary and decided it would look great with some of my bath salts stored in it. 

I finally decided on a color scheme for the DS bathroom, dark wood accent, Sage green walls and accents and white fixtures and tile! Were going Au Natural! I loved this carved wood door accent. 

I found a set of two wall tins that I am going to repaint a pretty rust color.

A sweet little towel rack for the new bath...

A repurposed window into a new and fun mirror!

For my Upstairs bath a new tub organizer!

I was so thrilled to get in the new faucet for this tub this week but almost cried when I realized I ordered the wrong fit!

A fun vintage wind up clock for display in our bedroom.

And last- a set of two bar stools for my husbands best friends apartment. Remember these.. you will be seeing them again soon!

This weeks find of the week for the Store was this totally awesome Teal Metal Medical cabinet. Its seen its share of rust but I think thats what makes it so charming! 

I hope all is well in your world!