Photo Challenge: Wood

It’s time for another Brenda Photo Challenge! The current theme is Wood. Where would we be without this magical material that brings comfort to our lives? I found a lot of lovely treasures made of wood during our Kentucky trip this past fall. (Please note that all of the photographs below have been altered with textured backgrounds.)

There is just something fascinating about wood Shaker boxes, with their beautiful form and function. Many years ago, hubby and I took a hands-on class to learn how to make these unique containers, and we can attest to the difficulty in their creation. I took this image at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill during a demonstration. The camera settings were f/5.6, 1/30 second, and ISO 800.

I have previously shared photographs of the gorgeous wood banisters in the Centre Family Dwelling at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. Here is a close-up view. With a worn patina that comes from a long history of use, the curving handrails continue to pay homage to the artistry of the carpenters who created them. The image was taken at f/6.3, 1/200 second, and ISO 800.

An interesting design graces the back of an antique oak chair found in the first floor hallway of the Beaumont Inn, located in Harrodsburg. With its ornate carvings, I suspect that this chair is one-of-a-kind! The camera settings were f/5.0, 1/60 second (with flash), and ISO 500.

Stack-O-Bricks Transformed!

Lookie! We have brick on our new home! Gorgeous, yummy, chocolate-colored brick! What is the next outside task? Painting the colors we selected! Bye-bye to baby-poop yellow primer color! As soon as the weather is warm enough, the front porch will get a concrete floor and then outfitted with pillars and posts.

Sheetrock mudding continues inside and fine sanding will happen in the next day or two. After another round of cleanup, inside painting will start with a primer coat on all the walls.

The construction work is zipping along! Builder Mike says that we’re running about two weeks ahead of schedule right now. So that translates to a move in mid-May.

Vacations 2010: Walking on the Wild Side

We finished up our major 2010 vacation planning and completed all the arrangements last week. Now that my knee has mended sufficiently and we are completing our downsizing efforts, we are going to address some items on our lengthy “bucket list”. It’s time to walk on the wild side, Canadian style. We have declared this the “Year of the Bear"!

We are taking two organized tours. These excursions specialize in small groups and have a primary emphasis on nature. And both are rated as “easy” in terms of physical exertion. On the first one, we will head out to the Bella Coola area of British Columbia. A wilderness lodge in the Tweedsmuir Provincial Park will serve as our home base. Exploring by raft and helicopter, we’ll be photographing grizzly bears and other regional wildlife. After the tour, we’ll be staying in the beautiful city of Vancouver for a few days, taking in the sights and visiting with some online friends.

The second adventure will be a Manitoba expedition to Churchill, the polar bear capital of the world. Using special vehicles, we will be venturing onto the frozen tundra to experience the thrill of seeing polar bears in their natural habitat. We might spot some beluga whales and see the dancing northern lights too! An optional helicopter trip will show us the remarkable Hudson Bay area from an aerial vantage point. Additionally, we’ll be soaking up the cultural heritage of this remote frontier town.

So there you have it! Our major journeys later on this year will be doozies, don’t you think?

Brick by Brick

Guess what arrived at the homebuilding site yesterday? Bricks! Stacks and stacks of lovely bricks! The color is called “Weatherwood”, a mottled grayish-brown. Even though there are some bits of snow still lurking in the shadows, the temperature was warm enough today for bricklaying to begin. The photo below shows a freshly laid section of a back wall located underneath the (soon-to-be) screened-in porch.

In addition to work on the back side of the house, you can see bricks marching their way up the left side too! Oh, happy days!

Meanwhile, the inside is rapidly transforming with sheetrocking, taping, and mudding going on. Want a little peek? How’s this? Look – arches! Let’s hope that the warm weather spell decides to stay around for a while!

Siding Progress

The work on the soffits, fascia boards, and siding has been slow, thanks to very uncooperative weather. As luck would have it, this February has been wetter and colder than average.

The crew has been working hard. Measuring, cutting, and nailing can’t be hurried. A lot of their work involves dizzying heights!

I took all of these pictures on February 11. After working through the weekend, three sides are now completed. The eave on the back side of the house awaits their attention. Brick will go where the green board shows in these photos. And, as I mentioned before, the current siding colors are primer coatings. The outside look will dramatically change once the brick and real paint colors are applied!

Insulation was installed last week, and 90 percent of the sheetrock has been nailed up. It is totally trashed inside right now! Taping and mudding activities are not far behind. Stay tuned for inside pictures once it gets cleaned up a bit!

P.S. For those inquiring about a visit, the guest room is where the triple windows are located above the front porch! And yes, the interior colors have been all picked out.  They will be "revealed" when the painting is done!   

Presidents Day

One of the highlights of our trip last year to Colonial Williamsburg was a visit to the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum. Among the gorgeous works of art in the collection was an oil-on-canvas painting of George Washington, created by Charles Willson Peale, circa 1780. This is a crop of a photo that I took of the lovely portrait. Don’t you just love his expression? Flash photography is not allowed in the museum, so I was able to capture this poignant smile thanks to an ISO setting of 1000 and exposure of 1/5 second.

Originally a farmer, the “father of our country” led our rag-tag troops in the Revolutionary War; presided over the Philadelphia Convention that drafted the U.S. Constitution; and became our first President in 1789.

God bless our Presidents. May they always uphold the laws of the land and lead the government wisely.

Happy Valentine's Day!

What I need to live has been given to me by the earth.

Why I need to live has been given to me by you.

(Author Unknown)

Photo Challenge: The Color Red

It’s time for another The Brenda Photo Challenge! The current theme is The Color of Red. Even though this theme was at my suggestion, I had to scramble to find some appropriate photos in my digital inventory! Luckily, I found a few to share!

How about the color red, served right up with a little slice of rural Americana? A coca-cola six-pack carton rustles up restaurant condiments, making them handy for hungry diners. I transformed the original photo by converting it to black and white; added back the red colors of the carton and the ketchup bottle; and then antiqued the image with a textured background.

The image was taken at the famous Puckett's Grocery and Restaurant  in Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee. They proudly proclaim that this is “where the main ingredients are real food, real people, and real atmosphere”. It was originally founded in the 1950’s as a small-town, rural country store, and continues the tradition to this day. The photo was taken at f/4.5, 1/30 second, and ISO 200. The threesome montage below shows the transformation steps in the digital editing.

And since Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, I have to show you some red roses! This lovely stained glass art is hanging in the visitor center of Four Roses Distillery  in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. This old distillery has been proudly producing mellow bourbon since 1888. According to legend, the founder named it as a symbol of his passion for his lovely Southern belle wife.

The swirls of the stained glass are further enhanced when a poster edges filter is applied. The camera settings were f/8, 1/250 second, and ISO 200.

Applying Photo Textures

Thank you so much for all of the lovely comments on my recent picture of a new horse neighbor! I would like to show you the value of using a textured layer to a photo. The above side-by-side comparison shows you the dramatic difference. Adding a textured layer doesn’t cover the sins of a technically poor shot. But it does provide visual interest!

The day that I took this image was a dreary one, and the washed out sky greatly detracts from the beautiful subject. So I added a coffee-colored layer to give richness to the overall image, erasing out the texture, as needed, on the horse subject. The layer I used was one of textured backgrounds provided by the talented and generous blogger at ShadowHouse Creations. If you would like to give this technique a try, there are several tutorials on digital editing with background layers on YouTube, including this particularly helpful one.

Up Close Greeting

While coming back from the new cottage construction site yesterday, we saw the neighborhood horses grazing close to the fence row. As I approached the fence, one brave beauty came up for a petting. She looked a bit on the gooey side (from the rain), so I opted to just take her picture instead. A moment like this is one of the great joys of living in the countryside!

Hello, Exterior Siding!

The exterior of our new cottage is changing once again! Soffits and fascia board are being installed, and a few panels of exterior siding are now in place. This material is James Hardie board, a fiber-cement product. The top floor will have siding, and the rest of the house will be trimmed out in brick. Thin vertical planks will be added to the siding for a board-and-batten look. You can see that shingle siding adds a little bit of character to the peak above the guest bedroom windows. By the way, the tan colors shown are the prime coats straight from the factory and are not representative of the final house color.

And if you look closely, you’ll see that we have our new front door installed! It is mahogany wood with six panes of wavy glass. It will get a coats of stain and sealer later on.

We have had a lot of wet weather and that has been slowing down exterior progress this week. The county inspector was paying a visit today, ensuring that the rough-ins for electrical, plumbing, and heat/air were installed according to building codes. Inside work can proceed now that this critical inspection is over!

Marty Says...

…that he picked a couple of winners in the 300th post celebration giveaway!

These friends will received a set of handmade cards,

decorated with one of my altered photographs:

Janice at Butterfly Gardener

Kim at Homesteader's Heart

Congratulations, Janice and Kim!

Thank you for your friendships in our blogging adventures!

Along with the cards, you will get a sweet surprise too.

So keep a watchful eye over the mail deliveries!

February - A Look Ahead

January went by in a flash! We have been very busy taking care of details associated with the homebuilding project. We finished making all of the major decisions for outfitting the new place, including the paint colors. (Rather than describe all the colors, I’m going to wait and show you when the time is right.) I hope that you have been entertained by the photos of sudden transformations that took place in January. The interior right now is a jumble of lumber, wiring, roughed-in plumbing, and air vents. It is not very photogenic, LOL.

We’re still a good three to four months away from completion, so hold tight for the ride! More big changes will happen in February. Siding and brick will go on the exterior, covering the rather garish “green board” and concrete blocks. The structure will get outfitted with soffits, fascia boards, and gutters during this time frame too. Then insulation, sheetrock, and wood floors will follow. We signed off on the final cabinet designs yesterday and those are now being ordered. You’ll be treated to some interior pictures this month as it all gets pulled together. We couldn’t be more pleased with Builder Mike. He has been making the building process downright enjoyable.

We’re getting a few medical checkups this month. I have my annual physical and mammogram scheduled in a few weeks. It’s time for a tune-up! We’re also continuing our regular visits to the fitness center. The replaced knee still has some residual soreness, but I am getting better at maneuvering the obstacles of everyday life, thank goodness.

We are continuing our digital photographic studies on lynda.com and learning a great deal. My Photoshop skills will continue to develop, and you will see the happy results! One of these days, I plan to put tags on my inventory of digital images to better catalog the growing collection. But right now I’m having too much fun learning editing techniques. I have said this before and I’ll say it again. You can take a terrific photo or you can take a mediocre one. But some simple digital editing will always improve the image. It is truly amazing how far the digital revolution has come. Vintage folks like us have no urge to ever go back to the days of film!

As far as vacations planning goes, we’ve gotten a little further in our deliberations. Our potential destinations have been whittled down (east coast versus west coast for our big vacation), and we hope to make some decisions in the next week or two. Mum is still the word!

I appreciate all your recent feedback, letting me know your favorite posts. I need to know so that I can continue to keep your interest and make this an enjoyable haven for your visits! Photographs continue to be a popular item, including the ones for the Brenda Photo Challenges. Please see the link over on my sidebar if you would like to also participate in this fun activity. More journey stories will be also forthcoming. I am so glad that I figured out how to widen my main blog column so that you could enjoy bigger pictures! If you would like to try this format change as well, please follow the convenient tutorial link over on my sidebar. Several friends have tried it with great success.

I hope that all of you have a warm and safe month. Let’s just get through this one, and then spring will be right around the corner! Okay?!