Featured on Better After!

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What a thrill to have Lindsey feature my rattan loveseat on her blog, Better After! Her description of the former fabric cracked me up :)

Better After hosts before-and-after makeovers from all over the blog world, and Lindsey's commentary is always a hoot. In fact, saying hoot reminds me of Woot! and Lindsey would make a great writer for that site too!

Thanks so much, Lindsey, for including me.

Yesterday we went back to Cordoba to pick up the doors and windows we had picked out the day before. Unfortunately, failure to put down a deposit cost us our chosen front door :(  A doctor had been in earlier in the day and snatched it right out from under us. Oh well. *sigh* BUT, as the owner of the business pointed out, both doors we had chosen for the front and back were narrow and it would be best if at least one of them was wider. It was too late to do more than a cursory search last night and we have to go back again to pick up the cortinas (built-in roller blinds) for the windows, so hopefully we'll find something else we like then. I'm a little sad because I really liked that door, but I'm not heartbroken.

I WOULD have been heartbroken if someone had taken our bedroom and bathroom doors, though, because I absolutely adore them! They remind me of the doors in the first elementary school I attended back in the mid 60s: big solid wooden doors with windows in the top panel. The ones we bought have frosted glass which is great for privacy yet still allows some light through.

I snapped this photo as Ivan and Charlie were unloading everything out back, so it's laying on it's side. But try to imagine it upright and all nice and cleaned up. Being used, these doors and windows will require some TLC; they need to be stripped, stained and varnished. There will also be some minor repairs for gouges, missing chunks and broken window panes. But these are all good, solid pieces (most of them cedar) and so much better quality than what we could afford to buy new. Besides, I love the character of older doors and windows! And once refinished, they'll be beautiful AND functional.

We bought three big windows this size (not quite 2 meters wide and over a meter high) for the main living area. And peeking up behind you can see another window that will go in the bedroom; that one is 135 cm high and 120 cm wide.

We're still looking for windows for the kitchen and bath, and may have to go to a different place to find them since this guy deals mostly in bigger pieces. Between the large, walk-in pantry, back door and the fact that the stove will also go along that wall (and it's illegal to put a window above a stove), there won't be much space to put a kitchen window. In fact, we've determined it can't be any bigger than 75 cm wide and a meter high.

Did you know that the tops of windows are typically placed level with the tops of doors? I'd never paid any attention, but Ivan said you can tell when someone doesn't do it because then it looks "off". So there you have it, your fact for the day :)

And now I need to go stain some tongue-and-groove for the bedroom ceiling at the casita. Ivan wants to have the roof buttoned up by the end of the week, which is tomorrow, so I'd better get cracking!