It's All Fun and Games Until a Tick Bites Your Ass and Other Gardening Stories

Corona time this week has meant a lot of work in the garden for both Bill and I.  One project is seasonal - our mulberry trees and our blackberry patch are in full bloom and producing faster than I can harvest.  So far I've picked:

*  18 cups of mulberries.  We've made a pie, muffins, scones and 4 jars of jam.

*  18 cups of blackberries.  We've made two pies, 8 jars of jam and maybe ate another cup as we've been picking.

To put the amount that I've picked and we've used into perspective... 3-4 cups of berries is a pound...  So I've harvested approximately 9 pounds of berries this week.  The mulberries are still raining down from the trees and the blackberry patch is filled with red berries starting to ripen.  I'm about to start freezing berries to use when summer cravings hit.  It's truly a bumper crop this year, and I'm totally grateful that I bit the bullet and bought my Pampered Chef Deluxe Cooking Blender.  That thing is a rock star!  I drop berries, water, pectin and sugar in it and 30 minutes later I've got jam.  I've always fought making jam because I remembered the time and labor intensive process it was for my mother.  This makes it a BREEZE!!!  I even made orange marmalade and applesauce this week in that baby!  If this makes you think "I totally need to look into that", hit me up... I started selling Pampered Chef a month ago as a side gig until I can start flying again.

One of the funny things about Corona life is I'm not showering as much... don't judge... y'all know you're in your pajamas as much as I am.  Yesterday I spent most of my time shaking the mulberry trees to get the fruit and making jam...  today, after I worked in our vegetable garden, I decided it was time to shower.  As I was showering, I looked down at my feet and there was a full mulberry just sitting there...  I'm not sure if it landed on me as I walked through the garden today or if I actually... SLEPT with it in my hair last night...  I know I should show some amount of shame here but I just cant bring myself to do anything other than laugh at that.

I mentioned the vegetable garden... it's coming along beautifully.  The tomatoes are getting big enough that they needed to be staked.  I had Bill cut us 50 stakes out of leftover scrap from our old hardwood floors.  Each of the stakes in the garden are pieces of original hardwood that broke as he pulled them up.  They couldn't be reused but he put them to the side to somehow be recycled at a future date... and ta da!!!

Cherie and I have learned a wee bit about gardening from our Master Gardener class two years ago, and from working in the charity garden in Fayetteville.  She recently even learned a trick on how to do the twine without bending over.... attaching the twine box to your belt, working the twine through a piece of pvc pipe and then making the pvc pipe do all the lower work.  It went by quickly.  When we were done with the twine we laid down hay mulch that our fabulous neighbor, Tiny, dropped off a couple of days ago.  It actually LOOKS like we know what we're doing... and LOOKS like a vegetable garden.  We're pretty excited about our progress.

Speaking of progress, we've been working on our fire pit area.  A place where we can hang with friends and family... or just the two of us, and enjoy the outdoors like we're camping but have a big bed to go sleep in.  A couple weeks ago we upgraded from a burn barrel to an actual pit... it was a big stretch... we removed the barrel and started burning on the ground...  I grabbed a few stones from around the property and Bill finished the pit's circle.  He then grabbed all of our outdoor chairs and put them around the pit.  A few days later he strung white fairy lights in the trees around that circle.  The one thing he complained about was having to move the chairs when our lawn guy came, so that he could mow the area.  We talked about getting more stone, putting another circle around the chairs and filling the area with pea gravel.  I put it in my mental to-do list and figured it would take a minute to feel financially secure enough to put money into an outdoor space.  Then Bill went away for two days.  One of those days I was outside and I looked at this... planter?  old fountain?... something that was a big square of stacked stone filled with dirt right behind our house.  I stared at that stone and had an epiphany.  This area has to be demolished when we start our addition... here was the stones we needed to do the outer circle... all that it would take would be a sledge hammer, and a chisel to remove the cement from the stones... if it's free it's for me...  

Bill came back and I pointed out the brilliance of my discovery and waxed poetic on the beauty of the plan.  He put it on his "Heather's list of 1000 things to do yesterday"... and walked away.  I went into his shed and grabbed a crowbar.... when he saw what I was doing he handed me a sledgehammer and a mallet of sorts...  and I went to town.  By mid day I knew why he'd walked away and let me do this.  It's not sooooo easy to deconstruct stacked stone.  I did it.  Nearly killed myself with my stubbornness, but I banged those stones out, chipped off that cement, shoved them in the wheelbarrow and plunked them down around the chairs.  Ladies and gentlemen how many stones do you think I needed to do that project???  Seventy freaking seven.  With my dying breath I counted those bloody tons of torture.  When the last stone was placed I marched my middle aged butt into the house, tossed off my clothes and crawled into the claw-foot tub with a Grapefruit White Claw...  I might have been crying "mommy"...  This project still has a chance to kill me though... as my weed block fabric comes Thursday and I'm scheduling 60 cubic feet of pea gravel to arrive the same day...  Pray for me y'all....

Pray for my hub while you're at it...  While I was whining about moving a gazillion tons of stone, he was in the back spraying the kudzu. It's coming back... we're on year 3 of fighting this battle.  It's an insidious plant that will kill everything in it's path if you let it be.  We can see grass now where it used to be in our back 'cut'... it'll take a couple more years of spraying before we can see it gone for good.   Anyway, spraying a poison seems to be relatively easy right?  Unless you're on top of a slope and you make a misstep... and you find yourself on your knees mid slope staring at the rear end of a copperhead.  Bill ran like a 10 year old, went to grab a shovel to kill it but it disappeared... Don't know who was more scared.  Bill went back to spraying 30 minutes later and saw a scurrying by his feet... he thought 'here we go again'... and then realized he was staring at a lizard.  He came over to me and asked what lizard has a pink head???  Funny enough we found that answer out later that day when someone posted this picture in Facebook asking what it was....  Apparently skink males heads turn pinkish orange during mating season.  Good to know lol.

This morning I woke up, went to use the restroom - this isn't too much information, y'all know it's the ONLY thing that gets you out of bed on a lazy morning...  anyway, when I was done, I stood up and stretched and scratched my ass... yes... y'all do that too... don't lie... and when I scratched I felt a bug bite...  but it felt like there was a scab... and I thought "Lord please no"... I can't see my ass... I went into the other bathroom to find my big magnifying mirror... I still couldn't quite turn around enough to see so I walked dejectedly into the bedroom with my underwear half down, walked up to Bill and asked "Do I have a tick on my ass".  

I am here to tell you, it's not really what any woman wants to have to ask a man.... and I'm pretty sure most men don't want to have to answer that question... but my hub looks from across the bed and replies calmly... "It looks like you've been bitten by something"....

"I feel something there.  I think there's a tick."  Next thing I know, I'm hanging over my claw-foot tub with my ass is in the air.  My hub has put his headlight on his head to see better.  He's verified that there is indeed a seed tick hanging onto my ass.  He gently takes it off with tweezers then says in his deep southern drawl "make sure you put peroxide on that baby..."

So yes... ladies and gentlemen... the moral of this whole blog is working in the garden is all fun and games until a tick bites your ass.

Put Down That Paint Brush

Let me start this blog by saying, we are not all going to agree on the end result... but I think we can all agree that the chairs I had were a mess.  A catastrophe of another DIYer.  I can't believe a woman would let her husband paint these chairs puke boring beige.  So for my soul to not be deeply wounded, I'm going to have to believe it was one of two things... 1)  a man that had spare beige paint and wanted to update his chairs at no cost... or 2)  this horrid color was a primer and the couple meant to put a color on it but never did.  I truly have to believe that it's one of those two things, because otherwise I have to question humanity. 

When I purchased the chairs in an estate sale they had a 'matching' hideous beige table.  I love vintage 50's metal lawn chairs.  I can't pass up these when I'm junking.  Especially when they're rusty or had a previous owner that was color blind.  I've had these for a year or two now.  Waited for the time and color to come to me.  Last week I tackled the table.  Sanded it then painted it Robin's Egg blue.  Came out adorable!  You'd think I'd go to the chairs and immediately make them the same color right?  Nope.  I'm not the matchy matchy furniture person.  Plus this furniture is all over my property.  So I waited until I was inspired.

Last night after everyone left, I stared at those chairs and decided today was the day I'd get them done.  I went into Bill's paint cabinet and chose the color they'd become.  Fire Orange... deep red with a orange tint.  They'd pop in the garden.  This morning I grabbed the sander, the paint and got down to business.  As the beige chipped off, I started to see remnants of the color's they'd been in their lives and the chippy aged look started to grow on me. 

For the record, I've never managed to allow myself to paint one of these chairs.  I don't know why I thought I'd be able to do it today.  I went from "They're all going to be Fire Orange", to "maybe I'll just paint the seats" to "Bill!!!!  What do you think?"

"You're gonna need some matte enamel sealer... at least two cans..."

He get's me.  Somehow that chippy aged look just pulls at my heartstrings every time.  I like to SEE the history.  Covering it is a shame.  Add to that, we've moved to the country... to an old home we're renovating.  Some stuff, that is age appropriate, just shouldn't look TOO new.  I just love how they came out.  I know, there's gonna be a few of you reading this that wish I'd just sprayed the Robin's Egg Blue... or the Fire Orange... and I understand you... these though, are going back to the fire circle and I'll smile every time I look at them.

Some Things Just Need to Be Blogged

Somewhere around three years ago Bill and I bought an antique portrait at an estate sale.  We loved the oval tiger maple frame with convex glass.  It's hard to find a frame like this with the original glass still intact.  The portrait was torn at the top but it was the frame we were sure someone would want.  It went into our booth and was still in our booth when we closed it.  I hung onto the picture for the last two years.  I couldn't bring myself to Goodwill it.  I've been staring at it trying to figure out what to do.  Last week I decided I'd try to sell it on Facebook Marketplace.  There were no nibbles.  I kept looking at the frame thinking it was a darn shame to get rid of it.  Yesterday I removed the listing on Facebook.  I'd decided we'd use it ourselves.

We have no wedding pictures of us in our house.  I've been meaning to frame one, I just didn't have the time or the right frame.  Funny how quarantine cleaning works... You have time and you find the right frame.  I grabbed a picture, added a warm sepia tone to it and then ordered a 16x20 poster from Walgreens for next day pick up.  The picture was ready in an hour so I grabbed it last night.  End of story right?  Nope.

While I knew Bill wouldn't be able to do the project last night I wanted to see how the picture would work in the frame.  So I took out the original portrait to have a look see.  That's when I found the writing on the back.  I now knew the woman I was looking at.  I couldn't just toss this piece of history that one of her family members had sold.  I needed to record it.  I've been big into genealogy the last couple of years.  I know how amazing it is to find an ancestor that has a portrait that another distant relative has uploaded into the internet.  So for her kin, I sat down and looked for her.

Sallie Boyd was born June 11, 1868, in Upson, Georgia.  She married William Oscar Kelly on November 5, 1888.  She had nine children - John (1889), James (1891), Emmet (1894), Mozell Coulter (1897), Bessie (1898), Jeanette Pate (1901), Robert (1903), Connie Goff (1907) and Hattie Marlow (1908).  Hattie, the youngest, lived until May 21, 1992.  I can only assume that whoever wrote this information on the back of the picture wanted to insure the family would know who the portrait was of, since the last living child of Sallie's had just died two days before (inscription is May 23, 1992).  With research completed, I uploaded a photo of the portrait into her files.  Hopefully a family member will find it in the future and be glad to have access.

In the meantime, Bill's project is done.  I just have to hang it tonight.  I'm glad I kept the frame.  The whole piece is simply beautiful.  Sallie, your photo is out there in perpetuity for your ancestors to find, and your frame will be lovingly hung in our home for years to come.

Upcycling For The Win

What do you do when you and your husband have moved into your new home and COVID, the pandemic of the century, strikes?  You sweetly, somewhat subtly, suggest projects that he could do to improve your ability to unpack specific items.  Thus changing his plans for the day hourly... This is the predicament that my sweetie has found himself in.... He's been begging for more time with me over the past two years, and now he finds himself quietly wishing he or I might go back to work soon...

My first not too subtle nudge to move a "to do" up to the top of his list was our coffee/wine bar.  The original concept was to have him build a cabinet to hold what we needed.  Then one day as I was flipping through Facebook Marketplace and drooling over a Hoosier cabinet an idea came to me.

Me:  "Um, honey what do you think about Hoosier cabinets?"
Bill:  "They're cool, why?"
Me:  "Do you think we could take one and cut a hole in the base for the wine fridge... For the wine/coffee bar?"
Bill:  "That could work"....

I began my search for a Hoosier cabinet that isn't in perfect condition so we won't feel bad for cutting it up... and found one with an enamel top in near perfect condition... that's in the price range we want to pay.  We buy it, put it in the spot it'll stay in... and daily I ask if he's figured out how to fix it up.  He's looking at it, scratching his head and walking quickly away muttering something about being busy with another project... I sweetly point out that there's at least 3 boxes that could be unpacked if this beast project was done... and the next day it's outside, up on his workspace... and he's figuring it out like he always does....  It looks AMAZING!!!  Even Bill is happy with how it turned out.  I might have even ordered wine to fill the fridge.  Cause something that pretty can't be empty right?

While I was looking for the Hoosier, I also came up with the next honey do project for Bill that entailed retrofitting yet another piece of antique furniture.  Really, it sounds like I'm working his butt off but I'm trying to make the projects easier for him.  Instead of designing from scratch, I'm finding him pieces with good bones... That's my story and I'm sticking to it...  Anyway, we don't have a garage and the only place that really made sense to place our tankless water heater was in the end of the hallway where the addition will start.  Places the water heater dead center of the house for all our water needs - the addition will have another bathroom and laundry room.  You can imagine how it's not something I'd want to look at daily though.  Bill had planned to build a cabinet around it.  I suggested getting a cool old armoire and cutting out the back to slide over the water heater.

Bill loved the idea.  Technically it's a quick fix right?  While he worked on the Hoosier, I looked online trying to find something not too expensive and, like the Hoosier, not in perfect shape so we wouldn't feel bad cutting it.  The day after the Hoosier project was finished, we were sitting in our living room discussing the final run we had to do to empty our old house.  Bill was worried about us not having enough space in our shed and fretted about how he was going to store his tools that were still in our old house's garage.  It was then that the proverbial light bulb went off in my head.

When we purchased the farm, the previous owners had left an old armoire with a broken leg in the shed.  We decided to keep it because we knew we could fix it up one day.  I thought about that piece and how much room it was taking and asked Bill if it would work for the water heater project.  Out of sight out of mind right?  Neither of us could understand why we hadn't even thought to use it.  Bill took it out of storage, placed it into his work area and began the plans to retrofit it.  It needed to be raised 25" and he wasn't sure how he could blend that large of a skirt into the piece.  I asked if he could build a fake drawer front so it wouldn't look like it was sitting on a box.  He thought that would totally work, and when we got to the old house later the next day we found an old drawer front he'd saved in his workshop from our old booth projects.  Both the cabinet and that drawer are walnut!  PERFECTION! 

Well mostly... some of the veneer on the cabinet wasn't perfect so we decided it would be partially painted.  Bill wanted to paint a fun design in the ovals on the doors.  I suggested he use the MoonCrest logo that was designed by Ashlyn Downing, the daughter of my childhood best friend.
Bill spent about three days building the base and shoring up the cabinet interior so he could cut off the back.  While doing so we discussed what parts would be painted and which would remain stained wood.  Ashlyn changed up the dimensions of our MoonCrest logo to fit in the oval and Bill made a stencil to paint it. 

The cabinet had small white porcelain knobs on the doors when we got it.  We happened to have a handful of similar knobs that we'd gotten junking sometime in the past six years.  The paint was left over from projects we've done over the last two years.  The only cost for this project truly, was Bill's time.  Once again he knocked it out of the park!  When all was said and done an ugly appliance was covered up with a fun piece of furniture that no one knows is solely decorative.  I love it.  Sooo much better isn't it?

You'd think I'd be happy and let him rest then right???  He made the mistake of putting the drawers that were in the cabinet into the house for a minute to stow them away for some other use.  I took one look at the thick oak with the tongue and groove notches and said "Honey!!!!...."  He hates that... he knows what it means... more work for him!!!  It was quick... really...  Bought some small casters, he put those on the bottom, added the porcelain knobs and we now have pull out drawers at the bottom of our pantry!  SCORE!

Now I'm done... Not really...  being Coronatined together just gives me more time to come up with another honey do... daily... maybe hourly...  He's getting ready for me to go back to work but he's got at least two months before he gets that reprieve.  Pray for him... and if I go missing, go look in the 'cut' in our backyard...  😆😆😆

Actually I've made up for it somewhat.  Going back to a comment I made in the beginning of this blog, his exact words were "when this is over, I want to be with my wife, somewhere, with a drink with an umbrella in it"...  I had planned to take him to Mexico when our old house sold.  Then when COVID was heading to America I'd changed my plans to take him to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail... and then that was dashed as all travel basically stopped and people were sheltering in place across the country.  So when I signed the sales papers last Friday, I went to the local liquor store.  Bought 7 bottles of bourbon that neither one of us had heard about... and surprised him with them in an Easter Egg-esque hunt... AND made sure there was an umbrella in his rocks glass. 

If that wasn't enough... for our anniversary yesterday... I made sure we had toilet paper... Today y'all understand how important that is... 10 years from now someone is going to read this and think that's a really shitty present.... It's ok... when they do, I ask they google toilet paper anomaly of the Corona pandemic... 30 rolls baby... Pure Charmin Gold....

Happy 4th anniversary baby... We've got a roof over our heads, two pots to pee in and TP to wipe with... Life IS good.

Slowly But Surely She Begins to Shine

So far 2020 can be summed up in two words:  Crazy times.  January we rushed to complete everything we needed to get our Certificate of Occupancy to move into the farm.  Our finances were finally dwindling to the point that we had to accept where we were in the beautification of Penny process, and finish the rest while we live here.  In early February I spent every waking hour packing and painting - getting our old house ready to put on the market.  I was so tired by the middle of the month that I couldn't articulate a full thought.  The house went on the market February 19th and received multiple offers.  It's officially set to close April 17th.  The end of February through the second week of March I became an expert at driving at 24' box truck.  Bill's rigging experience helped immensely as the two of us moved our belongings by ourselves.  Today, Bill continues knocking out projects daily, while my job is emptying boxes and adding the touches that make a house a home.  We've got a long way yet to go, but here's more of our progress...

Bill and I didn't want box vanities, so I spent 2018 looking for old chest of drawers that spoke to me,  Two of the ones we chose had hideous pink marble tops.  Bill built new tops for them out of wood we reclaimed from Penny's old walls.  The spare/guest bathroom we decided to keep simple with white bowl and bronze fixtures to match the gorgeous old pulls on the drawers.  The mirror we had over our foyer table at our old house but decided that it really fit here... as you'll see later we didn't have a shortage of antique mirrors.

I should mention here that the drawers have all been cut for the plumbing.  It's a detail that the average person doesn't think about.  Most just think "cut a hole for the bowl and we're done"...  Plumbing goes down about the depth of two drawers.  He made two small drawers from each large one with a space hollowed out in between for the fixture.  The storage area in the spare bathroom vanity isn't a whole lot, but with the kids coming and going, it's just the two of us and only really needs to hold toilet paper.

For both of our master bathroom vanities we chose Mexican Talavera  pottery sinks that we bought online at La Fuente Imports (www.lafuente.com).  Took a minute to get both but we love the look.  We also chose two chests that had mirrors attached.  Bill's (above) has plenty of storage below for larger bathroom items (iron, cleaners, etc), and mine has plenty of drawers for everything a woman might need in toiletries.  The only thing I think I want to add to my area is a lighted magnified mirror on a swivel arm...

If I'm going to show the vanities, I guess I should show you the before and current look of the master bathroom.  We still have a bit more to do ~ bead board, crown molding and the window... but it's beginning to look like we dreamed it would and more.  From an adjoining bedroom to a master bathroom... the hardwood floors were carefully removed and used to replace the damage flooring in the kitchen.  Grey tiles found on clearance at Lowes were used on the floor.  See the "Tale of Three Mantles" blog to learn more about the hearth tile and mantle.  Pictures have been hung and the antique gas stove is in the corner with little lights in the firebox to provide ambiance through the mica windows.

On the other side of the room we removed the two closets.  Opened up the wall on the right to the master bedroom closet/electrical box and made the area for the shower.  An antique chandelier (similar to the chandelier that used to hang in the living room but the previous owner took with her), hangs above my dream claw-foot tub.  Once the windows are done, we will hang a large stained glass window in front of the bathroom window, and change the temporary curtain for something more appropriate.

Are you ready for the living room progress?  This here makes me sooo happy.  I get a cup of coffee and sit in my new old favorite chair (that gets refurbished in July)... between the fireplace, the wall of mirrors, the wall trim, and the trunk with mica lamp... I'm as happy as a pig wallowing in muck.  This is everything that makes us just sit back, relax and smile with pride in everything we've accomplished.

There's more, but I need to move more boxes before I take pictures that are blog worthy.  Perhaps I'll do a blog on the victory garden we're currently planting.  What's happening today in the world is so bloody terrifying.  It makes both of us grateful that we moved to the country.  I fear for us, for our family and for our friends around the world.  Please be safe.... social distance yourself from others.  My thoughts and prayers are with everyone reading this blog.  Stay safe.  God bless you all.

The Tale of Three Mantles

Y'all, can we talk?  Before you decide to take on a fixer upper, make sure you have 1) vision and 2) someone that can understand and implement that vision.  Bill and I discovered we excelled in that type of teamwork when we were up-cycling for our antique booth.  When we first walked through Penny... to say she was "rough" would be an understatement...  she was like a poor little girl who was given layers and layers of a bigger sisters hand me downs that never fit her....but we immediately felt the peace we could have with her.... she felt like home.  We both saw her potential and decided to make her be the beauty she was supposed to be.

Pinterest Idea

Before Living Room

Don't get me wrong now... I actually liked some of the concepts the previous owner had... it was the execution of those concepts that had us both scratching our heads.  The paneling in the living room wasn't horrid, it was just too dark for that small room and the 80's waterbed headboard on top of the fireplace just screamed Marge Simpson's hair-do.  I thought the fireplace was lost in that room.  It needed to be a focal point instead.  We removed the bad hair-do and the fake bricks then sat back and waited for the answer to what to do to come to us.

Living Room Today

Between junking at Antiques Unlimited, my favorite antique store in San Carlos, California , and Pinterest an idea started to formulate.  Through Facebook Marketplace we found a mantle similar to the one in Penny's master bedroom.  The original idea was to remove the mirror in the mantle and have Bill frame out one of the two German carved door panels I'd brought home from one of many shopping sprees with my mother...  Let's just say the guy at Antiques Unlimited instantly lights up when we walk in.  We rarely walk out empty handed.  But I digress...  When we started working on this project Bill was brainstorming how to frame the panel, and I walked up to the mantle and asked if we couldn't just attach the panel to the mirror and treat the mirror as matting.  One of the few times these past two years where I made his life easier...  Except he doesn't make it easier on himself... he didn't just clean the mantle up... he took it apart, sanded, stained and put it back together even stronger than it was before.  While he did that, I took the antique English and French transfer-ware tiles mom bought for Penny and tiled around the hearth (Bill gets credit for the floor of the hearth tiles)...  The final look with the antique sconces I purchased from an antique store in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is so much better than the Marge-esque 80's look before.

Which lead us to what to do with the master bedroom and the other German panel... I loved this original mantle, which is why we went looking for the other.  This baby technically only needed a cleaning.... but Bill, being the perfectionist he is, again, took it apart, sanded, stained and made it stronger.  What was left of the antique transfer-ware tiles I used on this hearth too...  keeping the flow consistent in this small house.  Today, the final mantle was put in place.

Bedroom After

The master bathroom originally was a bedroom with a small white mantle.  Neighbors have told us they didn't know that there was a fireplace in this room because a bed was placed against the mantle as a headboard.  It wasn't substantial enough to attempt to keep for the house.  We found another mantle on Facebook Marketplace.  Bill took it apart, cut out the excess wood to give it better curves, then gave it a grey wash.  The hearth was covered by me with tiles I found at Habitat Restore for $20 a box of 10.  All in all, these fireplaces look so much better than they did two years ago when Penny became ours.

The next step for the three fireplaces is to put a trim around the hearth floor.  When we have some money again (Phase III) we'll start adding inserts to these fireplaces so we can use them.  Currently they are only ornamental.  We were quoted $10-15k per fireplace to fix the flues...  Inserts can be done for a third of the price.   When we get to Phase III we'll decide whether we want wood, electric or gas inserts.  There are pros and cons for all three.

Now one last thought before I end this blog... you might have noticed the painting of San Francisco above the living room mantle.  I found this beauty in Aptos, California, on another junking trip with my mother.  I removed the ugly brass frame and haven't had it re-framed for the five plus years I've owned it.  Bill is going to make a frame for it out of the scraps of wood we have from Penny's remodel.  It'll look like a transom over the fireplace.  I was staring at the space above the master bedroom fireplace today and decided that we need to honor Bill's Richmond, Virginia roots... We need an old print or painting of Richmond to go above this fireplace....   Richmond family... if you've got an answer to this, please let us know... otherwise I see us coming up soon after the old house sells to see if we can find the perfect piece.