Braaaaains!

I've got dinner ready for tomorrow, all I have to do is reheat him.

Three-headed dog

Miranda sent in this unusual planter. I used to have one back in the days when my husband and I had an antique mall, and we never found out who the maker was so we eventually sold it. Later we found that it might be Weller. I thought I had seen it in one of the books, but we just looked through and it's not in the one we have. However, I was able to find a discussion on an eBay forum that also says it's Weller.

The patent is actually for the shape, not for the pottery piece itself. The patent was in the name of an Arthur Lindwall in 1940, so the piece dates sometime after that. See for patent details.

Link to eBay forum discussing the three-headed dog

Patent for the shape

Another Brush Cookie Jar

This must be the time of year for Brush cookie jars. Lisa sent these pictures looking for an identification.

My same disclaimer applies as for the last post: I don't know how to tell if a cookie jar is real or fake (lots were reproduced), so please double-check the identification with a cookie jar expert.

The W27 cookie jar is called the "Laughing Hippo" cookie jar, and is pictured on page 135 of Sanford's "The Guide to Brush-McCoy Pottery". It lists the date as 1961, and the price as $450-550 (1992-93 price guide).

Pottery. On a pottery blog. Go figure!

I have been horribly remiss in checking for pottery identification emails. Because that address has been around for awhile, it is almost over-run with spam. For those of you who have sent pottery photos, thanks for your patience. I will try to get to them as soon as I can.

This cookie jar pic was sent in by Penny, who was wondering if it could be Brush. The bottom is marked W8.

Since I don't collect cookie jars, let me warn you that many were reproduced, and I don't know which ones or how to spot the fakes. I know some of them are pretty good ones. So I advise getting the opinion of someone who is more knowledgeable in cookie jars just to be sure.

But yes, this is a Brush cookie jar. It can be found on the bottom of page 134 of "The Guide to Brush McCoy Pottery" by Martha and Steve Sanford, and it is listed as #W8. They list the value as $350-400 (1992-93 price guide).

I hope that helps!

Where have I been?

I was poking around here and realized I haven't posted since January. What a slacker!

On the house front, we finally finished the floors in the bedroom portion of the house. Well, everything except for the quarter round in the sitting room. We don't really have a good excuse for not finishing it, we just got sick of doing the floor stuff so we haven't gotten back to it yet. We also now have coverings on the windows in the two front rooms (thanks to the shopping trip). I spent my first day off between jobs organizing the pantry, and I planted three flower beds. One is full of garlic, onions, chives, dill, lettuce, and mache, so I guess technically it's not a "flower" bed.

I do have some new pictures to upload, now that I found my camera. It went missing after a weekend shopping trip to Chicago (I love St. Louis, but we don't have an Ikea!). I thought for sure I left my camera in the minivan we rented (hey, it was a trip to Ikea after all, we couldn't just take a car). Turns out I had actually put it away in my office cabinet when cleaning up the house. I suppose that's one reason not to pick up!

I continue to be amazed that gardening up here isn't as much of a chore as it was in Texas. There are several reasons:
1. Lack of Bermuda grass (the most awful weed ever invented, although people happily sod their entire lawn with it)
2. Clay soil that's easy to dig. I suspect that's due to #3.
3. It sometimes rains here. If we go more than a week or two without rain, it's considered a "drought." I know that's because the farmers count on the rain, but for a gardener who is used to North Texas, it's a luxury. Bonus: our yard also has a sprinkler system.
4. It's relatively cool here. We've had highs in the mid-to-upper 80's, which is near-record for this time of year, but it's still relatively cool in the morning, and it cools down in the evenings. I dug up a new spot for some scarlet monarda this morning and barely broke a sweat.

I also have a new job. Well, I will have one as of Monday since I'm taking a week off between jobs. Needless to say, I've been a bit distracted for the past couple of months.

Weird Weather

I don't even know what that means.

PS -- Graphic is from St. Louis weather on www.wunderground.com

Vodka. It's not just for breakfast any more.

We *finally* moved into the master bedroom. After the carpets were taken out, we discovered a lot of damage to the wood floors from prior rennovations from the previous owners. Places where walls formerly stood are filled in with plywood or badly patched, and there's paint all over: evidently they knew they wanted carpet during the last rennovation so whoever did it didn't use a dropcloth.

We've been able to remove much of the latex paint from the wood flooring using vodka. When I researched removing paint from wood floors online I found several resources that suggested rubbing alcohol. Whatever rubbing alcohol I had was still in boxes so I decided to improvise. Besides, vodka smells a lot better!

Unfortunately many of the paint spots are from oil-based paint and we haven't been able to remove them. With everything else going on with the house (argh, I don't even want to talk about the electricity!) I really don't want to have the wood floors sanded and refinished -- it's messy and expensive. We haven't figured out what we're going to do with them yet, but I guess we'll just have to wait till the other rooms are livable before we deal with the floors.

House Pics

We picked up our new living room furniture yesterday, and took some other things to the house with the truck we rented. We'll need to figure out how to arrange the furniture: even though the room is large, there are 5 doorways which makes layout awkward. We were thrilled to find the Natuzzi furniture set in stock in a color we loved: our original furniture set would have taken 8-10 weeks to arrive. I want to make a valance over the window out of the fabric that's draped over the loveseat.




Here's the dining room so far. It looks out into the foyer, and beyond that is my office.


Here's the foyer: the big blank space is where the shelving from Home Decorators will go (IF they ever bother to order them), and on that will be a display of McCoy pottery. We love the art deco clock that used to belong to Doug's Aunt, and the lamp was a garage sale find from awhile back.



I'm going to use the formal living room as my office. We have one more coat of paint to go on the red wall (if I don't change my mind and do a different color), so the blue tape is still up.