Here is my short list of terrific companies who produce stamped kits for embroidery and cross stitch.
You can find tons on eBay, sometimes at half the retail price, particularly if they are discontinued patterns.
Oliver’s Bungalow Blog
House Tour: Front Bedroom After
Now here we are, in September of 2008, five years after I bought the house.
I need to make tiebacks for the curtains, which are a beautiful shimmery dress fabric, it has this 1940s deco look to it, and just has the loveliest drape. I bought these way back when I worked at Penney’s, and I have them in several colors. I just loved the fabric so much, I snagged them when they went on clearance, packed them away in a bin, and hoped I would have a place to use them someday. It is kind of funny, really. I think I always knew I wanted a house that had multiple windows per room. And this house sure does!
I still need to stain the curtain rod (a someday project), which is pieced together with parts from different places. I snagged the eight-foot pole from the clearance bin at Linens-n-Things. I chose the brackets from Country Curtains because they have a second notch behind the big one, in case I ever want to hang a second layer. And I ordered the pineapple finials from VanDyke’s. They are a pretty close match to the finial on the four-post bed.
All of this beautiful furniture came from my Grandma Millie’s house. It is mahogany with a dark finish, and while they are not antiques, they are old. She got most of her furniture in the 40s, when she got married. I think my grandparents must have gone to the store and kitted out the living room, dining room, and bedroom all at once. The pieces are almost interchangeable, all the same wood and color, with similar styling. It certainly makes it easy to move things around. I intend to stick with the dark wood furniture, as you may have noticed from the recent yard sale buying frenzy.
Oliver makes himself comfortable in my bed, but when we get tired of each other, he often settles in his comfy chair by the window.
You may have noticed the elephant theme. You see, while I’m not too wild about the Early American Colonial style, and this furniture is undoubtedly Colonial Revival. Reproductions. I’m trying to give it a little twist, going for a British Colonial feel. Think British India. Hence the elephants. Yeah. It still needs some work.
As for the room itself, the floors refinished beautifully, with few repairs needed, and the chestnut trim was cleaned and hydrated with Formby’s Deep Cleansing Build-Up Remover, followed by Formby’s Lemon Oil Treatment, which I use on all my furniture. Never Pledge, which causes a cloudy build up. Yuck. Always the Formby’s products.
House Tour: Front Bedroom Before
Welcome to the front bedroom. This bedroom is the front “dormer” that you can see in pictures of the front of the house. 
This is the only room in the whole house whose trim work was never painted. The floors were in pretty good condition, too. Now, the curtains hiding that beautiful chestnut trim had to go. As well as the cheap and ugly ceiling fan.
Gotta love the basketball hoop attached to the back of the solid chestnut, five-panel door. And the commercial grade garcy strip shelving system. Neanderthals.
Someday I’ll get around to removing the paint from that brass collar on the glass knob. I can’t even figure out how it got painted, since that door is in original condition. P.O.s baffle me.
The attic access is through the closet, which is under the eaves. I’m really lucky to have such big closets in a house this old. It was definitely one of the selling points.
House Tour to Resume
It occurred to me a few weeks back, when houseblogs.net was running the True Value show us your before and after contest, that I’ve never finished the house tour. I think we stopped on our way to the second floor. I thought of this because I think the upstairs bathroom has had the most dramatic before and after. But because I hadn’t shown it to you all yet, I decided to go with the kitchen instead. Besides, I think the point of that contest was what homeowners have done for themselves, and I can’t claim much responsibility for the bathroom. I don’t tile and I don’t plumb.
I think I’ll show you the bedrooms first, but don’t get too excited, they are kind of boring (and messy). Then I’ll save the best- the bathroom- for last. Just to keep you interested.
Seriously, though, It’ll be worth the wait. The old bathroom was pretty bad. I almost considered entering it in American Standard’s Ugliest Bathroom contest!
Great Dimmer Switches
One of the small upgrades mom insisted on were dimmer switches. She loves them. At the time, I thought I didn’t care much one way or the other. I knew I hated those stupid round plastic buttons that would pop off and bounce across the floor when you were in a hurry. That’s where our fabulous electrician Jeff stepped in. He understood my dislike of the button style dimmer switches, but he’s also a smart guy, so he knew we had to keep mom happy. One day he turned up with these:
The one on the right is a normal switch, the one on the left is the special dimmer switch.
They are pretty great. Mostly you don’t accidentally catch the little sliding adjuster. They were a good compromise. And, yeah mom does know best. I’ve grown to really appreciate the ability to dim the lights, particularly in the kitchen with its six bulbs!
Don’t get me wrong, if I could afford them, I would buy these gorgeous push-button reproduction switches. They even make them for dimmers now, did you know?
Green Bungalow Craftworks 