Patina...in all the wrong places

Who was it that said that patina is just dirt in all the right places? Well, we've got patina everywhere here. Yes, when you're working on one room and have limited time, you tend to forget about the rest of the house a bit. So when I had a few stolen hours the other day and decided it was time to pay attention to the whole house & give it a thorough cleaning, there were some shockers. I will say, a bungalow is great because the compact plan and linked rooms make cleaning pretty simple...but we have a dog and two cats, which make plenty of mess.

OK, mom, close your eyes a sec - I'd like to introduce to you all our new pet bunny. (Note: flip flop for scale). This was from the far corners of the living room, which we could now reach because the radiator is out of there - re-installed in the kitchen (awesomely re-done by Ken). Wow, that's all I'm sayin' about that.

Oh, and the shelves on the radiator wall are done! Just have to fill the attachment holes and touch up the paint, but we're calling them done! And they're looking fab with my collection of green pottery, an antique casserole dish my mom bought me at an antique store we visited in Arizona and then I gingerly hauled back on the plane (mission design, perfect colors, worth the pain in the butt that was), and Ken's woodturnings.

Before...

After...

Now that we like the design of the shelves and have the attachments totally figured out, maybe we'll attack the rest of the shelving next. Then we can finally unpack the dishes! Our 'disposable' bamboo plates are starting to get pretty worn out, after all.

And finally, here's an interesting/creepy find: Ken found this guy stuck in the fins of the radiator when he was cleaning it. Eeew...