Click: 1929 to 2009

I was buying a vintage item on Etsy for someone for the holidays, and I happened to notice that the seller was also selling this little oddity for $8:


...and, always a sucker for a deal on combined shipping, I nabbed it. It's a Brownie (box camera) Model 2-F, probably from around the late 1920s to early 1930s.

We got it in the mail a couple of weeks ago, got some film, and just started messing with it on the night of the snowstorm. We cleaned it, found the old manual (which is entertaining in itself), then we shot a roll of film. We were kind of just seeing if it worked at all - so we didn't pay much attention to the exposure time or subjects.

Today we walked down to the camera shop to pick up the prints (if it worked at all). We were thrilled to see a huge roll of negatives with things that looked pretty recognizable on it - but the camera shop folks (the best ones in town, so they should know) said they can't develop that size negative - it's like 2x3". Hmmm.

Then we thought, Photoshop can make things look like negatives, so maybe it can make things double negative (=positive). So we scanned in the negatives and messed around with the results.

From inside the dining room, through windows, stained glass panel, and plastic (not bad!)

Just after the snowstorm, the garage.

We actually took the photos 'blind' - all the silver had flaked off the viewfinder mirrors and I didn't want to open it up to replace them with film in; now you can actually see something with new mirrors so the next photos should be better composed! Our scans were not at the best resolution and we can play more with contrast - but it was totally an amazing process:

• to use a camera with absolutely no electronics, batteries, buttons, beeps, etc.
• to see the giant negatives (when was the last time you saw film negatives?)
• to realize the camera worked
• to take something from 1929 or so, snap a totally mechanical photo, then 'develop' it on a computer in 2009.

I feel like we just came out of a time machine. Weird...

Yellow snow

Not really. But we did work on something related to pee and something related to snow this weekend.

First, while I was at Lowe's the other day buying a replacement part for the upstairs toilet, I realized that with only $15.95 I could finally replace the el-cheapo toilet seat that came with the downstairs toilet (2 years+ ago). That gross thing was thin molded plastic and had these little concave areas underneath that were atrocious to clean. Plus the yucky plastic hinges - ew.

So before:

And, 10 minutes later, solid seat with chrome hinges:

I know, it really doesn't look much different. But it is!

Then it snowed. Which is great - we love the snow. So we put up some decorations outside.

Then, as the mudroom descended into a chaotic pile of mittens, boots, and hats, I went on a hunt for a mudroom bench. Someday we'll build one from our stash of oak lumber, but one more winter with a big ol' mess was sounding like a bad option.

So I scouted all the usual haunts - thrift store, online, various horrid big box stores, etc. Found nothing good that was a reasonable price for a somewhat temporary solution. Then, at KMart, I found a Martha Stewart buffet table from the Mission Bungalow collection.
It was on clearance and the dimensions were perfect for a mudroom bench - it was just too tall. So, I lugged it home, we did some measuring, and we immediately set to work destroying it. We cut a foot off each leg, left off the plate rack & second shelf (which goes on the cut-off part of the legs), and voila! A better shot at mudroom organization. Thanks Martha!


p.s., this table seems to actually be wood and is quite solid. So maybe someday it'll be re-purposed into a coffee table or something else.

Take that, overprotective parents!

Hah! Our nemesis, the stupid little plastic stick-figure child cutout with a little flag that was put out in the road all summer long to tell everyone that someone's oh-so-special kids might be playing in the road like idiots, has fallen over! Thanks to the wind. Thanks, wind!

I don't know why we've developed such a hatred for the stupid thing, but it's completely obnoxious and I can't wait for them to finally decide it's too cold and bring the dumb thing in. Once they put a large rock behind this thing - and put it in the middle of one lane of the road - which would have inflicted major damage on someone's car had they hit it. And I don't know about you, but seeing these types of idiotic things just makes me want to drive faster.

People - if you think the speed limit is too high in your neighborhood, go to a town meeting or get a petition started to commission a traffic study! Don't just put out a passive-aggressive fluorescent green creepy plastic kid imported from China, resulting in air and, eventually, water pollution that will be much more harmful to your kids than the occasional speeding motorist.

There, I've said my piece. Happy Thanksgiving! We're giving thanks for the smiting of our enemy, Traffic Child.

Diamonds: not a girl's best friend

Before everyone goes out holiday shopping, I wanted to point out this statistic published in this month's This Old House magazine: 85% of women would rather get $5,000 in home renovations than a set of equally valuable diamond earrings. I'm definitely in that majority!

So guys, if you buy your girl some jewels, don't be surprised if she hawks them to get a new deck, or have the floors refinished, or start a kitchen re-do. That is, unless you bought her a diamond-encrusted tile saw so she can do her tile project...

Our first bungalow DIY

All right, in between raking leaves all weekend, here's an entry to another contest (we could really use the $ for upcoming bedroom renovation slated for this winter).

The question is, what is the first thing we did as soon as we got the keys to our house? Well, after we had the lawyer kick out the grown son of the previous owner (who had broken in because his plane got in late and he didn't have keys, and needed to get a few last things from the house! Surprise! as he came up freshly showered from the basement bathroom when we arrived for our pre-closing walk-through!), we lugged over our sleeping bags, some champagne, and some snacks and we all planned to sack out in front of the fireplace - our favorite pigpile with cats & dog seemed in order.

Settling in by the fireplace with a desk lamp and extension cord (there were no lights in the living room), I realized there was no way I could sleep in front of the hideous 1970's-era brass fireplace screen. Ugh, I can hardly even look at this photo:

"Can we just rip this off right now?" Ken knew that it was kind of a rhetorical question. So, off it came (with all the wrong tools and a lot of swearing). Then we sat in the fireplace like Cinderella, scrubbing ages of crummy soot off until it looked reasonable. Here it is now, after lots more work:

Then, sleep. It's amazing we were able to wait another 48 hours before we tore the horrible green brain carpet off the stairs!

This post was written for Houseblogs.net as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by True Value.

I want this vacuum!

In our city, they come by and vacuum up the leaves in the fall & spring. Such service! Actually, it happens quite a lot in this neighborhood; when we lived in the ghetto section of town, I don't remember it at all. Hmmm. Maybe it was just that no one bothered to pile up their leaves.

At any rate, we got a bunch of leaves down to the curb in time for one of their passes, and I snapped a photo of the most awesome vacuum ever. Yes, that hose is big enough to engulf that guy. Can you imagine the dust bunnies you could suck up with this thing?


If the weekend's not a total washout, we hope to get the rest of the leaves to the curb for the next pass. This year they're paying special attention to the leaf removal because trees in our area had leaf Tar Spot, a fungus that was widespread because of our wet summer. Apparently if we compost the leaves or keep them around, it's more likely we'll get it again next year. So, removal it is this time.

Turn up the heat!

Apparently it's time to crank up the pellet stove, or so say these two heat-seekers:

Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty warm (in the 50s!), and it's a day we have to hike for work. Even though we really should be raking the yard, etc. instead. Hopefully we'll get that pesky raking done before it snows - again!