Poems for October

October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came.
The Chestnuts, Oaks and Maples,
And leaves of every name.

The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.

The Chestnuts came in yellow,
The Oaks in crimson dressed;
The lovely Misses maple
In scarlet looked their best.

All balanced to their partners,
And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow
New fallen from the sky.

Then in the rustic hollow
At hide-and-seek they played;
The party closed at sundown
And everybody stayed.

Professor Wind played louder;
They flew along the ground;
And then the party ended
In jolly "hands around."
~George Cooper, "October's Party"


"There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on
the feelings, as now in October."
- Nathaniel Hawthorne


The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools. ~Henry Beston, Northern Farm


October's poplars are flaming torches lighting the way to winter. ~Nova Bair


"Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn."
- Elizabeth Lawrence



"Listen! the wind is rising,
and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings,
now for October eves!"
- Humbert Wolfe


There is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,
Which through the summer is not heard or seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been! ~Percy Bysshe Shelley




"Looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
An thinking of the days that are no more.
- Alfred Lord Tennyson


Fiery colors begin their yearly conquest of the hills, propelled by the autumn winds. Fall is the artist. ~Takayuki Ikkaku




Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. ~Albert Camus




Bittersweet October. The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter. ~Carol Bishop Hipps




Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~George Eliot




Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all. ~Stanley Horowitz


Besides the autumn poets sing,
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the haze.
~Emily Dickinson


Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn. ~Elizabeth Lawrence


"I know the year is dying,
Soon the summer will be dead.
I can trace it in the flying
Of the black crows overhead;
I can hear it in the rustle
Of the dead leaves as I pass,
And the south wind's plaintive sighing
Through the dry and withered grass.

Ah, 'tis then I love to wander,
Wander idly and alone,
Listening to the solemn music
Of sweet nature's undertone;
Wrapt in thoughts I cannot utter,
Dreams my tongue cannot express,
Dreams that match the autumn's sadness
In their longing tenderness."
- Mortimer Crane Brown, Autumn Dreams

{images from Country Living}

Basic Farmhouse / Cottage Style Trim and Beadboard Tutorial

Happy Monday morning, everyone! I hope you had a beautiful fall weekend! I don't know about you, but we had to turn the heat on for the first time this morning. The weather is delicious!

Just a quick note before our beadboard update: All of the blog sale packages were mailed out on Saturday with the exception of four - I ran out of bubble wrap and packaging supplies over the weekend but am all stocked up now. I'll package those up today and mail them out tomorrow. Thanks again for all the blog sale support...I never imagined that I would find new homes for so many of my items!

Slowly but surely, beadboard and trim work progress continues here. Many of you have asked "How does your beadboard look all painted white now?". {insert awkward pause with crickets chirping in the background} Hmmm, well, we haven't gotten to that part yet because we are having to do the work in phases - first the baseboards,

I thought I would walk you through the steps we are taking to achieve the farmhouse style trim I've dreamt of having for so long. It really is simple, simple, simple.

beadboard, and beadboard caps, then the finishing trim. Shoe moulding will come last. It has taken us a while to accumulate the trim work for the kitchen, dining area, living room, foyer, and hallway {and we aren't finished "accumulating" yet!}, so as we get it, we install it. And of course, all of that has to be done before painting can start in earnest. It is an exercise in patience, to say the least, but so is this entire remodel. :)

I thought I would walk you through the steps we are taking to achieve the farmhouse style trim I've dreamt of having for so long. It really is simple, simple, simple. You'll need the 6 different elements I mentioned above: baseboards {pine boards, almost 6 inches wide}, beadboard {we use real wood beadboard panels because I love it's texture and hardiness}, a beadboard cap {again, just the same wide pine trim that we used as a baseboard}, finishing trim that goes right under the beadboard cap, finishing trip that goes right on or above the beadboard cap, and finally, shoe moulding {we haven't gotten to the shoe moulding yet, so I have no photos of this step.}

First we installed the baseboard. Again, just simple wide pine boards. You can go even wider than what we used. You can see that our floors aren't even so this is why it is extremely important to use a level when installing your beadboard. Otherwise everything will look very wonky by the time you are finished. Don't worry about gaps. Those will be covered by shoe moulding and finishing trim.


Then we put up the beadboard panels. The beadboard panels are sold in 4'W x 8'L sheets. We simply cut them in half so that our beadboard was 4'. I wanted the beadboard to be taller, but it was cheaper to go with 4' beadboard panels and then just have wider baseboards and baseboard caps to achieve the height that I was looking for. This added almost another foot to the beadboard height.


The next step was to install the beadboard cap, the piece that sits right above the beadboard. The cap is exactly the same pine that we used for the baseboards, but you can choose narrower or wider pieces if you prefer.


Normally, we would work our way around the room, but with the living room, we had to skip the wall that our fireplace is on since we will be rebuilding the mantel. It will be taller and chunkier {like the new dining room mantel we built a few months back} and really would have to be done before any beadboard goes on that wall. So we moved on to the window wall, saving the fireplace wall for another time.



Now to fancy that flat beadboard cap up a bit with some finishing trim! We haven't gotten to most of the living room finishing trim yet but we have started on the hallway and foyer, and as of this weekend, have completed the finishing trim in the kitchen and dining room. As you can see from this photo, it is installed first right under the baseboard cap. This will cover any unsightly gaps between the beadboard and the cap, too. Try to choose finishing trim that has a nice contour so as to add some interest and to soften the chunkiness of the beadboard cap. You can also add this at the bottom right above the baseboard, but we didn't so as to save a little money.




Next, we added more finishing trim right on the face of the beadboard cap. Again, we chose a different trim that had a nice contour. These are a few photos of the work we did in the kitchen/dining area this weekend.





The last step would be the shoe moulding, which we will be a future project for us. But what did I tell you...Simple, simple, simple!

I will be up to my eyeballs in more puttying and sanding in the kitchen/dining room, followed by caulking before we can paint. For now, I'm putting that part of the kitchen remodel on hold for a few weeks while I work on my shop and building inventory. Yep, I kind of feel like I'm losing my mind with so much going on at once, but I've figured out that things may just never "settle down" and I'm just going to have to get use to living and working in my little cottage circus environment! How do you balance everything?

Thanks for dropping by today and have have a lovely week!