How about a little DIY to change things up around here?

I don't know about you, but I randomly scour Craig's List for stuff. Nothing in particular a lot of times. Other times, specific things. This time it was specific. I wanted a new front door. Have you priced exterior doors at Home Depot or Lowe's lately? Yeah - the door I wanted was #1 Special Order and #2 $1200! Sorry, but no.

In reality I need THREE new front doors. My mission has been for Robin's Nest because it still has the door from when it was a rental cabin - the kind for a key card! Once we tried to take that clunky thing out - only to find that there was a giant rectangular hole in the door. So I ordered an Oil Rubbed Bronze wrap around plate to cover the hole and put in a regular door knob.  Would you believe it wouldn't cover the whole hole? Naturally the clunky card reader was reinstalled. Yay.

I wanted a door with glass at the top to let in some extra light because the living area is rather dark. Funny how that happens when the floor, ceiling and walls are all wood. I would have loved a full glass door, but since we aren't there all the time, I fear it would be broken into more easily. I'm a huge fan of Craftsman style - mid-century modern in pretty much any aspect. 

Here's the door I wanted. It's a 6 lite Craftsman solid wood door slab. I didn't want pre-hung. I didn't want steel. I didn't want fiberglass. I just wanted a wood door.

So I happened to be in Craig's List on my lunch break at work a few days before we were leaving for vacation and HOLY CRAP! What do I run across? THIS!

 

So I get home, check my door sizes and immediately e-mail this person. Yes, the doors are still available. I'm interested, what is your schedule tomorrow and where are you located? No response. The next day I respond again - I'm really interested in both of these doors, can I come see them? Call me . Half hour later, he calls. Set up a time to meet him the next day - with cash. Mr. Paisley has to meet the termite inspector at the Cottage so I set it up for after that - either way, I'll be at work until after dark. Go figure, the termite guy is late. He finally turns up "yep, that's termites" (no kidding...I know it's termites - you've been treating them for like 3 years now - it's clearly not working - when do we do something that WILL work? To which he says "technicians cannot schedule treatment, I'll put in a work order and a supervisor will come out to verify and then schedule the treatment" SERIOUSLY? TWO more appointments? WTH Massey....WTH. Stay tuned supervisor will be here tomorrow...). Mr. P comes home with the doors. I am beyond giddy. You really have no idea. First - minus the dental molding, they're the doors I wanted. Second, these doors - I can't even tell you what they cost, but I would bet more than ordering them from Home Depot. They were custom ordered from this site Buffelen Door out of Tacoma, WA (according to the bright orange stickers on the glass). This is a "design your door online and we'll send you a quote" place. They have some amazing options! Third...$200. $200 for TWO DOORS! Score much? Yeah...I know!

So the next day we load up the larger one to go to the cabin and voila! It's installed with a smart lock. It was too cold to stain it on this trip, but we will do it next time. It's under a covered deck anyway so it's out of the weather. It's seriously amazing.

I made a quick no-sew curtain for it as well, but that will be another post. I don't want the windows covered, but at the same time, when we aren't there on a daily basis I don't want everyone looking in either...

Time flies...

How can it be almost a MONTH since I last posted? I have a million things in my head to write about. 

• Last trip to Tennessee
• Trucks
• Guest blogging
• Seasons
• Organizing
• Neighbors
• Shopping scores
• Work
• Georgia (and I mean my niece, not the state)
• No-poo (as in shampoo)

Where to start?

How about a mix of a couple of them? At the end of July Mr. Paisley and a friend went to Robin's Nest for a week. One could call it male bonding, but really, they went to do down right dirty work. And by dirty work I mean really dirty. They pressure washed the outside of the cabin - i'm pretty sure it hasn't been cleaned since it was built in 1995. 15+ years of mountain dirt! 

Here she is all cleaned up - hell even the chimney looks a little better (cannot wait to have it redone in stacked stone)  - forgive the cell phone photo.

 Just for reference...here's a photo from when we first bought it... pardon the vehicles (Hi Auntie Alyce!) you get the picture. It was dark and dirty.

Then they started to re-stain it. Here's the photo Mr. P texted me with the samples they threw on the front wall.

We ended up going with the one on the lower left. The cabin one one side of us is the dark brown (walnut) so I didn't want it to be the same color. The top left just looks like it's wet and the top left seemed blah. I'm kinda wishing I went with blah...the lower left looks a bit orange when there's more than an 18" stripe of it. Such is life...i'm sure it will mellow out a bit. I hope. 


At any rate - they got done what they got done and they headed back to Florida. Luckily, the hubs decided to take 75 instead of 95 - for the truck died on the side of the road not far from his parents' home outside of Atlanta. Of course it was Sunday. They dropped the truck at the local small town Ford dealer and my father-in-law sent them on their way in his truck with most of the stuff that had been packed in the the big truck. $1400 and a month later, we pack up the little truck (and when I say little, i'm talking F150 - it's a Ford Lightning - the SVT "race truck" - which is VERY small when you're used to an F350 crew cab) and headed back to The Nest for Labor Day week. We took 75 in order to stop at the in-laws' house and swap trucks. We motored on our merry way on Saturday. On Sunday morning we did the regular...sort of. We went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast and since I hadn't clipped my coupons, we skipped going to Kroger to get groceries for the week (note this...it's important). A few hours later, we drove up the street, picked up our neighbors and drove to Gatlinburg to take them to our favorite fancy food hideaway for dinner. Where I had this

Yummy no? Apple, walnut stuffed pork loin with THE best sauteed vegetables (mushrooms, squash, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, onions) on the planet. For real these veggies are so good that they also come as an entree!  Of course dinner was followed by dessert. They make an AWESOME cranberry bread pudding with whiskey sauce. Oh my...heaven. Seriously. Worth EVERY last calorie. At any rate, as we come out of the mountains (aka middle of nowhere), Mr. P whips into the first gas station we come to. The truck was sputtering. He was sure that when the dealership dropped the fuel tank to replace the fuel pump and pick-up that the fuel float thingy that tells you how much gas you have was off.  So he put threw $25 or so of diesel in (I guess I should say "fuel" instead of "gas" since it is a diesel eh?). Onward we go. Sputter, shake. Let the swearing commence. Turns out it's doing the exact same thing it was doing when it broke down in GA. It dies. We get it cranked up. It dies, we get it cranked up and go a little farther down the road. Somehow we manage to limp it back to the office parking area at the resort where the cabin is. It literally has NO power - no way it's going to go up the steep incline to get to the cabins. Did I mention it's raining? Our neighbors have AAA. We call. Flatbed is there within 15 minutes. Impressive (not really, it's a small town - we just aren't used to that...here in Orlando you're lucky if they show up within 4 hours). For the record, an F350, crew cab, with a long bed...BARELY fits on a regular flatbed trailer. Barely. Our neighbor walked up the mountain, got his car and came down to pick us up. Thank God he walks the whole resort on a daily basis. This Florida girl would still be crawling up the hill 2 weeks later. Remember how I mentioned that we skipped grocery shopping? And that it was Labor Day weekend? Did you know that in small towns, car dealerships aren't open on the weekend? Sure, our service departments aren't open on Sundays and in fact I think only half days on Saturday, but i'm talking about the actual sales part of the dealership. Yep, closed. Until TUESDAY...because we all take the day off for Labor Day. Good times. My fantastic in-laws got up early on Labor Day and drove their car and truck 5 hours to the cabin, to loan us the truck. Again. The got there, spent maybe 20 minutes with us and were back on the road to GA. 9 hours. They spend their entire day off driving just so we didn't have to spend $600 to rent a car for the week. Yes $600...did I mention that the LOCAL rental car places were also closed for the holiday weekend? Yep...closest place to rent a car was the Knoxville, TN airport. 45 minutes away - not really sure how we would have gotten there since our neighbors left to go back to OH. I love my in-laws. Needless to say, the dealership didn't even look at our truck until Thursday. We picked it up Friday afternoon. $400 later - $400 for a diagnosis (crimped fuel line) and a hose clamp (temporary fix because - of course - they didn't have fuel lines in stock - in fact the closest fuel lines were in Detroit, Michigan - seriously? Oh and they had them at one of our local dealers back home in FL).

I hate Murphy. If he was standing here I would punch him in the face and tell him where to stick his laws.


Here's the short version of our "vacation"
Friday – after work - leave 1.5 hours later than planned, drove to GA to switch trucks with the in-laws, spent the night.
Saturday – drove to TN, got there mid afternoon.
Sunday – went to breakfast, skipped grocery store, will go later, picked up neighbors, went to dinner in Gatlinburg, driving back, truck dies. AAA tows it to Ford dealer.
Monday – dealer closed for holiday (gotta love small towns…), rains all day. ALL. DAY….and all night. Roof starts leaking. In-laws get babysitter for grandma who can’t be left by herself, drive car and truck to TN to lend us the truck…again.
Tuesday – finally go to grocery store – yea food!
Wednesday – find out there are back taxes due on the house…from before we bought it. Shell out $250 in taxes that should have been paid by the bank when we closed. Text realtor to get closing guy’s contact info (yes, I still text my realtor...we're like BFFs now). Left him message. 
Thursday – uneventful – gorgeous day!  Vacation almost over…spend the day cleaning, doing laundry (oh joy) – plumbing starts gurgling when washer drains.
Friday – another nice day – spend it on the front deck painting a dresser, picked up the truck mid afternoon! $400 – essentially for a diagnosis and a hose clamp.
Saturday – get up at 7am to go to an HOA meeing….meeting goes until noon because the new management company has royally p*ssed everyone off already, go to lunch and the salvage yard with the neighbors (they drive - hey, i'd be afraid of getting stuck somewhere on the side of the road with us too) – get back around 4:15, supposed to leave for GA at 5. Throw in last load of laundry (sheets and towels because we have people renting the cabin before we are back up there), washer drains…into the bathtub downstairs. An hour later hubby has figured out where the pipes are plugged up, can’t fix it. Finally get everything packed into the trucks and we drive BOTH trucks to GA…due to leaving 2 hours later than planned, we hit traffic at a dead stop on the interstate because the TN football game let out. Get to GA at 11:15pm – I eat a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch because he didn’t want to stop for dinner. Go to bed…supposed to be up at 7 to leave by 8. 
Sunday - Evidently, my husband doesn’t know how to set the alarm on his phone because I woke up at 9:35am. End up leaving at 11:30am, get home at 7:15pm, unload the truck, go out to dinner, come home, go to bed and thank GOD i'll be getting up and going to work in the morning, because as many random issues as I get to deal with there, at least I KNOW what's going to happen!


That said...Mr. Paisley is diligently researching and hunting for a new truck. Our truck is a 2003. It's not THAT old...did you realize that if you wanted to buy my 2003 truck, exact model and options, in a 2012 model that it would set you back nearly $60,000?  Leather, power this, power that, 4x4, FX package, tow package, diesel, crew cab, long bed (if you can find a long bed), sunroof, blah blah, blah blah...O.M.G.


I think I just thew up a little bit. 


So there you go - a little glimpse of the past month or so at the Paisley Cottage / Robin's Nest. That covers "Last trip to Tennessee" and "Trucks" - i'm sure there will be an update later.


PS - even though the blockage in the plumbing is outside of the cabin, the city says it's our problem (of course it is...) luckily, our home warranty is paid up and it covers...plumbing. At least that will only cost $65.

Mary Mary quite contrary...

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row

Although when I was little we used to trade out the last line for "and one darn onion" - I have no idea why.

I guilted invited my mother to go to the cabin with me for the 4th of July weekend since Mr. Paisley was working thru the holiday and after several calls back and forth with my Tennessee neighbor - I just really felt like I needed to go. Turns out my bench was the only thing missing - from my house. My neighbor was kind enough to move the rest of it into the house...I asked her if she could put it on the screened porch - it's locked and frankly, more trouble than it's worth to break into. She rolled up my rug and put it out there...everything else she put in the living area inside. 

While I sincerely appreciate her doing that...OH MY FREAKING GOD!  The bugs, the spiders, the spider webs I kept walking into, the dead things...I nearly had a heart attack after running into the "critters" that were living in the stuff that she brought into the house. Seriously. 

For instance...this beauty (pardon the crummy cell phone picture and the fact that there is like no light in the downstairs bathroom). That's a dead (THANK GOD) spider. Please note the size of the drain in relation to the size of the curled up and dead spider.

Kill me now. As if the spider wasn't bad enough...there was the thickest, stickiest, ridiculous web coating nearly half the tub. HALF! 

Another of these lovelies turned up as I went to do a load of laundry. It was IN the washing machine. I popped the lid open, it ran, I cranked it up to a full wash cycle on heavy duty with hot water and ran screaming - to myself, but screaming in my head none-the-less. Spiders don't swim. I nearly barfed when I was shaking out a towel fresh from the dryer only to find a few crispy stray spider legs. Long crispy spider legs. 

Kill me now.

I ran into on SMALL spider still alive. I sucked it up with the vacuum and then dumped the canister over the deck rail. Then there was the centipede...or millipede. Whatever - I didn't stop to count the legs. I stomped on it, screeched and did the "ew ew OMG it's on me, get it off" dance.  

My aunt and one of her granddaughters came down from Ohio for part of our visit. We had a good time.

The day my aunt was leaving, she and my mom decided they needed to plant me a garden. Like that? Proper English / Grammar Police beware! The said I should have hostas there. Well duh...we planted, oh I dunno, 10 or 11 of the damn things last summer, they didn't come back. So they raked. Worked on my little rock wall. Ran the drip hose. Made a couple trips to Lowe's for plants and rocks and planted a nice little garden that I don't have great photos of...but here they are anyway. 

I bought a cute red, white, and blue pinwheel for a little 4th of July festive-ness

Hostas, day lilies, lantana and a couple of other plants that I can't remember the name of (probably stuff we don't have in FL)

My creative aunt added two sizes of rocks in sort of a wave pattern to look like they had washed down the hill from the road above.

The hose isn't pretty, but not sure what else to do with it. It will get partly covered up as the lantana starts to creep.

My aunt says she's going to drag her ex-husband down to the cabin with her one weekend and totally redo my rock wall. She said "it needs rock glue" whatever that is...she's always the one with the best looking yard, so she can do whatever she wants with it!

It's a sad day for Paisley Pumpkin

This afternoon the TN neighbor called to chat and was taking inventory of my outdoor items at the cabin. Someone stole my bench. The one that is the centerpiece of the Paisley Pumpkin blog banner. 

Now money-wise it's not a big loss. I paid $20 or $25 for it at a thrift store and then $8 or so on black spray paint. That's not the point. It was cute. It was prefect for the spot. It was MINE. I bought it. I got my happy ass out of bed at 7am to go to work, to collect a paycheck, so that I could buy stuff I wanted. Like this little bench. If there is one thing I detest it's thievery. If it's not yours, leave it alone. 

The neighbor had called the sheriff's office and they sent someone out. Turns out stuff was missing from several other cabins as well. It was weird - it was like they took bits and pieces from each place in order to decorate their own. They didn't clear out stuff from anyone. Believe me when I say my neighbor has a gorgeous deck. She's got an ornately carved wood porch swing, a pair of black rocking chairs, a vintage Coke cooler - the kind with legs and a bottle opener on the front, whiskey barrels, split log benches, Cedar Adirondack chairs, all kinds of nice stuff (unlike me, mine is all inexpensive and frankly there isn't that much of it...I was still working on that - not sure if i'm going to continue since i'm going to have to either bolt it down or haul it all down to the basement every time we leave).

They took a large salt glaze crock and a whiskey barrel planter from my neighbor's deck...but they neatly lined up the grapevine balls (that had been in the crock) along the bench it had been sitting on. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!  They took one of the two wood rocking chairs from the cabin on the other side of the neighbor's place. They weren't nice like the one's on my neighbor's deck - they were unpainted, weathered and old...yet they took one of those instead of the nice ones.

The sheriff said they would have patrol run thru once per hour for the next week, but that they really weren't obligated to do so (really? Small town, not a lot going on, what exactly DO you have to do besides drive around and PATROL for that sort of thing happening?). He also told her that they've only had ONE break-in there, about a year ago a cabin was burglarized and all they took was the flat panel TV. Turned out to be someone from the cleaning crew...so it wasn't even a random happening, it was someone who had access to the place

This just really bums me out. Some of us were trying to bring the resort back to life with redoing the cabins and taking pride in the ones that weren't rental properties and frankly, my guess would be someone else in the complex that's redoing a place. It wouldn't surprise me if more stuff is missing when I get back up there later this month.

That said, I bought a video security system the other day so that will be getting set up ASAP. I'm sad that it's necessary...because I was buying it just to see what was going on around the cabin, NOT to catch thieves. *sigh*  

 The bench as it was at the thrift store (they need to reset the date on their camera...)

 The bench the week we "moved in"

 Still brown...but decorated for Christmas...

 Now here's my neighbor's deck - I told you it was nice! See the crock on the old bench...

 She changes everything for all the holidays.

 Her front door...

 The $400 carved bear that they didn't take and the $15 whiskey barrel of flowers that they did...

 More of her stuff...

 From the entry way onto her deck.

 My dumb little bench in the midst of being painted black...

 Last fall after it was painted....

 Getting decked out for Christmas...

 I wonder if they would have taken the pillow if it was still there...I mean, they left the rug, the lighted pine tree, the little blue bench and the canvas banner (not a Christmas one LOL)

*UGH* I'm so friggin' MAD! Goodbye little bench...you will be missed. I hope your dishonest, low life, new owners enjoy you as much as I did.

Inspired by Gina

I was catching up on my blog reading and came across this post at The Shabby Chic Cottage. I thought - hey wait a minute, i've read this book before!

Gina turned a luggage rack into a side table. Why yes, I have totally read that book!

I've said it before, but i'll say it again. I bought my house the same month I graduated from college. I was young...and single....and making less than $10 an hour. Needless to say my decorating budget left a little something to be desired. 

I was lucky enough to have an AWESOME mom who bought a lot of stuff for me, but we were still on a budget and much of it was not new. A nearly new sofa being held hostage by a bitter soon-to-be-ex spouse. A vintage blender and toaster from yard sales (I still have AND USE those by the way), a vintage dresser and night stand from a friend of a friend...that sort of thing. Then we went to The Big Peach antique mall in Byron, GA for the first time on a girls weekend trip and there she bought me a large rattan trunk that I was going to use as a coffee table, a roll of old rusty barbed wire (that I turned into a wreath) and two mismatched luggage racks.

Now being the crafty, resourceful, cheap thrifty, gal that I am, I had scavenged and saved this n that over the years. Including some beveled glass table tops that one of my dad's former tenants left at one of his rental properties. Two pieces were from side tables. Fabulous! Easy peasy lemon squeezey - slap a glass table top on a luggage rack and voila - end table.

Ok, get ready to laugh. First, it's a picture of a picture, because I haven't hooked up my new printer, scanner, chopper, hopper, slicer and dicer yet. 

Yeah...college decor at it's best...circa 1995. Evidently it was Christmas time because there is a Christmas pillow on the couch. Along with the cheesy wolf throw blanket. Sweet. I'm sure there's another photo somewhere in a box (pre digital days), but you can see one of the luggage rack end tables. Sort of.

I left them as they were - one was sort of a matte metallic gold with fancy floral ribbon. The other was ivory with gold tips and a tan and brown ribbon with baskets of flowers on it. 

Eventually I got married and got some real furniture. The tables were dismantled, folded up and tucked in a closet with the glass tops for several years.  Then Mr. Paisley and I bought the cabin. Now on a budget for other reasons (like two house payments LOL) I pulled out my beloved luggage racks and glass tops again.

I spray painted the ivory and gold one burgundy (which is too raspberry pink for me, but I haven't bought more paint yet) and replaced the ribbon with upholstery ticking. Here it is in the downstairs bedroom at the Nest.

The gold one is still in it's original state - or at least original when I picked it up. It sits on my side of the bed tucked into the rafters doing what side tables do. Holding a lamp, the remote, a book...some dust.

I still love these somewhat makeshift tables. So if you need a cute side table, follow along with Gina and me and turn a vintage luggage rack into a side table or a night stand.

Cabin - February 2011

Cabin Projects February 2011


First and foremost...some much needed color! Since we didn't get any snow while we were there and there were only "flurries" in the forecast I decided flowers were in order. Enough gray and gloomy, naked trees, brown leaves, blah blah blah.


When you grow up in Florida, live your entire life in Florida...it's really WEIRD to walk into Home Depot or Lowe's and find EMPTY garden centers. We buy plants year round in Florida. I have to get used to this whole "winter" thing.


Last spring we put up these flower baskets on the railing around the parking area. I put sponges in the bottom, used that fancy potting soil that retains moisture and even had the redneck version of "aqua globes" in them to try and keep my drought tolerant, low maintenance plant choices alive between visits. No dice.  In December we had one little asparagus fern still hanging in there. At the end of January even it gave up and turned brown. So I went all out redneck. I chose purples and yellows because of my new little garden flag.

Yep...they're fake. NO maintenance! Michael's had a big sale on spring florals so I spent what I would have spent on real plants that would be dead in a month and we shall see if these don't get us thru to the beginning of summer before it's time to toss them and get something more summery.

That would be Mr. Paisley looking a little annoyed because i'm always taking pictures while he's working. We are still fighting the mouse. Or rat. I prefer to think of it as a mouse. We put out traps with real food. We put out bait trays - that dang mouse just MOVES the bait from the trays! Our trip in January was the 2nd trip since putting out the bait trays - you know, the ones with the little blue-green pellets. I went to put on my snow boots and one was full of pellets! Whisky Tango Foxtrot. I decided to clean out and reorganize the closet under the stairs. I moved the shelf unit and there was an entire tray worth of pellets behind it (no tray in the closet). This trip in February - a couple of the trays were EMPTY. Yep, but that dang mouse isn't dead.

Here Mr. Paisley is putting quarter round along the top of the walls where the actual full logs stop before becoming framed above. There's a pretty good gap we found. Not so much big enough for the mouse to get in, but plenty big enough to wonder why the power bill isn't thru the roof from air loss! It's big enough that the quarter round doesn't stick out of the log wall.

Here is the new "baseboard" upstairs. The builder did a really halfass job fitting the flooring around the beams...which in fact go OUTSIDE and that was big enough for a mouse to squeeze thru. They're currently not stained, but will get stained when the floors get redone - hopefully this summer.

We also drove into Knoxville to visit our friends at Perma-Chink. Your source for anything log home. For a mere $90 they hooked us up with a case of fancy, paintable, stainable, insulating caulk specifically for log homes.  Obviously, Mr. Paisley didn't do his best work on this one. Hopefully it won't be noticeable after it's stained. The sweet thing about Perma-Chink is that they give you a ton of stuff for free. They gave us the stuff to clean the wood (2 different products) and a bottle of stain that will be plenty to do the quarter round and the caulk. Plus since we live in Florida, we didn't have to pay the somewhat ridiculous Tennessee sales tax. Sweet.

Here is the fireplace. The only thing I did was add the wood curl, pine cone and berry tree. This was an after Christmas score from Target. I paid $4 for it. 

Remember how I said this cabin is built kind of halfassed? This is a hacksaw blade. Mr. Paisley stuck it up there while he was doing the quarter round. It's where the sloped ceiling meets the front wall - above the range and kitchen cabinets.

 

This is the other end of the hacksaw blade...OUTSIDE under the eave. Remember how I said we are shocked that the power bill isn't thru the roof? The entire house is like this...it's just not sealed. Anywhere. Whisky Tango Foxtrot.

More quarter round and somewhat sloppy caulking.

More fake plants! These are on the deck - the ivy has been there, I replaced what was in the red, white and blue flag pocket with something more drapey and these cute little grassy red flowers that move with the slightest breeze.  I also added the little sign to the left of the pocket. It says I *heart* USA and has little wood buttons on it. I got it for $.25 at the local outlet where they basically pay me to take stuff home.

This is inside the screen porch-deck where the hot tub is. We finished screening (basically that triangle over the door) and sealed that up with caulk and trim. The hot tub deck is now officially bug free! I picked up the stars after Christmas at Joann, ETC. They were $19.99 originally (uhh no...), I got them for 90% off. Sold. I bought 4. They're red (duh) with embossed swirls and they're coated with clear crystal stuff that resembles chunky salt. The sign is another new addition from the outlet that just gives me stuff. I think I actually paid a little over $1 for it. It hurt. The hanger is curled wire and it has rusty jingle bells at either end and a white metal star. Random...

 

This is the last bit...I hung up the Liberty flag. I've had this one for awhile. I got it at Ross (have you seen that rap video on you tube? It's hilarious - click here to see it) on clearance (of course) for $1.99 - hey it's better quality than the one in the screened room what can I say. It's on the open deck aka front porch. As you can see, we REALLY need to clean and stain the outside of the cabin. Not really the time of year for that (and frankly, I don't want to do it, i'd rather pay someone - especially with the back side of the house 30' off the ground. The star chain came from Big Lots last summer. Someday the plant stands will have plants on them and someday there will be a seating area on the deck. Mr. Paisley is going to build me a porch swing and a couple of Adirondack chairs. Another project...another post.