Rings a Bell

Warning. Word vomit ahead.

Hairy Loomed

I’ve mentioned my heirloom ring, passed down from my mother-in-law. My mother-in-law (and father-in-law) both passed before I met my husband, and my sister-in-law didn’t know any history of the jewelry she shared with me, only that it had belonged to her mother.

A couple of photos, for reference:

While it isn’t diamonds and rubies, it’s stil made with a fair bit of gold. It’s old, Dutch, on the high end of 14K, and the garnet is rose-cut. That was really all we knew about it. I was trying to figure out if we needed to add an insurance rider for it. I told my insurance guy I figured it was worth a couple of hundred dollars, maybe.

Except… the longer I searched, I found different numbers. While I couldn’t find an identical piece – not surprising given the age – I did find these online, which make me suspect I was off a bit on my estimate:

That first brooch sold for $1800US. The last ring (directly above this paragraph) is all gold, significantly older, and sold for more than $4000US. Based on what I’ve been able to find, I believe my ring is from the late 19th century. I found out that style of goldwork is called cannetille. A search including the world “cannetille” is what brought me to this, which looks like it’s from the same collection and dates to1890.

The above pendant was listed for just under $800.

My poor ring is considerably more beat up than some of these pieces, because I wear it all the time. The garnet is also darker. I don’t know if it’s due to needing to be cleaned, if it’s a quality factor, etc. I should probably bite the bullet and take it to a jeweler for a cleaning. Then I need to track down someone who knows about old European jewelry to get an appraisal.

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More House Porn

My prices are going up – at least, with regard to what I post here. I decided to highligh this house, which is for sale in Iowa at $275K. Today you get a house that’s definitely not a fixer. Look at the price point again and then look at these photos. There are 82 photos on the listing, if you’re in the mood to binge.

Beautiful as the Italianate façade is, it’s still not my first style choice.

I smashed kitchen and dining room into a single image. The kitchen isn’t nearly as large as the one in the last house I posted. It’s not bad, though. To get an idea of scale, look at how much space is taken up by the transom window over these double French doors in the formal dining room. If you’re thinking this is a big house…

Oh yeah.

Very much so.

I promise, I’ll give you the square feet a little further down.

I’m a sucker for beautiful woodwork. (Hey, I married a carpenter – though I was already a sucker for beautiful woodwork before we met.) Incidentally, I only noticed when I was writing a minute ago: it looks like the two photos in the collage above are actually adjacent spots, and with some color/exposure adjustment could have been merged into a single continuous picture. I believe it’s the main entry hall.

There are five bedrooms in this home. Nearly as I can tell, the one at the top of this mashup isn’t the master suite. However, the bank of built-in bookcases is a life goal for me. There are similar styles of built-ins throughout the house.

Notice the crystal chandeliers in the music room (lower of the photos above) and the dining room. I don’t know how many crystal chandeliers are in the house altogether. I counted a half-dozen or so, I believe.

On the picture of the piano room above, you can also see the entryway and niche beyond.

It’s obvious the living room is one of the more-used areas of this home. It’s still lovely, still boasting another crystal chandelier, but is clearly the most “homey” space shown. And while it’s tough to tell from the photos, this historic house sits on 2/3 acre.

This baby is over FIVE THOUSAND square feet, built in 1895. She’s got four fireplaces, two full baths and two half baths, and a separate rental property onsite.

The head-scratcher for me is she only has a single one-car garage. The house was built in the 19th century. You’d think if not a garage, there would at least be stables for the horses.

Mind you, a modern 1600sf ranch house in the state goes for more than this. I’m thinking the reason this place is so (relatively) cheap is the same reason you sometimes see castles for sale cheap in Europe: the utilities and upkeep will kill you.

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Sock It to Me

Do you know what a pain in the ass it is to buy socks? Actual socks, the stretchy material intended to keep feet warm and protected.

The problem is my allergy to polyester. That shit is in EVERYTHING, especially everything socktacular in nature.

I finally spent 20 bucks(!!!) for a single pair of wool-blend socks which didn’t include polyester. They arrived a few days ago. I managed to wear them nearly 24 hours straight and my feet didn’t break out. So yay! No allergy to wool or nylon! Unfortunately, while I was spared hives and open sores, I didn’t get off scot-free. These were ankle high footwear, and while the feet were made to fit adults, the ankles were sized to fit my four-year-old granddaughter’s dolls. I still have red marks where my socks attempted to amputate my feet.

At the same time I bought the gold wool socks, I also bought some cotton stockings. Again, no allergic reaction, and while I can’t say they fit comfortably, at least they don’t have a side hustle as a tourniquet. However, my feet were literally colder in the cotton socks than going barefoot.

Nine months out of the year, I can happily pretend footwear doesn’t exist except when I have to leave the house. In what passes here for winter, I keep the heat on 65 or less, and putter around barefoot. Our house is on a cement slab. Imagine going barefoot in your basement all winter. Work, live, cook, etc. Yup, it’s like that. Even if I cranked the heat – which I’m not going to do – I’d still have toe-cicles.

The wool socks kept my feet surprisingly warm despite being paper thin, so for a hot minute I made up my mind to knit a pair of wool socks. Then I remembered:

1. While I know how to knit, it’s been years. Plus the yarn and supplies cost as much as aforementioned wool socks, if not more.
2. Unless I use baby yarn and teeny-tiny knitting needles, hand-knit socks aren’t particularly comfortable.
3. By the time I’m done knitting a single sock, winter will be over.
4. My hands were already giving me the evil eye for even thinking about it.

Ergo, nix to the knitting.

Then, thanks to the omnipotent Internet’s spy powers, I stumbled over a YouTube how-to video. Not socks: slippers. Naturally I’d considered slippers around the house before this. Even more than socks, every pair of bedroom slippers is rotten with polyester. With my pool of choices shrinking, I decided to give the DIY slippers a shot.

Most of my lady readers know what I mean when I say I hit Joann’s and used coupons. The cheapest zero-polyester wool-blend fabric I found online was $12,99 for half a yard. 100% wool starts more. Joann had a better deal: I got a yard of wool felt and a roll of carpet/upholstery thread for just over 10 bucks, and picked it up after work. If I had a functional sewing machine I’d already have warm toes. Since I don’t and this concoction is going to be 100% hand-sewn, I’m going to tackle a pair tomorrow. Cross your fingers.

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Rainy Days and Weekdays

The Desert Southwest has been battling drought for the past several decades. You couldn’t tell it by the amount of water we’ve seen the past couple of years. We’ve had more rain this week again, spanning several days. Late yesterday the clouds broke a little, giving us magnificent skies. This time of year, it gets dark early enough if we want photos, I can’t take a single breath between work and starting the car, or we’ll miss any photo ops.

The image at the top of the entry was taken last night. So was this one:

It was honestly too dark to take photos. I doctored the heck out of the landscape to keep it from being a black blob. But I didn’t touch the sky portion of the image. Those colors and those clouds were as spectacular as this suggests. We tried to capture the actual sunset, which was vivid crimson and orange. Unfortunately it came and went too fast. We were driving back home and there was nowhere to pull over safely and grab a picture.

I did manage to capture this bovine observer.

Ms. Cow (I assume she’s female) looks mildly irritated at the crazy lady who pulled over to snap her photo, though she did oblige with the over-the-shoulder glamor shot.