Rude, Crude, and Aesthetically Unacceptable...

Got your attention, didn't I?

Bet you're wondering why Mr. Magpie is wearing that look of stunned horror on his face. (He took this picture of himself and messaged it to me!)

It has to do with the fact that I'm leaving him in the morning. But I'll get to that in a bit.

First let me say that on any given day, I sit in our formal dining room in my own little world and blog or correspond with my friends. I sit in here because I like the mahogany sideboard and its vignette, but I especially love the Chinese painting. It's dark and moody and very, very old, and pictures never do it justice.  It's one of those things you need to see in person to fully appreciate, and I do appreciate it. A lot.

I also love looking at the Chinese garden urns on either side of the painting. Without batting an eye, I bought the urns on the spot about fifteen or more years ago and never regretted it.

They are the most wonderful shade of turquoise, and they are weathered to that color, not painted. I'm also crazy about the shape of the lid.  It reminds me of a coolie hat with a finial on top.

And they have some interesting little pieces tied to the base that look like lead.  Not sure what they are, but I left them attached after I bought them.

Last summer, Mr. Magpie gave me two etched glass hurricanes for my birthday.  They came from a favorite shop up the road from St. Augustine in Jacksonville, a shop run by a darling young designer named Jennie Crosby Hugo of Crosby Designs.

In her shop, Jennie used the hurricanes with ferns in them, which echoed the hurricanes' fern etchings, but I wanted to use the hurricanes for candles. I found these nice fat ones at Home Goods.

There are a variety of other things on the sideboard including a collection of decanters displayed on a tray we received as a wedding gift. There are a pair of brass flowers in Grecian style urns that Mr. Magpie and I found on an antiquing jaunt and two faux bois ice buckets that I got for $1.00 apiece at a Jr. League Thrift Sale about 30 years ago. I got them for that price because they were stuck together.  I promptly went home and had my carpenter unstick them. With one whack of his hammer and a block of wood, they separated, and I have loved them ever since.

I'm having issues with photos (Mr. Magpie put these in a file he titled "Don't Ask Me 2 Do This Again!"  Anyhow, maybe you can see this better... or not!

All in all, this room is a pleasant place to sit, and  I was doing that very thing this very morning (actually, it's yesterday morning now) when Troy and the Brick Masons (sounds like an English rock group, doesn't it?) paid us a visit.

Now, you must understand that Troy's visit is a very welcome one as our house is nearing its 100th birthday and has some wrinkles.  Troy came to do a little nip and tuck on the bricks.

That being said, Mr. Magpie and I left home a little later than usual.  And while I was lunching and shopping with my friend Lisa, Mr. Magpie was at work. All the while, Troy and his boys erected their scaffolding and got down to business.

Bye Bye, Troy, see you later...

I had just dropped off Mr. Magpie at his office because I needed to use his car when I got a rather frantic phone call from my otherwise placid and extremely calm husband. There was genuine panic in his voice.  We discussed the first issue that Troy found, and we solved that. Oddly enough, I wasn't panicked. I'm an old hat at this. All appeared to be well.

Then, when I was standing in the middle of a store after lunch, RING, RING, RING.  Mr. Magpie again.  This time, I was told to drop everything, come pick up Mr. Magpie at work, and go home to see something else Troy found that "isn't good at all."

When we pulled up, things looked pretty much the way they had when we left this morning. Scaffolding?

Check.

There was some brick work here that needed to be done above the second story window (yes that brick  is ripped out, and yes, ivy was up there and left its messy tendrils on the molding above which is due for a new coat of paint).

Check.

And we needed some work on the wall beneath where some of the mortar was poorly replaced at some point.

Check.

And there was the requisite debris when you're dealing with masonry.

Check.

And dust. Lots of sandy dust. Lots of sandy dust that gets tracked in the house on your shoes.

Check.

And piles of bricks here and there that they were taking out so they could replace them in good order with matching mortar.

Check.

When we rounded the corner, I thought for sure it couldn't be any worse than the mess the previous (prima donna) mason had left us with on the upstairs window when his boss let us know that said mason was a master mason and simply did not lay brick, forcing us to erect caution cones under the window until Troy (who truly IS a Master Mason) could rescue us.  Mason Number One was the RUDE.

But as rude as Mason Number One was, I was wrong about being surprised today.

We were very surprised when we saw the following, and this was AFTER we were rescued by the plumber who replaced the spicket that had quietly leaked and created this situation.  Thank goodness for great workmen like Troy and our new plumber (our old plumber was thankfully booked because we like this one SO much better)!  As bad as it seemed to me at the time, the guys were actually pretty happy with how they plan to solve it.  YEA!  On the ground in front of this is the evil hose that was attached to the evil spicket that created the mess that made a bigger mess than I ever dreamed possible. This mess is the CRUDE.  But the mess is fixable. YEA!

The masons were also busy on the porch ripping out mortar work that the previous contractor charged us a fortune to allegedly fix. This is part of the AESTHETICALLY UNACCEPTABLE.

To which Troy said, "We are going to get this job done right for you. This time you really did get a Master Mason!"

Indeed we did! Gotta love that Troy!

Is it messy?  Yes.

Do I care?  No.

Is that my dining room window where I sit and blog?  Yes?

Do I care? No.

I'm just going to go bye-bye until it's ALLLLL over.  ;-)

Have I told you how much I love Troy?  If not, I do, and so does Mr. Magpie!  Love, Love, LOVE him! Troy is our hero!  Troy rules!  Troy rocks!  Troy lays brick, and Troy is a MASTER MASON. Read that, you-know-who, and weep!

BTW, that white thing in the flower bed appears to be some type of container for mortar or something like that.  It's his.

And we love this guy, too...

And this one who sheathed the wall so that its nakedness would not be exposed to the whole of our neighborhood as they jog or stroll by and hopefully not to critters, either! 

Ah, much better.  See...

Now, after this is over, the painters are slated to come, and that's a whole different animal.  They are going to strip woodwork with stripper so that is going to be another mess.  After that, the landscapers are due. After that, I can get a good night's sleep, and then we start some inside work that needs to be done. ;-)

So if I am a bit scarce, you know I am up to my eyeballs in alligators and mortar and dust and have gone to St. Augustine to escape for a few days.  No computer.  No TV.  No cooking.  Instead there are magazines, books, friends, restaurants, and rest.  I just didn't want to disappear on you again and you not know what happened to me. I shall return. Maybe with a tablescape in tow.

I plan to join Claudia for A Favorite Thing Saturday because I hope this dust bowl situation will be over this weekend (maybe).  If I do make it back, here is the link to her blog party in case you want to join us.  It's fun!

A Favorite Thing Saturday at Mockingbird Hill Cottage

For now, I'll leave you with this Cheshire Cat grin.  That's me because I know that Troy will "git er done" and "git er done right", and I will be in St. Augustine when he does it! ;-)

See you soon!

XO,

Mrs. Magpie (Sheila)

P.S.  Can you see the spot where I cut my hair with the garden snippers?  I did.  I did.  I did cut my hair with the garden snippers because my new stylist cut one side longer than the other. I had to do something, and that's all I could find with sharp edges!