a salute to my pups!

I found these bandanas the other day and I thought..... perfect for the pups. Not that they would enjoy them, they would have them off in nano seconds...but I would get a kick out it. Who knew they would be such hams and pose for me?

This is Bishop on the left, he is 8 months old and pit bull boxer mix. He is the sweetest, most gentle giant in the world and has been a great addition to our family. The blonde one is Sonny who is a pit bull sheppard mix....she was our first dog, about a year older than Bishop....still quite a pup. She gets quite jealous of the newer addition....but the hours of playtime make up for having to share us with him.

We adopted both of them from the Richmond City Animal Control. We went in a little weary of adopting a pit bull, but when you go to the Richmond City shelter, that's what they've got! And now we love them, and were thrilled when we found Bishop as a puppy there also. It's a great place to adopt and save a dog, especially ones that get a bad wrap.

where the artifacts are...

We haven't been very good about updating our newest adventure....our etsy shop. We both have collected so many great things, and love to go discover thrift stores and estate sales on Saturday mornings (sometimes Fridays at lunch :o), that we decided to make room for new purchases by sharing the old.

This is my favorite purchase from our last adventure out......

This fondue pot was in the box, wrapped up and came with a great recipe book with fun ideas and I love the graphics!

Byrd House Market

yesterday afternoon i finally made it to the Byrd House Market in Oregon Hill.
I got a call from my friend V as i was leaving work and she said she was only a few blocks away. So, i grabbed her and we headed over to Idlewood Ave. We met up with L who had already been busy shopping, and had purchased some yummy balm and scoped out the best tomatoes.
We picked up zucchini, squash, more tomatoes, the most delicious herbed goat cheese, flowers, and a carton of red potatoes - enough goods to make a lovely light summer dinner which L and i shared with a nice bottle of white wine from my house warming party.
We wanted to be outside so we chilled on the new back steps Pat built for me while Bond munched on grass.
I can't wait to go back next week!

house progress

We bought our first house about a year and a half ago and have done a few minor changes since then, but to catch up on our progress here is our most recent project……


So about three months ago Kris and I decided to test what was under our black and white checkered vinyl kitchen floor. I didn't mind the look of our kitchen, other than it being kind of mini and not having any drawers, I like my original wood cabinets and the formica countertop.....but I really didn't like the floors. So, we did some investigating and this is what we undercovered.










Underneath the black and white vinyl was red and white checkered linoleum tiles. These things took us (Kris) a few days to chip away at, which exposed this black tar.....also known as cutback adhesive. We tried tons of adhesive removers, all unfortunately pretty harsh since the safer methods we heard about just weren't cutting it. After about a month of working on small sections each night after work and living with plastic on our floors we got as much of it up as we could. We were also simultaneously demo-ing our existing basement stairs and pantry, having new ones built by our green builder friends at New Earth and creating a 5 ft opening between our kitchen and pantry.










After as much of the cutback was off as we could handle and the “new” floor was in place….it was time to rent the floor sander. I believe we needed a drum sander for this amount of adhesive, but the man at Home Depot suggested an orbit sander, called U-Sand-It. It took driving back, buying lots more sand paper and extending our contract from 4 hours to 24 hours…..but eventually we got it to a point we were happy with.












Some of the black markers from the adhesive….or possibly water damage (who knows, the floor is 90 years old) didn’t come off, but hey, if we wanted a new looking floor we could have bought one! Next was time to finish it off!

We used an oil based semi gloss polyurethane because that is what is on the rest of the floors and we have liked it so far. The first coat, by recommendation of my dad, we cut with half paint thinner. It made it easy to get used to applying the finish with the wool mop head that Home Depot suggested, and then we progressively used less paint thinner in each coat until the fourth and final coat was all polyurethane. This is how is looked before drying….it is not this shiny at all anymore and we love it!

introduction

hi!

We are M and C, two friends and co workers living and working in Richmond, Virginia. The flamingo artifacts blog is going to be our spot to post stories of our new homes, vintage store finds, artistic endeavors and many adventures. We both love old buildings, modern design, 3 o'clock coffee breaks, lunchtime thrifting and cocktails on the veranda. (i.e. one of our slightly shabby porches)

C just bought a lovely 1920's Bellevue bungalow gem.

M and her husband have embarked on a long list of renovations to their recently purchased Museum District rowhouse.

so keep checking in to see what we are up to!