Just Call me 'The Bill Cunningham of Brimfield'

With a tip 'o the fascinator to Bill Cunningham (photographer and author of the New York Time's iconic 'On The Street' weekly column), I'm straying from our usual topics (home improvement, home despair, etc). I know - I'm really milking this one Brimfield excursion for posts, but I just HAVE to share a few pictures. It was a rainy day and I kept spotting all these amazing looking women dressed in wonderfully chic rainy weather garb!

This post is about Brimfield Antique Show Fashion. While visiting the show with my parents, I noticed It almost an unofficial uniform among female attendees! It was spooky how many women were dressed EXACTLY the same! The wet weather required sturdy rain boots. Tall 'Hunter' boots appeared to be de rigeur.

 Then - casual pants tight enough to tuck into your boots: jeans, khakis, or black Lulu Lemon leggings.

Pants were topped by a hip-length, slightly fitted, usually black jacket.

There were exceptions, of course. Fabulous, fabulous exceptions. Next I'll tall you what I actually bought at Brimfield.

Brimfield is like, "BONUS!"

There are approximately one-hundred thousandy billion antique booths at the thrice yearly Brimfield Antique Market. Approximately.
My parents came out east for the first Brimfield of the 2012 season. I happen to live nearby. So for them, attending Brimfield is like, "BONUS!" Engage in a hobby, CHECK! Visit one of your children, CHECK!

Mom and Dad have very different approaches to antiquing. My father's approach:
1. Walk down one aisle
2. Eye booths on both sides of aisle
3. Look for (what he calls) 'good cover'.
4. If you see good cover? Go inside booth. 

Like a birder or hunter, he's looking for 'habitat' that's likely to have what he's looking for, thereby maximizing the number of booths he can visit before he's walked around so much his feet begin to throb like a teenage girl's heart for Justin Bieber. The image below is 'good cover' according to me.
My mother's approach is  Slower Exhausting surprisingly meticulous for someone with adult ADHD. Mom walks into each booth on an aisle (unless it features only jewelry or other things she's not interested in) one     at       a          time.  Looking.  At.       Every.                  S. ingle.                                             Thing.

Okay, now everyone clutch your hearts and prepare for my mom's 'Oh. That makes me a little sad.' face. Not even Justin Bieber could fix your heart after this face. Mom, I'm sorry but it's true. At antique shows, you are Go Children Slow. But you know what? If it makes you happy, WHO CARES?!?!?
Here are some items that caught my eye, but did not end up in my cart.

 She wanted $1200 for the deco-era light fixture above. Oy.

These lamps were all OVER the place. Or was it just that I'm just now SEEING them?
Wouldn't these two chairs look great in my living room?

So - how do you work a field of antiques? What's your approach?

Baby Got Back. Now Baby Gets Front

We adore our back porch renovation. In fact, as I type this, Mr. Man is sipping hot coffee with the sun on his handsome face. Eating waffles.

It's time to tackle the front porch. My approach? Top down (so as to make a giant project feel like one tiny little step at at time.) So, in order, here's what I'm committed to doing:
-Remove Ghetto light fixture
-Demo plastic ceiling
-Pray that original bead board ceiling is in good enough shape that we don't have to install new.

-Do happy dance because bead board is okay. (You can see two previous colors of paint under the white.)
-Scrape and paint ceiling same color as back porch ceiling.
-Install new light fixture from School House Electric after moving fixture about 6 inches to the right.

-Remove black paint from brownstone window sills.
-Buy a new screen door.
-Scrape columns and paint them the same color as the back porch railing.
-Get these guys to design us a REALLY COOL wrought iron railing.
- Scrape and paint floor same color as the back porch floor.
- Figure out what in the holy heck to do about the stairs. Two current options are
1. Cut out concrete and install wood
2. Cut out concrete and install vintage brownstone steps rescued from another Holyoke home.

Wood steps or brownstone steps? WHAT SAY YOU!?!