Upholstery Update

Time for an update to my vanity bench.  I loved this print that I used to cover the brown cover that came with this bench.

I covered the bench five years ago when we did a bathroom update.  You can read about that here - 

Bathroom Update

After five years of using the bench every day the fabric was starting to wear at the edges.  I did not have enough of that original fabric

(actually a drapery panel) and was searching for something new.

I found this Waverly 1 yard package of fabric at Walmart.  I liked the colors, loved that it was Paris, and thought it would go well with the storage bins that have a French theme in the closet nearby.

I cut a generous square of fabric,

folded it tightly around the cushion and used a staple gun to attach the fabric to the seat.

Next I tucked it around the sides of the bench, continued with the staple gun...then cut off the excess fabric.  I started with more fabric than needed so I would have a good amount to grab and pull tightly on the edges.

Voila!

After I screwed the top onto the legs I noticed some wear on the legs of the stool....my bad!  That's from me wrapping my feet around the legs while I do my make up and nails!

I tried this furniture repair marker, but it did not really cover.

So, I went to my tried and true...magic markers and sharpies!  I have touched up so many things over the years  - these markers are great.

Done!

I love the look of the bench with the granite countertop!

John is photo bombing in the mirror while checking out the finished project.

But, I was not done yet...

It is a family joke that my mother, who made curtains for our kitchen every so often, could not bear to throw away even a scrap of fabric.  She would end up making something out of the scraps...often a pin cushion that she would fill with used coffee grinds.

Yep, she grew up during the Depression and made the most of everything.

I still have one of those pin cushions in my sewing nook...

and this image hanging in our laundry room as she would always say this!

SO...what can I do with the leftover fabric???

How is this for "vintage"?  We received this hamper as a wedding gift from John's mother in 1977.  It was originally a trendy harvest gold color...but when we moved here and I was on a spray paint rampage I turned it white.

The top had a little ding in it and I was looking for a new hamper...

but...this was customized!  

Back in 1979 this book was published...I found it in the early 1980's and one of the ideas to streamline laundry day was to divide your hamper into sections to make it easy to throw a load of laundry in the washer without having to take everything out and sort it.

John got some plywood, cut it to fit, and made three sections.  Those telltale masking tape residues show where I had written "whites, darks and permanent press" so it was easy to know where to put the dirty clothes.   We got so good at sorting our laundry that we no longer needed the reminder labels.

SO...

I had enough fabric to cover the hamper lid!

Not sure what kind of particle board the top was made from, but the staple gun would not penetrate at all.

Plan B...hot glue gun.

That worked great, but I did not like the way the raw edges looked when you opened the hamper...

Duct tape to the rescue... and it even matched the dark color in the fabric.

Voila !  Again !

LOVE the way it looks.  You can just about see that the hamper is in our closet and right next to the laundry room.  It is so easy to just toss things from the hamper into the washer.

And here are the organizers that hold things we use in the closet...goes great with the fabric on the cover!

So happy with how things turned out.  Yes, I love going to the Container Store. And yes, I know they have divided hampers...but this one has a history.  And it helped me to

Have you done any projects around the house recently?  Is there anything you have had for years that you just want to keep and spruce up a bit?  I would love to hear your ideas and projects.  Thanks for stopping by Our New Vista today - leave a comment below.  I really enjoy hearing from you!

Enjoy the rest of November and the lead up to Thanksgiving!

 Thrifty Finds!

I just love a good bargain!  Recently the community where we live had a "Cash and Carry" sale.  People donate all kinds of things and every few months a sale called Cash and Carry is held in one of the building auditoriums.  Everything is very reasonably priced for the first day...then items go on sale for 50% on the second day of the sale. The sale closes down for several minutes... and then...for the last hour there is a bag sale!  There is usually a line formed to get into this part of the sale.

Here is how it works - you purchase a shopping bag for 2 dollars...and you can put as much as you want in that bag. 

Larger items like lamps, or suitcases - they are 2 dollars each.  But I always go during the bag sale and usually come home with some great treasures. 

Now, being retired, downsized, and after getting rid of lots of stuff before we moved several years ago - well, I don't NEED anything.  But this is such a great sale and for a good cause.  All proceeds go to the community benevolent fund that helps people facing some financial challenges. 

So...here is what I stuffed into my bag at the most recent sale - 

This great tissue box cover!  I had one on this side table that was very pretty, but kind of light - and every time you pulled a tissue it moved a little.  This one is a great color, nice and heavy...and I had been looking at new boxes in the stores and online and they are rather pricey.  In the bag with this!

These two large and very nice quality linen napkins.  We use a cloth napkin each meal - and use the same napkin for a few days.  I found some tan linen napkins the last sale, but these are nice and big.  I have two napkin rings with our names on them and we use them each day.

This was a "just in case" item.  We have our cell phones and a landline with cordless phones...but if the power goes out the landline would not work.  This plugs into the phone jack and works when there is not power. A similar model on Amazon - same AT&T brand- is $18.95. So this was a real bargain.

This was too cute to pass up...I can use it for candy next Easter.  And remember...everything is going in the bag that cost 2 dollars.

This item caught my eye - I loved the colors for summer entertaining.  Everyone loves deviled eggs and though I have a simple white egg dish, I usually make more than that dish can hold.  I brought this home and checked the information on the back...

It looked like it was very good quality, so I snapped a photo in Google Lens to find out more about it.

WOW!

I found it for sale on a few sites, but this amazed me - 

The exact same item...$94.95 on sale!!!

So, it was a good day at Cash and Carry! 

Do you like to shop at Thrift Stores or events like Cash and Carry?

Have you found some great items?

I would love to hear about your experiences.

Thanks so much for stopping at Our New Vista and for leaving a comment.  I enjoy hearing from everyone.

It's going to turn to November weather here in PA tomorrow - I am ready for cold weather and comfort food!

Have a great day!

Recent Reads - October 2025

Recent Reads

Nothing like a good book on a rainy Autumn day!

This year - since I turned 70 - I made my Goodreads goal for the year to 70 books.  For some, that is a big number...for others, not so much.  Since I also enjoy watching movies, cooking, baking, and travel it seemed like a good goal for me.  As of today I am at 58 books!  Here are some I have enjoyed in the last few months...

I really enjoy the way this author writes and gave this book a 4 star review.

Emmeline lives an enchanted childhood on a remote island with her father, who teaches her about the natural world through her senses. What he won’t explain are the mysterious scents stored in the drawers that line the walls of their cabin, or the origin of the machine that creates them. As Emmeline grows, however, so too does her curiosity, until one day the unforeseen happens, and Emmeline is vaulted out into the real world—a place of love, betrayal, ambition, and revenge. To understand her past, Emmeline must unlock the clues to her identity, a quest that challenges the limits of her heart and imagination.
Lyrical and immersive, The Scent Keeper explores the provocative beauty of scent, the way it can reveal hidden truths, lead us to the person we seek, and even help us find our way back home.

I gave this 3 stars...it was not my style of writing and I had to keep myself reading to finish it.  I liked that Central Park was a character in the book.

For fifty years Abe and Jane have been coming to Central Park, as starry-eyed young lovers, as frustrated and exhausted parents, as artists watching their careers take flight. They came alone when they needed to get away from each other, and together when they had something important to discuss. The Park has been their witness for half a century of love. Until now.
Jane is dying, and Abe is recounting their life together as a way of keeping them going: the parts they knew—their courtship and early marriage, their blossoming creative lives—and the parts they didn’t always want to know—the determined young student of Abe’s looking for a love story of her own, and their son, Max, who believes his mother chose art over parenthood and who has avoided love and intimacy at all costs. Told in various points of view, even in conversation with Central Park itself, these voices weave in and out to paint a portrait as complicated and essential as love itself.

This was a great read...I gave it 4 stars for the 1970's vibe and references - and for the great story.

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.
As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.

Big 4 stars here... I am a huge Hunger Games fan and enjoyed so many great activities with Middle School students surrounding this series in the years before I retired. Loved the back story of Haymitch and Effie...

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.
Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.
When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.

3 stars... I wanted to like this as I enjoy Anne Tyler, but it did not seem great to me.

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.
But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Once I read one of this author's books I was on a quest to read everything she wrote...4 stars.

At an intimate, festive dinner party in Seattle, six women gather to celebrate their friend Kate's recovery from cancer. Wineglass in hand, Kate strikes a bargain with them. To celebrate her new lease on life, she'll do the one thing that's always terrified her: white-water rafting down the Grand Canyon. But if she goes, each of them must promise to do one thing in the next year that is new, or difficult, or scary—and Kate gets to choose their challenges.
Shimmering with warmth, wit, and insight, Joy for Beginners is a celebration of life: unexpected, lyrical, and deeply satisfying.

5 stars!  Well, the cover and title drew me in...and I am certainly NOT a quiet librarian.  This was a good mystery and I learned a lot about the tragic times in Bosnia.

Hana Babic is a quiet, middle-aged librarian in Minnesota who wants nothing more than to be left alone. But when a detective arrives with the news that her best friend has been murdered, Hana knows that something evil has come for her, a dark remnant of the past she and her friend had shared.
Thirty years before, Hana was someone else: Nura Divjak, a teenager growing up in the mountains of war-torn Bosnia—until Serbian soldiers arrived to slaughter her entire family before her eyes. The events of that day thrust Nura into the war, leading her to join a band of militia fighters, where she became not only a fierce warrior but a legend—the deadly Night Mora. But a shattering final act forced Nura to flee to the United States with a bounty on her head.
Now, someone is hunting Hana, and her friend has paid the price, leaving her eight-year-old grandson in Hana’s care. To protect the child without revealing her secret, Hana must again become the Night Mora—and hope she can find the killer before the past comes for them, too.

4 stars...another great read by this author!

In this luminous sequel, return to the enchanting world of the national bestseller The School of Essential Ingredients
Lillian and her restaurant have a way of drawing people together. There’s Al, the accountant who finds meaning in numbers and ritual; Chloe, a budding chef who hasn’t learned to trust after heartbreak; Finnegan, quiet and steady as a tree, who can disappear into the background despite his massive height; Louise, Al’s wife, whose anger simmers just below the boiling point; and Isabelle, whose memories are slowly slipping from her grasp. And there’s Lillian herself, whose life has taken a turn she didn’t expect. . . .
Their lives collide and mix with those around them, sometimes joining in effortless connections, at other times sifting together and separating again, creating a family that is chosen, not given. A beautifully imagined novel about the ties that bind—and links that break—The Lost Art of Mixing is a captivating meditation on the power of love, food, and companionship.

A 5 star nonfiction title...fabulous stories of how booksellers and librarians share the love of reading.  I bought this book at Shakespeare and Company in Paris 

last year and it took a little time for it to come to the top of my "to be read pile".  Loved it!

Booksellers and librarians are superheroes, saving lives every single day. Here are their amazing, inspiring true stories as told to the greatest storyteller of our time, James Patterson.
To be a bookseller or librarian…
You have to play detective.
Be a treasure hunter. A matchmaker. An advocate. A visionary.
A person who creates "book joy" by pulling a book from a shelf, handing it to someone and saying, "You've got to read this. You're going to love it."
Step inside The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians and enter a world where you can feed your curiosities, discover new voices, find whatever you want or require. This place has the magic of rainbows and unicorns, but it's also a business. The book business.
Meet the smart and talented people who live between the pages—and who can't wait to help you find your next favorite book.

I so enjoyed her other book - The Measure - and was excited to read this one.  4 stars!

Welcome to the Poppy Fields, where there’s hope for even the most battered hearts to heal.
Here, in a remote stretch of the California desert, lies an experimental and controversial treatment center that allows those suffering from the heartache of loss to sleep through their pain...and keep on sleeping. After patients awaken from this prolonged state of slumber, they will finally be healed. But only if they’re willing to accept the potential shadowy side effects.
On a journey to this mystical destination are four very different strangers and one little dog: Ava, a book illustrator; Ray, a fireman; Sasha, an occupational therapist; Sky, a free spirit; and a friendly pup named PJ. As they attempt to make their way from the Midwest all the way west to the Poppy Fields—where they hope to find Ellis, its brilliant, enigmatic founder—each of their past secrets and mysterious motivations threaten to derail their voyage.
A high-concept speculative novel about heartache, hope, and human resilience, The Poppy Fields explores the path of grief and healing, a journey at once profoundly universal and unique to every person, posing the questions: How do we heal in the wake of great loss? And how far are we willing to go in order to be healed?

I love Nora Roberts books...mystery, romance, fantasy...she really writes some great stories.  I loved staying at the Inn she created in Boonsboro, MD - you can read about our visit to the Inn here

Inn Boonsboro Trip

This was a very good mystery...and had a very creepy feel to it.  Kept me reading quickly to the end - 5 stars!

Natural Resources police officer, Sloan Cooper, and her partner had just taken down three men preying on hikers in the Western Maryland mountains. Driving back, she pulled in at a convenience store—and walked right into a robbery in progress. One gunshot from a jittery thief was about to change her world.
After being shocked back to life on the operating table, she has a long recovery ahead, so she moves back to her parents’ peaceful house in Heron’s Rest. As for the boyfriend who dumped her via text while she was in the hospital, good riddance.
She may be down, but she’s not out. So when a woman vanishes, leaving her car behind in a supermarket parking lot, Sloan searches online for similar cases. She finds them, spread across three states. Men and women, old and young—the missing seem to have nothing in common. And the abductions keep happening.
Luckily, the new man in her life shares her passion for solving this mystery. But it will take every ounce of endurance to get to the dark heart of this bizarre case—and she's willing to risk her life again if that's what it takes to stop the horror.

So...we returned to Inn Boonsboro this summer  - this time we stayed in the Jane and Rochester room ( every room is named and decorated after a famous literary couple ) and at the evening wine and cheese time we met two women who also enjoy Nora Roberts books and they were raving about the In Death series that Nora writes under the name of J.D. Robb.   As much as I enjoy Nora's books I had never read any of the J.D. Robb titles.  They are set in a future time, and I was not sure I would enjoy that. They were aghast - and we kept talking about our favorite titles so long that the Innkeeper had to bring out another bottle of wine!  They convinced me I needed to read the In Death series.  So, we stopped at the bookstore in town - 

where you can find lots of books and LOTS of Nora Roberts titles.  I picked up this book and was hooked!  But...this first book was published in 1995 and there are 36 in the series!  I don't know if I can ever catch up....but I am going to try! 4 stars for this one!

Here is the novel that started it all- the first book in J.D. Robb's number-one New York Times-bestselling In Death series, featuring New York homicide detective Lieutenant Eve Dallas and Roarke.
It is the year 2058, and technology now completely rules the world. But New York City Detective Eve Dallas knows that the irresistible impulses of the human heart are still ruled by just one thing: passion.
When a senator's daughter is killed, the secret life of prostitution she'd been leading is revealed. The high-profile case takes Lieutenant Eve Dallas into the rarefied circles of Washington politics and society. Further complicating matters is Eve's growing attraction to Roarke, who is one of the wealthiest and most influential men on the planet, devilishly handsome... and the leading suspect in the investigation.

Historical fiction is my jam...and this one did not disappoint.  

I gave it 4 stars.

Sweeping across two generations, from the ghettos of Europe during the Second World War to the enclaves of New York's Fifth Avenue, The Hidden Girl traces the life of Leah Thompson, who rises from humble beginnings in rural Yorkshire to take the modelling world by storm. But her fateful association with the Delancey family dominates her life. The secrets they hide from one another start to explode into nightmares of thwarted ambition, forbidden love, revenge and murder . . . culminating in a fatal, forgotten prophecy from the past.

Have you read any of these titles?  What did you think ?  And what are you reading now?  Do you track your books and set a goal for reading each year?  I use Goodreads and like it - but I see there are a lot of book tracking devices online.  I love logging in my books for a few reasons.  First, if I pick up a book and I am not sure if I read it already I can check.  Second...I love having a list of everything I read to refer back to  - I am still trying to remember the author and title of a book I read in High School and another from a library I worked in early in my career.  I can remember the story, even some lines from the book, but not the author or title.  Tried all kinds of searches using the plot but never got an answer.  So, Goodreads works for me.

Thanks so much for stopping by Our New Vista today.  Leave a comment below because I love hearing from you!  Now...back to my books!