A Victorian Farmhouse Reborn

Last post: April? Seriously?

2009-07-10T05:25:00.000-07:00

Wow, sorry, blog peeps. Even sorrier that I don't have a ton to report. I am still stripping wallpaper...seemingly endlessly.

Most of my spare time, though, has been transitioned to triathlon training. Think of me the last weekend in August and say a little prayer to your deity of choice that I survive the swim! :)

RIP, fridge :(

2009-04-20T16:25:00.000-07:00

I do believe my fridge is no more. That stinks.

...and the chimney, she went a'flying.

2009-02-12T17:59:00.000-08:00

We had a hellacious windstorm last night. Worse, I think, than the storm we had in September because of Ike. That was one steady strong wind...sure, it took down a tree and I was without power for almost exactly a week, but a lot of things stayed up!

This time it was GUST......nothing....GUST GUST GUST GUST.....nothing.....GUST GUST GUST.....nothing and so on. I was finally drifting off to sleep as the house shook (I kid you not), and all of a sudden I hear CRAAAAAACCCCCCCK and then clonk clonk clonk clonk. Didn't take me long to figure out I was listening to the sounds of bricks rolling/sliding down my slate roof.

When I surveyed the damage this morning I found that about half the chimney appears to have crumbled down. The cap was about 50 feet away from the house and was embedded into the ground by a good 8-9 inches. Glad no one was standing in front of it--that sucker flew!

Snow, ice, snow, snow, snow, snow

2009-01-29T18:20:00.000-08:00

It is only January and I am ready for spring, much more so than in other years. I. am. tired. of. snow.

That's all for today.

I should have known it couldn't last

2009-01-20T18:40:00.000-08:00

All those plaster walls, all in lovely (lovely!!) condition. It was too good to last. The walls in the office are going to require some MAJOR patching. I can do it, but it is going to take a while. I believe it is still salvageable; time will tell as I start to notch it out and find out how far down it is unsound, or how widely spread the unsoundness is.

Wish me luck!

The protector

2009-01-10T19:09:00.001-08:00

Meet Winnie--the bestest dog around, as long as you don't mess with me or her house. She is as much of a guard dog as she needs to be. She's a pound rescue, a mix of GSD, Doberman, greyhound, and who knows what else? All I know is that I saw that face and knew she was coming home with me.

Begone, foul carpet strip!!

2009-01-10T06:40:00.000-08:00

Many old house bloggers probably already know and use some iteration of this method, but I figured I'd post it for all my non-home-improvement-fanatic peeps.

My house is now blissfully, gloriously carpet-free. However, I was faced with tack strip that appeared to have been laid by someone who went a little crazy with the nail gun. Pulling the strip up the old-fashioned way (with thin crowbar) was tearing my floor up in a big way. To compound the pain, my tack strip is old and totally dried out, so in many areas it would splinter rather than pull up. Ugh. I needed a better method, so I experimented until I came up with one!

I filed one of my metal scrapers so it would be nice and thin. Then I grabbed it, my trusty flathead screwdriver, and my hammer. Wham bam thank you ma'am the carpet strip gave up the ghost SO easily!

Here's how I do mine. The tools of war:

I carefully drive the scraper underneath the tack strip using the hammer. Try to do this near a nail so you will get the full effect.

After the scraper is fully under the tack strip (I drive it under until I can see it peeking out the other side), I piggyback the flathead screwdriver onto the scraper and drive it under, too. You can see that this basically just pops the nail right out of the floor. Success! I keep doing this until I've got a clean piece of tack strip that has just been pulled right out of my beautiful floor. Then I sweep up and I'm d-o-n-e!!

It is finally happening!!!

2009-01-03T16:22:00.003-08:00

Lookie! I am so very happy to have this duck-free spot of wall. You have no idea!

And...I literally have seen the writing on the wall! Of course, I can't read half of it. Sigh. Looks like a possible date of February 1904, but I don't know what that'd refer to. The house is far older than that, and the wallpaper is newer. How much newer I don't have the foggiest!

Hey duck wallpaper! Buh-bye

2008-12-22T17:04:00.000-08:00

I have started stripping the office--this is a project I have been looking forward to since 2005! The crazy duck wallpaper and its roomie the fake paneling wallpaper are in the process of being NO MORE! Mwahahahahahahaaaaaa!!!

My goal is to strip and scrub the walls by this weekend, then prime one day and paint the next. I am cautiously optimistic that I will actually get this accomplished. ;)

Minion!! I had a minion!! And it was awesome.

2008-12-01T16:07:00.000-08:00

My niece stayed the weekend with me so she could help with the house. I put that young woman to WORK, and she never once groused about it. Future old house owner!!!!

We stripped the wallpaper from my upstairs hallway and pulled up the last--the very last--of the carpet in the house. I am now all heart pine, all the time, all the way, baybeeeee! It is a great feeling.

Isn't it gorgeous? Huh? Isn't it?

2008-11-27T16:46:00.001-08:00

The to-do list for this room is still not all checked off, but at least it's starting to look like a room again!

Here is the before, for anyone who is interested...

Mr. Screwy!!!!! You're home!

2008-11-25T16:40:00.000-08:00

My favorite flathead screwdriver had gone M.I.A. and I was very upset about it. Do you have one tool that always seems to come through for you? That, for me, was Mr. Screwy. He had a really sharp head, so even screws that barely had any head left were no match for him. Mr. Screwy was the BEST. And somehow, somewhere, I had misplaced him. But he has returned! Please share in my joy, fellow old house nuts! :)

Over. Whelmed.

2008-11-12T17:21:00.000-08:00

Too many projects that should be done NOW (insulation, shore up kitchen floor that is eternally sinking, scrape/prime/paint exterior window trim....there is so much more but I'm depressing myself)
No funds
Worried about job
COLD already and it's only November

Sigh. I'd better stop before I wallow down any further.

What do you do when you feel like this? I am waaaay open to suggestions. :]

Not having power stinks

2008-09-24T18:05:00.000-07:00

All projects came to a grinding halt last week when my electricity went out. From Sunday afternoon until Friday night I had no power and no water. It is amazing how helpless a girl can feel without water. Lights, I can live without...farmer's hours and all....but water? No water? Now that's hard.

The electrical company called in people from all over and the crew working on my house could not have been nicer. They were efficient and polite, and best of all they were F-A-S-T. Woohoo!

Anyway, I will be back to posting with regularity soon. As soon as I clean out my fridge, clean up my house, and find my way back to the path. :)

Gratification

2008-09-07T19:00:00.000-07:00

They name is Peel Away 6.

In just a few short hours I went from paint to this:

And finally, to this:

It needs some cleanup, obviously, but this would have taken me a long time with the heat gun thanks to all the nooks and crannies.

In the end I am going to be very glad I decided to strip this paint. And I'm going to keep telling myself that until the last scrap is OFF.

Sisyphus cat just keeps rollin' on...plus a little wood trim p0rn

2008-09-06T20:12:00.000-07:00

The red went onto two walls in the dining room tonight. It is THE most gorgeous red, and it was not easy to come by. Almost every red out there has a touch of blue, or a touch of purple, or a touch of pink, or orange, or some shade of some color other than true plain RED. But I finally found one and am rolling along now!

Here are the fabrics for the curtains. The pictures simply cannot do justice to how gorgeous they look. The overlays are beaded and sequined and will pick up light in a stunning way.

And here is the evidence that I am a fool. This is the trim I decided to strip, "just to see." Idjit!! I should have known it'd be gorgeous. Guess what project has been added to the dining room to-do list? Uhhh, yep. How can I leave the white when I know this is underneath? Besides, if you look at the above picture I think you'll agree that a deeper trim shade will look better with the general color scheme I've got going here.

This is how I feel most days

2008-09-06T18:02:00.000-07:00

Home improvement:

What kind of fool am I?

2008-09-03T18:00:00.000-07:00

I will tell you.

I am the kind of fool who gets a wild hair in the middle of priming a wall and decides to get the heat gun out to see just what's under all that white painted trim.

I am the kind of fool who then sees how beautiful the wood underneath is all that paint and realizes, with a kind of sinking feeling in her gut, that she will not be able to rest until every scrap of trim in the room is stripped of said white paint.

I am THAT kind of fool.

I hate scrubbing walls

2008-08-31T18:23:00.000-07:00

I hate scrubbing walls

I hate scrubbing walls

I hate scrubbing walls

I hate scrubbing walls

I hate scrubbing walls

I hate scrubbing walls

I hate scrubbing walls

I hate scrubbing walls

I hate scrubbing walls

I hate scrubbing walls

Have I possibly mentioned on one or two occasions that I HATE SCRUBBING WALLS??!?!? Ugh, it is such a slow and tedious process. But I am delighted to report that the dining room gold wall is done (yay!), and I will have the rest of the walls primed at some point tomorrow (double yay!). Next week the red will go up, and my dining room will be starting to take shape (triple yay!!).

Cheap thrill

2008-08-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

Pictures only! Scrubbed, primed, tester reds (going with the bottom one for SURE), base coat, first coat of gold (will put on two, maybe three coats)

PRIMED!!

2008-08-24T07:25:00.000-07:00

Well, one wall at least. (sigh) The accent wall, which will be gold metallic, is primed and will be ready for coat #1 of paint in about two hours. The metallic paint is a two-step process. First I will need to put on at least one coat, possibly two, of a buff-golden-yellow colored base paint. After that dries I'll put on the metallic overcoat. I'm a little worried about that because it seems to be a bit persnickety in how it is applied. A second metallic overcoat may be in order...supposedly that makes it really shine.

Beyond the metallic gold, I have sample sized jars of two different reds and will put those next to the gold metallic just to see which one is "my" red. It is amazingly difficult to find red paint that has no blue or pink/purple undertones. Never would have guessed it but GEEZ.

Pictures at day's end, I promise! I hope it looks as good in reality as it looks in my head. :D

Open letter to those pondering wallpaper

2008-08-23T19:18:00.000-07:00

To whomever out there in cyberland may be tossing around the idea of wallpapering a room:

Wallpaper can be so beautiful. It really can be. So I understand the draw, even though it is not my personal style.

However, today, as I finished scraping the last remnants of wallpaper from my dining room walls, and then as I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed and freakin' scrubbed to remove the residue, I will admit that I was not thinking so fondly of wallpaper. Most of my angst stems directly from the fact that my particular previous owners/wallpaper lovers did not understand the importance of priming those walls before they put up the paper. Sure, it makes no difference to the wallpaperERs....but it for darned sure makes a difference to the poor schmuck who may someday want to strip it.

I know what you're thinking. "This wallpaper is so classy and so timeless, no one will ever want to pull it down." Or maybe you're thinking "Who cares? I won't be the idjit spending countless hours scraping and scrubbing. HA!" I get that. Really I do. But please think of poor little ol' me, with my unbelievably sore muscles and joints that are currently protesting my every move.

Prime those walls before you paper. PRIME THEM. Please.

Sincerely,
A very sore, very tired, very frustrated, very sore homeowner

My wild and wonderful and spectacular future dining room!

2008-08-11T19:13:00.001-07:00

I am doing my dining room in an Indian-saree-themed color scheme. This past weekend while meandering through NYC's garment district (fabric shops as far as the eye can see...it's heaven!), I happened upon the EXACT colors I want. As soon as I can get good pictures that show the colors at their best I will post them, but in the meantime feast your imagination on this:

One wall and the ceiling in saffron gold
The other three walls in bright orange-red
Drapes in fuchsia with the most amazing mesh beaded sequined sheer single-panel drape over the top
More drapes in the fiery orange with an amazing mesh beaded sequined sheer single-panel drape over the top
Accents of vivid lime green and bold chocolate

I am getting all fired up just thinking about it! Oh, momma, this is going to be one seriously bold room. I love it already.

Like a virgin...HOOO!

2008-08-02T20:00:00.001-07:00

I pulled up the living room carpet tonight to find something kind of neat. Virgin heart pine floors. There was obviously a large area rug, oilcloth, maybe even a linoleum rug in the room at some point and the floors were stained just at the very edges. I would have expected that at some point the rest of the floor would have been exposed, and this, would have been stained and/or sealed. But au contraire! It's going to be a show-stopper when it gets a nice deep treatment of mineral oil and then several coats of beeswax/mineral oil paste.

Before:

After, showing the stained outer edges and the like-new wood moving toward the center. So delish!

And for all the other wood uber geeks, a nice "money shot" of the grain. *Swoon* Isn't it dreamy?

80percentitis

2008-07-27T19:32:00.000-07:00

I have heard other owners of old houses comment on their 80percentitis, and apparently it is a disease that is contagious. I have developed a tremendously bad case of it. You may have 80percentitis if:

You take each of your projects just to the point where it doesn't look "bad" (of course, it doesn't look "good" either) and get bored or disenchanted
As you survey your fiefdom you realize that this happens quite a lot
Any time visitors come to your house you find yourself saying "and I need to finish that by . . . [insert small task here] but [insert random project here] came up and I couldn't wait to get started!"

Those are but a few of the symptoms. I've got it bad, baby! I have 80%-stripped wallpaper, 80%-yanked-up carpet, 80% primed/painted walls.

I can only hope there is a cure out there. ;)

Gopher-palooza!!

2008-07-21T17:26:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend with some of the most awesome people in the world. Several of my graduate school classmates and I got together for an informal reunion. Most of them I have not seen since 2005, and it was so wonderful to catch up! We ate too much, had some lovely refreshing beverages, talked until the wee hours, and enjoyed several D.C. sights, among them the Building Museum, Spy Museum, and the Newseum. There was an amazing Saarinen exhibit at the Building Museum; we joined a docent-led tour and afterward stayed around taking it all in. Scatter my ashes over the Yale hockey rink, please--it is just that incredible. But first take down all the flags that obscure the gorgeous structure.

Big shoutout to all my fellow Gophers, should you be reading this!!! I love you all! :)

Slow boat to China

2008-06-14T18:41:00.000-07:00

Right now I am enjoying a much-needed tall limoncello and tonic. Why do I need it, you may ask? Because I spent the day stripping wallpaper, which can be found somewhere in Dante's sixth circle of hell, I believe....

Today I worked on the dining room. First interesting discovery was that there was only one layer of wallpaper. I had expected to find at least two. Nope, just one, and it was on top of bare plaster. That means, at some point, this room probably had heavily textured or flocked wallpaper, which had to be removed before this second generation of wallpaper was put up. It has never been painted, which made it that much more difficult to strip. Thankfully, it was put up with flour paste--so at least I didn't have the double whammy of commercial wallpaper adhesive PLUS bare walls. That might have been enough to convince me that the existing wallpaper wasn't so bad at all.

At long last, after about 12 hours of spritz (fabric softener and water), wait, scrape, repeat, I'm happy to say I have three of four walls finished. Woot!!

Befores:

And afters!

Waxing on (get it?) about floor finishes

2008-03-21T10:14:00.001-07:00

It’s very possible that, unless you are a total old house geek like me, this post will leave you scratching your head in wonderment at my complete and utter geekiness. I have become some sort of finish-testing junkie. After I yanked the carpet in my dining room, I noticed two things: 1) the floor underneath was gorgeous, and 2) the floor underneath was dry and a little dull and in need of some big-time TLC.

On hand and knee I scrubbed the entire floor with a vinegar/water solution to get rid of the carpet pad residue. Uh-oh, now they looked really dry and in need of some lovin’. First, I took a homemade paste that I use to “feed” furniture that’s getting a little dry. It’s a mineral oil/beeswax/lemon oil mix and it normally does a nice job. It did…OK….on the floor but I wasn’t wowed by it. So I tried old-fashioned paste wax—several coats. Again, just OK. That’s when I started to realize that I needed something that would really penetrate and nourish that wood all the way down. I got to thinking about my butcher block cutting board and how spiffy it looks after a fresh spa treatment of plain mineral oil and an after treatment of the beeswax/mineral oil paste. So I grabbed my bottle of mineral oil and rubbed it in, then left it sit for 24 hours and wiped the rest off—not that there was much to wipe. Those floors were thirsty! After their mineral oil treatment I gave my test spot several coats of hand-buffed paste wax. Paste waxing is not difficult work and the rewards it brings aren’t usually obvious until the finish is completely dry (sometimes a few days later). But oh, how fulfilling it is when you see a lovely waxed-shined-buffed surface gleaming back at you.

My floor finish testing methodology reminds me of those old Pepsi commercials where they had the blind test set up. I have 6 test patches, each having different finishes and/or levels of finish (all wax-based and totally removable/reversible) and they each have a little accompanying placard. The back of the card notes what finish was used.

Right now the clear winner is the mineral oil followed by paste wax (4 coats). Doing that treatment for the entire floor is going to be a lot of work, and I’m sure my shoulders will be complaining puh-lenty, but when I have these spectacular-looking floors it’ll all be worth it.

I wish I could get pictures that show the differences, but they are very difficult to see unless you’re looking at them in person. I’ll post pictures of the finished product to compare with the “just pulled up the carpet” pictures.

Lincrusta! Oh Lincrusta!

2008-03-15T15:44:00.000-07:00

The brown stuff that looks like paint two posts down is glue. I'm fairly certain of it now. I took a good close look at it with my lighted magnifier (SUCH an awesome tool) and it's definitely not paint; some scrapings of it show that it has fibers inside it, not just on top from later layers of wallpaper.

As I mentioned in a previous post, an interior designer friend who has done dozens of period interiors is pretty sure there used to be lincrusta there based on what she's seen. I've shown her pictures, wide angle and closeup, as well as my little flakings from scraping a bit of the brown off the wall.

I wish I had a million dollars--then I'd go ahead and put it back. But I don't have a million dollars, so it's getting painted. Maybe someday. :-)

Mystery solved?

2008-03-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

In an attempts to solve my brown paint mystery, I sent my wallpaper stripping pictures to a friend who specializes in historic interiors. Her theory is that I may have had a very heavily textured or flocked wallpaper on the top half of the wall at somepoint, and lincrusta at the bottom. An online friend had voiced this suspicion based on her own home restoration efforts, and it looks like she was correct!

Having heavily textured anything would have necessitated taking everything off before anyone put up "new" paper. The brown bottom could be paint mixed with an adhesive of some sort.

Even though it's not original, I'm still going to keep the little square of early paper. I will frame it as it sits on the wall. :)

Friday night stripping - and a mystery

2008-03-07T15:48:00.000-08:00

I started stripping wallpaper today. I've been threatening to do it forever, and finally I just broke out the fabric softener and scraper and went to town. I got 6 feet or so stripped in a little over 2.5 hours--not so bad. Thankfully it's coming off fairly easily. Woohoo for flour paste!

Here's what I started with (Holes in wall are from electrical crew fishing new wiring--back in 2005. Yes, I've been living with holes in my walls for far too long, but that's another story.)

I took the top layer off and found just one layer underneath (oh thank GAWD).

Underneath this was bare plaster in lovely condition (oh thank GAWD again!). Now I started getting a little confused. The house is circa 1875-1880, but the original layer of wallpaper sure doesn't look like a Victorian pattern to me. I decided to save a little square of it to frame on the wall just for fun. I kept up with my scraping and the plot thickened. The bottom half of the wall was painted brown underneath the bottom layer of wallpaper. WTH?

I did a little investigating in the electrical access hole, thinking maybe they had skim-coated the wall at some point after the initial paint or something, but I found no evidence of it, and there's no difference in grade between the paint and bare plaster. I say again, WTH?

Afterglow--sweet, sweet afterglow

2008-03-01T18:49:00.001-08:00

I decided to rip up my dining room carpet today. Anyone with an old house knows that, when you're about to embark on a project such as this, you have to hope for the best but mentally and emotionally prepare yourself for the worst.
The upstairs hallway had proven to be a pleasant surprise--the floors were in great condition under the carpet--and I sure hoped the dining room would be the same. As Dirty Harry would say, I felt lucky. ;)
Here's what I started with...

And HERE'S what I found underneath. Happy, happy, happy.

My house in 1884

2008-01-09T06:35:00.000-08:00

I have started to go through some of the pictures, letters, papers, etc., that the previous owners brought up (see "suitcase full of goodies" post from....last year, maybe?)

One of the pictures in particular is pretty cool, so I thought I'd share it. Compare it to the "now" picture at the top of my blog. :) Nifty, eh? I still have the original shutters and they will be going back onto the house at some point after I get that doggoned steel siding pulled off. Maybe that will be on the 2009 resolution list....

Anyhoo, here's the picture!

Ghosties!

2008-01-09T06:33:00.000-08:00

I’m fairly certain there are ghosts or spirits of some kind in my house. Five generations of the same family lived there before I did, and I suspect one or two of them may have stayed behind to keep an eye on it. The doorbell rang itself once, which is impossible because it is frozen with rust. And on a few occasions I have thought I heard someone saying my name.

Fine, whatever.

I’m not a scaredy-cat. There’s plenty of room in the house for all of us. Last night I was in bed and I felt a weight beside me, along my back, like someone else was on the bed. Figuring it was a cat, I reached out my hand to pet said cat. Except there’s no cat there. Hmmmm. I rolled over and don’t see a cat anywhere on the bed. Double hmmmm. Not wanting to get wigged out right away, I say to myself “whoever it was probably just jumped down.” But then it occurred to me that I didn’t hear the sound of a cat jumping down, nor did I ever hear the tell-tale crinkling of the down comforter -- even before or when I felt the weight beside me. Triple hmmmm. Still not enough to really freak me out.

Then, then, then, as I’m closing my eyes again, I hear Romeo beside the bed. He starts hissing like I have never heard a cat hiss before (and this is a cat who loves everything/everyone…I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard him hiss at all in the 11 years I’ve had him). Hsssssss hsssssss hssssss hsssssss. I can hear the bells on Frasier’s and Birdie’s collars elsewhere in the house, so I know he’s not hissing at them. Annie’s safe and secure in her room, so I know he’s not hissing at her. Then I feel the weight again. On the other side of me this time. Just like someone is sitting on the bed next to me. I open my eyes to look and there is nothing there. No cat, no nothing. No crinkle of the comforter. And Romeo is staring right at the “weight,” hissing for everything he is worth.

Seriously, I don’t mind if there are ghosts in my house. I just prefer that they not snuggle up next to me on a cold night. Yikes.

New Year’s resolutions

2007-12-28T10:40:00.000-08:00

My best girl is going to get some major work done in 2008…as long as my checkbook does not burst into flames from too much use. I’ve got to prime, caulk, and paint the interiors on my windows—a leftover project, if you will, from 2007. That’s old houses for you. Everything takes twice as long and costs 4x as much as you expected. Ain’t life grand? :)
Then comes the fun stuff. Ideally, I would like to get the steel siding stripped off to see what’s hiding underneath. Also ideally, I’d like to find someone who will do it for the taking of said siding for the scrap value. Or maybe I can pull down the siding and get it hauled away for the taking. But then, if I’m doing all the work, I want to get the cash from scrapping it! Of course, I can probably only fit half a length of siding—if that—into my dependable old Hyundai. That’d make for a fun +/- 247 trips back and forth to the scrap yard.
More reasonable project goals for 2008:
Begin stripping wallpaper. This, I’m sure, will be super duper fantabulous fun. Just like running a splinter into your foot is fun. And I’ve got 11 rooms’ worth of splinters. This is one of those projects that I just have to start on a rainy day because I’m antsy but don’t want to go outside. Ever have those days? They can become quite productive if channeled. Or they can become flop-on-the-couch-and-watch-old-movies-all-day kinds of days. Very nice.
Start patching holes. You know the holes the electricians made when they fished the wiring through the house? Yep, they’re still there, in all their crappy-looking glory. They’re generally high up on the walls and have been a little out of sight, out of mind…but lately I’ve been noticing them more and more. Probably because I’ve been living in a house with freakin’ holes in the walls since September of 2005. Think that might be it?
Readhere the plaster ceilings. I’m not seeing a lot of sagging on my plaster ceilings, but they are cracking, and right now I’m not sure whether their keys or the canvas/wallpaper coverings are holding them up and in place. Seems to me that it'd be wise to take care of it now, before it turns into some house-related crisis. I have enough of those already, thankyouverymuch. So some month I am going to break out some scaffolding, drill some holes in the plaster, and inject a flexible adhesive, then brace it all with plywood and 2x4s until it’s dry. And I will repeat this magical feat room by room until I have no more saggy ceilings. It sounds like a lot of work when I put it that way. Gawd.
Paint. Sounds simple enough, right? Paint can change the whole feel of a house, right? Yeah, sure—easy. I just have to strip the wallpaper, patch the holes, and/or fix the ceilings before I break out those brushes and rollers.
Pull up the remaining carpet. Notice how I list this one last? I’m doing it last so I won’t have to be careful of my floors when I am working on projects #1, 2, and 3 . . . at least I won't have to be careful in the three rooms that are still carpeted. In all the others I’ll be in floorcloth hell. I particularly hate to put tarps/floorcloth/dropcloths down because no matter what, they seem to slide around on me just as I am near the top of a ladder doing something that requires me to not think about the fact that it feels like my ladder is sliding out from underneath me. Think of me, please, and write something nice about me when I’m gone.

Some list—just five things. I will consider myself extremely lucky if I manage to finish them all before the sun sets on 2008. And that’s just the house.

Bathroom kitty hunts for wild toilet paper

2007-12-12T12:08:00.000-08:00

V took in a stray kitty Saturday. Until we either find her owner or find her a new home, she's setting up shop in our bathroom. She is absolutely lovely and part of me wishes to keep her, but it's just not feasible.

Anyway, this morning, I kept hearing this weird sound as I was getting ready. I had no idea where it was coming from, but as I headed downstairs to brush my teeth and leave, I noticed the sound was getting louder....and then when I opened the bathroom door I was greeted by the sight of stray kitty gleefully shredding the toilet paper roll. She was rolling it off so fast that the holder was tipping back and forth (hence the sound). Talk about a cat having a good time. She was very irked with me when I removed said roll from the holder and laid the holder down so she wouldn't tip it over and bop herself on the head with it. I wish I would have gotten pictures, but I only had time to clean it up and scoot out the door. There was toilet paper everywhere.

Kitty=1
Toilet paper=0

Painting windows, or, as I like to call it, hell-on-a-stick

2007-10-17T09:46:00.000-07:00

Now that the new windows are all installed (and they’re looking gooooood), it’s time to prime, paint, and caulk. We had Marvin prime them for us at the factory, but being the cheapskates we are, we decided we’d paint them ourselves. Maybe that was, in hindsight, overly ambitious.

Saturday was painting day. Yippee. I started early in the morning and worked until it was dark. First, I pulled the sashes from their frames and gave the sashes an initial coat of paint. While that was drying, I worked on the exteriors of the frames. Because I was too lazy to get a ladder, I used a stepstool to get up onto the windowsill and then stood on that. Thank goodness for thick, old-growth-wood sills! I planted one foot on the interior sill, and one foot on the exterior, and used the interior window trim as a handhold (it’s got fantastic depth—about 5 inches—and has lots of curves and cuts that make lovely fingerholds). Then I’d dip my paintbrush and paint away! Made the neighbors a little nervous, I think, but if you can’t freak out your neighbors, where’s the fun in home improvement projects, right? :-)

Actually, it was probably safer than being on a ladder up all that way since my extension ladder does not have a stabilizer on it. Trust me, though, it’s on the ever-growing, never-ending list of “Things I Need for the House.”

After the first coat dried, I slapped on coat #2, waited for it to be bone dry, then put the sashes back in. Thankfully, I did in fact wait until they were dry enough—I’m proud to report that as of Sunday I had no painted-shut windows!

One funny thing—or maybe not funny so much as, ummmm, lazy—when I first started on the sashes I taped them so very carefully before beginning to paint. MAJOR pain in the you-know-where. Gotta get nice even tears to make nice even square corners so it's a nice even paint job. Bleah. To add to the frustration, when I pulled the tape back off after painting the first couple of panes, I could see that it didn’t really do a stellar job of keeping the paint where I wanted it. So I decided to scrap the tape and just paint very, very carefully. What a difference! I saved the time I would have spent taping and used it to take a smaller brush and carefully paint the muntins. In the end I’m positive that it took less time, and I was much happier with the results. If I slipped a little (and of course I did!), I just cleaned it up after the fact. I believe I may have read of some other HouseBlogger doing this....EnonHall, maybe? Anyway, I will never again tape a window to paint it!

I thought I took pictures, but now I can’t find them in the camera. Maybe I used the other camera. Maybe I just took pictures inside my head. Hmmmmmm.

A NICE surprise for once

2007-10-09T11:51:00.000-07:00

I got a wild hair last weekend and decided to pull up the carpet in our upstairs hallway. This was a project that I approached with a bit of trepidation after my last carpet-pulling-up issues. There’s a post in here somewhere about it; it’s too painful to relive. Anyway, I digress. Back to the carpet project at hand. I pulled it and noted that the pad was just gross. Super fun! It shredded as I attempted to pull it up, so I ended up taking a squeegee and just “raking” it all up. Blech. But….but…..but…..as I revealed the floor underneath I was richly rewarded by Father Time and the House Renovation Gods. It was gorgeous, beautifully patinated wide-plank heart pine, in awesome condition, the same wood and condition that seems to be in most areas of the house. Behold the beauty—and this is even before mopping! Once I give it a nice nourishing snack, that floor is going to be a show-stopper.

That leaves just three rooms to pull: the living room, dining room, and upstairs office. Maybe I’ll start one of them next weekend.

I should mention that it took me a full 1.5 days for this project. The following picture may give you some indication why. I had a lot of “help.” A lot.

Viva la fresh air!

2007-10-01T11:48:00.000-07:00

Like I mentioned in a previous post, we recently contracted with Marvin to install 19 new windows. Although the project has not been without its glitches (and tell me what old house project isn’t!), the windows are now in and they look just beautiful. Marvin’s installation crew showed up when they said they would, worked fast and with good-quality craftsmanship, and left the house as clean or cleaner than before they began. Overall, it took about a week to get everything squared away; from Day One I came home and opened/closed windows, opened/closed windows, opened/closed windows. It felt so luxurious to be able to do that after 2+ years of not being able to open them for fear they would literally fall apart in my hands (true story—it happened with one of them).

I even managed to enjoy a few days of lovely temperatures before they inexplicably soared bark up into the ’90s. What’s up with that???

And here’s some window porn for your viewing pleasure. The frames (interior and exterior) will be painted white. I’d like to say that at some point I’ll get around to stripping the paint from all our trim, but that’s going to be a m-i-g-h-t-y long time, as in probably years, and if I ever actually do it, I’ll just strip the sashes too. So years from now, when I’m pitching a bloody fit about stripping these #*#^# sashes and who in God’s name would have painted them anyway?, please don’t say you told me so.

Aren't they pretty? I heart wood. Get it? Heartwood! Ha! I crack myself up. :)

MAY??? Seriously?

2007-09-03T18:17:00.000-07:00

It has been waaaaay too long since I've posted, apparently. I logged on today and noticed that my last post was at the end of May. Um, busy summer, much?

A lot has been happening. Our auction is over (don't ever send a houseful of stuff to an auction if you want to make big money 'cause it ain't gonna happen) and we totally cleaned our upstairs storage room, which is also the largest bedroom. We might just take it for ourselves once we strip the wallpaper, paint, etc.

The biggest house happening is that our new windows will be installed starting tomorrow! Woohoo!!!!! Goodbye, craptacular aluminum replacements from sometime in the '60s. We so won't miss you. We ended up going with Marvin because they had really great customer service, they've been in business a long time, and we were able to get semi-custom windows for *fairly* reasonable prices. I think it's the happiest we've ever been to write such a humongous check. These windows cost more than my car. There--that puts it all into perspective, doesn't it? :)

Cooking out

2007-05-25T06:31:00.000-07:00

We're having a little cookout this weekend for some friends and I am so looking forward to breaking out the grill for the dozenth time this year!

Why is it that anything cooked on a grill magically tastes better than if it had been cooked another way? Case in point: hot dogs. I definitely can't stand them boiled. Pan fried they're pretty good. But grilled....MMMMMM! They get that crispy skin on the outside and have that awesome "grilled" flavor. Ohboy. Even bread tastes better grilled than, say, toasted.

I realize this post is completely random and quite pointless, but some days I'm just like that. :)

Last night's planting

2007-05-24T08:39:00.000-07:00

I planted 8 hostas, 2 foxgloves, some unidentified but cute groundcover, several dead nettle, and a couple of perennial phlox. Boy oh boy was I a sweaty mess. It was 87 degrees last night! Seems as though we went straight from winter to summer.

Our shade bed is going to be shaping up nicely this year, I think. And with my little winter-sown sproutlings we'll have a good bunch of plants for a sun bed too.

I love to garden. Hard work aside, it is so fulfilling and so......fun. I enjoy the sensation of digging in the dirt, of nurturing, and of seeing the results of hard work. It just doesn't get any better!

Half-empty...or at least no longer STUFFED FULL

2007-05-23T08:16:00.000-07:00

V and I made some decisions about the contents of the house. There are some items we may put up on eBay, but in the end it was just too exhausting to think of listing all of it, which is why I spent last Friday trying to supervise the folks from the local auction house who came to cart some items away. They were all very nice, and they were VERY efficient, but it's tough to keep an eye on four people at once. Each room had some things that went and some things that stayed, so I was trying to make sure everything ended up in the proper place. And I must have walked up and down our stairs a hundred times. Muh legs was tired.

Happily, the end result is that some of our rooms now resemble rooms again. The upstairs bedroom that had been relegated to storage for the past two years? We can walk through it! What a triumphant feeling that is. :) We're really hoping the auction does well and we can use some of the proceeds to fund part of our window project (whenever we manage to get them, that is).

Now we just need to get our butts in gear and get on eBay to list the stuff that didn't go local. Sigh. The "to-do" list never ends, does it?

Garden work = hard work

2007-05-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

Even though I make new beds the lazy person's way (I think I posted about it before...maybe not), it's still really hard work. Our land has some spots that are downright dangerous to mow--so we plan to cover those spots with lovely garden beds. At our last house we left no blade of grass in front of the house and ended up with an awesome little cottage garden. Our plans here are for a rose garden, herb bed, and perennial bed.

So last night I spent about four hours laying cardboard, wetting the cardboard, laying newspaper over any lesser-covered spots, wetting that, and then covering the whole thing with about 5 inches of straw. The cardboard smothers the grass below and decomposes, as does the straw. Eventually we're left with lovely, weed-free dirt that plants just looooove. But all that stooping and lifting and stooping and lifting and hefting around of the hose wears a gal out!

Tonight we'll be planting a whole GOB of plants that our awesome neighbors gave us. She was dividing a lot of her hostas and some other perennials and just brought them over. We seriously lucked out with the whole neighbor thing, especially given our totally psycho neighbors at the last house. Country life is great!

"Sure we have a true divided light...but we call ours 'simulated divided light.'"

2007-05-21T07:45:00.000-07:00

This post is not for the faint of heart when it comes to windows. V and I are looking into replacing the windows in the old gal--but before anybody goes nuts on me, let me tell you that the house already has craptacular aluminum replacement windows from the 1960s that are failing miserably. On a windy day the curtains actually move inside the house from the drafts. Yup, it's time to replace!

Enter true divided light wood sash inserts. We already know what we want. Easy, right? Wrong. I have called numerous window companies ranging from mom-and-pop shops to the big manufactureres. Our wish list is straightforward: we want true divided light wood windows in a 6/6 configuration. Beyond that we are negotiable.

I won't name names, but the first place I called said "True divided light wood sash inserts? Sure, we have those...only we call ours 'simulated divided light.'" I gently explained to her that, in my version of reality, "true" is not synonomous with "simulated." So she very enthusiastically explained how their "true divided light" has grilles on the inside and outside, with a spacer inside, "so you can see that they really are a true divided light, it's just that we call them simulated." And she was serious.

The second place I called told me I don't really want true divided light. Hmmm, really? And why not? "Well, because if something goes wrong you'll have to replace that pane of glass." OKKKKK, and what happens if something goes wrong with a simulated divided light window? I'd have to replace a much bigger pane of glass, correct? "Well, yes, but at that point you could just replace the whole window and it'd be much easier."

Holy crap.

I did actually find a few places who would quote me a true divided light wood sash insert in the configuration I want. We'll see where those estimates come in. I have a feeling I'm going to be afraid. Very afraid.

Reflections on the installation of carpeting

2007-03-26T07:32:00.000-07:00

Someone decided to carpet certain rooms in our house in about the 1960s using the following guidelines:

Staple the pad down every, oh, 4 inches or so THROUGHOUGT the entire space. Just in case the house is located directly on the freaking San Andreas fault and you're concerned the padding and accompanying carpet will shift wildly.
Put the tack strip down with sinker nails every two inches, and then when you run out of sinker nails, look around to see if you've got any screws. Those'll work, right?
Lay down the tack strip in varying lengths, from 2-12 inches, even if longer pieces would easily fit. Those 2-inch lengths were leftovers and wasting them would be a pity. Never mind that they reduce to splinters when some poor schmuck in the future tries to pry them back up.
Once the carpet is tacked in, be sure to glue it down at the thresholds and then staple through the glue. You don't want that pesky carpet popping back up on you!

I spent far too long ripping up a 4x4 square of carpet today (in our upstairs small hallway). And then, when I finally got it pulled up, I discovered something not-so-pretty. Something that deepens the mysteries of our little farmhouse. There is a large -- about one inch wide -- slit cut into the floorboards, extending about 2 feet out into the middle of the hallway. It doesn't seem to be coming from or going to any particular place, and the wood all around the slit matches what we've got elsewhere in the hallway and throughout the house. So I can't for the life of me figure out why exactly it's there. The hallway floors definitely have indications that they weren't always carpeted, so I can't imagine the slit was always there. It's weird.

Hmmmmmm.

&@$%@ FROZEN PIPES!

2007-02-16T13:26:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven't posted lately but I have been sliding on my back through a freaking crawl space in a failed attempt to thaw out our frozen pipes. Do I sound bitter? I hope so, because I am. Well, not really bitter per se. But I also can't say I'm thrilled-over-the-moon happy about it.

We had already made it through several weeks of frigid weather. Below zero every single day, wind chills into the negative double digits. Cold. Really, really, really cold. And our pipes had emerged unscathed. Maybe we got cocky and good ol' Karma came around to kick us in the butts. Maybe it was just too danged cold for too danged long. Whatever the case, we came home last week to frozen pipes. Nuts.

Most of our pipes run through the cellar. Some of them run through an unheated crawl space. The pipes themselves are insulated, but you probably know (as we did) that insulation alone isn't going to keep a pipe from freezing in -10 degrees. So we piled bales of straw around our foundation in an attempt to provide a little extra insulation. I honestly thought that'd do the trick. Apparently I thought wrong. We discovered the big freeze on Wednesday evening. Thursday I decided to stay home and try to thaw them out. First I tried heat in the crawl space. It was like trying to heat the outdoors. No go. Then, I tried going into our laundry area, the most suspect area I could think of in terms of the probable location of the freeze, and directing heat at the pipes as they came out from the floor. I figured that since copper conducts heat, eventually the heat would make its way down the pipe and thaw it out. Nope. So then I was faced with the not-enviable task of crawling under the house with said space heater. Let me tell you how NOT warm the ground in an uninsulated crawl space is. I put down plastic so I wouldn't have to scoot on my back through God-knows-what, but it did not protect against that cccccooooollllllldddd ground. I pulled the insulation off, tried to thaw the pipes out directly. No luck. I think they were freezing as fast as I could get one area thawed.

At that point I gave up on the idea of thawing them out manually, and resigned myself to waiting them out. But wait!, I thought, I can at least protect them so this doesn't happen again. Off I went in search of heat tape. It would seem as though everyone in our metropolitan area had the same wondrous idea. I went to no fewer than 15 hardware stores, from the big-box places all the way to the mom-and-pop places, and every single store was completely out of heat tape! I'm actually on a wait list for it, if you can believe it. If anyone would have ever told me I would be on a wait list for flipping heat tape I would have laughed. Not laughing now--no sir!

Maybe my next post can be about something from which I emerge victorious. I sure hope so.

Frosty!

2007-01-17T09:06:00.000-08:00

This morning V and I discovered that we'd forgotten to turn off our little space heater/radiator downstairs (in itself a bit frightening but thankfully nothing bad happened). It just so happens that said heater is in the same room as our thermostat. Can you guess what we woke to this morning? Icy, icy, icy bedroom. The heat probably barely kicked on all night. When I woke up and yawned I could see my breath. Brrrr. You might also surmise--correctly--that it made for a freakin' COLD shower since our bathroom relies on heat from the kitchen to be any semblance of warm at all. No furnace running = cold kitchen = FRIGID bathroom. I wasn't sure my goosebumps would ever go away.

As I was leaving I brushed against a window and heard a slight crunching noise. Whaaat? Turns out our upstairs windows had a pretty darned good layer of frost on the insides, and I managed to scrape a bit of it off with my purse as I passed. Again, brrrr. Thank goodness for our uber-warm Ralph Lauren down comforter! Many has been the night when it's been almost too warm under there, but it paid for itself last night. We didn't even notice that the heat never kicked in.

Ahhhhhh, this is the life. At least that's what I tell myself. ;)

Architects, designers, and contractors--OH MY!

2007-01-15T07:28:00.000-08:00

Over the past two weekends we have been hosting little get-togethers for various people at the house. These have not exactly been social in nature...in fact, we are gearing up for our BIG SPRING PROJECT. The BIG SPRING PROJECT (I've begun to think of it in all capital letters because of what it may mean, good and bad, for our lives) will either be a new garage with studio space on the second floor or it will be an addition with a laundry room/bathroom on the bottom floor and a master closet and full bathroom on the upper floor.

So we've now had three architects and as many contractors out to check out the place and offer their preliminary estimates on cost, feasibility, etc. What a difference from person to person. Some really seem to have an appreciation for the house, some seem like they just want to get out of it as soon as possible, and some don't seem to care one way or the other.

This is going to be a very interesting venture. Right now, we're thinking we'll do the garage first. That would make me really happy because I'm hoping to use the upstairs studio space--at least part of it--as a soaping room. :) Then again, having a real-for-sure bathroom (OMG, and a closet!!) wouldn't be anything to sneeze at either.

Regardless of which project takes precedence, I think we'll have drawings done so that we've got them on the shelf and ready for whenever project #2 gets off the ground. And we're looking into having measured drawings done of the entire house. I think it would be really helpful to have a complete set of drawings for the old gal.

Making a house a home

2007-01-03T07:23:00.000-08:00

What does it take before you consider your house a home? Is it simply living there? Or do you require a little something extra psychologically? I do. Normally I don't feel like I'm "home" until I've lived someplace for at least a couple of years and have put down some good roots. The weird thing is, this house has been home to me from the first moment I stepped through the kitchen door. I still get a little thrill when I come up the driveway, and I still smile when I round the bend in our driveway and see the house. It's an awesome feeling.

2007 Resolutions

2006-12-21T07:23:00.000-08:00

Learn to love pain--you know, the pain that comes from pounding, lifting, stooping, crouching, and/or reaching all day.
Learn to breathe better through snot choked with plaster dust.
Figure out how to look sexy in a respirator.
Get over my fear of spiders, 'cause apparently they aren't going anywhere....
Find and embrace my inner electrician.
Do a better job documenting befores and afters.
Paint a room (just one) withOUT getting paint in my hair.
Paint a room (just one) withOUT somehow painting cat hair onto the wall along with the paint.
Spend more time in the attic (I realize this sounds creepy, but we really need to insulate up there).

I'm tired already.

Stripping woodwork, or the love affair I am currently having with my heat gun

2006-11-28T12:44:00.000-08:00

Ooooh, heat gun, I like it when you get SO hot for me. (*of course not so hot as to create lead paint fumes....safety first!) Your blowy hotness makes that paint bubble so good, oh so good.

Maybe I am releasing lead paint fumes, and they've gone to my head. :)

I have been a paint stripping fool over the past few weekends. Which made for an interesting Thanksgiving, because we had a housefull of people and I felt compelled to explain to each and every one of them why our bathroom door looks like it's been sunburned and is now peeling. Why our kitchen trim is in various stages of undress (using it to test times/amounts of heat, etc.). Why there is a respirator rather than a centerpiece on our dining room table (I did move it before we all sat down to eat.)

No pictures--sorry, but when I'm stripping paint I become very focused. And later, when I'm not so focused, I want to stay as far away from my current project as possible. Tough to do when your current project is also the only room in the house in which you can bathe. But trust me, I'm bathing--I'm just trying not to look at the door when I'm in there.

Winterizing is a HUGE pain in the butt

2006-11-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

Our house is drafty. We've no plans to insulate the walls and risk ruining our plaster and/or siding, since that's not where most heat loss occurs anyway, and for the time being we can't insulate the attic because the only access to the attic is a 16x22 inch cubbyhole. Try stuffing a roll of fiberglass through that!

Still, it's c-h-i-l-l-y. Plus, those trees that provide such lovely, cooling shade in the summer, provide the same lovely, COOLING shade in the winter! So, the falling leaves signal to us that we need to start winterizing for the cold months ahead.

First, we bring 24 bales of straw to insulate the foundation. This worked like a charm last year; we never had frozen pipes, even though our laundry pipes run through an uninsulated crawl space. The straw also makes a great mulch the following spring. This year, we bought extra bales to insulate The Ladies' coop. I don't know how much they appreciate it, but we figured that if we were going to winterize ourselves, we ought to winterize them as well. After all, they've only got feathers--and each other--to keep them warm!

Straw bales, check. Now for weatherstripping. Last year we did just the rooms that we used, and we closed off the rest of the house. This year, we'll continue closing off the unused parts of the house, but we'll finish the weatherstripping. Then, we'll put up those ugly plastic "storm windows" on every window in the house. Yeah, that's a treat. Next year we are planning to re-replace the horrid 1960s-era aluminum replacement windows with true divided-light double-hung wood windows. Hopefully, we'll do wood storms then as well. But until then, it's plastic all the way, baby!

Last but not least, we'll turn the thermostat down to 55 (not a typo) and break out the blankets! It's amazing how comfortable we can get when there's down somethingorother to snuggle into. The cats love winter, for just that reason. Down comforters and blankets are snuggly!

Good for the barn, bad for G and V

2006-11-07T10:08:00.000-08:00

Well, we have gotten official word that the final roadway alignment doesn't call for the barn to be demolished. While I'm very pleased that the barn isn't in any immediate jeopardy, I must admit some disappointment that it won't be coming to live in our pasture!

[Heavy sigh]

Oh, well. We'll nab ourselves a great historic barn someday!

Black walnuts! (alternately titled, what I did with a mallet all day Sunday)

2006-10-16T09:37:00.000-07:00

Our black walnut trees have been bombarding us with nuts for about a month now. At long last, it appears that the days of dodging and weaving are coming to a close for another year! There aren't many nuts left--which is a good thing because those suckers HURT when they make contact. HURT. Have I mentioned how much those buggers HURT?

We have been collecting the nuts in our little garden cart, and yesterday I began the thankless task of husking them so we can cure them in anticipation of some serious Black Walnut yumminess. Putting them on the driveway was the easiest dehusking method at hand, but we were a little iffy about actually doing it because the last thing we need is for a walnut to come hurtling from underneath our tire and take out a window, some siding, or our neighbor (whoooooooosh....d'oh! Sorry 'bout that, Earl!). So I thought I'd take the mallet to them. I started out strong. Two good whacks and I had a clean nut ready for the curing screen. About 400 nuts later, my hand was good and cramped, and it was taking more whacks than I care to admit. So I took the rest (yes, the 400 barely made a dent in the cartload) and dumped them onto our driveway. I guess if we send one flying at high velocity we'll just have to live with the consequences. And I'm really looking forward to having fresh nuts around! Mmmmmmm!

Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease

2006-10-11T09:24:00.000-07:00

There is a possibility, probably slight but still a possibility, that V and I will be relocating a Mail Pouch barn onto our little farm.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This all came about in a very seat-of-the-pants way. I was riding home from a horse show with my trainer and her mom when we passed by a lovely historic barn (I wrote my masters thesis on barns so I'm always quite the barn looky-loo!) and I commented on it. My trainer tells me that the state DOT is going to torch or bulldoze it because they're doing a highway widening. My response was to beg her to get in touch with her contact and see what she could find out. So now we're calling the DOT and trying to find out what exactly they're planning for it. I haven't been inside, but it appears to be in remarkably good condition. My gut is that it's a timber frame rather than balloon, which will make it easier in some ways to disassemble. All things being equal, we might be able to take down entire bents rather than going beam by beam. That would make reassembling much, much easier--fewer parts to put back together! One of these days I'll brave the trespassing charge and take a peek inside to gauge the condition and check out the construction.

It may not be realistically feasible for us, but we're sure going to try to bring it home. Right now our plan is to probably disassemble it, load it onto a flatbed, truck it to our farm, and put it on pallets and tarp it until spring. This will A) allow us more time to get some cash together to get footings poured, etc., and B) allow us some time to figure out just exactly where we'd like to put it.

Please, everyone, keep a good thought for us. We have long wanted to do something like this, and it looks like this might just be our chance. Now we really need to find that buried coffee can of gold!

The Chicken Whisperer

2006-09-21T09:17:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you about my pet (apparently) chicken. Lisa is one of The Ladies, as they are collectively called. She provides us with delicious brown eggs that are good enough to eat! Seriously, folks, if you have any room at all and want to make a big change in the quality of eggs you're eating, buy a few chickens. I cannot believe how yummy a hard-boiled egg tastes from these free-range, clover munchin', bug chompin' ladies. What a difference!

But I digress. Back to Lisa. We had five chickens--two Ameraucanas (Fiona, Stella, and Edie) and two Golden Comets (Mattie and Lisa) . All too sadly, Mattie died last month. It was heartbreaking. I will readily admit that I cried -- a LOT -- for that chicken. And since then, Lisa has seemed a bit lonely. Like she knows the other three are of a different breed, and she doesn't really fit in. They all get along and all, but Lisa is a little bigger and is a different color (can chickens see in color?), and I just think she feels a little out of place.

Enter me, Lisa's new BFF. We let The Ladies out to free range every day for anywhere from 30-45 minutes. They love to have new turf to scratch up and they are tremendously entertaining to watch. Lisa has taken to following me around . . . and if I bend down, rather than running away as she used to (and as the others still do), she will sort of crouch and wait to be petted. It's awfully cute to see. After a few strokes she'll get up, ruffle herself, and join her buddies in the scratching and bug chasing. But she never gets too very far away from me.

Sidebar: I was telling a friend this heartwarming, or what I thought was heartwarming, story, and he commented thusly: "I dunno, sounds an awful lot like Lisa is going into a breeding crouch for you. Apparently you're her boyfriend."

I will continue to think that she views me as a sister, or cool best girlfriend, or something. I'm no one's rooster.

Two whole days off--what house projects do I want to take on?

2006-09-18T09:07:00.001-07:00

Someone wise once wrote that you know you're an old house owner when you look forward to vacations as time to work on the house. That's exactly what I'll be doing next week. After a particularly difficult couple of weeks (read: months) at work, I am going to take a Friday/Monday combo off. And the house better look out!, because I'm coming at her with tools in hand and a whole lotta determination.

High on my list:

Whip out the heat gun and strip some trim and maybe a few doors while I'm at it
Finish the two huge lasagna beds outside before it gets too cold...then they can just sit there all winter while we work on stuff inside.
Start yanking up carpet.
Start listing house-found items on eBay. It's time. We're tripping over ourselves, and we could use the cash! Our checking account is starting to look mighty pitiful.
Finish the sweater I began knitting for V three seasons ago. The same sweater I have been promising to have finished by "the next cold season." Gee, I wonder why he's stopped believing that?

Since I am a chronic overscheduler, I figure that I'll be able to get at least three of the above finished. I believe I will plan to finish that sweater (honest!), strip the trim/doors, and begin eBaying my little heart out.

I'm so looking forward to having a nice long weekend to do nothing but house stuff. This has been a long time coming.

What kinds of plants I winter sowed

2006-09-13T12:32:00.000-07:00

Here's a partial list of what I successfully grew from seed over the past three years. I had never, ever managed to grow something from seed before now.

--sunflowers (4 varieties)
--blanketflower
--daisies (several varieties)
--herbs (catnip, basil, chives, flat parsley, thyme, anise hyssop, rue, oregano, dill, cilantro)
--coleus
--black-eyed susans (a couple of different varieties)
--butterfly bush
--nicotiana
--perennial flax
--rose campion
--decorative grasses
--trailing lobelia
--forget-me-nots
--tomatoes (yes, tomatoes)
--calendula (which quickly became a HUGE favorite of mine)
--celosia
--columbine
--bachelor buttons (annual and perennial)
--impatiens
--scented stock
--marigolds (several varieties)
--red penstemon
--tons of poppies
--sage (purple and traditional)
--coneflower
--coreopsis
--allium
--chamomile
--tithonia ("Mexican Sunflower")

There are others, but without looking at my log (yes, I'm a dork, I kept a log) I can't list them all. These are just off the top of my head.

Gardening on the cheap--winter sowing!

2006-09-13T07:22:00.000-07:00

You will not believe me. I understand that you will not believe me. What I am about to tell you, however, is completely true and is unexaggerated. You can sow seeds all through the winter and in the spring, you will most likely have more plants than you can shake a stick at!

I am a huge fan of a process called winter sowing. I was turned on to it a few years back by the kind folks over at the GardenWeb. There is a Winter Sowing forum that I was encouraged to check out. So many threads from people who were wildly successful with growing plants from seed. I had always thought growing from seed meant light setups, a greenhouse, and lots and lots of work. But the more I read, the more winter sowing made sense--think of it as doing what Ma Nature does, but you're just helping her along a bit. Plants typically go to seed in the late summer/early fall. Those seeds fall to the ground, where they stay until they're scratched up and eaten by birds and squirrels, or they germinate and grow.

To winter sow, you take containers of whatever kind (I use milk jugs, orange juice jugs, whatever I can find--bonus, it's recycling!!), take the lids off, cut the tops of the jugs partially off leaving a "hinge," put potting soil into them about 4" high, press seeds into the soil, moisten thoroughly, tape the tops back on, and set the whole deal outside to face the winter. You do not bring them inside, even when there's a blizzard on the way. Snow, ice, etc. will not hurt your seeds in their protective little homes (for a more detailed explanation go to wintersown.org) .Basically, you're creating mini greenhouses for your seeds. When the temperatures start to rise, you'll see your containers bursting with seedlings. :) My first year I sowed about 110 containers and had enough to entirely fill a 30x20 foot bed, plus I gave dozens of plants to friends, neighbors, complete strangers....you get the picture. Let's just say I was very successful. And my total outlay of cash was about 20 bucks for enough potting soil to fill all those containers.

The two best things about winter sowing (in my opinion) are that it is tremendously cost-effective--just the cost of potting soil and seeds, and sometimes you can get seeds from a friend's garden for free, and it's a good way to recycle all those plastic jugs we accumulate throughout the year.

If you'd like to have a huge, lush, full garden, I really encourage you to look into winter sowing. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!

Here's to you, fellow bloggers!

2006-09-05T13:59:00.000-07:00

I have been reading a lot of posts from fellow bloggers who have serious restorations on their hands. They are sharing living space with raccoons and other critters because their houses have no windows, or they are showering at the local truck stop every day because the bathroom is completely nonfunctional. Or they are attempting to have the semblance of a normal life while not one single room of their home is livable.

My hat is off to you, ladies and gentlemen. You know who you are. When I read your posts I am simply overwhelmed at the patience and care you display.

Keep on rockin'.

Walk-in closets....sigh...a girl can dream, can't she?

2006-08-24T10:24:00.000-07:00

Here are sketches of our proposed addition. We are planning to bump out the existing kitchen/bathroom to the north about 10 feet and add a bathroom and laundry room on the first floor, then a bathroom and (gasp!) master walk-in closet on the second floor.

Feast your eyes on these babies! :) Aren't they beautiful?

The two potential layouts for the first floor laundry/bath...I'm partial to the one on the left because it has all that glorious counter space!

And the two potential layouts for the second floor bath/closet....these are very similar. I think the only difference is that the room sizes change a wee bit from layout to layout.

Yippee! It worked better than I thought it would!

2006-08-24T10:14:00.000-07:00

Aren't you just ECSTATIC when something actually lives up to its own hype? I know I am! Take for instance my ongoing quest to have sparkling clean white laundry. Between the minerals in our well water and the natural tendency of white laundry to become dingy over time, I thought I was fighting a losing battle. Optical brighteners didn't really do anything. Bleach just turned them yellow. Oxygenating detergents didn't do anything. Nor did copious amounts of Spray&Wash. Ugh. How frustrating.

Enter my book of old-fashioned/frugal remedies and simple country living. I flipped through to see if there was any information to be found on laundry. In fact, there was! Baking soda and white vinegar was supposed to do the trick. There were no real measurements listed, so I just took a bucket and put about 1/4 cup of baking soda in, then poured probably 2 cups of white vinegar. First of all, be forewarned: this stuff FIZZ-FIZZ-FIZZES and if you don't have enough "headroom" you could end up with quite the volcano!

After it had stopped making with the fizz, I simply immersed those pieces that were dingy to my eyes, let 'em sit for a few seconds, then tossed them into the washer. When I began pulling pieces out to put them into the dryer, I could hardly believe my eyes. All of the white laundry looked brighter. Every single piece. I guess from the soda/vinegar clothes swishing around with the rest of it. And the items that been dunked in the solution came out super white. Success at last!! I'm a believer.

Now if I could just find something in that book about how to do major home improvements --you know, like patching plaster, stripping wallpaper, repointing a foundation, stuff like that -- with baking soda and vinegar.

Good news on the cat front

2006-08-17T08:47:00.000-07:00

I don't remember if I posted that our orange foofy cat, Romeo, has diabetes. He was diagnosed about 9 months ago, and we think the diabetes is a direct result of a steroid our previous vet had him on for a chronic gum inflammation. Fast forward to Romeo's first visit at the new vet--we had brought him in because he'd lost some weight pretty rapidly, and was also losing fur. Immediately (before she even introduced herself) she says to me "I think your cat is diabetic...have you ever tested his blood sugar?" I didn't think we had, so she drew blood and tested. His numbers were through the roof! Normal is anywhere from 80-100ish, and he was over 400. Still, she was reluctant to put him on insulin in the hopes that, once we stopped giving him the steroid, his diabetes would resolve itself. Nope. No luck there. His glucose numbers continued to be very high, he continued to lose hair and act lethargic, and we continued to worry. I really didn't want to start him on insulin because it's scary enough to use with humans, who are capable of self-testing and all that. We home-test Romeo, but the equipment is not as accurate for kitties as it is for people, so there's some worry there. More than anything I was worried about giving him too much because I made an incorrect judgement.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

At long last, I'm overjoyed to report that his diabetes seems easily controlled with diet. No longer on free fed kibble, Romeo now gets two square meals a day of yummy diabetic canned food mixed with chicken baby food (OK, so he's a little spoiled. What can we say? We love the big lug.). His numbers are now consistently between 90 and 120--and he's not on insulin. We can definitely live with those.

Why I got plastered (AKA the before pictures of the Bathroom of Frankenstein)

2006-08-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally got around to resizing these for the web. Behold, the before pictures! I cannot believe what condition our walls were in before I got down and dirty with lime. :-)

This is what it all looked like before demo. I wish you could see just how ugly and bulging the walls were. You also can't see the areas where the plaster had been reduced to simple sand that trickled out steadily into the bathtub (good thing the tub is too small to take a good bath in anyway...). Alas, those endearing aspects simply did not photograph well. But you can sure see the cracking, which had progressed far beyond the hairline stage.

I began chipping away small pieces in the worst spots . . .

And soon discovered that we had two full walls' worth of "worst spots"! ACK!

This picture shows what things looked like after the scratch coat and the brown coat. After these finished curing I ended up having to skim coat the entirety of both walls in order to get a decent finish. And, I'll admit it — I got uber lazy on the skim coat for the back wall. Since we put up a shower liner to avoid having rust stains all over the place again, I figured no one would really ever see that wall, so my efforts to really skim coat that smoothly and nicely were....ummm, shall we say less than robust. Still looks a whole heckuva lot better than it did, though! I'm not sure if I have any pictures of the skim coat before painting. Skim coating, for whatever reason, turned out to be an even filthier job than doing the first two coats!

I couldn't be happier that we're going on a couple of months, and the plaster seems to be holding up well. Rapping on the wall yields a nice solid sound, and it no longer makes that crumbly sound every time you accidentally hit it with your [insert body part here].

Ponderings on karma

2006-08-14T10:57:00.000-07:00

Well, the appraiser has been through, and while there were no real surprises (we won't be financing our entire restoration from the sale of an old pair of pliers found in the crawl space...), the bottom line is that we have some very nice pieces.

Most of them will be staying with us, but there are some that V and I are really torn about. Like I mentioned in a previous post, the huge cedar chest is chock full of all sorts of lovely linens and textiles. What to do with those? We're trying so hard to be true to the original intent of the house and its owners...so what does that mean for the baby bonnets? Or the fine linen towels? I'd love for them to go to someone who can appreciate them and give them the kind of home they deserve. But would I just be asking for a heapload of bad karma if I sold them? Should they be donated to a museum, if I can find a taker? That wouldn't help the financial situation with the house, though.

Sometimes I wish I didn't love this house so much. Then I wouldn't give a rat's behind about what we do with the contents that we cannot use. I don't want to live in a museum, but nor do I want to sell or give away things that truly should stay with the house.

All that said, I don't think I've posted any pictures of what we found in the chest. If I've already posted these, my apologies but too bad. You'll just have to look at them again!

I'm too tired to really caption these with any care or accuracy. Hopefully the pictures will speak for themselves.
This is a Victorian (?) sash belt with enameled buckle. LOVE this piece, just love it. No idea what to do with it because it sure wouldn't fit around my waist! (it's about 20" give or take)

Scarf or runner of some sort? No clue.

An absolutely GORGEOUS child's dress.

I was pretty clueless about this piece until the kind folks over at the eBay forums told me it's probably a piano scarf or a Victorian paisley shawl. It's about 6x6 or maybe 7x7 and is simply beautiful.

And here's a link to the whole shebang--at least what has been photographed and/or documented in some way. Mostly linens and porcelain. If you see anything worth millions please let me know. ;)

http://s76.photobucket.com/albums/j13/ginam01/?action=view&slideshow=true

Would you buy organic (or at least natural ingredient only) dog shampoo?

2006-08-03T13:21:00.000-07:00

My friend and I have been talking about ways to make some extra cash and hopefully in the process build up a business that is strong enough for us to cut back a little on the ol' work schedules as they are right now. Work just has not been fulfilling these last several months. I'm finding myself very apathetic about marketing. If I could do preservation work full-time, I'd love it, but it's a hard field to break into, especially for woman and especially in the trades. We aren't in a place financially where I can just leap into a complete career change, but the more time I spend doing things other than marketing, the antsier I get to make the switch!

I'd call what I'm going through a midlife crisis, but I'm not quite to midlife yet. I guess I'm having a pre-midlife crisis. Anyway, we came upon this idea to make earth-friendly, natural, as organic as possible, pet products: shampoos, detanglers, treats, even collars/leashes and sweaters and the like. Since she has a dog and we have the cats, we have our test subjects all lined up, and we have friends with ferrets, birds, and rats/hamsters/guinea pigs. So we basically cover the spectrum of common pets. We're going to start working in our test kitchen this week, trying to develop a good basic line that is expandable if the need arises in the future.

Any pet owners out there? Would you spring for stuff like that, as long as it was not prohibitively expensive? We're counting on you to say YES! :)

Bathroom of Frankenstein

2006-08-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

Maybe I shouldn't say it that way. It's not really that bad. But our bathroom is definitely still not entirely up to snuff. The plaster work I did is still holding up, even the patches of the patches (see my earlier angst-ridden posts about my hard work on our plaster and the subsequent heartbreaking cracks that appeared . . . ), but there's still a ways to go.

It's been too bloody hot to break out the heat gun, and we have not yet knuckled under and actually purchased a Silent Paint Remover (it is on the short list, especially since we borrowed one for a time). Thus, the trim is still all canary yellow, which looks positively smashing against the rust-colored walls (rust colored to match the rusty mineral water from our well--if you can't beat it, join it!). There is one strip, about 2 feet long and 4 inches wide, that I stripped with the heat gun before our temperatures became like those on the surface of the sun. I just won't strip paint when the temperature is in the triple digits.

And then there's the area behind the toilet. We don't particularly want to take the toilet apart in order to plaster and paint behind it, so what we're thinking of doing is (shhhhhh!) a quick-and-dirty fix that will improve it aesthetically, but that won't require dismantling or moving of major fixtures. We're going to find a thin piece of plywood, paint it the appropriate rust color, slide it behind the toilet, and screw it into the wall. I know, I know, it's not the ideal way to go about things, but this bathroom will, very hopefully, be completely redone and enlarged in the next year or two, so I think we can make ourselves live with a quick fix. Most people probably won't even notice by the time we're done, and we have an over-the-toilet etagere because of our total lack of storage in the bathroom. The etagere will also hide most of our sinful coverup.

Don't tell anyone. I trust that my secret is safe with you!

Horse show or train wreck...you be the judge!

2006-07-26T13:34:00.000-07:00

I showed in my very first ever dressage show on Sunday. What an experience! On Saturday, I had a final lesson with my trainer, who was very pleased with how well things went. I ride one of her horses, a fabulous Steady Eddie with just enough fire to be a fun ride. He's definitely been around the block and has shown most of his life. My trainer told me he'd be a little livelier at the show because they always give him an adrenaline rush. But I'd seen him at shows before; he was always very forward-going, soft, and just lovely. I was really looking forward to the show.

Then came show day. Suddenly my -- gelded, I should note -- Steady Eddie Arabian mount thinks he's a wild stallion roaming the desert gathering himself a harem!! The warmup ring was a joke. He just would not listen to me. Giraffe neck, not focused, uneven tempo to his gaits. Not good signs. We got into the ring to do our first test and things really fell apart. I'll spare you all the gory details, but suffice to say the judge was NOT impressed with our performance. Our score was pretty sad.

The second test went somewhat better. At least I felt like I had more of my Steady Eddie and less Walter Farley's Black Stallion. It still wasn't great, but it was better. We ended up placing second in our class, and I came home with a big pink rosette, which made me pretty happy. I have no idea what got into him at that show. Well, my trainer was right--he was definitely "livelier"!!!

More projects than money

2006-07-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

V and I have been spending money like we have it lately. :) It's all for stuff we need (well, mostly), but boy oh boy is it difficult to watch that savings account self-drain!

Now we've got a ton of projects we want to work on, and no money! We're going to have to get creative and work for a while on things that require more sweat than cash. Looks like it might be time to start pulling wallpaper down, or carpet up! I'm itching to see what condition our first-floor hardwoods are in...if they're anything like the rest of the house, they'll look great. But you never know.

If there's anyone who follows this board and has splendoriferous ideas for no- or low-budget projects, by all means bring them on! I can only watch so much TV. I need to work!

Ye olde cedar chest

2006-07-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

Well, our visitors had a great time, as did we. We really enjoyed the whole weekend, even though the temperatures were nearing Hades-like highs. And oh, the humidity! It was like breathing underwater. Under really hot water, no less. But still, we all had fun. The house sure did seem quiet on Sunday afternoon!

While they were here, we had a little fun time with the house. There are storage spots we have not yet gone through completely, either from lack of time or from lack of accessibility, or maybe just lack of knowing what to do with stuff once we find it, so why not leave it where it is until we catch a clue or two???

So over the weekend we sat down and decided it'd be fun to go through the cedar chest in our bedroom. This thing is mammoth--as wide as a full bed and at least two feet wide as well as two feet deep--and we've opened it but have never pulled anything out of it, really. Besides the parasol that was sitting right on top of everything (which we had seen the first time we opened the chest), we had no idea what we'd find. So what did we find? Tea towels by the dozen, some still wrapped in tissue and obviously unused; bed linens; table linens; a baby dress with home-tatted lace (at least that's what the note tucked into it said); fabric scraps from assorted wedding gowns and other important garments; several lovely handkerchiefs; and several pairs of woollen stockings that still had the original tags on them. They're beautiful, but it's very difficult for me to imagine wearing these on a daily basis! Talk about a different time. I whine and cry if I have to wear anything on my legs at all besides Sally Hansen's airbrush pantyhose (if you haven't tried them, do--they're fabulous!).

We've got visitors coming

2006-07-05T10:09:00.000-07:00

V's brother and his family are coming for a visit, which means two things:
1) we're super excited to get to show off the house
and
2) we're super freaked out because the house is nowhere near ready to show off

Our to-do list just got a little more, um, time-sensitive. We want to get the bathroom in decent shape, and we've got more than a little cleaning up to do. Yesterday we tidied up the guest bedroom and put clean sheets on. Whenever we have houseguests I like to pretend that we're the kindly proprietors of a B&B, so I leave fluffy towels and personal soaps on the bed. I also leave a few magazines for nighttime reading.

But back to the to-do list. We've got to clean up the grounds big-time, I have to finish painting the garden bench my dad made for us (that probably deserves its own post, because it totally ROCKS), we have a half-finished garden bed that we should at least mulch so it doesn't look so hideous, and then there's the inside. Clean, clean clean! Rearrange some furniture, maybe patch a few holes in the plaster (it's good motivation to do it, so why not do it while I'm motivated?), figure out how to make it not quite so swelteringly hot upstairs in the bedrooms without turning our AC down to 50 degrees or something....

Cripes, what am I doing sitting here typing? I should be working!

Welcome to appraisals 101

2006-06-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

We finally made the call to a local auction house with the intention of getting a whole-house appraisal. The last appraisal of any of these goods was in 1982, and most items were not even appraised--none of the toys, dolls, ephemera, china, or costume jewelry. Obviously, it might not be worth the cost to appraise it, but how will we know unless we do it?

The auction house is very well-known, and they were super helpful. They charge an hourly rate, which we can shave down by doing some of the legwork ourselves, like setting up the spreadsheet. It's time-consuming but doesn't require specialized skill. Yep, that fits our potential level of involvement--not that we have loads of time, but we certainly don't have specialized skill! The last appraisal they did on a house about the size of ours took 4 full days. The cost for that would prove quite prohibitive for us, so we're looking for any way at all we can keep those dollars from adding up too much!

So, in the not-so-distant future, V and I will slowly, painstakingly, laboriously go room by room through all 2200 square feet of the house and enter items piece by piece onto a spreadsheet. Then, we'll call in the big guns. Eventually, we'll probably put some things up for auction, but it'll be difficult to figure out what. Now, if we find out that the whozitwhazzit that has been tucked away, forgotten, in a closet for 100 years is worth tens of thousands of dollars, our job will become a whole lot easier!

G'on, EGG me on. It'll be EGG-cellent!

2006-06-23T07:59:00.000-07:00

In case you did not guess from my rapier-sharp witticisms above, one of The Ladies has graced us with an EGG! A lovely, large, deep olive-green egg. I took pictures (because that's just who I am) but have not downloaded them yet. We don't know which gal took it upon herself to finally give up the goods--just that it had to be one of the three Ameracaunas because of the color. Our Golden Comets will lay brown eggs only. Just as tasty, but not decorative.

I had been beginning to despair that an egg would ever see the light of day at Swans Acres. Now I am optimistic that the others will try to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak, and that we'll be scrambling, frying, boiling, poaching, and baking to our hearts' content.

Of course, because I'm such a big daggoned GEEK, I could not bring myself to cook it right away. I held it, turning it over again and again in my hands, stared at it, stared at it some more, stared at it a little longer, and finally tucked it into the fridge.

Knowledgeable persons had told V and me that The Ladies' first eggs were likely to be oddly shaped, small, or weird-shelled (apparently some first eggs are laid without shells at all!), but whoever laid this one was a real trooper. It's perfect, just perfect.

Now, to make this house-related, I probably should post something about the house. I ran into the house, egg in hand, upon the discovery of said egg. How's that? :)

Meet the wood float, my new BFF!

2006-06-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

For Greg, who responded to my last post about using the wood float. I was a real nonbeliever at first. I mean, who seriously would think that going back to the plaster (the plaster you labored so hard at to just get to stay on the danged wall) and ripping back over it with a piece of wood could somehow magically make it smooth and crack-free? But somehow it does work. My old-timey plastering guide notes that scouring with the wood float is a necessary step on the process because it "gets the fat back." While I'm not hip to my 1920s-era plastering terminology, I think what it boils down to is this. The skim coat is made of lime putty and sand. Steel finishing trowels have a tendency to (I don't know how or why) separate the two and cause a less-than-strong finished product. The source I have says to go over it once with the steel trowel, just to get it to a modicum of smoothness, then leave it alone. I had a verrrrry difficult time trusting in this logic. After all, wasn't I striving for that beautiful, smooth, clean plaster wall? But by gosh, it actually worked. I put up the skim coat, troweled it over once, and left it.

"Getting the fat back" refers to the wood float's magical ability to push the lime and sand back together and compress the whole shebang into a lovely skim coat. Before I used the float, my walls looked....well, kind of sandy/plastery, not like smooth plaster should look. But the areas in which I used the float, my walls looked super smooth after I was finished. One note of warning: scouring with the wood float is a killer on the wrists! You have to try to maintain an even pressure, all the while scrubbing in circles, but also trying to not create any suction between the float and the plaster (I believe this was my downfall in the lost plaster fiasco....however, I don't want to try it again in order to prove it).

Apparently people who have oodles more experience than me with plaster can actually "polish" a wall to practically a mirror finish using a float. I don't envision that being in my repertoire anytime soon, although I'd sure like to try my hand at it. Virginia Limeworks has a finish that they use in bathroom environments that actually looks almost like a perfect white piece of marble, minus the graining and feathering. It's that smooth and shiny. In person, it's absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. When I had the good fortune to spend a day with Jimmy Price and the VL gang last summer (part of Travis McDonald's Poplar Forest program, which totally rocked!), I practically had to be dragged from their demonstration rooms. I kept stroking this lovely, shiny, smooth, polished surface. It was amazing. Incidentally, if you're ever in the Lynchburg area and are into lime, plaster, and/or museum-quality restoration work, I highly, highly, highly recommend visiting Poplar Forest and giving the guys at VA Limeworks a call. Both experiences are fantabulous. :)

Well whaddaya know--the encyclopedia was right!

2006-06-13T13:23:00.000-07:00

The recipe I used for plaster came from an old encyclopedia, which also mentioned the after-care of plaster. This included misting (did that) and scouring with a wood float. When I first tried to scour the plaster, it was not quite cured enough, and some of it stuck to the wood float and came off. This, obviously, was not the intended result, so I stopped. But I did mist. Scouts' honor!

Now my beloved skim coat that took so long is cracking here and there, despite the misting. I figured I had nothing to lose by trying to scour it with the wood float since it has cured for a couple of days now. With more than a little trepidation, I took said float in hand, wet it down, and began scrubbing my sweet, innocent plaster wall in a circular motion. Hard. Holy moley! Everything kind of evened out, the cracks disappeared (with a few exceptions . . . feel my pain below), and my wobbly uneven skim coat began to look like REAL plaster that had been done by someone who knew what he/she was doing. Do you believe in miracles? Yes!

Now, the problem. There are a few small areas of the wall on which the scouring did not work. In fact, on these areas, large chunks of skim coat began to fall off the wall as I scoured. Not cool. Not cool at all. And I have no idea what made the difference from one area to the next. What the heck?

?????????

Soooo, it looks like I have a bit of patching to do. I'm not looking forward to that, especially after all the mini anxiety attacks this danged wall has already given me. Looks like I've got a lot more experimenting to do as well. Thank goodness the bathroom walls are nearly always covered with a shower curtain and are only visible to V, me, and, once I post pictures, all my friends in cyberland!

Ode to plaster and those who love it

2006-06-11T09:18:00.000-07:00

I will never win a prize
But future owners may think me wise
For my use of plaster.

Three coat stuff is what I mean
The hairy, skim, and in between
Putty, sand, and hair of horse
The subject of my discourse
Is plaster.

The scratch coat wore down my strength
Coat #2 had a long curing length
The skim coat, though, really takes the cake
For attempting to smooth it made my poor heart ache!
Oy! Plaster.

So to all of you in love with lime
Pray, make sure you take the time
To stop, and have a glass (or two, three, four) of wine
Before you inspect
Your plaster.

You might have guessed that I skim-coated the bathroom this weekend. It was a busy weekend indeed! Between V and me, the bathroom got skim-coated, two huge shade beds got laid out, edged, and partially lasagnaed (i.e., sheet composted--Never again will I dig and till a bed until my arms ache. Oh no, not me! Henceforth, my aching arms will be due only to plastering, drilling, carrying, and the other myriad "ing"s that come with owning an old house).

And I'm really proud of the plastering job. As long as no one holds a raking light across my walls, that is.

Too barn exciting

2006-06-07T09:45:00.000-07:00

V and I are looking into having a barn built. It'll have at least two stalls for horses, space for a tackroom/feedroom, space for a little workshop, and probably two open bays that we'll use as a garage. So far, the frontrunning company is www.countrycarpenters.com which has kits they sell and ship. Their barns are timber framed, mortise-tenon joinery, which I thought would be ridiculously and prohibitively expensive. But it turns out they're not all that much more expensive than we'd pay to have a barn framed out and built. Plus if we buy a kit we can "invite" (read: force to come) all our friends and family over for a barn raising. We'll feed them, and feed them well, but they'll have to work—hard—for it!

We're still wrestling with where exactly to put it, but more and more we're leaning toward putting it on the west end of the property, near where the sad existing garage is now. That way we can extend the driveway/parking pad to run up to the new garage/barn, and there's definitely room to create a little runout pen for the future ponees. For real turnout days we'll have to walk them down to the pasture, but at least with a runout they won't be stuck in their stalls all day long, plus we'll be able to regulate their grazing. Good for their health (especially with that lush spring grass...no foundering, please!!) and good for the pasture, because it won't get overgrazed quickly.

Let's get plastered, part deux

2006-06-07T09:38:00.001-07:00

Today I ordered a 5oo-plus-page book on plastering from Amazon.com. Does it bespeak some sort of obsession or sickness that I am already eagerly anticipating it, to the point of imagining what kinds of illustrations it might have?

I also ordered a book on basic wiring. We've got so many fixtures to rewire, and you never know when you'll need extra outlets and don't want to pay an electrician a gazillion dollars to come do it. Hopefully we won't end up spending a hospital a gazillion dollars to mend us after we do some homespun wiring work...

But back to the plastering book. I currently have a test wall set up, with at least three different mixes on it to check consistency, crackage, curing time, and all that good stuff. But it seems my thirst to learn all things plaster is insatiable. And I'm a ridiculous overachieving studier, so anything I have an interest in, I read and read and read and read and read about. To me, it's fun, and hopefully it'll keep me from making a big fat mistake on a very important wall in our home. I managed to find a couple of UK-based (and since they're total light years ahead of us when it comes to plaster knowledge, appreciation, and care, I give their reviews extra credence) reviews of this book and it seems to be a pretty good one. I feel like a kid at Christmas. :)

Chicken run!

2006-06-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

Well, it was bound to happen, and on Saturday, it happened. The Ladies got LOOSE! V and I were moving the coop and run, like we do every 3-4 weeks (the Ladies like fresh grass to scratch and eat). To do so we have to herd the Ladies into their big run, then move the coop setup in three sections. It's a lot easier to move the coop when the doors are open, and this time we apparently forgot to slide them shut when we were finished. I was refilling food, water, etc. when I looked down to my right and noticed a chicken standing beside me. As I processed this ("well, hello, little hen....wait a minute....aren't you supposed to be inside?"), I looked around and saw all five Ladies be-bopping around the yard.

Twenty frenzied minutes later, the Ladies were all back inside their coop safe and sound. I'm sure it was quite a sight, though. Two adults scurrying around while chickens flap and cluck and run. Aaaaah, country life! I wouldn't change it for the world, though. V and I were just talking about how we'd rather be outside working — we're talking hard, manual labor here — than doing almost anything else.

I so want to be off the grid.

Still looking for that buried coffee can of gold...

2006-06-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

Our eyes are definitely bigger than our tummies when it comes to working on the house. Seems like everything we come up with is going to cost major dollars. Major. It would be so much more fun to do cosmetic work (who wants to come help us pull down the duck wallpaper and fake paneling wallpaper in the den?), but we've got bigger fish to fry. Like the somewhat frightening slope in our kitchen and laundry room floors. Or the much-peeling paint on our windows. Or pulling down the cruddy aluminum siding to peek at what's underneath.

Instead, we're now talking about what to do with the outside. Where to put the eventual barn, what kind of barn to eventually put up, where to put the rose and herb garden, where to move the chicken coop, all that good stuff. Classic avoidance. We're textbook!

My recipe for lime putty and lime plaster

2006-05-15T14:02:00.000-07:00

You asked for it . . . here it is!

I bought Type S Hydrated Lime at my local masonry builders' supply. Since this was my first time making lime putty I really wanted to go with a true quicklime or similar product, but the Type S was available, and from what I'd read it seemed as though it'd work. (note: finding plaster recipes is really hard, but if you look for fresco plaster you'll have much better luck, at least I did). So I took a 5-gallon bucket, filled it about a third of the way with water, then began adding lime and stirring until it was all well mixed. I continued to add lime and to mix well until my putty had the consistency of a thick yogurt. Then I covered the whole shebang with about an inch of water so the lime wouldn't begin to carbonate, and let it sit for a while. Funny thing about lime putty, it's actually better the longer it gets to sit, but I didn't have time to wait too long. My next batch of plaster will have great putty because I mixed it all at once and what I didn't use in our bathroom is happily sitting in 5-gallon buckets, covered with water, continuing to slake and get completely hydrated.

Getting good, sharp sand was not easy either. I ended up using general-purpose medium builders sand. Probably a little coarser than what I really needed, but so far (knocking on wood) it's holding up. I did NOT use any gypsum ("guaging plaster") because it does not hold up well in a moist environment, and let's face it: a bathroom is quite a moist environment. So we sent lime, sand, hair only.

Mixing the plaster went as follows:

Slop out some lime putty (keep track by volume of what you're using) into a mixing tub
Add sand: I found my recipe in a 1920s era encyclopedia. They suggested using a mix of one part putty to three parts sand for "coarse stuff," one part putty to three parts sand for the second coat, and putty alone or one part putty to one part fine sharp sand for the skim coat.
"Knock it up" by mixing, beating, mixing, beating, mixing again and it will become more and more plasticized
Add the hair. The amount of hair is kind of a judgement call, especially since I was not making much plaster. I added and mixed until it seemed like things were fairly "hairy" and then put some on a trowel and hit it sharply against my bucket. I ended up with about a 5-inch glob of plaster with lots of hairs visible hanging down. A fabulous, fabulous session at the Traditional Building Conference taught me that little rule of thumb...er, hair. My old encyclopedia notes that the second coat can be mixed minus the hair or with the hair in halved amounts, and straight putty or one part putty to one part sand for the final coat.

After I had what I thought was a reasonable mix, and after thoroughly wetting everything and spraying with a bonding agent, I started troweling it onto the walls. I have no shame when I say it's HARD to get plaster nice and even. HARD. Luckily, since this is the bathroom (which is the experimental room anyway and will be changed extensively at some point), I did not worry too very much. Figured if it stuck to each other and to the walls, we could sand down where necessary and make it all shake out.

All my plaster notes made mention of slopping the plaster on, then letting it sit for some time before "working it up" with a wooden or plastic float. This "working up" is apparently not my strong suit. The first time I tried it, a lot of my plaster stuck to the float. Uh-oh. Must have not let it set up long enough. The second time I tried, maybe things had been allowed to set for too long, because it didn't really feel as though I was doing anything. Time will tell, and I'm sure I'll get better at it with each new project. After all, plasterers used to apprentice for months, even years, before they were allowed to do any plasterwork in a visible location! :)

A suitcase full of goodies, indeed!

2006-05-12T13:02:00.000-07:00

A few days ago the folks who sold us the house contacted us to let us know they were coming up our way, and would we be able to get together? They had, they said, "a suitcase full of goodies" for us. Well, fast forward to yesterday...we got together for dinner and then went back to the house to visit. They're extremely nice people who obviously love the house, and they seem happy that they've chosen us to continue its legacy.

But on to the suitcase full of goodies! V and I are now the proud caretakers of wills and deeds dating back to the late 19th century, marriage licenses for some of the former owners, letters written to several of the inhabitants across the history of the house, pictures from every era one can imagine, tax records going back to the 1800s, and assorted other fun stuff! It truly was an amazing evening going through it all with them.

The husband (we'll call him "P") mentioned that he had been adopted, and that he'd been in several orphanages and/or foster homes before he came to live in the house. To him, he said, the house was the first place that actually felt like a home. This is why he was so determined that the "right" people bought the home.

Yeah, that made me get all misty, too. I'm misty again just thinking about it.

As they were leaving, I told him that this is the house V and I had searched for for a very long time and that we had stopped believing it existed. I think that pleased him; I hope he realizes just how important this house is to us and that he's happy with his decision to sell to us rather than some of the other would-be buyers who expressed interest.

Looks like I'm not a bad plasterer--I hope!

2006-05-07T13:09:00.000-07:00

So far, the plaster in the bathroom is holding up nicely. It has not cracked, it's all still on the walls, and it seems as though it's curing well. Time will tell, but for now I'm just ecstatic to not have rusty, cracked walls with big holes in them. Our bathroom makeover was nearly total, but thankfully it was not super expensive. Here's what we did (pictures to come soon--just need to download that memory card.....)

wet-scraped paint until I was blue in the face
knocked rotted plaster off the walls by the bucketfull
replastered walls (made my own lime putty, mixed the plaster, and installed it too)
painted the walls a beautiful russet color (if you can't beat the rust, you might as well join the rust!)
removed all the old caulk and recaulked the tub
removed the bookcase that had been serving as a repository for assorted toiletries and extra towels, washcloths, etc.
bought some baskets (thank you, Big Lots!!) and transferred all the above-referenced stuff into them
put said baskets onto the over-the-toilet etagere to dress it up a bit

Once the plaster is completely cured, we'll sand it a bit, then paint the patched areas. Hopefully when all is said and done, the patches won't be horribly obvious and we'll have a lovely bathroom. Hey, it may not be Architectural Digest material but we love it all the same, and I'll be mightily proud if that plaster continues to hold!!

It looks like a completely different room. Boy, I really do need to get those pictures up.

Things I'd forgotten we had

2006-05-04T12:16:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed that when you move, you pack away all sorts of things that you promptly forget you have? We have duplicated many a home improvement whatchamacallit because we forgot we ever had one to begin with.

Case in point: painting materials. Last night I went down into the cellar to retrieve a respirator and our 6ML dropcloths so I could create the "air-lock" for the bathroom to protect the rest of the house against lead paint dust. We have more brushes, paint can openers, roller frames, roller covers, roller handles, hats and shoe covers, and other paint paraphernalia than you could ever imagine. It's because we never bothered to look at what we already had....or, we'd get to the store and impulsively decide to paint something without any idea of what we had in the way of supplies, so we'd buy all new. Not so smart! At least we're ready if those walls are ever fully plastered, cured, and ready to paint.

I shudder to think of what else we have several of. At least we stopped with one house!

Let's get plastered!

2006-05-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

The lime putty is curing, the sand is ready to mix in, and I'm super gung-ho about this whole plastering gig. All I need is hair--in my case, I'll use horse (readily available at the stable where I ride) although cow is what's probably there now.

The bathroom is going to be scary and creepy no longer. I don't even know if I mentioned just how scary and creepy it's become. The paint is peeling dreadfully because of all the moisture, and the plaster, which I suspect has a high gypsum content, is not happy at all when moisture gets into it. That's why I suspect the gypsum. True lime plaster would handle moisture much better.

We'll be without a shower until the plaster cures, which could be as long as a couple of weeks. Thank goodness for that membership to the gym! Get fit and take advantage of shower facilities...nothing says "I'm restoring my house" like strolling into the gym covered with gook and dust, just to use the shower because you're too tired after working on the house to work out. Yep, that's us.

Before, during, and (eventually) after pictures coming!

On an unrelated note, V and I finished the next boxes for the hens. I'm getting some bedding tonight, and we'll put the boxes into the coop to see what kind of reaction we get. We've got golf balls all ready--to put into the nests so they know it's OK to lay their eggs there. I sure hope they start laying soon!

Fresh-cut grass....the bestest smell that ever there was

2006-04-28T07:48:00.000-07:00

V and I finally knuckled under and bought a garden tractor. We really wanted a Kubota with attachment capabilities, but that will have to wait a few years, so we decided to get a Huskee from Tractor Supply Company. It's not the highest of the high-end garden tractors, but it'll do until we can afford the orange! We already mowed the whole 4 acres with it, and it did a great job. The pasture takes a loooong time. At least it seems like it takes a loooong time because there's nothing to break it up. You know, on the regular yard there's an outhouse to steer around, several trees, the chicken suite, etc. Not that it's a full-fledged slalom course or anything, but there's a bit more excitement to be had than out in the pasture.

And now, some of my favorite smells:
--fresh-cut grass
--sawdust (not kidding, I love it!)
--lilacs
--sun-dried laundry of any kind

How's that for random??!!?!? :)

SWEET! It's a chicken suite! Or, life on the farm as we know it.

2006-04-24T10:55:00.000-07:00

V and I spent an idyllic weekend on our mini farm, doing mostly farm chores. The first thing we did was add to our chicken run to give the ladies a bit more space to flap, scratch, and peck. It just so happens that we have a portable dog run--a really nice, heavy-duty brass one that pins down into the ground. We thought it might work as an additional little pasture for the little gals...and though it took lots of creative thought along with some sweat and more than one scraped knuckle, we managed to make it work, and the ladies love it! They can really stretch out if they want, and there's about 3X the grass to nibble on. Even I never realized just how much fun having chickens would be!

Project #2 was mowing the lawn with our brand spanking new garden tractor. It's got a 54" deck to make mowing 4 acres a tad shorter, at least. So far, so good, although the hills are really scary. Those will take some getting used to (unless we manage to plant them up before mowing time rolls around again). Eeek.

Project #3 was to mix up some lime putty, but project #4 kind of took precedent.

Project #4 was dinner! BBQed chicken on the grill and HOMEMADE ICE CREAM and HOT FUDGE. Ohmygosh, what a lovely way to finish off the day! Then we went inside, watched West Wing, and hit the hay as tired little farmer wannabes. What a fun weekend.

It's time for lime, baby! But why doesn't anyone have it?

2006-04-24T08:50:00.000-07:00

I'm ready to buy some quicklime so I can slake it and make lime putty for plaster and mortar repairs. Only problem is, no one seems to sell it! Our local masonry supply shop had Type S hydrated lime, which will do in a pinch, but I'd really like to use traditional methods and materials, which means buying limestone and burning, then slaking it, or at least buying quicklime and slaking it. No dice, my friends! Now, I know the guys down at Virginia Lime Works (www.virginialimeworks.com), who do amazing work, sell lime putty and such, but Virginia's a mighty long way away. Mississippi Lime Company also sells it--but again, kind of far away. Plus (at the risk of sounding like a whiney restoration brat), I want to do it myself!

If money were no object, I'd open a store that had salvage as well as all sorts of traditional building materials--hand planes, lime and/or premixed lime putty, good quality graining tools and pigments, you name it! Of course, I'm probably the only person who'd shop at my own store...that could be problematic.

It's just frustrating to have the desire but to have such a difficult time finding the materials!

Plaster, windows, and mortar, oh my!

2006-04-13T14:20:00.000-07:00

I was at the Traditional Building Conference in Chicago last week/weekend. It's good to stay up on the latest wisdom about restoration, and checking out the new technology is always a hoot. This year was fabulous. I attended seminars on lime mortars in cold climates (appropriate), plaster adhesives for plaster that has lost its keys, window restoration, sympathetic additions, traditional decorative graining tools and techniques, and a whole bunch of other incredible cool subjects. I'm such a restoration geek, I know it. Who else gets excited to learn about plaster adhesives? Besides all the other restoration geeks at the conference right alongside me, that is. :) I made some new friends, learned a LOT, and will be trying some new tricks that I picked up along the way. All in all, a very successful trip!

Probably one of the coolest sessions was the graining seminar. A delightful Scotsman who is beyond talented took us through his process for replicating burled maple, birdseye maple, walnut, and tiger oak. When he was finished (and these were just quick-and-dirty samples) one would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between his painted versions and the real deal. He mixes his own paints with beer (not kidding), water, pigments, sometimes linseed oil, and other traditional materials. And whoaNELLIE the results are amazing! I can hardly wait to practice, although I'm sure my clumsy attempts will be sad at best. Still, it'd be a very cool thing to learn.

The ladies are HERE!

2006-04-11T09:20:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a while since I've posted, but I have excellent reasons.

1) I've been out of town for the last several days on a combo business/personal fun trip to Chicago...more on that later.

2) The chickens are officially ensconced in their little super suite! I've already named them, of course. I'm calling the true "redheads" Mattie and Lisa, and the red/speckled black and brown hens are Fiona, Edie, and Stella. Mattie and Lisa will lay brown eggs and Fiona, Edie, and Stella will lay Easter egg colors. I'm beyond giddy with anticipation about the first egg, which we probably won't see until sometime in May.

First, a few pictures:

The bricks are to keep opossums and raccoons out until we come up with something better or more permanent.

Aren't they lovely? We have CHICKENS! :P

How many bugs have made themselves a home in our attic?

2006-03-28T11:41:00.000-08:00

I wish I could even come close to calculating. Let's just say there are a lot. We've got wasps, ladybugs (the smelly kind), bottle flies, and who knows what else up there. The scary thing is that the wasps (and all the others, but the wasps seem to be the most aggressive) have been making their way into the house. Not cool.

Last night I went into the attic armed with a respirator, head-to-toe skin coverage, and two cans of super-strength wasp/hornet killer. The instructions said to have one point of light--located away from me since any stinging types would be attracted to the light--and to spray from a distance of at least 7-10 feet from the nest. So here I am, in dim (at best) light, spraying nests. Imagine my horror when I suddenly hear loud angry buzzing coming right toward me. Ack! I sat very, very still on my board-across-joist perch, and hoped they would in fact go toward the light (pun intended). No luck. Some did, but a few landed ON ME. And they were not happy, not happy at all. It totally freaked me out. I wiggled back through our cubbyhole and down into the bathroom and proceeded to have a major case of the willies.

The worst part about all of this is that I have to go back up in two days to scrape down and dispose of the nests so they don't come back and set up housekeeping again. I'm sure that'll be great. Just great.

The attic is going to be a project in itself. We need to get up there with a whisk broom and dustpan and clear out all the dust, spiderwebs, old nests--bird, bug, and otherwise, nut hulls left by trespassing squirrels, and all that other stuff. Then we need to insulate it; only problem is we don't know how we'll get insulation into the attic. The cubbyhole is 22 inches wide and about 16 inches deep. Just enough for a human . . . probably not enough for a human and/or a large roll or pack of insulation. Looks like putting in attic stairs might jump over some things on the priority list.

If you don't hear from me soon, it's because I lost my mind upon trip #2 into the attic to vanquish all things stingy and mean. I may be in a corner somewhere, curled into the fetal position and weeping ever so quietly.

Wish me luck.

Now for your viewing pleasure--pictures of the $200 temporary kitchen makeover!

2006-03-20T11:45:00.000-08:00

Before:

After (more like during--but it's after we managed to hang all the shelves...). Note all the glorious counter space we now have! And look at how much space we still have on those shelves!! Not for long, I'm sure, so I'm basking in that extra space now.

Also note the very full glass of wine sitting on said counter. That was a very welcome addition to dinner last night.

I also promised comedy in my last post, regarding leveling the main hang track. You may not be able to see it in the pictures, but our kitchen really, truly, seriously slopes to the west/northwest. When we were leveling our hang track it became scarily apparent. I view this as semi comical, just because we knew it sloped but had NO idea how much until we put up something that is actually level according to "the bubble." Wow.

Our $200 temporary kitchen makeover

2006-03-20T08:54:00.000-08:00

Success! After searching fruitlessly at IKEA and a few other places for something--anything--that we could use in our kitchen, we finally found something in Lowe's. You know those ClosetMaid shelving systems? Well, we are the proud new owners of a ClosetMaid kitchen! It actually turned out very well. We're happy with the way it looks, you can't beat the price, and our storage space quintupled (maybe more) in the space of an afternoon. Yeah, us!!

Kitchen makeover day wasn't without its problems, however. The first was finding a stud. It's true that studfinders sometimes have trouble with plaster walls...so we began at a corner and figured on measuring out from there. Logical, right? Sure, except that our studs were a little different. V literally drilled 2, maybe 3, dozen pilot holes before we found a single stud. Each time he drilled I'd say a little prayer to St. Anthony (patron saint of lost causes) and hope for the best. But no. Each time I'd hear this gritty little "zzzzzmnpphhh" as the drill went through the plaster and lath into the air behind. Argh! There was also the fear of nicking either A) an electrical line or B) pipes, since our plumbing wall runs behind our kitchen wall. Thankfully, neither of those scenarios played out. Eventually he hit paydirt, and we began to measure in earnest.

First, we made ourselves a level line (which had comical results later--you'll see). Then we drilled our pilots so as to hang the main track for the shelving system. So far, so good. Never mind that we wore down one entire drill battery just trying to find our first stud! Once we had the main track hanging, it was pretty much a piece of cake. We hung vertical supports, then put brackets up, and popped our shelves into place.

It might not get us onto any big-time restoration/renovation shows, but again--this is a HUGE improvement for us. Where once we were like lost lambs, searching for a dinner plate or perhaps (dare I ask it?) a coffee cup, now we are confident kitchen-goers with homes for those things! Huge, I tell you!

I'm having a little technical difficulty posting the pictures at the moment, but I promise to put some up soon. It's so exciting!

Monsoon season brings with it the discovery of a leak!

2006-03-14T10:16:00.000-08:00

We have been having some serious rain lately. By serious, I mean that it has rained basically nonstop for the past 4 days. Bleah.

One thing that all this rain has allowed us to discover is that we have a small flashing problem with our vent stack. Late the other night, when it was raining really hard, we heard this slight "thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk" sound. A little investigation led us to the stairway, where the sound was louder, particularly in an area where the ceiling appears to be a bit stained. Sure enough, it was damp! Off I went into the attic for a closer looky-loo. It was raining the last time I went up, but apparently not hard enough for the leak to manifest itself. This time was a different story.

Way back when, I posted that we'd discovered a small leak in the roof. Now I know exactly where it's from and what's necessary to fix it. Yay!

Closets at last!

2006-03-14T10:09:00.000-08:00

Well, our trip to IKEA was only partially fruitful. We did come home with two small armoires that will become our instant closets. We had, as I think I mentioned, been using those rolling clothes racks--until they became health and safety liabilities. One decided to end its sad, overloaded life in the middle of the night one night. Talk about waking up to some freakiness!

At least I can say that we have successfully eliminated the rolling racks from our bedroom. Hip hip hooray!

The kitchen was another story. IKEA just didn't have anything that fit into our plan, which was to have A) flexibility, B) strength, C) minimal damage to walls, and D) functionality. Were we silly to think we could find all four? Apparently so. The wall storage we liked best did not allow for the possibilities that our studs wouldn't be exactly 16 inches on center. The wall storage that was the most flexible was nowhere near strong enough, plus it wasn't functional. The wall storage that was the strongest had no flexibility at all, and truth be told, it wasn't very functional for what we needed. Back to the drawing board.

But YIPPEE we have closets! Sort of.

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to IKEA we go!

2006-03-10T12:15:00.000-08:00

V and I are making a trip to IKEA tomorrow to pick up some house stuff, mainly for the kitchen and bedrooms. I know what you're thinking: "GASP.....why on earth are they putting IKEA anything in that house?"

What it boils down to is that IKEA will allow us to do a temporary kitchen makeover with very little money. That's important! And a few shelves, hooks, and/or racks can make a big difference. A hanging spice rack, for instance. Frees up almost a square foot of counter space (of which we have a total of approximately 6 square feet, if that). A dish rack where we can put some of our everyday dishes and glasses. That'll free up space in our hutch so we can put our good china together. Convenience itself!!

Plus, we're going to pick up a couple of inexpensive armoires. Our closet situation is dire...until last night we were using those rolling metal racks from Target. But that is apparently not going to be a workable long-term solution because they're breaking right and left on us. One wobbles scarily whenever you move it or put something on it or take something off. Since those are the three things one is most likely to do with a rolling wardrobe rack, you might be able to see how it's not ideal for us. :) So, we figure we'll get a couple largish armoires and put them in the bedroom (thank goodness for nice LARGE bedrooms) to use as temporary closets. If they work out, they might just become permanent closets. Who knows? Maybe I'll end up doing some sort of decorative treatment on them so they look less IKEA and more, I don't know, country chic.

I'm really looking forward to the trip, and I'm especially looking forward to helping ourselves out a little with some storage solutions! We sure need it.

Must've been something it ate? :)

2006-03-08T12:31:00.000-08:00

Our septic system seems to be all better, all on its own. All of a sudden, the toilet started throwing down the water like she used to, and the tub started draining nice and quickly again.

We'd rather not go through this again, so we're calling out the septic guy who takes care of our neighbor's property. They say he does a great job. With any luck, he'll be able to tell us a little bit about our system. Like its capacity, how old it is, what condition its in. You know, the little stuff.

I can't believe it--two posts in one day! Wowsa!

Bock-bock-bock-bock-bocOCK!

2006-03-08T12:25:00.000-08:00

Guess what a certain someone is getting for her birthday? HENS! And a henhouse!! Yes, you read that correctly. I'm getting some much-longed-for hens, along with a little coop and yard. Here's how the conversation went:

V: So, when you talked about having some chickens, were you really, truly serious about that? Or was that kind of a joke? You were kidding, right?

Me: Uhhhh, no. I'm totally serious. I'd hop off the grid right now if I thought we could do it. Why?

V: Well, you know your birthday's coming up . . . I thought maybe (taking extremely slow, deep breath) I could get a coop set up for you, and you could get some chickens. (Expels deep breath in a long sigh. Sadness? Resignation? Who knows? All I heard was "get some chickens"!!!!!)

Me (literally clapping hands and jumping up and down): Wheeeeeeee! Let's look on the Murray McMurray hatchery website right this very minute to see what varieties we want!!

V: (another heavy sigh) OK.

So, once we have the coop set up, we're going to have a couple of each of these: Buff Orpingtons, Silver-laced Wyandottes, Ameracaunas, Light Brahmas, and Crested Polish. I'm practically giddy. No, I'm absolutely giddy. Chickens! One step close to self-sufficiency, baby!

Bring on the power outage!

2006-03-06T12:19:00.000-08:00

OK, not really, honest. But our generator is here. We ordered it through the same electrician who rewired the house, and again they gave us very good (if a little slow this time 'round) service. Not only did they deliver it, they tested it, showed us a few tricks of the trade to keep it running and well maintained, and didn't charge us a dime for the human aspect of the whole deal. Granted, we paid them quite a little bit of cashola to rewire the house, so maybe throwing in a little free labor isn't so hard for them to swallow. Still, it's a nice show of good will.

The generator's great, if a little LOUD. It sounds like a small tractor. But it's got enough juice to power up almost half of our house, including our well pump, fridge, furnace/AC, several ceiling lights on each level, and a few outlets on each level.

Hopefully we'll never have to use it, but if the time comes for a nice long power outage, we'll be ready! And--bonus--it's got outlets on it, so even though we don't have electricity in our garage, we can run power tools to our little hearts' content and not have to do it close to the house. Joy!