A Closer Look

Here is a close-up of that wallpaper in the stairwell.
It was installed in the late 70s, as was the carpet:Sometimes I need a reminder of how far we have come in our remodeling. (I refused to walk on this carpet barefoot.)Can you see why wallpaper scares me?

Window Solution

Around 15-17 years ago, when Jason's grandpa and grandma still lived in this house, they bought a hot tub for health reasons.

That independent clause makes me smile.To make room for the tub, they added a room to the house, right off the master bath. It served its purpose, but the room was never an inviting space. By the time we moved in, it needed major repairs. We delayed the project, more pressing needs catching our attention. Baby #4 forced our hand.

It had been my dream to repair the leaky valves in the tub, make over the room and create a little retreat, but in the bright light of practicality, we sold the jacuzzi to a[nother] young farmer for $100. Jason's dad helped him extract the tub. It was a feat that required a whole wall removal. Even Henny Penny was impressed.

They then installed new, beautiful windows. We hired a friend to do some exterior work that Jason didn't have time to do--a new roof!--and then Jason and Jim hung new siding. They had plenty of help.

When my parents came down this past spring, we put Dad to work. Up to that point, we still weren't sure how we were going to finish the walls. We had kicked around the idea of corrugated tin, and I hadn't decided about the exposed brick, but we ended up going with good ol' sheetrock on all four walls, and reserving our pine floor boards leftover from the whole house remodel for the ceiling.
Once again, lots of help was present.

Dad and Jason had a great idea for the interior window that no longer served any purpose. I cannot tell a lie: watching it being removed gave me great satisfaction. (Picture wide grin of mouth with exposed teeth, sucking in of breath and clapping of hands three times quickly in succession, Aunt Mary Jane style.) It had been one of those decorating nightmares that I had tried to ignore. I mean, what do you do with a dysfunctional, useless window to nowhere? Hang a curtain? I didn't even clean it, I was so annoyed with it.I loved their idea, and Jason worked hard on the carpentry. Here's the completed window project--Bathroom side and baby room side! The changing table is directly under the shelf in the baby room.
Now it's one of my favorite parts of both rooms. From shame to glory!

Mama's Morning Out

This morning was glorious!! I got up early, ate my Grape-Nuts in relative silence, fed Jack, and headed out the door to the church's semi-annual yard sale to work my shift, since I was a contributing de-clutterer.

I had a lot of fun working with my friends. And I picked up some more stuff, other people's junk....funny how that works.

When I got back home after lunch, Owen and Helen came running, happy to see me. All three kids had gotten baths and were dressed in clothes that matched, and by "matched," I don't mean comprehensive coordinating outfits, I mean individually matched, that Helen's overalls and her shirt matched, and Owen's pants and shirt looked OK together. Jason usually does well with dressing the kids, but every once in a while, I will quietly pull a kid aside and swap out a shirt.

They had all eaten lunch, and Jack was sleeping. There was a floral arrangement on the table, courtesy of Helen and her daddy. They had picked flowers in the yard for me. Precious!There was bagged pasta on the counter. I had left a drying rack full of homemade noodles smack-dab in the middle of everything, and Jason had put it away and swept the floor before the kids got into it this morning. (Last night Jason was away, and I was making pasta with the ankle-biter battalion. Owen ate as much dough as he could get his fingers on; he even scraped off the counter where I had kneaded it. He and Helen took turns cranking the machine until Helen discovered the drying rack. She quickly lost interest in the pasta-making process, and there she stood by the finished product, rapidly eating fresh noodles. Jack swam around the floor and got flour on his tummy.)

The sink and drainer were empty and clean, and the dishwasher was running. You might think I'm some kind of freak for posting a picture of my dish drainer, but I'm just bragging on my husband!And outside, there were towels flapping in the breeze. Jason had done a load of laundry! I must add that all of his work this morning was unprompted. I was merely expecting him to entertain the kids, feed them, and keep the house relatively neat. He usually does an awesome job of cleaning up the kitchen, even better than I do, although I'm afraid that's not saying much, since I can be a tad lazy in that area. What a great guy!!!

And now another story, but I promise it connects with my morning, if you can just hang in there...

Last week I had a moment to run into town with only Jack. I stopped by the Economy shop and told myself I couldn't spend over $4. I immediately saw this dollhouse for $2. It was very dirty, and some little girl had colored all over it. I brought it home and cleaned it. My only disappointment was that it didn't have any furniture and was missing some windows and doors. I'm going through a Beth Moore study of Esther right now. In the whole book, God's name is never mentioned, but like Beth says, his name is all over it. What some people may dismiss as mere coincidence is God's providence. It's got me thinking of all the ways God has worked out details in my life. He has done some pretty huge things for us, like the timing of buying and selling houses and vehicles. It's been amazing the way he has led us and provided for us. But I also know he cares about the small details of our lives, and we can talk to him about the littlest things that trouble us.

Before I went to the yard sale, I asked him for some dollhouse furniture. It was a request mainly for my own benefit, since the kids are enjoying the dollhouse just as it sits right now. But, you gotta know me, I just drool all over myself at dollhouse furniture. I think it's so cute, I want to play with it myself! I knew I could be happy without the furniture, but I also knew it wouldn't have been a problem for God to provide it.

And look what I found:It's a whole new dollhouse, on a very much smaller scale, full of furniture and dolls. The front door even has a doorbell! A very sweet girl had outgrown it, and put it on the yard sale to make some money. God is so awesome.

And on another completely unrelated note except for the fact that my husband is so nice and accommodating, Jason ripped out the brown shag carpet in Uncle Phil's old bedroom downstairs. Now to tear down some wallpaper......

Dust

We think we're done cleaning our basement, thanks to Ruth and Janice who both gave me a cleaning boost. One of the murals is now down, one to go, and the wallpaper in the brown 70's bedroom is begging me to come and peel. I think it is going to come off in huge sheets, and I can barely contain myself as I sit here catching up on transcription work.

Next time

Next time we cut holes in the concrete block in our basement for new windows, I'm going to pack up all my furniture and the kids' toys and Helen's million-and-one little pieces of play food, and find a place for them where they won't get dirty. Ha. Ha-ha.

*Sigh*

This concrete dust is a monster on my back. I'm wiping and wiping, but merely rearranging it on every surface. I'm pacing myself by buckets of soapy water. 3 buckets, do some typing, 3 more buckets, check on Jack, 3 buckets...you get the picture.

No turning back

It's official--

We're beginning the basement remodel. Grab a tissue, all you cousins, aunts and uncles!

We know many family Christmas meals were held here. We know many guests have stayed overnight, a week, several months. The walls hold lots of memories. Unfortunately, the walls also hold grime, a little bit of mold and a whole lotta 30-year-old decorating.

We're first replacing the windows with much larger egress windows, complete with fire-escape window wells. The existing window frames are rotting away, and one pane is currently broken. The whole process will be quite involved, and I'm expecting quite messy. Owen is mainly excited about the backhoe parked in the front yard. He's been living in it the past few days.

Pictures soon.

Grandparent's House part II

And the rest of our house...hall bath, master bedroom--painted a greyish blue, master bath--with the blue tub painted white, Helen's room which was Grandpa's study, and of course, the basement. The basement will probably stay original for a long while.

Extreme Makeover: Grandparent's House Edition

Ta-da!! Finally I have some pictures showing what we did with Jay's grandparent's house this past summer/fall/winter. This has been the most interesting remodel project we have had yet, seeing as how we "scheduled" it for harvest season and a new baby. Actually, Grandpa decided it was time to build their new house, and when he decides, he acts promptly! They moved out in August, and we started renovations soon after, finally moving at the end of January.

All we did with the kitchen was paint, put in new hardware, countertops and a new fridge and over-the-range microwave. My fridge has a wonderful curved front that makes one's reflection look especially fabulous. (Another piece of pie, my dear?)

The living room, we also painted. We took down a cornice board/flourescent tube light over the window and installed a ceiling fan. But the biggest difference is the removal of the Half Wall, upon which stood spindles that stretched to the ceiling. Grandchildren and great grandchildren will remember the Half Wall as the home of the vitamin dispenser. Vitamin M&M.


The dining room got paint. The original light fixture is still here, but I have my eye on an antique crystal chandelier of my dad's that he is getting rid of.


The laundry room and cupboards were painted as well (plus new hardware). Are you starting to see why Jason vows to never pick up a brush again? The poor guy absolutely hates to paint. This room is AWESOME. It was designed as a sewing and laundry room, and it is very smart. I'm calling it my studio, and none of Jason's stuff is allowed in it. He gets the garage, the shop, and a corner of the basement.

Owen's room is pretty cool. We painted the stripes all by ourselves! It was time-consuming, but I'm so glad we did it.

Jason, my hero, installed the yellow pine flooring, starting with No. 2 lumber, which was fairly rough and had to be picked through. It was milled from dead pine that grew a fungus, thus creating artsy blue streaks. He nailed it down, sanded it at least 4 times, put down a white stain, and then 4-5 coats of polyurethane. (So I try to take off my shoes at the door!)

I have more pictures, but I'll post them later. I stuck a leg o' lamb in the oven, and it's about to be done. Baaaaaaa.

Before & After

Step right up and see a display of blood, sweat and tears--now on sale for a very affordable price. We bought this poor house almost 4 years ago. It was so pathetically ugly. I don't have the very first before picture, since that was B.D. (before digital), so really my "before" picture here is a "during" picture. The original shingles were mercifully damaged by Hurricane Ivan, and so they got to be replaced. I was SOO glad, because they had been a horrible brown, faded by the sun, and streaked with age/fungus/who knows what. If you look closely, you can see that the shutters were those cottagey type made of 3 boards placed side by side (with a modest gap in between the boards) and then a "Z" of boards was nailed over them just for purty. Just not suitable for a ranch house. Plus they, and the rest of the trim on the house, were faded to precisely the color of dead pine needles. Now that's inspiring, folks. I am sorry to say the old garage door is not down in this picture, for your viewing pleasure. It too was a choking shade of faded brown, and was so gross you didn't want to touch it (it was metal and left a chalky residue on your fingers). It had two rectangular peephole windows in it, so that the door looked like a big face with two glaring, mean, narrow, beady eyes and a handle/tongue sticking out.

So we did a lot of work on this old house, outside and in. We painted everything and replaced flooring (most of the new flooring came AFTER we moved out, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.) Our biggest project was remodeling the kitchen, which we did very soon after we moved in. The original kitchen had ONE outlet in it and smelled of old grease, cigarette smoke and dead mice, and that was after a vigorous cleaning by three industrious women. I do remember finally putting duct tape over a hole in the wall, and that stopping the dead mouse smell. We ripped the cupboards out and Jason salvaged them for the farm shop. To this day, he says they still have an unpleasant odor to them. Lovely! So this is the second house we have lived in and fixed up. I was sad not to be able to do landscaping here, but that is a task the new owner will inherit.

I am so glad to be in our new house, and know that we will probably be here for a very, very long time. It's hard to pull myself away from places that I get attached to. We just hope the new owner is the right person for this house and neighborhood--someone who cares and who will finish what we started--making this house beautiful.