Adventures Of Homeownership, Chapter 23; and Creativity Ensues!

So Greg was away on a winter camping trip with his son and Boy Scouts this weekend, and on Saturday night I was downstairs watching a movie. During a commercial I went to the loo, and on my way there stepped in something wet. Thinking Tyler had peed on the floor again (becoming a habit with him, unfortunately), I turned on some lights to clean it up - and discovered it wasn't Tyler's mess. The main water line had a leak - before the shut-off valve. About 2" above the point where the pipe comes into the house through the basement floor, in fact.

Lovely. It wasn't a gushing leak, it was a drip, but a very steady drip - like one drip every second. Though there is some type of linoleum flooring directly around this pipe, only a few inches away a section of carpet starts and it had puddled and run and soaked the carpet.

Fortunately, it was pretty easily fixed. It was covered under the home warranty which came with the house when we bought it, and which we decided to renew last year (and will probably again this year, as it's turning out to be pretty darned useful).

The worst part about the water leak was that since it was before the shut-off valve, I had to have the city come out and shut the water off at the street, on a Sunday, in about 18 degree whether - they weren't terribly happy - and they couldn't find it. They scurried around out there for more than half an hour with their metal detector, digging up chunks of my treelawn. As one of the water guys put it himself, it looks like we've had an invasion of groundhogs.

Nice of him to find the humor in it, but when the snow melts, this is going to be a mess. Well, it's already kind of a mess, but ... .

Anyway, that's a concern for another time ... when there's a thaw, like in 6 months from now.

But because things going smoothly and easily isn't part of the Homeowner's Manifesto, last night our stove quit working. Just ... quit. Nothing would heat up, digital display will only come on when a burner is turned on (though the burner won't work). Very weird.

Fortunately, that's covered under the homeowner's warranty, too, so ... another service call put in last night, we'll see what happens with that. I kind of hope it isn't fixable, because I hate that stove, and the warranty includes replacement of the appliance if it isn't fixable. I can go back to the awesome ceran top stove like I had at the old house, and left (because I was just sick of moving and it was too much trouble). I'm sure I'll have to pay something myself if I upgrade, they probably only pay an amount that would purchase a model like the one we killed, which is probably about $400 or $500 - and a ceran top model undoubtedly costs several hundred more. I haven't priced them since I bought the last one in 1994.

Anyway - every time some inconvenience or work drama surfaces anymore, I distract myself (and cheer myself up) by thinking of all the things I'm making right now. Creativity has definitely moved in and set up housekeeping. For a quick something as a mini fix, I'm making a quilted table mat for the dining room. During the holidays I had a Christmas placemat on the table with a little arrangement of candles, but when we took down the holiday decorations, the table seemed so bare. I thought I'd make something to lay on the table, then put some candles on, and since Valentine's Day is the next holiday, it's themed that way. More on that when it's done in a few days.

I'm still slogging away on the sweater, and it's coming along. Gauge is still on track! Amazing. And I'm nearing the end of the back piece. Probably won't be done by spring, when it would have been useful, though. But we'll see.

I'm also working on a scrap quilt, which kind of came about by accident.

I've been wanting to make a mariner's compass quilt for a long time, and I saw one in a magazine I mostly fell in love with - it's called Spice Island, and the fabrics are all batiks in shades named things like cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, etc. - looking appropriately spicy, as you'd expect. Here's a picture of it.


I love the colors of that quilt, but the one thing I don't care for is all the individual blocks with mariner's compasses in them. What I'd really like is a quilt with a big giant mariner's compass in the center, then other decorative things around the outside. I believe those are called medallion quilts.

But I can't find a pattern for one like that anywhere. Every one I can find always contains a bunch of smaller compasses. I've seen one or two that had a compass in the center, but they were quite small usually. I think there's a logical reason for that ... mariner's compasses are a challenging version of quilt-making, and the larger they are, the harder they are to make, so I think it's much easier to make them the size in this quilt.

But I get stubborn when I get an idea, and the only way I've been able to figure out I could make the one I envision is to learn how to draft compass patterns myself, so I can make it any size I want. To do that, I need some good instructions, and people seem to be sort of secretive about this art ... I haven't been able to find any free instructions online, although there are a couple of books that apparently have good directions. My local library doesn't carry them, so I'm thinking about trying interlibrary loan. I very well may end up buying the book(s) but I'd like to check them out first and make sure it's what I want.

Meanwhile, I also love the fabrics this quilt is made out of, but they are batiks, which are expensive. I can't imagine being able to afford all the suggested fabrics for this quilt any time soon, so I had another idea. I could use muslin (which I've taken to buying by the bolt at Joanne's when it's on sale or I have a coupon, and which I think is a wonderful thing), and then hand dying the muslin in the yardages and approximate shades for this quilt - not using the batik method probably, as it's complex and I don't know how to do it, but maybe using some natural dying techniques which give nice subtle colors. Of course, I don't know how to do that either, but I have a feeling that will be easier and quicker to learn than batik, an art form unto itself. (though I may need to try that some day ... ).

See why I can't get anything done? Everything mushrooms. I go from wanting to simply make a quilt I saw in a magazine, to re-drafting the pattern and re-designing the quilt and hand-dying all the fabric for it before I can start on it.

Anyway - I desperately was in the mood to make a quilt, and knew it'd be awhile before I could start on the mariner's compass, so I started a scrap quilt instead. That's the one I'm working on now.

I've cleaned up the Imaginarium a lot lately, it's really coming along. I'll have to get some pictures posted soon. So my next step is to finish fixing up the 'clay station,' an area I made just for working on clay, so I can go back to working with that. Sometime this summer I want to start an Etsy shop, but ... need some stuff made and ready to sell first.

And I have a jacket/dress thing in process, and a whole slew of mending, and Greg's pirate shirt to re-make (made him one for Christmas, but it was too short, so I'm going to take it apart and remake it longer), embroidery to do on the pirate shirt, clay to play with, and oh, I don't know, half a dozen or so other projects.

I figured out the reason I've been going slowly nuts for awhile now is I wasn't making anything. I am much happier now. :o)

House Projects Update

I'm finally getting psyched about house projects again. It's funny what random occurrences can trigger a new line of thought.

I was out with Tyler in the yard one day a couple months ago, and an elderly gentleman happened by on his morning walk. We'd run into him once before and stopped to chat, so he stopped to chat again. I remember he told me his name was Frank, well it was really Francesco, but he goes by Frank. Very nice old gent. And I remember we were talking about houses, and how much work they could be. While of course this was a great house, well maintained, there were all kinds of things we personally wanted to do to change it, and things needed updated.

He said he was going to tell me the same thing he'd told his son, when he bought a house - just focus on one thing at a time, and don't move on until you get that one thing done.

Well, it's kind of common sense, and in fact I'd said when we bought the house that's what I was going to do ... but somewhere along the way I'd lost sight of that goal, and had gotten overwhelmed with all the things that I wanted or needed to do, to the point of near paralysis and getting nothing done at all.

Frank's reminder got me thinking again, and I re-focused on that way of looking at things. I decided that's exactly what I was going to do. The dining room was bugging me the worst, and I decided that I wasn't going to think about any other room in the house until I got the dining room done - with a goal of having it done in time for Thanksgiving dinner.

It's worked out well, as I've made steady progress on this room (okay, maybe not quite as fast as I'd like, but ... all things considered, as well as can be expected). And what makes me happier is that I'm sticking to the plan - focusing on this and nothing else till I get it done, and being relentless in getting it done - rather than just letting it languish, as I had begun to do for too long. This serves the dual purpose of (a) actually getting something accomplished, and (b) no longer feeling so overwhelmed about the rest of the house, as when some other room starts to bug me, I just remind myself, "I'm working on the dining room now. Later I'll get to you, then you will be my sole focus."

This weekend and last night we finished up getting the supplies needed to complete the top molding (or moulding, as Home Despot spells it, but Dictionary.com approved my way as well, so I'm going with it - moulding looks funny to me). We'd decided to take advantage of some little tricks to avoid mitering anything, as while it's not impossible, it's kind of a pain in the arse I'd prefer to avoid, at least in this room (and I can't currently locate my dad's miter box, anyway). They sell little corner pieces that leave you straight edges to butt the molding up against.

But we discovered the strips of molding were 11' long, and our wall is - of course - 11' 3". I didn't want to buy extra or do a lot of math, much less patch pieces together any more than necessary, so we got clever. Greg found some square decorative bits that we'll use in the center of each wall, so again, only have to butt the molding up against a flat surface (and one 11' strip was sufficient for each wall).

As a bonus, they're cool looking, and it's something unusual and unique - always a plus with me. So I'm psyched. I'm going to do some special painting on these, but that'll remain a surprise till they're done. (Unfortunately that'll make it take longer, but it'll be a lot of fun, so I'm kind of excited about it).

I'm hoping to work on this during the week, not just weekends. Only having Saturdays for house projects has been another thing that has slowed me down more than I like, so I'm going to start trying to find time during the week to get a little done as well. The molding needs cut, primered and painted before it can be put up - the painting at least I can work on during the week. And of course the decorative little project mentioned above.

That'll be a major step in giving this room a more finished look. Next is baseboard, and painting the rest of the trim, fixing up the coat-hanging and shoe-storing area, and figuring out what to do with that stupid window thing into the spare room ... this.




To the left of that, between it and the door, I'm installing coat hooks, and underneath it I'm going to arrange an area for wet shoes and boots during the winter. But that thing ... I considered trying to patch it up to just make it a big solid wall, but it would be very tricky, and would never look quite right anyway - it would always look 'patched' - so I'm not sure I want to do that. Instead I'm trying to figure out a way to make use of it creatively. One idea I had was to line it with shelves and put little bins or baskets in it for gloves and hats during the winter - but it won't serve much purpose during the summer, so I'm unsure about that one.

And we need to get busy on the door issue if we're going to get anything done before winter, but I'm torn on that.

Of course, the banquette (booth seating thing I have in mind) is a major undertaking, and I'm not ready to tackle that yet. And it may well be that part doesn't get done by Thanksgiving - but that's okay, as we have other tables and chairs we can use, as long as the room overall looks decent. I have plans in mind for how to build my own banquette, instead of buying one (money's starting to get to be a bit of an issue, and they are ungodly expensive pre-made), but I need to sit down and do more work on that plan.

Anyway - progress ensues. And I'm already looking forward to the next area ... I'm still only focused on the dining room, but I'm starting to brainstorm ideas. I've decided to just move around the house in order, so my next stop is the hallway - currently a long, boring dark tunnel. At first I despaired of thinking of anything unique to do with that, but then inspiration struck. For starters, it's getting a two-toned paint job, dark color on the bottom, lighter on top, with a small decorative strip of molding (kind of like a chair rail, but not) along the dividing line. Better lighting. A few steampunk touches (why not? it's a great place to add that sort of thing in small doses). Shouldn't actually be too difficult at all ... except maybe stripping the wallpaper. Though I'm kind of encouraged, as the wallpaper all through the hallway and living room is starting to fall down on its own, which thrills me no end. I'm probably the only person on earth who smiles happily every time I see the peeling wallpaper. Because that means it's coming loose on it's own, which hopefully means it won't be such a bear to remove.

I know I'm probably dreaming - it'll come loose easily for another foot or so, then stick like hell everywhere else. Well, whatever - it's coming down, easy or difficult.

Technically the kitchen might be considered the next adjacent area, and there is a TON of stuff I want to do in there, but for some reason, I'm avoiding it. I think it's because most of what I want to do is going to be expensive, and it's the room that needs the least amount of stuff done to it, so it's not bugging me as bad as some of the other areas.

So, I'm psyched, the dining room's moving along, and here in about a month or so ought to be quite pleasant.

Before I go - Rhys, if you're reading this (or still awake after that boring blather), thanks for the reminder about the online meds - I'd actually forgotten about that. That might very well be a good option under the circumstances. You're like Wodehouse's Jeeves - always the perfect idea at the perfect time. :o)

Sunday: Good Morning, GET TO WORK!

But first, Knitting Olympics Update.

Here's a picture of the progress (with skein of yarn for sizing).



Not too shabby for a week, considering it took me more than a month to get this far on the first one. I tried a new pattern on this one, and I'm not sure I'm liking it very well, but I'll have to wait till more of it's done, as I can't really judge yet (poor visualization skills).

As for this morning ... so we'd ordered some firewood, was supposed to be about half a cord. The guy was going to deliver it today, but he was supposed to call first. So we figured he'd call sometime in the early afternoon, and we'd go out and clear a spot for the wood then.

About 9:30 a.m. (barely woken up, still having coffee) we hear a knock at the door, and guess who's here? The guy, with a large dump truck load of firewood. It looked to us like at least a cord, quite possibly more.

So, barely awake, not even through our first pot of coffee, we're outside slinging a metric assload of firewood. We'd decided to put it in the garage till spring, because (a) we're not using the garage for my truck right now anyway, and (b) there's too much snow to get around to the side of the garage where we usually stack the firewood. Not expecting this much wood, we cleared out what we thought was a reasonably-sized space.

Ummm, no. It filled up half the garage. Here's one not-very-good picture (really doesn't do the size of the stacks of wood justice) ...



... and this is the stack that's behind the other one, that you can't see from the other side.



Well. I certainly can't complain (though my arms are, at the moment). Judging by the size of the stack of firewood we had last summer, and how long it lasted, I would reasonably estimate that this load of firewood really ought to last us at least a year, and very possibly two. I'm not kidding - unless we turn into fire bugs (or Rhys comes over). This is at least twice as much as we had (and I think more than twice as much, really), and that batch lasted us about 8 months, I think.

And all that for $160 (plus delivery). Oh, and the best part - it's mostly hickory, apple and cherry - completely seasoned, totally dry, exceptionally beautiful! I am totally happy with that expenditure of funds.

By the way, Rhys, I wish you would come over. We miss you! (and we have plenty of firewood! ... )

Slogging Through Till Beach Time

I'm just muddling along till vacation ... nine days to beach!!! Woo-hoo!! Cannot wait.

The insulation work is getting done this weekend. I hope to finish painting the dining room then, too, so more pictures soon. Otherwise, just trying to get everything done to go on vacation. I've been buried at work, and trying to get all that caught up. And there are certain projects I want to get done here before we go (like the dining room; and planting the azaleas I bought a month ago ... I'm such a bad gardner).

Speaking of planting, I'd better get it done soon ... it's freaking freezing this morning, only 49 degrees ... at this rate we're going to have frost soon, and if I don't get them in the ground and let them get stabilized, they're not going to survive. May already be too late.

Well, my out-front gardening scheme kind of fell apart this year, anyway. I was disappointed I didn't make more progress, but ... there was a lot to do around here this year, and we did get a lot done, so I can't really be too upset about it. When the winter blahs hit in January, that will give me plenty to do, planning out the gardens a little better. That's one of the things that held me up ... not really knowing what I wanted to do.

I know we want to move the front steps and install a front walkway, and that's also something that held me up ... because the plantings need to be based around that walkway, but without it being in place, it was hard to know what to do or get started. My goal is to get that walkway project done next spring, and then I can start the re-landscaping in earnest.

Oh, in other important news: Tyler has had an allergy problem most of his life that would cause him to, off and on throughout the year, scratch and chew on himself to the point of craziness - he'd have raw sores on his body, he'd keep us all up half the night with his snorfling and chewing, it was always pretty awful. I'd tried everything I could think of - Benadryl, Pet-Ease (a sort of mild, herbal pet valium), different medications and lotions and sprays. A few years ago I even took him to an allergy vet about an hour away, and spent about $400 for a consultation with her, to no avail ... she had nothing to suggest other than the Benadryl (which never worked). Some people had suggested an 'allergy diet,' but it turned out he was basically already eating that - things like rice and chicken.

For a long time I thought it was fleas, but we'd find no fleas on him (confirmed by his groomer), so I began to figure it wasn't just that.

He hadn't had this problem since we moved in, but it ramped up again in the last few weeks. I was getting desperate - I hadn't had a full night's sleep for weeks. He generally sleeps in our bed, and when he starts chewing and slurping and snorfling, it always wakes me up - and this would go on for hours at night! I tried moving him to his doggie bed on the floor, but it didn't help, it still woke me up. A couple of nights, in desperation, I put him out of the room entirely, but I always hate to do that - since he's always slept with us, it seems like punishing him, and it's not his fault, plus he's miserable enough from the itching, without adding insult to injury.

So anyway, I was at the local health food store the other day, and remembered they had a pet section, and decided to go see what was new over there. I ran onto their homeopathic display (not new, but I'd never considered it before), and thought, "Hey ...". I found a homeopathic remedy made by Newton Homeopathics for Pets, called "Itchy Skin" - and decided to try it.

Most of you are probably familiar with homeopathic remedies, but in a nutshell, it's an all-natural remedy made by extreme diffusions or distillations of different substances, to the point where there's almost none of the original active ingredient left, but more just the 'essence' of it. They're totally safe, as there's not enough of anything in it to hurt anyone. While I have a deep respect for any natural and holistic treatment, I was always a little skeptcial of homeopathic remedies like this. I know a lot of people use them with good results, but ... I just couldn't put much faith in them. And I'd personally tried a few, which never seemed to work.

But for $14, I thought, what the heck.

It works! It's the first thing I've ever tried on Tyler that actually works, but it does indeed work. Three drops of the liquid in his mouth, and in minutes he's stopped itching, chewing, etc. It's totally astounding. I give him a dose in the morning, and one when I get home, and one before bed. Although the directions say you can give a dose every 15 minutes until it works, I've never had to give more than one.

I don't know how the one in the morning works throughout the day, because I'm not here - but I know I haven't come home to find any more sores or raw spots on Tyler. Throughout the evening it'll seem to start wearing off in a few hours. But when we give him the dose before bed, that's it for the night - he either doesn't chew or scratch at all once we go to bed, or he might have one or two very brief episodes which quickly stop, and then we're good for the night.

I used to think that even if they worked on people, some of it might be just 'headology' as Granny Weatherwax would call it ... but it can't be that with Tyler, as he has no clue what I'm giving him, so he's not expecting or hoping for any result.

I'm totally amazed, and very grateful. And wishing I'd have tried this years ago.

Update: After I posted this, I wondered if I'd described the manufacture of homeopathic remedies correctly (it's been a long while since I read up on this topic), so I went and did a little research on Wikipedia. I had it pretty right - it's dilution and 'succussion' (tapping or hitting), not distillation. And often, depending on the degree of dilution, there is none of the original substance remaining in the preparation. Although they are generally harmless (because of the dilution), occasionally a toxic reaction occurs, either in the much lower dilutions (where some of the original substance may still be present) or in incorrectly manufactured products.

One interesting note that I read was a section on veterinary homeopathy, which said that it was generally considered unproven and unfounded, but also that 'placebos' used on pets often had the effect of making the owners believe that some cure had taken place. Well, that's fine for something that an owner wouldn't know whether it was cured or not (like an internal condition). But when I physically see that my dog is no longer scratching and chewing, it's kind of hard to call that a 'placebo effect' - or if that's what it is, hell, I'll take it!

I'm still unsure about homeopathic remedies in general, but all I know is that so far, this has worked - I have no idea how, but as I said - I'll take it.

Busy Day; Fish; Moroccan Veils; Stars

I had a busy and productive day - despite being an utter idiot last night, staying up till 4:00 a.m. playing Zombies, drinking too much, and not getting nearly enough sleep. In fact, I felt so poopy this morning, and was so mad at myself for being such a tool, that I dived into one of the weekend's tasks - cleaning the garage - with a vengeance this morning mere moments after I'd woken up, semi-hangover and all, purely for personal penance.

It worked out well, however. I feel better, and got a ton of work done on the garage. Here's what it looks like now ...


... and while that may not yet look very good, you should have seen it before. If there was even a path through it before I started this morning, I don't remember it. All of the stuff in the garage either went upstairs in the Imaginarium, or downstairs in the basement ... which meant a lot of trips up and down stairs today, carrying stuff. I'm finally building up a tolerance for it, a couple trips up and down no longer make me feel like chewing a Bayer aspirin and calling 911, just in case.

There are obviously still some things to deal with, but it's really very minor. The few things left all have a place to go, I just finally ran out of steam before they got there. The rest of the stuff is gardening and lawn stuff that stays in the garage, just needs stored a little more neatly so I can get my truck into a space that only leaves me a few inches of clearance. It'll be interesting, and require some creativity, to see where and how I can store stuff I need in the garage, and still be able to use it for the truck.

The back half is another story - it's still a disaster, but ... one thing at a time. Today accomplished the goal of being able to get my truck in the garage again, which I wanted to do before winter. Also, the garage door opener needs fixed, but I couldn't have someone in to look at that until I could clear a space for them to actually get to it. (I'm hoping the home warranty covers that ... it may).

We'll worry about the back half another day.

Meanwhile, Greg was up on the roof ...


... doing some little repairs. I'd noticed awhile back that some shingles were kind of popped up, as if there was something underneath them - and that didn't seem right. When we bought the house there was an issue near the front door which had caused water to get into the closet just inside that door. It wasn't a roof issue per se, it was an ice dam issue at the gutter. So as part of the negotiations, the sellers hired and pre-paid a roofer to come out when the weather was better, to install a moisture guard on that section. We finally just had him out last month, and while he was here, we asked about those popped-up shingles. Funnily enough, he told us exactly what was causing it (nails popping up), and said he was too old to be climbing around on a steep-pitched roof, so he showed Greg how to fix it instead. Nice guy. And that's why Greg was on the roof today.

This roof is not in the best of shape. It's been patched and repaired quite a bit, and has a lot of moss growing on it. We're going to look into having the moss cleaned off, but even so, the roof is not in its prime. I had estimated it would cost between $7,000 and $10,000 to have a new roof put on this house, and our roofer guy confirmed that was the ballpark.

Ouch. Well, the good news is, he said with care and maintenance we can probably get another 5 to 7 years or so out of it, and in that amount of time we're hoping to be able to either (a) save up the money to pay for all or part of it, and / or (b) get a home equity loan for the rest. If we can finance less than $5,000 payments should be relatively low (I had several loans at the old house for that amount or less, like when I remodeled the kitchen, and the payments were very reasonable) and we'll have a good, brand new roof for another 20 to 25 years before we have to worry about that again (and by then we should be living in North Carolina anyway).

Meanwhile, I found this in the garage today ...


... my old 10 gallon aquarium. Yeah, it's looking pretty raunchy, but I'm debating on cleaning it up and setting it up again. Part of me wants to - I always loved aquariums - and part of me dreads the massive amount of work involved, even in a small one - sometimes worse in a small one, as it's harder to keep the pH and other levels right. I used to really go overboard, though, studying it like a scientist, stockpiling hundreds of dollars worth of chemicals, and really getting kind of O-C about it. Maybe there's a happy medium of doing what needs done, but not getting excessive about it. I could set it up with a nice sea theme, and then only have a couple of really nice fish - not try to get a tankful, as I used to try to do.

This also got dredged out of the garage today ...




... my dad had bought me this telescope for Christmas some years ago. It isn't a super high-end one, of course, but it is a fairly nice amateur star-gazing one. It has a built-in star finder computer that does a lot of neat things, and amazingly still works, for the fact that the telescope is somewhere between 7 and 12 years old, and had been stashed out in the garage since February. You input your location, do a few orientation settings, and then when you point the telescope at anything you can see in the sky, the little computer screen tells you exactly what star or planet or whatever, that you're looking at. Also, if you want to find a specific star, planet, nebula, or what-have-you, you find it in the computer's list and the screen will guide you in moving the telescope to center whatever you're looking for exactly in the view. It's pretty cool.

Anyway - I never used it much, because at my old house there was so much ambient city light that I really couldn't find anything with it. Several times I considered taking it out to a local state park or something, but I never did.

But here, though we still live in a city which is never the ideal situation for viewing through a telescope, it's much, much darker at night. I mean, our back yard is inky like being out in the middle of nowhere. So when we unearthed it today, Greg brought it out and set it up, and once it gets dark, we're going to see what we can find. I'm pretty psyched - one thing I do know is that I was able to see some pretty amazing detail on the surface of the moon with it, and the moon's full right now, so we should at least get some awesome looks at that tonight.

And now that's it out and functioning again, I think I'll take it to North Carolina when we go ... we ought to be able to see amazing things with it from the deck of the beach house at night!

Last but not least, the Tangier antique shop owner finally got back to me, and sadly, my Moroccan veil has been sold. Bummer. Well, I'll just have to study the pictures, and embroider my own.

And that's all my news for the day.

More Busyness Updates

Dining Room Progress

So the former owners of this house stuck this weird shelf thing between the kitchen and dining room.





We called it the "tween" - because it was between the kitchen and dining room. (duh) Admittedly, it was handy for just stashing things on (making it a junk catcher). But I hated the sight of it. In fact, the very first time we ever looked at this house, the first words out of my mouth were, "If we buy this house, that has to go."

Well, this weekend was it's time. We took it out, in preparation of painting the dining room.





Itwasn't too bad ... it was mostly mounted on iron brackets underneath, which were just put in with screws. The only tricky part is that it had these cutouts underneath, to fit over the wall ledge thingy, so Greg actually had to saw off one side of it with a small powered handsaw, in order to just slide it out of it's slot. If that makes any sense.

But that's done - Yay! Now I can start prepping the dining room walls for painting.

Pennsic Prep

It's that time of year! Greg set up his idea for the family area of the Pennsic camp, in our backyard this week, to test it out.


I think it's looking pretty awesome. We have a tent for me and Greg; a tent just for the kids; and a storage tent, for extra stuff. It's a great set-up!

Hopefully I'll get to be there enough to enjoy it. I have a bead on a potential dog-sitter for (hopefully) about 6 nights running - which would be awesome! The best plan I had before that was someone for only about 2 nights total. We'll see.

Happy Poo

Yeah, that's what we have here.


He had his teeth cleaned Monday, which freaked me out because they have to anesthetize dogs for that, and with him being older, and (allegedly) having kidney problems, that's always a risk. But he did really well, no problems, and now his teeth are all cleaned.

Of all the pampering and holistic things I've always done for this dog, one of them was not brushing his teeth. But as worried as I was about his having to have anesthesia, I don't ever want to go through that again. So, I'm going to do it ... I'm going to start brushing his teeth, to hopefully avoid ever having to have another cleaning. Oh boy.

We've Got Mail

We came home Monday to mail in our mailbox. Yay! No more mail slot in the door, walking in on top of the mail on the floor. The handiest part is, I can put outgoing mail in it, too ... no more having to find a mail drop box or drive to the post office.

I know - little things amuse me.

And that's all my news for now.

House Project-Palooza

We've been busy here at the homestead.

This one was actually from a couple weekends ago, but I forgot to post about it. In our shower there is the *%#*& ubiquitous tile 3/4 of the way up the wall, and worse, wallpaper above that. For the rest of the room it's fine, but why people do that in the shower is beyond me. Because of course if you use the shower, the water will get above the tile.

This is very good quality wallpaper - all the wallpaper in this house is - but one of the seams was coming lose, and I didn't want the wall behind getting damaged from the moisture. But I wasn't yet ready to start a major bathroom remodeling, like re-tiling the tub area.

So we had an idea. I wasn't sure it would work, but I figured it was worth a shot. This is what we did.



We bought a couple pieces of plexiglass and mounted them on the two back walls opposite the showerhead (the ones that get the most water, and where the seams were coming loose). We mounted them with screws with those neat little flower-shaped things that go between the screw and the thing you're mounting (like a washer) to make the screws look more decorative. (It looks nice in person; in the picture they just look like dark blobs) Then we caulked all the edges and the corner where the two sheets of plexiglass meet with clear caulk.

(added note: Greg made a good point in his comment, but since not everyone reads the comments, I'll mention it again - he put rubber washers behind the screws, to keep moisture from getting in that way, too)

It seems to be working fine. I really can't see any reason this won't protect the walls above the tile from moisture. I suppose we could have done all the way around, but I really didn't see any problems anywhere but that far corner.

The next bathroom project is to repaint the ceiling over the tub, as the paint there is actually peeling. We have the paint for it - moisture-resistant bathroom paint - so we'll get to it, one of these days.

Next project - Paddy got us some lobelia plants as a housewarming gift. I felt really bad that I hadn't gotten them planted yet, but I just hadn't decided where I wanted them. Today I chose to put them in a cluster by one of the front trees.



The plants require full to partial sun, and that's one of the few spots in the yard that gets a pretty good amount of sun. When they fill out, they'll be a great start to the next phase of the gardens, moving out from the dining room garden to under the trees.

I also finally got the azalea planted.




Yeah ... it looks kind of forlorn all by itself in this bed, but ... it'll all come together eventually.

Today's big project was finishing the mailbox. Here's the deal: the house has a mailslot in the dining room door, which I want to get rid of. Well, I plan to replace the whole door, and not to have a mailslot in the new one. So I wanted a regular box on a post.

We got the post a couple weekends ago and got that in, but hadn't figured out what to do about a mailbox yet. We wanted something nice, something unique, something special. But I could no way justify the prices they wanted for these things. Like this one ...

which was $44.00. Or this one ...
which was $99.00! We really liked this one ...



but it was $300! Give me a freaking break.


So ... we bought a plain white one for $15.00.


Then, Greg fixed it up with some spray paint and strips of copper, and we got ...


... for about $25.00.

Yay, creative frugality! By the way, that awesome cool trellis behind the mailbox was a find today - $10 at Marc's! I loved that the second I saw it, and knew I had to have it. I'm not sure this is where it'll stay, but it's a good spot for it, for now.

That's all the projects for today. It is a long weekend, so who knows what else we'll get into.

Nothing Much

I wish I'd have gotten the rain barrel project farther along ... there's supposed to be thunderstorms today with heavy rain. I'd have liked to have seen what one good rain storm produced at my one downspout. Ah well - baby steps.

Thanks for the information, Rhys - that does sound encouraging. I really don't mind if I need to get larger water storage containers. Like I said, the more, the better as far as I'm concerned, because I want to be able to water extensive areas all summer without running out during the dry spells. I'll find a way to camouflage them so they don't look too hideous sitting around the house.

There are only a couple things I wonder. Getting a hole cut in one of those heavy, plastic 55 gallon barrels isn't going to be as easy as using an Exacto knife, but I suppose we'll figure it out. I could look for something with the spigot already installed, but then the price starts going up ... and part of the point is a frugal solution to watering, not just throwing hundreds of dollars at the problem to save less than that on my water bill. It's not really all about the money, though - part of it is just the fun challenge of seeing just how cheaply (frugally) we can do things around here, with good results. It's sort of my personal experiment to see how far we can reduce our living expenses without major sacrifice.

My other concern is winter - I don't know if I can leave the rain barrels in place with water in them, because I'm concerned the freezing and thawing will crack the plastic, even of the heavier barrels. But I don't know that for sure, so I'll either find out, or experiment with one this winter to see.

Of course, if I want to start overengineering the project, I could always rig up solar powered heating elements for the barrels. ;o)

Although, I had my plastic pond at the old house that always froze solid in the depth of winter, and never cracked. So ... I don't know, I'll have to do some research on that issue.

We've been taking baby steps these last few months, in part because there's been such an overwhelming amount of stuff to do, and in part because we're just building up our buffer - the extra money we put aside every month for house projects. I didn't want to be spending it as fast as we saved it up, that's the whole point of having a 'buffer.' By next spring we should have it built up enough to be able to start doing some of the more extensive projects.

Okay, and there's a third reason for the baby steps - laziness. After the craziness of January through April - finding a house, buying one while selling another (to a buyer who tried to renege), and the disaster that was the 2 month move - I didn't have much energy or motivation for awhile. It's just starting to come back. Maybe next year I'll do better with the gardens.

Didn't I say that every year at the old house? I think my problem is I really want nice landscaping, but I'm just not much up for the work of it, or the initial expense. But eventually it'll come together - because for a little time and money spent in the early stages, my goal is a very low-maintenance garden scheme. Native plants that don't have high water needs, or need a lot of pruning or care; my rain barrel - soaker hose set up, which means when it's time to water the garden all I have to do is turn a couple of spigots on for an hour or so; and more plants and less lawn, to reduce mowing. Hey, I've seen articles in my Better Homes & Gardens magazine of people with beautiful landscaping, the kind I'm hoping for, and when I read the article it says it took them 20 years to get it to that point. So not having accomplished much in three months isn't the end of the world.

We did get almost everything we need to paint the dining room. One thing I forgot was spackling, because I want to countersink some protruding nails in the paneling, then smooth the spots over with spackling, before starting the painting. As soon as I get that, I'm going to start on the project, doing the nails and spackling a little at a time on weeknights, then taking a weekend day to do the painting. Hopefully I can get that done by next weekend.

We'll still have the floor to do something with, and the door to replace, both of which are going to be expensive, because I want special stuff, of course. Like a triple-paned thermal door with built-in blinds, and I'm considering radiant heating in the floor because that room is so cold in the winter.

The two projects I'm most interested in completing as soon as possible are the dining room (because it's so dark and dingy in there still), and the back deck - because I seriously miss having a covered back porch.

The projects that most need done, though, are a storage shed, and insulation.

Decisions, decisions. Not to mention time and money. But ... it'll all get done eventually. And planning it all out is half the fun.

Got The Brain Back

I got my computer fixed. Man, was I relieved! I didn't realize how much I'd miss it, until I didn't have it - only for about a week, or less. The hard drive had crashed on me, and I ordered a new one from Toshiba Direct - they had a good price, and I figured it might be safer to put in the same hard drive it had before.

So it arrived Tuesday, we popped it in, fortunately I had the restore disks, and in a few hours I was good to go. It's a little frustrating having to set everything up all over again - the desktop and all that - but at least I didn't have to buy a new computer!

I got my photo editing software set back up, so I'm good to go with that too.

And as for the living room, as I've let it settle in, it's growing on me more and more. I think this last arrangement is The One. I've got to get the rug, and work on the curtains soon. It's been challenging, it seems like I just can't find the time to get to all these projects I want to do, so things just aren't moving as quickly as I'd like.

Well, I'm not the first homeowner, by a long shot, to have the joyful challenge of doing makeovers and fix-ups while trying to get on with life. I'm sure it'll all come together. I do, however, have to get a bit more energetic.

I'm also flipping excited about the gardens! I'm dying to get to work on the front landscaping, where I have grand plans. Hopefully this weekend and next (a long holiday weekend with a couple vacation days to boot!) I'll get a lot done. Pictures soon!

Garage Sale Finds

A neighbor a few doors down was having a garage sale this weekend, and we decided to wander over. I'm glad we did ... we got several great finds. (And I do have some pictures ... I didn't get my computer fixed yet, the hard drive should be arriving Tuesday - but I managed without my photo editing software this time).

First I snagged this:


They called it a buffet, and while it is going in the dining room, that's not what we'll be using it for. We'd already decided that the front door into the dining room was too handy by half, and despite not wanting to turn the dining room into the 'mud room' or foyer, we knew we'd end up using that door most of the time. ('We' being me, Greg, and the kids). The main front door, into the living room, is too inconvenient for everyday coming and going, especially for bringing in groceries; and the door from the kitchen into the garage isn't very convenient for several reasons. So the dining room door was going to be it.

But I didn't want everyone's shoes being piled around that door all the time. We talked about getting one of those entry-way benches with the cubbies underneath for shoes. But when we found this buffet (for only $35), I had visions. For starters, those two sections with shelves on the sides have glass-fronted doors. I intend to install some fabric 'curtains' on the inside of that glass to block the view, and each one of those shelves will be a place to stash shoes. I have old towels which I can line them with in the winter or when it's wet, to keep the inside clean and dry. Then there are the drawers, which will be perfect for hats and gloves in the winter, and for Tyler's collar and leash and raincoat, for walks. It's flipping perfect!

I'm going to paint it, probably - we're trying to get away from the dark wood in this room, although once we paint the walls, and re-do the floor, maybe the wood of something like this won't be 'too much' - so maybe I'll wait and see.

I'm kind of excited too, because I figured the top of this would be an ideal place for a few plants. It's a south-facing window, shaded by an awning and a large tree out front - so it's not going to get a ton of direct sunlight, but it will get bright diffused light, and a lot of houseplants would grow well under those conditions. I've always wished I could have a few houseplants, but at the old house, there just wasn't any place to put them. This will be a good spot for a little experimentation.

The second find was a lamp base which we felt would fit right into our sea captain's parlor decor for the living room.


(And for only $4.00, we figured it was worth trying out. Have you priced lamps lately? Yikes!) It is an electric light, not a lamp ... it is lacking a shade at the moment, which I'll put together as a 'Victorian-style' lamp shade, something like this ...



... courtesy of Antique Lamp Supply. Maybe not quite this 'fancy,' I'll have to tailor the shade to go with the lamp. But you get the idea.

I think it'll go quite well. Speaking of which, I can't stand it, I have to post some pictures of the furniture. This is its current arrangement, although we've moved it around 5 or 6 times since we got it. It'll take awhile to be sure how we're going to put it all together, although this is my favorite at the moment.



There are still a lot of things we need to pull it together. We want to get a rug for the middle of the floor, to sort of 'anchor' that furniture together. We plan to get a coffee table, though it has to be 'just the right one' to fit in. We will be re-doing the window treatments as soon as possible, as those vertical blinds and peach-color valances really need to go. But I think it's coming together nicely.

I think that about wraps up today's finds ... some other, smaller, cool stuff, but nothing else specifically for the house.

I'm dying to get busy on that dining room, but we haven't settled on a paint color yet. We'll have to work a little harder on that this week.

Guess What I'm Getting Tomorrow ...

The furniture's arriving tomorrow morning! I'm giddy. I can't wait. Once we get the furniture in the living room, then we can pick out a rug, and work on changing the window treatments, and it'll start coming together into our own sea captain's parlor.

Unfortunately, I don't know when I'll get to post pictures of it, because I killed my computer this week. The hard drive is dead, dead, dead. Fortunately, it gave me some warning, and I was able to get - I think - everything important off the computer onto an external we have. And also fortunately, it's brain still works, it's just the hard drive. So I am planning to get a new hard drive ($80 for a 250GB from Toshiba, I can live with that - bigger than it had before), and hopefully resurrect the thing soon.

I'm borrowing the Dread Reverend's computer for online stuff, but he doesn't have my photo editing software that I use to make the pictures blog-friendly (i.e., under 50MB).

It was a mildly difficult decision to get a new hard drive rather than using it as an excuse to splurge on a new computer. I'm obsessed with netbooks, and want one in a bad way. Only because I've been obsessed for some time with the smallest possible working computer I can get. Unlike many people who want the laptop but the big ass screen, my main goal is just to have a computer that's small enough to carry around in my purse. When I got my current laptop, I got the smallest one I could afford. The Sony Vaio was a tiny bit smaller, but almost $1,000 more, and I said, umm, no. My Toshiba Satellite is the next tiniest one I could find, and is pretty petite - and plenty powerful - but not quite small enough to tote around with me.

A netbook would probably fit the bill for uber-tiny, and they're not that expensive ... but they just can't do everything yet. For example, it wouldn't be able to run my photo editing software, or my music editing software. So it will be the ultimate splurge, because what'll end up happening is, I'll make sure I have a computer that will run that stuff, then I'll indulge in a netbook just for online stuff and text stuff (which I do a lot of).

But it is a splurge, so ... it'll have to wait, and I did the fiscally responsible thing of opting to fix the 'old' computer first.

But hey - new furniture tomorrow! Woo-hoo!! (Rhys - before you ask - no, I didn't get the Scotchguard. So be warned).

Lest I get kicked off my fiber-arts related web rings (if I haven't already), I want you to know that I did at least eye the knitting tonight a bit. I seriously considered getting out the sweater, trying to figure out where I am on it, and getting busy on it again. I'm actually afraid. I don't know if I can remember what the heck I was doing, I don't know if there will be a big sloppy bunch of rows across the middle of the back from picking it up again after so long, and my knitting not being 'on par' with the rest of what I've already done. It's just frustrating.

Probably to ease myself back into it, I should start with a pair of socks. That's probably a grand idea. And I already have sock yarn. And always need good socks. Hmmm. That might just entice me.

I'm also dying to work on some garb, after the coronation last week. But it's hard to get too psyched about garb because I'm really afraid I won't be able to go to any events this year. I don't know who I'm going to get to watch Tyler. I refuse to just board him, and with his eyesight and hearing going, it's not that easy to just take him somewhere. I don't want to traumatize him too much by not only leaving him for 9 days, but also leaving him in an unfamiliar house where he doesn't know his way around. When he was younger, he was more adaptable and might find such things an adventure. But now, I think he'd just find it traumatic, and I won't do that to him.

So I'm checking into finding someone who can come to my house and watch him. And of course I have to be careful who I give the run of my house to for a week. I haven't found anyone yet, but there's time.

So I suppose I could justify making garb on the grounds that if I do find someone, I'll need the stuff. Hmmm. Something to think about.

House Projects

Yesterday (Sunday) was a great house project day. I'd been wanting to do that for awhile, but it seemed every weekend something was interfering. (Well, that, and we only finally officially finished moving a couple weekends ago). This weekend it finally fell into place.

I made my 'house notebook' I'd been wanting to make. There were so many projects I wanted or needed to do, they were all bouncing around in my head making me feel overwhelmed all the time. Not overwhelmed in a bad way, like I was freaking out about them ... just overwhelmed in a sort of "I don't know where to start first!" kind of way.

So, being the organization freak that I am, I wanted to put together a notebook with tabbed dividers for each section of the house, a place where I could list all these projects in one place, to get them out of my head and begin focusing on one section at a time. I also figured the notebook would be handy because, besides just lists of projects, I could sketch out plans and ideas, and have a place to keep information I gather, like the paint color cards, or project information I print from the internet.

Yesterday I got the notebook started, so that made me feel less overwhelmed and more motivated. Although the dining room is my first main project, there wasn't anything much I could do in there yesterday, so I went to my kitchen list.

I reorganized the pantry cupboards. A couple of them had just kind of gotten stuff tossed in them when we moved in, and were kind of a mess, and bugging me - so I fixed that. One thing I really like - the bane of my existence at the old house was the collection of plastic bowls and lids I had, which were all just crammed willy-nilly into a too-small cabinet, always a jumbled mess, could never find what I wanted when I needed it. I devoted an entire pantry cubpoard, with slide-out shelves, to the plastic bowl mess, just to have more room for it and make them easier to find.


Then I bought a small, inexpensive dish drainer to use to store the smaller lids.


This keeps the lids organized and easy to find. I left the silveware basket on the drainer, and use it for the smallest lids. This cabinet doesn't look worthy of being devoted to plastic bowls just now, because it looks rather empty - that's because most of them are in the dishwasher at the moment. Otherwise, those two shelves are pretty full. But it's fantastic, because it's so easy now to find what I need.

The second project I accomplished in the kitchen was the window frosting. The former owners built an addition on to the back of the garage, the wall of which unfortunately is just a couple feet from the kitchen window. Made the view out the kitchen window pretty icky, and it really bugged me. So much that I just kept the mini-blinds that were already installed closed all the time, because I just couldn't stand opening them and seeing nothing but siding.



But I hate mini-blinds, and the kitchen always seems kind of dark, as that's the only window. That all was really getting on my nerves. So I did some checking and decided to try window film to camouflage the view while letting in more light. I chose a frosted glass look. I'd had this for several weeks but hadn't had a large, uninterrupted chunk of time to put it up - yesterday I did.

It wasn't quite as easy as I'd hoped, but it wasn't terribly difficult. Here's a picture half-way through - definitely blocking the view!



And it turned out great!


I think it really makes a difference. It does exactly what I wanted it to do -it blocks the view, and lets in all the light possible. I will be putting a valance curtain up, but the one I want is packed somewhere and I couldn't locate it yesterday.

It seemed like only two small things, but that (and mowing the lawn) took up most of the day ... and it was enough. Baby steps.

With so many different projects to do, ranging from easy and cheap to complicated and expensive, it's hard to know where to start. I was hoping to kind of focus on one room at a time, figuring that way (a) my energies won't get so scattered till it feels like I'm constantly working on something but nothing's getting done, and (b) we can have one complete room at a time, rather than a whole bunch of half-done rooms (which also makes it feel like nothing's getting done).

Because it is the worst room in the house, I want to focus on the dining room first. It's not the easiest nor cheapest of our projects, but it needs done, it's a small room (so easier to manage and finish), and it'll make me feel a whole lot better when it's done. The first thing we have to do for that is pick out a paint color. That's next on the agenda.

A Repair and a Hidden Treasure

So Ohio Edison called me last Monday to tell me the box around my electric meter was rusted, and needed replaced. I said, "Oh. Don't you do that?" Nope. My responsibility. Okay, no biggie. This house came with a one-year pre-paid home warranty, so I thought I'd check and see if they'd cover it. According to the paperwork it looked like they would, so I put in a service request, and the next day a local electrical contractor called me, and came out that afternoon to look at it.

While he was here, he noticed something else which he said would be a problem. (Of course ... these things always mushroom). Specifically, this ...


... is apparently bad. That little junction where the wires from the street meet the wiring at the house isn't supposed to be within three feet of a window. Obviously, it is. Now why in the heck that should matter I have no idea, but he said when the local inspector came to check the replacement of the box (which would be required), he'd surely flag that. Fortunately, having that moved away from the window isn't that big a deal - it doesn't involve any rewiring, just literally unhooking the straps holding it in place and moving the whole thing away from the window. So while it's annoying and will cost extra (the home warranty won't cover that), it's not too major.

After the electrical contractor made his resport to the home warranty people, they initially told me they wouldn't cover the meter box, because it was cosmetic. I told them that Ohio Edison was requiring it because they said if it's not fixed it could become a fire hazard. So how is that cosmetic? (other than a burned down house wouldn't look very nice). She put me on hold, came back, and said "Oh, okay. We'll cover it." But the electrical contractor they first sent out wasn't qualified to do that work (wtf?) so they'd have to send someone else. Which they haven't yet, so I'll have to call them again tomorrow.

Groovy. The joys of homeownership.

However, another of the joys of a new home is discovering hidden treasures. I once again failed to take a good 'before' picture of this, but nevertheless, in the Dining Room of Doom, the former owners had put in a dropped ceiling. I am not a big fan of dropped ceilings, and that room was dark and cave-like as it was, the dropped ceiling really didn't help. I was really curious to see what was above those panels, which would determine how hard changing the ceiling was going to be. I had no idea - knowing that room used to be a porch that was later built in to a full interior room, I figured it could well be about anything. Or maybe nothing, maybe just open all the way to the roof rafters.

The other night I finally had to know, so I took a broom handle and lifted up one of the panels. What I found astounded me. Having a hard time believing it, I quickly shifted several of the panels out of the way, and sure enough - there it was.


A beautiful wood board ceiling. In perfect condition. I was totally thrilled! I mean, that's a great ceiling. I have no issue with that. It's charming, it's got character. It's beautiful!

I have been very concerned with this room, because every single thing in it needed something done to it, and I was kind of overwhelmed by there being so much to do. I was afraid that it was going to involve major (and expensive) renovation, basically gutting the whole room and rebuilding it - something we aren't ready for this year - but I didn't know how long I could live with that room in it's current incarnation.

But once I saw that ceiling, that changed everything ... because now there was one thing that didn't need anything done to it (other than the dropped ceiling taken out) to lighten and open up the room. Which meant I did in fact have options to 'fix' this room, this year, soon, and for relatively little expense.

Yesterday and today the Dread Reverend took down the dropped ceiling and re-wired the light (which had formerly been attached directly to one of the ceiling panels). The difference is amazing!




Yep. It's gonna be gorgeous. Those places where the top of the paneling is uneven don't matter, because we're going to put up a wide molding strip along that edge, painted in a contrasting color. I don't know if many people put a line of molding 6" down from the ceiling, but ... yeah, I don't care. I'm keen on using what works, and I think it'll look kind of interesting - if it's done well.

In light of this discovery, I am ready to start tackling the renovation of this room. The first thing we're going to do is paint the paneling, instead of ripping it all out and re-doing the walls like I initially considered.

We're also going to get a new door.

This one is too dark for this room, not only in its surface color, but in that a solid door in a room that already doesn't get enough natural light isn't working for me. On top of that, it has that big mail slot in it which isn't working right, it doesn't close all the way, and there's no seal on it anymore. This is probably one of the largest contributors to this room being so cold back in February and March (although it's not the only one - there are other cold air issues that have to be dealt with in the dining room and kitchen). We did start stuffing a detachable coat hood in it every night, which helped a little, but ... not enough.

What I'd like to put in this door's place is something like this. (no mail slot - we'll install an actual mailbox outside)


It would let so much more light into that room. Of course, it needs super, super insulated glass. Pella sells one that has triple-pane Low-E insulating glass with argon. I'm sure it's expensive, but if I'm going to stick an all-glass door in a room that I already have trouble keeping warm in winter, I want the most insulated door I can get my hands on.

We're also going to be getting rid of this silly shelf.


Yeah, I'm sure it served a purpose when they put it there, and it is handy for accumulating junk (hence the fact we've got stuff laying on it despite I can't stand it ... it's just too convenient). I haven't decided what's going in that big useless "window" between the kitchen and dining room, although the Dread Reverend had a really awesome idea involving water that I'd like to explore.

We're going to replace the carpet too, with something lighter in color. I initially wanted something like stone tile, but the Dread Reverend's all about a low, close-weave carpet. I don't think I have an issue with that (it might help with warming up the room in winter), and it shouldn't cost much at all since it's such a small room.

So - paint, a door, carpet, and something with that shelf. Then we can start on phase 2 - banquette seating, and a display area for my mom's china.

There's every chance that the room which was initially my least favorite in the house could well end up being one of my favorites - at least initially, because it'll be the room that I get to completely re-do to our own personal tastes, wall to wall. Most of the other rooms, for the time being I'm still stuck with at least certain elements of the former owners' decorating style. Like the wallpaper all through the downstairs. Yeah, it's all nice wallpaper, no hideous ugly patterns, but it's not what I'd choose. Eventually we'll replace it, but not right away, so for now I have to decorate around it.

But that dining room is going to be totally our own creation. It's going to go from hate to love in very short order.

Done ... Done!!! ... DONE!!!

First, thanks Lisa! Yeah, having a kitchen in the Imaginarium opens up a lot of possibilities ... being able to clean up after my messy self ... a stove for experimenting with teas, candle making, soap making ... oh yeah. :o) I considered getting rid of the stove, but we didn't, mostly due to not knowing what to do with it. Now I'm glad I kept it. It does desperately need the faucet either repaired or replaced, but that's a down-the-road project.

Getting your own Imaginarium will be great! I was more than willing to accept just a single room, but we just didn't happen to find a house that had the number of bedrooms we needed (that would have required 4) before we found this place, with the entire flipping apartment! So I lucked out, big time!

I'm terribly excited about the living room furniture! I just now looked at the pictures again, and just kind of went, "Sigh - oh wow!" Yeah, it's gonna be great!

But in bigger news ... we finally are done moving out of the old house! I'm both embarrassed and relieved to say that we just finished this past Saturday. We hauled the last stuff that's coming to the new house, and hauled out almost a dumpster full of garbage to the dumpster behind my office (permission aforehand, of course) so ... I'M DONE! Now I can just focus on this place.

I have to say, I was very concerned about feeling nostalgic and sad about leaving the old house for the last time. And under some circumstances, it could well have happened. I mean, as I said before, I lived there for 15 years ... but more than that, my dad was so involved with that place, doing so much there, and that's what I anticipated being most painful to leave.

But the cure for that was to drag out the moving for two freaking months. That made me so ready to be done with that place that it overshadowed all the painful nostalgia. When we were done, and I was leaving for what I knew was the last time, I did walk around briefly and kind of gave a nod of respect to the place, but ... it wasn't as big a deal as I was afraid it was going to be.

I'm sure that in time to come, I will remember the place with wonderful fondness, but I'm not going to "miss it" or be even remotely sad about leaving it anymore. It was a great place for me that served it's purpose well in it's time, but ... it was high time to move on.

I did get several things that were important to me. My dad bought me a miniature rose many years ago, not long after I moved into that house. It always did phenomenally well ... here's a picutre of it at the old house ...


... and I was determined to take it with me. Because it was small, it was easy, and I got it Saturday - we dug it up, brought it home, and planted it out front. I also got a few other gardeny things that came from my dad.

I was a little disappointed that I couldn't take more plants. My dad had bought and planted for me two holly bushes when I first moved in, which had grown to enormous proportions. I'd have liked to bring them, but they were just so huge, it would have been a major, major undertaking to try and move them. So I didn't. He also bought me a bunch of groundcover plants just a few years ago, which I'd have liked to have brought - but there were so many individual plants. There were some other things, too, that I wish I could have brought.

But ... I got the rose, I got the Santa (story there for later), I got the cedar planter barrel and a piece of the unfortunately deceased dogwood and the toad house, all of which my dad got me ... and I got the yard goose and garden frog my mom got me, as well as her garden gnome I got her ... and I'll be content with that.

After all ... my dad's the one who instilled in me a love of gardening (or in my case, a love of attempting to garden, I've never gotten very good at it). But I know what he loved ... petunias ... holly ... his apple trees ... and I can plant those things anew here, with him in mind.

Now that we're done "moving out," I can focus on "moving in." Tonight I went into a flurry of work on the living room. It has been more or less a storage facility since we moved in, but knowing the new furniture was coming (and ready to have a new place to hang out, besides the basement family room), I was ready to clean it out. So I did. I got almost all the stuff that was stashed there put where it goes, and it's mostly empty and ready for the new furniture!




The rocking chair (an antique) and the sea chest are staying. The table in front of the window is probably staying too, although I'm not sure it's staying where it is.

And while unpacking boxes, I found some surpises! It was kind of like Christmas in April!

I found a sort of party dish set, four dishes and four punch-type cups, all glass, the dishes looking like sunflowers ...


... it had to have been my mom's but I have no recollection of it, or where it came from. It's really cool, though. I also found this dish ...


... which is kinda cool. It's very heavy, thick glass. I'm sure both of the above are old, antiques even. This is both the joy and curse of unpacking stuff I didn't even know I had. On the one hand, it's beyond wonderful to finally have room for these treasures! Finally I can actually unpack them and have them in my life, instead of stashed away somewhere till I don't even know I have them! But on the down side, now that my mom and dad are gone, I have no idea where these things came from, their story ... and have no one to ask. That's a shame.

I also found 5 wooden wall sconces with glass hurricane-lamp style chimneys or globes, which are very cool.


I knew my mom had a few of those, but I didn't know there were so many! I especially like the ones on the left, it's not clear in this picture, but they have roses on the top, which I think will fit in well in the living room decor. I know there are two more packed away in storage that I do know the provenance of ... her brother got into woodworking after he retired, and he made them for her. They'll turn up eventually. But I'm not sure where these came from.

I also got the 'home office' moved to the spare room.


It's not done yet, but it's all in there, and that's a huge first step. I'm using the built-ins, and will have to figure out later what to do with my dad's desk, which is still in the living room.

So things are moving along wonderfully here.

And I'm psyched about some new projects, as well. I've been working diligently on my calligraphy - pictures some day! And I'm anxious to start working on my picture quilt wall hanging. I'm sad to say that for the moment, I've kind of lost interest in knitting ... but I don't think it's a permanent thing. I think it's just because moving opened up so many new possibilities that knitting that has just kind of taken a back seat for the time being.

I think that's all for now. The Dread Reverend is out of town for work till Thursday, which is partly what prompted my flurry of house work ... I'm bored and lonely. I'm sure I'll keep busy this week.

Furniture Frenzy Redux - It Pays To Shop Around

I know that whenever I make snap decisions without a 24-hour hold, I often have second thoughts, after the glamour of the moment has worn off and the dregs of reality are allowed to rise to the surface.

So we didn't actually buy that sofa and chair set I posted about the other day, but put a deposit on it, with the plan that I would sleep on it, then stop at one other local furniture store we hadn't been to yet to check out their selection, before finalizing anything.

It's a good thing I did. As many things as I liked about it, the following morning I had a couple concerns. One was the overall darkness of it - the dark brown leather was actually my least favorite part when we first looked at it. Also, even though I liked that the back had the large pillows, there was something about that which was bugging me as well - the fact that the large pillows were the only back to the couch (that you could see; the actual structural back was low, behind the pillows, and didn't show - which was just as well, as it was plain and not worth looking at anyway). I was also concerned that the chair wasn't a good match, scale-wise, to the sofa.

I still liked the set, style-wise it was exactly what we were looking for, and had we found nothing else, I'm sure I could have been happy with it - but it had a few down-sides.

But while checking out the last furniture store, we found something we liked even better. It had everything good that the other set had (they're almost identical in style), but without the flaws. It's not as dark, the dark brown leather is out and it's primarily a burgundy shade (a color we wanted to incorporate into the scheme anyway); the side chairs are better - more proportionately matched to the sofa; and while this one still uses the big pillows on the back, it actually has a back to it as well, and very pretty one - curvy with carved wooden accents, much more appropriate for the look we're after. Gives it a more balanced look, too.

As a bonus, both chair and sofa are more comfortable than the other set; it's a better name-brand of furniture; and the whole thing (sofa and 2 chairs) cost almost the same as the other set.

So, here they are:





Unlike the other sofa and chair, these are actually part of the same set. But we didn't get the tables that went with this set, so that we could have some more variety in our furnishings. And the seat cushions on the couch are reversible, so if we flip them over, they're solid burgundy on the other side, which will tone down the amount of gold paisley, and make the chair look more complementary than a twin. It also has more color variety in the pillows, rather than all of them being identical.

I love this set, and I definitely like it better than the other one - so it's good that I waited and shopped around a little. We got our deposit back from the other store, and went ahead and paid for and ordered this one - no 24 hour hold needed, I'd already done that and knew that this style was exactly what I wanted, and this particular set had none of the deficiencies of the first one. So it was a winner.

Now that we've made our choice, we know the exact direction the living room will be taking, and can start planning the rest of the theme. We have to work on window treatments - I wish I could have gotten a swatch of the fabric, because it's going to be hard to pick out any drapes or material without one - and a large rug for the seating area. We found one we liked at the furniture store, but wouldn't you know we picked one that wasn't technically for sale - it was one their decorator had bought to 'set a scene' for another furniture set. They said they'd ask whether or not they could sell it to us, and how much ... so we'll find that out on Monday. If so, that'll work out well; if not, then we'll keep looking. Rugs are ungodly expensive - one of the others we liked was $800. I didn't even pay that much for the sofa, I'm not paying that for a rug. We'll find something nice and reasonably priced.

And we need the coffee table - or cocktail table, or whatever they're called these days - but didn't see anything we liked at this store, so we'll have to keep looking for that as well.

I'm just so psyched! It's going to look so freaking phenomenal when it's all put together! At least one person looked at this picture and kind of went, "Oh. Yeah. That's, umm, nice." I understand - this style certainly isn't for everyone! And that's perfectly okay - it's not their house. ;o) I know that when that room is done, and I walk into the parlor of my 18th century sea captain's coastal home, it's going to be absolutely fantastic!

And thanks, Rhys - you think of everything. ;o)