Our Second Christmas in the House

This Christmas was a little different than last year. I decorated more, for one thing. We had more finished (or semi-finished) rooms. It was also nice to be able to do a lot of baking in the kitchen. Having a kitchen table again definitely helped! I think I made over 25 dozen cookies (some of which I brought around to our neighbors).

And this isn't even all of them! I think I made about twice as many as shown in this picture!

We (and by we I mean me) decided to change things up this year and put the tree in front of the front windows. I love being able to see the tree from the street (which you couldn't really do.. oh well.. you could see it a little!). I've also been wanting to try out a different furniture layout in the room. We moved the loveseat to in front of the fireplace. I like it. R doesn't. I think it makes the room feel larger. The only downside (according to me) is that the coffee table is a little awkward because of the tree.. it can't be centered on the couch, so it's just kinda hanging out in the middle of the room.

I especially loved being able to decorate in the kitchen. Last year at an after-Christmas sale we got these two artificial trees for $2 each. The garland was about $1.

I think this was one of my favorite things in the house this Christmas. I could never seem to get a really good picture of it though.. It looked awesome when all of the rest of the lights in the room were turned off though!

This year at an after-Christmas sale we bough some night pewter and white candles to put in the windows (for $1 each!). We're considering keeping them up all year long. There's another center chimney house across town that does this and I've loved it ever since I was little.

Weekend of Craziness #1

As you know, we have a Kitchen deadline. I made a schedule. It's taped to the cabinets in the Kitchen, to taunt us.

This weekend was Weekend #1. And it was pretty crazy. On the schedule for this weekend was "Finish the drywall in the Kitchen (under the windows and on the beams), patch/sand the drywall, install the window casing, paint the Living Room and finish the beadboard backsplash".

I was pretty angry last week because we went on a vacation/business trip (which is why we didn't get any work done last weekend) to Minnesota and when we got back I had a TON of work to catch up on. Which meant that I didn't have time to finish the paint removal in the Living Room. (Not angry about the trip, which was amazing... angry that I didn't get to finish everything in time..) So before the weekend started we were already behind (I was going to have my SILs paint all the Living Room trim and woodwork).

But, we still managed to get a lot done. Not everything on the schedule, but still a lot.

By the end of the weekend, we managed to get the drywall up on one vertical beam (only one left to go!), and under the windows. The fireplace got two more coats of paint, plus the cabinet door got painted. The casing of the door opening between the Hall/Living Room and Kitchen got painted. The casing of the Dining Room opening got painted. 80% of the walls got patched, sanded and primed. The disconnected electrical outlet from under the windows got removed. The door to the stairs got scraped and taken down. The chicks got updated nesting boxes (they destroyed the ones I put in a couple weeks ago.. the new ones are screwed into the shelf.. they're Gladys-proof!). And the lawn got cut (it looked like we had a lawn service.. two lawn mowers going at once!).

Pretty successful weekend, even though we didn't finish everything on the schedule. We did do some stuff that was on there on other days though, so I think it evens out. I don't mind that the Living Room didn't get done. That was my fault, because of Minnesota and work. Couldn't be avoided. And the Living Room technically isn't part of the Big Schedule of October 2011. So who cares. It can be done in November.

We could have definitely gotten more done if we had been home last weekend to do some of this. We had 2 (3 on Saturday) extra helpers, but most of the time we didn't have any work for them because we had to wait for other stuff to happen first. Like, if we could have done the drywall and sanding, and/or the window trim last weekend, they could have helped me paint it all this weekend.

I have to say though... on Saturday we were all amazed by the Hall/Living Room opening casing.. it being white now (as opposed to half stained, half plain wood like it has been) made a huge difference! But that was nothing compared to white, primed walls by Sunday afternoon! It finally looks like we're almost there!

And on top of all that, we managed to go to two fairs, watch TV, have a nice big breakfast and wash and put away all the dishes from the whole weekend. We're pretty awesome :)

Paint Removal

While R was being a weekend electrician, I was removing paint. With my mom's voice in my head saying "the house needs to look different!!", I decided now was also the time to FINALLY finish the Living Room! Last fall, my sisters-in-law came to visit and the three of us painted the Living Room. We painted the trim white and picked a paint color on impulse for the walls (which I now love!). However, while they were painting the crown molding and summer beam, I was examining the door and window trim, and fireplace. They were not in good shape. They were beat up, scratched, dented and had many layers of paint glopped on them. After asking everyone's opinion and R trying to see if we could sand it, we decided to work around them for now and I'd remove the paint another day. Because the paint is crackling on the window sills in a way that makes me think it is lead paint, I decided to be cautious. I bought something called Peel Away 1 from Home Depot, which says it's a safe way to remove lead paint (or any paint). It removes up to 33 layers of paint in one application. You spread the paste onto the surface, then cover it with the supplied paper and leave it for up to 24 hours. Then come back and peel away the paper and all of the paint goes with it. It's a safe way to remove  lead paint because it contains it and you don't get any dust in the air. However..... reading the label scared me. It basically said you needed to be wearing a Haz-Mat suit while using it. The directions made it seem like your skin would burst into flames if you even looked directly at it. So I kept putting it off. I asked R if he would do the test spot, so I could see what it was like. But, another thing the directions said was that you should wear long pants, long sleeves and gloves, and tape your sleeves and pant legs around your wrists/ankles. It was way too hot here in the summer to do that. And in the winter it was too cold so we couldn't have the windows open to get rid of the smell. So I decided to wait until it was cooler. Enter this weekend.

The label was full of crap. Not that you should ignore safety precautions, but I accidentally got some of the paste on my finger and I was fine. Everything I read online said that it would instantly burn you, but I didn't feel anything. I washed it off and was fine. I started with the fireplace mantle. It took me about 45 minutes to get the paste on there and then apply the paper. It's definitely not a quick job! I had hoped to get the whole fireplace done in that time.

Sunday morning I applied the paste to the surround right below the mantle. R kept calling me needing my help with pulling wire through walls, turning off breakers, etc. I'd be gone for 5 minutes and come back and all of the paste had slid down to the bottom. So I'd curse him and try it again. A couple hours later, I was done with that section. I was too tired to move on to the sides, so I took a break and went outside to put together some nesting boxes for the hens. When I came back, all of the paste and paper had slid down to the bottom. I said forget it (the top 2 or 3 inches were left uncovered now).

I got to work removing the paper on the mantle. It was amazing! It left a mess.... but underneath the nasty black goop was pretty wood (I was this close to changing my mind and staining it. Then I remember that 1) I don't like that look and 2) it doesn't fit with our house).

This is what's left after you peel away the paper. According to the company, it's the chemicals liquefying the paint.

After scraping off some of the goop, you're suppose to use a scrubber (I used a Scotch-Brite pad) to scrape away the gray... I don't know what and what ever paint is left on the surface. Then using a squirt bottle and a paper towel, I washed away the gray stuff. It is extremely messy!! But the finished result is awesome!

I had to go back and re-do that section in front (I tried removing the paper earlier than 24 hours... I think that was around 18 hours or so... it was obviously too soon. It removed not even half of the paint, whereas the full 24 hours on the other side removed basically all of the paint).

My sisters-in-law are coming to visit in a week and a half and I'm trying to have all the paint removed by then so we can finish up this room. At the rate I'm going, I'm not sure if I'm going to make it. I'm hoping the door and window trim will be easier and quicker.

A Hodgepodge of Work

June has been a very busy month for us. Nothing huge got completed. We did do a little bit here and a little bit there though.

Every weekend since Memorial Day has either been filled with family obligations, rain or very humid weather. So really no change on the back sidewalk, other than yesterday. I spent a couple hours in the afternoon digging out the grass in the area where the sidewalk will be.

I finished painting the Twilight Room... I just need to get in there and take some pictures now. It rained for days after I finished painting it so I used those days to move some furniture in and unpack some boxes.. which means it's now a mess and not ready for pictures.

Yesterday morning I spent about an hour weeding our front walk. It's something that kept getting ignored because everyone knows to use our back door, not the front. So the sidewalk has been unseen and forgotten. It looks a lot nicer now... like someone actually lives here. I'm too embarrassed to show a picture of what it looked like before! Yea, it's nothing special now and will be replaced sometime in the future, but at least it's not overgrown anymore. While I was weeding I did get to enjoy a little show. I heard a ton of sirens at the end of the street and a couple seconds later about 15 state police motorcycles came down the street, followed by about 10 EMS motorcycles. Then about 50 (most likely more) more motorcycles came down the street. It was a huge motorcycle parade. Not sure where they were going. One guy's motorcycle broke down right in front of our house, so he and a bunch of his friends were out there for awhile trying to fix it. In the end another guy came and loaded the bike into his truck.

We've also been working on the drywall in the Kitchen (good rainy day work). Because everything is so un-level in the house it's tough to work on the drywall... do we make it straight or do we keep it un-level like everything else? The sanding is the worst thing in the world.. sanding takes place on the weekends, but during the week I need my Kitchen to cook in. Which means that I have to move everything out of the Kitchen on the weekends and then back in on Monday morning. It's getting old.

We also finally chose our Kitchen floor, which is exciting! Hopefully we'll be buying that soon!

I've also been busy doing some unpacking. And by unpacking I mean filling up the Twilight Room closet with all of my office stuff. I came to the conclusion yesterday that I don't think I'll ever in my life need to purchase any pens or pencils.. I have more than enough for a small country.

We also discovered why the Kitchen fireplaces turns into a waterfall every time it rains. Turns out the cover over the chimney broke during the winter and has a huge huge hole in it.

Getting back to work..

Due to Christmas, we haven't been getting much work done in the house lately. Which is a little disappointing. But we're too busy, and family comes first.

Thanks to a beautiful blizzard (our first in the house) this weekend, and Christmas being over, we did get some work done, finally! Today I did some more unpacking in the Kitchen and Living Room, and Ryan installed the new knobs on our bedroom built in cabinetry. We also decided to re-use the existing cabinet "locks" (basically just a small piece of hardware that flips over to keep the cabinet doors shut). We were both a little concerned about the doors (especially the ones in front of the fireplace) opening. So we decided that we'd just spray paint them to match the new knobs. That was when we discovered this on the back:

February 27, 1843

While unpacking more Kitchen stuff (I seriously think I own every single Kitchen item ever made!), I also cleaned up a bit. Because we've been so busy, I never really cleaned the countertops up after R was working on the beadboard 2 weeks ago. So I cleaned up all of the dust and tools he left behind, and unpacked some of my countertop items (spice rack, knives, utensil holder, etc). It actually looks like a real Kitchen now! Who knew that all it took was a spice rack!

Our House's "First" Christmas Tree

Ok ok... It's not the house's "First" tree... the house has most likely had more than a couple Christmas trees... but it's the house's first tree with us!


We have what we think is a large Living Room, but unfortunately, it's all filled up with furniture, windows and doors. So where would one put a Christmas tree? We had plenty of room for it in the Kitchen or Dining Room, but we wanted it to be somewhere where we'd get to really enjoy it. So that means we had to be able to see it from the Living Room. It was either move furniture around, or put it in front of the already blocked off fireplace. Fireplace it is.

Us with the tree, freshly cut

We have a very heavy duty tree stand (I've had way too many ornaments broken by falling trees in the past... this isn't something we do lightly!), so we weren't too concerned about the tree falling. It was gonna hold up the tree. Well, that in addition to the huge piece of plywood and half a bag of shims. The back of the hearth is raised up from the floor (which is at a huge angle at this part of the room) a couple inches. It looks hilarious... luckily my mom had our tree skirt pieced enough for us to use. The plywood was really tacky looking (you can see it in this picture a little bit)!

Kitchen Fireplace

Most design decisions for the house have come to me pretty easily. However, the Kitchen fireplace is driving me crazy. I love it so much... but can't decide if I want to paint it white, like the cabinets, doors, and trim/casing, or if I want to paint it a colonial, dusty blue. I would also paint the built in cabinet the same color as the fireplace.

From James Kroll Fine Woodworking website

From Covenant Kitchens

We work a lot with Covenant Kitchens for work... and there is a display cabinet similar to the one above in their showroom that I love. I think the color is very colonial, and would fit with the style/age of the house.

From Covenant Kitchens

I feel like adding a new color for these two elements would help break up the amount of white in the room, and help make the eating area more cozy. 

I did this quick rendering of the fireplace and cabinet in blue.. the walls will be yellow and the trim will be white. What do you think? Blue? White? I need to make a decision soon... it needs to be painted soon!!

My Office

I am always on my computer. Whether it's working on house designs, work, blogging, or just for fun, I'm always using it. In our old apartment my office consisted of my laptop and the couch. In our guest bedroom I had a table set up with some of my craft supplies, but that was such a multi-purpose room, the table was always covered with other stuff.


The day we first viewed this house, I fell in love with this room and knew it would someday be my office. 

It was perfect! It has a central location, beautiful view out the windows, a built-in bookcase and a fireplace! And it's the only room in the house that has the potential for lots of bookcases. The only downside is that it was pretty dark and ratty looking. Even without the curtains on the windows, it was dark. 

Luckily the wallpaper came off pretty easily. A helper and I took it all down in about 2 hours. We peeled off the grass layer, and then using spray bottles got the bottom layer wet, which made it peel right off. The walls underneath were pretty disgusting though. Aside from the wall with the windows, they were all newer drywall (when I say newer I mean from the '50's), but were stained and had a lot of holes. The wall to the left of the windows (seen in the next picture) was very poorly installed, and was very squishy.

We originally thought the wallpaper in this room was going to be the hardest in the house. The grass was so thick, and at first, didn't peel off nicely. But then we had the pleasant surprise of it being a piece of cake. Well, it came back to bite me when I started to paint. Before painting each wall I had to first wash it down with TSP, then sand the little bits and pieces of wallpaper left behind, then wash it again, then fill in the holes with putty, then sand again. THEN I could paint.

I decided to paint the trim, beams and fireplace surround a nice bright white. I love rooms with natural light, and the lighter the colors, the more reflective the light is. I used Glidden Semi-Gloss White. I made the mistake of not using any primer. The trim color didn't seem dark enough that I would need it. It took 4 or 5 coats of white to cover the yellowy-tan color. The paint on the beams was peeling and needed to be sanded, but I was a little worried it was lead paint. We bought a $9.95 lead paint test (good for 3 tests) at Home Depot, and it came out negative.

The color I chose for the walls is Lowe's La Fonda Mirage. It doesn't photograph 100% accurately, but it looks great in the room. Especially with the natural light shining on it. Because the wall underneath wasn't white (more of an off-white tan color with stains), in some areas it took two coats, but not everywhere. I was very impressed by the paint. The only downside was that because it took so long to prepare the walls and paint the trim (which I needed to do before painting the walls), I waste a lot of paint. I used up the entire gallon of paint on this tiny room and I still wasn't done! But luckily Lowe's sells those small sample bottles of paint, so I got two of those and only ended up needing half of one.

We still need to paint behind the radiator, but I skipped that for now because we're planning on having the radiator replaced because it leaks. A lot. The wall behind the radiator still has old wallpaper, which was on the walls before the grass wallpaper. We can't get behind it without disturbing the already leaking radiator. But for now, I just put my table in front of it and you hardly notice it.

The room is far from being finished (I need bookcases, more tables, filing cabinets, curtains, a rug, stuff on the walls...), but it's my favorite room in the house so far. I often find myself staring at the room from other rooms.. I just love it, especially in the morning! I didn't get a chance to clean the fireplace yet (there's a lot of smoke damage, and about $10 in pennies, inside the fireplace), but just the trim being repainted makes it looks so much cleaner and fresh.

Back to the Office

I wish I could fast forward to this office being done. I love being in the space, it's going to be a great office. It's so bright in there now! Especially in the morning. Getting all of the old furniture and books out of the room and just the little bit of paint I have so far has made a huge difference! It'll be a nice open space to walk through and work in.

After today, this is what I have accomplished... slowly but surely I'm making some progress.. I love how the fireplace and bookcase look painted white. The top picture is one of my favorites.. I love the white, blue-green and brick together. 

Kitchen Demo Day 1

Our Kitchen extends for about 3/4 of the back half of the house. That's a pretty large Kitchen. But it doesn't feel big. In fact it feels small, dark and cramped. Today, we took the first step toward fixing that.

To give you a better idea of what we're working with here, this is what we have. We have half of the Kitchen as an eat-in breakfast area. I love this part of the Kitchen. I've always wanted to have a Kitchen table. This half of the Kitchen has two large windows, a HUGE fireplace, plenty of room for a large Kitchen table, a built-in cabinet with shelves and cabinet doors below, plus the door to the back stairs and an opening into the hall. The other half of the Kitchen has all of the appliances and cabinets, two more smaller windows, an opening to the Dining Room and a Dutch door that leads to the backyard.


Separating the two areas is this:

The bane of my existence. I hate this thing! It ruins my big Kitchen! And it's so old and gross. The cabinets don't have any shelves in them, and open on both sides. Half of the drawers open on one side, and the other half open on the other side. All are filled with garbage, papers, phone books, tools, bowls, plastic silverware.. And it's right next to the door, so after struggling to open that pain of a door, you feel squished and cramped as you enter the house. And this is the door we will be using on a daily basis. It (the cabinet, well, the door too) had to go. Sure, someone back in the 50's thought it was a great idea. It's a tough Kitchen for cabinetry because there are so many windows and doors, and the only long wall is taken up by the cooking fireplace.

Goodbye. Good riddance. It was pretty easy to take down.. the only problem was a stray crowbar making a hole in the ceiling, but that's easy to fix. It was the top of the cabinet that was the most disgusting.. it was covered in about 60 years of dust, dirt and mouse poop. No wonder the Kitchen smells so bad!

Since they were on such a roll, the guys decided to also take down some of the other upper cabinets and cabinet doors off of the lower cabinets to make Demo Day Part 2 easier. We also learned how the mice had been getting into the Kitchen (though lucky we haven't been graced by their presence (knock on wood), they left plenty of evidence that they had been there in the past). The corner pantry cabinet had a hole in the floor beneath it that had been cut to run wiring up from the basement to an outlet on the corner post. A mouse (mice) had been squeezing through the hole next to the wire, and in doing so had frayed the wire. So unsafe! Good thing we saw this before we ever used this outlet! This wiring also went to the stove, which was plugged in so we could use the clock on it. That also got unplugged.