"Did We Slaughter A Goat In Here?" and Other Matters

Whew! Back from a week of camping in the Adirondacks, and we're back in full swing house mode!

While we were gone, our friendly neighborhood contractor came and fixed a few problems around the house. Most were not photo-worthy, however two of the changes he made are quite noteworthy. The stairs leading to the second story of our house were barely staying together, so he took the whole thing out and replaced it all.

Just to give you an idea of what the stairs

have looked like since we moved in.

What the contractor was able to do :)

What my mom-in-law and I were able

to do with some stain and polyurethane.

Sooooo much better, yes? The steps don't squeak or pop anymore; on the contrary, you are unable to hear anything moving up or down the stairs. We're not entirely done; I still need to put another coat of poly on the steps, and we need to fashion some trim pieces for the sides, but all of the major work has been completed on these. Dan and I are thinking about putting a strip of carpeting down the middle, mostly because he's worried about me falling down the steps while pregnant or (later on) carrying a child in my arms. He has a point, but I feel like it is a shame to cover up much of our beautiful new stairs. 

Our contractor was also able to fix our outside basement access. Currently, the door is rotted and not sealing, so when we get a good rain, water runs into the basement through the cracks in the door. We haven't replaced the door yet (need to special order one b/c it's an odd size), but Alan was able to build us a cement frame so we can get a bilco door of sorts over top of it.

We'll be getting the hinges and handle on 

next weekend. Looking forward to a 

basement that won't be so wet!

Dad-in-law put some glass panels in our Amish porch door. Not only do they look pretty, but they light up that whole corner of the house. Immediately opposite the door are our new stairs, and it is so nice to be able to see where to put your feet now! Not nearly the cave that it was before :)

So pretty!

All of these are things that other people have been doing to our house. What have I been doing? More staining and polyurethaning. Now before you cry foul and ask what I am doing 21 weeks pregnant using terrible chemicals, please know that I took every precaution, took many fresh air breaks and had the approval of the baby doctor before I began. Once the new stairs went in, we thought it would be best to get them stained and sealed as quickly as possible 1) to prevent any nasty permanent stains or marks and 2) to get it done before I got to big to do it! And while we were at it, Daniel and I decided that it would be a good time to stain the bathroom doors we had already hung on the master bathroom. After a few days of testing colors to see what might work best with our "fire floors" upstairs, we chose a color and I began my work. 

Before.

After.

Once again, I'm not quite done with these yet. The door on the left only has one coat of poly, and the door on the right has two coats. I'm shooting for three coats on each to help tone down the red color with a little bit of brown - so far so good. We are also thankful that we've waited to tile this floor because after using all that red stain and poly, the cardboard floor looks like we performed blood sacrifices in the bathroom.

Up next week; more of the same. I'll be finishing the stairs and bathroom doors, and hopefully moving on to sanding down the old bedroom doors we just got back from Lark. Gotta make sure this baby has a room with a door to move into when he arrives!

Bits And Pieces

June has rolled around again, and with it has come the summer heat. We're getting the ball rolling on some summer projects, both indoor and outdoor.

This weekend we played a game of "Where is the septic tank?" with a backhoe. We had no clue where it was, and the pipes coming out of the house were not much help in indicating a direction. It was eventually found, but not before turning a good 30 feet behind the house from grass to dirt. All of the rock picking over the past month was for naught. My heart broke a little.

We were also able to discover the reason for the large wet spot in the lawn, right where the chicken coop was buried. Turns out the grey water pipe for the septic ran UNDER the coop, and when it was buried, the pipe broke and leaked a lot of water on the surface. Many thanks to our friends in the backhoe who found the pipe and dug a new leech field for us! No more stanky water in the yard!

And since they were there for the day, we were able to get our drain spout pipes buried in the lawn. Now when it rains, the water will run off into the yard and gravel beds, instead of into the basement.

The last thing we did (again, with the help of heavy machinery), was dig a 100 foot long trench from our well to the barn. Dave wanted to run electric and water to the barn so that someday we can rent out boarding and pasture space for horses.

Now we'll just need to plant grass seed everywhere, and pray that it can get established before autumn comes!

Speaking of planting...

Garden, hurray! I've got beans, broccoli, 

beets, cucumbers, zucchini, and peas.

Daniel and I were able to finish the tile in our downstairs bathroom in one weekend. Such a difference from working on the kitchen floor!

It really is a tiny room - not more than 30 square feet.

We both liked the marble white/grey tile with purple accent

rugs. It turned out pretty well!

All the bathroom needs now is a coat of paint and some baseboard, and it will be officially complete. Hopefully we'll get it done before the baby comes in November! We still have one more major tiling project; the master bathroom. Admittedly, I am putting it off for a little while because I am thoroughly sick of laying tile, but we're gonna have to do it in the next few months.

I've been working on a door for one of the upstairs rooms. Since I am pregnant, I'm not allowed to use paint stripper on the doors, so we've been taking them to a local company that strips the old paint of and passes them back to us. I could not believe what a nice job they did!

From doors with 3-5 layers of lead paint...

To beautiful hardwood with polyurethane. 

I am in love with my old doors!

I've been working on this one for a few weeks, on and off. I sanded it, front and back twice and then put three coats of poly on it. I can't wait to get the rest of the doors back so I can make them look just as awesome! I'm also on the hunt for some restoration rim locks to use as latches. Maybe next time I post, I'll be able to show you a completed door, hanging in one of the bedrooms.

Dan and I will be in the Adirondacks for a brief vacation in the next few weeks. While we are gone, we've got our old contractor coming in to do a few projects, and I'll be sure to post some before/after photos of his work. 

Growing Things

Just looking at the pictures from my last post, and the now green and beautiful view out my window is an incredible reminder of how much has changed in just a few weeks. The weather continues to be warm and breezy, so Daniel and I decided that it was time to do some planting.

Before we get to that, check out some of the blooms from our yard!

My old apple tree in the back yard.

The bees were swarming for days around these blossoms!

Front yard crab apple - not very shapely, but the pink

made me reconsider cutting the whole thing down.

Just beautiful!

Tall phlox along an old barbed wire fence.

Does anyone know what kind of tree this is?

We have two of them in the back yard.

It's blossoms look almost like a strawberry. I wish it

was a strawberry tree!

Most of you know that I grew up on a "retired" dairy farm. We didn't have any animals, but my Mom and Dad had gardens and berry patches galore. Is it really any surprise that I wanted these at my new home?

I started my own garden inside. We didn't have the ground plowed or tilled for a garden at the time, so I got the ball rolling inside. I have broccoli, butternut squash, peas, cucumbers and zucchini. I'm praying that I have the "green gene" that helps me to grow healthy plants; so far, so good!

I really, Really, REALLY love to eat berries. Since I was spoiled with blueberry and raspberry patches at home, I decided to start my own. Easier said than done, but between Daniel and I, we got everything in the ground that we ordered.

Raspberry plants! Digging out the sod was really

difficult, but we managed to get space for 9 plants.

Really, only three of them are showing any signs of

growth, but it is a start!

Meh, a little difficult to see, but there are two blueberry

bushes. They are growing well, and have many buds

and leaves on them now. 

That's better :)

Hopefully over the next few years we will be able to plant more fruit stems and bushes. I'd really like to be as self-sufficient as possible. It's exciting being able to take a few steps in that direction!

Aaaannd, speaking of growing things, I'm growing a baby! Dan and I are looking forward to being parents sometime around Thanksgiving. I'm almost 14 weeks in at this point, having no ill effects (other than being really tired all the time), and I really don't plan on slowing things down until I can't move. So much to do around the house and inside the house, now that we are looking at a November deadline. 

And the excitement continues next time :)

I'd Rather Be Outside...

I told myself that I would wait for a rainy day to write a post. Incredibly, I've had to wait for quite a while! The weather has been nothing short of spectacular here in western PA, and I've been spending every moment I can in the great sunny outdoors of our back yard.

I'm really excited just to HAVE a back yard!

Most of the work I've been doing outside hasn't been photo worthy. Picking up sticks and pruning trees, well... not horribly exciting stuff. I'll put up some pictures once the apple trees bloom :)

Like I said, my work outdoors has not been worth a photo, but there are some major landscaping changes that have taken place over the past few weeks.

My most excellent and industrious father-in-law decided it was time to clear some of the woods that separated our home from his front yard. There is a lovely little mess of a copse of trees, grape vines brush, thorns and barbed wire that really needed a good purging. I went through and marked all of the trees that we wanted to keep - mostly ancient apple trees and some solid hickory trees - and Dad and Daniel took out much of the rest.

Still needs some work, but already it is 10x better

than it was before. 

The biggest change in scenery happened directly in back of our house. We woke up to the sound of a bulldozer one morning last week, and in a matter of hours, the ugly pile of junk and fallen chicken coop  had disappeared. 

Before.

Going...

Going....

Gone!!!

In it's place, we  have a large patch of bare earth. So much nicer to look at than the remains of a chicken coop! One of my future endeavors will be to pick rocks out of this area; I'm not really looking forward to this part, but if it means we can get it seeded and growing grass before the end of the summer, I'll do it!

We FINALLY finished tiling our kitchen floor - this was a week long project that took a month, thanks to the stomach flu, a back that was thrown out of place, the wrong color grout (please tell me why I would want the grout on my floor to be the color of a pumpkin...), and other such fun factors. It's done though, and we are no longer living out of a mini fridge from Dan's college days.

Dan makes incredibly straight lines - so glad that he

was good at that!

Finished! I posted this picture on Facebook, and was

amazed at how many people liked it, or commented

on it. It was great to know that friends and family

thought we did a good job :)

Now that the tile is finished, Dan and I were able to bring in a pretty neat piece of furniture. My Oma gave it to me last year, and it's been waiting to get into the house. Behold, my kitchen hoosier!

History lesson: these were very popular in the early 

20th century. Used to hold baking implements and 

things like spices, flour and sugar. Companies actually

made glass jars and canisters to fit these specific units. 

I'm not cool enough to have any, but I have this, and I

love it!

Kind of a neat story behind this piece. Early on in my Oma and Opa's marriage, my Opa took a job helping someone to renovate their kitchen. Rather than taking home a paycheck, he asked if he could take this hoosier home instead, because he knew Oma would really like it. It was given to him, and it's been in their kitchen for close to 50 years. Now it is in my kitchen! I still need to give it a good cleaning with oil soap, but it is in wonderful condition, and I am thrilled to have it in my home.

Speaking of furniture....

My sister-in-law decided to give me a 

birthday present 5 months early. I fell in

love with this chair at a consignment shop

but was unable to afford it at the time. Amy

brought it to me a few weeks later. It fits me

perfectly! All I need is an end table to keep

my drink and sewing box near me.

We inherited some porch furniture from my mom and

dad in law. Yeah, we're THAT couple with the two chairs

on the porch :)

Next on the house agenda are the bathroom floors. More tile. Ugh. First we're going to take some time getting some smaller things done around the house and yard, like buying floor registers and making gardens. I plan on staying outside as much as I can!

Like A Boss: Vegas, Closet Happiness and Polyurethane

I'm pretty sure that winter makes me depressed. For the past few months, all I have wanted to do was curl up on my patchy couch with a cup of tea and watch television. Being unemployed, that is what I ended up doing a lot, even though I've had a "to do" list that is pages long. Meh. I love snow, but I hate the sunshine-less days between November and March. 

The good news is that I am finally coming out of the winter funk, and things are finally starting to happen!

I was able to take one of those trip-of-a-lifetime vacations early in February to see my best friend in Las Vegas. We ended up staying in downtown Vegas for a few days, seeing the sights, visiting casinos and becoming good friends with Fat Tuesdays :) We finished up my week there at her house baking cookies, watching movies and eating amazing food that her mom made. So much fun! I loved Nevada with its beautiful mountains and warm February temperatures!

Self-explanatory :)

Bellagio Fountains

Couple of classy ladies hanging in Vegas

I took a picture with the worst Elvis impersonator 

that we found, lol. 

Red Rock Canyon, NV. I could have stayed there

all day.

On to house-ish items of note.

While I was in Las Vegas, my Dad-in-law and husband hung up our upstairs bathroom doors. They still don't have knobs, but the bathroom privacy level is slowly increasing :)

We are waiting to stain these doors until

we find out what the really old doors will do

with stain/polyurethane.

We decided to start working on our master bedroom closet, mostly because I was really sick of having to dig through suitcases and boxes to find clothes. That, and the cat decided that it would be fun to break our drying rack, which had all of Daniel's work clothes hanging on it, and I wasn't about to start ironing clothes if I could help it (I know, I'm a terrible housewife).

Before.

During - the boards are snap-together flooring. Thank

you Mrs. Sickinger for teaching me to put this stuff

together when I was in high school!

After. We bought Rubbermaid mobile

wire shelving from Lowes. Finally a

place to hang our clothes!

This past weekend Daniel and I went to visit my Oma in Rochester NY. We weren't able to make it for Christmas, so we were due for a visit. Before we left on Friday, I broke out the cans of polyurethane and gave our living room and dining room floors a second coat. I would just like to say that I am a boss when it comes to this stuff. Seriously. I am really good.

Coat #2, and I think we are done for a long time.

One of the projects that is inevitably going to take the most time is the restoration of the old doors for the bedrooms. We are trying to keep 4 of the original doors from the house. When I say original, I mean that these guys are from the late 1800's, and they are still in fantastic condition. Removing the paint and stain has proved to be a challenge so far. 

This is the result of my Mom-in-law's labours

over the past few months. Four layers of paint/stain

have almost been removed from the door. I've started to

work on this one a bit while she is at work.

After two hours hours of sanding, there is still a long

way to go on this one. And this is only one side!

Honestly, I'm just hoping that the ridiculous amount of work is worth it. We're going to finish up this door, try out some stain/poly on it and pray that it doesn't look like our "fire floors" upstairs. 

Last of all, a picture of Tigon, just because everyone needs a cute cat picture now and again :)

Starting Off The New Year Right

The holidays have come and gone, and with the beginning of the new year, we are starting to work on the inside of our house. It is definitely a work in progress, but things are starting to come together. No major renovations, but we're getting down to the details.

Finally purchased doorknobs for our downstairs doors! We searched for old-looking knobs that would fit on modern doors and wouldn't break our budget. I stumbled across a website - lookintheattic.com - they had just what we were looking for  in terms of restoration hardware. So many pretty things! I could have purchased hundreds of items from them. We'll definitely be buying more once we get to working on other parts of our house.

Daniel is very pleased to have office doors that latch,

and I am happy to have at least one bathroom with a locking door!

I've finally finished restoring the old coat stand that we found in the barn. Took me many sheets of sandpaper and more than a few coats of polyurethane, but I am pretty pleased.

Before.

After.

It is really beautiful! Turns out it was hand cut and shaped, as is evidenced by a number of rough chisel marks on parts of it. It's very old, and I love it! I had a minor freak-out moment after I put the first coat of polyurethane on it, because the wood turned pink. Seriously, it was a dark pink! After previous experiences with wood turning funny colors, I was ready to toss in the towel and never touch old wood again. Dad figured out that the stand was made of red oak, giving it a pink color. Thankfully after the subsequent coats of polyurethane, it didn't look so bad. 

Had to replace most of the old hooks - they were rusted pretty badly.

Not quite as fun as the old ones, but they look pretty good!

If you look closely, you can see chisel marks on the

horizontal piece between the hooks. So cool!

Next up is the master bedroom closet. It needs a floor and trim, as well as places to hang clothes. Right now, half of our clothes are in the suitcases or boxes that we put them in when we moved. It is high time to put this to rights!