Fits and Starts and Moving a Building

It's been months since I've written here.  I still think of things I want to share all the time but not having the time and brainpower to make it happen trips me up and my intentions are abandoned almost immediately.  But writing is good for me even if I can't share all that I hope to so I'm going to try to ease myself back into things.  Bear with me, please.

We have a couple big projects going on around here all in anticipation of an even bigger project which at some point I hope to share a little bit about.  One of our pre-project projects (got that?) required us to move our smoke house to another location on our property.  This used to be a hog farm many, many years ago and the smoke house was used to smoke the pork as well as other meats, I imagine.  When we moved here (about 13 years ago), we replaced the floor and turned it into our attic since there is not a good way to access our actual attic. Unfortunately, we've never used it as an smoke house.

In order to move it, Jamey used car jacks to raise the building and created a frame underneath it which the building was then attached to.  This frame extended out the front and additional braces were put in place to allow the smoke house to be pulled when rollers were placed underneath.

We hoped the smoke house wouldn't come apart in the process.  A friend and neighbor came over with his front end loader (I think that's what it's called) and with the help of another neighbor (who helped move rollers), the building was rolled halfway to its new home.  At this point, it came off its rollers but was able to be turned and pushed (bucket against frame) into position.

We think it looks awfully sweet in its new spot. Since then, Jamey has jacked it up again, set it on proper posts and laid a dry stone skirt with some of the stones from its original foundation.  He's also started on its front porch.  For now, it's still our attic but one day we hope to move the stuff out and add a couple windows.  Our girls have dreams of turning it into a one room school house.

Summer Activity Idea for Kids:  Move an old building on your property and let your kids dig underneath.  It provides hours of entertainment as they unearth broken pottery, a few coins, lots of broken glass (which, thankfully isn't very sharp any more), and old bottles.  We even found a porcelain doll leg and a round glass (ACME Nursing) baby bottle.  Summer boredom, be gone!  Well, at least for a few days until there's no more to dig up.

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Projects & Buried Treasure

Warm days have lured us outside.  What a gift! The girls have been very busy re-establishing their outdoor world of houses (in trees and on the ground), a bakery, play fire pit, hideout as well as new and improved baby transportation.

We've been working inside for some better mudroom organization.  Jamey built and I painted.  Using plywood for much of it kept costs down and cheap storage bins hide the hats, gloves and bike helmets.

For Christmas, we gave Sam a metal detector.  He can't go a couple feet on our property without finding metal but most of his finds have been nails, stakes, a few wheat pennies and plenty of canslaw (detector-speak for shredded cans and metal).  BUT a couple weeks ago, not a few yards from our back porch, he unearthed this:

Makes sense since it is thought that our house was built in the 1890's.  I've hinted that my birthday is coming up and I could really use an antique ruby necklace or some Confederate gold.  He said he'd see what he can do.

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A Less Expensive Flooring Option

I think a little while back I told you that we were done with home improvement projects for awhile. That was funny.  I meant it at the time but...

You all know there's going to be a back-story here, right?  Am I ever able to just post something without one?  Well, in true back-story form, let me try to explain why I think I find it so important to provide back-stories.  When I had a job outside the home, I worked as a clinical social worker at at psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents.  One of my responsibilities was to write a comprehensive social history on each child on my caseload to present to the rest of the patient's treatment team.  It was the child's back-story.  It started with their mother's pregnancy, included early development, their health, school history, family history, history of abuse, behavioral problems, living situations, history of treatment, medications, etc.  All these pieces mattered in that they would help the psychiatrist, psychologist, nurses and behavioral staff better understand, relate to and treat the child.

While I'm not working there anymore, I find that this mentality of helping people understand through back-stories is how I communicate...and evidently how I write.  So, while some of you may roll your eyes and think, "Oh, Jane, just get to the point!" back-stories are my way of attempting to communicate to you lovelies in a more meaningful way. So now, back to the back-story.

When we bought our house, the play room (a room right off the mudroom) had just been re-carpeted. It was a nice, flecked berber and it served us well.  But over the last 10 years, it's gotten a lot of wear and absorbed a lot of dirt and grime.  Oh, and there was that one time that one of the kids pulled down the floor lamp and the halogen bulb shattered and melted into the carpet so that sections of the carpet were given a hair-cut of sorts to cut out the burnt spots. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

 See the clean spot where the love seat usually sits under the map?

When we moved the love seat to clean underneath, we were reminded of the beating the carpet was taking by the stark line showing both what the carpet looked like initially and how much grime it was hanging onto.  Several times, we rented a carpet shampooer.  While the water it sucked out looked like it was cleaning it well, it never made the difference we were hoping for.  And, with young children in and out of our home, I want to provide a clean floor for them to crawl around and play on.  But we made do and I vacuumed.  Like, all the time.

Then, we got a dog.

A dog who, ironically, wipes his feet in the grass after he pees, but does not wipe his feet when he comes into the house.  Instead, he comes bounding in, through the (now a) school room, tracking in dirt (especially on wet days).

We had often wondered if there was some hardwood flooring underneath that carpet.  Well.  A couple weeks ago, Jamey pulled up a corner and discovered that even if there is nice wood flooring underneath, it was covered by 3/4-inch sub floor nailed down with about 1,000 nails which would be a larger project than what we were looking for.

When we first moved in, we redid the floor in our laundry room with peel and stick tile-looking vinyl squares.  It has held up very nicely.  Well, they even make peel and stick wood-looking vinyl "boards".  There was a style on sale that we liked which had gotten very good reviews.  We decided to give it a try.

The carpet was torn out and the carpet tacking strips were pried up with some help from our girls. Because the sub floor was old, some of it came up with the strips, so Jamey had to use wood filler to patch around the edge of the room to make a flat, smooth surface.

What is a sub floor to children?  A giant canvas to draw on!  So while we awaited for our order to come in, the kids (and their friends) went to town.

Whoever plies up this flooring one day is in for a real treat.

A latex primer was applied to help the vinyl "boards" adhere better.  Once dry, it was a peel, stick, and roll process that came together in about six hours (not including adding quarter-round to the trim and painting it).

While at Lowe's we purchased the hanging floor model of a discontinued area rug which was on sale.  This would add a little warmth to the room and soft place to sit (or lay, if you're a Turkey).

While it's not real hardwood, we are pretty pleased with how it turned out.  The cost? $150 for the "wood" flooring (it would have been at least three times this amount for real wood and the labor would have been much more extensive) and $88 for the area rug.  Now we have a floor that will be easier to clean/maintain AND when large groups come to our house for meals, we can roll up the area rug, throw a table cloth on the school table and we'll have a second dining room.

NOW.  We're done.  Believe me? ;-) Pin It

Organizing My Way Through the House

This fall, I generally have Wednesday afternoons free.  For me, "free" means time at home (with the kids) without any agenda- no school, no errands, and no ferrying kids to classes.  Since my nesting season has stretched beyond summer and into fall, I decided to assign myself one area each Wednesday afternoon to overhaul.  My goal is to PURGE- throw out, donate, consign, and then reorganize.  Our stuff was cluttering my conscience as well as our very few storage spaces.

At this point, my list looks like this:

ü laundry room
ü pantry
ü school room
ü dining room
ü living room
ü nursery
ü downstairs bathroom
    upstairs bathroom
ü mudroom

First off, below is our "school-shelf".  The upper shelves are kept organized because we use them all the time.  Each child has their school books on their shelf.  This keeps me sane and makes it easier to find what I need as I'm teaching.  The open cabinets left and lower are toddler/baby toys for little people who come to play.  Our kids mostly leave them alone so they stay pretty neat. But behind those closed doors, there was a MESS.

I should've taken a before picture but oh, well.  Now they're in order.  The top two shelves are Miriam's painting/playdoh/activity book shelves (she self-soothes with art).  She has easy access to these shelves.  I do not like having tons of "craft" stuff around.  It all ends up in the trash at some point anyway, so why bother (or so goes my theory)? Bottom left are reserve toddler toys and bottom right is MY shelf- school supplies I don't want messed with.  These two doors are lockable for when little people come to play.

My pantry holds all our canned goods but also light bulbs, batteries, some school supplies, appliances, canning equipment, etc. When it gets out of control, I have to climb over things to get to the back.  Oh, the simple joy of being able to walk all the way in.

Our under-the-TV-cabinet holds DVDs and games.  As kids grow so do their tastes in both of these areas.  It felt good to pull out and donate what they no longer watch/play so that other kids can enjoy them.

Below is the top of what we call our "half hutch".  The bottom of it is a cabinet that holds our paper recycling and a shelf of seeds, seed catalogs and gardening notebooks.  On top is where I store cookbooks and homestead-themed books.  Here again, it felt good to donate what we were done with so others could enjoy/benefit from the books.

I LOVE our shoe box.  Jamey built it for me several years back (he also built all the other furniture in this post except the last peice, handy guy that he is).  It's sturdy enough that you can sit on it to put your shoes on and it hides unused shoes (and more).  I found that making compartments (out of cardboard boxes or whatever) made it even better. The blue bucket is dog food (Turkey's bowls are just to the left of it).  There is a compartment for slippers and church shoes (so they don't get dirty from outside/play shoes) and one for work gloves and hats.  The larger area holds shoes that are relatively clean.  The messy ones still sit outside the shoe box lined up under the coat hooks.  I don't mind that they're out.  We're in and out so much it really doesn't make sense to have to put your shoes away-away every time.  The shoes don't always land in their designated spot but at least they have a designated spot, right?

I'm so thankful for our laundry room. It may not be pretty but it holds a washer, dryer and two freezers, AND functions as a catch-all storage area.  There's a lot in this room.  Getting it organized helped me take stock of what I have.  We could have built or had installed cabinets with doors to make it look neater but it would have costed a LOT more.  More flexible storage flexes with your needs (hence the word 'flexible'- I'm quite the word scholar you see).  The laundry room has a door so it can be closed off if it gets out of control.  It's certainly not magazine-worthy (and maybe not even blog-worthy) but it's a real family's real laundry room space.

Because we don't have a lot of storage in our old house, we use furniture.  This dry sink sits in our dining room and (now!) actually sports an empty spot.  I think I should challenge myself to keep it empty for an entire year.  Think I can do it?

Our storage spaces are still holding quite a bit.  But at least now I know that what they are holding we actually use/therefore should hold onto. Everything feels a little bit lighter and my nesting urge has been battened down a bit once again.

Except for where the closets are concerned....I might be back. Pin It

Finishing the Steps and Floor (Part 4)

To get the full story and to illustrate how much work went into this project you can read Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3. Don't be fooled by redecorating and remodeling shows that make it look like this stuff happens overnight.  In the real world (of kids, life, and a one-at-a-time-person remodeling force), these projects take time...and in our case, a couple years.

But finally, it is compete.  While the kids and I were out of state at Cousin Camp, Jamey stayed home to work his day job AND stain the steps.  I touched up the paint soon after returning home and we are so pleased.  And so grateful to have this project DONE.

Remember how there was a "path" of uneven old stain underneath the paint layers?  With a little blending of the new stain, Jamey was able to make it almost disappear.

And, now, I can excitedly say that after 10 yeas of living here, there are no more painted wood floors.

On a side note, after realizing that I quoted this verse to our kids fairly often, I decided to put it at the bottom of the stairs.  In no time, my two readers had it memorized and now they can quote it to me.

On yet another side note, in an attempt to make our downstairs bathroom easier for guests to locate, I hung this picture.  I found the image online, printed it off in black and white, and hung it in a frame that wasn't being used.  I think it's rather sweet.

Surprisingly, there are no major home projects on my horizon.  Not because potential projects don't exist but because sometimes they don't have to be done...so we can just be.

And I like being.

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Stripping Stairs: Part 3

Remember when I stripped the paint off the floor in our upstairs hallway last spring (Part 1 and Part 2)?  Well, I had intended to do the stairs that summer, too.  Instead, a little boy came into our lives for a time and all my projects flew out the window. {By the way!!  His family and we are back in touch, we are spending time together and it is wonderful:-)}.

So here is what our stairs looked like.  The upstairs hallway and the steps were this light blue when we bought the house and have remained this lovely color (that I really have never liked very much) for the ten years we've been here.  We added the carpet runner after Sam fell down the stairs. Twice.

In the great scheme of things, they were fine.  We just really appreciate old wood flooring and wanted to expose it.  It was the last remaining painted wood flooring in the house.  So, how did it go? Well, the first day I bit off more than I could chew.  I painted stripper on the entire right hand side so I had to scrape, reapply stripper, and scrape some more the whole live-long day crouched or bent awkwardly over because there wasn't enough room for me to sit on the non-stripper-applied steps comfortably.  From 10:00 am until 4:30 pm (with two short ten-minute breaks to use the bathroom, drink and eat) I slaved over these silly steps.  I hated it.  It was an incredibly hot and humid day and a fan directly on me and the steps would have dried the stripper out too quickly.  By the end of the day my whole body ached- especially my hands.  Here's what it looked like (sorry the photo is rather dark- at that point I didn't care)....

The second day, I wised up and only did the top half of the other side of the stairs and then worked on the treads where they extended past the railing.  For this, I could at least stand on the floor which made the work feel practically effortless compared to working on the steps.  On the third day, I only had the remaining left side of the steps to finish.  Then, because my hands were like claws and my right arm was in a perpetual state of feeling half asleep, Jamey kindly scrubbed the steps with water to clean up any remaining residue.  And here's what they look like now....

I don't know if you care or not, but in order to record the depth of this project (for my own sanity), here are the layers of paint I encountered...

light blue,
a slightly different light blue,
white,
light brown,
dark brown,
greyish-bluish...
and, finally, bare wood.

Also, interestingly enough, all the steps are pine except for the second from the top which is oak.

I told Jamey that we can never sell this house because if someone ever paints back over these stairs, I may have to take them out.

As you can tell, I wasn't able to get entirely down to bare wood everywhere but thankfully I was really pleased with the results and so was Jamey (like he'd say otherwise, right? ;-))  They look like really old steps which is what they are! The project is now turned over to Jamey.  He's planning on applying a few coats of clear stain to protect and brighten them up a bit.  The painters tape will then come off and I'll lay down the new braided rug treads I snatched up over a year ago when I spotted them on sale.

The biggest and most dreaded summer project has now been checked off my list.  And for all sweat, aches and pains, it was totally worth it:-).

And, finally: Part 4. Pin It