Kitchen Floor make over.

In August of 2012 I started removing the first of several layers of vinyl in my kitchen. It was nailed and stapled to a thin sheet of plywood.  The plywood was nailed down to older vinyl flooring that was less ugly than the top layer.

In February of 2013 I started picking at the next layer.  This layer was glued and nailed and stapled down.  It did not disappear willingly.

It was a very long tedious process and about a year ago I got the floor to a point where I could live with it.  Most of the glue was scraped off.  Most of the nails were pulled or tapped in - at least the ones we might step on and the overall look was somewhat charming.  Yeah - that's the word.  Charming.

I have been aching to get back to that project for awhile now but with work it has been impossible.  I finally bit the bullet and filled out appropriate paperwork to ensure I could get 3 days off in a row and Monday I started the final push to finish the kitchen floor.

The first step was to clear out the room and take a picture.  Not SO ugly, huh?

The next step was to crawl around on the floor for the next 12 hours sanding, scraping glue, pulling nails and questioning the sanity of my choices.

As you can see, not much progress was made in that 12 hours.  By 10:00 pm Wednesday I had the floor as ready as it was going to get.  Fir is a soft wood and there was just no possibility of getting up all the black and imperfections.

Peter and I realistically adopted the "we aren't going to make a silk purse out of a sows ear" attitude.  Our floor is 80 years old.  It has been abused with glue, nails and staples.  It has been horribly mistreated and our options were limited.  There were a few places worse than others.  There were some very odd repairs and patches.  There were holes and there was a very odd spot that was stained and finished.  To minimize (aka hide) the flaws in our sows ear we decided to stain the floor dark.  Very dark.  So we started staining:

This morning I added the first of 3 (or more) coats of polyurethane.  

With the exception of a few very odd places that you might have to get on your hands and knees to see, I would say we DID make a silk purse out of a sows ear.  I really like it.   It sure feels great to have this project nearly off my to-do list.

I'm already planning my next project, which will either be painting the cabinets white or removing the popcorn ceiling from the bedroom.  Because heaven forbid, I should sit idle!

Back to nature

There are a few inventions in the last couple centuries that I can live without.  We don't have a microwave.  That's fine. No dishwasher.  No problem.  No Cable TV.. that's fine too.

But there are a few things that make this world a better place and a few of them I find imperative to daily life.  Hot running water is one thing I'm terribly grateful for.  Forced air heat is another thing I'm very happy to have.  But these things I could manage without for a short time.  Maybe not happily but I COULD manage.

As of last night our little house on the ditch has had a "technical" problem that requires a professional to repair.  The impossible inconvenience of this problem has made certain aspects of my daily life challenging - to say the least.  I am disgruntled.  

The temperature is hovering around freezing.  My options are limited.  This is not working for me.  Peter thinks it's funny.  But then the inconvenience to him is not as great.

Hopefully the repairman will be able to make an appearance this morning - even though it's Sunday.  Otherwise I might have to move into a motel or go stay with the freighbor...

I'm Pickled Tink!

Our garden is flourishing and bursting with fresh vegetable goodness.  This beckoned to the pioneer woman in me to get busy.  We must not waste any of our precious bounty!

Last year I wanted to make sweet pickles but was dissuaded by Peter.  "How many pickles can we eat anyway?" He asked.  I didn't have an answer and gave in.  This year, I decided to make pickles despite his previous hesitation.  I asked my farm girl friends.  They had no experience with sweet pickles.  Dill pickles, yes, sweet, not so much.  I asked women at the grocery store and women on my mail route.  No one had ever made sweet pickles.  I looked in my oldest cook books and I looked on the internet finding many recipes, no two alike.  No consensus on a good recipe.  Finally I just closed my eyes and picked one.  I didn't know what I was doing but decided to just go for it!  I do like surprises!

Sweet pickles are interesting things.  They are not something you spend an afternoon making.  It's an 8 day process (or 7 day or 12 day - depending on the recipe you blindly pick out of a book).  Each day only takes a few minutes, and the last three days they just sit there.

Wednesday was day 8 and they went from pot to jars.  9 jars to be exact.  The directions stated they should sit a week in jars before they are ready to eat but today I had to try 'em.  They were good and I bet they'll get better in the coming days!

I'm excited and I'm guessing my answer to Peter's question:  "How many pickles can we eat?"  will be "9 jars I think!"

Yummy!

Spring Fever

The dreary days are upon us.  Day after day of rain and mud and muck and gunk.  Not that I have SAD or anything - or maybe I do but this weather makes me ache for long summer days, grass, flowers and sunshine.

The little house on the ditch is desperately in need of some TLC and we have summer plans for just that.  But summer seems a long way off and I've got the ache now.  I'm restless and I'm ready for something to brighten my day.

Being a child of the virtual age I decided to do home improvements THAT way.  For now anyway.

This is the before picture of our little house on the ditch.

The first thing to do was some basic clean up.  Sorry, Peter, but work clothes do NOT belong in my virtual fantasy:

Paint!  The house desperately needs painting.  I wanted a bright cheery color and I'm not satisfied with this one.  I might go a bit more yellow for the real world - but for now this works.

I think the house looks like a face without eyebrows.  It needs more trim.  I was thinking shutters but Peter thinks trim will be sufficient.  For now we'll stick with just trim.  

Actually I hate to admit it, but he may be right.  Trim seems sufficient and it's definitely getting better.  Still needs more though.  Uhmm... oh - how about nice green grass??

I hear a colorful front door is a feng shui sort of thing.  I chose purple.

More color is needed.  I think flowers are in order.

and then the last, most important thing..  chickens and a chicken coop. 

 You know, I didn't touch the gray sky but it actually looks brighter.  Maybe that's just wishful thinking...

I'm done (for) now.

Kitchen Floor

Hey!  Check out my new kitchen floor!  Isn't it just gorgeous?

Now before you start the paperwork on having me committed I have to confess something. It's not my new floor at all, in fact, it's the original flooring that came with the house.  I don't really hate it and it's certainly better than the 1970's vinyl faux-adobe brick that was on there.

Removing the top layer of vinyl was challenging.  You see it was on plywood that was stapled to the floor.  I had to pry the plywood up, then remove the staples.  It seems this was  a rare and special kind of plywood that had a tendency to travel.  At least that's the only explanation I can think of to warrant the 10,000 staples they used to hold it in place.  It took me three days and gave me a huge blister in the middle of my palm.  Once I started though I couldn't stop until it was done.  Oh the things I get myself into!

Even though I don't hate the vinyl it is going to have to go (or atleast be re-hidden under a new layer of flooring).  The kitchen was remodeled at the same time that top layer of vinyl was laid.  That means that there are places where the vinyl just doesn't go.

There are also a gazillion staple holes in it as well as serious wear in places.

There is that beautiful fir under this vinyl but I don't think i want to use that in my kitchen.  Not to mention that this layer of flooring is glued AND nailed to the floor.  I'm thinking tile.

July 1st. A very special day indeed.

5 years ago today Peter showed up on my doorstep after an extended absence in my life.  5 years ago today our lives together began for real.  Ahhhhhhh.....

Things are bustling around this little house on the ditch.  Cadbury and Chupa are settling in nicely.  We've managed to build a temporary, but crude, shelter in the pasture to provide them with shade and shelter from the rain.  I've almost got Cadbury coming to me when it's time to go to the barn for the night.  Up until yesterday we had to have a mini alpaca rodeo every night.  Last night I managed to corner Cadbury and put her on her lead without any drama at all.  Of course, once Cadbury is leashed, Chupa is easy.

The arrival of the alpacas has re-shuffled priorities around here too.  We've had construction debris clogging up the barn.  That's space we need!  The debris was the old roof tear off from two houses, all the carpeting, linoleum, wallpaper, ceiling texture and other junk our remodeling has created.  We had to rent a trailer and for two days we schlepped back and forth to the local dump.  All in all we removed over 5 tons (yes.. 5 TONS - I tracked it).

I think everyone should be made to hang out at the dump for a few days.  The offensive amount of waste this country creates is disgusting.  I have this theory that many many people toss the trash in the garbage and watch it get carried away by the big truck and don't think of it again.  Trash doesn't just go away.  It has to go somewhere.  In the case of Bellingham it all get's carted to Eastern Oregon to a big landfill.  Around the farm we recycle, compost, re-use, and create very little waste (except for the construction...).  I have lot's more to say on THAT topic - but I'll get off my soapbox for now.  Fair warning though, it may come up again later.

My dear big brother and his lovely wife are coming for a visit.   They'll be here in 4 days.  I've known of their coming visit for months but I have procrastinated in getting a room ready for them.  Just as a reminder.. this is what the room looked like a few months ago and little had changed in there by last week:

As of last night, this is how the room looks:

The floor is still horrible linoleum, the ceiling still has texture, the walls need paint but the room is clean, empty of clutter and, I hope, welcoming.  After their visit I will strip the ceiling (eek - more construction debris!!), paint and do the floors - eventually.  I'm sure I'll have to go play with the alpacas first.

Wild Hare

I was planning on taking a break after the guest room remodel.  I set up my loom and spent some very luxurious time weaving a table runner out of purple and turquoise with a hint of sparkle  (I love sparkle!).  I also created a set of matching coasters that turned out quite terrible.  I'm not sure I can salvage them or if they must be tossed in a fire when no one is looking - their entire existence denied.  Coasters?  What coasters?

 

I've also started knitting a sweater.  It is a new challenge, knitting something so large and created in pieces. It's slow going but I am making progress.  It'll probably be done mid-summer - when it will be too hot to wear it.  I shall wear it anyway.  Harumph.

Despite having plenty of spinning, knitting and weaving to keep myself occupied I got a wild hare the other day.  I was sitting on the sofa and looked into my kitchen.  My very beige kitchen.  Very beige.  The ceiling and the walls were beige.  "Enough of the beige!"  I exclaimed to myself.  I snatched up my Sherwin Williams color strips  (they give them away for free you know!)  and thumbed through all the possibilities. 

After pondering oranges and lilacs and whites and blues I eventually picked out the strip, #129 - Yellow.  Peter narrowed down the choices to two of them.  I made the final selection:  Lemon Twist.  For those of you who remember my beloved yellow truck it is almost exactly the same color.

Just to mess with myself, when I got the paint home I smeared some on the wall.  My habit is to dislike it intensely when I do that - only to fall in love with it once I have it on the walls.  I should have suspected a problem - I loved my yellow smear immediately.  It was bright and cheerful and it made me smile.

I did not take a before picture of my kitchen.  Silly me.  But I did grab a photo of it before I had ALL the beige covered.  The ceiling was in the process of going white in this photo.

This is what it looks like now:

I'm not sure I like it.  It's way bright.  A little overwhelmingly yellow.  Okay,  a LOT overwhelmingly yellow.  Perhaps it will get better with time. Peter just keeps shaking his head bemusedly saying, "it's different..."  

I have decided I don't like painting.  This paint job was extremely painful. I dripped paint on the floor, on the counters and on me.  I dropped the roller and painted one cabinet yellow.  There was so much trim work and the yellow was very unforgiving.  The paint ran and dripped.  One coat wasn't enough and I spent today applying coat number two.  I was miserable through the whole thing and poor Peter had to listen to me whine and complain.

The laundry room still needs painting, as does the bathrooms and the hallway and the two back bedrooms but I think I shall wait awhile before tackling those.  Although - when thumbing through my color strips, I did fall in love with this color called "waterfall" for my bathroom.

Ready for guests!

The guest room is ready.

It's been a long couple weeks.  Since the last time I posted I've made two trips to Salem.  The first trip was the "usual" one we take so Peter can attend a class in Portland.  The next trip I went alone.  It was the first time Peter and I have been apart since we got married. The first night I was gone I got a hotel with a big king-size bed thinking it would be so lovely to have all that room.  I slept terribly.  I only used a small portion of the space and kept waking up looking for Peter.  I repeatedly stretched my toes over to his side of the bed and they didn't run into his feet.  He's SUPPOSED to be right next to me.  Peter not being there was just wrong!   The second night I was too tired to notice.

The reason I headed south was to spend some time with my children. 

My daughter got her own little apartment and needed help getting her stuff from her dad's house in Vancouver to Salem and into her new place.  She and I did the whole move ourselves.  We are women, hear us roar!  Her place is a very cute little studio apartment, with a murphy bed even - but it's her space and she doesn't have to share.  She is a happy camper.

The second reason I went south - not that helping Jill was not reason enough - was because my daughter-in-law's mother passed away quite unexpectedly and I just felt like my son and his wife might need THIS mom around.  Unfortunately I didn't get to spend much time with them - but I hope my presence helped just a little.

Despite all this running around - our guest room is done.  I was thinking that I have touched every square inch of surface in that room at least twice. 

I scraped the ceiling, then re-scraped it because I did a lousy job the first time, then sanded, then patched dents and holes and sanded again.  Then I painted it.

I scraped the wallpaper off the walls, sanded, patched, repaired, sanded again. One coat of Kilz (more mold prevention), one coat of primer, one coat of honeydew, then more honeydew to cover up the lousy job I did the first time..

I tore up the carpet, scraped up the glue and foam rubber, sanded what was left, vacuumed and then crawled around on my hands and knees wiping every bit of dust off the floor and the walls.

Now.. Who is going to be the first to come visiting?

Company is coming!

Company is coming and it's time to roll out the red carpet - or at least set up a proper bedroom.

Our friends from Portland have decided to head north for spring break.  They may stay here one night on their way into B.C. or they may make this their home base for day trips north.  As yet to be decided.  Either way - I'm excited.  I really like these people and I'm pleased for the company and the opportunity to show them my new world.  My biggest problem is that the guest room is seriously messed up.  This is what it looked like when I got the news:

The picture doesn't really do it justice - There is a pervasive odor in there, I'm sure from years of dust, 50 year old carpet and wallpaper.  It has nothing to do with cleanliness - old things just smell... old.  Not to mention stuff from the work on the other rooms has been crammed in there as well as items like furniture and art and odds and ends that just haven't found a home yet.

Three days of moving, shoving, stowing and stripping have left me with one little patch of wallpaper left.  The saving grace is that this wallpaper has come off the wall pretty well.  There still needs to be some sanding and a modest amount of wall repair - but nothing like the other rooms I've done. 

The room still smells.  I intend to remove the popcorn ceiling and the carpet.  Basically removing every visible surface in the room SHOULD do the trick.  Spring break is less than a month away - it's sure lucky I work well under pressure.

Bagels and honeydew - a yummy combination

The office is done - short of re-installing the trim and hanging the curtains.  Yay!   I managed to work through the wallpaper fiasco.  The paint I chose is called "bagel."  So I could get an idea of the color I had selected, I smeared some of my bagel on my walls several days before I was actually ready to paint.  I hated it.  I was ready to toss the can away and start over.  But it was expensive paint from a hoity-toity paint store.  (I thought I'd see if expensive paint makes a difference.  I don't think it does.)

I had two visitors come by while my smeared bagel was on the wall and I dragged them both into the room to see what they thought.  One politely said it might look better with more of it.  The other said she had rooms that color once and really never cared for it at all.

Not very encouraging.

I am not one to throw in the towel that quickly.  The financial investment was made and all it would cost me by going forward was some physical labor.  That stuff is cheap.  I decided to embrace my bagel.  Make it my own.  I would learn to love it.  Surprisingly, I really do like the way it turned out plus I have learned that I should not smear paint samples on the wall.  It just makes me nervous.

In my continued efforts to live within my means  (aka unemployment compensation) and given that curtains are so expensive I like to think I was clever and stylish.  Target had plain canvas roman shades on clearance for less that $10.00 a piece, so I bought two  (because I have two windows.. sheesh).  I also purchased a philodendron leaf stencil.  I stenciled the leaf onto the curtain with the bagel, as well as the color of paint from the adjoining dining room (honeydew).

And then I took the honeydew and stenciled the walls in the office.

It was a very inexpensive solution.  I hope it doesn't look cheesey.  I like it but I think Peter is just humoring me again.

Now, assuming I get the trim and curtains done tonight, tomorrow will be spent on goat shop plans.  I have to acquire a business license, apply for a booth at the Farmers Market and I need to increase my "stock" of merchandise to sell.  Enough of this home remodeling - I have priorities!!

Should I sit here.. or should I sit there.. or there or there or there....

We have furniture!  And oh what a problem that causes!  I now have to stop and ponder where to sit my seat.  Do I sit on the left end of the sofa?  The right end?  The middle?  The recliner?  The rocking chair??

Oh.. woe is me. Such a conundrum.

Peter has that end of the couch so I guess I shall have to choose somewhere else.

Getting to this point was no easy task.  Peter and I have spent that last week sanding and oiling and buffing and oiling and painting and repainting and trimming and more.  Exhausting work.  I shall thoroughly enjoy the luxury of sitting on my big red sectional - brought all the way from Salem and stuck in storage for the last 7 months.    The living room and dining room still needs picture rails, baseboards, curtains and artwork hung but it's definately feeling like home now.

The rest of the week I shall continue on with the computer room - We've done the floors and I have to finish the walls.

On the Goat Shop front - I got a message from the Lynden Farmer's Market late last week - time to make that a priority and get my stuff together for joining that fray.

A bit of sad news - and one that makes me question whether or not I can really handle the cruely and reality of farm life - Pepper, having recently successfully faced down a mean 'ol possum did not win the battle with a stupid ugly mean nasty bad hawk. He defended his ladies with valor and will be remembered as a hero. He has left behind 3 lovely little offspring who will always remind me of him. RIP Pepper.

Character Building

First and most important - We have chicks!  Two beautiful little dark grey ones so far with one more on the way (it's just now pipping).  We're not too sure about the status of the 4th egg but we're hoping the peeping from the other chicks will be the necessary encouragement it needs.

We spent the day yesterday sanding.  Sanding and sanding and sanding.  And vacuuming.  And sweeping.  And dusting.  While we worked I thought about this old house (the one I'm living in - not the TV show).  It's not the house I would choose, given a reasonable selection - but I can see promise in it. 

In an effort to look at the bright side I decided that all these things that aren't perfect with it are really just character and they add to it's charm.  Much like a character actor in a movie.  You know - the actor that has a patch over one eye, has missing teeth and walks with a limp?  That actor will never be the leading man - the seemingly perfect person who get the part on looks alone.  A character actor can still win an Oscar.. so can this house!

Instead of a patch over one eye it has a hump in the floor.  Instead of missing teeth, it has cracks in the plaster.  Instead of a limp, it has a piece of tin nailed to the floor for reasons I will NEVER understand.  It also has crooked walls, creepy sounds in the middle night, broken windows and cobwebs.  My house oozes character.  But I like it and it has such huge potential!  (That's the Pollyanna in me coming out).

Just as a reminder.. Here is the floor before we began sanding, complete with black goo:

Here they are after:

We still have one more pass to do with the fine grain sand paper - then we have to put the finish on them - but it's looking good I think.

Things are looking brighter

Things are looking brighter in our little farmhouse. 

We still have the floors to finish.  All the old flooring is gone, all the tack strips are gone, all the staples and random nails are gone.  Goo is not gone.  I've removed all the wall paper that's going to come off without dynamite.  I'm ready to apply the skim coat and paint.

We have a small problem with the floors.  We have a hump.  A fine floor hump it is too.  It runs the length of dining room.  Peter has to crawl under the house and check out the joists, investigate the cause.  Then we have to figure out what to do about it.

Floors may be on hold - but general house progress is not.

The light fixture in the dining room was a bad hold-over from the 70's.  My house would be considered a bungalow, I think, and the 70's style is just wrong.  Replacing that smoked glass fixture has been on my mind since long before we moved into this house. As it turns out, I stumbled upon a fixture that I felt was just perfect.  It matched the style and era that belongs here and I really liked it.  Peter said he liked it just fine - but I think he was humoring me.  He does that sometimes.  I've asked him not to because it will give me a false sense of entitlement. He said that's not going to stop him.

I also found curtain rods with matching curtain tie backs.  My living room has windows on three walls - my dining room has two windows - the new computer room has two windows (that need to be replaced).  That's a lotta windows.  So now I have curtain rods, but I don't have curtains.  

I'm still looking for a light fixture for the living room, paint colors, windows, doors and more.  If you have use for an old light fixture - give me a holler.

bored with floors...

I admit it.  I'm bored.  I'm bored with floors.  I finally got the linoleum off the dining room floor.  There is still a nice layer of goo left behind that needs to be removed.  It was nice to see that the workers who put the goo down did a sloppy job.  It made the removal easier - in spots anyway.

Today we moved to the third and final room of this part of the flooring project (behind the door to the right of the wood stove).  My enthusiasm is waning.  I couldn't focus.  My hands hurt, my tools malfunctioned, My mood was discouraged.  After removing the carpet and making a feeble attempt at pulling up tack strips I did the only thing reasonable.  I took a nap.  It was a very nice nap too.  I curled up on the floor over a heat vent (one of my favorite places to nap) and slept.

When I woke I still lacked the staple and tack strip removal urge so I started picking at the wallpaper.  Much like the wallpaper in the batchelor pad, it was applied directly to the sheet rock.  I learned from my earlier experience that trying to remove it is useless.  My goal was just to remove the loose stuff.  I did pretty well.  I am quite puzzled though - there are places where there is wall paper on wall paper.  On wallpaper.  Three layers of wallpaper.  Just in places.  And it's all the same print.  I don't get it.

I'm just floored.

I've spent two days on the floor.  Not in a good way either. 

Shortly after we moved into the farm house, we peeked under the shag carpet and discovered glorious original fir flooring.  It had never been finished - apparently almost immediately covered up with carpeting after installation.  It was like a gift.

We decided to wait to bring my furniture from storage until we got the floors done.  I mean, what sense would it be to bring in all my stuff just to have to store it somewhere while we work on the floors?  That means the floors are on the fast track. 

Yesterday I spent the day removing the carpet in the living room.  The results were quite encouraging.

Of course, they still need sanding and several coats of finish on them.  Sharon was a happy camper.

Then came the horror.  Today I moved to the dining room.  Under the same ugly shag was the same beautiful hard wood, but between the two was this 80 year old linoleum.

Here is the worst part:  I liked it.  It reminded me of my Grandma Scheidel's kitchen in California. 

My granparents had a farm just outside of Sacramento.  The kitchen was the center of daily life.  You entered and exited the house through the kitchen.  You did not go elsewhere in the house (like the parlor) unless you had a very good reason for doing so.  I think I only went into the parlor once in my entire life. The kitchen was  a large square room.  It was always warm and inviting and smelled good.  There was a wood-fired oven that heated the room and cooked the food.  There was a big farm sink and a table smack dab in the middle that was large enough to hold every hungry soul in the county.  I remember my grandmother sitting at the table snapping peas while my grandfather napped in the chaise lounge in the corner.  Such wonderful memories. 

Unfortunately my old lino was terribly worn in most places and was not salvageable.  I believe I'm going to try to save a square of it and make some art from it.

After an entire day of crawling around on my hands and knees scraping - this is where the dining room stands:

I don't think it's even a quarter done.  I still have furniture to move, carpeting to pull up and one or two bedrooms and a hallway to de-carpet before we can get to sanding and finishing. 

Someday I hope to get back to my goat shop mission.  But there are priorities. 

Winding down 2011

Here it is New Year's Even and I sit blogging.  I still have two hours left of this year.  I'll start partying soon.  Then again.. I might just go to bed.

We are still settling in to the farmhouse.  Our clothes are in boxes, on shelves and stacked up nose-high on dressers. Peter and I can't seem to agree on what should go where in the kitchen so it sits piled on the counter.  Our dining room still has two dressers in it. A work in progress to be sure.

We are not retrieving my things from storage just yet.  We peeked under the 1970's shag carpeting in the living room and found beautiful fir flooring.  Unfinished even.  Apparently when the house was built in the first half of the last century they tossed a carpet over it and never looked back.  We can't believe the luck!  It's like striking it rich at a goldmine.  Next week we're going to take out our meager furniture and start on the floors.  I'm very excited - although a week or two break wouldn't be entirely objectionable.  I'm starting to miss my fiber.

Jill came up for a couple of days and we found ourselves forced to shop.  We needed shower curtains, drawer dividers, storage cabinets.  Gobs of things.  It was a dirty job but someone had to do it.  We slapped lipstick on a pig and managed this fine product out of the guest bathroom:

The walls and fixtures are a lovely harvest gold - which honestly doesn't look too bad, considering.  I can live with it for awhile.

Today I had to put my daughter on a train headed south toward her home.  She passed her brother and his wife somewhere around Tacoma as they were headed up for a visit.  It was kind of like the changing of the guard.

At any rate - Kyle and Mary are here now.  They've gone to bed already as they've been up since 3:00 today.  Kyle helped us with the refrigerator swap.  It involved three refrigerators.  We took mine from storage and brought it into the farmhouse.  Took the one from the farmhouse and put it into the mother-in-law's suite (former batchelor pad), and then took the one from the batchelor pad to storage.  I found orange juice with a "best buy" date of July 9.  It was green.  Ewwwwww.

Now I must go join the non-festivities. 

Happy New Year!

Move it move it move it!

End of moving day one finds this blogger pooped.

I had this theory that since we were swapping houses I should not make any trips back and forth without my arms full.  So Peter's mom spent the day packing and boxing things up and I spent the day carting stuff from here to there and there to here.  Usually when one moves one at least has the trip back out to the moving van to gain some sort of recovery before the next armload.  Not today.

My trips back and forth were sufficiently hampered by pets. 

My cat, Monster, insisted on dashing out the door the second it was opened.  I would have to put my stuff down and dig under this and over that to fetch her and put her back.  I eventually had to incarcerate her in a pet carrier.

My chicken, Carmen was incredibly intrigued by all the goings on and she kept getting under foot.  Twice I found her on the porch trying to gain access to the inside of the house. 

House rules:  Cats stay in, chickens stay out and the dog has full rein.  To me these seem like simple rules.  I'm not sure why they struggle so.

By 4:00 I was telling Agnes (Peter's mom) that we still had our bedrooms to set up and there was no rush and we should stop moving stuff back and forth and concentrate on getting our bedrooms and the already moved items put away.  She happily agreed and when next I checked on her she was still packing things up.  This, of course, guilted me into continuing moving.  An hour later we had the same conversation with the same results.  An hour later the same thing.

Peter came home and did some of the heavy lifting.  By this point I was ready to drop but they both kept going.  How could I possibly stop?  By 7:00 I was almost ready to weep.  STOP MOVING ALREADY!

Fortunately they did finally stop.  However there is still a long way to go.  When I was finally allowed to sit, this is the view from a chair in my new living room.

Not very restful - but we're making it work.

Although there are many features I like in this farm house - a big kitchen, cove ceilings, arched doorway, I want to make some changes.  Most of the light fixtures (although I really REALLY like the one in the laundry room - it is trendily retro).  I want to paint everything.  Change the floors and the wallpaper.  Seriously.. Here's the wallpaper.  Should I keep it or should it go??  I'm voting for go.

Another thing I like about this house is that the master bedroom has it's own bathroom, with a BATHTUB!  I have a pile of stuff in there that still needs to be sorted through and put away - but I just think I may actually take a bath.    Ohhhh.. That'd be swell.