Ark Anyone???

OMG!!!! It has rained 11 inches since last Thursday, (today is Monday). We got hammered with storms last night and as we were driving towards the house this morning, all we could see was a little stream that appeared to be a river. We got to the house and went to the back of the barn where the city storm manholes were gushing water, and the stream had turned into a raging river. Fortunately, the 'private lake' is still in its banks and according to the city guy that came to talk to us, it will stay in the banks. While there are no guarantees, he is pretty sure our home and barn will stay safe.

We are at moving day-3 and we have such a long way to go...

But, walls are getting plastered. Steve, who does masonry work on the side, gave us his top secret recipe for plaster and, IT WORKS!! It does come out gray, but does not crack, has a little work time and is fairly easy to get smooth!!! I am getting better with every application, so hopefully when I get to the stair wall, it will look awesome! This wall had to come down to the brick in the family room. We got one of the ceiling fans up and have started painting this room. I also got a coat of polyurethane on the floor. We decided not to strip the floors now, because we kind of like the character of the old stain. Seth has developed a love/hate relationship with drywall. He has gotten really good at putting the stuff up. We finished putting up drywall in the kitchen this weekend. Ben is learning how to get drywall mud on the wall with as little sanding needed as possible. Here he is mudding in the kitchen where the pantry cabinet will go. If you look in back of the fridge, you can see where we decided to put in a built in for a bar like area. It is also part of the support for my tub upstairs.This afternoon, Ben repainted the black diamonds on the floor of the downstairs bathroom. He got pretty fast at it before he was done and is proud of his work. Tomorrow, he will get the white ones done. And before we left, Charles put together one of the kitchen cabinets. Aren't they pretty! I don't know how well the rope detail shows up in this picture, but they will really nice. Hopefully, we will be able to install them tomorrow before we come back to the house...

We don't have the floor tile or the countertops figured out yet, but the cabinets sure will be pretty!!!

New Electrical Service

This is the tag the inspector hung on the electrical box when he gave the house a thumbs up! He was impressed with the work we have done and are doing to the house to make it a home. There were a few things like more smoke detectors and making sure the joist hangers are put up in the kitchen that need to be done, but overall...he was very happy with what he sees!
Seth and Ben came running out of the house when Charles came back from the corner hardware store quite upset about this one. Ben put a screw threw the plumbing line and water started spewing. Seth remembered where the main shut off for the plumbing was and managed to make a potentially yucky mess a small one. Ben thought he had really messed up and was upset, until we told him that the pros make those mistakes...
Notice the very wet shirt...We got a 7 inch wet tile saw to cut 18" tiles. It works great, but makes quite a mess on the user...Oh well, the job has to be done, so wet it is. Thank God it is hot outside!

These really nice 18 inch square porcelin tiles were purchased at my new favorite home store...Hoods~). We found some brightly colored towels and are going to let each kid choose a towel color. Then I found floor mat and shower curtain with tropical fish that has all the bright colors. So they will have grey tile floors, white tiles on the walls, and bright colored accessories. We hope to add a storage unit of some sort that will have 4 seperate places for the kids to store their stuff.

I got the tile started and then it got dark...Maybe the next time I am in here, I will finish! I am going to use some of the waste pieces as a 4 inch tall border around the base and fill in with a dark grey grout.

No more 100 amp service attached to the front of the house after today!! Eric with Minnicks Electric did an awesome job throughout the whole house making it all come to life. None of the old knob and tube is hooked up, every outlet has been run new, new ceiling fan hook ups throughout the bedrooms. Of course, there were some places where the intrusion was necessary and we will have to make some repairs, but thanks to Eric, this 140 year old girl is humming with all new hookups today!

While the electrical came down, so did part of a tree have to come down. The old walnut had a huge off shoot that was hanging low over the yard and where the new service will be connected. Here is the line man working on the side of the house. It will be nice in a couple of weeks when we can concentrate on removing the electrical service next to the front door, pull the wires drilled through the bricks outside and taking the panel off that is right inside the front door...yuck. Then we will be able to take down the old rotten porch parts and make this old girl really start to shine again!

Hopefully the remaining part of the walnut will be OK. It split when it was coming down. No I know why people want walnut wood. Isn't it pretty with that dark center.

They put up a new transformer at the street too.

Here is the lineman hooking us up!!

Before and After...

This was not the rom at it's worst...this was after many many hours had been spent peeling wallpaper...I didn't think this room would ever be livable...plaster was crumbling, there is the lovely stovepipe hole, the gap between ceiling and walls was rather large...but we kept on working...
I think we all worked in this room at some point or another. Teddy likes to mimic us and was taking his turn peeling wallpaper...
And here it is today. A beadboard wall, crown molding, shelf, plaster, primer and paint made a world of difference in what is now a little girls room, soon to be filled with dragonflies and dolls.

July 4th-July 6th-WOW!

I had to call people and tell them that this room was a white box! Look back one or two weeks on this blog to see how much progress a white box is on this room. I never thought I would get this room done. Seven layers of wallpaper met their match, but it took hours and hours to get it here.
And by July 5th, we have color. Remember I said to think lavendar and butter yellow...well, here it is. The trim is repainted. The north wall will have shelf added and will be all purple. The other three walls will be a color called sweet corn. Half the floor was painted before I left today too. The crown molding has been primed and is ready to go up too, hopefully tomorrow.
Charles and Seth are back from camp and, with Ben, have started drywalling the bathrooms. The plumbers are awaiting drywall and tiles so they can hook everything up now. The electrician hopes to finish his work and hopefully the new electrical service will be hooked up in about a week...cabinets maybe next weekend??? One can only dream!

June 28th and 29th-North Bedroom Walls-Mission Impossible!

Ben gets busy clearing out to expose a sidewalk that was covered by overgrown lilac bushes.

The west wall of the northwst bedroom after Karen clears out the large crack of extra debris. I thought it looked like a US map...plaster anyone???

After some time, Karen ponders the enigma that is plastering walls...YUCK!! All of Sunday was spent fixing the walls in this bedroom.

Ben had a go at plastering too...He didn't like the detail work of it and ended up back outside.

The wall with a skim coat of plaster.

Bailey did some priming on the south wall while we were plastering.