Our First Snowfall...

Andrew Johnson had been in office for just two years following the assassination of President Lincoln the first time someone stood like I did this morning and looked out the window at the top of the stairs over this front yard covered, like it was today, with a light coat of snow. It is a wonder to me just how much can be covered up with a light coat of snow. I can almost imagine the house with the old porch knocked down and the rotted wood replaced, repaired windows and a new paint job when I see it through the light coat of snow. Were they also getting ready to puta Christmas tree in the window of the turret and looking forward to a beautiful Christmas with family and friends. Days like today, the voices and music of the past seem to mingle together through the years and become one beautiful story.

Looking out towards the horse barn.

Almost looks like a postcard, doesn't it?

Beadboard Ceiling

I just know that when you look at this picture, you are having the exact same first thought that I did...that has GOT to be the kitchen ceiling. It can't be anything else.

Here are a couple of the pieces of beadboard that are getting ready to be processed. Doesn't that look like the most amazing kitchen ceiling?

OK, first we have to run it through Christopher's planer a couple of times. It was quite cold Thanksgiving morning, but we got a good sized pile done.

That gave us pieces that look like this. You can see that most of the chipping paint has been removed by the planer, but the v-joint and the tongue and groove edges still have to be worked on.

Here we are outside working on a few of the boards. Scrappers, a heat gun and a rotozip took care of the majority of the paint.

Here it goes! The pieces are tongue and groove 3/4 inch beadboard. They probably graced the ceiling of an old wrap around porch on some old house that may not even be standing any more. The ends are not made to accept tongue and groove, so we are using Dean's biscuit joiner to make them attach together securely.

This weekend, we did get about 4 feet of the ceiling up. It looks incredible and I hope the kitchen will be one of the hubs of this old girl one day again soon! I will post more as we get it closer to being done!

Think Pink

Now that the ceiling is prepared, we are ready to insulate. The best thing about insulating is that when someone potties upstairs, and I am cooking in the kitchen, I don't have to listen to them peeing!!! It is a definite improvement!
The complete ceiling, ready for beadboard!

2x9 1/4...2 x 9 3/4...whatever they cut!!

This ceiling has been it's own set of challenges. Hand sawn ceiling joists for this ceiling were cut anywhere between 2 x 9 1/4 to 2 x 9 3/4. On top of that, we had the new plumbing which dropped down below the old and new joists to get the slant right for draining. Then we had the new joists which were 2 x 12's which dded up to quite the puzzle to put together to get the ceiling ready for the beadboard we are putting up. Here are some pics of the work in progress...

The little ones hanging out on the scaffolding-looking goofy!

Charles on the scaffoldng trying to figure out how to move the can lights low enough and then support them in the new framing and bridging the gap between heights with 2 x 4's.

The section over near he cabinets was pretty straight and didn't have any plumbing to contend with thank goodness.

Ben had fun with the chop saw. He was measuring, marking and cutting. Seth was on the scaffolding working with Charles.