The Tub

Brendon found a claw foot tub online that a farmer near us was selling.  It also included a sink which we will use as well.  The inside of the tub is in fairly good condition, however the outside is a little rough as you can see.  We probably won't get it perfectly finished, but for now that will be a-okay!  Don't you just love sometimes when things are ok (not perfect) and you're ok with that too?  I like certain things just so alot of the time, but sometimes it's easier if you don't worry about every little thing!

My handsom husband working hard!

Counter Top

 Two things we needed for the house were found here!

Isnt' is a treat to wander through Ikea?

And, we had some Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce for lunch..of course!

I will post some house photo updates soon.

Ashes and Ashes

We finally had to quit avoiding the fireplaces and got down and cleaned out the chimney's otherwise we coulnd't go forward with some other work.  There were six of the buckets full of ashes in this particular chimney (and a bird head! YUCK!!!).  I'm so very glad Brendon was cleaning that one out!  I would love to take a hose pipe and spray up into the chimney. I have to say they are pretty cool chimney's when you look up into them.  There are two fireplaces per chimney and they have a convex curve of brick protuding out one side and arching up so that the smoke is drawn upwards and not drawn into the other room. (It does have a slight ledge though and that's were the ashes built up.)  That might be boring for you, but I think it's pretty neat, plus the old brick is quite pretty inside. 

Forever Sanding

Last month it felt as if I peeled wallpaper for eons!

This month that same feeling was applied to sanding our walls.

Each and every wall downstairs has gorgeous hardwood planking and I love the way it looks!

However, all those pretty little boards needed to be sanded!

Honestly, I was a little scared climbing up so high on the ladder, but I have to say it was a great workout so I took courage and went for it.

I had no idea it was such a great core workout balancing at the top of a ladder when I first started, but I found out the next morning as I rolled out of bed!

You should see what we did in that room yesterday!

Stay tuned!

The paint and the chimney

Remember the Chimney sweep dropped by the house. We are in LUCK! They Chimney's are in awesome shape! There was just a bunch of ash and coal dust piled on top of those boards. We do need to do a few small cleaning things plus add a damper to the top of the chimney. The chimney's are probably 100 years old and still in good condition. However with chimney's that old the damper has to go on top of the chimney and a chain hangs down that we can pull to open and close it.

The Paint! I did go check on some light paint colors and came away with a color called icy waterfall. It's a white with a blue tint and we are going to use it in the living room, and down the hallway and to the upstairs!

I have also picked out some outdoor paint. In time we will change the siding of the house and probably the door color, but for now we are having a red door and dark green shutters. I was going to use a black paint on the shutters called broadway. It had some brownish/greenish undertones, but then Brendon found a very dark green and I like it better. I think it's called Charleston green. The one thing that will probably change when we get better siding is perhaps the door will become a more neutral color, but for now I hope it will make the house look cute!

We found the original front door and it was red the same shade as the shutters. I have sanded it andd it's ready for paint. We also need to paint the front porch floor gray and the ceilng blue.

The Bathroom: We found a claw foot tub on Craigslist that a farmer was selling. It also came with an old sink that we will sit on top of a vanity. The tub is not in perfect condition, but it is not terrible either. We will sand it and paint the outside of it. The inside of the tub only has a few nicks, so we will figure out what to do about that.

I've been sanding away, and hope to finish up with that CHORE this week! Then we can paint and move on to getting those floors sanded.

The house is actually starting to look like a place you could live!

House Update

Here are a few pictures of the living room as they currently look

Remember we have torn off fake paneling, sheetrock and wallpaper.

Now we have sanded the walls.

We also tore out fake flooring covering the hardwoods, and a dropped ceiling which hid

a 12'8" ceiling.

We have Chimney Sweep coming next week to look at the fireplaces.

I tried to clean one, and soot started pouring out of the chimney!

Back wall....what you see when you enter the house.

Front wall of living room


Side wall of living room..opposite the stairs.



The drapes I have stored to use..but now I need to add 1 foot of material to have them long enough. I will just add a contrast, because the hem is only 6 inches.

Our furniture that will go in the living room.

I'm planning to paint the walls Water Chestnut by Glidden.

I love mantles, and need at least three to go in our house. We found one in the house, and I may use it in a back room.

Here's one that I think would look awesome in our living room!

Wonder how that wall color would look????!!!

Nate Berkus Design I found on a decor blog. I think a blog called A Perfect Grey.
Edited to add: I'm going to find a swatch of that paint color!

House update

Here are some pictures from about the 2nd stage of rip out.

The paneling is off the walls, and we find a fireplace in the master bedroom, and plank walls.

More wallpaper too!

Master bedroom with barewalls. The wallpaper in this room, just ripped off.

The fan is gone now as well.

This fireplace, in the dining room, was the first hidden one we found.
I was ripping out the fake floors, and I saw brick underneath, and this wall backs up to the living room wall, exactly where the fireplace is. They actually covered up the fireplace with those sticks and the ashes in there!
The wallpaper in this room, was very hard to get off, but it only went up 8ft.



The living room! The wallpaper goes all 12'8".
It had a medium difficulty rating to scrap off.
My dogs are not normally inside, but while we renovate we let them in.

Can you imagine living with this? I would be so dizzy!

Inside a Renovation!

Here are some of the very first photo's taken of the new house. A lot has already changed and I will post that as I get time.

Let's just get the worst out of the way first!

The very lovely bath!

The lovely bathroom! It will be completly renovated in every way. The powder blue tub is already gone and well everything else. We found out that 155,000 gallons of water leaked in the bathroom..and you could tell!

The Dining Room


The Living Room

The beautifully carpted stairs. It's your first vision when you enter the house!

Currently the carpet is gone and the stairs will get a complete overhaul, because they are so steep and narrow. Very scary to walk down.

This is a bedroom, but will end up being our closet/bath eventually.

The kitchen, with work stuff sitting out.


The Living Room
These are some of the first pictures we shot.

All the fake paneling, fake floors, and fake ceilings are gone!!!

Also that beautiful wood stove is gone, and someone paid us for it!

Under the fake wood floors, were real hardwoods. Hiding under the fake paneling was sheetrock, under which was wallpaper, and finally hardwood plank walls!!
When we took off the sheetrock we discovered two additional fireplaces for a total of four!


We discovered that there were 12'8" ceilings above the dropped ceilings, and they are hardwood planks as well!

Hmm..We also discovered that they used to burn large amounts of coal, and we are in for a major clean up.
If anyone is looking for me, I can usually be found peeling wallpaper at the new place!

A New Adventure!

We have been a preoccupied with our new adventure! We have a new home! This home is an older one, built in 1946 or 47. Certainly, it needs some work, but it has some great bones already!

Edited:  We later found out this home was built in 1913.

Much work is already underway and I will post picutres as we go!

Already we have made some exciting (and a few puzzling) discoveries!